r/WritingPrompts • u/you-are-lovely • Aug 22 '18

Moderator Post [MODPOST] Six Year Birthday “Archetype” Contest - Round 1 Voting

Attention: All top-replies to this post must be a vote.

Any non-vote comments must be made as replies to the sticky comment below.

Congratulations to the select few,
who not only wrote for round one,
but made it through two!

You’re brilliant, amazing, stupendous, superb,
With flair and finess, you crafted each word.
And I am so proud, here you stand, undeterred.

Let me tell you, the last few days have been a whirlwind! With just 24hrs to go before the deadline more than 40 of you hadn't submitted your PART 2 entries, and a whopping 25 of your entries came in within the final 4 hours! Top that off with reddit being on the fritz for several hours last night, and let’s just say, there was no lack of excitement. 89 people completed part 1 and 69 people completed part 2. In total, we ended up with 414,988 words for the contest. Congrats to everyone who wrote!

Now, time for voting!

Before we start, let's all make sure we know how this works.

Voting Guidelines:

  • Only those who entered can vote.
  • If you don't vote, you can't win
  • Each group votes for stories in another group (Group A votes for B, B for C...)
  • Read each entry in your voting group and decide which three are the best

  • Leave a top-level comment here starting with your top three votes for your voting group:

    Feel free to add any feedback for the stories after the votes

  • Deadline for votes are Tuesday, September 4, 2018 at 11:59PM PDT (http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/) (https://time.is/PT)

Group A

Group A will be reading and voting for a winner from group B

Group B

Group B will be reading and voting for a winner from group C

Group C

Group C will be reading and voting for a winner from group D

Group D

Group D will be reading and voting for a winner from group E

Group E

Group E will be reading and voting for a winner from group F

Group F

Group F will be reading and voting for a winner from group G

Group G

Group G will be reading and voting for a winner from group H

Group H

Group H will be reading and voting for a winner from group I

Group I

Group I will be reading and voting for a winner from group J

Group J

Group J will be reading and voting for a winner from group A

 

That’s it. Go on now, get voting! :D

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1

u/mialbowy Aug 27 '18

1st Place: u/XcessiveSmash in Group J for "IT WAKES"

2nd Place: u/Mlle_ in Group J for "A Study in Glitter"

3rd Place: u/AntiMoneySquandering in Group J for "The World's Below"

If any authors from Group J would like feedback, let me know.

1

u/AntiMoneySquandering Aug 27 '18

Thank you for the vote! Really appreciate it

1

u/CaspianX2 Aug 29 '18

While I wouldn't mind feedback, I feel like I know what you would criticize, because I look at it myself and shake my head. Ah well. Maybe next time.

1

u/adlaiking Aug 27 '18

I, too, would like feedback. :)

1

u/Mlle_ Aug 27 '18

Thank you so much for the vote! :D I would appreciate feedback, if it's not too much trouble.

1

u/XcessiveSmash Aug 27 '18

Thanks for the vote, flattered you liked it so much! Any feedback is welcome if it's not too much trouble for you.

1

u/acerbicMango Aug 28 '18

Feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

1

u/KingWapo Sep 04 '18

1st Place: u/BraveLittleAnt in Group I for "Unfinished Business"

2nd Place: u/Kammerice in Group I for "The Big Squeak"

3rd Place: u/JohannesVerne in Group I for "Ballad of the Fallen Knight"

​Note: I am by no means experienced at writing, but I will give feedback to the best of my ability. A lot is probably rather subjective, but hopefully it'll help a little bit!

u/BraveLittleAnt - "Unfinished Business" - I gave this story first place because it felt to me like the most well rounded story with a satisfying conclusion. The descriptions of the world were wonderfully done, and the dialog was well written. The story was gripping and the characters felts very realistic. The main thing I think would have added to the story was having Taylor remember a bit of her history in part one rather than have no memory at all. The no memory felt a bit cliché, and some spotted memory may add more emotional empathy towards the character and what happened to her. Though not sure how feasible this was with the limited word count, and either way I found the story to be captivating, always wondering what will happen next. I loved the twist at the end of part one, and I thought the switching narratives was incredibly well done and helped round out the story.

