Not for Glory

[Philomel]

Thread Title: Not For Glory
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Participants: Jdd2035


Plot: 19/30

Story- 6/10
Overall I found your story captivating and incredibly interesting, and you weave a powerful tale together of a man who comes from very little and is determined to find his company. You keep this idea of survival at the forefront, and show how being able to fight manages to get your character to places. Themes aside, the storyline was strong and developed well, though there could have been more done with with actions having consequences later. However, this judge would to have seen some more scenes of everyday life perhaps going on, perhaps even a line of romance within the tale. What you have, however, is a very stable base to build an excellent novel from.


Setting- 7/10
You build a great backdrop of the Empire for this story, as well as P'Tah itself. It is a bold, economically sound country that is expressed through your language well. Overall you have a good ability to produce a rich setting, which is made strong with adding in small details such as, “The Empire was currently ruled by Emperor Atticus the Third, who is supposedly kept in check by a weakening Senate.” (post 1). Within Post 1 you successfully give the reader a good description of the layout of the land. More development of the individual settings, such as towns and features – even Abasi's camp - would help you build this stronger.


Pacing- 6/10
Pacing is gentle in parts and fast in others, with a change of tempo by using some shorter sentences and paragraphs. In general, though, the development of the story itself is very quick. More time with your character becoming a freed man from Abasi, when he does so in post 9, would be an example. The judge understands that you were writing this for NaNoWriMo, however, so pacing could have been rushed because of the time constraints. Overall adding more detail into the larger stretches of time, such as when Lucas is searching for all his comrades.


Character: 20/30

Communication- 6/10
In terms of communication you have Lucas speaking in a very constant, understandable tone, able to keep his calm in his words. He also is able to negotiate well with others, and you have him use dialogue (such as in post 14) in order to cleverly lie and make his way through some difficult situations. Ways that you could develop from here are experimenting with the style of words he uses – is he more formal sometimes (such as speaking to Abasi and the General) and what kind of curses might he use (for instance, when injured). These could add to character more powerfully.


Action- 6/10
Action here was very well thought out and considered. You show knowledge of the actions that a warrior might partake in, and use excellent word choice when discussing the larger actions of the scenes: “in one large mass crashed” from post 21. You also are able to write combat very well, dealing with the blows met and given in a clear, written manner. How you could improve on here is trying to define some more habitual and defining actions of your characters, such as the description of choosing to pick up the scarf, “in case of a sandstorm,” in post 10. This would help to define individual characters a little more.


Persona- 8/10
Persona is something you cover incredibly well, and it helps in writing in first person. This, of course, means you cannot successfully cover the thoughts of others, without dialogue, however, even with this disadvantage this is a definite strong point for yourself. The reader can pick up on the desires of Lucas, and is reminded throughout of his strongest want – to be back with his legion. Such posts as 21 have some good use of language to emphasise persona: “I HAD TO DO SOMETHING, rampant energy began welling up in my guts, I began shaking and finally it started to leak out.” If you spread this more evenly throughout your piece you will only get stronger in your writing.


Prose: 21/30

Mechanics- 5/10
In terms of mechanics, there were not many spelling mistakes that were obvious. However, there are some punctuation mistakes. Often when using dialogue you forget to add a comma or full stop between the action and the associated dialogue. For example in post 13: 'Then he hugged me, with a back breaking, rib crushing hug “Thank the gods! Thank you my good friend!”' there should be one of these between 'hug; and 'Thank.' There are also some minor apostrophes missing – such as post 10, where “bellies rest” should be “bellies' rest” at the end of the 's' as the rest is belonging to the bellies. Aside from this you make some good attempt at varying sentence structure.


Clarity- 8/10
Clarity is not a serious issue in your piece. You write strong and defining, even in terms of combat. The only times when it was a noticeable problem was when punctuation was missed out (please see Mechanics). Else, everything is written in a strong manner, saying what you want and urging to the point. The judge here was not confused at any moment as to who was speaking or what action was being done.


Technique- 8/10
For this section you have a clear understanding of what makes a good text. There are some powerful uses of simile (such as post 1: “he looked me over as a piece of horse flesh on sale”) as well as some onomatopoeia (post 21: “tink, tink, tink, rattle, rattle, rattle of arrows raining down on my centurias shields.”) There was also a heavy use of adjectives that worked well and added detail to the piece overall. In general the judge here thinks that you have an excellent base from which to work from and suggests that you could start experimenting more. Try using extended metaphor and personification.


Wildcard: 6/10
Wildcard here goes to writing passion. This is not something that many are able to write well into a piece, but truly is remarkable here. The tone is hopeful and strong and thank you for the read.


Final Score: 66/100

Jdd2035 receives:

3445 EXP!
305 GP!

Congratulations!

If you have any questions Jdd, you can PM me

Full Rubric paid for by 3 AP from jdd2035 and 2 AP from myself.