Holmishire

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

So... Shall we speculate about how the Hydra ties into the challenge thematically? I'm guessing it has something to do with the many heads and having too much of it.

@Psyga315

That seems the most logical explanation. The more skilled you are in slaying beasts, the more dangerous the hydra becomes.

But if we really want to push it—Hercules dipped his arrows in the venom of the slain hydra, which he used repeatedly in his following labours. Their deadly properties were quite helpful. His last kill, however, was Nessus, a centaur. This centaur convinced Hercules's wife to fashion his skin into a coat to give to Hercules, and when he put on the coat, the venom that had killed Nessus then killed him.

But really, I think it's actually what you suggested.

RPGC #2 Conversation Thread

There is one thing you should tell me though, is C+ still a decent grade? I'm not familiar with that grade system, we don't use that in the Netherlands. I know A is the highest and F the lowest, but I'm not quite sure how I should view a C+

@WiseDragonGirl

C+ is the standard to me. It holds its own, but is not yet ready to impress me.

Tentative explanation

While the grading system is roughly based off of the academic standard, I should note that I use it in a more ambiguous way, mostly so that I can quickly go over how I felt about the entries in comparison to each other. These aren't academic evaluations, just my personal appreciation for the entry.

I've never given a failing grade—though I've also never felt I've had to. D is as close as I go to a failing grade, an entry that I find lacking in redeeming qualities. The lower two Cs are in need of a lot of improvement, but do have good foundations somewhere. C+ is effectively the standard; it is satisfactory enough for me as a reader to be able to look past its flaws and enjoy it, good but not yet great. The Bs are when entries have started to reach a high level of quality—B- for when the entry seems to be good quality but doesn't speak to me personally, B for when an entry starts being something I might be interested in reading outside of the contest setting. B+ is where entries become favourites. And the As, which I only give out to a very small number of entries, are those that I find go above and beyond my expectations.

So basically, C is good, with C+ being the standard of quality; B is great, with B+ becoming personal favourites; and A is amazing, with A+ making me surprised this is even an RPGC entry.

At least, that's the gist of it!

RPGC #2 Conversation Thread

However it has come to my attention that no one can quite tell what my piece is about. I am happy with this out come. I will admit I know where I was going, and how everything connects. But I like to see it being interpeted in different ways.
Also, the length is due to the fact that I stumbled across this contest at 11 pm, the day before it was due And decided to write something quickly to submit.

@Elitestpotato

I hope at the very least you'll give us some insight into the hidden meaning of your text once the contest ends—if not before then, though I can completely understand the desire to see where the river flows first.

Also (this applies to anyone, not just last-minute entries) -- I haven't set up the archive just yet, on account of, you know, we've only had the one contest finished so far. But when I do get it up, if you'd prefer to replace your submitted entry with an edited version (perhaps fleshed out after the deadline is past, or perhaps taking some critiques to heart and updating accordingly), we're planning on supporting that.

@mdk

Out of curiosity, will entrants be able to opt-out of having their entries archived—or alternatively, opt-in? I ask largely because I know some of the writers in the first contest felt disappointed in their work, wanting to improve, and so they might want to wait until they've written something they feel proud of before it gets permanently displayed.

RPGC #2 Conversation Thread

Also, I wrote my entry in legitimately 15 minutes. I'm shocked it's done this well in the contest.

@RomanAria

Oh.

I'd better go make my review about fifty times harsher.

RPGC#2 Voting Thread

My vote goes to A Thought About Power.

RPGC #2 Conversation Thread

Entry #1: Delta Squad

>C
The hook was effective, though briefly. While a fairly standard approach, having a seemingly scripted message concisely delineate the essential contextual information is a good, quick way of both keeping the reader on track right of the bat, and setting the tone. I'll note, however, that the said a voice significantly diminished this effect. It is a very, very generic statement that provides no new information whatsoever to the reader—anything from a synonym for the verb to an adjective to elucidate the nature of the voice would have helped greatly here.

