Just horrible writing

[Ralph Smith]

No need to subject anyone to it.

 

[DyePack]

Re: Different kind of basketball feature

The good cop and the bad cop went home for the day.

I'm a different kind of cop.

 

[friend of the friendless]

Re: College hoops feature

Mr Smith,

A very good story idea, that's for sure.

You know, the lede doesn't do it for me. I know what you're trying to do and I'm sure that I'd look at writing it that way ... but it misses and I'm damned if I can't tell you how to fix it.

Y'know if you started with the notion that computers/videogames are supposed to be keeping kids from playing sports ... then turn that on its head ... these athletes as lab rats for a grand experiment ... maybe that would be better. Or maybe not.

But it's otherwise good stuff. And not the easiest thing to write.

YHS, etc

 

[jgmacg]

Re: College hoops feature

Time for a quick decision. Better hurry, the defense is ready.

Each of your four teammates on the floor is guarded closely. Do you use the Hook to pass the rock, or do you slow another teammate's defender by setting a hard pick?

Or is that a Weaken missile?

These are the choices the Long Beach State men's and women's basketball teams must make every week, but not necessarily on the court. The 49ers joined more than a dozen other schools this year in training with the ACE IntelliGym System, a computer game meant to improve players' reaction times to game situations.

Ralph -

I have to agree with FotF. This lede isn't working as well as it might. I think if you're going to sell the reader on the "instantaneous decision" conceit, you have to heighten the sense of in-game urgency. "Quick" and "ready" are words too weak to do that.

Two suggestions, then: either elaborate the lede into three or four sentences in which you convince the reader they're absolutely in the game, in scene. Or, at the same length as you've got it now, ratchet up the language. "Think fast" rather than "Time for a quick decision"; "Right now!" rather than "Better hurry." And so on.

And the "Weaken missile" isn't working as you'd like, because it's too much of a non sequitor at this early point in the piece.

This is a tough piece to write - as most prose assessments of things virtual and computerized are.

You've got good quotes, and it's a solid piece, but go back and reread your explanation of what the players are seeing on the simulator screen. It's hard to follow. As almost every written description of a computer game/sim screen are. Streamline it a little. Don't feel like you have to describe it exactly, because it bogs your pace. Better to describe it approximately and not lose your momentum.

Hope that helps a little. Thanks for posting.