- Joined
- Nov 6, 2008
- Messages
- 8,316
Space Opera
Contestants were required to write a speculative, short, high-concept prose story, in a science fiction setting. "[Space operas are] a subgenre of speculative fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The name has no relation to music; it is analogous to soap operas. Perhaps the most significant trait of space opera is that settings, characters, battles, powers, and themes tend to be very large-scale." [ ]
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Style ------------------------ 6/15
Theme ----------------------- 2/10
Pacing ----------------------- 4/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 7/10
Eloquence -------------------- 3/5
Total of: 22/50, which is 44% of maximum possible score earned, and seventh out of seven places on scoreboard.
Dialogue in begining is nice, it injects us directly in story. Using unknown languages also spices up the whole thing. This story is a good atempt that kinda gone bad, you got all elements you needed, and got it to the point where's the culmination of the story. But you never developed it further. Some grammar issues, here and there, but not too much. Word repetitions are issue here. The story is going way too fast, I found myself jumping forward, like, two to three weeks at once. Dialogue gone worse as the story developed. You switched persons and their characters in the middle of story. Incredibly plain on-goings, you can separate and decribe the whole story in three words. Characters are not developed, making them harder for readers to be imagined. Where is Opera in here? Where all the drama, conflicts and story twists went? The story is quite short, and it doesn't have a proper ending. It doesn't have any ending at all.
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Style ------------------------ 4/15
Theme ----------------------- 5/10
Pacing ----------------------- 6/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 8/10
Eloquence -------------------- 3/5
Total of: 26/50, which is 52% of maximum possible score earned, and sixth out of seven places on scoreboard.
Next time, please take in consideration of posting the story directly on the Hive Workshop, rather than attaching a document to download. The story reminds me of a scientific project, rather than a Space Opera. You have no pacing at all during the whole introduction, just the standing facts that start to raise higher and higher in the boredom-o-meter. Really, some dialogue rather than simple explanation in the beginning would make this story more fun to read. Even when there is some sort of dialogue, it's fast, unexplainable, plain, blank and last, but not least, emotionless. You use too much time shifts in rowed sentences, meaning that you need to get a smoother transitions between exciting happenings, and words should be more simple to read, because readers tend to read faster upon encounter with such situations. Overall, your story had a lot of grammatical errors, had no emotions and it barely fitted in the Space Opera category. You need to work on your character development and display of emotions. The battle and the ending pulled you up, thought, as well as a story flow that could be very interesting with some work.
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Style ---------- 7/15
Theme ----------------- 4/10
Pacing --------------------- 7/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 6/10
Eloquence -------- 3/5
Total of: 27/50, which is 54% of maximum possible score earned, and fifth out of seven places on scoreboard.
You got the point with this story: few random, absolutely different people stuck together in one place and unavailable to escape one from each other. Instant dialogue at begining injects us directly into story and it really represents a hearth of an Opera, but this is heavily detained by using many nicknames for every character. I had to read everything several times in order to get "Who said what to Who, and what Who did with Who to Who". Also, lack of "she shouted", "he crossed his arms and said" types of speech isn't a good thing. Brackets with explanations of story goings are not needed (Haven't counted this in points, thought), usualy it's enough to get effect of reader staring at words "rats for dinner" for two seconds - and it gives pretty much same effect. I recognized your style of writting in Terry Pratchett - lots of irony, sarcasm and sentences that make no sense at all. Addition of real-time stuffs (From this reality we call World) could have a negative impact on your story, but in this case, I made an exception and passed it over since it's the only thing of that type used in here. It's nice idea to use trademark (™). Amount of grammatical errors has nearly made me cry, and you got a little bit too much off the edge with mature content. Overall, the story is quite short considering limits of 10 000 words, and it's also lacking proper explanations of situations that are currently happening. The story is readable - barely, but this is an Opera: where did all the drama and conflicts go?
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Style ---------- 8/15
Theme ----------------- 4/10
Pacing --------------------- 7/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 8/10
Eloquence -------- 4/5
Total of: 31/50, which is 62% of maximum possible score earned, and fourth out of seven places on scoreboard.
