Welcome to the judging section for [Mister Saint]'s Kiss Scene. On this wiki page I will illustrate my judgments on the pieces entered this contest, based upon the following criteria. These criteria were listed upon the contest page before it was posted at Flipside and will be applied to each contestant equally, with one small exception. A small measure of leeway was provided for any entrants for whom English was not a native tongue. Said leeway is slight, however, so please know that no contestation of this policy will be listened to. ^^

All entrants, I know I don't have to tell you this, but please keep in mind that my judgments are meant to be as professional as possible. No remark is meant to be taken as a personal attack or criticism, only as my honest ideas upon the writing. Yes, I had already made my decision before re-reading the stories today. However, I took the time to re-read them in the case that I might have been wrong. Use my ideas to improve your future endeavors in writing, and don't get angry if I gave you a low score. Repeat: These results will not carry personal bias.



Section Directory

[#Section Directory]
[#Criteria of Judgment]
[#Table of Entries]
[#Final Scores and Closing Remarks]

Reviews

[#the last kiss]
[#Kiss Scene]
[#The Kiss]
[#The Kiss ([Burning Inside])]
[#Lips and Iron Nails]
[#In Love With an Alien]



Criteria of Judgment
[#Section Directory]

Theme-oriented criteria

1. This is to be a kiss scene.

2. The story must contain no sexual material.

Non-theme oriented criteria

1. Creativity: whether the story is innovative, or just a rehash of a common scene. 35/100 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: 10/100 points.

3. Adherence to Theme: Does the story contain all the necessary elements? If not, does it remain loyal to the overall theme? For this story, I provided a special note about content, and that falls under this category as well. 25/100 points.

4. Overall Effect: How the story affected me personally. A quick note on this category: In addition to all the other things, for this category I judge not only the effect on me personally, but whether I feel that the point of the story was made well or remained unclear. 30/100 points.



Table of Entries
[#Section Directory]

1. [SleepingDragon]: 268.The Last Kiss
2. [chuchutrain]: 63.Contest Entries.Kiss Scene
4. [Askoga]: 89.The Kiss
5. [Burning Inside]: 233.Short Stories.The Kiss
6. [Emily]: 252.Miscellaneous Material.Lips and Iron Nails
7. [Kuzco]: 212.In Love With An Alien



Results


[#Section Directory]
[SleepingDragon]: 268.The Last Kiss

1. Creativity: This one's easy. A piece of candy? I don't know if everyone is aware (how should I know how far candy is distributed?) but a Hershey's Kiss is a little chocolate candy. So... yeah.

Score: 33 / 35 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: As always, quite consistent. Nicely done.

Score: 10 / 10 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: This wasn't so much a kiss scene as it was an 'eating a kiss' scene. However, it didn't deviate from the theme except via technicality.

Score: 23 / 25 points.

4.Overall Effect: Short, oh lord, it's short. To the point, yes, creative, and well worded, but aside from me smacking my forehead at the end, it didn't have a really heavy effect. However, it did its job quite well.

Score: 23 / 30 points
Total Score: 89 / 100 points


[#Section Directory]
[chuchutrain]: 63.Contest Entries.Kiss Scene

1. Creativity: A classic setup, tempered with an interesting rationale. It was an emotional piece with a lot of power delivered through the 'why'. Not quite the most original scenario, but far from overdone.

Score: 30 / 35 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: There are a few minor typos, and an occasional awkward use of a comma, but overall the grammar and spelling were very competent. I would caution this writer on overuse of 'as' ('He leaned in, as he wiped her cheek' type sentences) throughout. Using it so often took my focus off the story a little bit.

Score: 8 / 10 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Kiss scene: Check. No unnecessary content: check.

Score: 25 / 25 points.

4.Overall Effect: A moving tale, lots of power. This author shows a lot of ability in the art of wrenching the reader's heart, and it is used to full effect here. There was nothing in this story that made me think 'well... this could be better...'

Score: 28 / 30 points
Total Score: 91 / 100 points



[Askoga]: 89.The Kiss
[#Section Directory]

1. Creativity: I never saw this ending coming, and in all of my writing endeavors, with all my experience, I would never have even considered such an avenue as this author did. Not your average kiss scene by a long shot!

Score: 35 / 35 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: competent. The worst error I found was a '." She said' error, where the s should have been lowercased. Well done.

Score: 10 / 10 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Check!

Score: 25 / 25 points.

4.Overall Effect: Written in first person perspective from the opposite gender of the author, and yet well in tune with the character. Powerful, frantic even... I could feel his anxiety, that any movement could have been his last. I could see the woman as clear as if I'd written her myself. And the ending was, as stated, extremely creative and well thought out. I loved this story, point freakin' blank.

Score: 30 / 30 points
Total Score: 100 / 100 points (O.o That's a first)



[Burning Inside]: 233.Short Stories.The Kiss
[#Section Directory]

1. Creativity: Another classic scene. Though slightly typical of teenage writing, it uses thoughtful language and and a believable first person perspective that gets the point across very well. I couldn't help but be drawn in by the slightly unusual notion of the character's self-esteem being somewhat imperfect... he reminds me of me five years ago.

