Well voting stops tomorrow, so I hope some more people read and vote.
Lets see what has changed since Yesterday:
@Newf: 3 (same)
@Heilari: 6 (same)
@Hieronymous: 5 (up by 1)
@Teleros: 8 (same)
@Solus: 7 (up by 1)
@micheal_handy76_mh: 2 (same)
@Atralane: 7 (same)
@TurtleSquish: 5 (same)
@Heimerdinger: 4 (same)
@BloodW0lf: 4 (up by 1)
@Zilla: 5 (up by 2)
@PDanford: 4 (up by 1)
So only 6 new votes, come on folks do read and vote! 
indeed! although this is easily the largest number of entrants we’ve had for any of the writing competitions, so… very pleased with that! 
I wonder what else we could do to encourage more participation on the other side of the house … 
Threaten them with a burlap sack and a beating stick?
That sounds like good motivation to me! lol any how I do not see why people need to encourage people to do this tis fun.
ok folks… voting is concluded!
i’m going to tally the votes and announce the winners for round one in just a bit… we’ll then kick off round two! 
FYI - the “top three” entrants from each round will automatically advance to the third and final round…
congratulations to our Round One winners! and a round of applause to all our participants!! 
note: I’ve awarded @Heilari with his new title, but our other winners already have custom titles… feel free to ask for a Writer’s Workshop title if you prefer…
the folks listed about can still submit an entry for round two, but they are not required to (as they are automatically entered into the finals)…
other than that, same rules as before… head on over here to find out more!
You should probably fix this to avoid confusion.
oops… thanks for the catch!
Looking forward to the next round of submissions!
I may write something up for this. I’ll start tomorrow!
I’ll write something up over the weekend.
My cough is subsiding… so maybe, maybe …
I’ve just read the winning submission. Highly amusing @Teleros!
I am looking forward to writing up my story tommorow!
Yay 
!
Thankyou @Dwalus, @coasterspaul, @Smith, @SirCamOfRon, @Nar5ial, @BloodW0lf, @Relyss, @Thorbjorn42gbf & @SteveAdamo for the votes 
!
[quote=“SteveAdamo, post:126, topic:9505”]other than that, same rules as before… head on over here to find out more!
Think I’ll leave this one, at least for now (glances at Map Game, www.morethegame.com & WoW…). I might go through the other entries for round 1 and scribble a few notes on what I (dis-)liked about them, see if I can offer some suggestions to people 
.
I’ve come up with the story and the plot. (I know, it 23:10 here, I suffer from imsonia 
) all I have to do tomorrow is write it up!
So, going to review some of the stories submitted in round one. Bear in mind though that I’m a born nitpicker, so if I don’t mention it, I probably found it fine 
.
@Newf - The Day Was Lost
A few minor grammatical errors, but they’re not a big concern. I would have changed the “fluttered” in the first line to “fluttering”. Oh, as a general rule of thumb, you should write out numbers in full in prose (though there are exceptions - eg mathematical bits and pieces). I would have either split the first sentence of the first paragraph in two, or used a semi-colon instead of a comma. Yeah… having to nitpick a bit in terms of the actual technical writing of the story.
Stylistically, I think the action is over too soon. You spend two paragraphs building up to the action, the third paragraph essentially describes the beginning of the fight at the barricade, and the fourth seems rushed - suddenly the villagers are fleeing, the goblins are winning, and it’s over. We also don’t get much of a feel for Jack Barnes or his brother - we see them act, but we don’t see much of what they think or feel.
@Heilari - Favourite Time Of Day
Again, very little to complain about regarding the technical writing of the story. Not sure the second sentence follows on from the first (eg “it was also his favourite thing to do”), but again, just nitpicking.
Not much more to say about this story. We get a fair bit of insight into what makes Kadash tick (answer: burning people alive in wooden houses and stabby stabby fun ), and the action proceeds along at a nice pace, with a single paragraph to build up to the main event, two for the fighting and climax, and then a short couple of lines at the end to tie it all together.
@Hieronymous - Diary
Technically well written again. A few little details - I’d have written “not yet even broken ground” rather than “not even yet broken ground”, for example. Possibly also consider highlighting the “Day #” bits of each entry in future, to help make it stand out from the entries themselves.
For the actual story… classic spooky trees / ent stuff 
. We also get a look into the diarist’s mind through the way he describes & dismisses the workers’ worries. However, I think the bit “… cutting us off from all outside aid” doesn’t work so well - he appears, in his own words, a little too weak-minded there in my mind.
@Solus - A Plush Problem
A few grammatical errors stand out (eg “…bites of berries. His face…” - shouldn’t be two sentences if written like that), but again it’s basically nicely written.
For the story itself… the scene is set nicely, as is Renny’s solution to the plushie problem. Again, some nice insight into the characters - after reading this, I think it’s fairly easy to imagine how Renny or Steve would react in a given situation.
On a side note, I can’t help but think about how many of @Atralane’s hearthlings have similar discussions :lauging: .