u/Kammerice - "The Big Squeak" - I found the world to be incredibly unique and exciting to learn more about it. The characters were very well written and I enjoyed the main character a lot. All in all, it was a very jolly story and I wanted more of it, which was were my main issue came in. The story didn't seem to end and obviously aimed towards a larger narrative than this competition could hold. Unfortunately, from the point of the competition, it feels unfinished in that aspect. On the other hand, I hope this means you're writing more, because I would love to read more about this world, the world building and the premise of the story had me hooked and wanting more.

u/JohannesVerne - "Ballad of the Fallen Knight" - This story had fantastic descriptions and it was incredibly easy to fall into the world and have everything continue to make sense (a lot of popular novels can't even do that). The world feels so much larger that what is described already, and has me wishing there was more of this story to explore it. One of the biggest issues with the story for me was pacing, particularly near the resolution. I feel like the resolution needed to be padded out a bit more after the fight, the story just seems to explain the situation and they're back on the road and the story closes. It felt so rushed it was hard to feel emotional to the ending even though I wanted. The one thing I absolutely loved in this story is the fight scenes, they were expertly laid out; fast-paced with enough description to understand what happens but not too much to slow it down. This entire story is right up my alley and along the lines of this got turned into a full novel, I would love to read it!

Side Note: This is definitely my favorite title.

u/AKWitherkay - "Tinker, Tailor, Liar, Cheat" - I found this story to be rather unique in the story, it definitely caught me off guard in its twist more than any other, which I really enjoyed. I found several grammatical errors throughout the story, which made it a bit harder to get into the story, though I believe this could have been fixed just fine with more time to edit. I did feel like the main character was disconnected from the story a bit and didn't serve much to the story besides just being there to tell it, which I think had an effect on the resolution feeling a little nonexistent. I enjoyed the character, however, and it resulted in some great dialog between the other characters.

u/choppoch - "Clueless" - This one I fell I have the hardest time reviewing. I felt the prose was incredibly well done and felt scholarly, and to that I think the story was written incredibly well. However, the prose was too strong for myself, and I found it hard to read the story or follow along. I do feel that this story would be fantastic narrated or spoken aloud however.

u/mialbowy - "What have you lost?" - I loved the uniqueness to the investigation in part one, it was a total flip to most other cases of finding something. And bringing in the mythological element was a great play on it as well. However, when reading part two, it was hard to mesh the two stories together. Both were great on their own, but the switch in narration and the completely different side characters made it hard to connect the two stories. In fact, the first story doesn't even name the narrator, so I'm not sure if they are connected or not. That being said, I thought the characters were incredibly well written and the emotional writing was top notch! I think a collection of stories of Locke would be a fantastic read.

1

u/Kammerice Sep 04 '18

Thanks for the vote and the feedback!

Yeah, I've got every intention on writing more of this - mouse noir is the best noir!

1

u/JohannesVerne Sep 04 '18

Thanks for the feedback! I was pushing the deadline, so it definitely didn't get fleshed out as much as I would have liked, but honestly I don't think I would have managed if I had more time either. I had too much I wanted to fit in, and the deadline only compounded that. I do plan on turning it into a serial after the contest, so feel free to check out my sub at some point if you would like to keep updated on it! And again, thank you for your feedback!

1

u/KingWapo Sep 04 '18

Awesome! I will for sure check it out. And I know the feeling about having too much to put in for the limit, I felt very much the same.

1

u/BraveLittleAnt Sep 04 '18

Thank you for the vote & feedback! Now that I think about it, adding it some memories for Taylor would've been an interesting idea... though you're right, I was a little constricted with the word count

1

u/scottbeckman Sep 03 '18

1st Place: u/Snurdle in group B for "Life and Death in a Dark, Dark City"
2nd Place: u/Bilgebum in group B for "Of Tea and Centipedes"
3rd Place: u/sorksvampen in groub B for "Blood In The Fire"

This was not easy to rank. All the stories were great. They each had things that made them shine and things that needed improvement. Congratulations to everyone in Group B for writing these amazing stories.

This is the Six Year Birthday Archetype Contest, so how well both archetypes were executed and how they meshed together was the number one factor when ranking these stories. Other important things considered:

  • Was it entertaining?

  • Did the characters and dialogue seem real?

  • World building

  • Grammar and style

  • Etc.

Feedback for my 3 winners below. Feedback for all other authors in Group B are in a reply to this comment. Let me know if you have further questions or would like clarification.

Life and Death in a Dark, Dark City [Part 1] | [Part 2] - u/Snurdle

u/Snurdle? I haven't heard that name in years...

