So I’m not going to do full reviews for these. For reasons of I might end up just coming off too harsh (for far too long.) So keeping it very brief, and I will be trying to provide examples. So it doesn’t look like blind and empty criticism. [hider=“Say, ‘Yes,’ and we can stay here forever.” By Briʓa] [color=fff79a] “His memory was so [b]fantasmic.[/b]” [/color] Aside from that being my new favorite word, it also isn’t the only sign that you didn’t run the post through basic spellcheck. Since the story is the longest, it only makes sense that errors might be easier to slip through the cracks. (Stuff like sentences with spaces that are too long.) But, this is literally at the last paragraph. That and the first tend to be the ones looked over the most. So it doesn’t seem like any effort was made to actually edit it…since spelling is by the far the easiest thing to fix. [color=fff79a]A tall, [b]gaunt[/b] piece of crowfoot grass stuck out of Matthias’ mouth. [/color] For another example, though this mistake might have been missed with software because “Gaunt” is a word, just not the right one for this sentence. [quote] [color=fff79a]They were both lying in the meadows with their bodies folding down the soft grasses upon and into themselves. Along the sky were white, velvety clouds, fluffy and light in their weight, held against the gentle blue that expanded across the horizon that wrapped around the mountain top. Forming the distance were trees with green, and white bark that stretched upwards for long whiles. Some of the trunks were thicker and grayer with ebony markings. The leaves were light green, but their veins gave a tinted yellow scenery, mirroring the radiant sun, gleaming in the glories of the season’s morning like a brilliant halo behind the mountain.[/color] [/quote] First paragraphs mean everything in stories, and it kind of displays what I feel is the general clunkiness and over abundance of the same, throughout the entire story. You use white, blue and green, ‘light’ green, ‘ebony’, gray, yellow all in one paragraph to set the scenes. That many colors used solely for quick unimportant descriptions, plus using so many single word adverbs and descriptions necessarily tacked on. It sort of feels like that kind of filler is throughout the story, like someone saying "I'm sorry" followed by explaining the person saying that felt bad. Or just using words that mean the same thing to describe an object, like "dumb and stupid." But I’ll try breaking my thoughts down... [color=fff79a]“Folding down the soft grasses upon and into themselves.“[/color] I’m not even entirely sure what’s being conveyed here. My assumption is ‘lying in the grass, bending it and leaving indents.’ Which is also far quicker to say and should have been said to cut down words. [color=a2d39c]Both were lying in the meadows with their bodies bending the grass underneath.[/color] (You also don’t need both “they and both” because both is enough to imply the amount of people in said scene.) [color=fff79a]Along the sky were white, velvety clouds, fluffy and light in their weight, held against the gentle blue that expanded across the horizon that wrapped around the mountain top. [/color] [color=a2d39c]Along the blue that expanded across the horizon; white, fluffy clouds that wrapped around the mountain top.[/color] (You have so many added words, that don’t actually change what I picture in my head.) [color=fff79a]Forming the distance were trees with green, and white bark that stretched upwards for long whiles.[/color] [color=a2d39c]Forming the distance were trees with green and white bark, stretching far upwards.[/color] (‘For long whiles’ just personally bugs me. And anyway to cut words to make it mean the same thing, you usually want to do.) [color=fff79a]Some of the trunks were thicker and grayer with ebony markings. The leaves were light green, but their veins gave a tinted yellow scenery, mirroring the radiant sun, gleaming in the glories of the season’s morning like a brilliant halo behind the mountain. [/color] [color=a2d39c]Some trunks were thicker and ashier with ebony markings. The leaves veins gave a tinted yellow scenery, mirroring the radiant sun and gleaming in the glories of the season’s morning like a brilliant halo behind the mountain. [/color] Everyone knows leaves are green, unless you specify otherwise the reader automatic thinks about that, another reason why I brought up over use of color descriptions, because if you use “sky” you don’t need to add “gentle blue”, because that’s the first thing that pops into one’s mind picturing a sky. And just for flavor, since you had to add “ebony” instead of black, is seems less out of place to just use “grey” when you could have added another ‘flavorful’ word. When it comes to repetition in word choice, you have a lot I felt that could have been cut. You use ‘could’ 40 times, ‘about’ 37 times, 'more' 36 times, 'wanted' 32 times, 'again' 30 times. Etc. Just as a word of personal advice. There’s many sentences were you didn’t need those words included. So you should have cut them. Try going through your story and ask, what else could I have put there? I was going through it and was able to replace a lot of those words without effecting the meaning of the sentences. (https://wordcounter.net/ Seriously, tools like this improve writing awareness. Couldn’t recommend it enough.) I'm sorry, but just overall felt like the story was too slow paced for me to enjoy it. And unless I’m blind, it doesn’t even appear to have followed the only guideline given and expressed in the rules. “Go to several (assuming at least 3.) different locations throughout in your story.” And it seems like they remained in the same location, they just climbed the mountain which seemed to be the single location they traversed. [/hider] [hider=The quest for the Golden Fish by Calle] Another “Wah, Wah, Wah” story. But this time I feel like I have a fundamental problem with how this story was told… Basically five fisherman, need to get a fish that will grant them fame and fortune. So obviously have long careers, love their job and want to do this quest. Then four go away for mundane and boring reasons and the five ends the gag he forgot his stuff ending in an anti-climax. I guess it’s mildly humorous, but it literally feels like I wasted my time reading at the end. Just leaves me stabbing at plot holes inside a silly story… If you wanted the anti-climax thing to work and be more effective, wouldn’t it had been more interesting for the quest to be super dramatic and serious for the previous four to give up? Going through a treacherous storm over the water, a man falls overboard and had be be thrown a life vest. Another gets so ill, that he’s sent back on a boat. Whatever. Just anything