MISC #8 Voting Thread: A Matter of Tradition

Which entry do you think should win for November?

  • Coming of Age

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Killing Kincaid

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Festival of Decay (poetry entry)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .
Winner announcement time, and this time it's actually shockingly on time instead of hours late. Praise our once in a lifetime punctuality.

This month had a lot of entries, far more than expected what with the holiday season approaching and NaNoWriMo going on (and many of the entrants participating in that as well), and we also had a decent number of votes, but in the end there can be only so many winners. Two, in this instance, but not far off from three via the magic of tied votes. Anyway, here are your winners for this month.

The Community Pick for this month is @Holmishire with "Day of the Dying". Congratulations on your first MISC win!

The Managers' Pick for this month is @Greenie with "Festival of Dark". Congratulations on your second Managers' Pick win, which is also tied for the most wins thus far in MISC history!

Thanks everyone for entering, voting, and reviewing. My reviews will be up in a bit, and Kitti and Astaroth should be posting something or other about their reviews in the near future as well.

MISC will return in March. Yes, you read that right: March, not January. We have something else planned for January to ring in the new year while MISC is on hiatus, and it will give you all plenty of opportunity to do some fun writing of a different sort. Until then, enjoy the events other folks are running through December. :D
 
Congrats to both Holmi and Greenie :D

Thanks everyone for the reviews! My entry was Tidings of Discomfort and Misery. While I didn't win or come close to, this is perhaps my best short story ever and it's inspired me to write an entire story in this setting XD

Good job on everyone who participated, it takes a lot of courage to put your writing out there for others to judge!
 
:O!!!

Oh my goodness... I honestly did not expect to win this month, seeing the other entries. I'm... totally blown away right now!

*collects remnants of thoughts*


Thank you so much to those who voted, and for the reviews. I'm honestly, truly humbled right now. ^_^
 
More short-ish (by which I mean short for me, maybe not short in the grand scheme of things) reviews this month because I'm still annoyingly busy. Next MISC I should hopefully be able to do longer format reviews with even more nitpicking. 8D

Before I get to the reviews though, I'd like to note something for general consideration. Endings are very important. This sounds like a no-brainer, but I'll note that there was only one entry this month that had an ending that did not leave me disappointed or confused (but even that one wasn't perfect). Just as the beginning of a story is important because you need to hook a reader's interest, an ending is important because that's what is going to linger most strongly in their mind. When you're looking at a storytelling contest wherein there are judges who review the entries, this makes it even more important to leave a good impression if you want a shot at winning. A weak ending can make an otherwise okay story end up seeming bad, and a great ending can elevate a mediocre story into being good. Sudden twists are not good endings 99% of the time; they just end up coming out of left field and are confusing once you stop to think past the surprise. A good ending is built upon the foundation of what comes before it, on plot and character development and foreshadowing and the like. If I end up thinking "wait, what the fuck was that?" at the end of a story, that is not a story I'm going to think fondly of when it comes time for judging. I say this all in the spirit of helping you guys improve your writing, because that's what this whole thing is about and I would feel like I'd failed in my duty as a judge if I didn't say something like this. If anyone would like me to go more into specific detail on this issue as it pertains to their entry than I did in their review, feel free to PM me with questions and I'll get back to you when I can.

Okay, with that out of the way, on to the reviews.

My overall reaction to this story, and the thing I said out loud when I finished reading it, was "What?" There are just so many unanswered questions left floating at the end that it weighs the story down quite a lot for me. Why exactly is Jing the object of mixed awe and spite? How did the cat end up as he is, either the spirit of a warrior inside of it or a warrior literally turned into a cat (and for that matter which one is it)? Why are those two and Shandra the only ones who can see the spirits floating along with the lotus boats? The fuck is up with that "I wish that I did" bit at the end? The ghost girl's apparently satisfactory conclusion is just totally overshadowed by all the stuff left unanswered, as far as I'm concerned.

Aside from that, the writing was okay (a few mistakes and instances of awkward phrasing), the characters were fairly well developed for a piece of this length, and despite the above complaints about unanswered questions it does constitute a complete story in that the plight of the ghost girl goes through a beginning, middle, and end arc. I like the traditions you used, but the throwing water on people part was another thing I wish you'd taken some time to explain. I assume it's something along the lines of dousing people with water to chase bad spirits out of them, but with the lack of any explicit information about it I can't be sure. This was not a bad entry, but I also can't say it was great. It was one that felt like it was yoinked out of a larger story and as such was devoid of a lot of context and information that I wanted to have, and those sorts of stories usually end up lumped into the "it's okay" category for me. Going into more detail on the world and the characters' backgrounds would have helped a lot.

