Competitors
Teal Elimination
Competitor 1: NEW BLOOD-Born of Smoke & Fire //
wcrpforums.com/thread/293/blood-born-smoke-fire-chap //
phantomstar57 // Prologue chaps 1-14 & 15(epilogue)
Competitor 2: Tiger's Revenge //
wcrpforums.com/thread/63593 //
Maplestone360 // 10 chapters + prologue/epilogue
Competitor 3: Butterflies and Hurricanes //
wcrpforums.com/thread/40872/chapter-24-5 //
~Sapphire~ // 24 chapters plus prologue
Competitor 4: The Lighthouse Season 2 //
wcrpforums.com/thread/2118/ligh-2-grand-finale //
Katanaheart // 27 Episodes
Competitor 5: That Which Plagues Us //
wcrpforums.com/thread/72470/which-plagues-chapter-18 //
🍁Searipple101🍁 // 18 chapters, so far.
Jade Elimination
Competitor 1: Uncast Stones// wcrpforums.com/thread/1217/epilogue // Pikafuey // Prologue + 23 chapters & Epilogue
Competitor 2: » C u r š ε - - || // wcrpforums.com/thread/1758/uploading-chapters-4-12-2020 // » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ // 40 Chapters + prologue
Competitor 3: Star Rose // wcrpforums.com/thread/21475/8-poll-short-pg9 // Brownie // 9
Competitor 4: The Moon Cycle // wcrpforums.com/thread/82470/moon-cycle // laurel // 9
Competitor 5: The Deadly Blaze // wcrpforums.com/thread/82147/deadly-blaze-new-update-chaps // Taiyou // Prologue, 8 Chapters so far.
Round 1: Teal
1st Place: NEW BLOOD-Born of Smoke & Fire
phantomstar57 2nd Place: Butterflies and Hurricanes
~Sapphire~ 3rd Place: The Lighthouse
Katanaheart 4th Place: That Which Plagues Us
🍁Searipple101🍁 Eliminated: Tiger's Revenge
Maplestone360 Point Breakdown/Feedback:
NEW BLOOD-Born of Smoke & Fire
phantomstar57 Title: Subtext will take you everywhere. A;so vague, but is quickly held up by the summary for what it means. 9/10
Style of your page: Easy to read, don't have to scroll much to get the the start of your story. Only thing you might want to consider moving is the contest, since it might be slightly obtrusive now. But really isn't a big issue. 8/10
Synopsis/Summary: Strong, to the point, doesn't tell it all but tells the broad strokes of the beginning of the story enough to really bring in a reader. 10/10
Total: 27/30
Butterflies and Hurricanes
~Sapphire~ Title: Vague, but intriguing enough to click. 9/10 stars
Style of your page: Very, very neat. Didn't have to scroll very long to get to the prologue, and nothing in between was very obtrusive or was under spoiler tags. 10/10
Synopsis/Summary: Also vague, but still enough to get the reader interested. I feel like it could use a bit of refining from where it is now to better reflect the story. I need a tease more specific than how Holly and Ivypaw need to look elsewhere for a way to defeat the darkness. 7/10
Total: 26/30
The Lighthouse
Katanaheart Title: Usual fan fiction names aside, the Lighthouse does well to encompass the main themes of what this story will be about. Bringing up usual naming again, it doesn't have the same new reader trigger necessarily. What with it being a spoof, it's a pretty good name though. 7/10
Style of your page: Didn't have to do too much scrolling through information which a new reader might consider useless, but there was a bit. The "Differences" seem mostly to be about forms which you no longer have, so that's a bit of a hurdle to cross, but otherwise everything else is fairly or completely relevant to be listed first. 6/10
Synopsis/Summary: In this case I read roughly all of Mist, Daisy, and Blue's intro to one another. For a hook, it lacks a bit. It's most character intro. What it does have going for it is that it sets of the mysterious Lighthouse, so good on that! To stand in place of a summary, it vague hints at the true horror that place turns into, but as an intro I would have been interested to see Blue and co. ramp up the mystery level a bit. 6/10
Total: 19/30
Tiger's Revenge
Maplestone360 Title: In the style of things like Bluestar's Prophecy and so forth. Issue with that it, unless it's a character we already are familiar with, the intrigue is usually very low. Coupled with "revenge," which for stories is a fairly common word to throw around, there isn't much flash-bang to interest a new reader. 3/10
Style of your page: Very, very, very neat. New readers will find it easy to get where they need to go and do it in a timely fashion. 10/10
Synopsis/Summary: It is a very intriguing summary, albeit very vague. Rather than reflecting inward at the story, it reflects outward at the past. So while it does contain the mystery element, particularly in the last line, there isn't much about what a new reader will read. 5/10
Total: 18/30
That Which Plagues Us
🍁Searipple101🍁 Title: Unusual (starting with 'that'), rolls off the tongue, and reflects the summary very well. 10/10
Style of your page: It was cramped and hard to scroll through. You had the summary right at the top, which was very good, but then new readers scroll through both Fan Art and Fun Facts before reaching the prologue. There was also the map, territories, and cast of characters - which seem relevant to have near the top, but make it hard to get to the main story. In particular, the territories. For a new reader, it has a hard entry level with so much to scroll through. 2/10
Synopsis/Summary: Very well written, while also providing a lot of intrigue to what the reader is about to get into. Things are teased very well, and the hook is there with bait ready at the end. Very good execution. When reflecting on the beginning of the story - a cat raised by foxes - I do wonder if there is any way to mention that. Summary's often reflect the beginning of the story enough to tell a reader where they'll be when they start, but also where they're going. I feel like I need more to reflect the beginning. 6/10
Total: 18/30
Tie between That Which Plagues Us and Tiger's Revenge - Resolved by "First sentence" test - 1 point available.
