What an interesting battle for round one. Two favourites, surely, meeting early on with a somewhat odd topic choice that can be bent and twisted in a few different ways. I’m intrigued to see what you both do here, so let’s see what we have...
NYCSpitz: I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you wrote this quickly, as you claimed, the writing has a real fast-paced sort of vibe to its action - as i’m quite used to seeing from you. It has the story progress quickly, quite unrelentingly in some parts, and you don’t tend to dwell on any one thing in particular for too long, meaning your story unfolds at quite a frantic pace and constantly moves forward onto the next idea. It’s a strength I perceive of yours and you utilise it well to almost carry the reader along with you, at speed, breezing through the tale without stopping to catch your breath. Its helped by the crisp wording and the constant action, almost like a whirlwind of storytelling and there’s a lot going on, so it was a lot to take in. In one sense, it works, but with a critical eye on it I’d also say that the character development was left wanting somewhat. Besides the names assigned to the two, and a little bit of stereotyping/racial profiling perhaps, the reader doesn’t really get enough here to actually “care” what happens to the characters or why. There’s a definite disassociation there, I felt, where I wasn’t invested in either of them really because I hadn’t been given enough character development or/and impetus. It’s a tricky one in such a short line limit to do all of that, rhyme, and tell a story that progresses in development so I see entirely why you did it - but it’s just something to think about moving forward. I’ve seen people mention to you before how the rhymes almost feel attached afterward, or as an afterthought, and I can see that to an extent (though I don’t think that’s what you do at all, I think you get the bulk of the writing down and then contemplate on the rhyming aspect later to tie it all together). I could be wrong, of course, but that’s certainly how it reads to me. This one is no different. There are times when you’re really on point in this and then others like the “bread and goat meat,” rhyme that come off with little thought to them and maybe rushed. I think if you took the time to read it back and polish up on some of those things, you would be an even stronger competitor. The dialogue section where you rhymed the entire couplet loses some realism as well, to me, as “We’re here to crush the cause,” comes off unnatural as spoken dialogue (in my opinion) and keeping it shorter and snappier would have served you better there rather than trying to rhyme out the couplet. I see why you chose to do it, and many will be guilty of it themselves at some point (including me) but as a general rule I’d steer clear of doing that if I were you. I’m sure someone of your skill set doesn’t ‘need’ to do that anyway and would find it easy enough to work around. You don’t always have to tell people what’s happening, sometimes a strong enough hint at the characters facial expressions, gestures, or feelings tell you more than just the words they speak anyway - subtly too, if done well, and the reader doesn’t end up feeling spoonfed the story as it leaves them with something to read between the lines, you know? All good fun. It’s just something I feel may be worth you considering for the future.
Inno: This one is quite different to your opponent style-wise, and in its execution, the pacing too is a noticeable change from what we read from NYC. While he went with a very frantic, fast-paced story that unfolded quickly, yours seemed to unravel slowly piece by piece and the contrast with what he did is interesting to me. There are a lot of interesting word choices and associations that worked here, I enjoyed the “unnoticed amongst the colours, she’s hard to retrace,” as it used the picture quite cleverly - rather than trying to apply something to it directly that was more difficult. The choice of taking this and trying to transcend it almost is what works best (in my opinion) and while you both did that to differing degrees - I actually preferred how Inno alluded to it more than I did NYC’s more direct story based around the two characters pictured. Inno may be less technically proficient in terms of multies here but he excelled in terms of tying more in to the picture provided and how he worked it into his own piece was the better of the two. “Gate Keeper of life forced to never live hers to the fullest,” was nice. The stuff like “lighthouse in the darkeness,” is more so what I was referring to when I said NYC didn’t just have to use the entire couplet of spoken dialogue and could inform the reader without just “telling” them what happened. Inno explains in those four words using clever metaphor without having to use up two lines to inform the reader what’s happening, you know? Inno wasn’t without fault here, either, this couplet in particular:
Quote:
but she hides it all in fear of those raised with the same hands as her
forced into submission asking for permission trying to gain favor
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This felt unnecessary, in my opinion, and could easily have been taken out without losing a great deal in truth. The submission/permission line felt rather long in comparison to the rest of the verse as a whole and he’s at his best when he has these allusions and associations at play in his work. This couplet didn’t really rely on those as heavily as he had used prevalently at the beginning, it did lead to this short quip though that I enjoyed:
Quote:
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they pillage the right leaving everything wrong
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It was a subtle little call back, maybe not to everyone’s taste given the text battlers will have seen rights/right/wrong stuff done before but I liked its use here.
The ending was almost polarising for me because I enjoyed what lead up to it, and I appreciate how Inno went about tying the colour element into this piece, but the word “squallers” (squalors?) didn’t feel used correctly to me and I’m not entirely sure that was what he was going for. It could be squalors. I just think it may be misused, but it’s definitely not squallers either way. That said, I did think Inno had more in the way of transcending the image itself and building something around it - working it into his piece rather than attacking this head-on and that worked for me on a few different levels. As I say, NYC did that to an extent too with his worldbuilding and storytelling here but I, as a reader, never felt connected to the characters involved on an emotional level and someone once said that conflict drives great stories. This story has a great driving force behind it, but lacked that conflict to really feel an emotional attachment to the characters involved. The deciding factor for me was largely the how Inno went about executing his more metaphoric topical piece over NYC’s more mechanical storytelling ability.
Good battle, different styles, but personal preference here has me going with Inno.
Keep those pens moving!