Three negatives jumped out at me early on in the story. First, your punctuation for dialogue was very spotty, lots of lines ended without a comma or period to separate it from the non-dialogue, and in some places you also failed to have a comma or period to end the non-dialogue before jumping into dialogue. There were other grammar issues throughout, but this was the most common one. Second, and more important to me although it's largely a matter of preference, switching perspectives in a story written in first person is very weird. First person is best for stories where you want the reader to get really invested in a single main character, but it ends up feeling strange with multiple perspectives. Third, and somewhat related to the last point, swapping between present and past tense is normally a fine way to differentiate between the present and the past, but it just doesn't work at all when you're swapping between character perspectives in first person after you set it up in the first section as one person telling a story to others. Why in the world would Isaac be telling this story from her perspective with her internal thoughts? He likely would not, so what this does is totally breaks the introductory part's attempt to set it up as a tale being told to others, rendering that part kind of awkward and ill-fitting. To make that "let me tell you a story" intro work you would have had to keep it entirely in Isaac's perspective, which would have also required you to set up the whole thing about there being some kind of secret about Kaylee in a way other than having it shoved in the reader's face in the scene of the brief talk with her mother. Alternatively, you could have just told the story without the intro or outro scenes in the present time, which would have made for more tension by way of not knowing Isaac survives to become an old man. Either one of those would have made for a much smoother read.

I'm afraid I don't have much positive to say to balance all that out. The tradition was certainly not a normal one, but it just... didn't really work for me. I was not at all fond of the story concept itself, the whole thing with Krampus and elves keeping it imprisoned, and I never really got hooked by anything even before it got to that point. That made the story drag on and feel much longer than it actually was. I can see how this story might appeal to others, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. The ending was amusing though, because I do like it when things set up as a story being told by a character are left with ambiguity as to whether it was true or not, but given all the other problems that revolved around the present time storytelling scenario it was just a mild amusement rather than an actual satisfying ending for me. Dropping the title in there as the last line of dialogue was nice though, I'm kind of a dork and enjoy those title drop moments.

I don't have much in the way of positive things to say about this story. The characters were flat and felt like they were pulled right out of a made-for-TV family holiday movie, the writing was a little messy (awkward phrasing, multiple speakers in one paragraph, etc), and I saw the ending coming before the kitchen was even mentioned. The tradition is just barely not a standard one of having a family dinner, thanks to the tweak of killing and preparing a live animal. For a story titled "Coming of Age" there was not much of what one would expect of a coming of age tale, ie people growing up and changing and the like, because it ends right when it hits the first event that would plausibly lead to the coming of age story unfolding thereafter. Something more about aftermath of the kid(s) learning the truth about Donald would have been nice to properly live up to the expectations set by the title.

The only positive I've got for you is that it was a complete story that didn't leave anything unanswered, which can be a major problem for short stories. I did not hate it, but I just wasn't feeling it.

Oh hey, human sacrifice, one of the hypest old school traditions. This was a long read, but I enjoyed it. The introductory bit 13 years in the past was enough to grab my interest, and then learning that the main character was the daughter and she was set on killing the Dark Lord set the hook. You managed to make the exposition dump with Jahan explaining the situation a lot less dry thanks to Ana's amusing sarcasm, so bonus points for not boring me with the necessary exposition. It all came to a very satisfactory conclusion of the bad guys lose and the good guys win, and I liked the bit at the end that gives a nod to how the real meaning of such traditions fade and morph over time. Overall I liked this entry.

I've got two negative things to note though. One is the lack of explanation of the history of this place, particularly what it was like before the sacrifices started and what happened to make the people of the village go along with it. 30 years is well within living memory, so there was ample opportunity for Ana to at least have heard what the past was like and perhaps idealize it a bit to give further motivation for wanting to kill the Dark Lord, and this sort of sacrifice thing does not just randomly get accepted; something major must have happened, like the Dark Lord sending out minions to murder and/or steal a lot of people, to make the once a year offering seem reasonable in comparison. The lack of any of that information was a shame, though it didn't detract from the story itself, it just messed with my suspension of disbelief a little because the questions were floating there in the back of my mind the whole time. The other thing is the whole "we are the same person" silliness with Jahan and Nawaki. It was a twist out of nowhere that could have been handled a lot better; Jahan didn't even say anything like "you must kill him no matter what you see" to foreshadow it, and Nawaki saying they are the same person was weird and could have been replaced with the admission that he stole the body. Saying they were the same person just required a bit of awkward clarification later, which bloated and muddled the ending a bit rather than adding anything worthwhile, so it could've been improved by removing that layer of confusion in the climactic scene.

This entry started off with a strong narrative voice, which I always enjoy. The tradition was indeed an original and peculiar one. The writing was pretty good throughout and the pacing was good up until the post-murder portion of the entry.

