Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 47

Don't forget to Vote - it helps NBR :)

Friday 15th ~ Friday 22nd

Moderator: mokbook

Please make sure you comment on all THREE stories! 

Just a reminder: Your place in the queue is dependent on you, consistently commenting on all three chapters/books every week. We have changed the minimum comment length to TEN sentences, if your comment is not up to standard it will be marked as 'Not Quality' and will hurt your place in the queue. Most of you will not need to worry about this as your critiques go above and beyond our expectations.

Also for members who have spotlighted, you are welcome to reapply for the queue should you wish. Your new chapter will need to go through screening just like your first one did.

Comment Topic: Characters are the soul of every story. Did the main character in the chapter seem real? Or were they stereotypes or one-dimensional cardboard characters? Can you suggest improvements?

---

Author #1:  ScoobyDooforever

Book Title: The White Cape

Specified Chapter:  The Boy

Summary Thus Far in Book: Darcy just graduated from High School. Her and her family stay afterwards to commemorate the occasion, taking pictures, and as this is happening she feels something...Odd. The forest nearby is rumored to be cursed, and she feels that she's being watched. They leave and she hops into the car where the spotlight chapter takes place.

Author's Note: I am so excited to finally be spotlighted! I would like to say thanks to the amazing people of NBR and DawnStarling. Please review my story honestly and seriously, I'm a younger author and I know I have a lot to work on, but that's what NBR is for(but try to be nice about it, please).

Question 1: How is my writing style, which I'm still developing, and what can I improve about it?

Question 2: Does the main character's commentary and imagery get the point across, and if it doesn't, what should I change?

Question 3: Is the story/idea interesting, would you possibly read on? If not, why?

Genre: Vampire

Rating: PG

Winning Comment:  Comment Topic: We don't really know much about Darcy in terms of her biographical information, other than things like the fact that she's not an only child, is being raised by both parents, and she is apparently old enough to be in the process of picking colleges, so I can't really judge that aspect of it. However, she does seem real in terms of her thoughts and emotions, the way she vacillates between fear, uncertainty, unease, a sense of powerlessness, attempts to rally herself, horror, disgust, sheer terror, and making peace with death, and even sheer hysteria from the lack of oxygen. We could've simply had one or two emotions or mental states, like sadness and fear, but instead we get a whole laundry list of thoughts and feelings we're going through, and that definitely gives me the impression that the author here has really gotten inside their character's heads, placed themselves in the story, and gotten a strong sense of what it might be like to really experience a situation like this.

Author's Questions: 1. How is my writing style, which I'm still developing, and what can I improve about it?

I do like it overall. I think one thing you've accomplished well is making us feel very close to the main character. I feel like we're very wrapped up in her thoughts, impressions, and feelings." I do have 2 main issues I'm seeing, though. The first is the overall grammatical issues I'm seeing. Things like comma usage, ellipses, parenthesis, etc.The second issue is the jumping around in tenses and perspectives. She keeps shifting between the thoughts and commentary that took place during the course of the story's events, and the thoughts and commentary that she's expressing as she relates the story to the audience. There needs to be more consistency in how those are expressed and indicated. Things are kind of muddled right now, and there's an overlap to them. I'll explain more about this below, when dealing with specific examples of it.