The first thing that needs to be said that I'm sure everyone who read your story will agree with: Your descriptions are amazing and hilarious. I invite everyone to read the first two paragraphs of u/Snurdle's story and you'll see exactly what I mean. It's funny, but it works. It's over-the-top, but self-aware. Perfectly balanced, as some Redditors would say. Simply from your descriptions, I was immediately drawn into your story. The plot certainly helped, too :P

Reading this story reminded me of Whose Line Is It Anyway's Film Noir/Narrate improv game with Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles. This story would make an excellent short film. Seriously.

This story was densely packed with comedy. Several parts had me laughing aloud. I don't know how you came up with so many great analogies and metaphors in the relatively small time frame we had. Absolutely hilarious!

A plothole/issue I had was this: How did Temnato not know that Oscuro was still alive? If he sent thugs armed with shotguns and pipe bombs to kill him, surely he would have at least realized that Oscuro might not have died when his thugs either never returned or did return but with news that they didn't kill him? And if Oscuro has an office, would it not hurt to just check if he's in there? The woman clearly had no problem finding him in his office.

The ending was unsatisfactory. It was a long, very tense buildup to short scene. It was the only scene that I did not enjoy (excluding the jokes, which were still putting a smile on my face and expelling air from my nose).

This story was the most polished of this group. There were only a few typos, only one of them distracting ("pop-tard" instead of "pop-tart" [or was that intentional?]).

Archetypes: Investigator was executed well. I was wondering when you'd utilize the scavenger archetype, then realized how you used it at the end. It did not feel forced. Good job.

Keep on writing! I would love to read more of your writing. If you make a personal subreddit to archive your r/WP responses, I would subscribe in a heartbeat.

Of Tea and Centipedes [Part 1] | [Part 2] - u/Bilgebum

Mechanically, this story's writing was the best. I can tell that you write a lot. Some typos here and there. An extra pass of editing never hurts.

The investigator archetype was too subtle in part 1, almost feeling forced (the story appears to be about chasing bandits, but then a side quest distracts them for just a moment that they then ignore for the rest of part 1). It wraps up in part 2 and helps to get them out alive—it just didn't feel as important as it should have been in part 1. However, the scavenger archetype was done very well.

Italicizing "er'ling" and "man'ua" every time the words were used was annoying. Also distracting was Zenmao constantly calling Shina "dearest". Maybe it's cultural, but I have never heard someone use "dearest" so often.

When Master Li, a man that previously was built up to be a strong advocator of pacifism, suddenly attacked Zenmao and later threatened to execute them, that threw me way off guard (it also threw Zenmao off guard :p). It felt out of character for Master Li, based on how he was presented up to this point. This line especially bothered me:

but then he glimpsed the prone form of Shina. The teamaster would not hesitate to exact vengeance on her even as she slept; he was now playing the part of executioner, not judge.

He's almost a different person now. Then Shina comes in, even though she was on the floor a moment ago, and is able to keep her own against Master Li. Wasn't she still asleep and weak from the poison? Why is she suddenly completely cured and healthy?

Besides my issue with "dearest", you did a great job with writing natural dialogue. You didn't use distracting tags or adverbs. The story was entertaining and the tension kept me reading from start to finish. The teahouse was beautifully painted, so much so that I suddenly felt depressed when I finished and noticed my surroundings. If you wrote more of Shina and Zenmao's adventures, I would love to read them.

Great job. Keep on writing!

Blood In The Fire [Part 1] | [Part 2] - u/sorksvampen

Great use of sensory details at the beginning. The feeling of hot air like needles on your freezing face, the sight of Himmelborg and its stone steps leading up to it, the descriptions inside of the fortress... the list goes on. One of the best intros in this group. However, as great as this was and as vivid an experience it created, the tension started after 2,500 words in. That's pretty late when you only have a maximum of 8,000 words to work with. Were there ways you could have sprinkled more tension and mystery throughout the approach to Tore and Val?

You had too many distracting dialogue tags and adverbs. Almost every line read like this:

  • "[First part of dialogue]," [name 1] [dialogue tag] [while doing an action], "[Second part of dialogue]."

  • "[First part of dialogue]," [name 2] [different dialogue tag] [while doing an action], "[Second part of dialogue]."

  • "[First part of dialogue]," [name 1] [yet a another different dialogue tag] [while doing an action], "[Second part of dialogue]."