The thing that ruined it for me, however, was the ending. To be blunt, that ending was shit. Nothing at all was done to foreshadow it, not even a mention about the father being despondent over not playing Kincaid this year, so it was a sudden twist that felt bad in the same way and for the same reasons as deus ex machina plot resolutions feel awful: it's just out of nowhere without anything like a satisfactory explanation. The dead guy was a nameless character the reader has no reason to care about, and the suspect was the mother who was a fairly flat character, and there was no explanation whatsoever about how a murder with a gun went totally unheard and what the hell happened to leave his shirt all ripped up and bruises all over his body. The perspective character being the one to "solve" the case was also pretty unfortunate, and it felt like it was done for simple narrative convenience to close out the story rather than to serve a good purpose. Worse still, it looked like you had been sort of setting up for a much more interesting murder mystery: the hype surrounding this special showing of their play set the stage, the mother saying this was going to be a great one could have hinted at her murderous plans or enough to make her a red herring, and the unusual replacement for the person playing Kincaid (for instance, I thought the reason Mayor Chadwick had a name while the other living characters did not was because you were subtly drawing a connection between him and Kincaid being the only named people to hint that he was going to get murdered) set things up for many interesting twists that could have come, but instead it was an out of nowhere maybe-suicide by a character whose first on screen appearance was as a corpse. The route you chose could have been good with proper setup earlier on in the story, but lack of deeper development for the principle characters (including the dead guy) and the sudden first time appearance of the father as the corpse meant there was no real emotional impact, no reason for the reader to care, and that's bad news for a story that's ultimately about a young lady's father dying and possibly being murdered by her mother. The apathetic ending thoughts from the main character only served to reinforce my own lack of caring for the events of this story, and that's not very good.

So basically I really liked it up until the dead guy showed up, and it went sharply downhill from there. I'm having a hard time giving it an overall assessment because of the sharp duality here, but I'll go the cautious route and say it was just okay overall.

I've said before that I don't do poetry, but I reiterate it here because this review is short and shitty because of that fact. You used decent imagery, but that's the only positive of note. There was nothing in the form of meter or rhyme to give this structure, and as a result it read in a very choppy manner, as most freeform poetry does. The subject matter makes it feel like the goal was to just be shocking for the sake of being shocking, and there's nothing in the way of a story or explanation to give any kind of context to the fucked up murderfest the poem describes. Something more to give further explanation would have been nice, and making use of some form of regular meter would have done a lot to improve the reading flow.

I didn't hate this poem, but I didn't like it either.

Well that was pretty fucking dark from start to finish, but that's mostly fine because I'm into dark stories. There were some typos that I noticed, but the writing was overall pretty good. I quite liked some of the evocative metaphors that were used, particularly comparing people to ragdolls losing their stuffing and the thing about the heavens pissing on the earth with the toxic snow. The characters were alright, decently developed given the length of the piece. It was a technically complete story with a very conclusive ending, but there were some negatives.

The worldbuilding info presented was neat and all, but as with every post-apoc story there's one overarching question that in this instance went unanswered: how did the world end up like this? A handwave of "nobody knows, mysterious catastrophe" can be acceptable, but this story didn't even have that; it's not a huge problem since there's enough information given to set up the current situation, but some kind of explanation would have been nice all the same. Then there's the start and end of the story both feeling off-kilter. The diary entry that Gwan wrote is both weirdly off in tone and mistakenly correct in tone. What I mean there is that her writing on the tradition thing made it sound like something morbid and awful was going to happen, to the point that I was expecting it to be something like cannibalism to survive the winter, so the tone was correct for what really happened but it was WAY off for a little ceremony of throwing bottles into a river. My suspicion is that you wrote it with the real ending in mind and let the tone seep through, which is something to definitely try to avoid in the future. The ending itself, while conclusive, was completely out of nowhere and did not feel great. It felt like another awful thing that happened for the sake of being awful to conclude the story of an awful life in awful post-apoc NYC with an awful death. I don't mind the whole "everything is shit" tone of the story, but that ending just came out of nowhere in a bad way. Making this ending work would've required a lot more information about the world to set up the potential threat of people (the mentioned invaders?) with a helicopter who might come and gun down a bunch of people already on the cusp of death.

So overall it was alright. I liked it for the most part, and the fact that I wanted more information about the world is partly a good thing because it means you at least caught my interest, but in my opinion that ending was more an anchor than a hype thing that brought the story to a grand finale.

The writing for this entry was alright. There was some great descriptive imagery at the very start to set the scene. The magical ice carving tradition is a neat one, and there was juuust enough worldbuilding/history info given to make it make sense. However, there were some issues.

