I'd like to give my appreciation to [@RomanAria], [@mdk], and [@PlatinumSkink] for reviewing my entry. For those who may have forgotten, I wrote the Death of the Watchman—and realized too late how ultimately generic that title would become in this context!

(As an aside, I particularly enjoyed the Adversity of Death, the Early Demise of Benjamin Wilkins, and the Forgotten Death of Peter.)

[hider=@RomanAria][quote=@RomanAria]I would have loved some more background, however, like some more information on the characters and on the rebellion. That would have required a ton and a half of explaining, I know, but it would have made the story have a greater impact, at least on me. I can’t care about characters if I don’t know their stories.[/quote]
A good point. I struggled a bit with integrating some kind of synopsis of past events, so in the end I decided to focus entirely on the scene to make my life less complex. Good for me—not so much for the entry.

This acts as the conclusion to an arc of which I've only written the introduction—in the form of a short story titled "Bargain". I haven't written any of the actual rebellion yet, so even I am a bit fuzzy on the details!

[quote=@RomanAria]I know it’s a rather harsh nitpick, but I noticed words like “afore” in “Greg swept his arm afore him…” kind of seemed a little too…medieval, and stuck out a little bit, and the word “pavel”… I looked it up but I couldn’t figure out a definition, and it was really bothering me. Context-clues indicate that it’s some kind of paving stone, maybe a portmanteau of “paver” and “gravel” but… I couldn’t figure it out, and it really disrupted the flow of the story. [/quote]
Aye, I've always had a weakness for older words. It's a habit I doubt I'll ever be able to resist.

As for "pavel"... That actually [i]was[/i] a portmanteau, of pavement and gravel. I couldn't find the word I was looking for at the time, so I used it as a placeholder, and then missed it on my reread.

[quote=@RomanAria]“[i]Who[/i] knew of whom she thought…” seemed a little peculiarly phrased; shouldn’t it have been “[i]He[/i] knew of whom she thought...”?[/quote]
oops

Looks like my proofreading isn't quite up to snuff.

[quote=@RomanAria]Your sentence fluency is absolutely flawless. It felt like my eyes were dancing down the screen, not actually needing to stop and consider clauses or fragments or anything.[/quote]
This is a big relief to me. I can always work on improving story elements, but I was worried I might lose this due to lack of practise. Thank you.[/hider][hider=@mdk]
[quote=@mdk]I'm not [i]crazy[/i] about the prevailing passive voice...... [i]It's not necessarily wrong in this context[/i], because it separates readers from the thing being described (We don't really need to be thinking too hard about the reconstruction having not started). But the one that kills me is the stabbing line -- you're mad, you're mad, that [i]can't[/i] be passive, it just can't. Broughton made a fist around his sword and rammed it in Jack's intestines. That has to [i]happen[/i] -- it can't just [i]be happening.[/i] Especially not in first person.[/quote]
If I remember correctly, the difference between passive and active voices can be summarized as "The wrench was thrown by the mechanic" and "The mechanic threw the wrench", right?

If so, I can see now upon rereading my entry how that takes away from the action. I did it largely because I was instinctively following the scene through Jack's perspective in the beginning, where it made sense, and I didn't realize the error in continuing it.[/hider]