The problem with a first-person piece is that it's hard to get descriptive information about the main character into the piece. When you add in the fractured timeline to this story, it makes it almost impossible to tell what's going on. For quite a while I thought you had two different people telling the story in first person. This is heightened by the fact that in the two crises (the sedan and the guy in the yard), our hero acts like a professional killer. He takes three shots at a car skidding around a corner and all three shots hit? Is this guy an assassin or a moronic brother-in-law who brings a bomb to his mobster brother and then answers the phone that triggers it? He can't be both.
I think you need to delve more deeply into his character and figure out who he is. And you need to find a way to get more description into the piece. We never know what anyone looks like. Petr has a gash on his face in the thrift shop, which is good as it helps us place him later on. But you needed to make a bigger deal of it. Call attention to the scar by saying it's oozing pus or he's got a bloody bandage on his face. This gives us some foreshadowing that there's more going on. From the description, it could have been a ten-year-old scar. It is not. It's quite fresh.
Also, names. I know in this piece it's hard to give names. But it helps the readers identify the characters. Guy in long black coat with long black hair isn't enough. Have our hero (what's his name?) give people names. You will also find that once you name a character, it comes more alive for you, and you can then make it come more alive for us.
Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance to Prompt: 4. this is the most fractured story I've read so far, and it worked fairly well (although it got too confusing at times). But there was no reason for the time fractures. Have you seen Memento? That was what I was hoping for when I saw how fractured this story was. some reason other than hiding information from the reader for telling it in so haphazard a fashion.
Spelling and Grammar: 1. You really need to work on this. Way too many typos and incorrectly written sentences. It gets in the way of understanding an already confusing story.
Characterization: 5. He's certainly tragic, but I was disappointed that his tragic flaw was that he was a complete and utter moron. When the phone rang, I wager every reader knew it was going to trigger the bomb. Why didn't he know? Also, I never felt like I knew anything about him other than he was James's brother-in-law. He's not too bright and yet he handles a gun and fights like a green beret against mobsters. He was too inconsistent. Figure out who he is and find a way to tell us about him.
Plot and Structure: 5. I liked the way the story began with us moving back in time with each chunk. But when the story began to jump around all over the place, it became far too hard to follow. You needed to help the reader get grounded in time and place in each scene. This is always important in a story with more than one plotline, but it is more important here where the time is fractured. A single sentence at the beginning of each scene telling us where he is and what's going on again will help alleviate the confusion. Also, using simpler time stamps would have helped. Instead of 9:47 use 10:00 or 9:45. Perhaps just breaking all the chunks into 15 minute or half hour timeframes. I found myself constantly re-reading earlier sections to figure out where he was and what was going on at that time in the current scene I was reading. I think everything works within the time frames you established (i.e., there are no inconsistencies), but you know the timeframes. Your readers don't. It's easy to get lost in all the jumps. It's your job as a writer to help the reader get through the story.
Style: 5. I felt like we were being told instead of shown throughout the entire story. There is very little descriptive text of where he is, who he is talking to, what's happening around him. For example, you say of one character "his demeanor hints of a darkness and heartlessness. This is telling us. Show us what he sees in the demeanor that hints of that. Make it visceral. You also rely on adjectives and adverbs too much and your word choice and sentence structure gets very awkward at times (to the point of confusion). for example, read this sentence out loud to yourself: “You must do this for me,” says the man hidden in the deep shadows of the room in a low voice. It sounds odd doesn't it? It will sound odd to your readers as well and pull them out of the story. One last thing, watch for repeated words in sentences. The guy with the long black coat also had long black hair. Not only are long and black pretty weak adjectives, you use them twice in the same sentence. You may have been going for an effect (long and black, I'd guess), but it just comes off as lazy writing.
Creativity: 7. I struggled with this rating for a while. You use the fractured timeline well, giving us bits and pieces of information all along the way until we finally figured out what was really going on. But there was no reason for the timelines to be fractured other than that and to adhere to the prompt. It was a creative way to do the prompt and you did it well. But I was hoping for a creative reason for telling the story the way you did. Honestly, this story could have been told linearly just as easily with the bad guys giving us bits of information all along the way, and it would have been easier to follow the action. I mentioned Memento earlier. Watch that if you haven't seen it already. It is simply the most ingenious fractured timeline movie ever made.
Total: 27
Well, good luck in your writing. You have some talent. You now need to concentrate on characterization and description (and edit and spellcheck your story before you turn it in - no editor in the world will buy your work when it is so riddled with misspelled words).
Wow. This is an excellent story. I know it was good because I had no interest in the subject matter and you had my rapt attention from beginning to end. you truly brought the era of the reconstruction in New Orleans alive for me. I felt like was actually there living through it with William (great name by the way).
I think this story is publishable. There are still a few rough edges here and there. You say at one point that William fell in love with Ana Lisa the first week and then asked her mother for her. You then say later that maybe he didn't love her from the first but that he does now. Just little stuff like that, which you will find upon a good edit pass through the piece.
However, as I have no knowledge about the literary fiction market, I don't know where you can send it. And from what I know, most literary fiction magazines pay in copies only. It's not a lucrative market. Look on google, though to find some. Alternatively, you can send it to someplace like the New Yorker. I'm not sure if they still publish fiction, but if they do, they pay very well, and you never know.
Okay, onto the scores. I dinged you pretty hard on the prompt items because I decided to be stricter this time on those items.
Prompt: 2. You do have several stories going on here, but he main story takes up at least 90 percent of the space and all the others (leaving texas, getting shot, losing his wife and finding Ana Lisa) all take place in short, narrative flashbacks. I never felt like this story was not linear.
Spelling and Grammar: 4. Nearly perfect, but I don't give out 5s here unless it is picture perfect. for one thing, it is toward, not towards.
Characterization: 7. William is a wonderful, 3-dimensional character with a rich history that colors his current life in many many ways. He is completely tragic with his dependence on absynthe and his willingness to deal with villains while trying to do good for the people. I'm not sure he's a tragic hero, though. His only heroic act was in trying to save the Texas town, which failed utterly. So I dinged you there. I also would have loved to see him grow, just a little, at the end. He gets saved by the black coatcheck. His sanity is saved by Ana Lisa after his wife died. And yet, he still uses the N word at the very end. And he doesn't seem to have learned anything about his addiction or about love even after seeming to lose it all in the end. It doesn't have to be much. This is a tragic story. but I would have liked to see something.
Plot and Structure: 10. the story is well-plotted from beginning to end and I had no trouble with the slips into memory. You always rooted the reader well into the time frame with little clues like the cane and the tremors.
Style: 9. It was a little dense at times with information about the time that I think the reader could have gotten by without, but other than that, your style is excellent.