The story is broken: it jumped straight from beginning to end without all that middle stuff that shows the main character overcoming obstacles and developing as a character. That served to make this feel like the beginning of a story rather than a whole story in and of itself. This left it feeling entirely unsatisfying in the end. There was no real setup for Invictus entering the contest, the character development was minimal, there was nothing even close to explicitly stated about how skilled a twelve-year-old kid ought to actually be with ice magic to give his feat context, and the parenthetical addition to the ending was unnecessary and detracted from what could have been a powerful line to end on. Essentially the ending is very sudden and the reader is given very little reason to care about Invictus winning this competition, so it ends up feeling less like a victorious climax and more like a pointless event in some random kid's life that means nothing to me. Fixing this problem would require adding some more meat to the story, both in the form of character development and some kind of working plot to give Invictus some kind of actual challenge to overcome, and that could turn this story in a pretty good one.

Overall it was an okay read because of the writing and description, but the above issues overshadowed the writing quality and left me feeling like a lot was missing from the entry.

This entry was very well written. The slow way the introductory bit was presented, with all the obsessing over the ink and the letters and such, was a great way to get the reader into the mindset of deliberation and reluctance before showing any actual emotional cues. Great description throughout the entry.

However, the story that followed felt rather lacking, to the point that I hesitate to even call it a complete story. The basic shell is there: people have to sacrifice members of their family for the sake of prolonging the life of this "princess" who apparently keeps the rest of them safe, this guy chooses his mother, and she gets sacrificed. Here's the big question though: why? There is next to nothing in the way of explanation of the circumstances that necessitate these sacrifices. The implication is that this is done every spring, and that multiple families give people to be sacrificed (often couples instead of one), so that implies either the life prolonging thing is incredibly inefficient or the princess needs tons and tons of power to do whatever she does. Why though? What threat does she keep at bay? Are people happy with this arrangement, or is it a matter of necessity? What might happen if the people refused to give their lives?

There could have been so much more here to give context to the sacrifices, some more worldbuilding and a story that does more than lightly breeze through events without dipping past the surface, but instead it was a quick and shallow look into this world. The writing was impressive, but the empty shell of a story was almost equally disappointing, which leaves me feeling rather neutral about this entry in the end.

This was a weird one that left me with very mixed feelings. Trying to split things purely between good and bad as I've done with the other reviews would be a pain in the ass, so I'll do this one a little differently.

The writing was mechanically mostly sound, some typos here and there but that's not a huge problem. However, the heavy use of parentheses in the second section of the story was awkward and made it read very choppily. Also, the bit of Vargis' thoughts that had a couple underlined words and one in bold was a little awkward, both because of the general principle of "less is more" in regards to emphasis and the fact that underlining is uncommon and thus jarring in prose. Same goes for the bit of Mayiwl's thought with an underlined word.

The story was interesting, enough mystery at the start to keep my attention. I wasn't sure until most of the way through whether it was a murdery ritual or some kind of fertility rite, which is a good thing that helped the twist be more of a surprise. However, the characters were not very well developed, perhaps due to the fact that this short entry managed to jump between four perspectives without giving much from any of them; keeping it to just the high priestess and Jan and developing them (and, through Jan's perspective, Vargis) would have done a lot to help make me care about them. The pacing was also very weird: lots of time passes in waiting, and then the guys arrive and everything rushes forward with no real sense of time progressing, so the ending felt rushed. It was also far from a satisfactory ending: the high priestess is dead and Vargis is possessed, but to what end? Mayiwl's curiosity about the foreigners did not feel like adequate reason for trashing the normal tradition just for the sake of possessing one, so the ending was a surprise twist that left me with a "wait, what?" sort of reaction. Making that work would have needed more explanation of Mayiwl's motivations somewhere, because as it stands I was just confused.

Overall I'm left somewhere tenuously near neutral feeling on this entry, leaning a little toward dissatisfied due to that end impression, but I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a bad story. See what I mean about this one leaving me unsure of how to judge it? Even my summary is a mess, hahaha.
 
My story, sadly enough for me, was For Name and Nation. I first want to thank everyone who gave reviews, it's always a great help to those who write the entries to get feedback on them.

Most of my advice was similar, and it hurt - not because the reviews themselves were particularly hurtful or rude, but more because the issues listed were ones that I could have fixed if I had actually put in the effort while writing my piece. I slacked off, handed in something sub-par, and this was clearly visible to everyone.

So I'd like to apologize, and promise to do better next time.

Many congratulations to the winners, who truly deserved it this time. I clap for you.
 
@Ananfal Keep your chin up. Obviously if you say you slacked off, I can't say otherwise - but you were one of ten entries, and your participation makes stuff like this work. It makes it worthwhile. That's commendable!

No apologies necessary, and keep it up yo.
 
I was going to vote for "Tidings of Discomfort and Misery", but my internet ran out right as I was hitting the button ;_;
The thought counts!
 
My story, sadly enough for me, was For Name and Nation. I first want to thank everyone who gave reviews, it's always a great help to those who write the entries to get feedback on them.

