WOTM #21 Voting

[gamer5]

First I would wish to thank everyone who voted and commented, since it can only give us (by my opinion), the authors, an idea of how good is our writings. Again thank you for your support.

Second, my was the winning title. I have to say that I didn't expect to win since it was my first WOTM and the story was written in around 2 hours time. Still I am glad I did. I will continue to participate in the future WOTMs and hopefully win a few more and increase my writing skills in English.

And at last thanks to everyone which goes trough the trouble of reading our entries and choosing a theme for each WOTM. Thank you Brovo, Kagamine & Contra Fates.

So until the next WOTM your

gamer5.

[gardevoirgirl76]

Hello peeps! I'm the writer behind the second entry, "Shooting Star". The reason I wanted no comments was because I kinda wanted to hear them after the voting is closed. To say at least, I knew for sure that I was most comfortable in this theme this month, so I went for it as my first time in the WOTM. I wasn't expecting for my entry to be a runner-up, as I actually never revised my piece at all, just came to me straight away.

Overall, I had fun with writing and being a part of this. Also props to the other wonderful writers and their entries too. Definitely in the future, I'm going to go for it again to improve my writing skills.

~Garde

[Epic Doctor X]

Good work guys! And congratulations, gamer5!

[Jorick]

I didn't get around to voting for (or entering) this month's contest because reasons, but I'll still put up reviews nonetheless.

I liked the concept of this story, but I feel like the execution was a bit lacking. Someone sacrificing a large chunk of their life and apparently their sanity for a loved one's peace of mind is certainly fitting for the theme. It was unclear whether Grace was actually in Hell after making a deal with the devil or if she was just crazy, but I think that helped the story more than it hurt. Without a clear answer it leaves it up to the reader to decide which it is, whether she's in Hell or just a psychiatric ward, or perhaps it's a combo of the two where 'Hell' is her own insane mind she's trapped in via making a deal for her husband and she's also in a real psych ward, which is fun. A firm and clear answer could have worked as well; if you intended for it to be such a clear answer I feel like there was too much possible contradiction in what the nurses said and did at the end.

As for negative things, the writing was a little bit choppy, too many short sentences following one another to give an oddly stilted pace to the work. I would suggest reading your work aloud and seeing if it feels natural to make a full stop at all those points; if a short pause fits better, you're probably better off with a comma. The story also feels like it lacks built up tension. Things just sort of happen with very little sense of drama, which leaves it feeling a little bland. Grace was also somewhat bland: all the reader knows about her is that she's off her rocker and that she possibly sacrificed herself for her husband, we get no other personality traits about her at all. Both of those problems could be solved by having a little something added in there near the beginning to flesh out the character, give the reader something more to relate to than confusion so they're more invested in what happens to her.

Overall I'd say it wasn't bad, you've got a fair grasp of the language and such. With a little refinement on the fine points I could see you pulling out a win easily in the future, if you haven't done so already in a previous month.

Normally I wouldn't be giving comments because of the no comments tag, but your clarification in the thread of wanting to delay them rather than not wanting them at all made me go ahead and do it anyway. This entry gave me an amusingly opposite impression from entries 1 and 5: the writing and basic mechanics were solid, but I wasn't fond of the plot. There's not a whole lot to say on the positives front without getting overly dramatic. You know how to write well and use the language to your advantage. A little more symbolism and metaphor use wouldn't hurt, but you're fine as you are.

For negative bits, well, the plot felt a little boring. Your entry's plot was kind of unfairly overshadowed by the others for me; I read about madness, death, and horrible atrocities for sacrifices and then I got to this one. Sacrificing money for one's child doesn't seem a huge sacrifice at all because that's kind of what parents do anyway. There wasn't enough weight placed upon the sacrifice to make it feel significant, no mention of why exactly it was risky or a major sacrifice at all, so it didn't feel like it mattered. I also felt like the plot got kind of rough after about the first half, especially the father randomly going ballistic and abandoning his family. Some hint of discontent before that point would have made it much better, but I know you had only so much space to work with. Oh, and also the whole idea of using college funds to pay bail is a little silly considering that there are organizations that make a business out of covering bail for people and charging a percentage fee to make profit.. but it occurs to me that this is mainly a thing in the United States, not elsewhere. So I guess if you either haven't had any personal experience with someone needing to pay bail or you're from elsewhere in the world then you're excused for this thing that seems an oddity to me.

Anyway, it was a good entry overall. Just a few plot points that I had issue with and then the unfortunate fact that your competition had more interesting plots. I give a lot of credit for things being well written though, such that I tend to give more weight to writing skill than plot, so your entry didn't come off as being less than the others with more extreme sacrifices. If I'd gotten around to reading and reviewing these entries before the poll closed I quite possibly would have voted for your entry due to the clear difference in writing skill and there being only a few moderate issues with the plot rather than major problems. So yeah, take that for whatever it's worth. Good work, keep writing.

I couldn't really get into this entry. It dropped right into the middle of what feels like it should be a much larger story and then not a whole lot happened. Opening with a question is a good way of drawing the reader in, but after that soft initial hook there was nothing to keep interest. Naming the secondary character Old Man dehumanized him a bit and he had very little in the way of personality other than 'gruff old guy with a nice side,' making his eventual death feel fairly unimportant. Then the plot itself feels a little incomplete, a snippet of a full story. Why are people rebelling? Who was the general that died and why was he so important? What did Ellis do to be sentenced to death? Stopping with Ellis joining the rebels is fine and dandy, but more backstory would have been nice to give it weight.

