@reaping Adder Thank you for both joining the contest and take your time to critique the other works. I appreciate your contributions.
As a friendly reminder: critique should be constructive and respectful; it's the second bullet point in the guidelines.
It's okay to not like entries and to say that, but try to word it in a way that encourages the writer to continue writing. It's always appreciated when the feedback gives the writer something to work with so they can improve; even a simple explanation of what worked or didn't work helps, just try to be clear about it so the author can learn from it.
And never take a jab at the writer, don't make it personal.
A few things stood out and I would like to address them, but feel free to correct me if I misunderstood anything:
"It had an earthly feel, almost barbarian, but it then instantly changed for the worse.": although a very colourful and creative way to convey your feelings regarding the entry, this kind of feedback probably doesn't give the author much to work with to improve their writing. Any examples of what in the entry comes across as earthly or barbarian would make it more clear what exactly didn't work or why you thought it was this bad, also because worse than barbaric is a rather strong opinion to have for a story without barbarians in it.
"couldn't beat mine even if...": there is no accounting for taste; some people may enjoy the entry or even prefer it over yours. Of course it's good to take pride in your own work and you can certainly have and voice the opinion the entry wasn't good according to your preferences or criteria. Just remember to be respectful to other writers and that people can like different styles. A more neutral way to express this would be "I didn't like this, because...", which is perfectly fine to say.
"Like they never roleplayed truethfully, or had a friend.": Unless you were referring to the boy in the entry or the story itself and forgot to make that clear, you shouldn't say things like this in constructive feedback. Never make critique personal, okay?
Overall the review for Written in the Stars comes across as bashing instead of constructive to me and while it's perfectly fine to not like something, I'd rather not see bashing.
I hope this helps to understand the rule about feedback being respectful and constructive. I'm not asking to only say good things about an entry, that doesn't help the writer, but try to formulate the bad things in a way that it helps the writer understand where they went wrong. And again, thanks for taking the time to provide feedback. I hope you will join some of the future contests too.
Everyone: thanks for your votes and feedback so far. I'm sure it means a lot to the writers.
There are still 6 days left for voting and feedback :)
Loksfjoer is a Contest Moderator.
Zapdos
Marik
The Elvenqueen
MrSkimobile
a jellyfish
Festive
Candlelitsoul
Xandrya
Lildear18