to make the “Shit, I finally got through and went through all of that and I didn’t bring my fishing pole!” That makes the cruel irony that much stronger... Also, not to do direct comparisons. But the story goes over so many of the same locals as mine does. But yours is very simple and not very complicated in terms of descriptions. Something we were asked to flower up a bit. Since the story is so short, obviously you couldn’t. But you could have, because unlike previous contests. This had no word limits. Let me take the “forest scene” as an example. From yours, than mine. [quote] They walked through a thick forest, the leaves on the branches kept the path hidden from the sun. Only when the wind blew strong enough would the leaves allow small openings through which the rays of the sun found their way down, until the openings closed again. The thick bushes on either side of the trail seemed impenetrable. The forest itself was full of life, insects buzzed, birds twittered and chirped, and a bear roared. [/quote] Not a whole lot left to the imagination, with very dry explanations. [quote] Ross carried the red cyclamens; a dozen bundled together like the battle scars bared on his bare back. Matching the amount of mosquito bites branding his knees. The tropical temperature towered tall as the kapok trees, as sweat drooled from his forehead. Like the unknown creature creating horrendous huffing noises, creeping closer while concealed beyond the creepers. Paranoia could only pray was watching something else’s every step. Elbowing checking the low hanging branches, blocking his march through the mud. Stopping to spot a brightly colored bird, perching on the opened plant’s pink surface, drinking from the nectar oozing out. Its carnivorous maw snapped shut; silencing shrill squawks. He related to the prey; shrouded from the sunlight, surrounded by an unpleasant unfamiliarity and swallowed whole by the depths of this dense jungle. [/quote] Can you see the difference? Ignoring the wordplay, vocabulary, alliterations inside the actual writing. Does that still not paint a more vivid and interesting picture in one’s head? I guess that’s for you to decide. And I’m sorry, there was no other way to properly express my thoughts about this sentence... [color=fff79a]“But the fisherman loved to eat fish.”[/color] You don’t say? The [b]fisher[/b]men whose entire job it is to fish. (Which in the previous sentence already implies their fish related quest will be used for food, which was described as “sweet” tasting. Which is already associated with pleasantness. With the following sentence explaining they don’t just eat fish, they eat “all” the fish.) Just so happens, that these [b]fisher[/b]men actually like [b]fish?[/b] [/hider] [hider=Nomen By Vocab] Okay, forgive me for sounding pretentious. But after I’ve read and not really understood many of your previous prompts. I think this one made me finally ‘get it’. You are the absolute antithesis of my writing style. That isn’t meant as an insult, nor a criticism. I genuinely believe your particular style is one of a kind on this forum. I’ve not seen someone write quite like this before on the forum, and feels consistent through all the other prompts. I feel like this one could be classified as a “signature” writing. That if someone asked “What should I read to understand -insert author- here?” I would point people to this prompt for you...take that how you will, maybe I’m wholly wrong here. But I feel like I needed to get that out of my system, before I could properly express just a few of my overwhelming problems with this story… The litany of grammatical errors and incorrect sentences are numerous throughout the story...and I already know the defense for this. That the character, an AI of some kind, is directly and purposely making all these sentences weird and unnatural. But if you’re going to do that, the errors absolutely need to be consistent and they are not. [color=fff79a]Another house had a people inside. [/color] (‘A’ people, is not grammatically correct. So now, I expect the AI to not know how to properly pluralize. Kind of like that youtube MC rapper parody.) But in other sentences… [color=fff79a]I thought the people would be more Sun than Sun.[/color] (And what makes it worse, is that it’s in the very same paragraph. So if the idea might have been that the writing that maybe the AI was adapting language slowly. While it learned, just maybe that could have been really clever use of sentence structures.) And you kind of do this at one point striking through misspelled words, but you don’t do this enough and only in one single paragraph and I'd argued isn't even used enough in that particular paragraph...I kind of expected and wanted stuff like “aovmibmebrmobenmbr” to fill a page. Just meaningless bashing of keys, because it sort of felt like the narrator was malfunctioning. Or maybe encrypted text code, some style that could only be used in a forum writing. Also, there’s 877 unique words in this 3,396 word story. 25% of the words haven’t been repeated, so 75% have. Just for direct comparison sake. My story has a similar word count to yours, and has 1,649. Almost double. And believe me, it’s noticeable. While some of it might have purpose. I feel like this went way overboard with the repetition with the same word/phrases repeated ad-nauseam. [color=fff79a]“corrupted corruption or names. The corrupted corruption of corrupted names on corrupted screens corrupting names. The pen moves but when it moves paper corrupts. Ink corrupts. Black and fluid, then dry and corrupt. I corrupt.”[/color] Speaking this aloud, which I did, made it feel like a tongue twister, and it absolutely does not flow well. This is one example and its like this the entire story... Unless I missed some kind of satire, the best of intentions assumes that this was written in the best way one could to describe the feeling of a character, move the plot forward. Be some kind of clever wordplay, interesting foreshadowing or something. I don’t want to feel like I could expose weaknesses in writing, by merely jumbling the sentence to make it mean the same thing and make the exact same amount of sense. So please, tell me if I’m missing something here. What does this change? I implore you to do this in the same way to all your sentences. [color=a2d39c]“Corruption corrupted or names, The corruption corrupted of names corrupted on corrupted screens names corrupting. The pen moves but when it moves corrupts paper, corrupts ink. Black and fluid, then corrupt and dry. I corrupt.”[/color] I think it’s already clear I’m not fond of this piece. But maybe it’s simply just not my thing. I 100% accept that I don't understand the intent. Take my critique with a grain of salt. [/hider]