[sral]

Cool topic choice this week; I’m not entirely sure how I may have then this one in truth but there’s the obvious idea of the character being a prisoner with a backstory, left open for the writer to expand on that and build a world outside of the image provided with character development and imagery etc, it could be a terrorist at Guantanamo Bay perhaps, there’s the idea of it being some sort of participant in the 3rd Human Centipede movie, so a few different angles from the one image depending on how wild you want to go. If we stuck with the prisoner idea then theres an obvious “light at the end of the tunnel” ahead of him. I think a verse like that where the character is giving a conflict - does he go straight or continue on the same path? - would have made for an interesting take. I think I would have worked around that baseline approach to craft something. Let’s see how you guys fared...


P.A: I think the direction you took was similar to the one I may have taken here; I actually like the idea of writing a bank robbery type piece as I’ve seen a bank robbery offered up as a topic suggestion in the past and a few people have attempted it, but I’ve yet to see it pulled off to the level I would want it to be. I think that’s due to a few factors and one of the main ones, as I’ll note here also, is the lack of character development. In order for it to work effectively, for me, you need to ensure that the character(s) are fleshed out and developed enough for the readers to become invested in their story and want to see if they manage to pull it off. You need the reader to be able to get in their heads, learn what’s lead them to this point, perhaps it’s the fact they’ve just found out they’re expecting a child and have no other means. Perhaps they’re a disgruntled former employee out to take it for all it’s worth (and any unpaid overtime) something like that, but you get the idea - they need an impetus behind them. The reader needs to be engaged and invested into their story, to care enough about what happens to them to want to read on and see how it goes down. The hard part is developing these characters enough within the restrictions of the line limit etc while also keeping in the back of your mind that you’re going to have to save enough room to also have the “action” sequence of the robbery and any resolution you have planned, which is difficult in let’s say, the space of 60 lines. I personally would take this idea and write an open mic with it instead, rather than use it in the league setting, where you’re far less restricted as to line limits and timeframe. Anyway, let’s not dwell on that particular thing too long, but essentially the character(s) here become a mere artists impression sketch in pencil rather than something painted with a full colour palette. I didn’t mind the lack of dialogue too much as in that scenario I would be looking to keep quiet where possible also, but some interaction between the trio may have helped. I think the final third was where you really upped your game significantly; I especially enjoyed the creativity of the video link due to Coronavirus but I do feel if you had more in the way of a precursor of things to come you would have done better here. The “shift” if you will wasn’t as much to do with the robbery in progress itself but more so the journey that lead them to the point in the image and while it gave a good enough resolution - the journey itself left me wanting something more.

Fraze - You almost went the opposite way entirely with this one to where I may have, but that also had its merits. The metaphorical allegory of the cave was a nice take, props on the originality and creativity in doing so first off, I think that drew a distinct line between what you and your opponent offered up for consumption this week. It came from left field, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think it was a gamble in doing so as more often than not a story will beat out a more topically driven piece but with high risk there’s sometimes high reward and I would say it paid off for you here. I’m not sure how it would have fared against a stronger submission from PA, but he really needed something Blockbuster-like to pull off that idea and as I say, I’ve never seen it done, and it’s a lot tougher than it first seems. I may have to take a go at it before I hang it up, but for now I’m siding against my personal preferences in terms of approach and opting for what I found to be the more creativity twist, turning the topic on its head so to speak, and going with Fraze.