Most of my advice was similar, and it hurt - not because the reviews themselves were particularly hurtful or rude, but more because the issues listed were ones that I could have fixed if I had actually put in the effort while writing my piece. I slacked off, handed in something sub-par, and this was clearly visible to everyone.

So I'd like to apologize, and promise to do better next time.

Many congratulations to the winners, who truly deserved it this time. I clap for you.
But you still submitted something so you can be proud of that. My last entry was terrible and I knew it but you know what, who cares? You had fun and you completed something right? That's the point :) you can always continue to work on it, 1 month really isn't very long. so good job!
 
:O!!!

Oh my goodness... I honestly did not expect to win this month, seeing the other entries. I'm... totally blown away right now!

*collects remnants of thoughts*


Thank you so much to those who voted, and for the reviews. I'm honestly, truly humbled right now. ^_^
totally did not peg that one as yours! I'm normally good at picking yours out. Awesome job! Congrats!

Also not sure how I missed the announcement post and all that. sorry about the multiple posts! Blaming on it being 3 in the morning.

Great job to everyone!
 
Ooooh! Congratulations to the winners Greenie and Holmishire.

My entry was the mundane one, edging the rules; ‘Coming of Age’. I can agree with the feedback given, it wasn’t a strong piece, and it was definitely at the bland side. This was a good experience, got me out of my comfort zone and gives me something to work with on my writing.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Greenie
Ooooh! Congratulations to the winners Greenie and Holmishire.

My entry was the mundane one, edging the rules; ‘Coming of Age’. I can agree with the feedback given, it wasn’t a strong piece, and it was definitely at the bland side. This was a good experience, got me out of my comfort zone and gives me something to work with on my writing.
I don't think it was mundane! It was really cute
 
  • Thank You
Reactions: Nemopedia
This entry had a lot of ideas that really interested me but I feel like it could have used a lot more words to flesh these ideas out. As it is, it jumps a bit without letting ideas be processed (The cat talks? The girl is a real spirit ?) and has some things that I felt were inconsistent, like the spirit not touching the candies and not being seen but picking up the cat. I also wish that the holiday traditions had been explored a little more for their significance as they were a key part of this prompt. The ending was a bit jumbled for me - the conclusion with the girl felt fairly satisfying but it would have been interesting, as it was the "mission" of the story, to discuss any potential setback, challenges, etc. The last part feels like the story was meant to have more to it but the vaguely ominous reference to a previously unknown character was confusing as it stands. Overall, a piece with potential that ended up being much shorter than I think it should be.

The idea for the tradition and the backstory is pretty nifty but the two first person perspective is, for starters, kind of odd with the setup that this one dude is the one telling the story. Second, the perspective jumps so frequently that it got me a little turned around in scenes about who was where and doing what. Perspective shift can be a useful narrative tool for giving the reader details that couldn't otherwise be known but I don't think that this was an effective use of that benefit for the downside of being jarring and jumpy that it ended up with. That said, aside from where the perspective made me feel somewhat lost in the fight scenes, the fighting was pretty well written and tense. The story arc is fully realized and the story feels complete, though, so props for that.

This story felt like it was building up to the children learning something life-changing (and could have been handled that way, with the secret) but I think that it built itself up to that point and then didn't deliver the payload. For a story titled Coming of Age, there was little attention paid to the impact of this knowledge and the ending kind of trails off without imparting much meaning. I think that, without addressing any outcome of the knowledge, the story doesn't reach a satisfying conclusion and instead feels like there's more - what did the children think of this? What is the impact of learning this secret on them, and perhaps on the adults as they crush this childhood innocence? That said, it was a likeable piece and even having a good idea of the ending to come was an amusing read.

This story had a full realized story arc, which is a plus for it. The middle of the story with the events is decent and the story makes sense as a seamless whole. The ending, however, felt a little rushed and is probably the victim of time limit. I think that if more time were given to smoothing out the ending, it would be even better but as it stands, Ana is a good protagonist with clear motivations and the story makes sense and is easy to follow. I don't know if it was in part because of my suspicious nature but I was very mistrustful of Jahan throughout and that was a little bit of a stumble to come around to him actually really being the good guy. I feel like the dynamics of the village could have been explored a little more - with 30-something women sacrificed in a time period many adults will remember, it would seem to me that more people than Ana would probably not be in a feasting mood on this anniversary of death for so many women who probably had families.

This story started off with a lot of promise and was interesting to me. I was envisioning a handful of possible plot twists as the murder theatre began… and then I felt like the ending was the product of a realization that there was no time to fully flesh out any one of those and decided to just cauterize the story instead. It didn't tie up the loose ends and just left me feeling unsatisfied, which is a real shame because I was looking forward to reading a murder mystery from the beginning paragraphs and I thought it would be a fun work. Another point that I want to bring up was some words that felt out of place “mildly considered” and “calm, apathetic atmosphere” both felt off for me. To recap: I think this story could have been really enjoyable to read if it were longer and all in the artistic and descriptive style of the beginning.