This is a minor entry level thing which readers use for novels. Does the first sentence in the main story catch the reader's eye? While not large enough to be a round in itself, it's good for tie breaking at this level so I don't have to make myself feel even more guilty. XD Anyway, the first sentence to a story can sometimes be as important as the summary. It's the first thing a reader sees and will set the tone for what they'll be reading.
That Which Plagues Us: “Hollow, you can’t climb trees like that! You know we can’t do it,” complained the kit sibling.
vs.
Tiger's Revenge: The dark morning dawning on the Colony was the coldest of the season so far.
Both are good tone setters for the story. However, That Which Plagues Us also goes so far to tease with dialogue as well as foreshadow just a little about what comes later in the prologue. Tiger's Revenge does well with setting a dark tone, but essentially talks about the weather. Good for tone, but That Which Plagues Us causes interest.
That Which Plagues Us Total: 19/30
Tiger's Revenge Total: 18/30
Round 2: Teal
1st Place: That Which Plagues Us
🍁Searipple101🍁 2nd Place: The Lighthouse
Katanaheart 3rd Place: Butterflies and Hurricanes
~Sapphire~ Eliminated: NEW BLOOD-Born of Smoke & Fire
phantomstar57 Point Breakdown/Feedback:
NEW BLOOD-Born of Smoke & Fire
phantomstar57 Set-up: You introduce the characters very well, without much variation from their canon personalities. There are also some very good lines, just in the prologue alone, which are very good and eye-catching. You have a soft humor in your writing that's really fun to read about. Classic Warriors beginning makes familiarity strong, but just enough witty lines to keep us hanging on. 8/10
Introducing characters: I love how Squirrelflight comments on Firestar's vagueness - hit it right on the nose there. You do a really good job of reeling in a reader to ask questions about a character that hasn't even turned up yet. As far as I can see, the only character that might need a bit of polishing is Jayfeather. He seems to be a bit too nice, if that makes any sense. XD Up the snap, and I actually think him protesting Bramlestar's questions might even up the intrigue. 7/10
Keeping me reading: Funny enough, since I know the usual length of your chapters, I feel like the prologue may be too short to really get across all the ideas you want to read. In terms of keeping an entry level reader entertained and reading, I feel like there needs to be more - or that Prologue and Chapter 1 might serve better to be combined into one thing. 5/10
Total: 20/30
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Butterflies and Hurricanes
~Sapphire~ Set-up: *hand clapping* It's done very well in the prologue, and the whole idea around the kits - even though they aren't born yet - make it a really good prologue to the story. And it leads into Chapter 1 really nicely. Prologues are always a bit tricky though - to balance the vague and the understood. Your prologue reflects the coming AU kits, but I feel like your tease at the end isn't enough. Example being: "Further away again, another cat, its eyes sore from moons of scouring the night sky, regards the new stars with a different emotion: relief." Issssss this who I think it is? If it is, then teasing with maybe one description word wouldn't have the reader's guessing right of the bat. If it isn't? Then some little tease more would carry this line better. Either way, I feel the prologue reflecting on what will be coming - much like the summary does - might need just a touch more hook. 8/10
Introducing characters: Er. I'll be honest that I don't know much to put here. The characters are all done really, really well. Pretty much nothing I can say about how they're introduced unless you want a string of good jobs? 10/10
Keeping me reading: Ooooh definitely! Only thing of note here is that it might be considered a bit slow, at least in Chapter 1. The reader is away from the main clan and with that comes a bit of hassle. While the interactions are good between the characters it's a bit of a struggle to picture the scenes and for some I can see it might be a bit 'journey-ish'. Maybe look over your dialogue and character emotions a bit, since at this point the reader is relying on the familiarity of the characters to entertain them and this is where they're going to shine. 6/10
Total: 24/30
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The Lighthouse
Katanaheart Set-up: What with this being season 2, the reader is coming into a familiar setting. We already know where we are. So lets look at the differences. For starters, the characters currently in the lighthouse. The biggest is the callbacks to the last season (RIP Nightshade ;-; ). Set-up is really good, since we're building off groundwork. And also teasing a bit on why the Lighthouse is still here even though it burned. Oof. 10/10
Introducing characters: We have a LOT of characters. As a first episode goes, most of them are just names at this point. You introduce a lot of the main ones and right off you can tell who is and isn't worth watching. Bluewhisper is getting a loooot of attention. So it isn't that hard to tell who to watch, but because of that a couple characters don't get as much developed personality as they could have if this many characters were introduced over a couple more episodes and given room to grow. That being said, since you have a penchant for killing them off rather quickly, there's only so much time. Got to work out how to make it count. 6/10