Now, to the bulk of the entry.

There are some spelling mistakes—oppurtunity vs opportunity, for example—but more noticeably both punctuation and capitalization are used haphazardly. I won't go into detail for the latter, it is a relatively simple thing to look up. However, I'll offer some tips for the punctuation.

• Take the sentence, Ash saw this as a opportunity, she quickly kicked the single gun from his hand and pulled her own from her case and fired point blank into his face. Looking at the comma, one can see that if replaced with a period, it would still form two correct sentences; this tells us the comma does not fit here. There are three options.
  • First, replace the comma with a period (.). This makes for two sentences, and is the basic form. It cause the reader to take a momentary break between the two, and slows things down. Conversely, it puts more focus on the "opportunity", leaving that shorter sentence with more impact before the reader moves on.
  • Second, replace the comma with a semi-colon (;). This links the two sentences together, and is closest in concept to the comma itself. In this way, the second half of the sentence becomes a direct result of the first half, improving flow.
  • Third, replace the comma with an em-dash (—). A favourite of mine, the effect here is one of speed. The two sentences read as if actions are moving quicker, with less time taken to let things sink in. Very useful for rapid series of events.
  Of course, which you choose to use is up to you; it is a stylistic choice, but being aware of the supposed effect can be helpful. I guess you could also continue to use the comma, but that'd be grammatically incorrect.

There are a bunch of other things I can nitpick on—for example, I feel the use of parentheses when listing kills turns it into a 'oh by-the-way' type aside, whereas it should instead be a chilling reminder of the grimness of the setting. However, I won't let this review get too steeped in technicalities.

Anyways, on the story aspects. I enjoy the overwhelming nature of her predicament and its effects on her psyche—however, it feels as though it is too quickly glided over. There is but one paragraph, really, where she questions the morality of her actions, and thereafter it is merely 'no conscience, kill now, no time for morality'. It's a little hard to believe she would so quickly shift in mentality, especially considering imminent death was equally present in both situations.

In fact, this rapidity of thought-shifting is similar to the entries scene-shifting—only the tiniest of moments are taken to describe the change between foraging and captured, or the fighting and the conclusion, giving the reader tone-whiplash. (The conclusion switch was the worse of the two, as it didn't even receive a paragraph break.) Sometimes things just need to be slowed down while transitioning; leave the quick back-and-forth for the actual fighting scenes.

Finally, even discounting the aforementioned speedy arrival of the conclusion, the ending felt lacklustre. Yes, she won, but all we know is she made it onto the Delta Squad. The significance of this feat is hardly expanded upon—she might be ecstatic, but we can hardly empathize with her because we know almost nothing of the situation. Expanding upon the motives and context of the character's actions not only amplifies the power—*teehee*—of the story, but also the connection the reader has with the protagonist.

So, basically, the action was gripping, but there's a lot of room for improvement in both syntactic and narrative technique.

Entry #2: Power, Figurative and Literal

>C+
Liked the hook.

But ignoring the effective use of repetition in those first two lines, there is a lot of needless repetition in the rest of the intro. It just seemed, though, went out, and power plant were each used once too many. Some of those would do well with synonyms—others would be better off just being left out, for the context was enough for the reader.

As for the bulk of the entry, there was definitely an overuse of the verb said. It is a rather emotionless word, and takes away much of the potential power from the dialogue. The mother could have grieved or sobbed her words instead of saying them, and she would have become far more vibrant as a result. Little things can have a big effect. (Though, to be fair, there were a couple of good cases, like I spat out a bit of blood to the side, which helps pass across the mood of the protagonist as he speaks.) In addition, using synonyms for the black-and-blond boys woulda been nice from time to time.

More generally, the first-person didn't feel like it was being used to full effect. If all of the introspection had been italicized—as is the convention for thoughts in fiction these days, I guess—and the 'I's turned to 'he's, nothing would feel amiss. If using the first-person, it pays to capitalize on the benefits it allows! Here's an example.

