Hey guys! If you haven't figured it out yet, I wrote "Ashes of Ilium." Thanks for all the kind words and helpful comments! Really, your criticism is crucial in allowing me to further develop my work.
Oh, the praise was fully deserved. I'm happy to encourage you, but I shouldn't have to; your writing is solid. Just know that.
Not much I have to say about this other than thank you.
Well, for starters I'm glad you thought of my writing as "quality." For my sake, I hope you're right. You're totally right about the audience knowing exactly what's going to happen (I think that's called dramatic irony?), but I wasn't sure precisely what effect that would have on the reader. I tried portraying the Trojans as believably oblivious, to draw out feelings of frustration, futility and hey, maybe depression, from the audience, but in the end it could be anything. Thank you for the insight.
Well, first of all, thank you SO MUCH for the high praise. I really enjoyed writing this story, and even the research (which was onerously copious) was pretty fun. It felt like I was walking on a tightrope between being as accurate as possible and adding my own contributions to the story of Troy.
As for the dialogue, you're right about it being condensed. Knowing how I myself feel when I open the contest page and I have to read a story resembling War and Peace in length, I try to shorten my stories into digestible portions. I was hoping it wouldn't have much of an effect on my characterizations (admittedly, I spent more time on the main characters and unequal time on each of the Trojan soldiers), but knowing that it did is very useful for the future.
I couldn't help referencing the dream in the ending. I'd been planning on it since writing the first page, and I actually thought the physical ending fell a little flat. I'm glad you thought otherwise.
Thank you.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, both for your praise and for knowing exactly the types of feelings and emotions I was trying to evoke with each portion of the story. You have a trained eye for reading, it would seem.
I'm very glad you saw "Ashes of Ilium" the way that you did. You made me feel a lot better about several things that I was worried wouldn't come across. First, I tried very hard to characterize Calandra as strong and fierce to avoid the pitfall of stereotyping (offensively, might I add) the wife as a weak individual in need of protection. Instead I passed that on to Kiril, but hey. He's eleven. It's permissible.
Additionally, I was worried that the knowledge of Troy's famous defeat would take the edge off my own story since people would know then ending and perhaps deign not to read further. I'm glad you thought otherwise; once again, you captured perfectly what I was intending.
Finally, I was concerned that Agenor's decision to fight the Greeks at the end would frustrate some readers, who perhaps would think he would have better served his promise to his wife by staying with his family, but I think he had no choice. Generally speaking, the Trojan refugees were not fighters. Most of them, anyway. They would not have survived an attack from Pyrrhus and his men.
Thank you so much.
I truly appreciate your appraisal of my story, and I don't fault you at all for your final decision. I also found "34 Seconds" to be the better of the two.
@Silver Thanks for the encouraging review (I wrote A Reason To Go On). I really felt like I had botched it and rushed it too much to the point where it was meaningless nonsense, but you just made me feel loads better, so thank you.
Oh, the praise was fully deserved. I'm happy to encourage you, but I shouldn't have to; your writing is solid. Just know that.
I love a piece of… would you call this historical fiction? Well, the label isn’t as important. It’s always a joy to take a historical event that most people are familiar with from the outside, and create a story of someone experiencing it themselves, with extra bonus points for research and trying to adhere to accuracy. Some people would argue this lacks creativity, but I would say it’s quite the contrary. You gave life, you created personalities, you told a story—not just of the fall of Troy, something we could all do, but of Agenor, and we see it all through his eyes: a fresh, new perspective. Your writing/spelling/grammar and all that was flawless, and there were no lapses in immersion. Lovely. I really enjoyed your entry.
Not much I have to say about this other than thank you.
... Ooof. A worthy piece of fiction celebrating one of our most well-known ancient works of fiction. Seeing things from the perspective of a minor character is a nice touch. It’s really well done. Excellently done. I know quality when I see it, I’d like to claim.
But ooough. Knowing pretty much exactly what’s going to happen sure put a damper on my mood. Can’t say I could enjoy it, for I was way too busy letting depression set in. Gah. Hahaha. Anyways. Excellent characterization of the family, the other soldiers were somewhat forgettable but good for making it feel more authentic and alive. All in all, very well done. It’s just too bad my stomach now feels uncomfortable from reading it. Hahahahaha. Oh, well.
Well, for starters I'm glad you thought of my writing as "quality." For my sake, I hope you're right. You're totally right about the audience knowing exactly what's going to happen (I think that's called dramatic irony?), but I wasn't sure precisely what effect that would have on the reader. I tried portraying the Trojans as believably oblivious, to draw out feelings of frustration, futility and hey, maybe depression, from the audience, but in the end it could be anything. Thank you for the insight.
I've read the Aeneid but once. Regardless of the single-read, I enjoyed it more than The Odyssey (when it comes to these classic epics). Really, it's a hell of a story full of life and tragedy, and certainly it lives up to the ideas of an epic. Also, I can definitely use more accurate historical and general historical fiction in my life. Always enjoyable to see how people weave their own stories and tales associated to the content.
