03-23-2011, 07:32 PM
To start off with, I'd like to say that you both did really well. This wasn't as cut-and-dry as I thought it would be, and therefore was a lot less easy on myself than I wanted it to be, haha. Very nice job.
Mal Nova: Mal, I've read a good chunk of your work in the different competitions we've been to. I remember that I used to think your writing was alright -- it wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't necessarily awful, either. The turning point, for me, was when you wrote that post about burying Tapion during Dante's Abyss. I really enjoyed that post, and so I've been paying more attention to your work since then. Let me say, then, that you have vastly improved. You are a much better writer than you were the first time I read your work - I was fully invested during your posts, and you have a knack for using your word choice to really emphasize the sinister aspects of Mal's personality. Unfortunately, you still have something dragging you down - at times, some of your writing can seem forced, as if you couldn't exactly think of how to say something, so you just said it, in the most straightforward way you could think of. And at times, that can make your work harder to follow. You also have some spelling and grammar mistakes that you need to iron out, but there were so few of them that I'm going to let that slide.
John Doe: I like Doe. He's quirky. He's funny. And you play him well. Like Victoria said, there was a distinct lack of depth to your posts, but I did kind of see hints of some underlying plotline floating around there. A little bit. I kind of wish you'd give us more of that. Overall, your spelling and grammar are good and clean. I have two main issues with your posts, but they're both relatively small. The first thing is that darned dialect. You use it well, and it's executed well, I just hated reading it. It reminded me of chatspeak instead of country bumpkin, at times. And that's more of a personal thing, as opposed to something actually wrong with your posts, so you don't need to worry about that. Secondly, your use of Doe's thoughts. They were hilarious - you executed those really, really well, and I liked the parallelism (sort of) you constructed between Doell and Doe; however, I'm really afraid that it's going to grow into something overdone, and contrived, so I want you to watch out for using it too much. Contrary to popular belief, there can be too much of a good thing. Or can there? Because if you have too much, it becomes bad, so it's technically not a good thing anymore... oh, whatever.
Overall: My final vote is going to, after a very back-and-forth internal monologue because you both did so well, John Doe.
Mal Nova: Mal, I've read a good chunk of your work in the different competitions we've been to. I remember that I used to think your writing was alright -- it wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't necessarily awful, either. The turning point, for me, was when you wrote that post about burying Tapion during Dante's Abyss. I really enjoyed that post, and so I've been paying more attention to your work since then. Let me say, then, that you have vastly improved. You are a much better writer than you were the first time I read your work - I was fully invested during your posts, and you have a knack for using your word choice to really emphasize the sinister aspects of Mal's personality. Unfortunately, you still have something dragging you down - at times, some of your writing can seem forced, as if you couldn't exactly think of how to say something, so you just said it, in the most straightforward way you could think of. And at times, that can make your work harder to follow. You also have some spelling and grammar mistakes that you need to iron out, but there were so few of them that I'm going to let that slide.
John Doe: I like Doe. He's quirky. He's funny. And you play him well. Like Victoria said, there was a distinct lack of depth to your posts, but I did kind of see hints of some underlying plotline floating around there. A little bit. I kind of wish you'd give us more of that. Overall, your spelling and grammar are good and clean. I have two main issues with your posts, but they're both relatively small. The first thing is that darned dialect. You use it well, and it's executed well, I just hated reading it. It reminded me of chatspeak instead of country bumpkin, at times. And that's more of a personal thing, as opposed to something actually wrong with your posts, so you don't need to worry about that. Secondly, your use of Doe's thoughts. They were hilarious - you executed those really, really well, and I liked the parallelism (sort of) you constructed between Doell and Doe; however, I'm really afraid that it's going to grow into something overdone, and contrived, so I want you to watch out for using it too much. Contrary to popular belief, there can be too much of a good thing. Or can there? Because if you have too much, it becomes bad, so it's technically not a good thing anymore... oh, whatever.
Overall: My final vote is going to, after a very back-and-forth internal monologue because you both did so well, John Doe.