• Let's look at the sentence He said as he beat his aluminum bat onto me. In this sentence, the focus is on the assailant—even though the narrator himself is being pummeled! It is odd for a person's perception to be directed as such. Something like I heard him say as I felt the bat slam into into me shifts the action onto the narrator, as is natural for a first-person context.

Of course, as with most things, this is a stylistic choice.

Finally, the story itself. The main issue I have with the unfolding of the plot is the presentation of conflict. From the conclusion, it is evident that the conflict that has been surmounted is one of 'self vs self'—he accepts that he shall no longer abuse power. That being said, he didn't really abuse his power at all in the story itself. He was trying to help out as best he could! The only actual conflict presented was self vs others/society, being the two teens.

If we had seen him do something corrupt, something with his own desires placed ahead of that of the city, his change in mindset would have come across as far more meaningful.

@Psyga315, author of Escalation of Two Brothers. Lots of improvement here—in particular, the protagonist seems far more believable and less melodramatic, though still more improvement can be done in that regard.

Entry #3: A Thought About Power

>A-
Hoo boy, that intro dragged on just a bit too long. It was a good hook at first, but about two-thirds of the way through—right around such things are too short sighted—I was beginning to wonder if this was just going to be a political essay after all, and not a story. Not too big an issue, but it meant I had to start dragging myself forward, and if this wasn't RPGC, I probably would have lost interest and moved on.

In fact, the following bit suffered a similar problem. There was some very poignant, appropriate description, but as it wore on, it started to bear into purple prose territory. Thankfully, the narration caught its stride and things balanced out thereafter.

Not much negative to say about what followed. The switching between short and long paragraphs kept things moving and focused the flow, the protagonist was relatable and the plot played out smoothly. The writing was good, the description effective, and the dialogue never felt out of place. Some specific good things I can point out were effective uses of paragraph breaks to build tension—such as before Blood was everywhere—and the segregation of action and introspection to keep things moving at the appropriate rate.

The greatest fault then, seems to be the intro. It's relation to the conflict of the medic's work is only tangentially apparent, and as I mentioned, it gives the wrong impression. What follows, however, was great.

Entry #4: Rainbow Oblivion

>C+
I felt the switch from brutal murder to casual conversation significantly weakened the strength of tone in the piece. I never felt the urgency of their situation, or even some reckoning of Lavender's insanity, because for the most part, it was just two partners chatting. There was no chance given for the reader to transition between the moods of the individual scenes.

So, what do I mean? Take the first paragraph: Lavender kills Snow. The next paragraph, Lavender and Tangerine are discussing the kill. This makes sense. However, later on in the story, we learn that Tangerine has never seen someone killed! The reader was given no indication whatsoever that there was a change in scene between the murder and the chat, leading to confusion down the line. Breezing past scene changes is a regular problem in this entry.

On a technical note, there were a lot of cases of commas being used incorrectly, as well as places where commas were missing. In fact, there is a tendency here towards overly long sentences and run-ons. I'll deconstruct one such sentence. Here is a corrected form:

• Luckily enough, for the silence allowed Tangerine to hear the footsteps right behind her, causing her to jump to the side and fire blindly at nothing—but one hit Jet's leg, causing him to come into view as he let out a gasp of pain.
  • The first comma is there because the following word is a coordinating conjunction, which needs it. It helps split it with the sentence's intro, allowing the ready to realize that the 'for' applies to the previous sentence's actions.
  • Replacing the second comma with an em-dash similarly helps the reader follow the structure. If it were left as it had been, the comma would leave the two parts of the sentence on equal footing, leading to confusion as to whether both apply to the previous sentence or to one another. It also adds to the rapidity of action flow.
  • Also, there was a verb tense error on 'lets'. Gotta be consistent. (Also, yes, this bullet is totally irrelevant.)

