Thread Title: It’s Not About Handling The Truth But Accepting It(Quest)
Judgment Type: Condensed Rubric
Participants: Breaker and loves.blessing.

This was a short, interesting quest that I’m glad I took. It builds off previous threads I have read and does a lovely job of continuing the complicated, sad, glorious relationship of Josh Cronen and McKinley. This thread is flawed but creative, a solid effort that I’d recommend for those seeking a touching, quick romantic thread.

Plot: 17/30

There were some limitations to what could be done here because the scope of the thread is very small. There isn’t a lot of ambition in terms of having an epic arc, but the thread executes a small, critical point in the relationship between these two very nicely.

Although this was a quick thread, the pacing still felt a little slow. It was obvious that you two enjoy writing with each other and didn’t want to overstep the development of the thread, but perhaps some PM or Google-Doc driven communication could allow some more advanced planning to push the plot forward more aggressively.

The stage was set very well and very consistently. It was obvious that Breaker deploys multi-sensory observations a little more frequently than McKinley, where the narration was much more visually dominant. In either event, I thought setting was well done, creating the atmosphere without further slowing things down.

Because of the criticality of character to the driving plot, it is hard to separate the two.

Character: 18/30

This was the strongest section of the thread for me. I really enjoy the interaction of the two characters, and their relationship here seems entirely authentic.

There are still some idiosyncracies that I notice here that seem a bit bothersome. Breaker occasionally goes a bit over the top with his theatrics; when he threatens those that would bring harm to McKinley, his choice of words seems inappropriately graphic in a moment where she would seek comfort. Conversely, McKinley is either a round character or an inconsistent one; in a thread of this length we don’t know which one.

Is she the defiant, strong-willed fighter that defies the demi-god lover, or the weak-kneed lover that cowers to his physicality? In a longer thread this would be better developed, so I didn’t penalize you here as quick threads are plenty of fun.

Prose: 15/30

YOU MISSPELLED THE TITLE!!!!

Amazingly, this was the only spelling mistake I found.

This wasn’t a particularly clean thread, but there also weren’t any unforgiveable errors. It seems clear that McKinley’s threads are spell-checked, but I’d encourage an audible re-reading to clear up some lower hanging fruit. For example, in the first post:

“A few tears slide down her freckled cheeks. She wiped at them as she surpassed all of it.”

Please pick a tense. If we are writing in the past tense, it should be slid, but if it’s present tense, then she wipes at them. I presume this was a simple typo/error with slide/slid that wouldn’t be caught without an audible rereading. That is a really hard thing to catch, but it was also one of many similar errors that only get caught upon reading – the wrong time to discover them.

I have to penalize Breaker for the inconsistency in leaping to iambic pentameter with no rhyme or reason. This thread went from gothic romance to Shakespearean with no rationale.

I have to credit Breaker for the excellent execution of iambic pentameter. As best I could tell you adhered to the alternating stressed syllable and five paired syllables per line.

Net impact of poetry is a wash; I think it would have been a strong credit if it were uniformly done. I like the hustle.


Wildcard: 5/10

Easiest score of all time. A solid, respectable thread you can both be proud of. Lots of mistakes that are all very understandable (except the title! :P). Some great creative strokes, however pretty clearly not a load of advanced planning.

Final Score: 55/100

Nicely done. Both of you are capable of more, but this was a very respectable thread that I enjoyed and would look forward to more.

Breaker receives: 1280 EXP and 70 GP!
loves.blessing. receives: 530 EXP and 70 GP!

Congratulations!