The Fifth Annual Writer Games: The Fall

The Fall of the Empire - Notes and Scores

Here's a fun Game: drink every time someone uses a semicolon in their entry. Actually don't, you'd die. Seriously, did y'all coordinate there to be semicolons in every single entry? Take it from an ex-semicoloner: you don't need them. It makes your writing too long and very often detracts rather than improving anything. Use like a nice sprinkle of fancy spice: to pop when needed. Don't litter or else it all just tastes like it. Without further ado...

The lights illuminate the stage, the smiling face of Mariella plastered on every screen across Panem. There's a hush that falls once the anthem plays. In the Districts, the noise is often just a drone in the background. Tonight most will half-heartedly watch with mild disinterest. The families of the tributes might pay closer attention, but some of them are already shutting down, ignoring it all, ignoring the child they've said goodbye to. But still, the music plays. And the first face appears on screen...

--

District 1 Female...Venus Iridium with a score of...9.5!

NOTES: This was a nice introduction to Venus' character. I thought it was well-written, but besides the lovely anecdotes about theatre and how she's acting all the time, I felt like this entry was pretty, like...t sets the bar in that it's a great entry with some lovely character work and dialogue, but there's nothing pushing it forward to the front of my mind. I would recommend something like exploring more around her or exploring more of her, but I know you'll get to it in due time. A lovely first entry.

--

District 1 Male...Chet Jackson with a score of...10.5!

NOTES: Oh, I would say you know me so well, but that discredits everything I know about you, which is that this character is no less than what I would expect to see from you always and forever. It's a good thing I adore it. My criticism here is that Capitol is Capitol not Capital and at times the prose can get too convoluted and confusing, so maybe break up more sentences. But the bit about his detah scene absolutely sent me. And while I would like to see him be less of a caricature and see more of Chet himself and his family, I think for once this might've been enough. Melvin is my favourite. You have such talent in dialogue and in doing weird shit like this but again, you've joined the right Games. Looking forward to more.

--

District 2 Female...Eloise Edith Kovach with a score of...10!

NOTES: Pretty solid entry. Liked the dialogue and interactions. Thought the flashbacks a bit too frequent and you probably could've went without them. Pretty great world building, really gave me a sense of who each person is. You really don't need to use semicolons.

--

District 2 Male...Eitan Mizrahi with a score of...11!

NOTES: I mean what can I really say? Solid, outstanding character work, deft workings of characters, ease of transitions. Particularly loved that the italicized parts were the current events happening.

--

District 3 Female...Packard Bevin with a score of...9.5!

NOTES: First things first, you switched tenses suddenly in the middle of the entry. Just to watch for that next time. I quite liked the present tense, by the way. Overall I really liked this entry. Though the timespan was very short, I feel like I still got a distinct sense of voice from the character, which was quite lovely. I would've liked to see a bit more substance, a bit more of, like, what is actually happening, what did happen, who are the people, what do they look like (besides poor splotchy Benedict lol). The tense switch and a couple errors in the entry were what drew you down from a score a bit higher. Overall this was still a solid entry and I do feel like I got as much a sense...okay, correction. I've just checked and this is two thousand words? Which is honestly impressive so I guess I have to take back the whole 'it felt short of substance'. I think it read so well and quickly because of the nice work you've done though. However be wary of overusing the definition trope. At times it also felt like the whole compliance word was getting overdone.