Swibbity swoobity, I’m coming here to write reviews and stuff. 

[hider=1st of his Name, 7th of his Kind, King Sebastian the 41st King of Naitsabes]

I primarily write these reviews so that the writer in question can see what one of their readers thought of their work. The author of this piece has informed me in the past that they do not care to read my reviews.Thus, I have little desire to go over this piece in depth.  

[/hider]

[@Salenea]

[hider=The Choice]

This entry is competently written for the most part. It doesn’t use a large array of complicated words to get its idea across, but still does so in an almost sing-song kind of way. That might not be to everyone’s taste, but I enjoyed it. I didn’t notice any spelling errors or out of place words either.

The entry’s plot was not quite as good. I could sum up everything by saying “a princess fights her nerves and becomes a queen.” It’s an alright plot for a short story, but it’s presented in a way that’s more confusing than interesting. We’re tossing around ideas like death and birth and choices and meanwhile her parents have aged gracefully and are just too old to rule. I don’t know much about her situation and she ended up coming across as melodramatic.If I knew more about her situation I would have been able to empathize with her more. 

You’re really not too far away from a great entry with this. There’s a good idea here, it just needs to be built up a little more. 

Also, single spaced paragraphs are not very friendly on the eyes. I know a lot of books are formatted that way, but it’s a lot harder to read on a computer screen. Especially if you don’t indent. 

[/hider]

[@Nymian]

[hider=The Starless Kingdom]

In contests like this, it’s easy to get carried away with experimental pieces instead of just telling a simple story well. It takes a certain amount of courage to rely on your writing ability to carry an entry rather than its gimmick. 

And about the writing ability on display here…

It’s been mentioned that the writer needed more time with this, and it kind of shows. A lot of the dialog feels wooden and doesn’t convey much emotion. This isn’t made much better by the infodumps at the start of each segment. As an example, one such infodump tells us that the prince is a brat that never faces any repercussions for his actions. Something like that could be easily be shown doing something like this:

[quote] “Ahahahahahahhaha!” Keiren giggled as he ran down the hallway. He was dragging a row of sausage links behind himself while one of the chefs chased him.

“Oi! ‘Et back ‘ere ya ‘ittle brat!”

But the chef stopped his pursuit when one of the maids grabbed his shoulder. “Ah Bones, don’t wear ya self out chasin’ the little beastie. Ya know the king won’t let ya discipline ‘im anyway.”[/quote]

That’s not to say all infodumps are bad, they just aren’t used very well here. They rob the dialog of the flavor it could have. It’s best to reserve them for things that would be cumbersome to describe at the moment. 

But there’s a story worth hearing here.[/hider]

[@Midnight stars]

[hider=The Royal Life]

[i]*Wiggles finger*[/i] A furry wrote this, didn’t they?

I’m kidding, I don’t really have an issue with the point of view character being a deviantart adoptable avatar. I think there’s a nice story about interracial relationships here. In many ways, this is the best idea in the entire contest. 

The issue is that it’s held back by some muddy prose. There are lots of sentences that don’t do anything and are out of order. Crystal looks around, then we’re told how she looks. There’s no real variety to the sentence structure, which makes a lot of the dialog feel stiff. The abrupt ending didn’t allow enough time for me to see if Crystal and Ember had good chemistry. Crystal thinks Ember is hot and Ember is fascinated that Crystal is a cat person. That’s it for their compatibility. 

A better version of this story exists, and I know you can write it.


Also, single spaced paragraphs are not great for computer reading, Especially if you don’t indent. [/hider]

[@Loksfjoer]

[hider=My Vote]
[u]The Starless Kingdom[/u]

It wasn’t the most carefully written, but it did have the most complete story. 

Also when are you going to start writing for the contests again? I know you're judging them now, but how else am I going to read about spoony bards? 
[/hider]