Creativity: 6. This was a tough one for me. I like the story and it is certainly a creative story. I can't think of any other story I've ever read that deals with these issues in this way. But as for creative use of the prompt, all you have are the memories of his past that haunt him in the present. Basically this is a wonderful story that just doesn't fit the contest parameters.
Total: 38
Now, go get this story published. As I said to one of the other contestants, you will need to tell any editor that it did appear online in a contest in a public forum. It shouldn't be a huge problem, especially with this story as the audience for it is quite different from the average MtG audience.
This story gets bogged down in itself. It's basically a stream of conciousness and a look into the mind of a pretty pathetic character. I found it hard to like Taylor let alone sympathize with him. As a kid he was pretty normal and got caught up in some nasty business and then spent ten years planning his own suicide while blaming God for his problems. Then he has an epiphany that it was all his fault? From the description of the attack, I would say it was all the fault of the teacher.
The actual plot of the story can be summed up in two sentences. Boy sees teacher raping girl and tries to stop it. ten year later, boy returns to the scene to commit suicide by cop. Everything else in this story is character stuff, and to be honest, it goes on too long.
Also, some minor quibbles. I doubt a school would deteriorate as much as this one had in ten years. Also, I doubt it would close just because of the murders. And where was everyone else? No school I know of is empty immediately after the bell rings. It takes an hour or more for all the teachers and staff to leave, and most highschools have to make schedules from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. every night for all the sports teams that need to practice in the gym and fields. There simply would have been tons of people around in the hour after the bell.
These points dropped me out of the story over and over. You mention near the end that the school had been slated to be closed before the incident. This should be stated near the beginning. But, if it was slated to be closed, why was it never demolished and used for something else. A new school perhaps. These logic flaws tripped me up.
Okay, the ratings.
Adherance to Prompt: 3. Like almost every story in this contest, this one tells two stories set some years apart, both of which run linearly from beginning to end simultaneously. The fact that both stories have so little plot in them meant I could see what was coming far ahead of when it happened.
Spelling and Grammar: 4. Some minor typos and sentences that could have been cleaner. No real problems here.
Characterization: 6. Tragic yes, but hero? He fails to save the girl. He's simply a tragic character. Also, the shear amount of insight into his character contained within this story still doesn't tell us who he is other than some shmoe who got screwed by circumstance and the courts. I simply had no sympathy for Taylor whatsoever, and the teacher was a cardboard cutout villain. What was his motivation for the evil deed? The mystery of that might have made a more interesting story.
Plot and Structure: 6. There is no plot here. As I said above, it's two scenes that take a total of two hours at most and most of that time is Taylor standing around doing nothing but lamenting his life. The structure itself is sound, but I think you could have done a lot more with this story than what we got.
Style: 5. The story just doesn't move forward. This is due to many things. Your sentences are all long and complicated, which slows down readers. You also use too much passive writing (was, were, had been). Active verbs will move the story forward faster. Also, there were quite a few unintentional repeated words that bogged down your sentences. For example: the teacher kept running at him, over and over. once he ran at him twice in the same run - over the course of two sentences.
Creativity: 5. Nothing new here, although I didn't expect the book case to fall on Sandra. I expected it to fall on the teacher.
Total: 29.
Now, I know I was unduly critical here, but your last story was far superior to this one and I think you need to know why. This one is flat. Taylor is such a weak character that he can't drive the story forward. All he can do is lament his weaknesses. That doesn't make for an interesting character or a riveting story. You also get a little too caught up in your words. You take a long time to describe everything and every emotion. You put these two things together - a weak character and long, complicated sentences that don't push the story forward and you get a long, boring story. Sorry. But I know you can do better than this. Maybe set this one aside for a while and then come back with fresh eyes and re-read it.
A decent story, although a little too predictable. I enjoyed the mystery of what was behind the black door and what the Incident had been. It was pretty obvious early on that the rest of the crew was dead and that Sheila had been moving the pieces. I did, however, like how you explained all of those items. And the ending was powerful.
However, the beginning was way too slow. The story doesn't really start until he starts playing chess. I would get rid of the first few paragraphs. They're just background information, and most of it isn't even needed for the story, and what is needed can be filtered into the story in bits and pieces later on.
This is a common malady of new writers. I've seen it a lot -- starting with all the background to get it out of the way and then getting to the story on the second or third page. It slows down the story and puts your reader to sleep.
Okay, onto the ratings.
Adherance to Prompt: 3. As with most of the stories in this contest, this one is told in two time-frames - one present day and one sometime in the past. This one is done fairly well, and the dual mysteries of the Incident and the Chess game play off one another well. Nothing really new though. I think it might have been iteresting to play off his concern over going insane as a way to spark the memories of the Incident.
Spelling and Grammar: 2. Too many typos and a lot of tense problems where you slip into present tense in the middle of a past tense passage.
Characterization: 5. Vincent is tragic in that his fear killed over a hundred people and left him alone. Is he a hero? No. He does nothing heroic in the entire story. Also, we do see him begin to make ammends with himself at the end, but we don't really get to see his emotional journey along the way. How did he feel about killing everyone? What was his life like for the next year? Why is he so robotic now? These are questions you need to answer for yourself and then find a way to show us in the story if you want more emotional impact.
Plot and Structure: 7. This is all basically sound, except for the beginning. I had a lot of trouble getting interested in this story until the chess game began. At that point, the rest of the story flowed quite well.
Style: 7. Your writing is sound, but it can improve. You tend to use a lot more words than you need (I would have written the word "tighten" in the margin many times. Also, you rely on the "to be" verbs too much (was were, had been). These should be excised as often as possible. Find a strong verb and use it. I also mentioned above your tendency to accidentally slip into present tense.
Creativity: 6. I liked the explanations for how the pieces moved and the repercussions of the movements as well as how the crew died. However, the story was predictable. I knew the crew was dead and I knew Sheila was the one playing the game. And as far as creative use of the prompt, it's basically two stories a year apart, one told in dreams and memories. There was no new territory here.
Total: 30.
I see a lot of potential here. Keep writing and you'll work the kinks out of your style.
So my question is: How big (...small) is Mirrodin?
If I remember correctly, the outer sphere of Mirrodin had a circumference of 1400 kilometers, so if my high school algebra isn't too rusty, gives us a diameter of around 450 kilometers.
For comparison, the diameter of the moon is 3476 kilometers
The diameter of the earth is 12,756 kilometers.
The circumference of 1400 kilometers (to travel all the way around Mirrodin) is about the same as the distance from Seattle to Minneapolis.
Good story. A little uneven at times and I was left trying to figure out what happened and who some of the characters were. But it's a good first effort. Now the challenge is to take this story and make it something more. something better.
Scores:
Adherance to Prompt: 4. I like the concept of the crime scene told in two time-frames - one from the cop investigating the scene and one from the people involved in the scene itself. Plus you keep us guessing all the way to the end about how it all played out. you lose a point however, because even at the end, we don't find out what happened or even why. The story needed more resolution.