This entry was short and didn't really tell me a story. The vocabulary was evocative and did conjure some imagery. The imagery kind of reminds me of those over-the-top scare stories from the religious fundamentalists about Satan worship, however. This poem describes a scene, though, not really any concrete characters, plot, etc. which is why, in my opinion, there wasn't a story being told here and not enough indication to think that this is a "tradition" without the context of the prompt..

I liked the character and felt a good connection with her at the beginning and enjoyed the moments where it felt like a budding relationship with her and Murlok but I felt that her connection drifted a little as the story progressed and it distanced itself from her in a way. The tone of her diary felt a lot more ominous than a ceremony about bottles and I think that you knowing the upcoming dark events wrote the beginning with that tone in mind and led to a certain amount of disparity between tone and events. The ending with the helicopter felt like it came out of nowehere and I think that, with more detail about the cause, knowing who it might be more concretely, etc. this might have a greater impact but as it stands, it left the story feeling meaningless for me. There was no message, no lessons learned, no real take-away. The story was bleak and then abruptly became depressing and then it was over. Overall, I liked the writing style and I think it could be a very touching story with some minor reworking and more time.

The setting is well-done and has some good worldbuilding marks to it that give a decent picture of where the story is taking place. The story could have done with being many times longer, though, and the ending doesn't really have an impact. The story told feels like a foreword of what Invictus does later in life and on its own doesn't have much context. I was not entirely sure what the purpose of his heart was intended to be and I think following through on these ideas would make a more intriguing tale.

The ideas are interesting and the writing style is pleasant to read with good mechanics and its own tone but the explanation about what is going on ends up feeling unfinished at the end of the piece. There are lots of questions left unanswered about what feel like key elements, like what they're being protected from exactly. Is this something done with elders, as is the case with his mother? Or just anyone? How do people feel about this girl using their relatives to prolong her own life? I was left with a lot of questions and despite the strong beginning where the main character felt very relatable, I don't know much about him as a character at all. An interesting idea that is much too short to do itself justice, I think.

The exposition at the beginning feels a little weighed down with so much new information being doled out with little pause or explanation but it does smooth itself out as the story progresses. The story seems a little jumpy in pacing, spending a lot of time on certain scenes that are pretty slow and then the ending seemed to just hop right through at max speed. Likely again a bit cramped because of the time deadline, it felt rushed at the end but had an interesting “two side of an Indiana Jones movie gone horribly wrong” feeling for me. I thought that the ideas were attention-grabbing and would be enjoyable to read more fleshed out.
 
Last edited:
Hey guys! My piece was Waterworks!

Thank you so much for the feedback. This wasn't my best piece, and I think I know the reason why. First of all, as some have guessed: this is indeed part of a larger story (and therein lies some of the problem). The second problem, of course, is that it is based off a holiday I am incredibly familiar with, Thai New Year, and I banked a little too hard on reader inference to understand some of the customs that are intuitive to me as Thai. My third problem was that I was doing my best to try and jam that information into a story largely fifteen hundred words for length reasons, and I fell under a little too far, and left a little too much unsaid.

That said, I'm glad that at the least the characterization was passable enough that the story still garnered interest and that there was enough of a compelling world to keep people asking questions about it and wanting to know more.

Congrats to the winners, and great entries guys!
 
(1) Congrats to the winners! Not surprised at the results. Good job, guys.
(2) I'm grateful to everyone that entered, because I really like these contests and want to keep them alive.
(3) I enjoyed reading everyone's contributions.
(4) Loved all the reviews and appreciated everyone being courteous.

I especially enjoyed the reviews that @Jorick cranked out. (I really do get how busy you are, appreciate you taking the time to do this, and imagine it must be frustrating to trod through our (my) maze of words and crank out some very sound advice without losing your mind. I apologize for my delinquency and promise to be a better rabbit in the future, senpai.)

Please don't (anyone) be hurt by reviews. If people didn't enter because they thought their entry was flawed, or not their best work, or were rushed for time, then we wouldn't have much of a contest at all! We're all in this together and I'm sure no one here thinks badly of any contestant.

My only concern is how few people vote, considering the number of members we have. It's a bit shocking to me, really. Oh, and how faulty my own contribution was. :arrowthruhead: Other than that - happy happy!
 
Alright :D Now that I'm up, bushy tailed and bright eyed (okay, not really), I'll reply to the reviews my story was given!

@KJDarKnight - You're absolutely right that the ending was a bit anticlimactic. Even if others liked it, the last fight was something I was worried about. I think It would have turned out better if I spent some more time thinking it out. You're also right that it would do a whole lot better in a longer story... which it will, hopefully! This is actually the fifth chapter of my NaNoWriMo story, a backstory that takes place way before the events of the book, so more does get explained in the book.