Finally, I found the ending lacking in punch. I can understand an anticlimax, and this was a standard fare twist anticlimax, based on betrayal. What makes lack in feeling is that we have little reason to sympathize with the protagonist's death. She never really underwent any personal development, had almost no effect on the events in the story, and was only marginally attached to any conflict. Her internal monologue at the end was a push in the right direction—but we never got a chance to understand how she came to this conclusion, or, more importantly, what sort of state of mind she'd been in before. This ideally could have been elaborated in the flashback, but she was knocked out before she had been given a chance to really delve into the significance of this development.

Essentially, Tangerine was stagnant and marginal to the story leaving the whole plot of the entry—which the ending itself bemoaned as insignificant—meaningless.

There was some good here, of course. Hints at the relationships between the characters promised some interesting background, and the flashback was a useful interjection of exposition, though it ended rather prematurely. The first paragraph also formed a nice hook, with great impact, instilling a sense of horror from the get-go.

Entry #5: Artificial Light

>B
I'm having some difficulty with this entry. There are definitely some stylistic features that are annoying to read, but in a sense, they actually seem to amplify the tone of the piece?

What I'm feeling is the writing is very monotone, for a couple different reasons. Firstly, the sentence structure is rather straightforward, with little variation being employed—basically 'person verbs stuff'. There are a lot of ways to spice things up in sentence structure, either by moving clauses around the sentence, using person-less verb phrases, or switching the tense while maintaining the same temporal setting. Secondly, and somewhat related to the first point, a lot of the sentences start with the same words. And thirdly, there is a lack of punctuation variety—in particular, with quotations being left unquoted.

What's annoying about this is that it makes the entry drag along, with little to spice things up, and little flow between sentences. That is bad. What is good about this is that because it is used so incessantly, it instills in the entirety a foreboding sense of monotone. This fits in very well with the mood of the piece, and can even be seen to tie in with the theme of sunlessness—just as we have no change between day and night, so too will the writing evoke this stagnance.

So what is there to get out of this? This style of writing is very effective for the piece, but is dull to read.

As for the story, its presentation similarly amplifies the tone. As a reader, I really got to feel the drudgery of the Man's existence, his disconnection from the world around him. Not giving the characters specific names also helped with this. The conclusion, too, felt fitting for the piece, as while it built tension that was lacking in the rest of the piece, it left itself inconclusive. All in all, a good piece, but one that resonated well with me.

Entry #6: Diane Pegasus

>C
A warning, as is my wont; poetry is not my strength, in particular free verse. Nevertheless, I shall do my best.

What I'm getting from this entry is coffee. Lots of coffee.

Allow me to start with the rough. There are a lot of formatting choices here that I simply do not understand. For example, for what purpose are the first eight stanzas enumerated, and why is the fifth suddenly arabic instead of roman numerals? Line breaks also seemed to be often haphazardly chosen, like in stanza vii's second and third verses, or in stanza sixteen. It is very jarring, and doesn't seem to support any metre.

Overall, while I was able to get the gist of each coffee-related verse, the poem didn't speak to or flow well with me. Each aspect of the poem seem too arbitrarily designated, not being given the chance to build off each other.

That being said, there was some decent wordplay splattered about, and I liked some of the stanzas that rhymed —personal preference.

@Darcs, author of Steppiing Out. The two pieces have relatively little in common, sorry, no bonus.

Entry #7: the Object of Ultimate Power

>C+
A decent entry with few technical issues, but suffers from a lack of conflict. The characters had little influence on the plot, and indeed, almost nothing changed between the beginning and the end of the story—not the media, not the balance of power, not even Andy's perspective on the power bestowed by the rock. The story is thusly unfulfilling—the reader has little to gain from it.

In addition to that, the plot itself does not seem to have been well-formed. Never was there any good reason for any of the characters to believe in the writings on the tablet, and yet they all buy into this great power—then just as quickly forget about it. Some sort of reason for this belief must be given, ranging anywhere from previous discoveries of supernatural objects to odd, inexplicable occurances at the location of the discovery. As it stands, people seem to believe simply because the plot demands it.

