GotWoot Story Contest - Preliminaries - Round 4

[RedneckNoob]

Words we couldn't say:

You always have to begin assuming that the reader is ignorant of what you're writing about. I have no clue what JTB is so I was lost for a while. I can guess afterwards that it might be something like Japanese Travel Bureau, but during the story it confused me. The way you started sentences with words like "and" and "but" threw me off. It sounded more like you were speaking than writing, which doesn't work. I don't need to read your speech. When you put a period, that means the end of a specific thought and makes me pause. If you're going to continue that thought, use a comma, a semicolon, or a hyphen. Use punctuation to force my thought flow to follow yours. The way you had talked about deleting the emails was a little ambiguous, and I didn't realize you had deleted that specific email until the end of the paragraph. You said you saw interest in it, but you deleted it? Two conflicting ideas presented almost simultaneous.

You did a great job explaining why Miyajima was important, but then left me wondering what the details were. I mentioned the JTB earlier, but the hiroden is something I was confused about as well. You can call it a hiroden, but explain what a hiroden is at the same time. The UNESCO detail felt a little like you were writing an academic paper. You could have left out the organization while still talking about the importance of the site. Remember that the reader should be assumed ignorant. What if they didn't know what UNESCO was? They would've been lost on another detail.

It hurts the flow of the story when you refer back a couple of seconds. Mention that you saw the girl standing there, take in the details, and then sit down. Don't sit down and recall details from seconds before. That's a waste of a flashback. You say she wasn't just any girl, that she was a "decently" (another dialogue word, which is bad for description) attractive girl. Why was she special for more than the fact that she was pretty? The way that you worded it made me think there was some import to the girl, but was it nothing more superficial in that she was pretty and looked innocent? You present most of the story in past tense, but when you describe how she sat down you suddenly shift the tense. I stumbled a couple of times transitioning in and out of that because of the clumsiness of it.

I was able to relate to the protagonist because I'm very clumsy with new people, and it felt like the protagonist was as well, but at the same time I just kept thinking that this guy was a creep because all he was doing was staring at a sleeping girl on what I think was a train.

You do a good job of building to the climax, but the climax felt very lack luster. Suddenly they get off the train and no word is said again. If you were able to show it had a greater impact somehow, then it might have done the job, but without that it was pretty lame.

Dandylion:

Don't use cliched idioms if you're going to be clumsy with them. "...shy of next to nothing," was very clumsy. It was short of the value closest to 0? So there was a higher chance than the closest value to zero?

Using ellipses to add extra "very" is something that grates on my nerves. If you want to add an extra of a word for emphasis, treat it as an interjected part of the sentence: use hyphens. I give the same advice to you as to the previous story: use punctuation to force my thoughts to flow the same as yours. A period means the end of a thought, but you start the next sentence with a "but" which is telling me that the thought that just ended is now continuing. Punctuation is a very important part of written story telling.

When you first mentioned that she was 16 and that she had been found on YouTube, I knew there was going to be some twist at the end. It was a nice way to foreshadow while not completely giving away the ending. I had thought with the use of nine-thousand that it might have been Boxxy. It wasn't until you got the music part that I had discovered my guess to be wrong. Others more savvy may have been able to shift their guesses with this piece of foreshadowing, but it left me stumped. The "po pi po pi" was another good job at foreshadowing. I had heard that song this morning, but it didn't click with me until I got to the end.

Avoid phrases like "to no end," when you're weaving a narrative. It works fine in dialogue, but when you're trying to bring me into the world you created, it throws me back to reality.

I had no clue what the Japanese meant, and since you didn't explain I had to break the flow of the story telling and go look it up to understand the ending of the story. You must assume that the reader does not know as much as you. Don't think of them as stupid, and don't talk down to them, but make sure you verify all of what they know.

Melody of the Past:

I was surprised by the quality of this plot. This could be something to expand on and maybe even novelize, but a lot of works needs to be done with its presentation.

Did you choose the word insurgents carefully? Not the bullshit definition that the American military uses, but the real definition of an insurgent? Because of misuse of the word, I had a hard time knowing if you were using it properly. Were they just attackers, or were they people who had managed to sneak in and create havoc internally?

When you mention the AK, I believe it would've had greater impact of you described the rifle in detail instead of just saying it's name. Say that he's holding an automatic rifle, and then in another sentence establish it as an AK and describe the gun. Tell us what it looks like. Maybe the rifle has a story to tell that would give us details as to what they had been through. Is it in pristine condition, or does it look like it had survived since the Cold War? Is it caked in mud and slime?

When narrating a story, type out the word and don't just put the number. When switching from letters to numbers, most minds slow down and it ruins the flow of the story. It's acceptable for something like AK-47, but six feet should be spelled out, as should six years old, seventeen years old, etc.

Why is he wounded? It's great to raise questions, but you need to entice them to want the answer. Hint at details that let us know there's a depth to this story that are beyond what we can imagine. If we could rely solely on our imagination, we wouldn't need stories for entertainment.

Despite being filled with a black rage that reached at him suddenly, Shein was able to maintain complete control? It would make more sense for him to have to strain himself to remain in control. I didn't see any strain in the way he handled himself. He just seemed to get lost in thoughts, and then you say that he was straining to control himself.

The ending was absolutely beautiful.

Also I completely disagree with you having used too many adjectives. Your use of adjectives were fine. A story without adjectives is bland. I need you to show me what you're thinking, and you did that. It's not like you chained 5 adjectives to a single noun. You were well within acceptable limits.

Uncharted Territory:

Overall, the plot wasn't that interesting, but the presentation more than made up for it. You did a really good job with setting the scene, giving me enough information to see what's happening while leaving out the right details for my imagination to have fun.

Two different people should never be directly quoted in the same paragraph. It can get confusing. You only did it for the first one, but it's better to have none at all.

I have a little difficulty believing that the grandfather would have as varied of a vocabulary as he does, especially since he was having a hard time remember select details. That's one of the problems with stories told by dialogue. You could have done flashback like transitions where he was talking to describe the situation, having his voice fade into the description. Have reality jolt back when his wife smacks him.

When he forgets what the preacher was singing about, you should've had an ellipses after "was" when the granddaughter interrupted him.