No fun, I had story.

Oooooohhhhhhh, you.

This was not me. I'm going to straight-up disclaim responsibility for this one so I can sleuth into it. I think someone pulled a Basilisk For One and managed to creatively dick around with Writeoff code to take advantage of either a bug or an unanticipated feature.

Looking at the page source for this story (hopefully it shows up in comments here), this is what is being served inside the div where the story would normally go:

<div class="Story" style="font-family: serif">
<span style="color: inherit;"></span>
<!-- 2000 words -->
</div>

Oddly, that <!-- 2000 words --> shows up in other stories' pages, with the number changed to reflect the actual wordcount. The <span> did NOT show up in the other story I checked the HTML source of.

So I'm going to brainstorm some wild guesses based on that and other common weak points:

1) HTML injection with the wordcount comment manually added in order to fool the validator into using that rather than the calculated wordcount.
2) Something about the span tag allowed them to edit it later; e.g. text inside it isn't sanity-checked the usual way? Maybe it contained a line of PHP to replace itself with an empty box and 2000 words of dummy text, or something?
3) Possibly if the wordcount validator for story submissions is Javascript-based, creative client-side Javascript editing or disabling allowed them to bypass the edit restrictions.
4) Roger "wrote" this with a manual database insert.


Either way, hats off to you for the hack, author. ^.^ Even if Roger no-funs this into a DQ. >>horizon

I had the best damned idea for this, I wrote 2,000 words and with 17 hours left on the clock I went to bed.

But then I had a bad reaction to some medication, so instead of sleeping twelve hours and having five to write and edit, like I expected, just slept eighteen hours and had to duck to dodge the deadline passing over my head.

God damn it.

I was left wordless.

>>MrNumbers
D: Shit, that is all kinds of suck. Can you post it somewhere anyway? I for one will make a point of giving it a Writeoff-style review.

>>MrNumbers
That ain’t cool.
I hope you feel all right, though.
Missing the deadline is a thing, feeling bad is another.

>>horizon
It is a pretty clear violation of the writeoff rules, namely the word count limitation. I don't think it is "no-funning" it. Just because you manage to trick the site into accepting a story doesn't mean you aren't breaking the rules.

I've never tried to circumvent the word limit with the edit function, but maybe you can?

Well, this was well written, Author, of that I'm sure.

Your descriptions are evocative, and your prose is tight; your story flows fairly well, and the concepts are interesting. I appreciated the structured approach you took, and the fact that you chose distinct locations and names to set them apart, so I wasn't disoriented by all the jumping around. You turn a few nice phrases (breakfast was toast) and you're careful about your paragraphs and sentences. Most everything reads cleanly and clearly.

However... I did have problems. Two big ones, really.

Firstly, that ending. I'm not really a fan of noncommittal endings. I have a hard time caring enough to fill in the blanks for you, to write an ending for your story if you're not interested enough to write your own. It really takes a story that grabs me deeply and powerfully for me to enjoy an ending like that. This may be a failing of mine, but there it is; if you're telling me a story, I want to hear what you think. I deeply dislike 'guess what I'm thinking of'.

And that - not deeply caring - is really the crux of my second problem; I didn't really care about much of anything that was going on in this story. It's not new or interesting to me; perhaps you'll find a better audience in other readers, but this isn't, as your simulated philosophers pointed out, a 'new' idea, nor does it present any particularly interesting examinations of it.

I didn't really care about your characters very deeply, either. They aren't, I think, entirely cardboard, but they don't really seem to have much existence beyond being set-pieces for you, either. Sure, they're 'struggling' with this idea, but you don't resolve that, you don't make it intensely personal to any of them, or go beyond simple tragedy, ennui, or confusion. All in all, I didn't find their mundane apocalypse intriguing or enthralling, or their small slices of life to be very interesting or even sad. Especially with that noncommittal ending undercutting any feelings I might have in one direction or the other.

Well, perhaps I'm biased; it takes a rare apocalypse story to interest me deeply. The whole genre is kinda boring to me.

Oh, I did have a nitpick or two. A word on how this was communicated to blind people, or people who couldn't read, would have been worth having, I think.

Also, on the nukes... IIRC, detonating nukes, especially in the upper atmosphere, produces ridiculously strong EMP pulses. I don't know what the fallout from that sort of thing would be, but with the amount of bombs you're setting off, I wouldn't be surprised if large parts of the simulation were punted back to the stone ages. Perhaps they thought the fallout was excusable, though.

All in all, this is a well-executed story. However, it absolutely fails to grab me in any meaningful way. I apologize, Author, and I wish you better luck with your other readers.

Ohmigosh, it's the 4'33" of Wirteoff fiction! Top marks, author, top marks :-D

Okay, let's do this thing!

2 – Knights and Dragons

I'm assuming, based on the hook, that this is going to be a comedy. The first two sentences only make logical sense in the context of the cliche of the hero's journey, but they break down if you think about them. (Why would finding the Princess mean that the Knight had nothing else he had to do? The idea of the Princess as the end-goal of his existence is... depressing and kind of kills his character's agency.) So here's hoping this is getting played to subvert the cliche.

Okay, with the bat, cracker, and drop of water line it looks like this is definitely getting played for laughs. Good tonal setup, then. I think you could probably bring the cliche to the fore a little more strongly, but your instincts have been good so far. The humor isn't playing great for me here, though—particularly that bat, cracker, drop of water line. It's too non-sequitor to really be funny to me, and it doesn't seem very cohesive with the rest of the piece except inasmuch as it's the clearest indication of the story's tone. I'd try looking for some humor that can more directly expand our understanding of the world or the characters. The fact that a bat, a cracker, and a drop of water are being beheaded suggests a very strange world, but there's no follow-through on that point.

There's a serious lack of clarity in the line: "To be fair, it was on the small side." I read this as a comment about the arrow, suggesting that it wouldn't do any damage. But it looks like it was about the dragon, and the arrow killed it. This isn't the only case of loose phrasing I'm seeing—the charge, in particular, stands out, though you do a good job cleaning that up immediately. It's a thing I'd suggest watching for as you edit, though.

"'Go away you religious numbnut!'" is another non-sequitor. It doesn't seem to have any relation to what we've seein in the story, so it's kind of a hanging piece of character elaboration without any connective tissue (i.e. classic telling without showing). On the other hand, "People loved the King, but they feared him early in the morning" is a great line in my opinion. It carries a wonderful amount of information and humor for a character introduction.

Similarly, I like the "we would not be having this conversation"s. There's a great double-meaning hanging out in there, and I think it says a lot about both characters.

Why do the characters suddenly get names in the last 200 words? This really rubs me the wrong way. If they were going to get names, what was the point of going 2000 words without them?

Through to the end. Overall impression here: I like the characters, but not a whole lot else. Everything that happens here is pretty predictable and cliche, and fairly loosely executed. This needs a lot of structural and prose tightening.

That said, I did genuinely enjoy the Knight and the Princess. I think you could get a lot more mileage out of them by really playing more to type, though. The Knight is the living embodiment of the medieval cliche, down to all the ancillary idiocy. He's a bit like the opposite of John Steinbeck's Lancelot. There's some good comedy potential there, especially when you play him off against the Princess who's exactly the opposite—refusing to be bound by the cliche and living her life the way she wants. The conversation between them is one of the highlights of this story (though much of it could still be substantially improved).

I expect that this will end up low on my ballot, but you're showing some good instincts with characters here, author. You just need to refine that work and polish the rest of the story.

HORSE: ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉
TIER: Needs Work

>>horizon

Yeah I'm making into a blog post. Should be up for Wednesday, just gives me a bit more time to work on it.

Cheers for the thoughts.

>>Bradel
That’s “non sequitur”, no?

>>Monokeras
...shut up, Monokeras. (u_u);

(Yes, it's non sequitur. I've been spelling it wrong forever, probably. I'm gonna leave it the way it was, just to let posterity remember that I make mistakes.)

Here we go, first up on my slate.

Mechanically speaking, you've got a really strong presence. The prose flows quite beautifully. This is an easy read to get through, and additionally the choice of scene structuring felt very sound. I think you stuck with everyone for the right amount of time, switched between them in a sensible and fulfilling order, and filled in both the time passing and individual arcs at a solid, non-frustrating pace. That can be difficult to pull off in this type of structuring; it'd be easy to ignore a character whose story is less viscerally exciting than others, or make a specific scene drag on too long. Everything feels well planned and solidly executed.

As for the story itself, it feels a little pat to me. There's a sense of having gone through an 'it's the end of the world and people are reacting to it' greatest hits montage. The specifics of the Armageddon aren't particularly integrated—there's the usual spec fic exploration of what it is and maybe why it is, but that's just there to sell the ambiguity and fuel the philosophical discussions for the characters. It could have been a classic biblical end times signs and had the same beats and points for that element. The simulated-world philosophical side had a stronger integration, but wasn't in and of itself integrated with the Armageddon theme very conclusively. They're sort of parallel to each other, and in being parallel the stakes are a bit lower. After all, if the world is ending, the nature of self doesn't really matter at all.

The inconclusive nature of the ending then tried to sell the sense of self/simulated world philosophical points as the more important element to consider, but that's hampered by the attention-grabbing nature of the apocalypse stuff from earlier, and I'm afraid that keeps it from really, actually selling itself.

Were it me, I'd suggest severely curtailing the world ending angle. If the Notification was about, like, routine maintenance to install updates or something, (lol, Windows OSes), a lot of the story could be left alone, but the focus would be shifted towards the sense-of-self issues. Some things would need slight restructuring, but not very much, and I think it would sell the ending and thematic poignancy stronger.

Overall, though, should have a fairly strong spot on my slate. It was an enjoyable read.

>>Bradel
I don’t know if posterity cares, but that definitely makes you look more ‘human’. :P
And, as usual, kudos for your reviews.

Oh, a time-war, those are always fun even if tricky. Here we have a competent example of this. The problem is that it really never becomes more than that.

Let's start with a couple of technical issues. I cite them but they'll not impact much m vote, being just tie-breakers if I'm undecided between how to place two stories. 

There are a some typos here and there (ambiant, snuffing, renewed instead of renowned). There are also a couple of grammar mistakes here and there, but nothing an editing passage couldn't fix.

The language baffled me a bit more, mainly during the dialogues. They switch from what feels a modern banter to something a bit more archaic and then back again a bit later. This has more to do with remaining consistent than with one form being better than the other. Still, it's nothing too aggravating and that couldn't be fixed with a bit of time.

Now to the story:
Time conflicts are tricky. They either devolve in some closed loop, are crushed under the inertia of history or devolve in a headache of plans that foil plans until something changes. A bit like a KO situation in Go. Here that doesn't seem to happen, and I can accept that there is a reason we don't have a horde of Charles VII fighting it out in the room and on the roofs, but you should give me a hint on why that is.

On the other hand, I appreciated the context of the conflict and the turning point it focuses on. The idea of England and France still brawling up and down the time is interesting and funny. I also liked a lot the details you have put into the story, they helped a lot in flashing out the time and the place.

Tl;dr: competent story with a couple of nice touches here and there but missing something to elevate it.

Well, this was… hmmm.

I appreciate the way that you've got some backstory to your character, and you reveal their personality slowly and through exposition. You've got interesting stuff going on here, and it mostly makes sense and hangs together for me.

I was a bit confused in the beginning, and I'm not entirely sure why. There was this disconnect with the flat exposition, the timing of the funeral, and her mom being dead - I didn't understand why she'd waited until two weeks after the funeral to visit the house. I eventually concluded that she probably didn't go to her own mothers funeral, which seemed a bit strange to me. Her actions later in the story make that somewhat clearer once I have a better idea of her personality, but it threw me for a bit of a loop.

Her development as a character is fairly well done, I guess, but some parts of it seemed a bit… I dunno. Authorial dictum? She goes to see the ghost… because. She's super angry about this contest… because. I'm not really sure what bothered me about this, but it might be something that also affects the last bit, with Alex.

You make it pretty clear, in that section, that your MC is harboring a deep grudge against Alex. However, it seems to come into the story quite fast - rather too fast for how deep it is, IMHO. The whole thing feels a bit rushed, and rather gruesome. Your character's actions seem… well, not entirely out of character, but more vicious and deeply disturbed than she's shown in the middle section of the story. I think this is a symptom of introducing her grudge against Alex a bit too late in the timeline, and not giving us enough clues on just how deep it is? That may be part of what bothers me in the preceding bits; not so much that it's 'author says', but more that I'm simply not given quite the amount of time to consider what's being said as I'd like, or what's being said isn't quite clear or strong enough for me to catch it at the level you'd like to convey it?

And, well, her reactions to the whole thing make her seem rather… psychopathic, honestly. Alright, I've never killed anyone, but I feel like it would take something strange going on for me to feel nothing more than 'a surge of satisfaction' in the wake of killing someone, even indirectly and in an untraceable way. So... either she's pretty messed up, or she's already inured to killing? Either way, in the end, the picture I get of your character is a deeply disturbed person. And perhaps that's what you're going for?

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this story. I appreciated the craft, and enjoyed parts of it, but in the end, I didn't actually find much of it that likeable. It's good work, but I'm not really sure how to approach it.