As for the story itself, not only does it have the issue of not much happening, but also what does happen doesn't seem to have any bearing. The discussion with Eric was important because it set down the premise, but the conversation with Jack was entirely superfluous, running over many of the same points as the first. Neither Eric nor Jack appear later on in the story. Especially in a short story, every detail must be carefully chosen and used to its full potential. Developing two characters who have no importance to the plot wastes some of this potential.

Don't think that it was allnegative, though. The writing was fine, and the characters were developed. The story simply required a bit more foundation, and a bit more carry.

Entry #8: Conquer All

>B-
A warning, as is my wont; poetry is not my strength. Nevertheless, I shall do my best.

I'm having a little trouble figuring out the focus of the poem. Is it the Sun, God, or some conquering lord like Alexander the Great? I guess it doesn't matter too much, but it is important not to get so lost in the poetic nature of the piece that it becomes difficult for the reader to follow.

The regular rhyming scheme was good, and helps to tie the piece together. However, it was largely weakened by the lack of a consistent metre. Because the verses had different syllable counts and, even worse, because there were regular stops in the flow in the middle of verses because of the injection of various punctuation marks, when reading the poem the rhymes didn't line up very nicely with each other. It always felt like they either showed up too soon or too late—particularly for the fourth verse of each stanza.

For example, stanza twelve has a well-flowing rhyme scheme, because the rhyming verses are roughly equal in length and there are no odd stops mid-verse. The following stanza, however, suffers from a jagged enjambment on two of its verses—the parts that rhyme feel more like they should be at the beginning of the next verse, but because they instead float in a no-man's land between the two, it is almost impossible to properly align them with the metre, and thus, the flow into the rhyme.

That being said, the aforementioned briefness of those fourth-place verses was useful to place a sense of finality on each stanza, boosting their impact.

Finally, there was a lot of great imagery, though as I mentioned earlier, it sometimes became difficult to follow what exactly was being described.

Entry #9: the Inevitable Destruction of Reality

>B+
A very short entry, but equally pleasing. The writing was very good, with good imagery and strong description. The mood too was powerful, foreboding and mysterious as we wondered what 'they' were. (By the way, the bolding was a nice formatting choice that amplified the text.)

The epilogue provided a nice twist, turning an odd and almost eerie piece into a touching tale of acceptance and death. In particular, the reuse of the opening in a different context at the end was very effective.

Because the piece was so short and well-done, I admit there is little for me to say. But I did quite like it.

Entry #10: Enhanced

>B+
I liked this entry—and as with most quality work, I therefore have relatively little to say on the subject.

Having three different test subjects with their own failings was a nice choice—it adds perspective to the significance of the process, turning what otherwise would have been a boring expository statistic into an interesting portrayal of multiple characters. Everything had time to be well-developed, and the story flowed well enough.

As for the rest of the story, my main gripe is that the ending fell flat. While a cliffhanger is fine, and often I would even encourage it in short stories, this one left the plot feeling very much unfulfilled—not least due to the pressing questions asked by the text itself. I feel it would have been much better served with a quick, punchy line to leave us questioning the future, instead of purposefully drawing attention to the story's shortcomings.

The description was good, though on occasion words were reused too quickly or too frequently. I also found that some things were dragged out a bit—in particular, the doctor's thoughts on rape. He could very easily have said something to the effect shortly, but instead it wore on as if the doctor was trying to persuade us readers of his honesty, which is kind of weird coming from third-person narration.

Entry #11: Powerless

> B-
Reading this entry, it feels like all the important bits, the moments of conflict and tension, were left out. We don't get to see Effraye's efforts, nor the battle, and his initial rejection is only barely touched upon. Instead, we seem to focus on some short, very to-the-point conversations.

In addition, the narrative jumped about temporally a couple times—in particular when it mentioned Effraye's revolution after the results of it had already been announced. It feels a little jumbled about. I guess I also have some trouble with it because I'm personally not fond of the dialogue—in a dialogue-heavy entry—which feels like it is rambling about and far more vibrant and playful than the situation calls for.