Keeping me reading: Considering most readers would have come over from season 1, they're probably here because they know what they like. But let's look at the differences we're coming into. It's a new cast of characters and most of the old ones were killed off. Running through the rollarcoaster of probably pain will come down to the mystery. You start one right off the bat: why is the Lighthouse still here and why are there cats here again? So that's carried over. And a couple others, like
why it exists in the first place. Downside is the all knew cast. As a new reader, it's like coming into a reboot. You aren't sure what to expect and if it will be different enough to warrant a watch. But you tease it well enough that the reader should be interested. 8/10
Total: 24/30
How dare Kat and Sapphire tie?
Tie breaker:
Points possible 1
Endings: How does chapter 1/episode 1 end and does it give enough of a hook to keep going? This looks at just the ending paragraphs or so.
B&H: Ends on a continuation of the first chapter. Lacks much of a solid hook near the end. Could in theory be joined with chap. 2 and the gap probably wouldn't be noticed. This isn't a bad thing, it just means the hook is based more in the middle of the chapter. However, this early on in the story, considering more of a hook at the end would likely keep more reader attention.
TLH: Ends with a bit of a mystery and a joke. Found a map - what does it say?
TLH gets the point.
Final scoring
B&H: 24/30
TLH: 25/30
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That Which Plagues Us
🍁Searipple101🍁 Set-up: You manage to make everything look so smooth and it all fits together so nicely within the prologue. It's very amazing. Chapter 1 follows up with a very interesting trade off and tone change, but still keeps me hanging. I don't think there's much or anything I can think to change. The reader will go in just as befuddled about the Clans as the main character, so that seems to be solid enough. 10/10
Introducing characters: Main character is introduced very well. There aren't in fact a lot of characters to introduce at this stage. There's a lot of questions about the foxes of course and whether they'll turn up again when a reader first finishes the start of the story, but they're all brought into an distinct set of personalities as well. As for our Clan cats, they're all so new that only Gentlestripe really needs a mention. Really love the mystery, because I get these little personality hints under it regardless and it makes me feel like there's more to him than meets the eye. Also nothing much to say here. 10/10
Keeping me reading: When it comes to the prologue, my only real concern is actually closer to format based than content based. It feels like you might want to add a break/line dash between when the mother fox is telling Hollow she's a cat and then when she shows her the rock. If that makes any sense? It would interrupt the flow. But that's just a cursory suggestion and doesn't factor into scoring. The prologue is spot on for keeping a reader interested and the first Chapter follows suit pretty well. In fact, I can only really suggest that the introduction of the Clan cats might seemed a bit contrived. Maybe a bit more verbal altercation with Webpaw before the little ... incident that he gets into? Just to give the reader a bit more to chew on to contrast when everything goes badly. 9/10
Total: 29/30
Round 3: Teal
1st Place: Butterflies and Hurricane
~Sapphire~ 2nd Place: The Lighthouse
Katanaheart Eliminated: That Which Plagues Us
🍁Searipple101🍁 That Which Plagues Us
🍁Searipple101🍁 :
Plot: Plot is your strongest point of your stories. Often you tackle very original plot ideas and TWPU is no different. The plot is also usually very engaging. As TWPU flows to beginning to end, you can actually see the progression of your writing. It starts out pretty bland, with a lot more telling than showing. Your writing suffers a little from stating how a character feels or reacts with simple formatting (e.g. She was scared) rather than using a more visual means of illustrating how your character feels (e.g. describing the visual, sensual reactions). However, by about the midway point and onwards, your writing starts to become vastly more engaging, with the plot flowing without interference from this issue as much. A particular interesting point is the clear definition of defined plots and subplots which seem disconnected, but still offer enough hints that the reader can see the slow tie to the main plot. As for how engaging the main plot is, it certainly has a lot of appeal. One other point of note, however, is the decided tone shift of the plot very early on. While to begin with, TWPU was highly centered around Hollowpaw’s fox origins, it shifts midway or so through to the main plot. Because it seems like a shift between two main plots rather than a cohesive shift from one to another, it can be a bit jarring. Particularly since there does not seem to be a relevant reason for Hollowpaw’s fox origins that directly relates to the plot having to do with the plague. Without knowing how the story ends just yet, I can’t say if that will change, but it’s something I wanted to note. Overall a very decent portion of the story that has shown a lot of improvement through the writing process.