Oh, and I do have a nitpick: "And I wasn't the one she lost."

I… I have this pet peeve, Author. I absolutely hate it when authors do this sort of thing. "Little did he know!" the author smirks coyly, scoffing up his sleeve at the unsuspecting reader, upon whom he had just dropped an epic foreshadow. He stroked his evil mustache and white cat at the same time, while sipping whiskey and plotting world domination…

Okay, so maybe that's a bit over-the-top. But srsly, this sort of thing really annoys me. It seems childish, cheap, coy and offputting. Perhaps that's my personal problem, but since I'm reviewing… today, I'm going to pretend it's your personal problem, too. After all, annoyance loves company, even if company does not reciprocate.

4 – Spectrum

I like that the hook is full of short, punchy words. I'm less fond of how abstract it is. It's not doing much to suck me in, since I can't really wrap my head around the perspective I'm supposed to be reading from. Light pressures on what? Existence pressing into nothingness?

Ohhhh, birth. I don't know how I feel about this honestly. I kind of hate that it took me seven paragraphs to have even a hint of what I was reading. There's a lot of nicely detailed sensory language here, mixed with what I'd call pretentious abstraction. Words like "peeled", "crashes", "revelling", "tickles", and "pungency" are all great lead-ins to... well, something. But none of them ever seem to get paid off with detail. There's a lot of tone here, but I don't feel like there was any single passage I needed to read before "tiny hand" and "chubby fingers".

Or, well, I guess not birth. That makes more sense with how the sentence was structured. Ugh. Honestly, author, there's pretty much nothing I'm liking here right now. I think I'm just going to read this thing through and give some final thoughts. I expect the biggest problems I'll have with this story are the ones I've already been harping about.

This one really fails to hold my attention. Again, you've got some very nice descriptive detail here, author. I suppose the robot boy named Sue puppy named Kitty is kind of a cute idea, but he's a little too Hobbesian for my taste, and for no clear reason. Or maybe he's not even a robot? He just seems to have a lot of agency for a toy.

I'm sure a lot of readers will probably love this, but I'm not among them. The hook feels too pretentious and never lets me get engaged. The description work is good (arguably even fantastic), and the flights of fancy are probably going to be a big selling point to anyone who's managed to engage with the story. To me, though, this just feels trite and annoying.

Yes, boys and girls, I'm officially back.

HORSE: ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉
TIER: Misaimed

You know, this story really made my day a little better.

Thank you, Author, and if you're Lucky Dreams… I guess we have about the same sort of thoughts on stories, because this is exactly what I want to be able to read and write.

Anyways, yeah. I really liked this one. You went in with a good hook, and you carried through in a satisfying manner. Your characters are distinct, and your descriptions bring everything into focus nicely. The bit with the woman on the phone was especially well written.

If I had one problem with this story, it's that it feels just a little pat… and I'm not really sure that I know how to make it better. It just seemed to… sum up pretty quickly and easily? I guess the 'climax' of the story falls on them deciding to walk away. And that's… well, that's a pretty good decision, and you sold the problems with it fairly well. It’s not easy to give up secure misery for the chance of a better life, but that gamble can pay off well.

And for these characters, it did. it all fell together very neatly… a bit too neatly. Follow your heart! BAM! Everything's perfect! And, well… that's a pleasant story, and I enjoyed it, but it's also a little on the optimistic side. I feel that a touch more adversity, or even a touch of something that didn't quite go perfectly - maybe one of them couldn't just give up smoking? - would have lent the second half the story a touch more authenticity?

I dunno. I liked this a lot, and enjoyed it even more. It's not quite perfect, though, because in reality, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step - and not all of them are as self-dependent as the willingness to put your foot on the road. 'Follow your heart' might be nice advice, but 'follow your heart even with it's not easy' - being able to impart that to someone is much, much more difficult.

Certainty's End


My main problem here is that there's very little substance to this story. The plot is very simple. which would be fine if you gave us something else to chew on, like worldbuilding or character depth, but you don't. Nothing unexpected, and no surprises.

What takes up the bulk of the story instead? Cliches. Fantasy cliches like bright purple eyes and “the sounds of sorcery” are added for no reason. The priest seems like he might be a decent character at first, barring the eyes-showing-every-other-personality-trait cliché, but then all his does is … offer repentance. Then look angrily at Liar as he escapes.

As a particular criticism, let me pull out this:

Oddly enough, as Liar battled internally to keep peace, fear and sorrow held little sway upon his thoughts. Anger sat at the foremost, … Followed closely by a sadness directed towards those who relied upon him. … And that hurt most of all.

I don't actually have a problem with telling emotions; plenty of good writers do. But here, we're told sorrow holds little sway … then a load of stuff about the sadness he feels.

There're other problems with the prose, but those are less important than the lack of substance.

This story was rather disorienting.

I did like your world building; it was interesting, and gave good illusion of depth in most parts, although the bits with wall street and the 'corps seemed pretty… hand-wavy, honestly. A bit too cyberpunk and out there for the serious grounding you seemed to be going for. The bits where the MC dealt with their 'extended ego' were interesting, and pulled me in fairly well, while also giving a sense of the setting… somewhat.

On the more disorienting side… because this is all very strange, I had a hard time envisioning anything in the MC's vicinity clearly. Add to that the HUD and mental effects layered overtop, and I really struggled to picture much of anything that was going on.

Add to that multiple unreliable narrator first-person-perspective viewpoints along with memory corruption, deletion, copying, and couriering, and I was… well, very nearly completely lost on who was what and what they were doing and why I should care about any of the word-things happening, no matter how interesting the sci-fi might have been. The gist of what I could grasp was something about a cyberweapon attacking the MC? But that's… well, that's about the only thing I could concretely feel I actually understood from this story.

She (and I had no idea there was a 'she' involved until very nearly the end) might also be the courier? And there's something about a bet that shows up at the very end, but it's never mentioned beforehand, as far as I can tell, although there's this recurring bit about an analysis that's mailed to a guy in Iceland…

Honestly, Author, I don't even know. This story seems ambitious, and what I can grasp seems fairly well done, for what it is. Unfortunately, I'm just a bit too lost and disoriented by some of your choices to really feel I have a good grasp on it. Excellent effort, but I think your reach has exceeded your grasp here. That's better than the reverse, in my opinion, but still problematic in its own way.

Oh, and if you haven't read John C. Wright's "Golden Age" trilogy, consider taking a look. They deal with this same sort of computer/mental ideas, and your MC's plight reminded me of the psychological plot that goes on in the first one. They're good stuff.

This Sinking Feeling



I thought the main mystery here and its resolution were pretty cool. But there are two big flaws.

First, you load up the story with too many other mysteries at the beginning. Who is the narrator? What's her name? What's happened to her? Why does she think this is an adventure? What's with the house? What's with the inconstant landscape? What's with the notes? There's so much up in the air, and so little solidity left to hold on to, that the confusion quickly goes past teasing into annoying. It doesn't help that at the end, a good chunk of these mysteries are still unresolved.

Second, we spend far too much time just wondering about aimlessly in a random landscape. This quickly becomes a drag because there's no sense of forward motion. And there's no real need for it. A couple of significant lurches frustrating the protagonist would drive home the mystery just as well, but be less confusing.

All that said, you've got a fun setup here. I think you just need to give the reader a bit more structure to hang on to while you assault them with unknowns.

EDIT: There also a couple of times where the narration slips into present tense. You might want to look into that. Unless it's intentional, in which case I'm missing the significance.

So, let’s do this:

12. Tiny Planets

Oh, a school of witches. This looks like a story for my daughter. :P

Is the setup of the hall that important?

the air was thick with the worst kind of exam silence. Nice touch

doctors become mice for precision surgery. What?

Disjointed sentences are a bit tedious to trudge through. It’s very choppy.

To call her hair messy was to say that the night a trifle cold, or that the wind was a bit nippy. Missing a word here, and well, I think there’s no need to rub it in further after all you already described. You might’ve a bit teensy-weensy overboard here.

Despite all this, Sophie didn’t dare: “didn’t dare” or “durstn't”? :P

…and the thought made smile a little…: another missing ‘her’

Okay. It’s a bit tricky to review. I’d say it’s a nice take on the emotive part of every teenager, and maybe every adult that keeps being revolted. And, yes, sometimes you can pull off things you’ve always thought you wouldn’t be able to accomplish, just because of the rage you feel inside of you. However, the way you contrast things is sometimes confusing: you say her thoughts are clear, but at the same time you say the opposite. She acts instinctively, but it all seems part of a rationale. That left me a bit confused. And you keep rambling on the hate she feels for her family, even after we’ve gotten the point very clearly. Also, the staff is really slow at finding her—and I would expect a witch to be able to cast some sort of lock spell to avoid Sophie running away in the first place (or another type of spell to find her).

Overall, it’s a maybe slightly too stretched, but very intimate story. I don’t know if you wanted to let some of your frustrations seep into it, but it somehow looks like you did. And, well, you’re probably English, so that narrows pretty well the guessing range.

I’m sorry I can’t get more specific on the narrative side. I wish someone more skilful than me will review your story, Bradel, for example.

Oh! The comments are public? Oh boy. Hm. Maybe I should do my own reviewing. This looks like super fun! Oh well when I get the time. Still trying to get used to the system here. I soooo wanna hint and question my own submission, but I can't! Darn you CARMEN SANDIAGO!!! Hm. I'm gonna have fun reading all of this. Wonder if any of them can keep my interest up? Who knows, I might be surprised this time around.

Hmmm, people in horrible situations gritting their teeth and working on, I like it.

There's nothing much for me to say on the technical side, the narration flows nicely, I couldn't find any glaring errors and it is very well written.

As for the story, as already said I like it. The switching between hurried work to meet literal deadlines and the long pauses in which Vance can't really do anything useful helped a lot in increasing the tension. The final decision he had to take was appropriately dramatic and the stakes were high.

If I can move a criticism is that the MC seems a bit flat. We get to know a couple of things about him, but we never see anything beside him being a competent and cool-headed professional. The part were we see a glimpse of his personality is when he tries to pend the pods. but it's brief and almost isolated from the rest of the story. After that he is again there packing and preparing. While this is exactly what he should do, I would have liked to see a bit more about how he copes with the situation during the downtime he has.

Nice ending. It left me wanting for more but works perfectly as it is.

Stupid little aside, for some reason I expected him to land on a feudal earth dwelling in the ruins of the ancient civilization. You know, Nomen Omen and all that stuff.

>>Remedyfortheheart

Welcome to the show!

Extra


Ah, here it comes. The first story to make me jealous. A clever metafictional riff on Star Trek and its kin. Excellent craftsmanship, well paced, funny without being ridiculous, and, I suspect, perfectly engineered to match the audience.

But not perfect.

I get the feeling the story, like the narrator, suffers from a sort of loss of purpose. At the height of its powers, something slips, and the story Focus begins to weaken. Except it never quite comes back. More riffing on space opera doesn't cut it; a lecture about the existentialism & power of stories comes next, which feels positively hamfisted compared the grace of the beginning; then at last an ouroboros ending, which is cool and all, but doesn't really connect. It strikes me as a better end than having Inkindri meet the show's runners, whatever they might be, but it's still not satisfying.

A couple of question I've yet to answer:

What is the significance of In Kin Dri?

The following sentence leans heavily close to an external awareness: But from what I understand, those three Episodes were one of the ship’s best adventures that far. How is it obtained?

Landscape Photography



This excels in all my favourite ways: It's subtle, delicate, almost humble. Its description comes as tightly-controlled poeticism. It works its magic in between the lines. Its message, melancholic and humanist, comes out as action, and action imbued with meaning by the strength of implication.

Damnit, this sort of thing half makes me want to delete my whole stories folder.

I can't think of much more to say than that.

Spectrum

First story on my slate, and the shortest too. Let’s see if brevity works in its favor.

First thoughts: Got some evocative language going here.

There’s a style of writing that I sometimes fall prey to. I don’t know its official name, but I’ll describe it: deliberate use of incomplete sentences for effect.

Verb, alone. Seething.

A noun, an adjective. A rock, obdurate.

This story leads with this style, and only slowly backs away. It certainly forces the reader into the story, presenting them with concrete sensations to wrap their inner eyes around. It’s easy to get lost in a story that’s presented so simply. It forces the perspective closer into the narrator’s mind than any other style I’m familiar with.

But, as always, overuse is the bane of style. Flog a technique at your own risk. Spectrum, just in its first few lines, is already dangerously close to overusing this style.

Then there’s the matter of language. Is this overwrought? “The air has another quality to it, too, a sort of silent sound. The melody of it swirls through the space--a gentle sweetness that lazily tickles his nostrils, a tantalizing pungency that pulls at a dull yearning in his belly, a bittersharp sterility lurking behind it all.”

Evocative language, yes. But evocative by itself isn’t enough -- words have meaning, but I’m not sure these sentences do. A silent sound? Tantalizing pungency? Bittersharp sterility?

The reader may marvel at these constructs, but they won’t feel any of those things. They aren’t grounded in human experience.