It's repetitive and breaks up the flow. I could go on and on about how irritating this can get as a reader, but I'd rather point you in the right direction instead to my two favorite resources on this: How to use dialgoue tags like a pro and How to write captivating dialogue. Both are well worth the read.

This story could have used a pass-through or two of editing, as with most of the stories.

You are skilled at providing just enough detail. The left-handed guard, the contents of the metal scrap pile, the interior of Himmelborg, the exterior of the house in the forest. I loved all of it and found none of it to be unnecessary.

I didn't understand the ending. Either that, or I was not satisfied with it. Probably the latter. Val disappeared with Yrsa. They entered the house and since then were no longer seen. Now, Val's sister is looking for him. Where's the ending? If this story was supposed to be self-contained, then there was no ending for me. If it's supposed to be the first couple chapters to a larger stories, that makes sense, but I would like to have seen a story with a satisfactory ending in a contest like this rather than a cliffhanger.

Archetypes: Executed properly. You incorporated the scavenger archetype very well.

Your imagery was amazing. Just wanted to reiterate that lol. I was very immersed in each setting, which was honestly the deciding factor between picking your story over two others that were neck-and-neck for me.

Keep on writing! I look forward to seeing more of your work.

→ More replies (12)

1

u/ghost_write_the_whip Sep 02 '18 edited Sep 02 '18

1st Place: u/Bilgebum in Group B for “Of Tea and Centipedes”

2nd Place: u/ThreeDucksInAManSuit in Group B for “Paper”

3rd Place: u/sorksvampen in Group B for “Blood in the Fire”

Honorable Mention: u/veryedible with “The Sunlight Children”

I'm going to get around to leaving some feedback for everyone, but I'll start with my top three.

General Remarks:

This was a talented group with a lot of great stories, and I enjoyed reading them all, so thank you!

In particular most first chapters were very strong and the quality of those first parts set the bar high. However, this was also a very difficult contest and the second chapter was what really tested participants. Most of the issues I saw, which seem pretty ubiquitous to the contest as a whole, was that many writers boxed themselves into pacing and plot lines in chapter one that had to be pivoted pretty rapidly to fit everything they wanted into a second chapter.

Usually writers addressed this problem with one of three methods: speeding up the pacing, starting chapter two after a time-skip, or just letting the pace flow naturally and leaving the works open ended or to be continued. Given the challenging constraints, I tried to keep an open mind with whichever method participants chose, and tried to award those that adhered to the contest theme: a story that was both engaging and revolved around the two listed character achetypes.

u/Bilgebum:

Fantastic read! This was a really strong entry and the clear winner for me. Even in a limited amount of words, you managed to do a lot of world building by describing the Tea House and its surroundings. I got a Feudal Asia meets the Wild West type vibe that I really dig, and was instantly drawn into the world.

As a reader I was most interested in the conflict between Kula's gang and the pair of protagonists, and I was looking forward to a game of cat and mouse between the two groups in a setting where their primary method of conflict resolution (violence) had been taken away from them. I was a little disappointed that the protagonists had already resorted to their proverbial nuclear option by the end of the first chapter, breaking the rules of the establishment without at least trying to outfox their opponents or escalating the conflict first. From their interactions with other characters I got the impression that Shina and Zenmao had been foolhardy in their early days, but had since matured and that was why the tea-master respected them. Yet, I didn't see any evidence of patience in their decisions. If they had instead engaged in a battle of wits with trying to lure the bandits outside of the tea-house, then it could have made for a very interesting back and forth, as well as learning a bit more about the faceless group of bandits.

The main conflicts of chapter 2 felt a little anti-climatic after killing off the main villains at the end of chapter one. Additionally, the resolution to the story felt a little bit too neat for for the sake of tying up loose ends, and to me the scavenger theme didn't play a major part in the second chapter either. All criticisms aside, this was well-written, smartly paced, and left me wanting to read more of the adventures of Shina and Zenmao.

Overall, I think that with a few more words to work with and protagonists that are a bit more clever and a bit less reckless, this has the potential to be something truly outstanding :)

u/ThreeDucksInAManSuit

What really set this story above some of the other ones was the fact that I enjoyed the characters. In particular, I really like your take on the modern investigator. Laura Kite is an auditor, and the majority of her job involves parsing data, but you managed to make her interesting and engaging. It's fun to shadow someone that knows what they are doing and is good at their job, and that's the sense I got when following Laura around.

