A Rose Withers

[Ashla]

Crappy thread is now done.

In case you're wondering about the eye color change, that knock on the head described from Salvar was hard enough it gave her heterochromia. Heterochromia can be earned from enough physical blows... but of course I got that information from Wikipedia...

[Rayleigh]

Thread Name: A Rose Withers
Participants: BlueGhostofSeaside and Flamebird
Judgement Type: Condensed Rubric

Plot 15/30

Let me begin by commenting on how much I enjoy your unique writing style. It sounds as if the tale is being told by a teenage girl, which really helps the reader get inside Ashla's head. While this may be more appropriately discussed in the Prose section of this review, I wanted to note it here as well, because it absolutely changes the entire tone of the piece.

Now, for the overall story. Truth be told, there was not a whole lot here. There was very little action, and not a whole lot of time passed. However, I enjoyed what you did have. This was very much a story of self discovery and change. Ashla, battered both physically and mentally, returns after a bitter defeat. She takes time to reflect on what her life has become, and where she needs to go from that point on. One of my biggest concerns with your story was that the transformation seemed far too sudden. Ashla made the decision to give up everything that she knew, including her own child, after only a few sentences of deliberation. Please do not misunderstand - I really enjoy your succinct way of writing, and I am not at all suggesting that you throw in a bunch of fluff just to hit a word count. But I think that this change could have been made a bit more gradual, and in turn, believable, for your reader. Ashla might have spent a bit more time reflecting on the pros and cons, or who she might be hurting if she were to walk away from the life she knew. She might have thought a bit more about her baby's future, and how Hanuh would be better with someone else. A bit more reflection before such a dramatic change would have really strengthened your story.

The other thing that you might have done is incorporate a few flashbacks, or have Ashla show the reader a bit more of what she has been through. Your Plot score is a bit lower than I would have liked to have given you simply because I do not know Ashla's story. I do not know about Lye, Julius, or the battle that made Ashla into Ayleth. I certainly don't think that you need to completely re-tell her story, but it would have been really helpful if you had sprinkled in a few explanations. For example, in post four, Ashla declares that she was never Hanuh's mother. Why is that? You could have added a sentence before or after that statement to help the reader understand. "As she reflected on ______, she shuddered." Just fill in a few words about what happened. A couple of clues will help your reader get the full effect.

With that being said, don't be discouraged! I have found that these emotion-heavy pieces are often more difficult to write than simple "kill a bunch of people" stories. Even though there was more that you could have done, this story was still very effective. You did a very nice job of establishing the setting, and I was pleased to see that you referred back to it often. Your pacing was also appropriate for such a short story. I can't wait to follow Ayleth's journey!

Character 15/30

I was incredibly impressed by how well you wrote a broken, battered Ashla. Post one did an excellent job of painting her as a beaten woman haunted by her failures. She was sad, she was angry, and she was guilty. That range of emotions is not always captured well in writing, so nice job there. You did ask me to focus on Character for this judgement, so let me go ahead and give you a few suggestions to keep in mind.

First, you will want to be careful writing a character who is so angry that she is literally flipping tables. As I mentioned above, her breakdown was very well written. However, you might have spent a little more time easing her back to a calmer state. In post four, you dedicate a few sentences to this, explaining how her sobs slowly stopped until she was only shaking. I think you might have done a bit more with this. What was she thinking as she calmed down? Did the feel of her hair being pulled back calm her down, because someone she used to know once did it? Was it the sound of Daisuke's voice? Or was she just so tired that she could not cry any longer? She was going crazy just a paragraph before, so make sure you help the reader understand why she is relaxing. That will not only make the piece more believable, but also help us learn a bit more about Ashla.

Next, I wanted to make a very brief note to remember for future stories. I love that Ashla is a spitfire character. Ray is too, and it can be an absolute blast, but it also poses a challenge. Make sure that her shifts in emotion are fully explained. Excluding what I mentioned above, you did a generally nice job of this simply because Ashla was hysterical. The next story you write may not allow for such a wide range of emotions that are experienced so quickly. Keep that in mind!