Spelling and Grammar: 3. Pretty good overall, but you sometimes use the wrong words or use words incorrectly (DETERRING his eyes, I knew from the start it would culminate TO this).
Characterization: 4. The girl is somewhat tragic, but I don't see her as a tragic hero. Perhaps the crime boss is a tragic hero, but he's really no hero at all. He is simply looking for redemption (as was his father). Plus, we never get a full picture of how and/or why they came to be the people they are. We're left with a lot more questions than answers at the end. Why did she love him? Why did he and his father fall so hard from the straight and narrow? Why are we supposed to care about these people. Develop these two characters (and the detective) some more to give your story more emotional impact.
Plot and Structure: 5. The story is well-told for the most part. The different time frames play off each other well and you do a great job of not gving out too much information too early. However, there are problems. We end up not knowing why she killed him (or even if she killed him). If the girl down at the squad cards needs child services, was she the killer? If so, how did she get such a specialized gun? When you leave us readers with all these questions, we tend to get frustrated. You need to find some way to answer them.
Style: 6. Overall, your writing is solid, but you are missing on some important, basic points; especially Point of View (POV). Your POV keeps slipping. Look at the second scene and watch how we jump from her head to his head as they think things about each other. Then, later, the cop is looking at the girl by the squad car from somewhere up above but somehow can see her horror-filled eyes. This is what I'm talking about, your POV character getting information he or she shouldn't be able to get (from inside someone else's head or from so far away they can't see it). These jarring P.O.V problems dropped me out of the story as I tried to figure out how it all worked and who was telling the story.
Creativity: 7. I liked your slant on the basic two time-frames story. A mystery told from both the investigator's perspective and from the perpetrator's perspective is a lot of fun. However, you leave too many knots untied up. This is first and foremost a mystery story and all mystery stories conclude with the investigator finding out who the bad guy was. Here even the readers don't know who did what at the end.
Total: 29.
Keep it up, though. I see some great promise in your writing.
I would suggest trying for the top of the heap first. If you make it there you don't have to work your way up later. Try Asimov's or Fantasy and Science Fiction. I think it's not got enough hard SF content to get into Analog. If you get rejected there, try Realms of Fantasy. You can also check the Ralan's guide (google ralan anthology) to see if you can find an open call for anthologies where this story might place.
Make sure you tell them that it has appeared online in a contest. Some editors will want to know that a story has been "published" before (and posting it online does count because people have public access to the story).
This is a cool little story told well within the strictures of the prompt. It is a little uneven in spots and a little confusing in spots, but I see definite promise in your writing. One thing I will say is that, like a lot of, amateur writers, your language gets a little too flowery at times. Avoid overusing adverbs and adjectives. good, strong verbs and nouns don't need any frilly stuff attached to them. They just end up getting in the way.
One quick example from your story: At one point, you use the phrase "suddenly and without warning. This is not only redundant, they both meant the same thing, but neither phrase is very strong. you need to show the suddenness. Not use the word suddenly. It's like a crutch. Throw it away and walk into better writing (wow, that was really bad).
One last general comment. The section about the hide and seek game seems oddly out of time sequence. The scene with Caine and Bert in the cellar in 1989 that came earlier says that Caine is still a child, but it is nine years later than the hide and seek game (where Bert was supposed to have died. Maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps that's really Alex down there. But it was so confusing to me that it pulled me out of the story while I tried to figure it out.
Okay, score time.
Adherance to Prompt: 5. This story is incredibly non-linear. Not only that, but you used the scenes from early in their life to illuminate items about their characters and what was going on in the main time-frame story. Well done.
Spelling and Grammar: 3. Overall pretty good. But you confuse similar words a few times (their for there, I think and a couple others). A few typos and some sentences that were unclear.
Characterization: 4. This is the biggest problem with your story. For one thing, using twins who take on each other's identity, you already have a characterization problem because your readers will get confused (as I did) if you don't ground us in who is whom. Second, the tragic nature of Caine is not well developed. You try for redemption at the end, but he is shown to be such a bad and totally unlikable guy throughout and you don't give the redemption part of the story very much space, that it ultimately fails. Caine is the bad guy of the story and gets what he deserves. He is not a tragic hero at all. If I am missing something, then your story needs to be clearer so readers don't miss the point.
Plot and Structure: 7. You handle the multiple time frames well and get your story across despite the time jumping. However, I got confused at several points (the 1980 vs 1989 sections for one) and wasn't at all sure what was going on in some of the scenes (too many blanks left where there seemed to be information left out.
Style: 5. All of the points lost here are from word choice and tightness of sentence. I think you have a good style, but just undeveloped. Read what Stephen King has to say about adjectives and adverbs in his book, "On Writing." You sometimes get too attached to the poetry of your writing and it comes off as feeling forced. The writing should actually disappear in a story, leaving just the reader and the story without words getting in the way. Alliteration and sentences with poetic frameworks and cadence call attention to themselves and pull readers out of the story. Also, adjectives and adverbs are almost alway "telling" words and not "showing" words. Show us the world of your story. Don't tell us about it.
Creativity: 9. I mentioned in another critique that the writer's job in creativity is to find a new angle on an old story (or way to tell the story). I think you did that here. It's basically the story of Cain and Abel, but with a twist. It's a story told with flashbacks to illuminate how the character's past influences his future (as most of the others have been), but it is done well and has the added twists of flashbacks to a second character as well as the addition of a third time frame. Well done.
Total: 28
You have a lot of promise as a writer. I would say you most need to work on clarity of language and of story. I challenge you to go through this and higlight every adjective and adverb. I think you will be surprised at how many there are.
The trouble with humor is that it is hard to do and if that is the main thrust of the story and it fails, well, it just fails. I found some of this amusing - mostly the absurdity of the entire premise - but the actual jokes continued to fall flat for me, so I quickly lost interest. It didn't help that the story jumped around oto much and never gave me a sense that it was more than just a (way too long) joke waiting for a punch line that never came.
Also, two things. It is bad form to insert editorial comments into the text (ironic that it was about bad form in debating). If it is a point that the reader needs to know (which I don't think it was), let a character tell us. Next, the line: “I could be discovered! I’d better use the hang glider to escape.” was so horrible it blasted me right out of the story. Perhaps it was done for humor, but that's what we call a "As you know, Jim" moment. Telling the reader something he doesn't know but the characters do because you have failed to set it up correctly in the first place. It's obvious he's about to be discovered. Nobody would stop and exclaim that before running to the conveniently placed hang glider. Maybe it was a Robin moment. I don't know, but it failed for me and pulled me out of the story.
Okay, onto the ratings.