---

I like the childhood imagination on display. It’s not clear what ‘Kitty’ is really seeing, or if he’s just acting on Claire’s lead, but it’s a fun read. Also, the descriptions here are better: I understand days that smell like wood chips, and nights scented with freshly cut grass (and magic, fine).

It’s in the autumn phase that Kitty begins to find his voice, but it’s clear that he’s just speaking Claire’s words. The lines of praise for her piloting skills, and defending her art from Katy in art class, could clearly only come from Claire’s mind. And yet the story is from Kitty’s perspective. It’s like Calvin and Hobbes, but from the perspective of Hobbes. Interesting.

---

Ah, the story becomes clear in the next Autumn. Claire is putting away her childhood things, of which Kitty is one. The emotional manipulation is handled in very short order, here: only five paragraphs is needed to relegate Kitty to the dustbin.

---

And we’re back at the beginning. The circle is complete. Kitty has a few more years of play and fulfilment before, we presume, he endures another two decades on Claire’s son’s shelf. So, when you think about it, this ending isn’t really as uplifting as it seems.

But I wonder if this story isn’t really trying to tell us about toys and how they must experience the world. The wonder, after all, comes from Claire’s imagination and play. Perhaps this story is about the magic of childhood, and how it is rediscovered in children. The toy is incidental.

I think I prefer that explanation more. I’ll be curious to hear what the author feels when this is over.

Well, this was a wonderful experience.

I loved the story, I loved Peter, Sabriel and their relationship.

There are hints at a larger world out there, which seems to be rather intriguing but secondary, as the characters are at the core of the story.

Now to the few issues I saw.

This parts bothered me:

"Aaaah!" Crowley threw his head back and screamed

and

"Haaah, haaah, haaaah…"

For a long, long moment, there was nothing but heavy breathing among the three of them.

Writing screams and panting as dialogue and then narrating that they are screams and panting doesn't really work for me. I would suggest to leave only the narration, as the dialogue, if devoid of any other information, is redundant and not really the right way to handle it.

The fight was quite interesting at the beginning but soon became a bit disjointed. I would suggest to revise it a bit. It was a bit difficult to follow who was doing what, and it lost a bit of weight at the end.

The ending was beautiful, and a nice closure for the characters.

>>Remedyfortheheart

I soooo wanna hint and question my own submission, but I can't!

If you pay attention to the author reveal and story comments, you'll see that people often comment on their own stories, 1st either to help maintain their anonymity ("I didn't write this! See, I'm commenting on this story") or 2nd for other reasons, possibly related to increasing understanding of the story itself before voting time.

I don't find the second reason terribly ethical, but the first is normal, and recommended so that you don't compromise your anonymity by leaving a review vacuum pointing to your own story.

Peter and Sabriel:

Are great characters, and the story you put them through is a lot of fun.

But I of course have suggestions. First, there's a little too much terminology for me. In a novel, it'd be fine since you'd have room to do more than just drop the terms scrimshaw and decimal litch and cheiromancy and omoplatoscopy and all. But in a short story, as they used to say, you come up with a beginning, a middle, and an end, then start in the middle and race as fast as your fingers can type toward that ending. Just the essentials will be enough to suggest the larger magical world around the characters.

And second, the coincidence of the guy performing his dark ritual in the graveyard on the very same night that Peter and Sabriel have their anniversary was a little too much for me. Maybe this is their anniversary because it's the best night every year for necromantic doings. Then it'd make sense for the guy to be there, too. Better, though, would be to have Crowley's overall plan depend on Peter and Sabriel being there--he needs the vial with her soul in it or something. Eliminating as many coincidences as you can always helps tie a story together, I've found.

Good stuff here!
Mike

23. The Necromancer’s Wife
Spreadsheets

It leads off with a strong hook. The prose was also generally sound, and if there were any mechanical issues, I don’t recall them.

Reading it, I was strongly reminded of the Dresden Files, although there were clearly some differences in the world mechanics. The magic system for one, though it seemed a little confusing at times; or at least I didn’t get enough of a sense of the rhymes to quite grasp what was going on-- if they were standard chants, or adapted to the situation or what.

Also, that name Sabriel... Methinks someauthor has read Garth Nix

Characters were well-voiced, though I was a little surprised that Sabriel was so willing to forgo her last day. Then again, she was trying to get Peter to let go, so I suppose it fits. I’ll echo Kettle in saying that the relationship between Sabriel and Peter was one of the main strengths of the story. We came into it cold (har har), but it still felt organic.

One bit of dissonance I had; achieving ‘grandmaster’ while being virtually unknown implies he’s put a lot of effort into keeping a low profile, in which case he gives out details with surprisingly little reluctance.

The plot was serviceable, though there was one thing I recall as feeling off; Early on Cynthia says “We’ve got the place surrounded,” but we never see anyone else, and then she says there’s no backup.

That bit threw me, but I was still able to roll with it, and enjoy the story overall. Looking back, I’m surprised to see that this clocked in at less than 6,000 words; it read longer.

I liked this a lot. I think the ending is what really sells it, and it all comes together as nicely narratively as the in-text scene itself.

Had the most trouble with the constant 'Goddamn's. They felt fairly out of place compared to the more angled insectoid geometry of the rest of your prose. I guess that connects to the one section about Mauli having seen God, but I didn't really feel like I understood the point of that, either. I think you either need a little more development there, or cut back. Not sure which.

You've got some sentence problems that hinder the story... Most notably, there's a lot of sentence fragments and periods where there should be commas, and that makes the story feel very herky-jerky. Sometimes that's what you want in prose, but you also seem to be aiming for a very flowing, artistic style with the vocabulary, and so it kind of hits at cross purposes.

I also had a hard time following the ovearching plot. If the magic's in Sunset, couldn't she just leave and go back and take it with her? I guess she already kind of does that in the end. That brings up a bigger point though... I honestly don't know what a lot of this is. You're kind of at a disadvantage writing a pretty specific pony story for a general fiction competition.

All that being said, I think writing this much is a good achievement, and I encourage you to keep trying. Writing isn't something that a person's just naturally good at. It takes practice, and effort. So keep at it!

This is cute, and is strong because it's so surprisingly thorough. That being said, I'm not sure that it'd work for any audience that's not this one. There's not an actual plot here, as much as there is a lot of clever thought experiments presented expositionally. As a story, this would have fared far better, for me at least, in a FiM writeoff. But perhaps you needed this prompt for the opportunity to write it.

Writer, at first I was worried that this story would require significant knowledge of Kabbalah to parse (which, as a godless heathen, I lack), but you’ve included enough context clues through the story that I can make reasonable assumptions as to what is going on, which I appreciated. That said, I’m going to need to take you at your word (hahaha) that all the names (Names?) are correct.

Wading through the first half of this story required some effort, as this is where you loaded a lot of terminology to set the stage for what the main crux of the story would be. Because all things that serve the same purpose have the same name, it was challenging to keep track of the Who and What of this story. Still, it held my interest, because it was a significant enough departure from our own universe that I was compelled to try to understand. It’s an interesting world you’ve built here.

Also, the second half of the story is a neat way to frame a philosophical argument. I liked how our protagonist was made to wrestle with such fundamental truths, and leaving the ending open-ended allows the reader to make their own decision as to which outcome would make more sense to them.

All in all, I dug this story, Writer. I like it when a story makes me think.

Final Thought: Supplemental Research Advisable, Would Recommend Anyways

9 – Of Suns and Moons

Eeee. Missing word error in the first sentence. Not an auspicious start, author. Also, this looks to be an Equestria Girls fic. That actually doesn't bother me much, though I expect it'll bother other readers. The big takeaway from the hook, though, is that you're not involving me in the story. This is a standard weather report opening, which is the literary equivalent of an establishing shot. It can work okay in episodic television storytelling, but in a situation like this where we come in expecting new characters and an original plot, it's very low on information content. The description is fairly nice, so I'm not really turned off by any of this—but you've pretty much just squandered your best chance to hook me on your story, one paragraph in.

There's a real weight of description here slowing down the story and killing any momentum it might accumulate. The number of verbless sentence fragments isn't helping a lot either. My general rule on description (and every investment of words, if possible) is that it should serve more than one purpose in the story if you're going to be taking up space and reader attention with it. The description here seems like it's primarily there for its own sake. It's doing a little lifting establishing the setting (though not a whole lot, since this appears to be EqG fanfiction, which means the setting is already known). It might be doing a little lifting on establishing a tone, but I can't quite figure that out—there doesn't seem to be much consistent tone information getting conveyed, other than the lack of tension in the scene (which is a valid use of tone, just not one that's generally going to be compelling). There doesn't seem to be a lot of character, plot, or theme content in the descriptions, either. The overall effect is that you're using an awful lot of words here that aren't giving me any story content I care about—and especially given that this is one of the longer stories in the competition, that's a big problem.

I'm just going to go ahead and read to the end now. I think it's fair to say that the description issue will be your #1 issue to work on here. Honestly, this has reached a point where the plot, characters, themes, setting, etc. just don't matter. You've given me two very long paragraphs about what Celestia and Luna are wearing—and aside from the fact that these passages suggest these are Equestria Celly and Lulu (which could be inferred simply from them leaving the statue), there appears to be no information content. Nothing else you do or don't do is likely to overshadow the description problem. Based on content so far, I'd guess you've got a 2000-or-less word story buried inside this heap of words. You need to cut, cut, cut.

Getting towards the end, and honestly I think the best advice I can give you is just to go read a good writing guide like the one by Ezn hosted on Fimfiction. I could give more detailed pointers here, but I honestly don't think they'd help much. There's too much basic-level stuff you need to be working on before you really try to master character, plot, setting, tone, and theme. That's the sort of stuff writing guides are good for. Once you can figure out how to get your words out of the way of your story, it'll be a lot easier to help you.

One last thing. If Sunset's magic being present in the Equestria Girls world is the reason for all this damage, why doesn't Sunset just go home to Equestria. You made it clear that she still thinks about Equestria as home. I kind of feel like the titular suns and moons are carrying a huge idiot ball through the climax here.

Oh wait. I guess that wasn't the last thing, since Sunset gets to go home with the princesses. Which seems to (1) solve the problem as you had described it without traumatizing / crippling her, and (2) would have always been an option for the princesses anyway even if (3) they had actually banished her from Equestria, which they never did—remember, that was the sirens, not Sunset.

<sigh> Okay, well, like I said—this story isn't at a level where I can really help you with it anyway. You spent the weekend writing, which is awesome and way more productive than most people spend their weekends. Please, though, go grab a good writing guide. Sit down with it and read it closely. In the long run, It's going to help you a lot.

HORSE: ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉
TIER: Needs Work

This is very very pretty. On pure writing merits alone, it's very professional and in the top percentile of stories. Something that I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see published in an actual literary journal.

I found the ending somewhat dissatisfying though? At first I was stuck on thinking that there was going to be some twist, that this was the narrator's imagination, or that there was something weird and supernatural going on due to Pripyat's radiation or whatever (In that sense, it may make more sense to place the final scene in a less loaded setting; at this point there theoretically may already be less people in the world, so you don't need to have the narrator in a place that's deserted right now?) But once I got past that, I think my final qualm was that the final picture did end up being so perfect. It's not saying a lot to have the narrator question his approach when given the exact perfect image with laughing cherubic children, right? I think it'd be more meaningful to have the last image be flawed, but contain vibrant life in a different way. After all, people are flawed, and never pristine frozen images, and that's what makes them wonderful.

I don't know though. That's me backseat-writing on what's already a nice, focused story. Good work.

I felt like this ended up doing slightly too much, and straining to accomplish everything it wanted to. As everyone has mentioned, the early part of the story and the central relationship is very strong and meaningful. I think for me, I thought the arc was building towards the first confrontation with the necromancer, and a more quiet recognition of moving on with life, and I respected that. But then it kept going...? Then it turned out that they had to fight Aleister Crowley and Peter was a grandmaster and there was a big flashy fight scene and wow, it was just such a very jarring twist. Like everyone powered up and got in their giant robots for the big battle.

I don't think that's necessarily bad, but I feel like your two halves of the story are working at cross-purposes. I think some work in the second half to sharpen and explain more would potentially lessen the disconnect I was feeling. But really, I do think you could safely scale back without losing much--Does it really have to be Aleister Crowley?

You've got the start of something really good here. You just need to massage some of the details, and perhaps expand in some of the sketchier action sequences.

The Name Upon His Forehead


An interesting piece, but a little disjointed.

We start out in the first half with a sort of police procedural in a strange world. The hebrew terms, lack of exposition, and Emet's odd voicing make it a little difficult to get into, but a steep learning curve is no great sin.

Then suddenly we're plunged into a collision of scripture, golems and formal logic. It was an interesting read, I'll grant you, but the change is jarring, and I didn't really feel any torque from the story at this point. It's less storytelling than a philosophical lecture in dialogue form about an area I don't really care about. The problem, and its resolution come and go too quickly, and feel unearned. Emet's a cool character, but I wish you'd done something else with him.

No Story! I Had Fun!
Well, I can't say I'm surprised that this story got DQed; I knew there was a decent chance of that happening. I was really hoping that Roger would let it survive, even if only on a technicality. And you have to admit that this story is probably more true to the spirit of prompt than any other story here.

