Don't Mess with the Michelin Man by Tyrone - Action/Adventure: Lawn Gnome, Mascot, Garden

Definitely action/adventure! This was lots of fun. Love the characters...very imaginative. And there were several times I laughed.

Action was written well. Quick lines to set the fast pace. You did a really good job here, writer.

Best of luck.

Action and adventure eh?

I think it crosses more into fantasy myself, as the "action and adventure" is garden gnomes and statues springing to life, including a mascot for a well known  tire (tyre UK spelling) company. "

Maybe this bit is animated,but I suspect if rewritten, a trademarked character would be replaced with a  new mascot character of the writer's own vision.

The 'adventure' is  the gnomes crossing over to another yard to scare off some trespassing teens who might have had one too many cannibals hits.  I'll kind of roll with it, It isn't the first time I seen this flavor in a OWC and/or WTC in the past few years. Of course, those entries were a bit more...grim. This bit is more on the light side.

Winston's last line should read "Weren't" not "were"

Other than this, the writing is decent enough.

Action, gnome, garden, mascot

Nice job, everything ticked.

Sometimes action is hard as it can be challenge to write it without being dull, or repetitive. This was handled nicely.

Some nice writing, but it is an interesting debate as to whether someone’s green eyes are relevant but nice touches all the same

All the best

Such imagination and creativity on display. Garden gnomes are indeed big business.
I won't nitpick. Those elements were well matched.
A lot of fun, and all the boxes ticked. I'm a bit jealous.   :D

Great job.

It took me time to get into this one but it's a very good story - to the point and beautiful actually.

Great job, writer, nothing to add here.

Hi,

Toy Story with garden ornaments. Funny, great visuals, nice interplay between the characters and good dialogue.
Loved it.

Well done.

My 3rd read and this is so much better than the 1st 2, but we have issues here as well.

For me, this barely meets the theme requirement, if at all.  In fact, if not for the line from Hedi on Page 5, I doubt anyone would get it.

Biggest issue is the lack of Slugs, as you move out of the 1st Slug location.  I mean, seriously, how many are missing here?  3?  4?  It's a serious mistake that shouldn't be made.

Lots of passive writing on display.

Finally, let's talk about the genre here.  Is this really what anyone would call an action adventure, unless they were told it's action adventure?  Doubtful.  Fantasy was the perfect genre here.

It's a nice story, though, and I learned a few things I had no idea about, like Bibs, for example.

That was fun. A nice little adventure.

Nothing more to add.

Good job.

Yeah well written but gonna lose marks from me as it’s a fantasy once the gnomes come to life. I can overlook variable and theme shoehorning but not getting the genre right is a no-no.

Sorry to be so harsh.  Great work nonetheless

Inventive for sure. More fantasy than action/adventure.

You introduce four human characters at the beginning who we then don't see until the end with the Gnomes in the middle. So I don't get the time to be invested in any of them and felt myself drifting with the gnomes leaping across the gardens as there was never any doubt in my mind they would be successful.

I think this would work much better if you focused on the gnomes from the start. We don't know at first why they are on this run but they are desperate to save a fellow gnome. That way, we can get to know the two gnomes and care for them more. The humans who stole the gnome and the old couple are superfluous, so they should just be mentioned at the end.

A very decent effort given the circumstances - it just needs a rethink in my opinion.

-Mark

You had the combination of Gnome, Mascot and Garden, and THAT'S what you came up with?! Good work! Not what would have come to my mind in a hundred years. Nice imagination you have.

That was an enjoyable little story. Theme was there and OTN with Heidi's statements. Genre selection was okay but would've/should've/could've been more accurate as fantasy.

Good work, writer. Definitely entertaining.

Excellent. The action was reminiscent of every thriller I’ve ever seen. And the gnomes were great characters.

Not sure this quite sits in the Action Adventure genre but it was a pretty clever use of the criteria.

Fun little story, enjoyable with good writing.

Good job on the elements, I guess Bibs does qualify as a mascot, so good inventive use for that criteria.

It's also certainly the "adventure" portion of action / adventure.

It's very cute and well-written but all a bit low-stakes. I think you could have spent more time showing Winston as crestfallen at the theft of Bibs, but as it stands we get one line and then we get Mabel saying they'll report it in the morning. So the gnomes are much more invested than the owners are. Maybe that should have been the angle? Or is the angle? Bibs means more to the gnomes?

And the thicker than water element is the gnomes revealing themselves as animated to the stoners, but as Bibs says, no matter, they are stoned. I guess this drives around the outside of the theme.

Very cute, inventive use of the props, it's just that I found myself skimming the adventure / rescue part, but that's probably me as a reader and not you as a writer.

Nice job -

AJR

Thanks for all the comments and feedback, appreciated as always.

There's some good suggestions that were it not for 5 page limit may have found there way into the script and may do if I re-write outside of the challenge.

Thanks all

Nice one. Gnomes can be scary at times. A touch of horror I might say.

Good luck.