OK.
Christmas is a fucking nightmare atm. My shop goes from doing a normally busy day of 20k sales to a busy day of 80k sales, so I've been an automated puppet all month, and a soulless zombie each evening, making me keep away from reviews. Today I am off and I am dealing with all the stuff I should not have delayed.
So.
Here's for you
@Jake Baelish :
You're gonna hate me, because I really enjoyed your story. I loved the idea, though behind a beer I'd argue that your magic isn't a small one. It was well written too, better than most. The only reason I ended up withdrawing my vote was that you came shoulder to shoulder with other stories, less masterfull but that had in my eyes a more agreeable story.
Hear me out : I was kinda flabbergasted by the choice of the young man. I thought it was horrible, in the same sense that in the theatre, I found that Rose saving Fynn from sacrificing himself was horrible. Then upon reflection, I saw that his sacrifice was pointless, and so him being saved was good, thought I still didn't appreciate the way it came about.
I still kind of feel the same way with your story. The gran REALLY wants to save people. The boy is being incredibly selfish by wilfully killing a stranger his Gran wishes to save.
But then, I'm Nora, right? The one who wrote a pseudo-rape-referential red riding hood story where the wolf is little's red's dad turning into a monster and eating people, as my 2nd submission to the contest! I'm the one who wrote about dog eating fairies, and I'm in Jmack's quote too...
So why would I disagree of your ending?
I feel like the problem in my eyes comes from the love they just exude to each other in the end. A more satisfactory ending following the same idea, in my eyes, would have been a focused pov on the man baking a second bread, and then standing there in front of the adviser, who looks grateful and hopeful, and making the choice, in this man's face, to hand him the wrong loaf. You could even make it entirely unclear which he gave out. "I gave him the bread" kind of sentence.
Then you'd cut to him looking down on his Gran, admiring her strength and her dedication, feeding her bits of bread throughout the night, and him smiling, as she slowly regains her strength. Ending on something chilling ("I simply can't let her go like that" - and I know she'll despise me when she wakes up and realises what I've done) or sad (speaking to sleeping grandma, as her colours return, "I know I've done the wrong thing, I know I've chosen selfishly, I wonder if you'll forgive me?" - bells toll, and grandma wakes at the sound of them, looking back up in his face -end).
I think an open ending, as to whether the gran would forgive him or damn him for abusing her magic and her confidence, would have been better. The fact that she seems to instantly forgive him and smile in the wake of a little girl's death left me feeling like the bleakness of it was not intentional.
Though I could be entirely wrong about it, and you may have wanted to go really bleak, it came across like you wanted to make this a close and lovely story of love and kinship.
So my issue with you is entirely with the tone or your ending, and nothing else. It's not even a bad story, it just left me surprised and thinking how to better it, and what did you mean exactly, etc. So that was a drawback that pulled you to second vote, and then enough good story emerged that I had too many second votes and decided to give none.
The bright side is, this was still a winning material story, and obviously others thought so too, so here we are. Votes reflect personal taste, so you're bound to have the odd person like me not feeling it. Hope it doesn't make it sound too harsh though.
@JMack :
I'm kind of ashamed to say I felt the same about your story. Well written as usual, but it was a plot issue that held me back. In you case, the one that held me back and made the story feel flatter, was my lack of understanding of what the magics were, or looked like.
I was first confused by the kids crying and rushing their mom. They seem seriously clueless and very young, since they won't seat still and it never occurred to them that everyone has a Da, including their mom. So why would they cry? I would only picture them being puzzled.
We don't see them receiving their magic, and the following time jump of their mother dying as very unclear, leaving me only more confused.
The fact that the magics could be buried was interesting, but another confusing element. Since I had no way of knowing what the magics were, looked like, or how they worked (like, maybe they're highly personal? It never occurred to me they could be stolen, but I might have guessed so if I'd known they were physical objects), the reveal of the brother stealing them and returning it felt a bit gimmicky. The whole time I thought, 'well, no matter how the dad died, it brought some seriously happy consequences and he was a prick'. Aullie doesn't seem to be suffering from that much remorse. You do mention a weight lifting off of him, but if his remorse is what made him work his ass until the farm looks fantastic and he can give comfort to his wife despite the lack of children they crave, then imo 100% worth it...
Anyway, I felt like the whole story was full of great ideas, used to little emotional impact. Some suggestions might be :
- Let us know the magics are physical things that can be handled and stolen.
- Make the mom's choices starker. As it is she's speaking in riddles and doesn't make her use of her magic sound like something bad or silly, but like a weird mystery, like she's embarrassed to come clean. Making her a once-dumb-girl who judged a man on his looks and not his character and ended up stranded with a violent husband would be more potent.
- What if Aullie knew his brother stole his magic bead? But thought it had been used anyway? by him or by his brother? When he returns, he'd have more than simple estrangement to be prickly about, and it would come as a big surprise if Padden had actually saved his magic, and returned it, or never used his after that, and is offering to wish a thing for his brother as a reparation.
- If I was rewriting this, the way you did mine, I'd make Padden unbury both beads, and confront his brother. They fight, the father comes around and menaces them. Extremely weary and disheartened Aullie wishes really hard his dad would just fucking die. One bead in one of Padden's hands explodes and dad dies almost on the spot. Both brothers stare in horror, and Padden bolts with remaining bead and is not seen again.
Aullie plagued by doubt and some remorse, but wants his bro back. When padden returns, it's a wish come true in its own way, even if it reopens old wounds. Then Padden comes clean : It was his bead that burst, his wish of death that was heard (maybe you need to hold it yourself to work?) and he left in dread and shame, feeling like a murderer, and later like he abandoned his brother.
Came back to make penance and return his brother's bead back, so the bro can have his kids.
I'm a bit on the fence about the values of having the wife once pinning on the brother. It adds a lick of flavour to her but really just hints at possible future complications which feels unnecessary.
Boom.
Still think your final line is great.
So yes, the plot and characters felt a bit flat and their motivation was questionable, despite the fairytale idea being good, and the writing being up to your usual standard, so I couldn't pick you above Jake, for example. T_T
Of course I can't repaint your story, it's rude, but I guess it's the best way to carry my point across too.
@ryanmcgowan :
In the case of your story, my first problem was the formatting, which really put me off. My instinct when I see such great slabs of text is to not read at all, and I usually keep such stories for last. It was a shame because you have a nice, pretty poetical prose, though at times your vocabulary choices made it look like it needed more editing, like when the same character is "surprised" twice in a row, and both use of surprise appear on top of each other in the text.
Another thing that felt a bit odd was how the father and mother never seemed to stop believing that the MC is delivering Death magic, even as she helps the daughter. I felt their lack of progress or change was a bit off. Why keep the MC in their home if they this obviously don't believe her? "A smile even touched the girls lips, another small magic." That was a great line though.
The idea of your magic was really good too.