Score: 30 / 35 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: I am very impressed with the grammar and spelling here. This author made a fine showing with this. The only things I would point out are a few awkward commas (a dilemma for many writers) and an overuse of the word 'body' and its plural. 

Score: 7 / 10 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: *nod nod* All there.

Score: 25 / 25 points.

4.Overall Effect: It captures the spirit of the slightly underconfident teenage guy, and the magic behind the first kiss. For this author, it shows a great deal of versatility and empathy that I hadn't expected... I love to be proven wrong like this, though. Emotional, evocative of my own teenage years... and nicely presented.

Score: 28 / 30 points
Total Score: 90 / 100 points



[Emily]: 252.Miscellaneous Material.Lips and Iron Nails
[#Section Directory]

1. Creativity: It's kind of hard for me to assign creativity points, since I'm not entirely sure what exactly happened. Based on the assumption that this person came and, through his kiss, woke up some dormant species trait in the girl, I'll say that it was quite creative. Especially the changing of the nails thing... it's something I haven't seen before. The whole thing evokes images of vampires, but it's different enough to warrant a good score.

Score: 33 / 35 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: Competent. There were a few of those quotation/capitalization errors throughout, and an awkward sentence or two, but overall, very competent. One remark, though...

Some students worked skillfully at computers, or searched within the aisles of books the library offered; each person yearned for wisdom; they were the only kind of people allowed to step inside the massive, archaic building.

I've mentioned semicolons before, and this is a pretty good example of both how to use one correctly and how to use one incorrectly. A semicolon basically indicates a related thought, where another sentence might not be comfortable. However, one of the semicolons in this sentence really needs to be a period, to break up the sentence and reduce awkwardness.

Score: 9 / 10 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Kiss: Check. However, I was extremely clear in my warning about sexual content, saying that it should be strictly avoided. While the story didn't contain anything terribly graphic, I feel that it did cross the line at a few points with all the tongue-play, back arching, lip sucking, feeling up, and so forth. Any one of these things alone wouldn't have cost points, but they are all there in proliferation. And... "Melissa's backside jolted." All of that struck me as unnecessary for the purposes of the story.

Score: 18 / 25 points.

4.Overall Effect: This was a creative tale with excellent description, good grammar, and a solid atmosphere. At the same time, it is somewhat poorly developed (noting that no explanation was provided for this character showing up and changing the girl at this particular time... was he waiting for her? Is the library special somehow? Why not do it in a supermarket or an alley?). The main character herself is given precious little backstory, but just enough that the story seems to require it. The antagonist (or is he? it's hard to tell) is given slightly better development attention, but I still felt like I needed a bit more. In addition, I felt that the make-out session really hurt the fear that should've been associated with a person's species being changed (not to mention having a strange man in black suddenly start kissing you in a library). Don't misunderstand, this is an excellent story, very well told, but it has a few quirks that hurt the overall presentation somewhat.

Score: 20 / 30 points
Total Score: 80 / 100 points


[#Section Directory]
[Kuzco]: 212.In Love With an Alien

1. Creativity:In love with an alien supermodel? This reminds me of the movie The Fifth Element... I thought it was exquisitely told, using just the right perspective, and the pacing was perfect. It's a good formula, with a strong setup, and a character who is developed just well enough for the purposes of the story.

Score: 33 / 35 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: As usual, some leeway was provided since this author is not a native speaker of English. 

There were a few tense switches throughout this thing, and a fair number of rushed sentences that need a bit of comma-work. Overall, the grammar in this was improved from previous entries by the author, though, which is nice to be able to say. Otherwise, competent. ^^

Score: 8 / 10 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Check!

Score: 25 / 25 points.

4.Overall Effect: This thing flew! The pace of this story was ungodly; I finished it faster than two or three of the others combined, and it's twice as long as the longest! The guy's nervousness was communicated brilliantly, and this story was damn funny. That stuff aside, it dealt with a very powerful theme or two (racism, unrequited love) but did so in a way that wasn't sermonizing or preaching. What I liked the most, though, was that this story had genuine consequences for the main character's actions.

My only major beef with this story is its preface... I wish the author had communicated those things within the story, instead of telling us up front... it hurt the surprise. However, I can certainly see how it was necessary... I wouldn't have understood the telepathy otherwise.

Score: 25 / 30 points
Total Score: 91 / 100 points


[#Section Directory]

Final Scores and Closing Remarks

With the highest average score of any of my contests so far, I must say that you all performed splendidly. The lowest score was an 80, which is an upper echelon score compared to my other contests. I mean... four of the entrants scored 90 or above! That's huge! And don't feel that I was easier on entrants in this contest, either... with fewer points associated with grammar and more given to creativity, the 'gimme points' were all but eliminated (save for theme adherence) and more had to be earned. I am proud and impressed by all entrants, and I want to thank all of you for taking a chance on a mushy contest. Now, let's hand out some congratulations!



Winner: [Askoga] with 100 /100 points! Sheesh!

Runner-up: A Tie!
[chuchutrain] and [Kuzco] with 91 / 100 points!

Special Mention: [Burning Inside] with 90/100 points. This score is far and away the best he's done in one of my contests, and this piece of work proved his versatility and ability as an author. I felt a mention was necessary.