PA: Your piece was definitely an angle I could relate to, the direction taken was along the lines of what I first had in mind when I saw the topic too, I think I mentioned famine off-hand but definitely along the lines of war. The two are almost the cause and effect leading to the same result, in my head at least, but I definitely felt you took the more direct approach here grounded firmly in what was presented to the reader. I enjoyed ‘Russian troops/muddy boots” a lot as an internal rhyme and thought that was well done. There was another a little later around “De-nazification/Sovient nation” I enjoyed also, the deciding factor here though for me is more of one as old as time rather than simply you vs Sym - this was an almost atypical scenario of the old Storytelling vs Topical piece. It would occur frequently in the infancy of topical leagues, before storytelling became the more dominant force in these weekly writing leagues, and there are occasions where the topical has triumphed over the story for sure - but it’s seldom seen. There may be good reason for that. The storytelling aspect often leads to some sort of twist at a midway or end point, to throw the reader off guard of hit them with some previously foreshadowed conclusion that on a second (or more) read reveals more layers for the reader to peel back and enjoy. I, myself, have actually wrote about this same topic in recent months so there’s not a lot more in that sense that I felt was new information to me personally, but I think not opting for a story piece here when up against a good one from Sym perhaps lead to a clash - not in terms of style, or in execution as you were actually both very similar in a sense to me, but in terms of how you both went about executing your angles to this one. The two are very different in that regard, and some will call it personal preference for sure, but storytelling is very much my thing as you’ll no doubt be aware and it’s difficult to overlook that here, with how Sym did so well, but coupled with how evenly matched you both were in a technical stance there has to be a deciding factor and to me the biggest difference was the way both chose to execute their verses. One telling a story, the other more of a narrative topical on a current world event. Sym had more to enjoy in terms of the world he created within a wider framework here.
|