Chapter two was a bit weaker after the first chapter ended with such a strong hook, and Alan as a character didn't resonate with me as strongly as Laura. Just a personal opinion, but I kind of wish that chapter two had continued from Laura's perspective, if only because I liked hearing her thoughts and wanted to know what she was thinking during the big reveal. I think you did a commendable job of defining your characters within their archetypes as well, and I gave you some extra points because you stayed true to the contest and focused your second chapter on the scavenger theme.

Would definitely read more if this were to continue. Really well done!

u/sorksvampen

This story had a really great set-up in chapter one, and I liked how you established the mystery and the setting simultaneously. You left chapter one with an interesting hook, and by the end of the chapter, I was pumped to roll up my sleeves and take a look at the crime scene with Yrsa.

Unfortunately I think you realized you had paced out your story a bit too slowly for the word limit and so by chapter two, we'd skipped past that part of the mystery. I felt it was a bit of a tease to hint a crime scene that could make one believe in the occult, and then fast forward past it in the following chapter, but I also understand the challenges of meeting a word count. I almost would have preferred you to have continued from where we left off at the end of chapter one, even if it meant that we'd end on cliffhanger, if only because it was a bit jarring and it almost felt like you had originally planned on writing the scene out and decided to cut it.

You also did a good job of making chapters fit the focus of their character archetypes, which in the end was the deciding factor in giving you the edge over other stories that I felt you were neck and neck with. Overall, you have all the building blocks of a great story: fun characters, a very interesting setting, and a great mystery. Let me know if you ever continue this series :)

Taking a break, but feedback for the other stories to follow!

1

u/Bilgebum Sep 03 '18

Thanks for the feedback, especially on the parts that need more work. Yeah more hijinks between the two opposing groups might've made for a nicer, tighter, richer focus to the story. Guess I chose the simpler path too readily.

1

u/ghost_write_the_whip Sep 03 '18

No problem! Hopefully my critique didn't come across as too negative because I really, really dig the story and already want to read more from that universe. Seems you have a pretty good shot of making the finals, so best of luck to you!

1

u/adlaiking Aug 24 '18

Inspired by u/CaspianX2, I’m going to try to give at least some feedback to all the stories in Group A. But first I’m gonna do my voting and then in a later post I’ll touch on the others.

1st Place: u/scottbeckman in group A for "Invasion"

2nd Place: u/WokCano in group A for "A Search for Flavor"

3rd Place: u/Xacktar in group A for "Vae Gaoi"

Feedback for these authors:

u/scottbeckman – echoes of Snowpiercer in this - which I think is great - except the train is turned into a tower. More than the other stories, this had significant tension and high stakes - plus I felt you had a solid and decently set-up twist at the end. It’s a great premise and there’s a good amount of world building.

You could consider tweaking the structure here. Beginning the story with the interview that starts off part 2 would give you an organic way to set the stage and not have everything come to a screeching halt in the middle of what seems like an urgent issue. I thought you handled the scavenger archetype very well (although your setting helped a lot) but I found it hard to buy that they would trust Ira, especially so quickly, when presumably she is in tattered clothes, smeared with grime, etc. The following her and the readily sharing food and drink with her both seemed implausible but that's certainly an easy thing to fix given how much power she has over them. Sidenote: it's thigh, not thy, and like all the stories I’ve seen so far, there are other typos and errors to fix. :) Regarding the info about rats – in addition to being social, they are also not filthy, but I could buy that as Ira being misinformed. Maybe need to give a nod to where she got her flawed information from.

I can see a lot of ways this could unfold but I’m still very curious how the two investigators are going to get out of their situation.

u/WokCano – This was close for me. I love the premise of a culinary investigator and it was fun to have it set in the world in which you set it. The interplay between the two main characters was fun and I agree that you did an excellent work with making imaginary foods sound delicious, which is no mean feat.

This may be a personal preference thing, but I did feel like the stakes were pretty low. If you want it to be a kind of gentle narrative then that’s okay, but for me, I would’ve liked to see some risk or threat in part one other than, I guess, being disappointed. Something from Leon to force the issue (“I went ahead and told everyone you’ll be announcing the most amazing soup ever at the end of the month”) or even just people putting bets on whether he can do it or not, something to keep it from being pretty sleepy as far as tension is concerned.

I wasn’t sure about part 2. Personally, I think recruiting a new character who was a scavenger, rather than sending them to do some scavenging, might have worked better. It’s actually what I thought the random human was going to be…you could easily get rid of him without hurting anything, I think; or, make him cannon fodder for the boar so the stakes are higher. Having another character might help you get away from the “Melody says something that gives Eyezyk an idea” well, which you go back to a few times. :) As with the others, there are a handful of typos and grammar errors (e.g., present perfect).

