I Want You To Write Forgiveness Judging

Contest and critique by [Kaimee]</center>

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Please read the other contestants pieces, and their critiques, because everything I've said applies to every one of you. If I focused on it for one person then I tried not to do it for another, but it is important feedback for all of you. And hell, we're all freedback-greedy ;) Winners are listed at the end, READ THE COMMENTS HERE before scrolling down to check if you won ;)

Please, don't take these comments and short critiques offensively! We're all here to improve our writing and by entering a contest run by me, hell, you're setting yourself up to be judged by me. These are my judgements. I wont say I'm any better than you guys, but these are the things I've noticed about each of your work, and if you didn't want to read them, then you shouldn't have entered ;)
Some of the crits are more serious than others, some more helpful, some more concise, whatever. All the pieces were given serious thought, and I reccommend reading them and all their critiques so you know where people are going wrong - or very, very right - and can make sure you pay attention to those areas too.

Again, thanks to everyone who participated, I love you all! :D

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9. [Fireheart]: 318. Letting Him Go - 34 lines

Format is everything, and while it's fun to be able to do fancy things like <center>, sometimes you don't really need it. As it is, the centering here reminds me of one of those pale blue loopy handwriting type christian angel cards, which is sweet, but hardly synonymous with serious poetry :P I'd love to see this after you've worked on the format, and also fixed up a few little spelling and punctuation errors :)
The idea and theme are beautiful and sad, and a few of the lines like "she had let him free, and bore the sacred knowledge that forgivness was the key" are perfect, but try to avoid re-using words like sacred too often in the same piece, or they'll lose their importance. If you can't think of anything else, MS Word has a thesaurus, which is one of the handiest little things you will find on a computer ;)


8. [Today for you, tomorrow for me]: 256.Poetry.Duties - 28 lines

Poetry has never been my strong suit so I don't know how qualified I am to judge this, but you entered the danged contest so you can put up with it :P
I'm in love with the end, "I’d absolve you of anything, for that’s what daughters do", but the strict and sometimes strained (?) rhyming throughout the piece puts me off a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love rhyming, and I love that you're rhyming every second rhyme throughout the text instead of the end of every single freakin line (!) but some of them feel a bit too constrained. They just don't flow very smoothly throughout the whole piece.
... Although, I can certainly understand the difficulty, being able to come up with a string of words to rhyme
be, know. pass, woe!
see. end. path, mend?
must be damn hard! All in all I totally commend you, but I'd have to say... work on it a bit more. Grind it down until every bit is bone, and then see if all the pieces fit together right :P

7. [Metal Tsubasa]: 95.About Forgivness - 391 words

This piece underwent a transformation since you first entered it in the contest, and definitely for the better! I have no idea if my pestering helped, but I certainly hope it had something to do with the outcome, 'cause this piece is now one of my favourites! :P
However, there are some spelling and grammer mistakes you're going to have to work on, things MS Word spellchecker just isn't going to catch. Maybe ask someone to proof read your pieces each time? For instance, the difference between 'disserving' (as you've used) and 'deserving', the word you meant to :P A dis-service is a wee bit different! :P
All in all I like the culture you've set up there, and the quick glimpse of the mercenary life. I'd love to pare down on the 'list' type history, a quicker mention of the hardness of his life and betrayal from his sister might be more effective by insinuation. But I do like the way you've written the mother in there, that's rather chilling o.o
Edit it to death, and then let it sit a month or so. Then come back and read the old version and read the edited version, and edit it some more :P That's my advice to everyone about everything though, so don't take it personal ;)

6. [Talenya]: 299.To Whom it May Concern - 16 lines

I'm new to your work, so it came as a nice suprise :)
Before I go into anything else I'm just going to have to say that I love the lines "The Chemo. Wasn't helping. The pills were too strong - a dose before they were too weak." The syncopation there, the rythym in the broken up sentence - it's good. You've captured that really well, the way.. well, sometimes you just can't say something. How can you write the poem of a person who can barely bring themselves to speak it?
I don't know, but you've done it, I think :P Those two lines are just so strong, they make the rest feel a bit pale to me :/
Mentions of movies and "populars" - they crash it back down to earth. You're going for a philosophical topic here, and a much debated one. Trying to convey that to any audience - as someone is eventually going to have to - is hard, and keeping it ageless would help the delivery.

5. [Po]: 80.Unconditional - 786 words

I think everyone who read this piece only had one thing to say missy, "Wow."
When I try and think about it too hard, to define the points like I do in the other pieces ("act, thought, forgiveness") I just can't. I literally can't. If I think too hard about trying to analyse it I just come back to thinking about it.
It's powerful. You write with punch, and this story is full of it. Sure, the topic is tear jerking, anything about little kids dying is going to upset some people.
But you write the heat, the attitude, the futility, the horror of the entire life that makes things like that possible - and you write it so that a pale as hell little redheaded Australian can feel as if she knows what it's like to hear those people speak.
I'm not going to pull apart your technique here, and I'm not going to tell you what needs improving. I will say that I wish it was longer. Instead of one day, I'd like a week of it. I want the life of it. I want to get to know those boys, and watch those boys for so long that they become background to me. You yank the carpet right from under our feet, but I want to love those boys instinctively so that I don't fall on my ass, I crush my heart to bits.
And while I'm saying I didn't love them enough, I should point out that tears were pouring down my face the first time I read it ;)
Just inside the world limit and I love ya for it, but I want that week damnit, even if you have to write two different versions >:P

4. [kileaiya] 172.Contest Entries.I want you to write forgivene - 516 words.