Still, I did enjoy having that one story that everyone was talking about for once, even though it was short-lived.

And I'm glad most of you seemed to enjoy this story.

>>horizon
Basilisk for One predates my participation here. What did it do?
I did consider a few of those options, but I went with something much easier instead. :twilightsmile:

>>Lucky_Dreams
Heh. I hadn't thought of it like that. It's not quite the same idea, but I appreciate the comparison. I've always been amused by 4'33".

>>RogerDodger
So does that mean that if I had rambled on for 2000 words without repeating the text, you wouldn't have DQed it? I did consider doing that, but I thought it wouldn't be a problem because I remembered a previous story that wasn't DQed for 90% of it being repeated text (it was DQed for being connected to another story, but that's not the point).

This is well written:

But I don't quite understand why they're doing all this revivification stuff. Are there so few people in the world that they hafta go back and reanimate the dead? Is there some vital inner spark that people from the past have that people in this present don't have? This has got to be an expensive project, but I don't get any idea from the story who's paying for it or why the technology was even developed. I just need some "Twilight Zone meets Blade Runner" thing about them being sent to the off-world colonies to mine precious molybdenum--OK, not that, but something.

Mike

I'm really confused here. I think this is the sort of thing that would work far better in visual format than it does in text. I'm a little unmoored as it is, though I admit it would be difficult to really describe all the things that are going on in a more complete way. The most important goal in writing--and in a way, most difficult--is to be clear, and communicate your story to the reader.

I think if you let the individual scenes breathe more, injected more detail and nuance before subverting expectations and changing things, you'd have more success. Really, you need to cut the things happening here by at least half, if not more.

Having reached the ending now, this didn't really come together for me. At its best, this reminded me of 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors. But you lose a lot of the spookiness by it just being so comprehensively disjointed that everything ceases to make sense. If you want to exploit the tension between the normal and the inexplicably strange, you need to have a basis in the normal to begin with. You've got the ideas going on here, and I can tell that there's strong visualization in your own head. It just takes a certain combination of practice, and revision, and luck to convey all of that to the reader in the perfect way.

>>TitaniumDragon
I was pretty exhausted last night, and I didn't say what I meant to say. Now that I've slept on it, I would like to retract the "no-fun" line and try again.

If a story was submitted short of the wordcount, then it does break the rules and I agree that that disqualifies it, full stop.

What I was trying to say is that, whether or not this met the rules, I felt it was very much in the spirit of the prompt, and I thought it was clever, and the author should not be condemned for it. They shouldn't get the benefit of voting/scoreboarding for it (the rules are clear on that and I have no argument with them), but we can still reward them with our attention and some smiles, and my opinion is that we should.

Cue argument about April Fools, I suppose. I wouldn't have thought "creative, harmless rulebreaking for the sake of whimsy is good" to be such a controversial position, but I read more complaints about the existence of April Fool's Day on Friday than I read celebration of the jokes themselves. If I was trying to go somewhere with "no-fun" it was as a backreference to that (with lots of context missing), not at all intended as a slight on Roger or the Writeoffs.

>>RogerDodger
I didn't even think to check the text version. That solves that. Still a pretty clever abuse of formatting.

Now I kind of wish that there actually had been a secret story, 2000 words of barely coherent stream of consciousness, kind of like that one entry Super Trampoline did for the "Just Over The Horizon" round which was a four-word visual pun and then 500 words of bizarre playground fable printed in white-on-white text. Which would have gone against the spirit of "No Story", and added some non-trivial amount of effort, but I would have loved it all out of proportion to its actual quality.

15 – To Make a Choice

Awwww, yiss. Finally, a good hook! Author, you've got me. Now let's see if you can keep me.

Descriptions are solid, and contributing to characterization and tone (at least, maybe more). The paragraph on the houses is a great piece. Biggest complaint early on is the overabundance of he's and him's. It makes following the flow of the story dashed difficult in places, trying to figure out which of the three male characters in the beginning is doing what. (Honestly, I think one of the best reasons for strong female characters in fiction is because writing is so much easier when you're flipping between he's and she's.)

This is moving at a very nice clip. It's doing a good job dropping just enough information to leave you questioning, wanting to know more. I think this could get tightened up a bit in editing, but this is a very solid start you've got here, author. ("Condescendence" isn't a word, though.)

Neal Stephenson's Anathem is one of my all-time favorite books, and it looks like the technology here is going exactly where that story went with Fraa Jad. This excites me. At the same time I know this story is only a couple thousand words long, so it can't do too much with that idea.

There's not a lot of surprise here, but this is a genre of story I'm pretty familiar with (and love). There is a lot to talk about, but I think I may skip past that and let other people start those conversations after they read it. I think the reason Ken can't change is pretty obvious, and I think the author is quite intentionally laying the seed for that in the middle of the text, though I'll be a litle curious what other people say. There's an interesting larger issue of what's really happening with this technology, too—and I've got my own metaphysical interpretation on that (which, yes, owes a lot to Anathem). But that's very extratextual, and at that point we're all just speculating about the story world rather than authorial intent.

Which I'm fine with.

Okay, final verdict. This is far and away the best story I've read in my first five. It's a little hard to judge whether that puts it at Solid or Top Contender. I'm going to edge toward Top Contender here, though—because this is so much of the stuff I love; because despite being a nearly pure idea story, it's still got a lot of solid characterization and a nice, simple frame story; and because at the end I find myself thinking about the world described a lot more than I'm thinking about what the author did here. Those are all signs of a very good story to me.

Excellent job, author.

HORSE: ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉
TIER: Top Contender

Revolver

The story's not a page-turner, but it doesn't need to be and knows it..

Overall, excellent character work. Dina hits just the right note of pugnacity and fragility in an Enid Coleslaw sort of way. The structure is so subtle you might miss it, but quietly does its job, and does it well. And the ending did actually manage to surprise me while being perfectly earned. (I was expecting something rather more soppy and sentimental, and was pleasantly surprised.)

I don't know enough of U.S. university culture to comment on the veracity of the world, but it worked fine for me.

Criticisms? I didn't much care for the psychiatrist. It seemed like he uncomfortably close to being an exposition piece near the end. Other than that, though, good job.

You had a few sentences that were clearly questions but didn't use question marks that stuck out to me. More complicatedly, I think your voicing is awkward... In a sense, when coming from the narrator, that's fine, and probably good at establishing the disconnect from future and past. But there are places where Joan feels very off: casual use of 'okay,' 'you're weird,' and most jarringly, 'You ain’t no sissy, so why are you so prissy?' Voicing is very very difficult, and this is a short timeframe to write in, but it's something you could sharpen if you plan on taking this story somewhere else.

I think though that this failed to resolve into a clear point. I got from very, very early on that the narrator was from the future, and when Joan showed up, the rest of the story fell into place. Unfortunately, that means everything else from that point onwards was marking time, without adding anything new. There's no real twist at the end; the business with the king's identity was clever but didn't change anything about my understanding of the story or the characters. Your work here is solidly done; it's just a concept that struggles to feel fresh or meaningful.

This is really really nice. There's a few minor blips: "went you’re your," "I had seen pictures the gas tank around back"

But this has a very assured and compelling voice. I was a little uncertain as to where you were building to, what the ending would turn out to be. But I think I'm pretty satisfied with that. This is a story that seemed to know just what to do exactly when, layering texture and experience to fill out the characters and narrative. I really don't know how I would improve this; I hope you see about publication somewhere.

There's a lot of minor errors scattered throughout, as well as a recurring problem with sentence fragments that prevents any forward momentum from being built. Normally, I'd overlook that and try to jump to more important concerns, but really, proofreading is your #1 problem. There's enough constant issues that it makes it hard to actually get through the rest of the story.

For the actual story, from the very beginning and the name of 'Liar,' it seems like you're trying to draw out a more allegorical approach. That's difficult to do well, and the way this particular story resolves makes the choice of names and capitalization of Death and Fate seem a little heavyhanded rather than essential to the narrative. It's not necessarily a bad idea, by any means. I think the problem is that it's hard to comprehend the central narrative here: the bandit is captured and awaiting execution, he goes to meet his end, but then is rescued by his fellow highwaymen and flees, knowing that eventually it will catch up to him again. It would help the story if you placed that more at the forefront. The thing with allegory is that it works by being clear and allowing the reader to draw the right connections; used in conjunction with a story that only slowly reveals what's going on leaves the reader lost throughout. Too much mystery, you know?

I think there's some promise here, but you need to figure out your exact goals in writing, and then rework a lot of the prose to suit those needs.

>>horizon
I will confess to being vaguely amused by it. :V

I don't hold a grudge against The Letter J for doing it or anything.

>>The_Letter_J
A Basilisk For One was my entry to the "Title Drop" contest a while back. I got the crazy idea of doing title drops of other submissions to the same contest, because if I found a way to make it work it would blow everyone's minds, and ended up hacking a solution together. This was back before the code change that gave each submitted story a randomized URL; stories were put into the databases with sequential numeric URLs, and so I actually was able to read the other entries before the story gallery went live. I wrote a blazingly meta story (riffing largely off of Being John Malkovich) in which Twilight and Spike are confronted with the mysterious arrival of 25 books in their library, books which Pinkie Pie warned them were existential hazards and desperately tried to keep them away from. Then pulled the mother of all plot twists at the end to reveal that those books were their own story plus the other 24 entries — complete with a scene in which they sat down and read and discussed the books, commenting on their titles and content — and then Pinkie burst in to wail that by reading the other entries, Twilight had gotten their story disqualified.

The reaction on the comment thread was glorious. Absolutely everything went right for it — I had to make a judgment call on how many other entries there would be, and guessed correctly how many last-minute submissions there were, so the story correctly cited the number of other entries. The stories were presented in a fixed-numbered gallery then rather than giving everyone randomized reading slates, and the custom at the time was generally to go through them in numerical order; Basilisk was randomly placed near the front of the list (for maximum impact before the thread spoiled it for later readers, but after one of the other titles it specifically name-dropped, so readers had enough context to realize what I had done). The first person to read it was the author whose story I described right at the beginning and used as foreshadowing for the big reveal, so they got the full effect without any spoiling whatsoever. In short, many brains were melted into puddles.

The story was a bit of a mess, but it was an event, and I am probably prouder of that one than of any of my gold medal winners. :D

>>The_Letter_J
A Basilisk for One took advantage of the fact that previously, writeoff stories were given sequential numbers. This meant that it was possible to look at other writeoff stories before the round officially started.

Horizon's story took advantage of this fact by including references to other stories in the same writeoff, before they'd been officially published anywhere. It was a metafic, and it was glorious (though I think that it strayed a bit too far into weirdness in its Being John Malkovich crossover). Some of it was really brilliant, though, and it was a beautiful bit of mindscrew.

EDIT: Apparently in addition to being a mage, Horizon is also a ninja.

Well, well, well.

FIrst, the conclusion (and the whole story) tastes much like Horizon’s Quiet Boy and Moon Horse. It’s not the same set-up, but it’s the same arc. You add a sprinkling of Toy Story and you have it. So you’ve not really ventured into new territory here.

I’m on Bradel side (and possibly also Cold’s) when it comes to the beginning. My biggest gripe here is that a baby, or a newborn entity, is normally not born with the innate knowledge of the world. Even words like ‘colour’ or ‘sound’ belong to a higher class of abstraction than ‘bang’, ‘light’, ‘dark’, etc. Feelings of a baby have no names, because what a baby experiences is non-verbal. So topping that with ‘paper’ sounds terribly off for me.

That being said, I love your description of the four seasons, and your evocation of a child’s world, even though it borders sometimes on cliché. And yes, being a toy is not a very enviable position, especially nowadays when they really have become disposable objects.

Overall, it’s a competently written story, but having read Horizon’s story before—which, by the way, I found more engaging, because it maybe was more personal—and also seen Toy Story, I can’t really say it stands out. Not a rehash, but fairly close.

My god, this story is full of puns.

Beautiful, beautiful puns.

I do enjoy how you managed to make horse names out of human names, though.

Anyway, I liked this on the whole, but I'm kind of a sucker for false documents. Writing a fake magazine article about the plight of unicorns in human society was a cute idea, and the idea that they're a largely-ignored minority who struggle with the fact that only virgins can see them is deeply amusing to me. The exploration of the various meta-issues surrounding having a bunch of sentient unicorns as a normal part of society is a lot of fun, and this was a silly little piece of historical fiction that made me smile.

The off-hand joke about the Buffalo made me chuckle, but it also made me wonder if there are Dragon-Americans as well, and how they're faring.

Then again, if this was written by a certain dragon in California with a history of writing false documents, that might have been intentional.

Not that I'm naming any names.

*cough* Horizon *cough*

Sorry, got something caught in my throat there.

The Name Upon His Forehead

Wow, this one had to be my first read. I hadn't even pulled a slate yet, and decided to read #1 since I'm at home sick and took the time to delve.

This is an excellent but complicated story, and I could spend all day analyzing it. It's beautifully written, and dense with meaning and symbolism (very much tied to the names invoked) in such a small space of ~2700 words. It took me some effort and a couple of reads to get the hang of.