You're in the running for my vote, so it goes without saying that I enjoyed the hell out of this. Your descriptive wording was crisp and clear, nothing overly distracting from the scene. So often we get into describing the picture with a conglomeration of parts that ends up confusing the reader rather than immersing them. Easily, you avoided that problem. Seeing Troy fall from the viewpoint of Agenor and having Aeneas sidelined was absolutely an excellent story choice. God, I almost feel as though you could create your own fully-fleshed out story for this. It's condensed, thus I feel we have some trouble getting on with all the characters, however the dialogue did have its strong enough moments where we got the picture of them. And, perhaps, it's true in form really to the tale of Troy in itself. We can only know so much about these grand figures.
Perhaps you didn't want to take too many creative liberties with their characteristics? Regardless, we got the important things like the foreboding of the horse and the concern about it contrasted with those who were too relieved by the idea of victory and peace to properly inspect that horse.
I think my favorite bit is the ending, and that's huge for me. Ending's have a habit of not feeling right often times, but Agenor meeting Pyrrhus sword for sword is simply... poetic, and epic, and resonates so well with the spirit of the whole story. Hmm, coming back to the dialogue, I do enjoy the tender word choice between husband and wife. That felt pretty real to me, and their archaic form of speaking also felt just right. Maybe I'm just greedy and I wanted more, but you probably had the proper balance on this end, or perhaps it's the difficulty of writing historical characters.
Alas, in the end, this was a worthy tribute to the tragedy of Troy. Smooth read, well done, and the call back of the dream towards the ending was nice. THOUGH, also a bit conflicted there, meeting Pyrrhus on the field of battle, or streets in this case, felt like the proper ending against that epilogue of sorts. Both are good endings, either way. Just my preference.
Well done.
Well, first of all, thank you SO MUCH for the high praise. I really enjoyed writing this story, and even the research (which was onerously copious) was pretty fun. It felt like I was walking on a tightrope between being as accurate as possible and adding my own contributions to the story of Troy.
As for the dialogue, you're right about it being condensed. Knowing how I myself feel when I open the contest page and I have to read a story resembling War and Peace in length, I try to shorten my stories into digestible portions. I was hoping it wouldn't have much of an effect on my characterizations (admittedly, I spent more time on the main characters and unequal time on each of the Trojan soldiers), but knowing that it did is very useful for the future.
I couldn't help referencing the dream in the ending. I'd been planning on it since writing the first page, and I actually thought the physical ending fell a little flat. I'm glad you thought otherwise.
Thank you.
That was great character development, great suspense, and great pay-off. Wonderful entry, and kudos to you for both historical accuracy and wonderful literary craft.
You introduce us to Agenor immediately, and you waste no time fleshing out his and his families characters. He is a humble warrior that wants to protect his family at all costs, his wife is beside him as strong as ever, and Kiril is both of his parents' driving force: much like in any actual nuclear family. All of the main characters are likeable, strong, and really give the reader the want to care for them. You introduce and describe yours characters in such a way that the reader can clearly see emotions and ambitions behind them, and they cling to those human characteristics throughout the story. Might I also add that most of this connection is done through dialogue, which is always a plus in my book.
Furthermore, the suspense of knowing what is most definitely about to happen is just right. The Trojan horse is going to breach the city, the troys are going to be defeated, and it will be a disaster: but knowing these characters you've just connected with will have to go through it gives the tale a whole new layer. I will also like to add that the decisions that Agenor and the others make are completely human, something rarely seen in very fantastical tales such as these. They want to evacuate the city instead of fight in glorious vain, they want the best for their families instead of themselves: It's a thought pattern that compliments the realism of your characters very nicely. You can also clearly see the resolution the Troys had for protecting their kin, a theme that rings throughout the writing. Last but not least, the ending is a bitter-sweet masterpiece and what was always subconsciously expected by the reader throughout the short story, but is a turn of events that pays-off wonderfully nonetheless. Amazing job.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, both for your praise and for knowing exactly the types of feelings and emotions I was trying to evoke with each portion of the story. You have a trained eye for reading, it would seem.
I'm very glad you saw "Ashes of Ilium" the way that you did. You made me feel a lot better about several things that I was worried wouldn't come across. First, I tried very hard to characterize Calandra as strong and fierce to avoid the pitfall of stereotyping (offensively, might I add) the wife as a weak individual in need of protection. Instead I passed that on to Kiril, but hey. He's eleven. It's permissible.
Additionally, I was worried that the knowledge of Troy's famous defeat would take the edge off my own story since people would know then ending and perhaps deign not to read further. I'm glad you thought otherwise; once again, you captured perfectly what I was intending.
Finally, I was concerned that Agenor's decision to fight the Greeks at the end would frustrate some readers, who perhaps would think he would have better served his promise to his wife by staying with his family, but I think he had no choice. Generally speaking, the Trojan refugees were not fighters. Most of them, anyway. They would not have survived an attack from Pyrrhus and his men.
Thank you so much.
My favourites were Ashes of Illium and 34 Seconds. I think that Ashes of Illium was the better written (technically) of the two and I struggle to find fault in it. It's probably the most polished entry––I swear saw comma splices or the occasional dodgy phrasing in most of the other entries, although it might well have been because I was more enraptured with this one that I glossed over any errors entirely.
I truly appreciate your appraisal of my story, and I don't fault you at all for your final decision. I also found "34 Seconds" to be the better of the two.