Adherance to Prompt: 0. This story is completely linear as far as I can tell. Other than the segues to the gods (which all seem to happen within a liear time frame as well. It certainly jumps around a lot and there is much we don't see, which left holes in the story. But it is linear.
Spelling / Grammar: 3. No huge problems, but too many sentences that were unclear as written.
Characterization: 0. I assume Veto Man is our hero and he is tragic only in that he is pretty lame. Plus, this story had no real characters at all. Most of them were simply titles and we never get invested in any of them.
Plot / Structure: 4. It just jumps around too much. The pacing is all off. SWe're in some scenes too long while others needed more development.
Style: 5. Not horrible, but not stellar either. As I mentioned above, too many sentences left me going "huh?" and the dialog was too corny to be believed.
Creativity: 5. I do like the premise. It's wacky and silly, but it was interesting. However, all five of your points come from that wackiness. The story does not follow the prompt, so there was no creativity involved in following the prompt.
Total: 17
Now, don't take this critique too hard. I saw some good stuff in your story. It was fun for a while. It just went on too long for what was essentially a single joke story. I'm sure it kills in your debate class and if that is your intended audience, I'm sure it succeeds there. But for a wider audience, this story is not going to work. Good luck in the future.
Some quick comments. The italics and small font make this very hard to read. I understand you were trying to use the italics to show the different time frames. However, it gets a little muddled at the end. I would have simply used scene breaks to show the time shifts. Tom always gives us a grounding as to when he is at the beginning of each scene (which is good), so the italics are unnecessary (and will drive editors crazy).
Your writing is good for fifteen. I found it lacking in detail and a little too "internal" but I think that's pretty common for younger writers. As you continue to write, focus on "showing" the reader what's going on, instead of having the character "tell" us what's happening. Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance to Prompt: 2. It's a basic two time-frame story with a little dream sequence thrown in. However, most of the second time-frame is simply Tom telling us how he got from the first sequence to the second sequence. And both sequences are told linearly. I would have actually started with Tom getting hit in the head, then the rest of the story is unclear whether it's dream or memory. And you can play up the mystery of the perfect life. Did he have it and lose it somehow? Is that why he's tragic?
Spelling and Grammar: 4. No huge problems here. There weren't any sentences that stopped me cold.
Characterization: 5. I think Tom is an interesting character, and is pretty tragic in that he's so violent but feels it's for a good reason each time. However, you never give us enough time to feel for his plight at the beginning before you show us he's a cold-blooded murderer. You need to build up some sympathy for a tragic hero so the reader will care when he dies. In this story, Tom got what he deserved. He killed a three-year-old. I mean come on. How scary is a three-year-old?
Plot and Structure: 4. This needs work and I'm sure it will come. The story is too rushed for one thing. Let the story grow from the events. Don't just report the events in a rush to get the story down. We need a lot more time with Tom to get a feel for who he is and why we should care for him when he dies at the end.
Style: 7. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old writer. Your style will develop as you continue writing. Just slow down and "show" us the world and characters you are writing about.
Creativity: 2. We get a story told mostly as memory from a time in the future when the main character is older (and not really any wiser). There's simply not much new here. As I said above, if you had played with all of this being a halluncination and left the reader unsure as to what was real and what wasn't, that would have been more interesting (although dream sequences are old hat as well). Your job in this category is to find that new slant on the old that nobody's tried before.
First, the general comments. This story suffers from real-life syndrome. Whenever you take a story from real life there is a temptation to tell everything that happened no matter wheter it helps build the story or not. It all happened so it should be in the story right? Wrong. A good story builds on itself and contains nothing that doesn't push the plot forward or illuminate the characters in some way. It also pulls the reader in from the beginning and moves constantly forward to the end. This story just takes too long to get going and bogs down all the time with items that don't really help the story. Too much real life. There is some interesting stuff here, but I think you need to figure out what kind of story you are writing. Is it a coming of age? An adventure? A friendship or buddy story? What is the theme? Figure out some of that and then choose the details and actions that highlight the story you are trying to tell while discarding the rest.
Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance: 1. It is really told almost completely linearly except coming from two different narrators so there are overlaps in time as we get informaiton filled in. I never felt this was an out of sunch story at all.
Spelling/Grammar: 3. Not horrible, but there were some typos and some wrong words (right instead of write).
Character: 0. Where was the tragic hero in this story. I did not see one. Also, the characters are all pretty much the same, and since there are so many of them and we get little to no characteristics to help tell them apart, I never had a clue who anyone was except maybe Robert and Trevor. All the rest of the characters were just an amalgam.
Plot/Structure: 5. As I said above, this story just doesn't move forward very well because we get way too much information we simply don't need. Trim this story down to about half the size and you will have a much stronger story.
Style: 5. Too many repeated words bogged down the style. Plus, again, it seemed to drone on about stuff I didn't care about (as I had no investment in the characters or their problems). It all just needs to be cleaner and leaner.
Creativity: 0. Sorry, but since this story didn't really follow the prompt of being told out of sequence, I can't score you higher here. Also, it's simply a story told from memory as you mentioned. It would have scored a little higher if you had taken that memory and done something with it other than transcribe it for us. Use the memory, don't dictate it into the computer.
Total: 14
Now, so you don't get completely disheartened, I did see good things in your writing. It is pretty clear. I got confused in some of the action sequences, but for the most part, the writing is sound. You just need to trim away the fat so the meat of the story can be enjoyed.
First of all a general comment. This is an excellent story, that is well-told and dang-near professional quality. You should take this story and submit it to a professional magazine. It is as good if not better than stories I have read in Analog or Asimovs.
Okay, onto the scores. I'm trying to be a little more critical of the prompt points than I was last time. I had not realized how important they were to these contests.
Adherance: 4. While it is not told linearly, the majority of the story is told llinearly. Only the subplot is told backwards. I actually think it might have been more interesting if the subplot had been told completely out of sequence. Not a major ding, but there you are.
Spelling/Grammar: 4. I reserve 5s for perfection and this is damn near, but there were a few minor typos and sentences that were unclear as written.
Character: 6. I had scored this before I read the other comments, but I did so for the same reason as som others. She's an assassin, so her actions are not unduly violent for her character. I did not see her as a tragic hero for her actions. However, she is somewhat tragic in that her own rise to conciousness led to her death (I assume) at the end. But you didn't play this part up enough. We needed to see her inner debate about the evilness of men and her decision to not be evil, which leads to her downfall as an assassin. Assassins by nature must be evil. She, it turns out, is not. If this had been more prominent in the story, I would have given you a higher score here.
Plot/Structure: 9. Again, dang near perfect. I would have preferred the subplot out of sequence entirely, but that's just me. I could easily follow both stories and that's the important thing.
Style: 10. Nothing to say here. You have developed a wonderful style and I don't think I can give you any pointers.