The story had few "Wait, what?" moments that weren't supposed to be there. Grammar issues on every second corner were covered with the abusing of Street language - and it, surprisingly, turned out quite fine and nice, even with some missing sings of interpunction. Acts are a good innovation, they are indeed parts of an Opera, but the transition you used could heavily benefit from some smoothness, instead of quick jump-in-forward-without-letting-reader-know-what-happened-in-meanwhile moments. It's nice to see that you used a little, what I like to call them, "History" moments, in order to fully present the main character of the story, but you have gone a little too much in explaining the character to every single little detail of his psychic state, instead of giving us a shot at his visuality. I detest from usage of mature language. It is a nice idea to make the whole story rotate around a single character, but even with it's stunning originality and incredible possibilites, you haven't succesed to develop it properly. You just simply bump way too much between multiple stories, without revealing any connections until you get them together. When I gather everything together, the story really had nothing to make me read it further with excitement, or read it again sometimes, but it did had some wicked sense of timeflow that made me wonder: "Hm... What will happen next?". Oh, and... Uhm... What's up with the ending? I don't get it - the assassin guy just vanished from the story when it (finally) got exciting, and the main character got drunk, swore his drink, and probably passed away. The last one out of few "Wait, what?" moments. Also, your story has incredible low amount of connections to the theme. There is Space - only in beginning, there is some Drama - in the ending, and there's nothing else.
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Style ---------- 9/15
Theme ----------------- 8/10
Pacing --------------------- 10/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 9/10
Eloquence -------- 5/5
Total of: 36/50, which is 72% of maximum possible score earned, and third out of seven places on scoreboard.
You got lost in trying to make the story as much descriptive as possible, and too many details during the entire story did an impressive job for helping readers to visualize the whole, stunning concept, but as much as they helped, the details really killed the whole story, too. You paid too much time and energy on focusing on details, rather than involving reader in the heart of the story, and that made the story drown itself in useless info - that eventually killed it when the story was already dead. Thought you got the point of a Space Opera precisely and in the center, you got lost and eventualy, ended the story too fast and in a blink. I had a hard time finding any grammar issues within your story - Great job, I have to say. Perfect dialogues have really impressed me. The flow is perfect, and informs us about everything that is(n't) needed to be known - quite smoothly. Some comparations are quite stunning and unseen, but your story lacks some extra emotions, which are crutial for an Opera. What you could do to make this a winner story, is to delete first few paragraphs, cut many details, involve some extra emotions and to not end the story too fast.
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Style ---------- 9/15
Theme ----------------- 9/10
Pacing --------------------- 8/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 9/10
Eloquence -------- 2/5
Total of: 37/50, which is 74% of maximum possible score earned, and second out of seven places on scoreboard.
The story has to be written in third person. You started with first person, then switched to third, then used both in one sentence. You also swap and play around the timing, I found characters in both Present and Future - at the same time, in one sentence, few times. Writing a story in the present time instead of past-before-present is pretty much complicated - and not many are able to do that. You managed to squezze it through, but you lost emotions and some pacing in process. Quite interesting and original idea to use such specifing timing with thousand hours. You need to use some interpunction signs to dispatch one sentence into few smaller - they are long and confusing to read. Critical amount of grammatical errors is nearly present, and when they appear, they get in the most visible place and ruin everything else. It would be nice if there was a greater amount of tension in those interesting situations where Victor fought his enemies, or Bruce - they were plain and, to be honest, with not too much emotions that are crutial for Opera and the whole concept of story. The story is quite interesting, a great transformation of Tom Cruise and James Bond to a space themed, dramatic action movie, but grammar, emotionless situations, and succesful atempts of getting exciting moments quite plain detained your score.
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Style ---------- 14/15
Theme ----------------- 10/10
Pacing --------------------- 10/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 10/10
Eloquence -------- 4/5
Total of: 48/50, which is 96% of maximum possible score earned, and first out of seven places on scoreboard.
The story starts properly - an interesting guide to the on-goings. Nice idea to give an android human emotions, and you developed it well. I had a hard time to keep a track between the dialogue of the Holy Spirit and the story itself, and thought it is a nice idea to meld the Spirit in the story, the results were detaining. You wrote incredibly stunning explanations of emotions and their effects, as well as the reactions to them, and what surprised me pleasantly is the pain descriptions. A piece of metal that starts to live. Interactions and dialogue of spirit and Leif were quite fun and accurate to pace of the story. The scene with fire is quite impressive, I have to say. "Leif was about to send Keene a killer stare when he realized he didn't know where to point it." - that sentence made my day, really. I also have to say that I couldn't find anything to get a negative impact on you, except the Black Font, quite small grammar issues, and an ending that put a big, honest smile on my face.
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| 7th place: Avator |
Theme ----------------------- 2/10
Pacing ----------------------- 4/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 7/10
Eloquence -------------------- 3/5
Total of: 22/50, which is 44% of maximum possible score earned, and seventh out of seven places on scoreboard.
