A friendly bout. (Battle, closed)

[Christoph]

The blow struck home and forced a good deal of the air from his lungs again. Chris had all he could to to avoid doubling over from the unexpected attack.

"Why you underhanded little..." he coughed, shoving her harshly from the side. "No more sympathy for you." His eyes narrowed and his sword tip was now pointed directly at her shoulder. His other hand, now free since he'd discarded the spoon, was pressed against the spot on his stomach where she'd punched him

[Tigurio_hatesHer]

She batted one hand at the side of the sword, reaching for the handle, and moving too close for the tip to be a danger anymore without him first backing up.

She reached for the handguard while her other hand went for his throat.

"Do you yeild?!" She asked, urgently not wanting to hurt him but willing to coax sumbission from him if necessary...

[Christoph]

"You... wish..." choked out Chris. He brought his free hand up to struggle with Heather's prospective strangling hand. After fighting for a short moment to gain a good footing, Chris rammed his knee forward, at her stomach. At the same time, he let go of his sword and used the now free hand to grip the arm who's hand had been restraining his sword use.

He drove forward with what strength he could muster and made a forceful attempt at ramming her into their tree.

[Tigurio_hatesHer]

Winded by the knee, she was helpless to fight back and momentarily passed out when he slammed her back into the tree. Her head lolled and her arms went limp. Her full weight no longer supported by her own muscles. She started to slide towards the ground, out of his grip.

[Christoph]

Chris caught her as she began to tumble to the ground. He sighed, setting her down gently on the soft grass and sitting next to her, leaning against the tree. He felt a bit guiltly about it, although he knew that she would be fine. He chuckled as the sun began it's long decent, calling forth a cool late-afternoon breeze. "Well, I guess I get to keep my shoes." He was quite certain he's still be picking up the bar tab that night, though.

[AdventWings]

Hi, Christoph and Tigurio! How are you enjoying Althanas? Hopefully not too dull, of course.

Anyways, My name is Raven and I'll be your Thread Judge for this friendly battle. In fact, part of the fun on Althanas is getting feedback from the Judges looking over your threads and knowing your strengths as well as the different areas you can improve in. Because this is a battle, I will detail the scores for both of you side-by-side in the format Christoph:Tigurio.

With no further delays, here is your Judgment!

Story

This category here soughly speaks about your strength and weaknesses in story outlining as well as the rhythm of your story. In battles, it is a bit different but not completely so that it is hard to see.

Continuity - 4:4

Continuity is one aspect of the story that establishes the timeline of the events in the thread as well as telling the readers how the story unfolding here ties into the bigger picture for all the characters involved. In other words, this tells the reader When the story is taking place.

For both Christoph and Tigurio, I find it a bit hard to pinpoint exactly when the events happening here took place. In fact, it seemed like the entire story came out of the blue and just smack-dab in the middle of Athanas. I find that having a bit of motive for the characters helps this a bit, as I also found in your story-telling. However, it believe there could be more elaboration to this.

Setting - 4:3

When Continuity asks When, Setting asks Where the story is taking place. An open field of golden wheat, a lush green forest with shimmering beams of light or a damp, dark dungeon somewhere under the streets of Salvar. Asides for playing the backgrop of the events taking place, good use of Setting takes it one step further and interact with the characters and vice versa. Tree branches rustle as a person pushes it aside, birds flap away when someone shouts out loud in a forest and water seep into clothing if a character falls into a river. There are just so many ways to interact with the surrounding that it is quite impossible to list them all, if not merely mathematically improbable to do so in a single human lifetime.

For this particular battle, mention of your characters' surrounding was sporatic at best, sometimes a vivid picture being drawn in my mind and then for the rest of the thread it was practically nonexistent. Also, the overall image that yur description evoked in my mind was not exactly what I imagined Salvar being like, considering that the Northern Continent is usually forever in ice and snow. Setting not only details the environment, but it also sets up and influences the mood of the overall story as well as draw interest from the readers, one goal any writer should strive for with their story. Take some advice from my examples and integrate it into your story. It should help add some spice to your stories.

Pacing - 3:3

This basically tells the reader How the story progresses from start to finish. Is it fast-paced, action-packed or is it slow, brooding and ominous from the first paragraph to the last? Also, the techniques and literary devices can all affect how the story paces itself from start to finish. Appropriate use of story pacing can really enhance the mood of the story.

For a battle such as this, a good fast-pacing story is beneficial. However, there is such thing as "too fast" for a battle. This falls into the "Too Fast" category, sadly. The action scenes literally fly by with little to hold on to. For Tigurio, the bit in her second post was very out of place as she took the time to describe her clothing, something that did not fit into the flow of the battle at all. The shortness of each post also worsened the pacing of the story and it started to end up as "who could reply the quickest" contest. The content, however, was fairly good and will be even better if elaborated upon with literary techniques to enhance the readers' mood. This is one category both of you should work on. Also, don' t be afraid to have moderately long posts. Sometimes, less is more. But from what I see, you need to work a bit more and spend more time writing each post.