@Shizuochan - Thanks for the advice! Showing vs Telling is definitely something I know I could use some work on, so I appreciate the nudge in that direction!

@Ravenfrost - But stumbling about like an idiot can be scary, especially a clumsy person like me! XD Thanks for the review, I hope to become the writer you envision me to be!

@Pahn - Tropey in what sense? Besides the normal Mary Sue, I'm not too good at identifying them. I'm glad you liked Ana though! Length was something I was actually trying to condense, but I personally couldn't see where I could snip things down without compromising the actual story.

@Greenie - Oh wait, that's my own review. I still do agree that Nawaki's fight could have been better. *shame, shame, shame*

@Nemopedia - You make a very good and valid point... There be a plot hole. That wasn't actually something I thought of. OOPS. I'll have to think of something now though XD. However, about the knight, he was actually never burned alive; that was all an illusion for the outsiders to believe. He was kinda just stuck there and ended up dying and probably feasted upon by spooder... I mean spiders. :p

@Jorick - I'm really glad you liked the way I dumped the exposition. I was worried about that because it was necessary information but I didn't want to bore Ana as well as the reader as if it was some boring lecture... I wanted it to come out naturally. As for the negative things to note, thank you! Extremely useful to note and I'm definitely going to take them under advice as I complete Nano as well as edit my story.

@Kitti - Teehee, I'm glad you felt the weird vibes about Jahan, because I was kind of hoping for that. Ana never completely lost her mistrust of him, so I hoped that it showed a little bit. I definitely agree about the village dynamics as well, and that's something I'm going to take into consideration when finishing/editing my Nano entry!

----------

Just wanted to add that the inspiration for my story was Okami ^_^

Also >.> I had been double minded about whether Jahan should live or die, but decided the former because I didn't feel his death would make much of an impact. Besides >.> I need him for my story; he amuses me.
 
Last edited:
Mine was "Do You Believe In Magic?"

Firstly I would like to thank @PoetLore for her vote. I always say I will be happy to get one vote and she made that happen. So thank you. Made this whole experience worth it.


Secondly, I would like to thank all those who took the time to read my work and give constructive feedback. Constructive criticism helps a lot and is mostly why I enter these contests.
I will take the suggestions given into account as I refine this story.

I struggle a lot with grammar so I do apologize for that, it's something I am really working on so thank you @Jorick for giving me something specific to watch out for.

Also, I knew switching perspectives was a risk but I decided to just run with it. I agree it did break things up more than it needed to be and probably would have worked better if it had been a longer story with more plot twists and deeper character development. As it is I am considering changing it all entirely to a single perspective, that should help a lot.

I have been working on the characters themselves more so hopefully I can add in more depth that my story was lacking.

Lastly I would just like to say, that despite some hurtful reviews about my story. I stand proudly by it. I know that it is not perfect, a month is hardly long enough, and really, is any story ever perfect?
I am however proud of this one and rather happy with what I was able to come up with given the short time that I had. (I didn't have as long as I had other things going on that month, giving me about a week to write. So I am also proud how quickly I was able to get this done. )

Anyway, that is all.
 
A little late to the party but here are my thoughts on the entries. I'd also like to say Well Done to everyone who did submit an entry.

I enjoyed this entry and it was a real contender for my vote. The story was interesting, the characters were likeable and the style was relaxed and accessible. The things that counted against this entry are mostly minor things.

The use of herring swimming around a shark momentarily jolted me out of the picture in my head of the world and dumped me into a cold Norwegian fjord. My personal preference would to be use something generic like small fish instead. Also, the introduction the spirit girl’s name could have been smoother. The first time I read it I went eh, who the heck is that and had to go back a bit. Really this is just nit-picking though.

The thing that swung my opinion against this entry is what seemed like the characters referring to bits of story we don’t get to see. It felt like we were just getting a snapshot of the story. There were too many references to outside information for me to pick this as my choice in the end. Good work never the less.

This entry had a fun plot and lovely descriptions that really helped me picture the world. It was a little obvious where things were going but for me that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I enjoyed the journey to get to the end and for my money that's more important than a wholly surprising ending. Lots of good stories have ending you can see from a mile away. How they get there is what is entertaining.

However, I was not a fan of the first and last sections of this entry. They made me feel that Isaac was telling the story but then we also have Kaylee’s PoV. It feels like this was used to allow for the resolution of the will she stay or will she go cliff hanger at the end of the entry.

Additionally, I disliked how no one told Isaac that killing Krampus only makes him respawn elsewhere. There were opportunities for this to happen that didn’t because the characters seemed to decide that this critical information didn’t need to be transferred to the human for reasons. I actually think the story would be more interesting if Isaac had known but done it anyway.