There were a couple more issues I feel need to be mentioned. Your entry seems to lack paragraphs; most things are one or two sentences rather than a fully fledged paragraph. This issue is exacerbated by your choice of a smaller than default font size, which turned even your largest paragraphs into two line sections that make them seem kind of tiny. You also had a bit of issue with going back and forth between past and present tense.

I think that's about it. You're not a bad writer, there are just a few areas that could do with improvement. The issues I had with the plot likely came from the word limit you were working under or some rushing rather than any inherent problem with the plot itself, since I feel like it would have been much better with some simple background info. A good effort overall, just needs a little work.

I'll readily admit that poetry doesn't do much for me. I see poetry and my eyes kind of glaze over. Dunno why that is, I guess poetry just isn't my thing.

Anyway, yeah, free verse. Not the greatest choice, I'd say. Without the framework of rhyming and verses of specific length you're left standing on just your flow and imagery. I don't know if you really succeeded there, the flow seemed too broken up by an excess of commas to feel good and draw the reader along. The imagery was okay, nothing fantastic, not much in the way of metaphors and the like. There's also that bit of coding that got left in the last verse, which isn't a huge deal but also serves as a distraction.

All in all I'm not sure if it's my inherent lack of interest in poetry causing me to dislike it or if this is actually a flawed piece. I won't pretend to give a solid judgement on it because I'm aware of my natural bias. If you think I'm full of crap, hey, I could be. Sorry I couldn't give you a more knowledgeable review.

Hrm. I finished reading this and felt very similar about it as I did with Entry 1, but to greater extremes on either side. I like this story concept a lot, a girl who has to do whatever it takes to support her family, sacrificing all sorts of things for their sake. The character was rather easy to sympathize with, which is great for a story that is supposed to have some emotional impact. I very much enjoy darker themes and tones so I give you some bonus points for that. However, there were some major problems that I noticed.

The problems all really come down to the writing. There are places taht seem to be missing words, improper verbs tenses, some issues with maintaining past or present tense consistently, and quite a bit of awkward phrasing throughout. Some of these can be excused because it's supposed to be spoken words and some people have less than proper ways of speaking, but it's still a little much for me to write off as a stylistic choice. Just before posting these reviews I read the thread through to make sure I didn't miss anything and it seems that you're either not a native English speaker or someone who's simply aware of their need to improve; whichever the case may be, keep on working at it and I'm sure you'll improve. Your writing certainly isn't the worst I've ever read, not even close to it in fact, and I'm mainly being a stickler because it's a contest.

So yeah, I've got mixed feelings about this one. Not much to say about it other than that. Congrats on the win.

If I'd gotten around to reading the entries in a timely fashion I probably would have given my vote to Entry #2, though I can certainly see the appeal of #5's dark tale. Congratulations gamer5, and good work everybody else.

[Angel reilyx]

Oh hey, voting is done ._.

I am the unfortunate soul that was Entry #3, and I would like to thank those who offered me a review/pointed out what could have been better. Fortunately I was already aware that my entry was rather... Lackluster. The day that the theme was revealed I began working right away at getting a story roughed out so I could refine it down to something palatable. And then... Nothing. Every day I was stuck. I had an epiphany for "something that I can use" at the last minute and promptly wrote most of it well after midnight just before the final deadline, crashed, then woke up and scrapped together what I could remember of the ending.

Sadly this resulted in a rather poor showing of my writing ability, but I'm happy to have gotten the challenge and reviews either way

I look forward to participating again, and hopefully not getting stuck like I did this time!

~

On the flip side, I didn't vote in this WOTM. After I scrapped together my entry, my free time took a dive as work picked up. Congrats to the winner!

[gamer5]

Jorick, you are right about me, English is not my native language and there is still lot to learn. Also since I only wrote one short story in English before I still have lot's to learn. Also you should know that I just written the story as it came to me, I think while it added to the fact that it sounds like an actual recording it sacrificed what you mentioned. I wrote the story from for two hours, between 2 and 4 am by my local time so after finishing I wast tired and mentally exhausted I just run it trough Office and didn't lector it to much. It is my first WOTM so I give myself some slack. LOL.
(BTW I also have written some epic song lyrics in English. If anyone likes or plays rock-style music I will gladly share them with you.)

[Jorick]

Jorick, you are right about me, English is not my native language and there is still lot to learn. Also since I only wrote one short story in English before I still have lot's to learn. Also you should know that I just written the story as it came to me, I think while it added to the fact that it sounds like an actual recording it sacrificed what you mentioned. I wrote the story from for two hours, between 2 and 4 am by my local time so after finishing I wast tired and mentally exhausted I just run it trough Office and didn't lector it to much. It is my first WOTM so I give myself some slack. LOL.
(BTW I also have written some epic song lyrics in English. If anyone likes or plays rock-style music I will gladly share them with you.)

Haha, yeah, you definitely deserve some slack for those things. In the future you should give yourself more time so as to be able to run it through a spellcheck and do some revisions, same goes for everyone regardless of how confident they are with their skills.