I've added here what I think of the names applied in the story, which might save you trips to Google. If you haven't read the story yet, skip what comes after that as Spoilers - you'll only get my opinion on the story.

Names:
Adam: All humans, Son of Man, God's sapient creation
Inspector Hilla Loewe: In Hebrew: Halo / Lion

The rest are 'golems', physical creations, and the (physical and symbolic embodiment of their respective names). I get a very Blade Runner-ish Replicant feel from many of them and from the story in general:

Emmett: Truth (judgement: knower and seeker of truth, our investigator). Also referred to as Emet?
Yaron: Joy (religious evangelism)
Aaliyah: Elevation (transport)
Oz: Strength of God (hard laborer)
Nir: Farmer?
Ori: Light (illumination, or visible light, the Light of God)
Ophek: Scribe
Ahava: Love (in this case, a basic pleasure model)
Reut: Friendship (hard to tell, since it's mentioned only in passing)
Ariel: Strength of Jerusalem (Law enforcement?)

The only one I'm not sure of is the 'angel' (is it a new creation? A fallen angel / Arial / law enforcement?). Keeping in mind that we're getting Emmett's viewpoint, so he is the one calling this particular golem an angel.

Each 'golem' has a strict purpose to their existence, but Emmett and Yaron are having a hard time hanging on to that purpose in the face of doubt instilled by the physical appearance and Nameless nature of that angel. It isn't 'marked' with it's own identifying Purpose (no Name upon its forehead), and yet it isn't a Son of Man (human), so its existence is causing cognitive dissonance in those golems who meet it. Several Yaron are disabled and broken after speaking with the angel, and Emmett feels confusion, fear, and doubt upon meeting it.

The 'angel' seeks an answer from Emmett about its own nature, trusting in the Word of God's judgement to tell it what it is. But Emmett is infected with doubt, now, too. Any answer it could give would be a Lie, because there is no one apparent true answer.

This story isn't preaching any morals that I can see, though I find the conversation between Emmett and Inspector Loewe very telling: It's the kind of conversation you might have with someone who's world is defined by only One Truth or specific viewpoint, like they're seeing the world only through a telescope and are unable to capably process what they're told by others with a broader world view.

So, maybe my opinion is colored by my own beliefs, but in the end I see this as a story about the loss of faith - or at least the new realization of serious doubts. The angel - familiar in form, but with enough formlessness to still be shaped - wants to be told what it is, is afraid of having to decide for itself what the meaning of its own existence is.

And there it ends, allowing you to think about what comes after, which would make this a totally different story if it were to be explored by the author.

Keep in mind this is only my assessment. Others will likely shed some more Light on this - I hope so. This one was fun to explore, but I have no doubt that I missed a lot.

-Closes mouth trying hold back the urge to say something.- Mercy ME! It is hard keeping everything in. Especially after reading one story. Charles Bukwoski everyone! I don't want what passion you can only seem to muster. I wanna peer at your soul, not your mind! Impress me yes! But not with what you find in a page in a dictionary. Make me feel something. Also shocker. Wish I knew, before hand. That is all.

13 – Homebound

This is a very serviceable opening. A lot of information getting conveyed quickly. Tension. Questions. I was going to nitpick the avoidance of the perspective character's name—that's a thing I usually can't stand—but you drop it in the third paragraph, and two of those paragraphs are blessedly short. This could all be a bit punchier, but even so I'm pretty engaged with what you've got going. So nice work.

Four are confirmed dead. Fix your continuity, jerk! (No, honestly, I'm enjoying this. It's fun to get a nice, exciting, decently-executed adventure story. At the moment, I'm not seeing a lot of comments I want to make other than to watch out for unnecessary adverbs and other prose-tightening issues.)

The flight computer sequence feels a little... railroady to me. Sort of like the opening to a video game, where the character is being led from point to point to get necessary exposition. I think the biggest weakness in the first quarter of this story is that Vance doesn't really come off as having much agency. He's reactive—and that's somewhat okay because he's dealing with emergencies and you're keeping the pace up enough that the reader doesn't stop to think about it too much. But at some point he's going to need to start being proactive, and the fact that he's getting led by the nose through this computer interaction stuff is really a missed opportunity for building some character engagement and sympathy.

There are a number of little errors in the middle section here that seem like an editing pass would probably iron them out: the double-use of dream as a verb and a noun, the inspecificity about what was supposed to be red (it reads like Earth was supposed to be red, and takes a bit of thought to figure out that Vance is thinking of Mars instead). Also, simulation is kind of the ideal tool for something when you don't have a good idea of what'll happen—as opposed to when you do, and your problem is straight-up solvable. The little Britishisms hanging out here all feel a little odd to me, too, since I don't get an overall sense of this being a British mission—but maybe that's just American cultural imperialism on my part.

Okay, final thoughts. Where this story really shines is in the little details of the narrative, and in the overall competence of execution. Where it's less good—and I actually think this is a pretty substantial problem—is that there's nothing really new here. The most interesting questions in the story (what happened to humanity, why did the Providence malfunction) are either unanswered or seem to have uninteresting answers. What's left is a standard sci-fi potboiler. Now don't get me wrong, it's definitely well done. But if I were shopping for a magazine, this would get a very definite "Sorry, we're not interested—but please send us your next story" letter.

It's an interesting mix of good and bad. I really like this story, and I really enjoyed reading it. I think it's probably going to be one of the better things I read in this competition. But that said, I can't escape the feeling that it's all been done before and that you're not really bringing anything new to the table here.

HORSE: ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉
TIER: Solid

I want to second >>Orbiting_kettle's comments about Vance and characterization, too. This didn't bother me much while reading, but it feels like some low-hanging fruit for you to work on. The pacing is strong enough that I didn't really feel the lack of strong characterization often, but especially with how much you're flipping between tension and downtime like Kettle mentions, you've got some wonderful opportunities to really flesh him out.

Potentially, I can imagine that that sort of work might boost this story to the point where I'd consider it publishable without needing more original ideas. Though I think some fresh ideas somewhere along the line, even if it's just a couple, would help a lot as well.

I liked how you painted the world, few strong strokes that give an idea about a couple of scenes. While it doesn't goes down in any details, it gives a sense of place.

It took me a while to understand what kind of problem was afflicting the main character, and even once that was clear it didn't seem to really match with what he told us at the beginning. Obviously it is quite possible that he is lying or deluding himself.

I'm not completely sure if the fact that the first world died is something that reinforces the sense of isolation the MC feels or if it a distraction (or possibly a hallucination). It is thematically appropriate with the state of his mind, Disaster, everything is different, he doesn't feel any connection to the world outside, and then he rediscovers it anew.

I'm basically undecided if I should take everything at a face value or if the environment is only a representation of his internal struggle.

I'll have to think some more about this story, which I suppose is a good thing.

Hi >>Remedyfortheheart,

Is this a comment that's about a particular story? The way the system is set up, you should write those comments in the comment space after the story itself (on the same page where you read it). Those comments will appear here on the main forum, but they'll also be tagged with the story you're referring to so it's easy for the author and other readers to find them.

(On the other hand, if you're not responding to a particular story I don't know, then I just don't understand your comment. :raritywink: )

An odd choice of topic for the subject, general fic round and all, but whatever. It does a good job of not assuming too much foreknowledge, though, for someone who wasn’t a fan. As someone who was, it comes off as an odd blend that got more interesting as it went on.

At first the invisible unicorn aspect got a chuckle out of me. Then it got played completely straight, for some interesting nuances, such as their entirely rational focus on promiscuity. One thing I was half-expecting, though, was some mention of the inherent difficulties an invisible creature would have with the rise of automobiles.

The tech industry digs were seen coming miles away, but they still worked.

A few prose hiccups, though. One that stood out to me while I was reading: “As much of the population had few ties to their new homeland, many unicorns joined in the colonization of the New World. In the English colonies of North America, many Irish unicorns were brought over as indentured servants, signed up to work for many years…”

Nitpicks aside, this ended up as an enjoyable oddball.

but they took every blade in his new home after the first time he tried to use one.

Hoo, boy. You certainly have my attention with a line like that.

The thing is, Writer, the further the story progresses, the more baffled it leaves me. At first I thought it was a story about a man in a mental institution, then a story about a man in a futuristic mental institute, then a story about a man in purgatory, then a story about some form of post-apocalypse scenario where people were being resurrected but nobody knows how or why, and Matello is just housed there because they don’t know what to do with him. And why was his skin green? Is it because he’s dead, or because he’s not human, or both? And then he gets let out because he feels better about having died?

I can’t shake the feeling that all of this is just window dressing for (what I assume is) the core of the story: a man wrestling with depression, a disease that is never actually addressed by name.. Is there a reason this is danced around? It’s almost as though you had several ideas on how to spin the narrative in an interesting way, but wanted to include all of them instead of picking one and sticking with it.

Also, it seems odd that he is allowed to leave without much fanfare; it’s almost as though he was there voluntarily, or at least he could have left whenever he felt like it, but that clashes pretty hard with the beginning of the story.

It’s possible I’ve completely missed the point somewhere in the setting, which is admittedly interesting - you leave plenty of room for the imagination between the events that are referenced. While I didn’t find too much in the way of typos, this story left me scratching my head.

Final Thought: A Bit Too Much Going On

I'm more of a poetry type. I can read literature just fine, though if I can't connect with it on a personal scale then I think there's a problem. People can write and be boring or do the job right and entertain me. I really hate my ability to predict things. Which usually leads me to analyzing things heavily. Even more so when a reason should be obvious, instead of a story acting like I'm oblivious. Having hard time reading the stories her because I can see what kind of goal and feelings were placed behind it rather than pure joy and spirit. Hope I read one of those soon. It's a short story contest yes. But we have more than enough leeway to make something out of it. Think I'll go back to reading research essays at this point of my fanfiction hobby. Sorry for the aggressive rant but yeah just happy you guys understand this hobby makes people happy.

Hokay, next up.

Author, I'd like you to do me a favor. Take that thesaurus you have next to you, belt it shut, and then throw it down a well.

It's not that I didn't understand the complicated words you used, it's that those words really don't have any place in fiction that isn't hard science fiction. And even then. Less is more when it comes to vocabulary, and there's a real tradeoff that takes place between precision in language and readability in prose. I shouldn't have to remember that 'digitigrade' means an animal leg that stands on toes, especially in the middle of what is supposed to be visceral description of a monster. It drags you right out of a story to stumble over stuff like this, and adds nothing, especially considering there was a much more immediate and helpful simile of 'tarantula legs' in the following paragraph.

In addition to the complex words, there's quite a bit of grammar clean-up that could be done. Whole thing needs a good, solid pass-through of scrubbing to get rid of awkward sentences and errors, and then it should flow better.

As for the story itself, I'm afraid I've been left quite confused. She wakes up someplace, kinda treats it like it might be a video game or something, there's a forest and a UFO, a deep pit, a bunch of room,s and a spidersnakebonemonster trying to eat her, then she's on a train, and there are unhelpful notes, and I just do not know what is going on. Part of that is the description of actions are a little spatially ungrounded and it's difficult at times to follow who is where and what is actually happening, but there's also little in the way of direct explanation of anything. It's a test, but for what exactly? What exactly did the test entail? What exactly was the test even? Why did she react the way she did to things? After passing the test and setting off, what did that entail? What would a reader even presuppose would be happening next? Not a ton of answers here, and it leaves the story kind of fuzzy.

I liked this one a lot.

It was interesting and fun, and funny, too.

It's sort of meta, I guess? But it still managed to pull together a story of its own.

I was somewhat unsure about the faux-trek styling at first, but it grew on me quickly; it's a great way to give the world some familiarity, without stapling yourself to fitting something known. It also quickly clarified the nature of the world and the Focus, which was good.

And, well, I simply enjoy the sort of hammy, wacky sci-fi hijinks you brought up.

Hmm… if there's one thing I'd like to see more of, it would be a touch more foreshadowing for that 'this is why' ending. It worked, but I think it would have been stronger if there'd been more for it to draw on outside of what was going on in that last scene? It could use a bit more connective tissue, as it were.

I also couldn't help myself thinking that, even though the MC had taken over the Focus, and almost killed the Focus, did they (she?) ever try actually feeding the Focus? Was that something they did in S3 that was kinda skimmed over that I missed?

I did enjoy the 'jumping the shark' bit, too. :P

Honestly, this was just straight-up enjoyable to me. Also, well crafted,

>>Scramblers and Shadows
I'd guess that knowledge about the three episodes would be gathered from what the other characters says about them afterwards? I mean, although the rest of the cast doesn't necessarily think for themselves, they'd still talk and what, as part of the show. And it seems the MC learns to judge what makes for a 'good episode' eventually, if how they manipulate the Focus is an indicator.

A strong start, with visceral descriptions. I spent the first section under the impression that the fellow had been abducted by aliens. Then I hit the mention of ‘Hatched,’ went WTF, and never really recovered.

I was struck by the irony of him explaining ninetieth percentile just after having weathered a barrage of unfamiliar terms.

After a while I gave up and just kept reading on in the hopes that it would start to make sense, but this was an uphill battle through multiple layers of alien culture. It did have some seeming consistency, and might have eventually resolved, but the unreliability of the narrator added enough uncertainty that I never really felt comfortable with settling on an interpretation.

