Welcome to the judging section for [Mister Saint]'s The Chase. 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.



Section Directory

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

Reviews

[#running]
[#Run for your Life]
[#Death by Darkness]
[#Tyrannosaur on Grand Avenue]
#Chase
[#CPS Chase]
[#Nebur]



Criteria of Judgment
[#Section Directory]

Theme-oriented criteria

1. This is to be a chase scene.

2. The story must contain a ladder.

Non-theme oriented criteria

1. Creativity: whether the story is innovative, or just a rehash of a common scene. 30/100 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: 20/100 points.

3. Adherence to Theme: Does the story contain all the necessary elements? If not, does it remain loyal to the overall theme? 20/100 points.

4. Overall Effect: How the story affected me personally. 30/100 points.



Table of Entries
[#Section Directory]

1. [Ash] - 102.short stories.running - 374
2. [Kuzco] - 212.Run for your Life - 1634words
4. [chuchutrain] - 63.Short Stories.Death by Darkness - 1063 words
5. [SleepingDragon]: 268.Tyrannosaur on Grand Avenue -629 words
6. [Burning Inside]: 233.Short Stories.Chase 628 words.....oooh one less then Sleeping Dragons
7. [tcm013] - CPS Chase- 743 words
8. [La Divina] - 115.Nebur: 826 words


Results


[#Section Directory]
[Ash] - 102.short stories.running

1. Creativity: This was very in-your-face, ask no questions kind of story. Even though it was not massive in the setup department, a lot of its creativity is found in the execution as well as the preparation. At the same time... a guy being chased by gunmen, while not bad, is not tremendously inventive.

Score: 24 / 30 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: There are a few grammar quirks I noticed here. Most of them came in the form of misused words (than/then type errors) and odd use of commas and conjunctions. For example...

Jamie hoped for escape as he pushed his muscles harder as sprinting for dear life alone was not enough to keep him alive.

In this passage, the two uses of 'as' are slightly awkward. Placing a comma after the word 'harder' and removing the second 'as' could fix this little error.

A few look-overs and edits could easily fix the grammar problems here. No glaring errors were found. ^_^

Score: 17 / 20 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Yes, it was a chase scene. Unfortunately, there was no reference that I could find to a ladder, and I have to deduct ten points.

Score: 10 / 20 points.

4.Overall Effect: I like this story. Flat-out, it's interesting, and doesn't waste time with meaningless details. I'm not sure that the ending tweaked my fancy all that much, but it is a perfect example of Classical Decorum, a concept which I love to see executed with precision. There was definitely some suspense here, and the feeling of impending doom was on. I'm a little iffy on the level of detail, though, and some things could have been reworded for more effect.

Score: 22 / 30 points
Total Score: 83 / 100 points


[#Section Directory]
[Kuzco] - 212.Run for your Life

1. Creativity: Much like the previous story, this one wasn't un-creative so as it was a setup that doesn't demand a great deal of originality. The characters were fairly typical, but the way the escape went was creative enough to be admirable.

Score: 17 / 30 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: Again, some leeway was provided for this writer. That said, there were sparse spelling errors, and the grammar could use some polishing still. I'm still getting used to the dashed dialogue system, too. What hurts this story the most, grammatically, is the awkward use of commas and run-on sentences that appear throughout. 

There were three friends of mine protecting the door but they should know better than to try and stop my dash; I ignore them and just thrust through them pushing the door open with my arm and going through it with some bullets shaving my hair and the wall.

This sentence is evocative of the grammatical troubles throughout the story. Note the tense switch right at the beginning, using were instead of are. Also, a brief word on semicolons; use them when you couldn't comfortably just start a new sentence instead. They're very vague in their usage, and should be used sparingly to avoid foulups. In this case, a period would be better. Finally, note that the sentence could (and should) have been divided up into two (possibly three) sentences instead of one. 

There are three friends of mine protecting the door, but they should know better than to try and stop my dash. I ignore them and thrust through them, pushing the door open with my (good?) arm while bullets shaved my hair and the wall.

Score: 12 / 20 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Ladder: check. Chase: check.

Score: 20 / 20 points.

4.Overall Effect: It was a solid chase scene, but nothing really thrilled me about this story. I felt that it was too long for its purpose, without spending enough time developing at least the main character. And I didn't deduct for this, but I felt that the character's being shot repeatedly and still running away was somewhat unrealistic. Despite what television tells us, even a single bullet wound is enough to slow the average person down (unless it's just a knick, which it wasn't) to a crawl, while distorting the senses from pain and blood loss. It's something to consider.

Score: 17 / 30 points
Total Score: 66 / 100 points



[chuchutrain] - 63.Short Stories.Death by Darkness
[#Section Directory]
1. Creativity: I like the rationale for the chase. Instead of having it happen for no apparent reason, there was an explained motive for the people to be chasing this last Ciro girl. The concept of 'darkness being their only weakness' is an interesting one, but would need quite a bit more explaining before all the loopholes in it could be patched up. I'd love to see this expanded at some point.

Score: 26 / 30 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: Nothing really spectacular to note here, save a few capitalization errors (using lowercase letters to start sentences), and some comma oddness.

She opened her eyes and looked around, something was wrong, it was pitch black. No light at all. She quickly put her hand up in front of her face, nothing, no light what-so-ever.

These sentences display the common problems. Here is a fine example of where you might be able to use semicolons. These sentences are somewhat choppy, if not quite to the point of being called run-on. Remember to separate sentences if they feel a little rushed, when you can. For example...

She opened her eyes and looked around. Something was wrong; it was pitch black, no light at all. She quicking put her hand up in front of her face... nothing. No light whatsoever.