@micheal_handy76_mh - The Footman
Various grammatical errors jump out at me from this one - “Terrin and Rachel was” should be “Terrin and Rachel were” for example, or “wounder” instead of “wonder”. The last paragraph also has some issues with jumping between tenses - most of the story is written as if it’s happening now, but that’s not always the way it’s written in the last paragraph.
For the content itself, I thought it nice to get a first person view of things (which, re some of the points above, I tend to think as harder to write than third person). Not sure the last sentence quite does it for me though - I think it could be written so as to get across more of the shock and pain of being struck in the gut, before the poor footman loses consciousness.
@Atralane - Collected Lore
The second half of the first of sentence could use some work - to be “conflicted” usually means to be emotionally torn between two warring impulses, or similar. “Liyl has often been in conflict…” is what you want when referring to physical violence. The rhyming in the song is consistent (well, the third line in the third verse doesn’t quite rhyme, but near enough ).
As to the content itself, nice work on doing a poem / song for this, another hard kind of writing. The attack-defend-attack style, and the content of each verse works nicely too, and the drier text around the poem is a nice contrast too.
@TurtleSquish - A Fight To The Death
Some grammatical nitpicks here and there - questions (“Why should I fight it” etc) should end in a question mark, but there’s not much to say here really. In the last paragraph I would also have changed “I’m” to “I am”, though only on stylistic grounds.
For the content, a nice change to the expected content of a story with this title . Though the old boy’s thoughts are a bit depressing . I would though have tried to make the last paragraph a little shorter - it seems to last just a little bit too long under the circumstances. Eg “I have done what I needed to do. I am finished now.” for his final thoughts.
@Heimerdinger - Just A Regular Day
Grammar and punctuation could be looked at here - for starters, never use more than one exclamation mark or question mark. Additionally, the first sentence should probably be broken up - eg a full stop just after “hearthling”. Also don’t forget proper speech marks.
As to the story itself, a nice few nods to the game . I’m not sure I would have written the final line the way you did though - under the circumstances, something more approximating a punch line than the more ominous “…for now” kind of ending is I think more appropriate.
@BloodW0lf - The Coming Of The Barbarians
The usual nitpicky stuff for the technical side of writing. The one that jumped out though was the first line of the story proper - “fourth moon of smiles” - in English we usually capitalise days & months, as well as things like Easter or Christmas Day - Fourth Moon of Smiles sounds like something similar.
For the story itself, a nice look at things from the goblins’ point of view. At least until we get to the final line (gulp!) 
. Not much else to say - there’s the introduction, the build up, and the big finale. However, we don’t get a great deal of insight into the goblins’ mind, for what it’s worth.
@Zilla - The Curse Of The Smartness
Various grammatical and spelling errors - “there” rather than “their” for example. The first sentence should probably stop after the word “routine” as well.
For the story itself, possibly the silliest of the entries (though I say that in a good way, as in silly fun ). I note though that the beds only first appear in the second paragraph, yet the reason for the goblins’ anger in the first has nothing to do with beds, or indeed sleeping at all. That said, the ending is suitably amusing and ends well .
@PDanford - What Lurks Below
Not much nitpicking on the technical side. Generally if ending a quote or spoken text without ending a sentence, it’s normal to put a comma in before the last speech mark(s). Mostly little things like that.
For the story itself, a nice build-up to the final charge. However, for a first person story we don’t get much insight into said person - we don’t know what he feels as the cave trolls approach for example, aside from the ground shaking. I think one of the potential strengths of first person narratives like this is that they allow a closer connection to those things, whereas an omniscient narrator in a third person story is naturally more detached from events.
So… what else. Well, I think all the entrants have a pretty good command of English - it might be interesting to see how many drafts people went through, especially the non-native speakers (writers?), because my gut feeling is “not many”, which makes it more impressive. Lots of nice variations on the theme as well, which is always good.
I think my favourite was probably @Heilari’s, basically for the reasons above.
Finally (!), I hope my scribblings above are of help to people entering round two . Looking forwards to some more nice stories !
[quote=“Teleros, post:137, topic:9505”]
in English we usually capitalise days & months
[/quote] Oh dang it I did not edit that lol
[quote=“Teleros, post:137, topic:9505”]
we don’t get a great deal of insight into the goblins’ mind
[/quote] sadly I was already well over the 350 word limit ( 459 words in total I would have loved to go further in depth)
Any how thank you for your opinion on the story!
I am unsure if I will do part two but we will see.
Have a good day
~Wolf
That’s the joy of being a critic I guess: you get to say “you’re doing this, this and this wrong” without having to fix it 
.
I recall a line by Mark Twain - “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
Always thought it very apt when writing short stories as well.
I was worried about this, I don’t like to write depressing stuff, but being that the topic was conflict I felt it was fitting.
I hear what your saying, But again I did that for the conflict side of it, to feel that the guy really has “lost” the battle.
incredibly help stuff there my friend… thank you so much for taking the time to provide the commentary!