Dialogue in begining is nice, it injects us directly in story. Using unknown languages also spices up the whole thing. This story is a good atempt that kinda gone bad, you got all elements you needed, and got it to the point where's the culmination of the story. But you never developed it further. Some grammar issues, here and there, but not too much. Word repetitions are issue here. The story is going way too fast, I found myself jumping forward, like, two to three weeks at once. Dialogue gone worse as the story developed. You switched persons and their characters in the middle of story. Incredibly plain on-goings, you can separate and decribe the whole story in three words. Characters are not developed, making them harder for readers to be imagined. Where is Opera in here? Where all the drama, conflicts and story twists went? The story is quite short, and it doesn't have a proper ending. It doesn't have any ending at all.
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| 6th place: Champara Bros |
Theme ----------------------- 5/10
Pacing ----------------------- 6/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 8/10
Eloquence -------------------- 3/5
Total of: 26/50, which is 52% of maximum possible score earned, and sixth out of seven places on scoreboard.
Next time, please take in consideration of posting the story directly on the Hive Workshop, rather than attaching a document to download. The story reminds me of a scientific project, rather than a Space Opera. You have no pacing at all during the whole introduction, just the standing facts that start to raise higher and higher in the boredom-o-meter. Really, some dialogue rather than simple explanation in the beginning would make this story more fun to read. Even when there is some sort of dialogue, it's fast, unexplainable, plain, blank and last, but not least, emotionless. You use too much time shifts in rowed sentences, meaning that you need to get a smoother transitions between exciting happenings, and words should be more simple to read, because readers tend to read faster upon encounter with such situations. Overall, your story had a lot of grammatical errors, had no emotions and it barely fitted in the Space Opera category. You need to work on your character development and display of emotions. The battle and the ending pulled you up, thought, as well as a story flow that could be very interesting with some work.
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| 5th place: HINDYhat |
Theme ----------------- 4/10
Pacing --------------------- 7/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 6/10
Eloquence -------- 3/5
Total of: 27/50, which is 54% of maximum possible score earned, and fifth out of seven places on scoreboard.
You got the point with this story: few random, absolutely different people stuck together in one place and unavailable to escape one from each other. Instant dialogue at begining injects us directly into story and it really represents a hearth of an Opera, but this is heavily detained by using many nicknames for every character. I had to read everything several times in order to get "Who said what to Who, and what Who did with Who to Who". Also, lack of "she shouted", "he crossed his arms and said" types of speech isn't a good thing. Brackets with explanations of story goings are not needed (Haven't counted this in points, thought), usualy it's enough to get effect of reader staring at words "rats for dinner" for two seconds - and it gives pretty much same effect. I recognized your style of writting in Terry Pratchett - lots of irony, sarcasm and sentences that make no sense at all. Addition of real-time stuffs (From this reality we call World) could have a negative impact on your story, but in this case, I made an exception and passed it over since it's the only thing of that type used in here. It's nice idea to use trademark (™). Amount of grammatical errors has nearly made me cry, and you got a little bit too much off the edge with mature content. Overall, the story is quite short considering limits of 10 000 words, and it's also lacking proper explanations of situations that are currently happening. The story is readable - barely, but this is an Opera: where did all the drama and conflicts go?
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| 4th place: Gausslander |
Theme ----------------- 4/10
Pacing --------------------- 7/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 8/10
Eloquence -------- 4/5
Total of: 31/50, which is 62% of maximum possible score earned, and fourth out of seven places on scoreboard.
The story had few "Wait, what?" moments that weren't supposed to be there. Grammar issues on every second corner were covered with the abusing of Street language - and it, surprisingly, turned out quite fine and nice, even with some missing sings of interpunction. Acts are a good innovation, they are indeed parts of an Opera, but the transition you used could heavily benefit from some smoothness, instead of quick jump-in-forward-without-letting-reader-know-what-happened-in-meanwhile moments. It's nice to see that you used a little, what I like to call them, "History" moments, in order to fully present the main character of the story, but you have gone a little too much in explaining the character to every single little detail of his psychic state, instead of giving us a shot at his visuality. I detest from usage of mature language. It is a nice idea to make the whole story rotate around a single character, but even with it's stunning originality and incredible possibilites, you haven't succesed to develop it properly. You just simply bump way too much between multiple stories, without revealing any connections until you get them together. When I gather everything together, the story really had nothing to make me read it further with excitement, or read it again sometimes, but it did had some wicked sense of timeflow that made me wonder: "Hm... What will happen next?". Oh, and... Uhm... What's up with the ending? I don't get it - the assassin guy just vanished from the story when it (finally) got exciting, and the main character got drunk, swore his drink, and probably passed away. The last one out of few "Wait, what?" moments. Also, your story has incredible low amount of connections to the theme. There is Space - only in beginning, there is some Drama - in the ending, and there's nothing else.