I recall running afoul of a few mechanical glitches, but nothing untoward of the writeoffs. Although I praise the descriptions earlier, I also found them to have some frustrating gaps, where I would suddenly realize that one of my long running assumptions was bogus (wait, he’s green? Is he even human?)

Overall, after reading this I have the impression of having caught a glimpse of a strange world through a broken mirror.

Alright never expected the people to be this harsh in something that's suppose to made for fun. I found reading some of the others reviews tended to be um... cynical. Either way, I'm pretty harsh myself, but I intent to help make others better. Blantly just saying "read a writing guide" doesn't help anyone. If you know the basics of writing than please point it out. Because going straight to this very same phrase can be highly insulting. WIthout further ado, let's handle this one Remi-style!

Several factors included in this review will point out the positives and negatives to how this story was written and what kind of improvements can be made from it. Take this as constructive criticism. The follow traits will determine the overall review, rather than just my opinion of the story. With this in mind, I hope you continue to improve and write for all to enjoy.

POSITIVES

-Transitioning
This was one of the 2 main positives of this story. The story doesn't really transition anywhere, expect in the minds of it's characters. In one point of the story, you're in one character. Reading their thoughts concerns and actions. Taking in each type of reaction to the ongoing events taking place before them. While all of a sudden you're flipped into the mind of another. This makes for a very good read. As you don't just occupy one mind but several. This strategy shows how adept an author can be in their creativity and thus continue making even more complex characteristics and characters alike. The fact that you were even able to stretch a single scene out as long as you did, is quite the feat. Though I would have loved to see more.

-Word Usage
The wording is very excellent. You definitely took your time to proofread and shape out your wordings for this story. It really shows so much in fact, that I can see you actually spending more time doing that instead of writing out the story. The choice of words and usage is great. Making me rethink about my own vocabulary. Though it's a bit much, which can take a reader away from the story itself. Overall the wording and the variety is refreshing. I can't help that you actually needed to look up some of these wordings to find the technical terms, to use in your story. My advice for this is just stick to most of the words you do know and try to make it less complex. Complexity can be often distracting, thus a story can lose it's entertainment value.

NEGATIVES

-Background
The background of the story was literally scattered among the whole story. Giving hints and clues about the character's past. This, coupled with the fact I have no idea who this woman is, gave way to a very very confused read. While left there asking why did this information come late, I also felt like I couldn't connect with the character. So it left me feeling little next to nothing when she faced a problem. As small as it may be, an author needs to connect with it's reader on a level that makes their mind understanding of the events taking places within the imaginary world. I knew what was happening and why, but I couldn't seem to find sympathy for the character, with all the lack of info.

-Descriptions
This story held a lot of features that I wanted to explore myself. Though the details were lacking when they should have painted a scene for me at the beginning. It hinted at things, but this style of writing if best left for a first person perspective. Where the character has no idea what to make of certain things. This meta writing, so to speak, places the reader in a situation where they are left with blank spots in their pictures, as they try to think of one thing. only for them to be corrected by the author by a small minor detail. Fluff is not bad, but it makes a story able to draw out it's intentions a lot easier. Cutting to the filling can be a bad thing indeed. Sometimes in order for us to enjoy things. We need to eat it as a whole. This principle is adopted is many things, especially art styles. Writing is no different.

-Intro and Ending
This kinda drawn out into a "here's your story and read it" kind of deal. Where the scene is just suddenly placed in front of you with no reason for it. Creating confusion at first. The ending itself was a twist but had a little more effect than the introduction. Felt like this story was missing it's intro and didn't seem to do the characters any justice in what they were attempting to do or what their own goals may bring onto the table. paint a picture and set the mood. Let me lay back as you light a fire in me. Let me see what you felt when you created this story. That is how the intro and endings usually should do. Place a reader in a state where they won't expect what to read next. Where the next lines create this every growing jolt of electricity and suspense to make me want to continue on writing. An intro holds a baseline and from there the writer should drop details and actions that improve the quality of the story. The ending should be a halt in this climax. Resulting in a sign of relief or just a natural pause of a high point in a story. Much like the ending note of an orchestra.

Overall this story wasn't bad. It's a good read and I highly suggest anyone looking to improve on their writing to go check it out at least once. It shows a ton of example as to how to word out a story and how simple it is to draw out so much detail from a single scene to turn it epic. There was a couple things that peeved me, but easily overlooked at the whole idea of this story. A futuristic idea of medical science turning up to a point in time. where everything, literally everything could be cured in a single treatment. Though the reason is lost on how this came to be and why people are choosing this possible immortality over the natural cycle of life. Some could even consider the story to be vaguely wrong at how medical science will improve over the next centuries, but who knows?! It could happen and it was fascinating to see the up take on these characters interacting with one another due to the miracles of such procedures. I wanted to dive into the medical sciences here myself and see how the author explains it. Though we're left with a bit of a cliff hanger on a character that plays out more like a minor side character, who technically whines about having something changed when she just was reborn much later pass her own life span. It was a cool concept, but it left me asking why majority of the time or asking what about this? It was a greatly created piece that could use more work on it's ideas. It's entertaining value is a little lower than average, but it's beautifully written. A very good example of what literature can be.

This doesn't really work. The intent is pretty clearly comedy, and so it's difficult to diagnose why it doesn't work. Saying 'it's not particularly funny' doesn't help out, I know. So I'll try to be more specific with some suggestions, but take these thoughts with a grain of salt; humor is even more subjective than other kinds of writing, I think.

There's kind of a mishmash of different tones and kinds of jokes, and it doesn't come together into something I ever feel like I have a handle on. The establishment of Knight and Princess and Dragon as capitalized terms like that by themselves indicates a certain kind of archness and play off ironic subversions, but then a lot of your jokes are very blunt and lowbrow-ish, and that's jarring (and then assigning them actual names at the end is even more odd). But it also distances them a lot as characters. I wanted to have a reason to understand the Princess loving the Dragon, but they're never really established as characters. I think a good comedic story has to have a solid story underlying the jokes, but I found myself baffled throughout: what dragon did the Knight kill? Why was it back? What was with them thinking they heard the Dragon's voice? What's with the Church (which also can be kind of a tricky topic to throw in as a joke)? The best part of the story is probably the very beginning, where we were grounded in the clear Knight-kills-Dragon narrative, that you then subverted with the Knight running away. That wasn't spectacularly funny, but it was coherent, and I could see a kind of amusement there. The further you get from there the more it spiraled out of control for me.

Sorry; this is not necessarily a bad piece, and I expect that others will like it more than I did. I write so much just to try and diagnose some of the factors that made it flop for me, but it's difficult to truly determine how to fix the story.

Landscape Photography

Spoilers, of course - don't read this before reading the story. :P

For the most part I enjoyed this story; the writing is well-executed and fairly subtle, and the idea of shooting that final roll of (probably well-expired) film by traveling around the world of the distant future – and reserving those last 24 shots for human-made, desolate places – was interesting.

But honestly, for me it didn't really move much beyond that.

Despite what you may have heard, I'm not a misanthrope.

First, one real nitpick: this line doesn't make any sense in the long run, as we don't know 'you' and will never have 'heard of' you by the end of the story. It could characterize general feeling of people at the time of setting (which we never find out), but it only confuses the story since no one else knows 'you', either. It's a much stronger statement without anything before the comma.

I always knew my journey would end here.

Okay one more nitpick: Why? Why are you telling us this without telling us why this feeling is important, in some way?

Nikon

Okay, just one more! I'm a Nikon shooter, but you really should mention the brand just once and leave it to "camera" after that, otherwise every other brand mention begins to seem like an advertisement. (Okay, at least to me.)

As an amateur photographer very interested in low-light / moonlight photography, I've seen a lot of places and the works of others enough to know that you can find desolation and decrepit works of humans everywhere that are shown to be worthy of an artist's lens, so the first two sections left me feeling a little deflated since there was apparently not much except exposition (for me) without too much point to them as a whole.

Which leads to my overall feeling that this story would have been stronger with just a few small foreshadowed hints along the way that something was different that we should pay attention to. There was no lead-in to the twist you presented (the one which turns desolate landscape into human portrait photography): only a stark transition. The entirety of the first two sections could easily take place in the present — a random coastline, Kolmannskuppe. Providing that foreshadowing would aid the transition (which gains nothing from being abrupt with so much normal lead-in) and still allow for an interesting reveal of the future.

I really can't add more at the moment. Like I said, I enjoyed this, but I feel like it missed the mark a bit.

Okay, so, I'm really into ghost stories. This is aimed pretty squarely at me, and I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. I found the overall story a really enjoyable arc that digs into the meat of what makes ghost stories and revenge stories interesting to read. I liked the lore that's developed, and thought it was doled out at a good pace. I also liked the ending, I thought it was very visceral and satisfying in a nasty sort of way. Mechanically, it's also an easy and non-frustrating read. There are some typographical errors that need a proofreading pass, but overall it was pretty solid.

However, I think that while the shape of the arc is good, the ending isn't quite sold by the content. We have a good idea of what Ella did to spark the desire for revenge (though I think you could probably trim down that section explaining the school thing a smidge, it felt a little over-long), but the fact that Alex did something bad is hardly mentioned at all. Something happened, we know that, but what it is gets brushed away without explanation and it's hard to get a sense of it at all. He thinks she blamed him, she says she doesn't, he wants to talk about it, she doesn't want to, that's the end of it. That could be any number of things that can be super benign, and considering it was treated in a benign way in the text, there's no reason to assume it was something bad until after the fact. And while that might make the twist more shocking, it makes the main character seem rather unhinged. We know she's the type to seek revenge from the Ella story, but without any context as to why she'd want revenge on Alex other than 'there's a thing she doesn't want to talk about that he's worried she blames him for,' there's no frame of reference for the raised stakes of actually leading to his death. Especially considering before the scene where they meet and talk, the last thing we knew was that things were going well between them.

At the risk of possibly telegraphing the ending, I'd suggest setting down some concrete details as to what transgression she blames Alex for. Provided it isn't truly outlandish, the goal and satisfaction of him dying should still be shocking, as the assumption would be that her revenge plan was just to repeat the trick played on Ella. I think that if that context was there, the story would hold together much stronger.

I think this story may have a few flaws in that there's some repetition in the narrative, and some of the reactions feel over the top (particularly before you give the background on family/Performance Magic that helps explain and rationalize Sophie's behavior a lot better). But this story ultimately succeeds for me in making me feel some genuine joy at Sophie's achievements, and that's a really great accomplishment. I think I ultimately enjoyed this story more than some of the highly polished literary fiction style stories also in the writeoff, because you capture some heart and emotion with the setting. (and make me interested in more)

The one thing I would lose is the ending, particularly the last couple of sentences. Sophie is your star. Stick close to her and her experience and this day, and your lasting impression will be more poignant.

It looks like if I reply to Remedyfortheheart's post directly, it's going to categorize it under a different story (the one he/she was reviewing when he/she wrote the comment), so let me respond here where it's relevant and then link back:

Blantly just saying "read a writing guide" doesn't help anyone. If you know the basics of writing than please point it out. Because going straight to this very same phrase can be highly insulting.

Yeah, I get that—but I say that when I literally hit a point where I don't know what else to say. It's not meant as an insult, it's meant as: "I'm going to need a very large number of words to go into detail on the issues I'm seeing that are keeping this story from flying, and other people have already written those words, and they can probably do a better job than me because they were really focusing on delivering this information well when they wrote those words."

Full disclosure, one of the very first things I did after joining the Friendship is Magic fanfiction community was to find three or four in-fandom writing guides (Ezn's that I listed above, the old Equestria Daily guide, and a couple others I don't remember and that aren't well linked) and read through them in detail. A lot of the material was well-known to me, but I find that it's usually helpful to refresh the basics every once in a while. I definitely feel like I learned good stuff doing that.

I guess telling you there's a helpful link you can look at may be a bit scattershot, though, so here in particular are the sections I think it'd be helpful for you to read. Fixing these issues is not going to fix this story, though. It's going to move this story to a place where it's easier to discuss the underlying issues. But until these sorts of issues get fixed, the larger issues don't really matter in my opinion. It's like a car. Say you've got a broken sparkplug that's making your engine misfire from time to time, and you've also got two flat tires. Your car could function with the broken sparkplug, but that's still a problem you should get fixed. Until you get some new tires, though, worrying about the sparkplug is pointless.

Anyway, I promised a more thorough list of where I thought you should be focusing your attention. Here are some more links to Ezn's writing guide, based on particular subsections:

Said tags and action tags – Ways to make your dialogue flow better.

Ways to deal with your sentence fragments

Being laconic – One way to cut down your word chaff

Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (and more generally purple prose)– A problem that distracts your reader for no purpose and clutters your prose, and that's very common in this story.

Showing vs. telling – This isn't pervasive, but it's frequent. I think it comes up most often when you show the reader something (say through dialogue) and then proceed to waste a sentence telling the reader the same thing you just showed them.

