Forums » Creative Corner » Read Thread

Hello again CYS!

We're not done with this month yet! CYS Monthly Gazette has another one for you.

Congratulations to the winner of the last bracket, YummyFood! Time to see who you'll be competing against.

Thank you to all the staff members who continue to show their support with their amazing work: RKrallonor, Suranna, Yummyfood, Anthraxus, Benholman44, Mystic_Warrior and Will11. And of course, thank you to Avery_Moore for being our guest writer!

The pictures here are clickable! If you want the slideshow of this article, here's a link.

     I liked this article too! :D You guys are good at this! Congrats to Yummyfood, and Milton I hope your ego recovers XD. I think I'll vote for B.

     EDIT: I've come back because I'm a tad bored. First of all, on the first page (on the right), when you say "remain every dutiful to continue [...]", did you mean ever dutiful? Every dutifully doing blah blah blah (this would be a harder fix)? Anyway, I find the voting poster very funny. Ok now I should really get back to writing.

Thank you for catching that. Fixed.

A satisfied the Comfort Effect.

B kept me the most engaged and made me laugh.

C had a good message and was well written.

It's between B and C, but I'd have to go with story C ultimately.

Who wrote which story in the last issue's bracket?

Milton wrote Story A about the Caldwell gang.

Yummyfood wrote Story B

Avery wrote story C, the DnD style classic fantasy style story with Armand and Hilda.

All of them are good stories, but I'll vote for Story C.

Can't wait to see who I'm up against next!

Congratulations on the win, Yummy! Your story was awesome!

Special thanks to Avery for writing a story for us, we're really honored that you agreed to do this, and I hope you had fun!

Yeah, I've seen a few excerpts from Briar here and there but I'm not sure of the last time she posted a short story. Got to her get in b the Thunderdome sometime!

Maybe I should challenge her and let somebody else pick the prompt, I feel like I'm getting pretty rusty at writing in general

We got to make this happen! You and Avery competing would be legendary. That is such a good idea, I really want to see this duel.

@Avery_Moore, would you be interested?

I feel like you guys would need a super cool prompt! Can't wait to see the stories!

That would be very fun! Next time I will remember that 2,000 words is not enough words to fully flesh out 5 different characters. ^_^

If you're open to taking suggestions for a prompt, how about "A driverless car."

FWIW, I thought that Avery's was the best story by a good margin.

That's an awesome prompt!

Again, very good stories. B was seriously cheating, I'll vote for it anyway. The result justifies the means.

Damn what's this? A proper prompt from a gazette battle? Damn, did the paper outsource this to a third worlder or something (I bet RK knows a guy), but in any case, it's a clear upgrade. Keep it up!

Now the same schtick I wrote for the previous edition applies. I know it's past the voting deadline, but deadlines be damned. There's a rant to write!

Alright onto the prompt itself, it reads like an opening sentence, immediately setting the mood and scene. There's the dutiful clerk writing tirelessly, probably best to keep them as nondescript and boring as possible, because there's also the big news(!). Now I'll be mainly be judging on how entertaining and big the biggest headline is, how creatively they got their hands on this headline and how much in a rush the paper will be to print it. After all, in this business, if you ain't first, you're last.

-------

Story A:

Now this is good stuff. Archibald is exactly the name you'd expect of a gray guy crazy enough to want to run a newspaper. The opening is boring, but you see, it's about a guy named Archibald. It is SUPPOSED to be boring. And then comes the genius part, some paragraphs later it is shown that this Archibald, the nondescript guy, so perfectly typecast as a stereotypical gazetteer, is actually the janitor! That kind of genius is almost frightening.

... And then you have to ruin it by making him a superhero, but I guess those types of fantasies are also commonly found in gazetteers.

All jokes aside though, with a prompt this specific it did fail. No reporter rushed in. There was not much of a buildup at all. Some other news agency televising it is about the lamest way to get your headlines to publish. Worst of all, there was no rush, but a rush to end the story.

Because for a superhero story, it mostly felt super unfinished. The writing was actually GOOD and engaging, so no comments there. Which is sad because now I have no way to pad my rant wordcount, but a good thing because I actually got engaged with the story itself. That made the pageflip all the more disappointing. A quick meeting, a dumb 'I quit' joke way out of established character, and then it's done. And so am I.

Prompt 1/5
Writing 4/5
Enter's Whim -2
Total 3/10

----

Story B:

Now remember how I posted about an entire rant worth of opening advice on the previous edition, concluding that a dialogue is about the worst way to open a story? Yeah there should've been an asterisk added, that if only you do it with a dick joke, it does work out. Just got to have balls.