Writing Style

This aspect of the story details the styles and techniques you used throughout the story. This will speak of your writing mechanics, literary devices employed in your writing as well as how effective you were able to convey your story.

Mechanics - 6:5

Mechanics basically addresses the issue of whether or not you followed the Standard English Writing Mechanics. Common things such as punctuation, commas, sentence fragmentation and run-on sentences. Intentional misuse of writing mechanics are encouraged, however, when the message is clearly conveyed.

For this, little battle, most of the Standard English Writing Mechanics had been followed to the dot, but nothing stood out and there was little play on the system itself. Also, both of you used mostly pronouns and proper nouns which is fine in and of itself. Oer time, however, it becomes redundant and a tad uninteresting. Try throwing in some more variation to sentence style to see how the story changes. Try it out once and a while when you start to feel your sentences get a little boring.

Technique - 4:4

Technique is an umbrella term we judges used to address the usage of literary devices such as foreshadowing, metaphor, simile, personification and the likes. Not only do they have to be used, but if it is used at proper times and intervals the effects are very impressive.

Throughout the thread, I actually saw little use of any of such literary devices so there was not much I could comment on. Try using some to enhance your story the next time you get a chance.

Clarity - 6:6

Is your story understandable? Are the sentences coherent and form together to create a story? Clarity answers these questions as well as give a guide to whether the different events happening throughout the story makes sense or not.

This was a fairly straight-forward battle thread with little distraction to confuse the reader, though at certain points and times there are sentences that can, and had, confused the readers. I am tempted to score you lower here, but the quality of the battle here warranted just about this much.

Character

One of the central aspects of any interesting soty is, interestingly enough, interesting characters. We're not talking Interesting in the superhero sense, but also in the Human aspect as well.

Dialogue - 5:6

Not every character can speak and not all words can be spoken. However, when they do, speech can move the mind and soul when properly used. Still, even when nothing is spoken at all, strong emotions can be conveyed and and touch the readers' hearts. In this instance, "Silence is Golden."

Much of the speech and dialogue in this battle took place mostly between Christoph and Heather as they duel in the shadow of a great oak with a sword, a giant spoon and an ornate staff. I find words that came out from Heather suited her personality and circumstances better than the sometimes long-winded ones Christoph used in the middle of the bout. Sometimes it was a bit much, though, and internal dialogue can really add more to your character. Good dialogue not only helps the characters interact with others, but also tell the readers something about the character themselves.

Action - 4:5

Does your character act according to their comprehension of reality and their internal emotions? Are they believable in their decisions and resolve? This is the issue addressed here and ties into your characters' mindset and personality. A simpleton would not be able to come up with a brilliant plan in the heat of conflict, but he may stand up in defense of his friends in dire situations.

For the most parts, your characters' actions are a bit erratic and random, though I am beginning to pick up some trend and pattern to the style of portrayal and response from your characters. Not overly impressive or taken for the most parts, but fairly understandable and easy to comprehend. Some more elaboration in the narration can help let the readers understand what exactly is running through their heads that translate into their response and initiative. Remember that even though the actions of your characters are understandable to you, it may not be apparent to others who don't know wout characters.

Persona - 4:4

How your character develop over time is more than just how powerful the skills become - in fact, that is the least of our interest. What is far more interesting and worth following is how the character develops internally - Emotional development is among the strongest aspect of development a character can have. This part details how the internal play on emotions correspond - or contrast - with your characters and how the story affects your character at an emotional level.

Not much development here at all or any clear signs of emotional response. One of the downside of having such short posts, of course, is the apparent lack of detail regarding action and reaction from the individual characters. When more characters come into play, you will find that longer posts are necessary to detail the complexities of each character at more than just subliminal levels.

Miscellaneous

What we the Judges can't comment in the other categories mentioned above, we do it here. This is also is where us Judges award extra points for going above and beyond expectations in certain aspects of the story.

Wild Card - 5:5

This is the Wild Card category. Need I say more?

OK! Even though this was a rather quick, hasty battle, I feel that both of you have potential for something more complex and interesting in future writing. I encourage you to play around with your writing a bit and add more complexity to your characters. Sometimes, letting them do their thing without us dictating every single breath of air they're taking can lead your story... Somewhere you'd never expected to see.

Total~! - 45:45

Winner - Well, whaddaya know? It's a tie!

Christoph receives 500 EXP and 100 GP from... Somewhere in the Tavern.
Tigurio receives 500 and 100 GP as well. From somewhere I would not entirely know.

Good luck and have fun, Nya~!

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP added, congrats dudes! You're both 25% of the way to leveling up, and leveling up is EXCITING!