I have little else to say, sorry. The story was good, but didn't feel like it progressed smoothly.

@PlatinumSkink, author of Little Me. You are gtting better with the ellipses! The dialogue is of a somewhat similar nature to the previous entry—really pushing out and vibrant, though less rant-y than the last time, which is good.

Entry #12: Power, or the Lack Thereof

>B-
A warning, as is my wont; poetry is not my strength. Nevertheless, I shall do my best.

I'm happy that you employed a regular rhyming scheme and a relatively consistent metre. This makes it far easier for me as a reader to get drawn into the poetry.

Unfortunately, I'm finding this poem a bit too straightforward. Most of the figurative language is comprised of similes, with a sprinkling of metaphor. In addition, though evidently not a narrative, I feel there is a lack of progression through the poem. If there had been a build-up before the last stanza, so that there was a noticeable change in tone to take us away from point zero, the repetition would have been far more effective. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, such as by keeping the theme subtle at first and then slowly becoming more and more brash as the poem progresses.

After all, change is the driving force of any good entry. I want to feel like I've gained something new once I pop out the other side.

Entry #13: Empowered

>B-
A warning, as is my wont; poetry is not my strength. Nevertheless, I shall do my best.

There was some powerful imagery, though I admit that I didn't grasp much of the poem until the second read-through. The dark tone of the piece is well evoked throughout, and though as a reader I am largely detached from the protagonist due to the vague presentation of events, there are a couple verses in particular that resonate, such as Still, like an unused abandoned swing, though the doubling was somewhat unnecessary right there.

However, I am undecided on the way enjambment is used here. In general, I find it jarring, which it still is here. The opening lines with their ends cut off tend to feel very lacking, and it destroys any hope of metre. That being said, the closing verses of many of these uses of enjambment do feel more powerful on their own, such as the verse Tattered bed, empty home. I find the worst offender is the last three verses of the fifth stanza, which jar the most.

[@DarkWind], author of For Blue Skies. The two pieces had little in common, so nothing bonus to say, sorry.

Entry #14: King

>B
A warning, as is my wont; poetry is not my strength. Nevertheless, I shall do my best.

Good rhyming and a relatively consistent metre, very helpful for keeping the flow of the poem smooth.

The poem was narrative in form, and the story was easy enough to follow. In addition, there was some fine imagery and a splattering of wordplay, such as the effective parallel structure in the verse Her blades were cunning and her mind was cruel. There was a lot of anaphora put to good use—however, I'll note that the use of I alone twice close together felt jarring, seeing as they were used in different sections of their respective stanzas. Small details like this can throw a reader off.

My largest qualm is that I had trouble connecting with the protagonist, particularly once his identity was revealed at the end. Before that, he was some mysterious figure, out to evict evil from the court—and suddenly at the end we're given his identity like it was nothing. Because he was almost entirely formless before this point, he felt more like an embodiment of an ideal then an actual person. Either hints at his identity or more signs of the individual behind the mission would have helped alleviate this shock.

Entry #15: Goug Immortal

>B
The writing was good, with good use of description, action, and tension. The story was also for the most part well-formed and intriguing, leaving me very interested in learning more of Vinn.

That being said, I found the characters to be poorly developed throughout the story. Vinn's introducton in the Eastern Village was indeed intriguing, leaving me hoping for more answers as to the nature and origins of this apparent leader, but almost nothing of the sort was given to me. In his fight with Seven, we did see a bit more of his fighting style, but come the encounter with Lysa, he had taken a somewhat flat nature. Lysa was even less interesting as a character, for she held herself as an almighty being, and lo and behold, she was. Especially seeing as the reader observes the fight through her eyes, in which she constantly teases Vinn's complete defeat, there is little room for tension. The end result was effectively a foregone conclusion.

Ultimately, I would have liked to know more about the motives of each character, which were left somewhat vague, and I feel the final confrontation would have had far more power had they been closer in power.