Pacing – This is a 6800-word story with very little plot or characterization in it. All the things that happen here can be summed up as: Celestia and Luna arrive from Equestria, they go looking for their EqG counterparts, they discover the students are weird, Sunset helps them find their goal, they all talk offscreen, they take Sunset's magic away, they go back to Equestria with Sunset.. Now, that could totally get blown up into a detailed story at this length, but you're investing very few words on the critical elements there, as opposed to things like descriptions that aren't carrying their weight. The whole section with Celestia and Luna interacting with Canterlot High students also doesn't connect up to the main story anywhere, even in terms of establishing a tone, and it takes a big chunk of words here. Point is, the pacing here doesn't work and you need to be focusing in on your core story and seeing how best to lead the reader through that.

Plot – Like I said above, you need to be focusing on this more as you write. It's the backbone of your story, and the central conflict (the reason Celestia and Luna are coming to Canterlot High) isn't even discussed until Sunset shows up, about halfway through the story. You might also want to look at what Ezn says about the Sad genre because the climax of your story is running into the sorts of problems described there.

I think reading the whole thing would be useful, and I think reading Winston's more abstract discussion of writing (which wasn't around when I got into this stuff) would be good too. But when I said "I think the best advice I can give you is just to go read a good writing guide," I meant it. They cover a lot, especially the basics. It doesn't matter how much I talk about multitasking with your dialogue and description, or approaches to establishing sympathy for your characters—until you deal with the basic issues, none of that will matter or improve this story in the least. I wasn't trying to be flippant, I was trying to give you the best advice I could.

>>Remedyfortheheart

Blantly just saying "read a writing guide" doesn't help anyone. If you know the basics of writing than please point it out. Because going straight to this very same phrase can be highly insulting.

Just so you're aware, I responded to this on the review where I'd done it. I tried to be more detailed and helpful this time, but like I said over there, I wasn't being flippant. I think that's genuinely the best advice I could give that author on that story.

Hmm, a pony story? Well, as you will, Author.

I wrote this review without reading what other people have said. I see that a lot of what I bring up below has been addressed, and you'll likely find better and more complete advice in the writing guides linked, but I'll post it anyways in hopes it'll be useful.

This could use a touch of proofreading; some of the sentences seem stilted. I'm going to do a fairly long section here, purely on the mechanics. Hopefully it will be useful to you.

Firstly, there's a bit of near-word repetition going on. Two 'along's in the first paragraph stood out to me.

One thing that might help with repetition is considering how to simplify your sentences; you've got other sorts of repetition going on as well, and it kinda fluffs out your narrative, making it a bit more difficult to read than it ought to be. Consider:

"The lone man stopped in place and wiped his brow, to free it of the gathering sweat that seemed to pool right over his eye lids."

You could cut the whole second half of the sentence here, which adds very little information. You'd have:

"The lone man stopped in place and wiped his brow, to free it of the gathering sweat."

Which is much simpler and, by consequence, easier to read. You could even go farther, since 'in place' is implied in stopping, the man has already been mentioned and it's been said that he's alone, and 'the' is unnecessary, unless you're trying to specifically draw attention to 'the sweat'.

"The man stopped and wiped his brow, freeing it of gathering sweat."

This is something like half the length of the previous sentence, but contains nearly all the meaning. The more meaning you can pack into fewer words, the more powerfully it will be conveyed to your reader; it heightens immersion and draws people in more easily, as long as the flow is maintained. I won't continue in this vein, but there are other instances like this.

I don't know if/how much time you had for proofreading, but if you've got some next time, it might be worth dedicating a round of editing to cutting out unnecessary words and descriptions as you can.

For some reason, I feel like your dialogue flows much better than your narrative? That's a good thing, and perhaps you could use this to improve your narrative somehow… dictate parts of your story? Write a story with an actual narrator? I dunno, but it might be worth considering/trying.

You've also got some questionable period/comma usage going on. I'm very bad at the actual terminology of grammar and punctuation, so although I'm fairly confident in what I'm saying here, I might be using the wrong words. Anyways, some bits read like sentence fragments: "Celestia said in turn. Tracing Luna's wrists to further examine those bracelets." I don't know if there's a technical term for this, but that period makes the second half a fragment, because the person acting is cut off? Replacing it with a comma would work.

Also, you're putting periods at the end of dialogue sentences, and then using dialogue attributions in places - something like:

"Blah blah." Bill said.

The rule, IIRC, is that if you're using a dialogue tag (someone said, sang, drawled, snorted - a speaking verb and a name) then you end the speaking bit (where the " falls) with a comma, and only capitalize the next word if it's a proper noun. Exclamation and question marks can go in as usual, but the capitalization rule still holds.

Examples, because I'm probably not explaining this very well:

"Blah," he said.
"Blah," Bill said.
"Blah!" he said.
"Blah?" Bill said.

If you're using action tags, where you put in the speaker doing something besides speaking, you punctuate as normal outside dialogue.

"Blah." Bill kicked the ball.

The reasoning behind this, I believe, is that if you're using dialogue tags, the dialogue and the dialogue attribution are considered part of the same sentence, whereas if you're using action tags, they're considered two different sentences.

Erm. Hopefully that's helpful. You can probably find more and better resources out there if you need them.

…anyways, I hope this is useful to you. Onto some less nuts-and-bolts commentary.

Hah. I really like the bit with Luna and Celestia examining each other's hands. That's sweet and intimate, really sells their connection as sisters - as well as being believable. Nice touch.

Hmm. The two asides with the students, although entertaining, don't seem to add much to the actual story.

And the sudden jump to Sunset's perspective is a bit disorienting, when she's not introduced as a character until quite a ways in?

She also seems really upset about losing magic that she's never used, and is pretty well convinced that she doesn't even have.

I'm not sure I'm really following your explanations about magic, either. I haven't watched Friendship Games, though, so perhaps that's part of it.

Hmm… in the end, it's a Sunset Shimmer redemption fic? Well, I can get behind that.

I guess, overall, I feel that what this fic suffers from most is information control; what we need to know about what's going on is introduced a bit too late and a bit too fast. Bringing the important plot points (portals ripping the world apart, Twilight and co. in danger, removing Sunset's magic, pardoning Sunset) don't really come in until the second half of the story, and that gives a rather large disconnect between the first and second halves? You would, I think, be better off introducing that sort of thing at the very beginning, then branching off into your humorous asides, before returning to it for the climax; as it is, the flow of this story is jumpy and bunched, with issues on the flow and plot construction.

Not too bad, with some good spots, but needs some heavy structural work.

>>Bradel
Sir let's place judgements aside. The comment above yours points out flaws. While I hate "examples" as lessons they are still lessons. It's still very mean, sir. from reading your review. I got that you hated the story idea hated the grammar hated the plot and didn't even think about why chaotic magic running rampant currently had no consequences on what was currently taking place in equestria which is the reason why the magic had to be contained at once. Also if it wasn't already apparent, since Sunset wans't the trigger for the spell it was going to keep going anyways.

consider this my resignation to the contest. Think this'll be my last one. Bye bye. Love you all. Love above all.

Didn't consider using something other than a pony stories since all of us are fimfiction authors. Also, I didn't like the 3 day thing. It crippled me, well two things.

>>Not_A_Hat
On average this story idea should have taken about 10,000 to 12,000 words. Scripted of course. Had to cut scenes here and there and eventually came out with this cookiecutter of a story. Which is why you don't see the Princesses talking to the Principles or a scene where Twilight tries to fix things in Equestria. Overall this is an idea popped out of the first hour of writing and continued with on the fly thinking and writing. With a couple of ideas planned. About half of it was planned the other half made up on the spot. Overall I was impressed with it, but never got the chance to proofread it like I wanted to, with only 3 hours left to submit. Had no choice.

My opinion of this story of mine is, that I hate it. It didn't get the love I wanted to give it and got only hate form it's readers. Sigh. Thanks though for trying.

This story was very pretty, but also kind of empty. It lent its moments a great deal of weight, as the protagonist works his way through his roll of film, taking picture after picture in a desolate, lonely world. This is both purposeful and deliberate, as his refusal to interface with the world is driven not only by his own lack of wanting to be around other people, but a lack of people in general.

That being said, while the story ends up bringing in the “humans going extinct, except maybe not” thing at the end, and it fit with the overall tone of the story, I just couldn’t really bring myself to be overly enamored with it. It wasn’t that it was bad, it was that I’ve seen it before, and while he is taking pictures, in the end the whole thing ended up feeling a bit artsy to me – and I do mean it in the “kind of bad” sort of way, as it ended up feeling…

I dunno, trite? Maybe I’ve just read too many stories like this. Maybe it wasn't as tightly bound together as it could have been, as the picture at the start - of the rocks - didn't really seem to have the same link to the lack of humanity/an abandoned world as the pictures of the ruined school or the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

This had a great hook, and was a fun read. God, you people and your literary nature. Second one in a row. Always making me feel like a pretender.

Anyway, I liked the central idea of this – the machine that makes you better. Or, more like, possibly steals better from elsewhere. I was expecting Ken to not be able to change because otherwise the machine wouldn’t exist, and I’m still not sure if that is right or not, but the conclusion seems to indicate a sort of fatalism in the form of Cousin Ken, as he can’t be any different, refuses to be. Or maybe he’s locked into this reality because he built the machine.

The machine itself is an interesting and rather fun idea, though I’m still not sure at the end whether or not it is supposed to be a sinister thing or not – the implications of his mother not wanting to go there anymore indicates that the thing may well be stealing you from other realities, at least in some way, and she’s realized its true nature.

The biggest disappointment, though, is that Dav never really explains why he was there. Was he there to cheer up Ken? I think making that a bit more explicit might have been good.

All in all, I liked this, but I felt like it tried to be a bit too ambiguous about what it was trying to do.

>>Remedyfortheheart
FWIW I didn't hate it, I just don't think I can be much help on it. It's rare for me to hate a story—and when I do, it usually takes something more like Spectrum where it's really obvious that an author has a lot of fantastic skills in their back pocket, and I feel like they're squandering them. (For the record, though, I don't hate Spectrum. But I do dislike it.)

Anyway, I don't think there's much I can say on the story I haven't already said, but I do want to be clear that I'm not throwing hate around on it or anything. It just has, in my considered opinion, a lot of relatively basic issues that I'm less qualified to help with than a lot of other people out there who focus on that sort of stuff.

This story has a bunch of malapropisms, instances where the wrong word is used in the place of a homophone (word that sounds the same as another). Through instead of threw, to instead of too, ect.

However, the largest issue here is that the story feels kind of empty. It is very focused on the action, but it doesn’t really lend them much meaning. Who is Liar? What did he do? Why is he condemned to death? What is the House of Death? Who are his friends? Who is the Priest?

The problem is not that these questions aren’t answered so much as that they have no meaning at all. In the end, who the Priest is doesn’t matter. But no one in the story ultimately does, not even Liar, because I’m given no context as to why I should care. What are the stakes here? Why is this important? Why was this something I needed to read?

The story didn’t really answer those questions. It was a lot of action, but lacking in emotional context. I was given no reason to care about Liar emotionally, so I didn’t. Lack of understanding of the setting is one thing, but I don’t even understand the protagonist’s mindset here.

>>Bradel
Sir, just reread your review and think about your own story being under it. Less guides more soul. No more drama please.

>>Remedyfortheheart

You need thicker skin. I'm sorry that your feelings got hurt, but this only got personal because you made it personal.

>>bats
I'm sorry you had to see this.

>>Remedyfortheheart
I saw your blog, too. You are aware that nobody knew you wrote your story until after you outed yourself, right? How exactly, pray tell, was anybody supposed to know how many followers you have on fimfic to feel snobbish about a story's author if they didn't know who the author was when they read the story?

There's only been one person here making personal attacks, and it wasn't Bradel.

Ah, for the sake of it: I liked this one. Fits so well the prompt and has this ninja vanish hidden arts attitude. (more story in making than is shown) Nice maneuver. Too bad it got DQed cause it fit the prompt so well.

>>horizon

Now that I've slept on it, I would like to retract the "no-fun" line and try again.

I wouldn't have thought "creative, harmless rulebreaking for the sake of whimsy is good" to be such a controversial position,

I think that's all why April Fools' is well recognised by calendars yet not a public holiday. Some people consider unruliness as a disease, others love it. Peace and pranks are the best of results. On april fools, don't ask permission or forgiveness. But on the official, the same rules apply:[ I love that holiday. It's messy. :]

Haha, this one was fun.

Yeah, I don't have a whole lot to comment on here. This was great work, and quite enjoyable.

I was a bit confused with the butterflies on the mulberry at first; mulberry, to me, means silkworm moths, which aren't colorful or, likely, out during the day. I'd suggest milkweed, personally, especially since monarch butterflies are really quite stunning.

I'm not entirely sure about capitalizing Goddam all the time - it seems you were actually using it as a name, which was cool, but the capitals made the sentences seem awfully lumpy, especially with how often you threw them in. I guess it's sort of telling that that's the only profanity Mauli uses, but I still think it might have been better in lowercase most of the time?

Oh, and I was wondering if you'd based the names on scientific names. The domestic silkworm moth is Bombyx Mori, right? Bix and Mauli seemed to call out to that, even if the colors don't match.

