Help Me Get an A

[travOtaku]

Hey BG, I could use your help! I just wrote my final paper for my Creative Writing II class this semester, and the professor has selected me as one of four finalists to be a part of an online poll. The person with the most votes gets an entire letter grade added onto their score.

It just takes two seconds, and I would appreciate any votes that you could give me.

Just go to: Holic - Writing Courses and then click next to "Joshua Yehl" and then submit! That's it!

Thanks in advance

[Ziphor]

Let's hope the prof doesn't check to see where traffic is coming from and see this post (assuming it'd be against policy).

voted.

[Priran]

sorry, you can't beat

Feeling a hot load of semen ooze out of your waxed asshole is less than pleasurable. -- Benjamin Gowar

[Guyverarmor]

Voted.

[Pikarya]

Voted, hopefully it doesn't backfire.

[Jotaru]

Post it on 4chan.

The only thing better than winning is winning with sixty million more votes than second place

[Bingbong]

Voted, but not for yours... #2 should win.

1> dead mobster meets Grey's Anatomy, meh, not interested.

2> clearly something you would continue reading to see where it was going

3> Dead friend and hooker, was it set in Vegas too?

4> watched Twilight too many times.

[Tyche]

If he posted on 4chan, he'd lose to #2 by hundreds of thousands of votes. I voted for you, but #2 will deservedly win.

[travOtaku]

#2s opening line is clearly the most attention getting, but that's also the best line of his whole story. It doesn't live up to the potential that the first line presents, though, I may be slightly biased. Not saying my story is whoamg awesomely better than his though.

And the professor said that we could get votes from our friends and family, and said nothing about posting it onto a high traffic forum in a topic pandering to the users for assistance with getting an A.

I think I'm gold. And thank you.

[Jotaru]

BG, if we play our cards right, this sounds like it has the potential to turn into a real-life brawl...

[travOtaku]

The contest was posted to his blog before both the final rough draft, and the final copy were due. That opening line has changed numerous times throughout its life, and because of feedback from the professor and the class, is now much different. I know that the opening line posted in the blog for the contest isn't the greatest, but he at least decided that it was good enough to enter the poll, which is enough for me.

That opening line isn't on my final draft.

[Beckwin]

for fuck's sake Elphaba, he's writing in first person. are you gonna really try to craft a believable character with grammatically perfect inner monologue/journal writing? considering that this character has a dead hooker in his shopping cart

[kuronosan]

As a writer, I know that opening lines have to be very attention getting. Well, for the most part they do.

Feeling a hot load of semen ooze out of your waxed asshole is less than pleasurable. -- Benjamin Gowar

I often think about how I held my best friend Jack in my arms, watching red flow freely from the bullet hole in his chest, and all because I found a hooker in a shopping cart. -- Joshua Yehl

I have to agree with Bing and Elphaba that Ben's is a much better delivery. What is the opening line on your final draft? I'd hate to fix a contest and rob a better writer out of a grade because you want an A -- not that I wouldn't love to help you. Reading Ben's line makes me interested in what the rest of his story is about. It may be wacky, disgusting, and even downright weird, but it seriously makes me wonder what comes next (no pun intended).

Let's examine what you said:

I often think about how I held my best friend Jack in my arms, watching red flow freely from the bullet hole in his chest, and all because I found a hooker in a shopping cart.

I would have probably written this opening line more like this:

My mind would often wander back to when I was holding Jack, my best friend, in my arms; I watched the dark blood trickling briskly from the fresh bullet hole in his chest as a single thought raced through my mind - All this because I found that shopping cart with a dead hooker in it.

Again, I'd like to see your final draft before I throw my vote out there.

edit: Man I'm too critical of myself... had to make a couple changes.

[Beckwin]

voice

and "watching" is fine enough because the other past tense verbs give enough implication of "was" being their for the grammatically correct "was watching"

[kuronosan]

Beckwin there isn't anything wrong with his use of 'watching'. My sentence, however, would have been horribly incorrect if I had used it.

[Beckwin]

I said "watching" is fine enough.

[travOtaku]

If you're that insistent on your sentence being "gold"... well, i'm sorry.

I know that the sentence isn't perfect, I am not debating that with you. You seem to think that I am cheating and I don't really understand why that is. I meant I was gold in the sense that posting the poll onto these forums is not an illegitimate way to get votes.

The professor, in class, told us we could have our friends and family vote for our stories. He invited us to post them to our facebooks and myspace profiles if we wanted to, and that he did not care. This is just supposed to be a fun little contest.

If you think that my line in the poll is that atrocious then vote for Ben's. Or don't vote at all.

But don't sit there and try and tell me that I am cheating. I'm not forcing anyone to vote for my story if they do not want to.

And if this is his final, it's sad.

That isn't my final draft. That opening line was for my first rough draft, which had yet to be peer reviewed.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Thank god Elphaba is here to teach us how to live our lives in moral ways.

[kuronosan]

Well, really, the only reason I wrote it that way was to try and preserve his original idea. Realistically, for an opening line, there shouldn't be so much detail in one sentence.

[TribalCelestial]

Thank god Elphaba is here to teach us how to live our lives in moral ways.

lol this