Finally, and this is getting nit-picky now, the formatting was off putting. I don’t know if the double line gaps were intentional but they threw off my flow and made this entry more work to read than it needed to be. I enjoyed reading this entry but slicker formatting would have helped.

It was rather obvious where this entry was going but unlike with other entries the journey to get there wasn’t particularly interesting. In hindsight I realise I’ve said this a couple of times in these reviews but never the less this entry feels like it ends without actually getting to the end of the story. I would say however the sibling dynamics were nicely done and felt realistic to me so nice work on that.

This was the winning entry for me. It had an entertaining and complete plot that was satisfying, a relaxed and easy to read style (like water works) and an opening hooked me and connected me with Ana right from the get-go. Like I’ve said before the fact ending was fairly obvious from the start wasn’t an issue for me, it was a fun journey to get there.

My main gripe with this is that the big confrontation scene is a bit of an anti-climax. Yes, there's the revelation about Jahan but other than that it's a bit quick and easy almost. While there is satisfaction in Ana triumphing over the Dark Lord, it's definitely less than if there had been more of a struggle. There are ways to make a surprisingly easily overcome villain more interesting but that would require some ground work near the beginning of the story. As it is the end felt weaker than the rest of the story.

The other thing the irked me was that by year five of this sacrifice regime it's already become an established thing to have a communal knees up after each sacrifice day. It just seems a bit too quick. If Mumma Ana had been sacrifice thirty instead it would feel less odd that it had become a thing to have a party afterwards.

My feeling for this entry is that it was really quite good but was seriously let down by the ending. It was a interesting right until the protagonist goes to look in the murder room again. After that it just falls really flat. It feels like we get to the end rather prematurely. There's all the setup for a really interesting story but none of the follow through that answers questions satisfactorily. With a rewritten, extended ending this entry could be a really good read.

I don’t get poetry past the level of “There once was a man from Nantucket”. This entry has nice imagery but that's pretty much all I have to say about it. Sorry.

I actually read this entry last because based on the title I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it much. Once I got going, I started to get into it and it was a real contender for me right until the moment the helicopter appeared. It feels like after this point the author rushed towards the end.

I wasn’t hugely connected to the characters by this point in the story but the little bubbles of hope that they might be rescued were popped the moment five people are unceremoniously killed off in a sentence. For me this muted and reaction I then had to the rest of the group being mown down by machine gun fire. When I finished reading I just felt eh about the whole thing. Perhaps if the moments of hope had been allowed to grow for longer before the sudden killing off all of the characters this ending would have had more of an effect rather than just feeling like a quick and easy way to end the entry.

This was a well written entry with nice descriptions and if it had been the prelude to a bigger story then it would be very interesting. As it is however well frankly it's just too brief. There no real journey for us the reader to go on. We meet Invictus and he gets his power. Then he goes straight on to create the most beautiful ice sculpture four hours and he declares his wish for fame. The end. There’s just not enough in this to make me care about Invictus. In fact if anything, I kind of think he’s a bit of a twerp. There are the bones of a good story in this entry but it needs more substance to get there.

This was a well written entry with beautiful descriptive writing although personally for me the tone and style made it harder to read, almost slightly unwelcoming. The events of this entry were interesting but honestly there wasn’t enough in it for me to connect with it. My reaction on finishing was pretty much: oh, that happened, Ok. Similar to Name and Nation, if this were part of a bigger story it would be really quite interesting. As it is it there just isn’t enough of it to get me invested before it’s all over.

I liked the introduction of this entry. The wording works to create a slightly otherworldly feel about this god/entity. Unfortunately, after that this entry became rather difficult for me to follow. Partly this is because I have to juggle quite a few character perspectives in relatively shirt amount of time and partly this is because it feels like we are only getting shown the highlight of the story. The jumpy, irregular timeline of the scenes meant that by the end, yes, we know what happened but we barely know why it happened. There is a lot of promise in this entry but I think it needs expanding to meet its full potential.
 
I appreciate all the reviews on my hot piece of garbage. I knew the ending fell flat before I ever submitted it, but after reworking it umpteen million times and not getting anything else from it I gave up. Mine was Killing Kincaid
 
  • Bucket of Rainbows
  • Love
Reactions: Jorick and Greenie
Thank you for all who voted! I'm quite surprised I won this time 'round, and I'll try not to let it get to my head.

Unfortunately, I didn't get around to writing critiques in time again though I might look into doing it later if there's interest. It usually takes me about 24 hours of re-reading and writing, so the exams I'm currently studying for are getting in the way.
 
Thank you for all who voted! I'm quite surprised I won this time 'round, and I'll try not to let it get to my head.
Congrats Holmi!!!


:confetti: :confetti: :confetti: :confetti: