I guess the best way for me to describe my ranking of this is that it didn't score any higher because it felt kinda, stiff, almost forced. I felt that you were telling too much about the characters rather than letting them play out their personalities. It was never to the point of redundancy, but I thought that you might be able to do better.
Also, I feel like I've seen something like this before in the movie Gladiator. Now, it doesn't seem like you're very far along in the plot, so I can't make an accurate judgment. But from what I've seen, it would be incredibly easy for you to wander into deep cliche.
The writing itself was good, with no grammatical errors to speak of (maybe a typo or two) and no real stylistic problems. It was also engaging, and I did enjoy reading, so it gets the thirteenth spot. Hopefully, you're not superstitious.
22-Mar-2009 02:16:47