Thread: The Fool: Where the Journey Begins
Judgement Type: Condenscened Rubric
Participants: Cards of Fate and Leona Stevvains
Please PM the judge (Philomel) if you have any questions.
Cards of Fate:
Story: 17
Overall your story is good, and it clearly tells a tale that you want to. There are climaxes and rises and falls, however in many places, particularly at the middle, the story seems very rushed and a little far too lucky. The mercenaries are very kind to Vincent quite fast and the bookseller does not ask many questions about his new employee. Within this tale there seems to only be positives, and though it is an adventure type of story it is less believable.
That being said, you do have brilliant ideas for your character, and introduce him in an interesting way. It can be particularly hard, when dealing with a character who is not originally from Althanas, and you create a sympathetic background for him - however, once Vincent is in Althanas he does not really talk of his family back home, no mention is made of it. The pacing is too fast, and there is not much detail made of setting. A way of working on these weaknesses is trying to slow down your pace a little, and break up much of your heavy paragraphs with new lines and description. This will help the reader to slowly be introduced to your character and his experiences.
Character: 18
One thing that was very good about your character was the idea of hearing his thoughts in the first paragraph of post 3, which worked really well as far as persona goes. His actions, also, are very believable. The way he acts very confused and is asking everyone what is going on is a good sign of someone lost in a new world.
However, again some conversations seem very rushed as far as their pacing goes, and there is uncertainty as to who is talking to who at times due to a lot of errors in punctuation (please see Writing below) and paragraphing. Whether Vincent is angry or not is also in question as he dramatically changes tone a couple of times, with some posts, such as post 3, consisting of a lot of swearing in speech and thought, and then others with none and instead resorting to politeness. Though it does change from scene to scene and situation it seems there is a lack of consistency here. By working through this individual parts and getting a single way of Vincent speaking you will be able to get your writing stronger. This being all said, character was definitely your strongest section.
Writing: 14
There were no obvious spelling errors, which is very easy to come across, so well done. However, as far as mechanics goes there are numerous paragraphing and structure errors that harm your clarity and way of writing.
Firstly, when you have a new person talking there should always be a new line of dialogue. Within dialogue, also, there should always be a comma or mark of punctuation before the closed speech mark. In general you could use a lot more commas in places also. Particularly in post 1 where you have: ‘he brought it into your apartment" he pauses for a moment and smiles "Errr...Thanks you" He says shyly as he looks over her.’ it should, however read, ‘... your apartment, he pauses for a moment, and smiles. “Errr … Thank you,” he says …”’
One way of really dealing with this is to read out your sentences in your head if you do not know where commas should go, and then place them down where you pause.
Unfortunately, also, you change tense a couple of times, going from present tense to past tense. This happens in post 2, where you have sections through the paragraphs, as follows (tenses are underlined); “ ….Vincent glances around frantically… and landed …he mutters”
However, one strength as far as Writing goes is that you really do have a good hold of description. You need to work on your paragraphing, as this will help the reader to read it easier, but this is very simple to sort out. You do have a strong narrative voice coming through, which can only grow stronger, so well done.
Wildcard 5:
Points here are awarded for writing a good first thread with a capturing storyline. Also, in this case, it was helped with Leona’s entrance, introducing your character to the Tarot Heirarchy and the world of Althanas.
Notes on Leona:
There are less notes here, purely for the reason that Leona only submitted to 2 posts in the thread, and Cards of Fate the majority.
Story:
Your part was small but overall you added to the story well, though your character could have used setting a little more to her description - such as stumbling over the books or similar. You manage to carry part of the story with you and bring a new light into the plot, so well done here.
Character:
Character was particularly strong, wherein you gave a clear picture of a woman in charge, who knew exactly what she wanted. Maybe there could have been a minor more amount of suggestion as to what was going on in her mind, but overall well done.
Writing:
You use paragraphing excellent and everything is in order. The only thing that could have made your writing stronger here was in technique, by a use of literary forms, such as similie in your description. However, for a small part it was well done - precise and complete.
Wildcard 5: See Wildcard notes under Cards Of Fate.
Total Score:
54
Cards of Fate receives:
566 EXP
75 GP
Leona Stevvains receives:
162 EXP
23 GP
Spoils:
The deck of cards, Cards of Fate is highly powerful at this stage, and 52 throwing cards that act like ninja stars does not meet the amount of GP or EXP you gained from this quest. I would suggest going to the bazzar to see how many cards you can get for your money.
However, the book can be given for 10 GP for its particular importance in your character's future.
~10 GP taken from Cards of Fate's final GP amount.
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