Even with these changes, the wording is still a little bit awkward, but it helps some.

Score: 15 / 20 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Though there was a chase in the story, it wasn't the focus. Most of the focus came inside the house, after the chase. In addition, there was no ladder.

Score: 7 / 20 points.

4.Overall Effect: It was a very moving story, very powerful, in addition to having an interesting theme and setup. I'm not too crazy about the ending; it seemed as if there was a great deal of build up for nothing., though it did tell a good story. I can't really say a whole lot, except... work on the sentence structure a little, and putt in some more developed dialogue, and you'll do great.

Score: 25 / 30 points
Total Score: 66 / 100 points



[SleepingDragon]: 268.Tyrannosaur on Grand Avenue
[#Section Directory]

1. Creativity: Yeah. My first thought when I read the title was "... what the hell?" which pretty much guarantees a good score on creativity. A Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing a Camaro down an interstate? No questions asked.

Score: 30 / 30 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: Satisfactory. I never once had to sit down and say 'Hey. That's not right."

Score: 20 / 20 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Chase and ladder: check.

Score: 20 / 20 points.

4.Overall Effect: It was a great story, it was, but that ending... I've seen it so many times. Even though, in this case, I know this is a semi-true story, that ending has been done to death, reincarnated, and done to re-death. In addition, the repetetion of onomotopoeia (using words to represent a sound, in this case 'CRASH') was a little unnecessary, and struck me as out of the style of the story. Still, a well rounded tale that gets in, does its job, and goes home.

Score: 22 / 30 points
Total Score: 92 / 100 points

<Chase>

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

1. Creativity: A druid? Well, that's definitely different. I can't help but think that there is some heavy Diablo (a computer game) influence though, as that game contained a character class called 'druid' that could change into a wolf or a bear. Either way, it was an interesting chase scene.

Score: 22 / 30 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: A number of errors in this really hurt the story's effect on me. I can't stress enough the need for good grammar, but I think that a small portion of it could be rectified by using third-person perspective. First person, present tense is a pain to pull off for anyone.

I really wanted to go through and analyze this like I did the others, but I just don't have the time. This story is full of run on sentences, bad usage of commas, poor sentence structure, a massive tense switch (back to past from present, partway through the story), repetetive sentence structure, and so on. It hurt the story terribly. Spelling, however, was satisfactory.

Score: 5 / 20 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: A chase, but no ladder.

Score: 10 / 20 points.

4.Overall Effect: It would have been a good story, but the grammar hurt my perception of it so badly that I can't give it a good score. When the fundamental elements are out of place, the finery and details does not shine as it should.

Score: 13 / 30 points
Total Score: 50 / 100 points



[tcm013] - CPS Chase
[#Section Directory]

1. Creativity: I take it that CPS is Child Protective Services? This story is somewhat creative, but honestly, I couldn't slog through it. I'll explain why in a moment. It's nice to see a story where someone isn't being chased by gunmen or people who thirst for death, though, so points for that.

Score: 20 / 30 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: I can't abide this. There were no paragraph breaks here, no new paragraphs for dialogue, no indention, the grammar itself was weak... but everything comes back to the fact that this was one looong paragraph, containing dialogue. My eyes just couldn't follow it, and I ended up skimming it for the important points. Again, fundamentals are more important than anything in your writing.

Score: 3 / 20 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: Chase, ladder: check.

Score: 20 / 20 points.

4.Overall Effect: The effect of this story was ruined by its setup. I simply could not read the whole thing (though I read most, and skimmed the rest), which hurts the score terribly. In the future, use paragraphs... this is not optional. It is a necessity of all competent writing.

Score: 11 / 30 points
Total Score: 54 / 100 points



[La Divina] - 115.Nebur
[#Section Directory]
1. Creativity: A pig? No kidding? And hover cars? Sweet! The story was extremely creative, despite being based upon a true story. The only thing, creativity wise, that I really cannot abide is calling the car 'Kryptonite' which is of course a material made popular by D.C. Comics Superman, and later the band Three Doors Down. Beyond that, the story really walks in new territory. I also like the use of dialect here.

Score: 27 / 30 points.

2. Grammar and Spelling: Satisfactory. A quick note:

Of course, pigs were rare to come by now. And they were much smaller than they used to be.

There's a tense switch in that first sentence. This could be fixed in a few ways...

Of course, pigs are rare to come by.

Of course, pigs were rare to come by in those days.

Or something similar. Also, though this isn't a rule exactly, starting a sentence with the word 'and' is generally frowned upon. Beyond that, the grammar and spelling were both quite competent.

Score: 17 / 20 points.

3.Adherence to Theme: A chase (cops) and a ladder: check!

Score: 20 / 20 points.

4.Overall Effect: I love this story. It's casual, and the interplay between characters is very real.  The pacing is smooth, allowing the story to flow along without being jerky or choppy. The chase scene is just frantic enough to be interesting, and the ending is amusing. It feels almost as if it is missing something, but I can't quite put a finger on it... so, I can't really deduct for it.

Score: 26 / 30 points
Total Score: 90 / 100 points


[#Section Directory]

Final Scores and Closing Remarks

Overall, I was very pleased with these entries for my first Flipside Contest (even though it wasn't the first to end!) The big weakness I saw throughout was a slight disregard for commas, and in some case, a little bit of carelessness with the grammar. I am pleased at the creativity that was shown, and look forward to the next contest! Congratulations to all, and especially the winner and runner-up.



Winner: [SleepingDragon]!

Runner-up: [La Divina]!