It also helps you use pre-established characters. There's no barrier of entry, at least for your intended public. I need no character introduction to know who RK and Will is, though I always seem to overlook Milton. That immediate connection allows you to do away with needing a hook or finding another reason for the reader to care and thus engage with your piece.

But that's also where this piece kinda falls apart. With apparently the entirety Gazette crew and CYS admins needing to be included and characterized with their proper one-liners, it becomes more of a self-wank (the worst kind of fan fiction in other words) than a story, quickly outstaying its welcome. Will's adventure and need to publish, bringing cystian culture to the outside world, seems to be introduced as the central story here, the rest is just unneccesary fluff eating up wordcount, especially in a short-story.

But it doesn't go there. Like sure, I don't have anything to rant about the writing specifically, and that's bad because then I barely have anything to rant about, but the plot meanders. Every new paragraph needs another cystian to say something that fails to go anywhere. Then you have Sent making his rival newspaper out of nowhere and I can safely conclude there is no plot at all and kinda skimmed the conclusion.

Prompt 3/5
Writing 4/5
Enter's Whim: -3
Total 4/10

----

Story C:

That is a very good opening paragraph. It has all the ingredients in it that I like and the twist is impressive and very promising. Ususally the first person narration has that problem, especially in interactive fiction, where it feels really weird and iffy to have the narrator die (in for example a bad end), because then who'd narrate that death? This sidesteps that entirely.

I do not like the follow-up, however. The tense is weird. It's still in the past but 'moments later' is such a weird descriptor in this scenario. It is also a weak ass bridge to the mayhem that happens after, causing this entire opening to go from clear winner material to having the pacing of a trainwreck shot in reverse.

'I understood her well enough: The Gods are angered'. Yeah, I know they'd be technically still angry throughout the narration, but coupled with that moments later I get the feeling you'd been better off just bringing the entire thing into the present tense with a better bridge. And reading further, the narration sarcastically making a marvel tier joke towards the audience when recounting his death irks me gravely.

But then it got better. I think the fake-out death was quite well done and I enjoyed the greater narrative theme despite it not adhering to the letter of the prompt. I'd expected to have to rant about it being pedantic, but it rather struck as genuine to me, a smart meta story about the world of journalism. The fact I enjoyed it makes ranting about it hard, so let's end it here.

Prompt: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Enter's Whim: 2
Total 8/10

Story C won, well done.

Thanks for giving these a look, I'm sure the authors appreciate the detailed feedback as usual.

For some reason I'd been thinking the deadline was the 27th, must've mixed it up with the Secret Santa thread. But in any case, the busiest week of the year was a rough time for these to be released. Though I'm going to have to give them more than a quick skimover later just because I want to try and see if I can identify Mystic's.

Yeah the official deadline being literal Christmas Eve seems about the worst decision anyone could've made

Hello everyone! Hope you enjoyed your Christmas and perhaps more! The winner of this bracket is…

Mystic_Warrior and Story C!

Congratulations to Mystic and thank you to the other contestants! We’ll be continuing the brackets next month. Thank you all for voting, even during the busiest time of the year.

@enterpride Of the three votes here, yours was the deciding one, congrats.

(Obligatory "lmaaaooo, only three votes for the Gazette Claplimg Square pretenders!" But nah, just wish things could've been arranged differently so more people had a chance to read them, especially with an unprecedented appearance by Mystic in a SHORT story duel.)

What about the others, who wrote those?

Suranna wrote Story A and Will wrote Story B

Congratulations Mystic :D It is a very well-written little short story and good luck in the next bracket!

Actually, I was incorrect, it seems that you and Mystic are tied. Enter's vote counted morally and spiritually, but it was well past the deadline.

Blame Milton's sin and hubris of wanting people to read these instead of celebrating the birth of Christ.

The power of the textwall rant overcomes any deadline.

What even is this canned ass comment, did you even read the thread or am I witnessing more of the famed Warden sloth here?

"Thank you all?"
What, don't know their names? There were three of them, does that tax the limits of Warden math? Did you generate this chipper tone deaf response or prewrite it or what?

No apologies for the authors who did all this for three votes? Did you even read the stories yourself? And there will be more? Why would anyone write more if they're going to be handled this way? No wonder mizal hates this disgusting publication, slathered as it is in thick, translucent sheets of Warden birthing slime. Oily to the touch and smelling of rancid camel fat, like that time you slid out of your mom's pulsating ovipositor, squalling at the injustice and cruelty of the cold, harsh universe, but even a loving omnipotent God couldn't have turned such a mediocre lump of flesh into something cool like a Marauder.

There were 4 votes, not counting Enterpride's after the deadline, but maybe you are right, numbers tax the limits of Warden math ｼ

They were probably just going off my post about the tie, didn't realize I'd skimmed past Avo's actually.

But don't let me get in the way of the internal bloodfeud, you kids have fun figuring out who will run the prison.