5/10
Characters: I can actually tell you improved how you wrote characters about midway through TWPU. Your main strength is, in fact, your main character out of this section. The beginning reads a bit shakily, where it doesn’t really feel like Hollowpaw is a character who is fleshed out just yet. While you often state her flaws and goals, it isn’t until chapter 12+ that you start to
show how her flaws and strengths impact her life in the clan. While her social anxiety becomes more relatable as the story progresses, there is still room for improvement in how it’s expressed. A good description I can think of as an example of showing how Hollowpaw’s reactions are most relatable and vivid is how they were expressed in Chapter 27, when she was talking to the leader of another clan. How you described how her feelings felt in her chest was greatly well done. There is, however, a note that while your POV (3rd person) makes it easier to see into other cats’ heads, it doesn’t prevent the fact that many side characters are often very hard to relate to or remember. Notably, Hollowpaw’s mentor seems to be the most defined minor character, while the rest often seem a bit flat. This seems mostly due to the same focus on telling rather than showing. Your added attention to Hollowpaw through the story has often allowed a more one-on-one interaction with other cats (Bubblepaw, Wavepaw, Yelloweyes, etc.) which as your writing improves also has improved how the minor characters are portrayed. My suggestion would be consider reducing your cast of characters sometimes, so that there’s only 2-3 cats interacting. Not all the time, but some short scenes, which allow the minor characters a bit more time to develop.
4/10
Dialogue/Relationships: This is likely your weakest point. Your story is heavily focused on your main character, so relationships within the story often seem a bit flat due to how they are often focused on Hollowpaw’s thoughts and concerns. Her group of friends, for example, feels a bit flat, perhaps with the exception of Wavepaw. Dialogue can also be an issue due to its tell-vs-show causing sentences to fall flat. However, both of these things are improving as the story progresses and your writing improves. The story is still very engaging and there is immense improvement between the beginning to now. Yet I am reviewing the fic as a whole, so I feel the need to point out the early hiccups in the story as well. Great points to the story as it is now is that several of the minor characters (Bubblepaw, for example) are becoming more interesting and have their own concerns and interests within the story. There is also clear improvement in the show-vs-tell department.
3/10
Total: 12/30
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The Lighthouse
Katanaheart :
Plot: It’s BIG.
That’s really the first impression. The thing about the Lighthouse is that I feel like I need to have a pencil and a piece of paper out at all times to really get the complete feeling of the story. It isn’t really for the faint of heart (or goldfished brained) to take lightly. That isn’t a bad thing, just a statement of fact. The plot is very cohesive in that I feel like I am constantly seeing a progression forward. Admittedly this is marked by the characters steadily being killed, but there are so steady hints for the main purpose of the story. It builds on each other, particularly since it often references back on itself or refers to things which happened in the past. Honestly the only issues I personally can think to find with it, since this is your driving strength, is it sometimes feels like you might not completely know where you’re going in some episodes, but usually the train of plot picks up again fairly quickly.
8/10
Characters: This may be your weakest point. Due to the nature of the Lighthouse, characters die. And pretty quickly. The main characters and ‘fan favorites’ seem to get a lot of attention and development, while others that are fated to die quickly don’t seem to get as much. I noted the fact that flower-named cats and a majority of the she-cats also seem to get this treatment, where I often only remember one major character trait for these particular characters or their gruesome deaths. The main characters, on the other hand, are highly developed, with my heart bleeding for each and every one of them. They seem to have pretty defined flaws and strengths (arrogance being contrasted against intelligence, and so forth). Generally, the characters are pretty well done and still very compelling to pay attention to.