That being said, it was a good entry with a strong sense of tone and setting.

Entry #16: A Small House

>B+
Well, that was an immense entry. Due to its size, it'll be a little difficult for me to go into detail analyzing your writing style, but it was mostly in good taste anyways. I did find the heavy exposition in the introductions a little confusing—in particular, there was some disagreement by the narrator itself a couple times, such as in the paragraph starting with Signs were written in all three languages. If even the narrator isn't certain of something, and debates with themselves on the subject, this makes it very hard for the reader to follow.

Now, to address the story.

There was a lot of good here, and I congratulate you on creating this epic tale. There are many layers of interest to the story that each add to the heavy mythos of the setting. However, I found that there was a bit too much being thrown in here. For example, while admittedly the linguistic research did help to provide a basic introduction for the pivotal characters of the piece, most of the mysteries and discoveries that they made had no impact on the conclusion. It would make sense in a larger work to include them as a mini-arc, but as they are presented here, it's as if they don't go anywhere. In a short story—which this still counts as, in case anyone was wondering—it is important to streamline events. Unresolved parts of the plot leave the reader wondering why they needed to be included at all. (Related to this is also the sudden lack of Valencia in the piece. She was being built up as an important part of the cast early on, but was effectively non-existant once the action started.)

Another section of ambiguous merit was the large battle. Yes, it was important to add to the tension of the situation and I would not suggest its removal—in fact, it was a very powerful part of the piece. However, it was told entirely by an ambivalent narrator. The readers invested a lot of time into learning about the characters, and their role in the battle—even just as observers—would be much appreciated.

@Keyguyperson, author of Never Forget. Well, you seem consistently good at building characters, as well as epic-scale plots. This biggest downfall here, as I mentioned above, was the lack of focus; in Never Forget, every scene was pivotal to the culmination of the piece, and every event was properly accompanied by a character's perspective. Still, well done, but I believe your first entry held itself together more firmly.

Entry #17: Arachne

>C
I believe this may be a largely personal opinion, but I was not particularly fond of the metatextual style of the story, and, well, that was pretty much the defining feature of the piece. The constant asides and narrative commentaries left me feeling like the story wasn't taking itself seriously, which it probable wasn't supposed to anyways.

Now, to other things.

The introduction was a little long, and most of the information it imparted onto the reader was of little use. True, it did provide background on why things were happening—but we never saw any sign of Typhon's wrath, we never visited Lost Haven, and we barely got anything out of Athena. Expository prose like this tends to be some of the less interesting parts in any story, so it is essential to make the most of it. This can either be achieved by limiting the exposition to the essentials, or ensuring that all mentioned within it is properly utilized at some point in the story.

The conclusion too felt somewhat out of place. While it was interesting to have the two women try to determine how win without losers, there was very little tension in the situation, as Will and Shelob's battle was undiscussed and in the background. Without pressing danger, them touching the orb simply felt casual—and with how easily they beat Shelob, the ending was quite anticlimactic. Of course, I understand that if expanded, the true climax would be against Typhon, but that was not the case here.

Finally, there were a large number of typos. Though tedious, proofreading is essential.

Entry #18: the Power of Bullying

>C
It was a rather short entry, and very much to-the-point. There's not much to fault in the writing itself; stylistically, I have no gripes.

Where I felt this entry fell short was in characterization. Focusing almost entirely on a tell-not-show approach, we are expected to connect with characters who are at best familiar cut-outs. If the goal was for us to sympathize wih Lacee, Charles, and Minnie, giving us a scene depicting their young days of being bullied could have been far more effective. As for Jordan, Marlene, and Janet, it would have been helpful to get to know more about them before they were shot down. This could have been achieved either by expanding the dialogue or additional scenes.

If, as a reader, I was given the chance to know these characters, their actions and motives would have far more significantly impacted the story. Because the plot here is rather straightforward, what pushes the story should be the emotional effect it has on the reader.