Creativity: 6. I'm sorry, but even though I love stories told in two time frames where we learn the history of the character at the same time as we learn how that history affects the character's dilemma, this is, in fact, a tried and true framework for telling a story out of sequence. It just isn't that original. You did it well and I think it was perfect for this story. But as to how creative it was for the prompt, I think it falls short.
Yeah, i hate to throw obvious ideas out, but the first thought that came to mind was if Memnarch (with the unexplained oil on him) sent a soul trap to Phyrexia. I can think of a certain person who wouldnt mind a shiny new artificial plane.
And if they do return to Mirrodin, I hope the story is less "run run run". Glissa lost so much weight running i didn't know how she could still fight!
That's the problem with having a story set on an entire planet (even one as small as Mirrodin). It seems like with the current story, they've learned their lesson, setting it all within a city. Yeah, I would definitely lobby for any future story I write to be contained within a smaller area.
Thank you for the clearification on the soul traps. Is it possible further that some of the soul traps are still out there, considering it would have to capture something to return to Mirrodin? Would this also make it possible for someone to catch a ride to Mirrodin if their plane had an unused Soul Trap?
That's a pretty cool idea. I would say that it's definitely possible. Although the way I saw them working was that they were on a timer. They stayed open for a specfied time and then closed and returned. But if the Magic Continuity team wanted to pursue a storyline based on this idea (for a return to Mirrodin), I wouldn't see it as a stretch at all.
Memnarch was simply trying to populate his world with more living beings. The soul traps were sent out to capture specimens for his little zoo. I would guess they came back randonmly, and I don't know that he had any specific plan for where he put each race as the traps returned.
I also don't think they would have had any impact on the multiverse other than the local impact of dozens of denizens of a plane getting snatched up. Although I think it might make for an interesting story if there were some consequences to these abductions, but again, I doubt it would be anything that effected more than a single plane.
And, yes, this was a lot of power to leave behind for Memnarch. This is a common theme amongst planewalkers. They have all this power, but little common sense about how to use it (or even safeguard it against misuse). Hopefully Karn has learned his lesson this time. I think part of it was us authors punishing Karn for being so hard on Urza all those years. It's tough to handle all that power. That was the lesson he had to learn once he had it.
I think you need to delve more deeply into his character and figure out who he is. And you need to find a way to get more description into the piece. We never know what anyone looks like. Petr has a gash on his face in the thrift shop, which is good as it helps us place him later on. But you needed to make a bigger deal of it. Call attention to the scar by saying it's oozing pus or he's got a bloody bandage on his face. This gives us some foreshadowing that there's more going on. From the description, it could have been a ten-year-old scar. It is not. It's quite fresh.
Also, names. I know in this piece it's hard to give names. But it helps the readers identify the characters. Guy in long black coat with long black hair isn't enough. Have our hero (what's his name?) give people names. You will also find that once you name a character, it comes more alive for you, and you can then make it come more alive for us.
Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance to Prompt: 4. this is the most fractured story I've read so far, and it worked fairly well (although it got too confusing at times). But there was no reason for the time fractures. Have you seen Memento? That was what I was hoping for when I saw how fractured this story was. some reason other than hiding information from the reader for telling it in so haphazard a fashion.
Spelling and Grammar: 1. You really need to work on this. Way too many typos and incorrectly written sentences. It gets in the way of understanding an already confusing story.
Characterization: 5. He's certainly tragic, but I was disappointed that his tragic flaw was that he was a complete and utter moron. When the phone rang, I wager every reader knew it was going to trigger the bomb. Why didn't he know? Also, I never felt like I knew anything about him other than he was James's brother-in-law. He's not too bright and yet he handles a gun and fights like a green beret against mobsters. He was too inconsistent. Figure out who he is and find a way to tell us about him.
Plot and Structure: 5. I liked the way the story began with us moving back in time with each chunk. But when the story began to jump around all over the place, it became far too hard to follow. You needed to help the reader get grounded in time and place in each scene. This is always important in a story with more than one plotline, but it is more important here where the time is fractured. A single sentence at the beginning of each scene telling us where he is and what's going on again will help alleviate the confusion. Also, using simpler time stamps would have helped. Instead of 9:47 use 10:00 or 9:45. Perhaps just breaking all the chunks into 15 minute or half hour timeframes. I found myself constantly re-reading earlier sections to figure out where he was and what was going on at that time in the current scene I was reading. I think everything works within the time frames you established (i.e., there are no inconsistencies), but you know the timeframes. Your readers don't. It's easy to get lost in all the jumps. It's your job as a writer to help the reader get through the story.
Style: 5. I felt like we were being told instead of shown throughout the entire story. There is very little descriptive text of where he is, who he is talking to, what's happening around him. For example, you say of one character "his demeanor hints of a darkness and heartlessness. This is telling us. Show us what he sees in the demeanor that hints of that. Make it visceral. You also rely on adjectives and adverbs too much and your word choice and sentence structure gets very awkward at times (to the point of confusion). for example, read this sentence out loud to yourself: “You must do this for me,” says the man hidden in the deep shadows of the room in a low voice. It sounds odd doesn't it? It will sound odd to your readers as well and pull them out of the story. One last thing, watch for repeated words in sentences. The guy with the long black coat also had long black hair. Not only are long and black pretty weak adjectives, you use them twice in the same sentence. You may have been going for an effect (long and black, I'd guess), but it just comes off as lazy writing.
Creativity: 7. I struggled with this rating for a while. You use the fractured timeline well, giving us bits and pieces of information all along the way until we finally figured out what was really going on. But there was no reason for the timelines to be fractured other than that and to adhere to the prompt. It was a creative way to do the prompt and you did it well. But I was hoping for a creative reason for telling the story the way you did. Honestly, this story could have been told linearly just as easily with the bad guys giving us bits of information all along the way, and it would have been easier to follow the action. I mentioned Memento earlier. Watch that if you haven't seen it already. It is simply the most ingenious fractured timeline movie ever made.
Total: 27
Well, good luck in your writing. You have some talent. You now need to concentrate on characterization and description (and edit and spellcheck your story before you turn it in - no editor in the world will buy your work when it is so riddled with misspelled words).
Will
I think this story is publishable. There are still a few rough edges here and there. You say at one point that William fell in love with Ana Lisa the first week and then asked her mother for her. You then say later that maybe he didn't love her from the first but that he does now. Just little stuff like that, which you will find upon a good edit pass through the piece.
However, as I have no knowledge about the literary fiction market, I don't know where you can send it. And from what I know, most literary fiction magazines pay in copies only. It's not a lucrative market. Look on google, though to find some. Alternatively, you can send it to someplace like the New Yorker. I'm not sure if they still publish fiction, but if they do, they pay very well, and you never know.
Okay, onto the scores. I dinged you pretty hard on the prompt items because I decided to be stricter this time on those items.