It’s an enjoyable story, and I imagine the fixes being pretty easy. If you get more ambitious you could try to give an arc to Melody or Eyezyk since they both seem pretty much the same at the end as they do at the beginning, titles notwithstanding.

u/Xacktar – This is a great setting with a ton of potential, and I think it wouldn’t be hard to make some fixes that would kick it up several notches in quality. For me, the biggest issue was the tone. I am not sure if you were trying to straddle the line between silly and dark or whether it was more like the issue I encounter of not wanting to commit to one for fear of missing out on some opportunity down the line…but I think you have to either go fun or go scary with this. The Vae Gaoi are not too threatening, in the scheme of things - having a limp isn't great but compared to your soul being stolen or what have you it's pretty good. As I say, my sense is you wanted some of that light-heartedness but then that worked against attempts to build tension in part 2 because there’s not much reason to be scared of them. I think it'd be easy enough to up the ante (typically, after consuming one leg, they chase down their weakened prey to get the other, until gradually their body falls apart or what have you). Definitely needs an editing read-through to fix some errors.

There’s also a lot going on in the first part and then not much going on in the second and I think if you stick with this it’ll help a lot to spread some of that exposition out…especially since the main character and his partner are both mourning someone and we find out about that in pretty quick succession. Also, I think if you keep the scavenger in part 2, it would help to have her introduced, at least briefly, in part 1 – especially if you build in some animosity between her and the main character so we care about her coming to the rescue.

But I do think you’ve got a great setup here and there’s so much potential with the situation you’ve created.

1

u/Xacktar Aug 27 '18

Thanks for the good feedback.

I guess I didn't make it very clear what the repercussions of being caught by the monsters would be, so that does sap the tension.

Having Scavenger as the second archetype really threw me for a loop and the lack of action was mainly due to the fact I had to stall to get the new person introduced and set up to be a part of the plot. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways, thank you again for the feedback! I always appreciate seeing where I've made mistakes.

1

u/adlaiking Aug 24 '18 edited Aug 24 '18

u/AnEffortIsBeingMade

I thought the structure, with the conceit of multiple "first days" in part one, was creative. I also liked the voice and having the poetry breaks (?) was an interesting idea – but, from a tonal perspective, a challenging one. I am not sure how well it jibes with the cynical noir style you’re using and the verse themselves felt like they could either be tighter or eliminated. I also think you’d get a lot more bang for your buck if you went less-is-more with the narrative (and that this fits the generally taciturn nature of the noir protagonist). There were a few places where I thought you over-described, when easing off the gas a little would’ve made it more effective. To take one example: the scene near the end of part 1 where the rookies are freaking out “off camera” is excellent, but in my mind would be even better if you limited it to just describing the sounds – the throwing up and then the breathing. You can throw in a jaded comment from the narrator if you want about how life smashes your soul or what have you but know that it weakens the impact of the scene.

The only other thing I’d say, since you have the interesting episodic structure, is you might work more on building in arcs to connect them – both within part 1 and from part 1 to part 2. The way you wrote part 1 wrapped up the arc pretty well, which made it hard for you, I think, to connect it to part 2.

u/elfboyah

You’ve got an interesting start here, and I liked the creativity of your concept. I feel like, if you go high concept like this with anthropomorphic animals, you might as well go whole hog (no pun intended) and get really wild (ok, that was on purpose). In Part 1, the major action set piece starts as a fight between an alligator and bears. And then…there’s no actual fight, aside from (I think) the alligator biting the bears’ paws off in an “off-camera” moment. Which not only seems improbable (was it multiple chomps?) but is disappointing because why are you setting up a showdown between them if it’s not going to pay off?

I know you know this needed a few serious passes for editing/catching errors, so I won’t dwell on that except to say that it especially confuses things if you’ve got some dialogue that’s meant to be imperfect. I might not worry about that for now while you play with the narrative – and again, I would push it. Instead of focusing on dialogue and bar scenes, think about what a chipmunk-alligator team is like vs. a raccoon-bear team (aside from the chipmunk eating nuts). I’ll say that personally, I wasn’t crazy about the way you put the title in the story, because it didn’t feel organic, and the pop-culture references felt a little Disney to me – but that’s a matter of preference, I think.