@Alice, author of What do you say? Again, there is an issue of scenes being run through too quickly. It's important to take the time to get a feel for the characters, and I actually felt your first entry did better in that regard.

Why I would not vote for this entry:

• #1: Spastic narration, both in grammar and execution.
• #2: Conflict misalignment.
• #3: Prolonged tangential intro.
• #4: Scenes never settle, no chance to absorb.
• #5: Drags along with monotone.
• #6: Jarring, little cohesion throughout.
• #7: Stagnant plot.
• #8: Jarring metre.
• #9: Very, very short.
• #10: Lacklustre ending.
• #11: Focus on rambly dialogue.
• #12: Lack of progression.
• #13: Jarring enjambment.
• #14: Fractured protagonist.
• #15: Lack of character development.
• #16: Throw-away arcs and characters.
• #17: Lack of tension in conflict.
• #18: Lack of characterization.

Why I would vote for this entry:

• #1: Interesting setting.
• #2: Introspection.
• #3: Action with great flow.
• #4: Strong foundations.
• #5: Effective tone/theme maintained throughout.
• #6: Some good poetic tools.
• #7: Developed cast.
• #8: Strong imagery.
• #9: Touching and mysterious mood, hand-in-hand.
• #10: Well-developed plot.
• #11: Interesting characters.
• #12: Well structured.
• #13: Strong imagery.
• #14: Well-structured.
• #15: Consistent, powerful tone.
• #16: Distinct setting, epic plot.
• #17: Interesting use of comicbook mythology.
• #18: A few poignant moments.

I am overall much happier with this batch of entries than last month's.

My vote shall go to A Thought About Power—though the intro really threw me off, what came next was very well put together. Notable mentions also go to The Inevitable Destruction of Reality, Enhanced, and A Small House.

If you would like a somewhat subjective complete breakdown of syntactic and grammatical technique in direct relation to narrative effect, ask and I shall provide. This mostly applies to entries #1 and #4. For the most part, this deconstruction will have roots in the technical aspects of my reviews, which I kept brief so as to avoid cluttering them with harsh details. It will take me a lot of time and effort to write them up, so please have patience if do you request it.

EDIT: I always find it funny rereading my reviews, where I comment on the typos of others while I myself make the same typos. I proofread my actual stories though, I swear!

Epic Challenge : State an Epic Narrative to silly images.

Miguel Baggins took the One Ring and placed it upon his Eleventh Digit—but alas, the Dark Lord took offense, and refused to grant him the power of invisibility.

Schedules -- Your Inputs Here!

Well, I might as well give my thoughts. They aren't quite robustly supported at this point—we've only had one of each contest, so I'll be doing a lot of conjecture based off minimal data.

So far, RPGC has been shown to get a ton of entries. This particular instance is probably in large part due to it being the first go for a long time, but I'm fairly confident that RPGC will get more entries on average. Why? Because it is far easier to get in, and the restrictions feel more casual. It also has a longer submission period, though not by much.

In addition, the review style is different between the two. Whereas RPGC relies on the community to review entries, TTL has guaranteed "moderator" reviews. Because of this, it seems to me that RPGC needs a dedicated review period, or there is too much of a risk of the entrants not getting any constructive feedback for their entries. TTL does not seem to have this problem.

For these reasons, I prefer the first option. As someone who likes the challenge posed by TTL, I would like to be able to focus on writing my entry without having to sacrifice RPGC reviews.

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

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.)

@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.

@RomanAria

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!

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.

@RomanAria

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 was 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.

“Who knew of whom she thought…” seemed a little peculiarly phrased; shouldn’t it have been “He knew of whom she thought...”?

@RomanAria

oops

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

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.

@RomanAria

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.

@mdk

I'm not crazy about the prevailing passive voice...... It's not necessarily wrong in this context, 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 can't be passive, it just can't. Broughton made a fist around his sword and rammed it in Jack's intestines. That has to happen -- it can't just be happening. Especially not in first person.

@mdk

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.

Shit Roommates are Shit

Kill them alive, twice.