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| 3rd place: The World Is Flat |
Theme ----------------- 8/10
Pacing --------------------- 10/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 9/10
Eloquence -------- 5/5
Total of: 36/50, which is 72% of maximum possible score earned, and third out of seven places on scoreboard.
You got lost in trying to make the story as much descriptive as possible, and too many details during the entire story did an impressive job for helping readers to visualize the whole, stunning concept, but as much as they helped, the details really killed the whole story, too. You paid too much time and energy on focusing on details, rather than involving reader in the heart of the story, and that made the story drown itself in useless info - that eventually killed it when the story was already dead. Thought you got the point of a Space Opera precisely and in the center, you got lost and eventualy, ended the story too fast and in a blink. I had a hard time finding any grammar issues within your story - Great job, I have to say. Perfect dialogues have really impressed me. The flow is perfect, and informs us about everything that is(n't) needed to be known - quite smoothly. Some comparations are quite stunning and unseen, but your story lacks some extra emotions, which are crutial for an Opera. What you could do to make this a winner story, is to delete first few paragraphs, cut many details, involve some extra emotions and to not end the story too fast.
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| 2nd place: GunSlinger21 |
Theme ----------------- 9/10
Pacing --------------------- 8/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 9/10
Eloquence -------- 2/5
Total of: 37/50, which is 74% of maximum possible score earned, and second out of seven places on scoreboard.
The story has to be written in third person. You started with first person, then switched to third, then used both in one sentence. You also swap and play around the timing, I found characters in both Present and Future - at the same time, in one sentence, few times. Writing a story in the present time instead of past-before-present is pretty much complicated - and not many are able to do that. You managed to squezze it through, but you lost emotions and some pacing in process. Quite interesting and original idea to use such specifing timing with thousand hours. You need to use some interpunction signs to dispatch one sentence into few smaller - they are long and confusing to read. Critical amount of grammatical errors is nearly present, and when they appear, they get in the most visible place and ruin everything else. It would be nice if there was a greater amount of tension in those interesting situations where Victor fought his enemies, or Bruce - they were plain and, to be honest, with not too much emotions that are crutial for Opera and the whole concept of story. The story is quite interesting, a great transformation of Tom Cruise and James Bond to a space themed, dramatic action movie, but grammar, emotionless situations, and succesful atempts of getting exciting moments quite plain detained your score.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| 1st place: Dragonson |
Theme ----------------- 10/10
Pacing --------------------- 10/10
Creativity & Originality -------- 10/10
Eloquence -------- 4/5
Total of: 48/50, which is 96% of maximum possible score earned, and first out of seven places on scoreboard.
The story starts properly - an interesting guide to the on-goings. Nice idea to give an android human emotions, and you developed it well. I had a hard time to keep a track between the dialogue of the Holy Spirit and the story itself, and thought it is a nice idea to meld the Spirit in the story, the results were detaining. You wrote incredibly stunning explanations of emotions and their effects, as well as the reactions to them, and what surprised me pleasantly is the pain descriptions. A piece of metal that starts to live. Interactions and dialogue of spirit and Leif were quite fun and accurate to pace of the story. The scene with fire is quite impressive, I have to say. "Leif was about to send Keene a killer stare when he realized he didn't know where to point it." - that sentence made my day, really. I also have to say that I couldn't find anything to get a negative impact on you, except the Black Font, quite small grammar issues, and an ending that put a big, honest smile on my face.
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Additional info:
• 80% of the winner is determined by the contest's appointed judge.
• 20% of the winner is determined by the results of the public poll.
((Votes / Total Votes) * 20) + ((Judge's Results) * (80 / 50)))
Avator: ((3 / 30) * 20) + (22 * (80 / 50)) = 37,2
Champara Bros: ((1 / 30) * 20) + (26 * (80 / 50)) = 42,266
Dragonson: ((8 / 30) * 20) + (48 * (80 / 50)) = 82,13
GunSlinger21: ((2 / 30) * 20) + (37 * (80 / 50)) = 60,53
Gausslander: ((4 / 30) * 20) + (31 * (80 / 50)) = 52,26
HINDYhat: ((4 / 30) * 20) + (27 * (80 / 50)) = 45,86
The World Is Flat: ((8 / 30) * 20) + (36 * (80 / 50)) = 62,93
1) Dragonson
2) The World Is Flat
3) GunSlinger21
4) Gausslander
5) HINDYhat
6) Champara Bros
7) Avator
2) The World Is Flat
3) GunSlinger21
4) Gausslander
5) HINDYhat
6) Champara Bros
7) Avator
Poll | Contest