Bottom line, I wonder if you did some more exploratory writing in this world but let the characters drive what kind of surprises you would get, because I feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential here.

u/ghost_write_the_whip

I enjoyed your story - I think you’ve got a solid main character and an interesting premise. I agree that the secretary thing is hard to buy, but it’s an easy fix – she’s not that essential to the story currently and if you decide you do need her she could transition pretty easily to a roommate. That would also help strengthen the conflict between Bigtime Detective Agency and Olivia, since she has less resources and all that.

The other significant thing I would say is make a pass for editing since there are definitely some significant typos/grammar errors that need fixing. You could consider polishing some of your descriptions at the same time – for example, if you give an inventory of the stuff the old lady pulls out of her purse, then descriptions like “overstuffed” and “endless assortment” are unnecessary.

Definitely interested to see what happens next for Olivia given where she landed in the end of part 2.

u/Shadowyugi

The opening setting was great, especially because graveyard scenes can seem cliché but you managed to make it feel fresh. I would say there’s a lot of potential you didn’t tap there just from a sensory detail perspective. You’ve got this lovely tableau, and details about climbing out of the wet mud and the sound of the shovel and all that, and I would push that much more. Also, do a find/replace on the word “corpse,” just to see how many times you use it in that section.

Having struggled with it myself, I get why the scavenger piece felt kind of iffy in part 2…but at least I would have considered going for a relic or magical artifact vs. a business card. From a character perspective, I feel like The Stranger from Part 1 seems unlikely to be a helper in Part 2. In fact, in general I would push that, as having him be powerful but recalcitrant creates some interesting narrative possibilities (e.g., Ms. Ellemory is getting swarmed by baddies and has to stay alive long enough to convince him to save her instead of just hanging out and making jokes at her expense).

Overall, I think you’ve got a solid foundation here and an interesting relationship between the main characters – it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Grimacre if you decide to continue!

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u/AnEffortIsBeingMade Aug 24 '18

Thank you for giving detailed critique for everyone. There's no such thing as too much constructive criticism, so thank you for taking the extra time. Good luck in the competition!

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u/CaspianX2 Aug 24 '18

Just want to say I'm happy that I've made an impact here in commenting on the stories. Even if my own story doesn't get a single vote, I'll feel I accomplished something here.

I also feel surprised and delighted to see how close our top threes are. Makes me feel like it's not just my personal biases showing. :-)

I look forward to seeing what you have to say about the other stories!

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u/adlaiking Aug 24 '18

I thought it was great what you did and I'm envious of how well you managed to interlace your feedback with positivity...something I wish I was better at.

I know what you mean about the voting. I'll be curious to see where other people fall...there are a couple that I see as being on the bubble and I know there might be elements that other people really like that were not my cup of tea....

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u/scottbeckman Sep 03 '18

Thank you very much for the vote! I've added Snowpiercer to my watchlist. Gonna watch it this weekend.

The first part of this world that came to me after the Tower's basic structure and social hierarchy was the interview with the last person born pre-Tower days, but the investigator archetype gave me the idea to start with the investigation of the breach. Since I am expanding on this story, I have been making offline changes. I agree that starting with the interview is a better idea than starting in the elevator. You're right, I need to give them a reason to trust Ira, whether that's out of fear or urgency or because she cleverly deceives them. At the moment, however, it makes no sense why a smelly scrapper with scuffed clothing is able to deceive Benson and Hanz.

You aren't the first to mention an issue with the rats. I tweaked a bit offline but plan on taking another look at it when I'm finished with the whole story.

Again, thank you for the vote. And thank you for the feedback!

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u/Steven_Lee Aug 25 '18

1st Place: u/LisWrites in group D for "Against The Clock"

2nd Place: u/BookWyrm17 in group D for "Finding Heroes"

3rd Place: u/BMwriting in group D for "Dying Embers"

 

u/LisWrites : I really enjoyed this. I thought it was written well, and had a creative/fun premise. I liked both Andrew and Nia, and their chemistry. I know some people might not like cliff-hangery endings... but I liked it.

 

u/BookWyrm17 : While I'm not a super big fan of breaking the fourth wall, I thought you did a good job, and the story was creative and fun.

 

u/BMwriting : I liked the premise and I really liked how you incorporated the second archetype in the world you built.

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u/LisWrites Aug 26 '18

Thank you! I’m glad you liked it.

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