I don't blame mizal for miscounting, the others were hidden beneath Enterpride's bloated ego.

I did notice though that mizal deleted my post telling Clayfinger to shut up, beecause he's "nice" or something and that's all it takes in this nanny state safespace.

You though, you're just another trash noob, and a Warden at that. You literally live in and feast on garbage, like the raccoons that Milton's mom uses to warm her hairy armpits. And you've made an enemy this day. I'm going to bully you until the end of time.

Some of Milton's earliest childhood memories are Endmaster leaving his mom's room complaining about the need for a rabies shot.

You are not very nice ! The warden can be good, we will be better than the sages next year. Ganbatte !!

None of us are "nice", but I'm pretty sure that guy is just a troll messing around.

Though um, don't hold your breath on the Wardens catching up to anybody. (Nobody seems to care much about Orders except for the troll at least.)

Okay, thank you for the advice. I shall amend my new year goal to become the best warden !

So supposedly I am supposed to "chill out" about you and Clayfinger or I will "get banned".

I'll accept this implicit permission to purge all other Wardens with fire and sword and sentence the survivors to hard labor in the mimes. But stories unwritten and Clayfinger, they're okay.

My apologies to my fellow staff members. With this happening around the holiday I totally got wrapped up in IRL stuff and forgot to get a vote in on time. You all did a good job (better than my last one for sure). My vote would have also gone to C.

Hey there. Let me preface this by saying that I have immense respect for the Gazette staff. To be able to consistently publish issues of good quality even after losing a member in an unceremonious manner shows a level of discipline that is worth admiration. I also loved the issues where you got guests involved either with artwork submissions or interviews. Overall, this is a really cool concept and I hope that you are able to keep it going in 2026 as well.

Ok. Now for the nitty-gritty. I had actually seen this post before and was putting off voting until I ended up forgetting about it. Weirdly enough though, I did manage to find time to vote on the thunderdome. That got me thinking as to why I voted in one and not the other. It certainly wasn't a conscious decision.

I think the reason is that I don't like the formatting of the gazette. The pages are printed in portrait mode which is fine if you're printing hard copies but on devices like laptops, the default view tries to show the whole page which in turn makes the text miniscule. You have to then fiddle with the zoom mechanics until the text is big enough to read but not so big that it feels like you're using your grandmother's cellphone. Speaking of which, I don't even want to think about how it feels reading it on an actual phone. I know these seem like really minor annoyances but I think they may have played a big part in why I was putting this off.

Again, this could just be me being weird. If it is, feel free to ignore the whole thing. I just felt like an explanation was owed.

It's not just a you thing, Enter has brought it up before and so have I. The fancy Canva pages that look like a REAL newspaper (!!!!) are cool to look at and at this point their signature style, but a bunch of dense text in that format is not something I'm ever going to be willing to subject myself to on a phone.

Funny thing is, the first page's formatting seems way more readable. I'm guessing the gazette was trying to conform to some sort of pre-determined page limit. If that is the case, then I'd say just ditch the page limit and use that formatting style everywhere.

Hm, having an option to view it as a post might not look so good but might make it easier to read as well?

Yup, the default forum formatting is definitely more readable. That being said, I do think the newspaper like pages is part of your signature style like Mizal said. So maybe some tweaking in the font size and line spacing of the text in the images would suffice.

Would having the text in one column with a larger font size work? It isn't as fancy as the normal Gazette layout but could potentially help with readability.

For example:
 

 

Out of pity? Pity? The most insightful and actually honest reviews around and this is what the gayzette thinks of them? With an attitude like this, it's no wonder voters are becoming extinct!

BREAKING NEWS: "Fuck Reviewers!" Gazette Staff Declares. "We Hates Them!"

Here, have a comm for being one of the most consistent quality reviewers. 

Hmmpf, all right then.

Nobody really expects the Gazette to change for feedback, Milton lives in his office far above the regular people on the streets and doesn't interact with thread or server discussion, except, as I hear, to shout threats to crippled orphans or beat them with his gold-plated cane if they aren't selling newspapers fast enough to earn their gruel and a night on the cold floor of his rat-infested basement.

Those rumors are completely false. I outsource that manpower to those who would even be willing to stand within five feet of those indigents.

The improved font size definitely helps. Ideally, I want to be able to read the pages comfortably without zooming in. I think you could even go a tad bit larger here.

As for the two column/one column thing, I personally think it doesn't matter one way or the other. You should go for whatever you think looks better stylistically as long as you can maintain the font size.

All jokes aside, I do actually appreciate the feedback from people. We do talk about this stuff behind the scenes. I can’t guarantee a change, but getting readers is more important than any sense of vanity for style on my part. I am keen on keeping the style.