This was fun, and well written! Great job.

I once found a Hercules moth on the front screen of our windows, when I was... I dunno, five or six and we were living on the coast. I swear it was a foot long, although that's likely my brain messing with the scale. We took it inside and fed it nectar, and I've remembered it ever since. :)

Good heavens, Cordyceps as malware? This may actually give me nightmares.

I really like the world you paint here, Writer - it feels realistic, as though this could well be where we are a generation or two from now. I'm still vague on the economy - is the protagonist simply placing a wager, or actually investing in a future/commodity for an idea? Ultimately, it has little impact on the story, but it was something that I was trying to suss out all the same.

I could tell that you put some effort into reflecting the sectioning off of parts of the protagonist's Ego within the way the narrative is conveyed, and it shows. The degrading sentence structure, the lost trains of thought, serve to reinforce what's going on.

I could tell that the line breaks were sectioning off other memories and were not a natural part of the protagonist's consciousness, but it wasn't immediately clear that each memory came from a separate person. In fact, for me, it wasn't clear that they were memories at all - at first I thought it was some form of brainwashing on the part of the white collar corporations, so recently villainized and at the forefront of my mind. A new form of advertising, perhaps. I was able to piece it together by the end, with no small amount of help from the last memory, but I think the story would flow better if it were clearer that the protagonist was actually experiencing someone else's memories. You may want to more firmly delineate the protagonist's sense of self (for example, her gender) from the memories that are invading her psyche.

All told, this is a really cool concept, Writer, and your worldbuilding created a pretty definite sense of place (I particularly liked the Laras, once I figured out what their deal was). Tell us a bit more about the viewpoint we're sharing earlier on, and this story will truly shine.

Final Thought: Not Looking Forward to Being Too Old for Brain Interfaces

That hook is great, but it was thrown off by the ambiguous pronouns. Bit of a mixed first note.

Huge chunks of expository dialogue surrounding pseudo-science didn't really do a whole lot for me here.

Just guessing, but the answer to why Ken can't change himself seems like this; in the worlds where Ken doesn't look like that, the machine never got made.

On the whole, this is fairly well written, but it's also fairly… straightforward, unidirectional, and simplistic, without taking any unforeseen turns or reaching a conclusion that surprises or satisfies me. To me, Brendam feels like a mouthpiece, and David feels like an audience stand-in, making this feel annoyingly audience-directed. In the end, I'm not sure if this story is about David or Ken, and I'm not sure whether what's happened here really means anything to either of them. And that leaves me feeling like you haven't really finished the story.

So, this is well-written, but I'm not seeing much in the way of actual plot or meaningful emotion here. Ken's plight is the highlight, I'd say, but even that seems fairly pointless in the end, because it just seems kinda held up for examination, and not truly acted on. Also... never had a choice? I find that doubtful, honestly. There are people IRL who've had harder lots, accomplished less, and been happier with it, so that rings awfully hollow to me.

I was just minding my business when I decided to check in. Simple title, clicked.

I liked it, but it also lacks a bit in slang. There is a lot of matter of factly stuff that isn't strong. E.q:

It was very dark, but that was no problem; he carried a torch with him, as any responsible knight would.

That essentially said: "it was very dark, but he carried a torch, he was a responsible knight." Writing it as a sentence / paragraph makes for a weak idea, as it isn't a strong joke or punch itself, and the detail never builds much to a strong event.

Writing that sentence shorter with similar siblings wouldn't be much without an immersive effect or crecendo of some sort however.

And that's how the whole story feels to me: nice gimmickery, but most of my pleasure came from my own general mood I've been keeping and the fact that the story was nice without breaking it. The story doesn't have that much bang to set the mood itself.

Overall good floaty stuff, but I think there's a lack of attachment and suspense. I think the drawn out narrative [often] pulls away from the immersion without giving the punch to make up for it. E.g:

The fearless Knight dismounted - less than gracefully, but that is to be expected when wearing a full set of armor - and put his ear next to a wall.

I think the dismounting and hearing doesn't add suspense with the low level of immersion. It's not bad, but hardly builds strength: that scene, like most, feels too little, too bare, for a complete dish. [EDIT: in particular, that armor is another detail that adds nothing.]

I won't presume a writing goal: side dishes and snacks serve well. But I'd say the sequence didn't feel attaching or tightly knit, so having the dragon reappear [amongst other things] wasn't much different than a completely out of the blue event. It was nice, but my dominant impression was simply: it happened. [Sails elsewhere]

That's how the story went for me: no strong conflict or comedy. He didn't argue against his mount to get in the cave, he didn't jump [trip] off his mount after yelling he'd save the princess, and he didn't run after his mount when the dragon roared [at the noise of his fall]. As I said, I think this story lacks a bit in slang. [But that's a style thing: telling what to improve is like telling someone what to get as a haircut.] Still, not bad.

Okay, so, random whimsy as comedy is a very difficult road to tread, hard to pull off, and easy to mess up. And additionally, when someone says 'your mileage may vary' and it's related to this genre, you're talking about a cross country trip through the US, taking side-streets and going through rush hour traffic. This ain't no electric car mileage, that needle is swinging all over the place.

It's also difficult, as noted in a few other reviews I glanced at, to give advice on. What makes some other types of comedy funny is easier to dissect; sitcom conversational comedy usually is structured around clever wordplay insults or logically strange misunderstandings, romantic comedy involves schadenfreude embarrassment, physical comedy involves exaggerated movements and injury. Whimsy, though, is based on unexpected absurdity that confuses and intrigues because it follows an internal sense of logic that doesn't match up to the real world in any clear way. The places where the expected from one frame of reference overlaps with another frame of reference forms a contrast that, when done right, is amusing.

That's...not really easy to offer advice on. There isn't a really good or consistent way to try and say something like 'the list of a bat, a cracker, and a drop of water are (in addition to being culturally insensitive to bats) too absurd to read as anything beyond a bland list of three random things, please substitute them instead with a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker, and rather than being beheaded have them be lost at sea. This is funnier.' Number one, because frankly I'm not confident that actually is funnier or would read more strongly in place in the slightest, and number two because even if I was confident it's a horribly subjective thing to offer advice on.

Overall the story structure seemed appropriate for a farcical comedy, but I'm afraid there's not much more to say aside from that the comedy part didn't work for me. Might land better for other folks. If the comedy landed, there'd be very little to complain about.

I feel like 'Yaron lies' would be better on its own line, since it seems like something narrator is deciding, instead of observing… if that makes sense? Maybe it's just me.

Adam's a girl? Unexpected.

For some reason, I feel like nit-picking in this review. I apologize if it bothers you, but... Isn't 'you got my message' meaningless chatter in and of itself? Why would he be here, given the attitude he's displayed, if he hadn't gotten the message?

Something about a few of your sentences is throwing me off. Both "After Aaliyah ferries me" and "She tenses up" seemed overly long and complicated for the information they're containing. Not sure why, but perhaps it's the contrast with the rest, which seem fairly punchy.

Hilla? I thought this was Adam.

Emet? Kabbalah? Words on heads? Hmm… golems? Intriguing. I thought your MC sounded robotic.

Airlanes are full? Blech. Whatever you're doing with 'Adam', it's confusing me. Perhaps that's my failing, but consider trying to clarify that, for us less observant readers.

Ooookay. Yeah, whatever you're doing with all these names… I think I have some idea. They're generic for things in general, right? But the way you're throwing them in with very little explanation either means I'm missing out on some important background you put in, or you're possibly expecting me to understand more from them than I do. Either way, it's making this description of the street really tough to picture, and you're losing me fast.

Obvious guess? I feel like this is OOC. This guy, whoever he's supposed to be, has acted with utmost certainty for the previous parts of this story.

Wow, and that got pretty good, pretty fast, at the end there.

Mmm….

Yeah, I think I like this one. I'm a bit uncertain on the ending line, but… it fits the preceding well, and I care enough about what's being said to enjoy the ambiguity for what it is.

…alright, in final judgement on these Words… :P

I think the biggest downfall of this story is that it's trying to slipstream too much, too fast. I appreciate what you're doing with background detailing through descriptions, but there's not enough to hang on there for us to assimilate everything you're throwing at us in a meaningful way, and so it ends up feeling messy, ungrounded, and hard to follow. I'd suggest you try to make things somewhat more explicit, especially on what all these names mean and how you're using them, so the first two-thirds of the story aren't quite so confusing.

I liked the ending, and it worked well for me, although I feel a few earlier hints on the struggle Emmett undergoes might keep that from feeling quite so sudden and steep a transition; perhaps the idea of syllogisms could be introduced earlier, to smooth some of that out?

All in all, good work, if a bit muddled and confusing at times.

Almost skipped that first line, for some reason. Had to scroll back to be sure I caught it.

Hmm, I like this description of waking up. It's quite evocative, and brings to mind those fuzzy zooms they use in video games for first-person perspective disorientation. Nice.

…aaah? For some reason, I thought Jessica was young, not old. Not entirely sure why, but it might be worth tweaking that first line a bit, to ensure your intent is clear.

Well, that got pretty dark, pretty fast.

And, uh, hmm. Not really sure how I feel about this in the end, if it's saying something worthwhile, or if it's even saying something at all. I feel like there's lots of potential for an interesting interpretation or message here, but I'm just not seeing something that's grabbing me or standing out.

Humans are vicious bastards?

Casual cruelty fills every corner of nature?

The powerless are easily manipulated?

Human life isn't worth the paper it's printed on?

Glaucon was right about Gyges ring?

Eh, I dunno. Sure, it's dark, and that's worth something, but it comes off as kinda… dark for dark's sake.

Well written, but I'm not seeing much worth taking away, here. In the end, the only interpretation I can come up with is... just about anything can be fixed, except human nature. And even that's tenuous, at best.

Gonna agree with >>Not_A_Hat:

In pretty much every respect. I always like a story where nice characters come out happily in the end, but I always love a story where those nice characters have to push their way through nearly overwhelming oddities to get to that happy ending. Right now, you've got a terrific beginning and a terrific ending, but the middle is kind of skipped. Take another 3,000 or 4,000 words to introduce some complications and add some more tension. Show us Tim and Kayla dealing with their problems, learning about each other, and making the world a better place around themselves as they do so. Let us follow them as they earn that happy ending, and it'll be all the sweeter to read about.

A lovely story!
Mike

This… is really, really, really not my type of story.

I want ray guns, and magic, and dragons, and destined heroes, and… well, suffice to say, I don't think I can give you anything really useful here, but let me try.

So, a few scenes stuck out to me.

The bit with the boy and the shoes; that seemed pretty visceral, quite well done. Especially the searching for change at the end, and the implied consequences for her mother.

The shower in the dish room made me more than a little uncomfortable, the way Dina nearly coerced Heidi into it. Perhaps that's what you were going for.

On the bit with Heidi's mom dying and the car, I was convinced that her mom had died in a car crash from the description, making the ending comment there seem horrifically flippant.

There were clearly some other undertones you were working with here. I'm not even going to try to comment on them; as I said in the chat, I don't think I even really know what the word 'racism' is properly supposed to mean. (That's a comment on my own understanding, not on anything about the concept of racism.)

In the end, I guess this is a tragedy? Well, that's a decent ending, and well earned.

That's all I'll say. Any more, I'm afraid, will come off as silly and pointless, if not mean and mis-aimed. Suffice to say, this really isn't my type of story. I hope something I've said here is useful to you.

“Little lines of existence” was a little hard to parse. Also, at first I thought we were witnessing a hatching. There was some creative word use and imagery; not always completely sensible, but atmospheric and vivid. Along those lines, I found the use of scents particularly noteworthy.

Given your skill at description, I was briefly tripped up by the ‘orange round thing’ at the end of her blaster barrel. Orange and round might be an old jack-o-lantern, but that wouldn’t be attached to a toy gun…

I liked Kitty’s voice. It struck me as not quite a little girl’s, and there were occasional bits of light snark as well. This combined to throw a little doubt on the 'all in the imagination' angle. Names like the ‘Super-Fast-Shooter 5000’ were amusing. Kitty being passed on, while reasonably predictable, was still nice to see.

Being the guilty party behind Odyssey/Floor is Lava, a fic exploring a child’s imagination (or is it just imagination?) is definitely something I can get behind, though you took a different tack than I did.

Overall, while not completely novel, I found it evocative and engrossing; great atmosphere and clever characterization, even if the plot was fairly straightforward. A fun read.

I'm going to second Ferd's complaint about Mauli's language. That one word came dangerously close to ruining the story for me. By the time I saw them outside the quotes, I was getting pretty annoyed with this decision. Inside her quotes, it made her sound fake, because the use of them doesn't resemble how people actually swear, even ones in the habit of doing so frequently. Even if it's representative of... I don't know, Mauli's desire to emulate God because of how impressed she is with his way of doing things, it's still annoying. Stop it.

Other than that, I found the idea of animals crafting wondrous experiences for human audiences an interesting idea, almost like they were movie directors who knew how to trigger emotional responses with just the right touch. That made more sense than the idea that it was a corporate thing. The serendipity of everything coming together would be a perfect way to wrap it all up minus all the Goddamns.

6/10 (Decent).