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Eri Vi
Jun Member 2010

Eri Vi

Posts: 965 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Hi Eraser418. The idea is to post the story itself on this thread, not just the link. This saves on forums space while maknig it easier for others to read and comment on your story.
EDIT: It also eliminates the chance of mis-copying the QFC. (You missed a '2' off the end)

17-Feb-2011 04:59:26 - Last edited on 17-Feb-2011 05:00:38 by Eri Vi

Logan Shafts
Dec Member 2023

Logan Shafts

Posts: 3,211 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Hey guys, I have finally gotten a few days off and managed to finish those age-old story contest results!
A few things to remember while reading the results:
1. Each review is written directed at the author, remember this while reading them.
2. If you’re wondering why you got a mediocre grade when I did*’t have anything bad to say about a particular section of your story, remember that in my grading system there are negative as well as positive points. So if you got 10/15 for instance, this is because I did*’t note any positive elements – not because you made an error. The grammar section is the only exception.
3. If you’re wondering where your score in ‘brevity’ came from: Each score is relative to the shortest story. The shortest story got 30/30. Other stories got their length in words divided by the length in words of the shortest story, rounded and removed from the 30.
Each of your stories was unique and I had fun reading and grading them all. Thanks to all for joining us in this contest, I hope you all had fun.
And once again, I’m very sorry for such extreme delay in the winners being announced, I’ve become more and more busy over the last year.
Thanks again for your patience.
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05-Mar-2011 08:26:38

Logan Shafts
Dec Member 2023

Logan Shafts

Posts: 3,211 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Score for: R Quote’s story (page 62)
The very first thing I noticed about this story was its actual layout on the page. I strongly suggest you space your stories out more in the future, so that they don’t look like a big block of text.
It also helps people to read the story without skipping lines. This is more of a note than a rebuke, however, because layout wasn’t part of the grading system.
Brevity: 16/30
701 words.
Description: 10/15
You did a fair job of explaining your concepts throughout the story, despite the abundance of grammatical errors.
Something you should think about for future stories is the precision with which you choose words.
For instance, you wrote: “As his more useful senses returned, he quickly attempted to stand back up.”
‘quickly’ means hastily or speedily. I think perhaps ‘immediately’ would be a better word, but this is merely stylistic.
I suggest re-reading your stories after you write them and making sure you use the most accurate words you can think of. A thesaurus might help with this.
Grammar: 8/15
It’s not nice to begin reading a story and immediately find yourself confused due to small but important grammar errors. This is why I encourage people to repeatedly proof-read their stories. I noticed quite a few grammatical errors in this story, as follows:
You wrote: “He lied painfully on the coarse dirt in the courtyard” – This should be “he lay painfully”. “Lied” means ‘told a falsehood’ not *spread prone’.
You wrote: “It flaps it’s wings, clearing away the wisps of smoke” – First of all, this is a very sudden change of tense from past to present. Second, it should be “its wings” not *it’s wings”.
This problem is repeated three more times throughout the story. Remember that “it’s” means “it is”, and “it flaps it is wings” doesn’t make sense.
You wrote: “witht he exception of one woman” – This should be “with the”, but appears to be merely a typo.

05-Mar-2011 08:28:21

Logan Shafts
Dec Member 2023

Logan Shafts

Posts: 3,211 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
You wrote: “It bounced harmlessly off the demon's sturdy, etheral skin.* * This should be “ethereal”. Also, in the sentence before this, you worked your way back into past tense.
You wrote: “Just the charred ground and the ashes, with the ocassional dead tree.” – First of all, this isn’t a complete sentence. Second, it should be “occasional” not *ocasional”.
You wrote: “The combatants, both expeditionary and dark warrior alike fled under the burning gaze of the demon.” – There should be a comma after ‘alike’. When you use a comma to introduce an attached thought to a sentence you should usually close that attached thought with a comma.

Plot: 4/10
A plot is defined as a sequence of events. In a short story, these events must be chosen carefully. The events should be linked, and should each be important to conveying the thought you intend to convey with the story.
In your story, the entirety of the plot consists of the following: A warrior fights a demon, dies, and discovers the ‘land of the dead’. I found it simplistic, even though the initial battle was interesting.
In the future with similar stories, I suggest not introducing your story with a fight scene, because at the beginning of the story your reader won’t care whether your characters live or die, they don’t know anything about the characters. After you’ve introduced your characters a fight scene will have a much greater effect on the reader.
Total grade: 38/70

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I have removed Labyrinths from the contest because he has been banned.
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05-Mar-2011 08:29:10

Logan Shafts
Dec Member 2023

Logan Shafts

Posts: 3,211 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Score for: ITIalicious’ story (page 65)