7/10
Dialogue/Relationships: Dialogue seems to be pretty much the main way that you can tell how each character are expressing themselves, with emoji accents. This seems to be done pretty well, with the lines of dialogue often meant to be slightly humorous in calmer situations. There’s still the steady progression from lighter-themed season 1 to the darker tones of season 2 that are present in this season, which makes for a very vivid development. Relationships between characters are, interestingly, not much of note outside a lot of the main or major characters. The frenemie relationship between Valanceheart and Bluewhisper is entertaining, while a certain ship which did not last long decided it wanted to break my heart, so there’s that. But otherwise, there aren’t many relationships to note other than the way the cats are put together at different points in time to work together. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like it may be damaged by the less development some characters get to others.
7/10
Total: 22/30
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Butterflies and Hurricanes
~Sapphire~ :
Plot: This is likely your highest scoring round, so let’s start here. Plot is stellar. It starts out a bit slow paced, which might be your biggest issue. There are some chapters which feel like they need a bit more action or plot movement near the beginning, but once you hit Sol that soon changes. You take a very interesting plot and twist it on its head, making two main characters follow through with a plot that continues to up the drama and cliffhangers. My biggest suggestion would be to keep in mind pacing and how that affects your beginning.
8/10
Characters: Your characters are very true to the originals but allow a deeper expression to them thanks to a lively dialect and way of phrasing things. I’ve seen the biggest critique of Ivypool in the canon series being that she’s winy and her point of view is very entitled, and while your interpretation doesn’t remove that aspect, it does give a more entertaining representation, particularly when Ivypool has more initiative to investigate the plot of the story. I can’t think of any critique here for your main characters. It’s really all around very good. As for your minor characters, I think that they may sometimes get backlit a little by the plot and the main characters. There are certainly times when they shine, but I would be interested in seeing what would occur if there were some stronger interactions with other minor characters .
9/10
Dialogue/Relationships: Your writing is very smooth, flavorful, and eye-catching. It is truly a great enjoyment to see, along with what you are able to express while using it. As for the relationships, how each character interacts with each other seems to be very well defined, with differences to each relationship being distinct. Holly reacts to Lion differently than Jay and so forth. Ivypool and Holly’s interactions are also very notable, since there are very clear differences from the books. I think the biggest thing to note is I need to see more. While the interactions we have are very nice, I feel like there’s more to be discovered from seeing different combination of cats, particularly since that would better develop the minor characters.
10/10
Total: 27/30
Round 4: Teal
Winner! 1st Place: Butterflies and Hurricanes by
~Sapphire~ Eliminated: The Lighthouse Season 2 by
Katanaheart Butterflies and Hurricanes by Sapphire:
Is your story well-written?
Short answer is yes. There's some slow bits, but all around you have a solid story that hits all the beats of excitement that I can think of. It puts the reader through their paces without making anything feel tiring or difficult to read.
9/10
How is your wording?
I can't think of any point where your wording was awkward or where it broke from character. Your wording is very solid and your wide vocabulary is probably one of what appeals me to that story.
10/10
How is your writing style?
You have a very clear and defined writing voice. It's certainly more dramatic and the beat-for-beat action is appealing to me as a reader. What makes things particularly fun in this case is that it is very distinct from the canon it is based from.
10/10
Total: 29/30
The Lighthouse Season 2 by Katanaheart:
Is your story well-written?
I'd say it's fairly decently written! There's of course spelling and typos, but this is me, so we're completely ignoring those and they don't factor into anything. But as for how the general story flows from one chapter to another and how all the parts work together that we've previously reviewed, this is a pretty solid. So since this is an over all yes or no on the solidly written score, I'd say yes! There are some shaky bits, but there's mostly well-written story here.
9/10
How is your wording?
Slightly complex at times. It might be the fact that there is a lot supposed to be conveyed in a short amount of dialogue, but there's sometimes scene setting portions of text that's very long while dialogue is very short and so forth. So there's some room for improvement, but all around there's really a lot of wonderfully worded (heartbreaking) instances in this story.
6/10
How is your writing style?
First I'm going to define writing style. By writing style, I mean the voice you use to narrate your work. Is it easily understandable? Does it work through all the processes that it needs to be understood? Things like that. In this case, your writing style is transitioning at this point. You are leading a light-hearted story from its origins to a more creepy, serious version of itself. Because of that, your writing style gets a bit clunky in places and the transition is not as smooth as it possibly could be. Is it a big thing? Not really. But there are still a couple points where there are light-hearted episodes right in the middle of more serious goings on, making the transition you're aiming for a bit jarring.
8/10
Total: 22/30