Firstly... me likey. My brother was less favourable and more scared looking at the end of reading this one, but hell, it's good for him ;)
The chop-and-change rythym in the dialogue bothers me. "Talk, describe, space, talk, describe, space.." It does change for a few paragraphs later on but I wish you'd write more story in some bits, instead of making them tell every bit of it. Of course, those 3 page long "memories" that all happen in the blink of an eye in some novels are the other extreme there, and I definitely wouldn't want you to succumb to that, bit to me it'd read better if that balanced out a bit more.
Secondly, I don't give a fuck about the characters. In my head they are instantly classified "whiney bitch boy" and "better off without him". I gained some liking for Anna at the end when she actually showed some spine, but writing "a single tear made its way down his cheek" doesn't bring one to mine, and if I can't connect with a story then well.. I just can't. Maybe it's the objectivity of the narration? It doesn't come from either person's point of view, no personal observations or thoughs are made, no memories, no.. nothing. I like the idea, and I think the end is damn funny.. but make me care about them, please.

3. [Fuzzysabeast]: 282.Please Forgive Me - 394 words

Boyo... you have improved. Ouch. I now feel like I myself am at a grinding halt compared to the speed you're picking things up :P
One thing I wish there was more of is story. As a snapshot it's beautiful, and damn well impressive that you can pull it off when you've only been writing for as short a time as you have, but I feel like I could actually like these characters... if only I knew more about them :P
It's hard, the choice between short story, flash fiction, snapshot, excerpt, novella, novlette, novel, series, saga, whatever.
It's hard, and sometimes making the wrong choice'll bother you for years until you go back to that short-story you wrote when you were 20, and pull a full fledged novel somewhere out of the deep dark depths of you.
But that's what I want to happen here :P
I like these people, and I want more of their story. I'm greedy, it's probably a vice or something ;)

One other thing to mention, the past tense. It distances things.
“I know that life with me isn’t always easy Andrea, but you know that I mean well.” I told my wife.
Why is this a memory? Why didn't you write the story as it was happening? The immediacy might have given it a little bit... more of something.

2. [Kuzco]: 212.Forgiveness -800 words
I already wrote your damn paragraph and I'm on a horrible terrible laptop which randomly decides to refresh the page every little while and lose any unsaved information!!!
Grr. Grr grr grr. So I'll see if I can remember the gist of what I had before :(
I like this. I really do. I liked it more than I expected to.
The beginning put me off, because it felt way too forced, but by the second paragraph you were getting into the swing of things and relaxing, and by half way through I wasn't even thinking about technique anymore, I was just enjoying it.
But (yes, there always is one), the end was weak. If you wanted to end it there put some punch into it, draw it out a little longer, add some suspense. Then when you do end it right there in a puff of smoke we'll all breathe a sigh of relief.
But I don't want you to end it there :P I want more! I always want more, I'm greedy, but this time not only do I want more, but I feel that without adding something more somewhere in the story you're losing an important element of what this story could be :(
If you don't end it quite so suddenly, what happens after that? Are they now on the run from the angry townsfolk? Is there one person amongst the townsfolk bitter for some reason and stirring up all that anger? Is there something more sinister behind the unreasonable violence?
Apart from that, like I said, I really like this story, and I really think you got it flowing along smoothly there with only a few hitches along the way. Congrats, and if you ever do add more to it, let me know ;)

1. [Mister Saint] 79.Contest Entries.Judge Me Not, 566 words.

I'm sorry, I can't help myself, this story cracks me up. Everytime I read it I end up as a puddle on the floor crying with laughter and giggling helplessly. When I try to read it aloud to my brother even if I get past the first word - "Virgil" - when it hits the second line and Moira I'm off again. It's ridiulous I know, but it makes me laugh the same way westerns do, and to me, this feels like a western ;)
I keep imagining their voices as Western voices, you know, "Aaahhm tuh fahstist guhn in thays har wayst" (say it out loud, you know you want to) and the like. But why did you name them Virgil and Moira??? Individualised names are good yes, but it goes back to one of the problems I have reading a lot of amateur writing: don't throw it all on in one place, don't get caught up in your own romantic ideas, and keep it real, instead of fancifying everything. [Metal Tsubasa] had the same problems with their piece when they tried using popular Japanese names, simply because they could. Don't! If the names are important to the era, the culture, or the tone of a piece (for instance, were they meant to make me laugh? :P) then go ahead and use 'em, but otherwise... don't get too carried away kidlets!

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PLACINGS:

 
[Po]: 80.Unconditional


[Today for you, tomorrow for me]: 256.Poetry.Duties
and
[Kuzco]: 212.Forgiveness

 
[Metal Tsubasa]: 95.About Forgivness


To everyone else who participated, I wish I could give everyone winners badges because you all totally deserve it. I hope to see you guys again, and if anyone wants further critique, comments, help, or editing with their work, just message me :)

~[Kaimee]

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