Finally, I wanted to talk about the lovely Felicity. Most of my judgement focuses on Ashla for obvious reasons, but Felicity is just adorable. One of the things that makes her so likable is her speech impediment. I wanted to commend you on that, because many writers do not bother to incorporate elements like that. You will, however, have to be very careful that you stay consistent. In post seven, you spell "you" as youw." In post eight, you do not. While it is not a huge deal, these speech impediments make readers pay closer attention to how you're writing your dialogue. If you do not want them distracted by these changes, make sure you keep things the same. Or, if you change them, make sure you explain why. For example, perhaps Felicity's impediment gets worse when she gets worked up. That way, you will only have to spell "you" as "youw" when she is emotionally charged.

Overall, you did a nice job here. There are some changes that you can make to improve your writing and earn a higher score, but you have a really nice foundation to build up from!

Prose 14/30

Let me start with technique, because it was definitely one of your strengths. Similes and metaphors are my guilty pleasure, and let me just say, you delivered. Your comparison of anger and molten lava in post two was so incredibly good; I actually shivered a bit when I read it. I could see the anger bubbling just under the surface, threatening to burst at any moment. Oh my gosh, so good. You also used repetition a few times, and the placement was just perfect to describe Ashla's decent into (brief) madness. While you did not use too many techniques, what you had was incredibly effective for this short, emotional piece. Well done!

As this is a condensed rubric, I do not want to list every single grammatical error that you made (though, don't worry, there were not too many). There are a few overarching themes that you might think about though.

First, your word choice. This was only a problem a couple of times, but it was enough to make me re-read. For example, you used "basking" in your first post to describe a temperature. Basking, however, is a verb (to bask). Ashla may have basked in the hot sun, but after you used "freezing" to describe Salvar, it didn't quite fit. You might have used balmy, broiling, or blistering instead. I have a thesaurus on my cell phone, and I use it all the time. I double check a lot of words as I write, and if you're ever unsure, you might want to do the same!

Next, commas in dialogue. This was something that may have been a style choice, but as a reader, I was really hung up on it. A comma is not necessary when writing dialogue. Remember that a comma tells a reader to take a slight pause, but what comes after is essentially the same thought. A period, on the other hand, ends a thought. Now let's take a look at some of the dialogue in your first post. You write:

She could tell by the sudden tingling in her body that he was looking at her though, "you look terrible....

Do you see how the observation and the quote do not really need to be said in the same breath? They're related, but not enough so that they need to be connected with a comma. Had you written "He said" first, then you would have added a comma, as it was all one thought. This leads to run-on sentences, and keeps the reader from taking those important pauses that help them process what they are reading. This is a tough concept, so please please please let me know if you need any more help with it.

Finally, the basic typos. You had so few of them that I don't need to dedicate much time to this, but be sure to proof-read! "There" became "tbere" in the middle of post four, and there is nothing like a blatant typo to throw a reader off track.

The last part of this category is clarity. This hurt you the most, and led you to receive a lower Prose score than you might have had. Because of the lack of background information, I did not understand and appreciate every single word of this story the way I could have otherwise. Make sure to keep your reader in the know! I'm a stranger to the Icebreaker saga, but you have definitely made me curious to learn more.

Wildcard 6/10

This was a sweet little piece. I know that it was not at all what you had hoped to achieve, but it was not nearly as "crappy" as you led me to believe. You're an excellent writer with a lot of potential. You're creative, driven, and excited about writing. Those qualities are so important, and I urge you to take pride in what you've made here. Remain open to criticism, and be willing to try new things, because that will make you a better writer. But if this is you at your crappiest, I can't wait to see you at your best.

Total Score 50/100

BlueGhostofSeaside receives 860 EXP and 80 GP
Flamebird receives 150 EXP and 20 GP

If you have any questions at all about anything that I've said here, please feel free to message me, or find me in chat! I would be happy to go over it with you.

[Hysteria]

GP and XP added!