Brevity: 23/30
330 words.
Description: 12/15
You managed to be both brief and concise with this story. You created an image without being overly wordy, and while this leaves a lot of room to improve the image, it portrayed all of the necessities and worked fine as a whole.
While I thought some words could have been chosen better, I still think you did a fine job of conveying your point.
Grammar: 14/15
The first thing I noticed about this story is that there is an abundance of commas, and a lot of them were unnecessary.
For instance, you wrote: “Samuel sat slumped against the polished, black bricks,” – Commas are used to separate items in a list. However, when listing adjectives it is usually fine to list simple common (related) adjectives without the extra comma. Furthermore, when you have less than two objects in your ‘list* it isn’t necessary to separate them as you did. So while you did*’t break any grammatical rules by using this comma, it wasn’t needed.
Nevertheless, this story was well polished grammatically, as I have come to expect from you. I found no blatant errors, good work.
Plot: 5/10
Yours is the story of a distraught soul caught on the last limping legs of his life who gives up in order to avoid the pain of dealing with his problems.
The plot wasn’t very deep, the idea wasn’t particularly original, and I did*’t feel much attachment to the character. You could have worked a number of things into it, the quality of mercy (with him being a beggar), for instance.
Nevertheless the story remained interesting, but the plot was merely acceptable.
Total grade: 54/70
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05-Mar-2011 08:30:04

Logan Shafts
Dec Member 2023

Logan Shafts

Posts: 3,211 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Score for: Legionnaire’s story (page 65)
Brevity: 23/30
330 words.
Description: 7/15
This story is one big monologue, and thus there is no narrative description. That is fine, but in the future I strongly suggest mixing up your monologue. For instance, you could start off with “x sat on his bed, writing in his journal’ – and then mix it up by adding ‘looking out his window at the waning sun’, etc.
Adding a narrative description helps the reader to identify with the characters predicament. This being a love story, the reader’s connection with the character(s) is all-important.
I noticed you used an overabundance of metaphors in this story. “like this” and “like that” gets old very quickly. Instead of constantly comparing things, perhaps you should consider briefly describing the feelings involved. At very minimum, when using a lot of metaphors, be sure to either heavily mix them up and be original, or otherwise start with a single metaphor and connect all the following ones to it so that in the end you only used a single metaphor. Connected metaphors are where we get terms like ‘family tree’ – they can be very useful and help convey a thought, though caution should be used with them to avoid being overly cliché.
Also, in the very beginning you heavily overused the word ‘heart’ – remember to mix up your word choices to avoid boring the reader.
Grammar: 6/15
You wrote: “I am overjoy with emotions.” – This should be “overjoyed”.
You wrote: “I feel like you could get loss in them” – This should be “get lost in them”.
You wrote:” Her brown hair swaying with the wind and it drives me crazy” – This should be “sways”, and you can remove ‘it’ altogether. However it would probably be better to simply add an introduction. You could rewrite it as “When I watch her, her brown hair swaying in the wind, it drives me crazy.”

05-Mar-2011 08:31:55 - Last edited on 07-Mar-2011 05:37:28 by Logan Shafts

Logan Shafts
Dec Member 2023

Logan Shafts

Posts: 3,211 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
You wrote: “I see her perfect smile each day and know that could light the most darkest of nights” – ‘it’ should be added before ‘could’, and remove ‘most’ before ‘darkest’.
You wrote: “Everything about her, causes my heart to ache,” – Remove the comma after ‘her’.
You wrote: “I have to feel her warmth in my arms, I have to; it’s my only way to break this darkness inside me”. – The semicolon is misplaced. Remember that semicolons should only be used in the place of a period (after full stops), and not used to separate sections of a sentence as a comma would.
You wrote: “If I can have her, I will once again be able to shrine my light through the most thickest of clouds; together we will shrine our beacons through the darkest of hours of our lives.” – This is a repeat of two earlier problems, the misused semicolon and the double comparative ‘most thickest’. Remember that ‘thickest’ already means ‘most thick. What you’re saying there is ‘most most thick’, which doesn’t make sense. Also "shrine" should be "shine"
You wrote: “Tomorrow, will be the day that this darkness retreats from me” – Remove the comma.
Plot: 4/10
This story did*’t have a ‘plot’ really, but because it was written as journal entry I did*’t really expect it to. As such the grade reflects the ‘idea’ of the story.
Things I noticed: You never introduce the man, or the woman, to the story. So the story plays out as an over-long description of a man’s desire to be with a woman, but the reader has no idea who the man or the woman are. This left me pretty disconnected. In the future if similar stories come to your mind, I suggest perhaps aiming at poetry instead of storytelling for them. Otherwise make up your characters and help the reader to get to know them before weaving the love story.
Total grade: 40/70

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05-Mar-2011 08:32:20 - Last edited on 07-Mar-2011 05:39:40 by Logan Shafts

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