Prompt: 2. You do have several stories going on here, but he main story takes up at least 90 percent of the space and all the others (leaving texas, getting shot, losing his wife and finding Ana Lisa) all take place in short, narrative flashbacks. I never felt like this story was not linear.
Spelling and Grammar: 4. Nearly perfect, but I don't give out 5s here unless it is picture perfect. for one thing, it is toward, not towards.
Characterization: 7. William is a wonderful, 3-dimensional character with a rich history that colors his current life in many many ways. He is completely tragic with his dependence on absynthe and his willingness to deal with villains while trying to do good for the people. I'm not sure he's a tragic hero, though. His only heroic act was in trying to save the Texas town, which failed utterly. So I dinged you there. I also would have loved to see him grow, just a little, at the end. He gets saved by the black coatcheck. His sanity is saved by Ana Lisa after his wife died. And yet, he still uses the N word at the very end. And he doesn't seem to have learned anything about his addiction or about love even after seeming to lose it all in the end. It doesn't have to be much. This is a tragic story. but I would have liked to see something.
Plot and Structure: 10. the story is well-plotted from beginning to end and I had no trouble with the slips into memory. You always rooted the reader well into the time frame with little clues like the cane and the tremors.
Style: 9. It was a little dense at times with information about the time that I think the reader could have gotten by without, but other than that, your style is excellent.
Creativity: 6. This was a tough one for me. I like the story and it is certainly a creative story. I can't think of any other story I've ever read that deals with these issues in this way. But as for creative use of the prompt, all you have are the memories of his past that haunt him in the present. Basically this is a wonderful story that just doesn't fit the contest parameters.
Total: 38
Now, go get this story published. As I said to one of the other contestants, you will need to tell any editor that it did appear online in a contest in a public forum. It shouldn't be a huge problem, especially with this story as the audience for it is quite different from the average MtG audience.
Will
The actual plot of the story can be summed up in two sentences. Boy sees teacher raping girl and tries to stop it. ten year later, boy returns to the scene to commit suicide by cop. Everything else in this story is character stuff, and to be honest, it goes on too long.
Also, some minor quibbles. I doubt a school would deteriorate as much as this one had in ten years. Also, I doubt it would close just because of the murders. And where was everyone else? No school I know of is empty immediately after the bell rings. It takes an hour or more for all the teachers and staff to leave, and most highschools have to make schedules from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. every night for all the sports teams that need to practice in the gym and fields. There simply would have been tons of people around in the hour after the bell.
These points dropped me out of the story over and over. You mention near the end that the school had been slated to be closed before the incident. This should be stated near the beginning. But, if it was slated to be closed, why was it never demolished and used for something else. A new school perhaps. These logic flaws tripped me up.
Okay, the ratings.
Adherance to Prompt: 3. Like almost every story in this contest, this one tells two stories set some years apart, both of which run linearly from beginning to end simultaneously. The fact that both stories have so little plot in them meant I could see what was coming far ahead of when it happened.
Spelling and Grammar: 4. Some minor typos and sentences that could have been cleaner. No real problems here.
Characterization: 6. Tragic yes, but hero? He fails to save the girl. He's simply a tragic character. Also, the shear amount of insight into his character contained within this story still doesn't tell us who he is other than some shmoe who got screwed by circumstance and the courts. I simply had no sympathy for Taylor whatsoever, and the teacher was a cardboard cutout villain. What was his motivation for the evil deed? The mystery of that might have made a more interesting story.
Plot and Structure: 6. There is no plot here. As I said above, it's two scenes that take a total of two hours at most and most of that time is Taylor standing around doing nothing but lamenting his life. The structure itself is sound, but I think you could have done a lot more with this story than what we got.
Style: 5. The story just doesn't move forward. This is due to many things. Your sentences are all long and complicated, which slows down readers. You also use too much passive writing (was, were, had been). Active verbs will move the story forward faster. Also, there were quite a few unintentional repeated words that bogged down your sentences. For example: the teacher kept running at him, over and over. once he ran at him twice in the same run - over the course of two sentences.
Creativity: 5. Nothing new here, although I didn't expect the book case to fall on Sandra. I expected it to fall on the teacher.
Total: 29.
Now, I know I was unduly critical here, but your last story was far superior to this one and I think you need to know why. This one is flat. Taylor is such a weak character that he can't drive the story forward. All he can do is lament his weaknesses. That doesn't make for an interesting character or a riveting story. You also get a little too caught up in your words. You take a long time to describe everything and every emotion. You put these two things together - a weak character and long, complicated sentences that don't push the story forward and you get a long, boring story. Sorry. But I know you can do better than this. Maybe set this one aside for a while and then come back with fresh eyes and re-read it.
Will
However, the beginning was way too slow. The story doesn't really start until he starts playing chess. I would get rid of the first few paragraphs. They're just background information, and most of it isn't even needed for the story, and what is needed can be filtered into the story in bits and pieces later on.
This is a common malady of new writers. I've seen it a lot -- starting with all the background to get it out of the way and then getting to the story on the second or third page. It slows down the story and puts your reader to sleep.
Okay, onto the ratings.
Adherance to Prompt: 3. As with most of the stories in this contest, this one is told in two time-frames - one present day and one sometime in the past. This one is done fairly well, and the dual mysteries of the Incident and the Chess game play off one another well. Nothing really new though. I think it might have been iteresting to play off his concern over going insane as a way to spark the memories of the Incident.
Spelling and Grammar: 2. Too many typos and a lot of tense problems where you slip into present tense in the middle of a past tense passage.
Characterization: 5. Vincent is tragic in that his fear killed over a hundred people and left him alone. Is he a hero? No. He does nothing heroic in the entire story. Also, we do see him begin to make ammends with himself at the end, but we don't really get to see his emotional journey along the way. How did he feel about killing everyone? What was his life like for the next year? Why is he so robotic now? These are questions you need to answer for yourself and then find a way to show us in the story if you want more emotional impact.
Plot and Structure: 7. This is all basically sound, except for the beginning. I had a lot of trouble getting interested in this story until the chess game began. At that point, the rest of the story flowed quite well.
Style: 7. Your writing is sound, but it can improve. You tend to use a lot more words than you need (I would have written the word "tighten" in the margin many times. Also, you rely on the "to be" verbs too much (was were, had been). These should be excised as often as possible. Find a strong verb and use it. I also mentioned above your tendency to accidentally slip into present tense.
Creativity: 6. I liked the explanations for how the pieces moved and the repercussions of the movements as well as how the crew died. However, the story was predictable. I knew the crew was dead and I knew Sheila was the one playing the game. And as far as creative use of the prompt, it's basically two stories a year apart, one told in dreams and memories. There was no new territory here.
Total: 30.
I see a lot of potential here. Keep writing and you'll work the kinks out of your style.
Will
If I remember correctly, the outer sphere of Mirrodin had a circumference of 1400 kilometers, so if my high school algebra isn't too rusty, gives us a diameter of around 450 kilometers.
For comparison, the diameter of the moon is 3476 kilometers
The diameter of the earth is 12,756 kilometers.
The circumference of 1400 kilometers (to travel all the way around Mirrodin) is about the same as the distance from Seattle to Minneapolis.
Will
Scores:
Adherance to Prompt: 4. I like the concept of the crime scene told in two time-frames - one from the cop investigating the scene and one from the people involved in the scene itself. Plus you keep us guessing all the way to the end about how it all played out. you lose a point however, because even at the end, we don't find out what happened or even why. The story needed more resolution.
Spelling and Grammar: 3. Pretty good overall, but you sometimes use the wrong words or use words incorrectly (DETERRING his eyes, I knew from the start it would culminate TO this).
Characterization: 4. The girl is somewhat tragic, but I don't see her as a tragic hero. Perhaps the crime boss is a tragic hero, but he's really no hero at all. He is simply looking for redemption (as was his father). Plus, we never get a full picture of how and/or why they came to be the people they are. We're left with a lot more questions than answers at the end. Why did she love him? Why did he and his father fall so hard from the straight and narrow? Why are we supposed to care about these people. Develop these two characters (and the detective) some more to give your story more emotional impact.
Plot and Structure: 5. The story is well-told for the most part. The different time frames play off each other well and you do a great job of not gving out too much information too early. However, there are problems. We end up not knowing why she killed him (or even if she killed him). If the girl down at the squad cards needs child services, was she the killer? If so, how did she get such a specialized gun? When you leave us readers with all these questions, we tend to get frustrated. You need to find some way to answer them.
Style: 6. Overall, your writing is solid, but you are missing on some important, basic points; especially Point of View (POV). Your POV keeps slipping. Look at the second scene and watch how we jump from her head to his head as they think things about each other. Then, later, the cop is looking at the girl by the squad car from somewhere up above but somehow can see her horror-filled eyes. This is what I'm talking about, your POV character getting information he or she shouldn't be able to get (from inside someone else's head or from so far away they can't see it). These jarring P.O.V problems dropped me out of the story as I tried to figure out how it all worked and who was telling the story.
Creativity: 7. I liked your slant on the basic two time-frames story. A mystery told from both the investigator's perspective and from the perpetrator's perspective is a lot of fun. However, you leave too many knots untied up. This is first and foremost a mystery story and all mystery stories conclude with the investigator finding out who the bad guy was. Here even the readers don't know who did what at the end.
Total: 29.
Keep it up, though. I see some great promise in your writing.
Will
Make sure you tell them that it has appeared online in a contest. Some editors will want to know that a story has been "published" before (and posting it online does count because people have public access to the story).
Good luck.
Will
One quick example from your story: At one point, you use the phrase "suddenly and without warning. This is not only redundant, they both meant the same thing, but neither phrase is very strong. you need to show the suddenness. Not use the word suddenly. It's like a crutch. Throw it away and walk into better writing (wow, that was really bad).
One last general comment. The section about the hide and seek game seems oddly out of time sequence. The scene with Caine and Bert in the cellar in 1989 that came earlier says that Caine is still a child, but it is nine years later than the hide and seek game (where Bert was supposed to have died. Maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps that's really Alex down there. But it was so confusing to me that it pulled me out of the story while I tried to figure it out.
Okay, score time.
Adherance to Prompt: 5. This story is incredibly non-linear. Not only that, but you used the scenes from early in their life to illuminate items about their characters and what was going on in the main time-frame story. Well done.
Spelling and Grammar: 3. Overall pretty good. But you confuse similar words a few times (their for there, I think and a couple others). A few typos and some sentences that were unclear.
Characterization: 4. This is the biggest problem with your story. For one thing, using twins who take on each other's identity, you already have a characterization problem because your readers will get confused (as I did) if you don't ground us in who is whom. Second, the tragic nature of Caine is not well developed. You try for redemption at the end, but he is shown to be such a bad and totally unlikable guy throughout and you don't give the redemption part of the story very much space, that it ultimately fails. Caine is the bad guy of the story and gets what he deserves. He is not a tragic hero at all. If I am missing something, then your story needs to be clearer so readers don't miss the point.
Plot and Structure: 7. You handle the multiple time frames well and get your story across despite the time jumping. However, I got confused at several points (the 1980 vs 1989 sections for one) and wasn't at all sure what was going on in some of the scenes (too many blanks left where there seemed to be information left out.
Style: 5. All of the points lost here are from word choice and tightness of sentence. I think you have a good style, but just undeveloped. Read what Stephen King has to say about adjectives and adverbs in his book, "On Writing." You sometimes get too attached to the poetry of your writing and it comes off as feeling forced. The writing should actually disappear in a story, leaving just the reader and the story without words getting in the way. Alliteration and sentences with poetic frameworks and cadence call attention to themselves and pull readers out of the story. Also, adjectives and adverbs are almost alway "telling" words and not "showing" words. Show us the world of your story. Don't tell us about it.
Creativity: 9. I mentioned in another critique that the writer's job in creativity is to find a new angle on an old story (or way to tell the story). I think you did that here. It's basically the story of Cain and Abel, but with a twist. It's a story told with flashbacks to illuminate how the character's past influences his future (as most of the others have been), but it is done well and has the added twists of flashbacks to a second character as well as the addition of a third time frame. Well done.
Total: 28
You have a lot of promise as a writer. I would say you most need to work on clarity of language and of story. I challenge you to go through this and higlight every adjective and adverb. I think you will be surprised at how many there are.
Will
Also, two things. It is bad form to insert editorial comments into the text (ironic that it was about bad form in debating). If it is a point that the reader needs to know (which I don't think it was), let a character tell us. Next, the line: “I could be discovered! I’d better use the hang glider to escape.” was so horrible it blasted me right out of the story. Perhaps it was done for humor, but that's what we call a "As you know, Jim" moment. Telling the reader something he doesn't know but the characters do because you have failed to set it up correctly in the first place. It's obvious he's about to be discovered. Nobody would stop and exclaim that before running to the conveniently placed hang glider. Maybe it was a Robin moment. I don't know, but it failed for me and pulled me out of the story.
Okay, onto the ratings.
Adherance to Prompt: 0. This story is completely linear as far as I can tell. Other than the segues to the gods (which all seem to happen within a liear time frame as well. It certainly jumps around a lot and there is much we don't see, which left holes in the story. But it is linear.
Spelling / Grammar: 3. No huge problems, but too many sentences that were unclear as written.
Characterization: 0. I assume Veto Man is our hero and he is tragic only in that he is pretty lame. Plus, this story had no real characters at all. Most of them were simply titles and we never get invested in any of them.
Plot / Structure: 4. It just jumps around too much. The pacing is all off. SWe're in some scenes too long while others needed more development.
Style: 5. Not horrible, but not stellar either. As I mentioned above, too many sentences left me going "huh?" and the dialog was too corny to be believed.
Creativity: 5. I do like the premise. It's wacky and silly, but it was interesting. However, all five of your points come from that wackiness. The story does not follow the prompt, so there was no creativity involved in following the prompt.
Total: 17
Now, don't take this critique too hard. I saw some good stuff in your story. It was fun for a while. It just went on too long for what was essentially a single joke story. I'm sure it kills in your debate class and if that is your intended audience, I'm sure it succeeds there. But for a wider audience, this story is not going to work. Good luck in the future.
Will
Your writing is good for fifteen. I found it lacking in detail and a little too "internal" but I think that's pretty common for younger writers. As you continue to write, focus on "showing" the reader what's going on, instead of having the character "tell" us what's happening. Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance to Prompt: 2. It's a basic two time-frame story with a little dream sequence thrown in. However, most of the second time-frame is simply Tom telling us how he got from the first sequence to the second sequence. And both sequences are told linearly. I would have actually started with Tom getting hit in the head, then the rest of the story is unclear whether it's dream or memory. And you can play up the mystery of the perfect life. Did he have it and lose it somehow? Is that why he's tragic?
Spelling and Grammar: 4. No huge problems here. There weren't any sentences that stopped me cold.
Characterization: 5. I think Tom is an interesting character, and is pretty tragic in that he's so violent but feels it's for a good reason each time. However, you never give us enough time to feel for his plight at the beginning before you show us he's a cold-blooded murderer. You need to build up some sympathy for a tragic hero so the reader will care when he dies. In this story, Tom got what he deserved. He killed a three-year-old. I mean come on. How scary is a three-year-old?
Plot and Structure: 4. This needs work and I'm sure it will come. The story is too rushed for one thing. Let the story grow from the events. Don't just report the events in a rush to get the story down. We need a lot more time with Tom to get a feel for who he is and why we should care for him when he dies at the end.
Style: 7. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old writer. Your style will develop as you continue writing. Just slow down and "show" us the world and characters you are writing about.
Creativity: 2. We get a story told mostly as memory from a time in the future when the main character is older (and not really any wiser). There's simply not much new here. As I said above, if you had played with all of this being a halluncination and left the reader unsure as to what was real and what wasn't, that would have been more interesting (although dream sequences are old hat as well). Your job in this category is to find that new slant on the old that nobody's tried before.
Total: 22
Keep writing and good luck.
Will
Okay, onto the scores.
Adherance: 1. It is really told almost completely linearly except coming from two different narrators so there are overlaps in time as we get informaiton filled in. I never felt this was an out of sunch story at all.
Spelling/Grammar: 3. Not horrible, but there were some typos and some wrong words (right instead of write).
Character: 0. Where was the tragic hero in this story. I did not see one. Also, the characters are all pretty much the same, and since there are so many of them and we get little to no characteristics to help tell them apart, I never had a clue who anyone was except maybe Robert and Trevor. All the rest of the characters were just an amalgam.
Plot/Structure: 5. As I said above, this story just doesn't move forward very well because we get way too much information we simply don't need. Trim this story down to about half the size and you will have a much stronger story.
Style: 5. Too many repeated words bogged down the style. Plus, again, it seemed to drone on about stuff I didn't care about (as I had no investment in the characters or their problems). It all just needs to be cleaner and leaner.
Creativity: 0. Sorry, but since this story didn't really follow the prompt of being told out of sequence, I can't score you higher here. Also, it's simply a story told from memory as you mentioned. It would have scored a little higher if you had taken that memory and done something with it other than transcribe it for us. Use the memory, don't dictate it into the computer.
Total: 14
Now, so you don't get completely disheartened, I did see good things in your writing. It is pretty clear. I got confused in some of the action sequences, but for the most part, the writing is sound. You just need to trim away the fat so the meat of the story can be enjoyed.
Okay, onto the scores. I'm trying to be a little more critical of the prompt points than I was last time. I had not realized how important they were to these contests.
Adherance: 4. While it is not told linearly, the majority of the story is told llinearly. Only the subplot is told backwards. I actually think it might have been more interesting if the subplot had been told completely out of sequence. Not a major ding, but there you are.
Spelling/Grammar: 4. I reserve 5s for perfection and this is damn near, but there were a few minor typos and sentences that were unclear as written.
Character: 6. I had scored this before I read the other comments, but I did so for the same reason as som others. She's an assassin, so her actions are not unduly violent for her character. I did not see her as a tragic hero for her actions. However, she is somewhat tragic in that her own rise to conciousness led to her death (I assume) at the end. But you didn't play this part up enough. We needed to see her inner debate about the evilness of men and her decision to not be evil, which leads to her downfall as an assassin. Assassins by nature must be evil. She, it turns out, is not. If this had been more prominent in the story, I would have given you a higher score here.
Plot/Structure: 9. Again, dang near perfect. I would have preferred the subplot out of sequence entirely, but that's just me. I could easily follow both stories and that's the important thing.
Style: 10. Nothing to say here. You have developed a wonderful style and I don't think I can give you any pointers.
Creativity: 6. I'm sorry, but even though I love stories told in two time frames where we learn the history of the character at the same time as we learn how that history affects the character's dilemma, this is, in fact, a tried and true framework for telling a story out of sequence. It just isn't that original. You did it well and I think it was perfect for this story. But as to how creative it was for the prompt, I think it falls short.
Total: 39
That's the problem with having a story set on an entire planet (even one as small as Mirrodin). It seems like with the current story, they've learned their lesson, setting it all within a city. Yeah, I would definitely lobby for any future story I write to be contained within a smaller area.
Will
That's a pretty cool idea. I would say that it's definitely possible. Although the way I saw them working was that they were on a timer. They stayed open for a specfied time and then closed and returned. But if the Magic Continuity team wanted to pursue a storyline based on this idea (for a return to Mirrodin), I wouldn't see it as a stretch at all.
Will
I also don't think they would have had any impact on the multiverse other than the local impact of dozens of denizens of a plane getting snatched up. Although I think it might make for an interesting story if there were some consequences to these abductions, but again, I doubt it would be anything that effected more than a single plane.
And, yes, this was a lot of power to leave behind for Memnarch. This is a common theme amongst planewalkers. They have all this power, but little common sense about how to use it (or even safeguard it against misuse). Hopefully Karn has learned his lesson this time. I think part of it was us authors punishing Karn for being so hard on Urza all those years. It's tough to handle all that power. That was the lesson he had to learn once he had it.
Will