Finishing!

[hider=the dragon queen]
Okey dokey! 

So, to start out (in possibly more typical mdk fashion) let's talk about what worked. First off, the imaginative depth is pretty great, and very inviting -- whereas a hypothetical-cowboy-story might brush things off as 'a frontier' or 'a pen' or 'you know, like, a ranch or whatever,' you've actually gone and built up physical features, an actual geography, an actual palace, actual dragons with characteristics, that sort of thing. At the same time, you've left big enough gaps between the details that I also get to color them in myself -- it's a good balance between, like, a blank sheet of canvas and a coloring book -- on the one hand I can tell what the picture is supposed to look like in my mind, but also, you're giving the reader some room for interpretation. The balance shifts naturally as the story goes through scenes, and generally speaking, it feels like you gave the right amount of description. I guess that's the moral here -- this is a healthy amount. Caveats to come, but the [i]amount[/i] of description was good. 

I also think there's a healthy amount of character-building, [i]partly[/i] because lots of these folks, you know, we've seen before. I look at the Queen herself though and think 'Yeah, that's a good introduction/goodbye/reintroduction.' Which of course means, overall, the story had a good arc to it, since it was all about that. 

.....Okay, now for the fun part (I jest) -- things that could be better. To start with, and I swear I've said this before -- a lot of the descriptions were lacking in strength. The [i]amount[/i] of describing you did was good -- it's more the [i]quality[/i] of the describing, by which I mean pacing was good but this is more, like, a use-of-language issue. I'm gonna highlight the one that bothered me most yesterday and see if it still bothers me:

[quote]it is unadvisable to walk unsupervised in [b]an area where dragons are.[/b][/quote]

....yeah, yeah that still bothers me. An alternative highlight which I think is mostly the same issue:

[quote]The last one wore [b]the clothes of a high-placed cleric[/b][/quote]

The second one, eh, not so bad -- but the issue is, at these (and other, less glaring) points, the descriptions aren't so much 'describing' as simply 'identifying.' I'm sure if you opened up my entry you could find a dozen examples of the same thing, so maybe I'm only pointing it out to help myself work through it.... We should be writing things like 'A dragon's killing field,' or 'the blue silken robes of a High Priest of Scientology.' Right? Not that last bit, but.... right though? 'A place where dragons are' is no fun at all to picture in my head. I [b]love[/b] the brevity and the clarity of these descriptions -- after all we don't need to spend three pages on every stitch of someone's shirt -- it's just the words themselves aren't (I think) pulling their full weight. Again, I'm guilty too, and probably so is whoever else is reading this review, so let's all work on that, cool?

There was a fight, and I generally talk about how to work on fights because for some reason I think I've got authority there or something. I really don't have much to say about yours -- it worked. The intense parts were intense, the pauses made sense, there was even some character development within the action. It honestly just works, which, I mean, isn't to say "OK you've mastered it forever now." But it was nicely done.

Something I don't really do, so I don't really have a good grasp on how to critique it, is the sort of magical-system thing you built into the story -- namely "whoever kills the dragon queen gets her powers," that whole concept. It [i]seems[/i] like there should be a better way to introduce that -- maybe some foreshadowing when they're approaching the palace? It [i]felt to me[/i] like the magical-inheritance and the 'he can't handle her power' just sort of appeared (*cough* perhaps to emphasize the labor criteria?) and it was less compelling than it should have been. Right up until he announces that he's gonna get her power, I didn't have Kendru pegged as ambitious or greedy or whatever, and so when that kills him, it's not like "YEEEAH THAT'S WHAT YOU GET YOU JERK!" it's more like "Oh.... ok yeah, I guess that makes sense." If that makes sense. I guess. Maybe another one of those contest-isms that we're always bound to see in this sort of writing context -- just, you know, my feelings or whatever.

Plot-wise, as usual, really solid. A good addition to your ever-growing world.

Aaaaaand this is getting long, so I'll just sign off with good job, great story. Your imagination (or mine perhaps) is [i]juuuuuuuuust[/i] slightly held back because of a sprinkling of weak-ish words, which detract only a little from the bigger picture -- but they do detract, I think. Pour some wild and crazy imagery into your well-paced descriptions and this goes to a whole new level.[/hider]

[hider=An unfulfilled challenge]
Ironically I think this might fulfill it though? But it's a good title. It's a brief plot, but then it really seems like only an introduction to a really interesting story (which was only looked-in-upon in the previous entry). My point -- it's an intriguing situation built on a strong character-driven conflict between interesting people. You really can't miss with something like that.

[i]Obviously[/i], as a stand-alone story, this briefest of introductions falls a little flat. We're not reading a plot arc here, we're reading the very very very faintest uptick of that arc, containing just the smallest glimmer of foreshadowing. In this tiny glimpse though, you've already laid strong foundations. I wouldn't say I'm 'hooked' per se, but intrigued? Absolutely. I'm not going to write an essay about this entry because you don't need it -- instead I'll just say I really like what you're doing from a writing standpoint, and I'm interested to see where the story goes, and heck, "I CARE ABOUT THESE PEOPLE," the five best words in the English language. I dunno if it's enough to satisfy the contest parameters, but what can you do. It's damn good writing.[/hider]

[@Habibi359] -- particles are probably the crappiest part of any language. Setting those errors aside, the writing in your story was pretty great. Since I cruelly made you sit through half a lecture on style, maybe.... hmm. Maybe there's a way you can craft sentences that [i]utilizes[/i] that second-language weakness and sort of, like, incorporates it into your own bilingual style? I couldn't begin to invent such a thing, but I'd like to believe it could exist. Maybe putting the cart before the horse. Idunno. In any case you can probably ignore like half of what I wrote, lol, I am really full of myself sometimes -- the story you told was great.