TiBB Does The Apprentice 2 - LIVE FIRING 4 (Loukas, Sam, you\'re fired)
 

OMG AHHH! good luck everyone

Hello, and welcome to the fourth firing of TiBB Apprentice 2009.

It's been another eventful task as the two teams each wrote stories for the creative writing forum.

Twelve forum members became characters in the two stories - the Oinks' "If U Seek Britney", and Team Fetch's "Outside Of The Box".

Tonight, another two candidates from the losing team will be leaving the competition.

Oh my gawdd!

Good luck everyone!

Good luck all

Can you do it in 23 minutes? The footie is on!

But first of all, we need to find out who the losing team is.

A panel of three judges are about to give their thoughts on the two team's stories.

They will confim which of the two they prefer - and the team behind the story with the most judge votes will win, with the losing team facing the firing.

The judges are...

Good Luck Piggys. Good Luck to our team too, hopefully Fetch will have it's first win of the comp *Crosses Fingers*

...huge contributor to the creative writing forum Magic, and forum members Satisfaction and JOSHUAH!.

Magic will be the first to judge, so it's over to him...

If U Seek Britney – Team One [/b]

So, where shall I begin? I think in this task you have thought well, and you have combined three factors which make ANY TiBB game or story a success. You have used interaction, members and Miss Britney Spears – but I am not sure if it was quite enough.

I do like general outline of the story, I think you have used real imagination and comedy, and have finished with a great outcome. But, I do think you could have made several improvements. First of all, personally I think the layout could do with an adjustment; the paragraphs could have been more divided and I dont think writing in italics made the easiest read. Secondly, I understand there was a limited word count but sometimes I think things moved too fast, and in some places the story doesn’t seem to have a natural flow.

My final flaw is in the ‘interaction element’ – it didn’t seem clear what we were voting for! You didn’t explain clearly saying what the voting options were, and somebody had to ask for the voting link!

To summarise – I think the original concept was good – but it just didn’t seem to run as smoothly as it could of.

Outside Of The Box – Team Two

I really like the idea of your piece, as I have feel you have used two factors which make a easy to read story – short chunks and comedy. However, I don’t think you have used the right approach. To me, after reading three it seemed to get boring – it was just too much one way dialogue! What about body language, and the psychiatrists responses?

Also, I think on one of the articles you have lacked imagination. Does ‘Ross' remind you of anyone? A boy with a slightly autistic personality traits, and has a Rat, often talks about numbers, and little about emotion? It seems you have completely stolen the character of Christopher from Mark Haddons ‘The Curious Incident of The Dog at Night Time’ – and unless this is purely coincidental, it seems imagination hasn’t been used generously here, and it makes me wonder if the other characters aren’t original ideas by you.

However, I think you picked on members little flaws, and exaggerated them – which made a great read!

Just in our defence Magic, both endings and the advert to vote all had to come within our word limit and we finished with 4 words to spare so ...

I think it's a coincidence, i haven't even heard of that book.

Thanks for your comments magic.

And i'm sure the fact it's italic shouldn't effect the overall outcome :blush2:

..and it was in like size 7 or 8 the 'Click here to vote!' and I think it was pretty easy to work out what 'Should Britney get killed or not?' meant :tongue:

I really am unsure of what decision to make - both have strengths and weaknesses - But I am going for the more creative, yet less 'easy read' story - 'If U Seek Britney'

Thanks :spin2:

Thank you very much

Thank youu :) :lovedup:

Ok, Fair Points. Well Done Oinks. Thanks Magic :thumbs:

Thank you Magic.

The next judgement comes from Satisfaction. He is currently offline, but he provided me with his opinions before he signed off.

He said,

Thank you Darren :spin:

We had a lot to pack into a small story. lol

Thanks :spin:

It was short and sweet because of the word count, we had like 3 words spare.. so yanno :3

Thanks to Darenn (Satisfaction).

That means that the score is tied at 1-1.

yay

Ah well, thanks anyway Darenn

Thank you Darren, once again fair points. :wink:

yeah thanks.

Ah well, well done guys :3

Oinks to win!

JOSHUAH! is the final person to judge.

Over to him...

First of all I’d just like to say this was all done on short notice so I may not have the expertise to say what I think of both your stories.

TEAM FETCH
I think both stories have a real burst of imagination, in the way of presenting them and in the way of describing each character. I especially think Team Fetch were brilliant to use The Sims 2, the images made it slightly better to read and it got more people focused in on the story. However, I do feel Team Fetch lacked that urgency and entertainment value, I feel like there was no fun, it is very serious and I didn’t really like the setting. I think setting is a huge part of a story and to be centred in a therapist’s office is particularly boring. Yes, I can imagine Team Fetch wanted the story to be focused on the plot, which is true, but setting adds to entertainment, to persuasiveness to make the reader continue reading on, and I felt really bored after the first few lines, because of the setting. The style of writing however was really good and whoever written it done well, there were those lines which made you chuckle and the odd serious one too. Overall though, I’d argue that if the story was set somewhere else it would have been much more enticing to read. Maybe I’m just one of those people who prefers and adventure, and I think I am.

I have to commend Team Fetch on the idea to bring in The Sims 2 because that is imaginative, I just think it’s a shame you weren’t so imaginative on the setting. I think the basic skeleton of the plot is good, but as your title says, think ‘Outside of the Box’ and don’t set it inside a therapist’s room! It could have been somewhere else which would have been way more interesting and less stereotypical and unoriginal.

TEAM OINK'S
Team Oink’s story is amazing. The first thing I noticed was that it is an adventure, and I always do genuinely prefer an adventure story. I thought the tie in with Britney was very funny, seeing as there are many fans of her on TiBB. The writing is great and whoever written the story done very well. I think the plot is a great idea, it’s comical and it’s obviously based on the Wizard of Oz which shows creativeness because you adapted it to people from TiBB themselves.

Throughout the story I felt like I needed to carry on reading. It was comical, serious, tongue in cheek and just a very feel good story. As with Team Fetch bringing in The Sims 2, I have to also commend Team Oink’s for bringing in the interactive vote. It was great that we got to vote on how the story turned out, it shows participation and also it meant people HAD to read your story to see the final product.

Both teams had a good amount of text, a good plot and good ways of presenting their stories. Good Luck!

Thanks Josh!

We all wrote it, Sam the start, me the middle and Tom did the endings :)

We split the story up into 3 and all did part each so its all of us that written it :hello:

Thanks Joshuah

Ta Josh.

iirc, Fetch's is the one about mental illness and Oinks' is the one where Madonna and Fom go to see Britney, right?

Either way, the one about seeing Britney was a bit unoriginal. It seemed to me just a way of ticking the boxes with forum members. I can imagine this being pitched in a boardroom and all the boring executives asking "can we throw in some Britney? Sales should boost by 40%". I did, however, think the interactive element was a stroke of genius :)

Call me biased if you will, but I preferred the Fetch one. It was different, but Magic's claim of plagiarism (or at least using a similar character to the book he mentioned) is interesting. I haven't read it, so I can't comment. But yeah, it was more interesting to read than the other story.

So, with everything taken into account, I prefer
TEAM OINK'S story

Yay!! Thanks so much :dance::dance:

Four wins... :lovedup: