Bonus: First Entry: Athena Olive  [+1]

Below you will see your score and two different paragraphs of notes for each character. Both judges will be giving separate feedback for each entry. If you have any further questions on our notes for your task or would like additional feedback, please feel free to PM us at any time. 

★EDEN KARAM★

Score: 13

Notes 1: Certainly, you're a competitor. To respond to your note, I enjoy the lack of angst because I grow tired of writers thinking they can write something when it's cringe-worthy. That said, this entry was not worthy of cringing. However, one thing stood out to me. Where was the crowd? How did people react? It was like there were four people this entire time, one of which was a silent person just observing, the other Esther Karam, and the third the Kayla girl, who wasn't there but also was? Remember background, because when things get blurry it gets boring. This isn't happening in a vacuum, is it?

Notes 2: Eden Karam is such a sassy, bright addition to these games. I loved her character. She's especially ferocious and delightful. I can't wait to see more. I do agree that in future tasks like this, it might be good to expand on the background more, but within the constraints of the word count this time I can accept that it would be difficult. 

★CASSYUS BERYL★

Score: Score to be updated at a later date.

Notes 1: Notes will be through PM. 

Notes 2: Notes will be through PM.

★JAZZYNN "JAZ" JONES★

Score: 10.9

Notes 1: One thing for you that I have to note right off the bat is your ability to overuse a word. At times, it can look great. Other times, try to reword your sentences or find a new word. Another thing was this, and you do this with a lot of simple descriptions, so let me just pull out one to show you what's going on: "The crimson shade of his blood was something branded to his mind and memories." Now, this could have been a great sentence. But here's the thing--this is her pov, so why is his blood branded to his mind and memories? Also, everyone bleeds. And, correct me if I'm wrong, everyone bleeds the same color. So while it's nice to say "crimson shade of his blood" it's also kinda stupid, considering everyone has crimson shaded blood. You use a lot of descriptive words like that in other places, and they're all things I've heard a million times over. Pretty, but not individual to you. It's a good, strong description, but it's also used by everyone. There's more creative ways to describe things, and that's something I'd like to see. Don't use everyone else's descriptions--make your own. Also, tenses. Please work on them.

Notes 2: A funeral was a very unique take on the task, and it stood out to me quite a bit because there weren't any others quite like it. I can definitely feel how you're setting up your character's story, and I'm excited to read more. The thing that I would like to see more of, however, isn't necessarily description, but personal thoughts. I got a little taste of them in your entry and combined with your form I could get a good sense of who Jaz is. I'm hoping to see more in the next task, and hopefully see some of her struggle with "giving up her sword" as you put it. 

★VIOLANTE MERCY GRINNELL★

Score: 13.1

Notes 1: One entry in and I can see talent--talent, but I'm waiting for more. I won't give you too much praise, as that won't help. What I will say is that in places you tried to set the pace fast or slow and it didn't work as well as it could, but the potential was there. Work on your pace. Your character is great, but what I want to see is more show and less tell from you. That is, emotion wise. Inner thoughts work great, but what is she DOING physically? When she's angry, what happens? When she's upset, what happens? Keep going with this, improve, and I'm excited.

Notes 2: Violante's character really comes across to me in this entry. I definitely got the feeling that there are one thousand places she'd rather be than up on that stage, and most of them involve somewhere she can tear someone apart. I do love ruthless characters, especially with the little glimmers of insecurity that you've speckled in there. Personally, I felt like there were certain places in your entry where I could almost picture you saying "okay, this has to be just like her form" which is completely acceptable for a first task but it made the back and forth between characters read stiff to me. Just to be nit-picky, there's a line in your entry where you use "died" to describe the coloration of someone's hair. That threw me off for a moment or two since I think the word you were looking for is "dyed". 

★LAURUS ENZO★

Score: 13.1

Notes 1: I am in love. I say that when I mean it, and here, I mean it. Your characters I've seen in the past--and sometimes, they're hit-or-miss. Here, you've hit and I adore it. Every word felt right. I don't want to say it's perfect, because I don't believe in that, but I think this is amazing and I honestly love your character. All I can give advice on is that, since likely you won't be writing this in letters (unless you do, in which disregard me), be certain to KEEP this voice. It's so easy to write a really good thing and then lose it when you change a style, or do something else, so fight to keep this because I'm honestly in love with your character and voice right now.

Notes 2: I love that you decided to do a letter format. It's something we get a lot as judges and can be easily overused, but when pulled off just right it can really shine through the competition. Laurus's letter was a great representation of him and what matters to him, and his voice in them was clear to me. And the oranges? I'm finding it very difficult to look at the fruit now. However, outside of the letter, I didn't get that same voice. In your descriptions leading up to the letter and around it, I'm getting a lot of you and not so much Laurus. Be careful transitioning between letter and narration. 

★NEPTUNE SCYLLA★

Score: 9

Notes 1: So, this is good. Your descriptions are good, your dialogue is good, but your emotions and your grammar fall flat. Grammar is easily fixable--there's online grammar checkers, though you have to be wary and make certain it's actually making good choices for you, meaning read it aloud and ask a friend to help if you can't figure out if something is correct or not. For emotions, that's harder. You were supposed to have this dramatic death scene and I didn't care a single bit. One, I didn't know your character. Two, I didn't care because I had no reason to care. Give me a reason to care, make the emotions real, describe them with every sense you can and they'll become real. Don't be afraid to go out of your comfort zone when it comes to emotions. Emotions aren't usually in anyone's comfort zone--that's why they're emotions. They're real and demand to be felt, so make me feel it.

Notes 2: There were a few typos I noticed when reading through your entry. They were easy things though, form/from and bit/bitten. As for character, I feel like you're really breaking through when it comes to secondary characters. I loved Lucas and even though I didn't see too much of their previous interaction, seeing him turn into that killer made my heart sink. I also got a good sense of Thoridan's anger. What I didn't get, however, was a lot of Neptune. I'm missing the feeling of her suffering and pain. Her thoughts on losing Lucas and that hatred in her mind when she finally comes to blows with the last tribute and tears into him are some things that would have made me connect with her better. Also, I see you falling into a pattern when writing action that I, myself, am guilty of. When you want something to move fast, write it fast. Left. Right. Dodge. Swing. Hit. Pain numbing the side of your face. Cloth tearing. Teeth grinding. Fast, fast, fast. Include other senses as well. Fights are loud and fights are dirty, smell and sound can be added in without slowing the pace. 

★PERCY COLE★

Score: 13.6

Notes 1 Love to death how your character stands right now. What I don't love, however, is that a lot of sentences begin the same way. He, She, Insert Name, It, the, They. Don't fall into that trap. Keep attention like the storyteller inside you desires.

Notes 2: The emotions in this entry were spot on. I could really feel Percy's anxiety and the heat of the crowd on him. I enjoyed your throwback to his original games with the inclusion of Rohe especially. You wanted to impress me, and you did. However, I will agree with the other judges in saying that many sentences start the same way. 

★CONSTANTINE CRANE★

Score: 11.4

Notes 1: I personally think you could have found stronger words to use in certain areas, or at least better phrasing for your sentences. However, that's just my opinion. A lot of the words you use are generic and I feel like I'm reading an essay written by one of my classmates in Comp 2--it's okay, but it sounds like you're just BSing your work to meet a word count. It's also basically MLA format and that scares me. At times you have these nice images and descriptions and it's okay, and then it's like you repeat yourself a small amount, and then BAM this is totally a BSed essay and you were meeting word count. A third of this could have been condensed and nothing would have been lost.

Notes 2: I didn't have as much problem with your descriptions as the other judge did. There are a couple of lines in there that I adored. I like his nervousness and how you describe them, and the interaction with Cadette. (Do I sense an alliance?) It was playful, if not darkly humored, and excellent for the occasion. However, the task was the Victor's Interview. And while you did everything leading up to it, I didn't get any interview. I will agree with the other judge that you could have started a little further into his nervous pacing and given us at least a little of how he decided to interpret Cadette's advice. 

Also, out of curiosity, what's up with this face? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° ) I almost published it with the entries at least twice. 

★PARABELLA BLUESTONE-SCORIA★

Score: 13

Notes 1: I adored your letter. The only problem I have is that it's just a letter--will the rest of this sound like her too? Will it be heartfelt? Will it change? Is this letter truly representative of your character? I enjoy this, but I can't say too much. As with all short entries, it's hard to screw something up when it's short. You didn't, so good job, but what's next? Will you be descriptive? What's your style? These will be what I'm looking for.

Notes 2: For a first task, this was a wonderful style to chose. Letters are very personal and can set up a character nicely for the future. It was very moving and really left me wanting more, but like the other judge, I'm curious if you'll continue to play out these letters to Victoria or if you're going to try something more in depth. Only time will tell, but for now, good job. 

★HERZEL KOZLOWSKI★

Score: 14

Notes 1: Your style; perfection. All I can say to improve would be don't fall into the trap of trying too hard in descriptions to sound pretty. You had no real big flaws here, but that means you'll have to do insanely good to improve, or not to fall flat.

Notes 2: Sometimes it can be difficult to use more complex words without making your writing sound stuffy and dry. Luckily for you, at least in this entry, I didn't see that problem at all. His thoughts are his narrative, which isn't something we see very often. The repetition of the end and beginning lines were good as well and gave me an almost eerie sort of feeling. I'm excited to see what more you can do. You've set the bar high for yourself, try not to disappoint us. 

★SEBASTIAN MERCIER★

Score: 13.2

Notes 1: I must begin by asking: How do blades, made of metal, sound like nails on a chalkboard? That's really one of the only things that truly bothers me here. I like this, but if you're going to continue in this style, be careful to mix things up. Try to add more description where you can to really draw us in.

Notes 2: I was very sad to see that your strikethroughs did not stay when the task was formatted to the chapter. When reading your entry, my poor co-host was typing up notes for another competitor. She was terribly distracted by my frequent "Look at this! Sebastian's done something interesting" and "Sebastian's entry is interesting, you should see how interesting it is". That being said, it was very distracting to her and so you may have been the cause of someone else's notes having the word "interesting" in them. However, interesting in this sentence is not a bad thing at all! I thoroughly enjoyed this entry and I was delighted to receive an entry in this almost journal-esque format. I personally would have liked to see more of what you wrote played out instead of narrated, but I realize with the style you're working with that's difficult. 

★WREN DUFTY★

Score: 5.3

Notes 1: Was this an inner monologue or what, because honestly I felt confused when reading. Your voice came through, but that's all I got. No true description, nothing that said you were trying. Once you have a voice for a character, writing something from solely them is actually easy--take it from me, I've written loads of bad novels that way--and it shows no actual desire for an entry. I'd like to see you try more.

Notes 2: I'm aware of your comment promising to take the next task more seriously, so when reading over your entry for notes I've decided to keep that in mind. That being said, your entry was most certainly unique in its writing style. A lot of if is complete narration, interrupted only briefly by Wren's thoughts. Unfortunately, I didn't get any of the cold as ice, intelligent, angry girl you described in your form. It felt to me more like a snarky, scoffing teenager. For the next task, I would suggest trying to balance your showing/telling a little better. In addition, things like parenthesis and asterisks are almost never needed in an entry, even to show a character's thoughts. 

★ADEL ASLET★

Score: 12.8 [-2] 10.8

Notes 1: Your entry was good, though it read a bit short (which is understandable given the situation). I guess I'm a bit of a punctuation and sentences gal, but you had a few areas that read wrong. Two places I noticed it in a way that made me break out of reading it were these: "She would probably laugh at herself if she admitted this to herself out loud." This one wasn't too bad, but this could have easily been condensed to read better and less clunky. "She'd laugh at herself if she ever admitted that out loud" or something would have been better. Another part was, "In her eyes, the  Hunger Games, was much like chess." If you took out the Hunger Games your sentence would read as "in her eyes was much like chess", which wasn't what you wanted. What you meant was "In her eyes, the Hunger Games was much like chess". Try to check for comma splices like that because it changes how your sentences are read. When read correctly, you're supposed to pause for a breath at every comma, and if you read it out loud like that you can normally correct punctuation mistakes.

Another thing you did that stood out was "the male interviewer (insert action)". Over and over you had this and it just stood out. When writing dialogue tags, try to make them fit neatly into the area around it. When they stand out, your writing stands out, and it'll take a reader right out of whatever you're writing. Overall, this is okay, but you need to work on those sentences and editing some.

Notes 2: Honey, it breaks my heart to have to take points from this entry. I know there was a mix up with the times and it was physically painful to deduct, but hopefully in the future you can make up for these lost points. There were some comma issues, which my partner mentioned above. However, I'm loving how you describe Adel. You stayed very true to your form when you said she read between the lines, that stuck out to me in her entry quite a bit. Plus, I'm a sucker for puns (especially puns about missing legs). I like the idea of a scripted interview and her struggle to keep her internal thoughts in. But, that's also another thing I'd like to see more of. Through the task, all of her thoughts were mixed in with your narration, except for the last line. I'd like to see some more distinct thoughts of hers in the next tasks to come. 

★ATHENA OLIVE★

Score: 9.8 [+1]  10.8

Notes 1: How you word your sentences is both your greatest asset and your greatest weakness here. It's either something I think is really good, or, more frequently, it's something that could have been better. Try reading aloud as you write, perhaps, because some of your sentences are awkward and clunky. You have a lot of lines that could have been so amazing, but you broke them by failing to understand how to write the sentence. Read aloud, or get someone to help you read them, and you should be able to fix these problems.

Notes 2: You had some really beautiful lines in your entry and some very good descriptions but there were some problems with the sentence flow and the structure of your task. And your inclusion of the national anthem? Very well done. What brought down your score the most for me was grammar. Most of the problem lies in articles and commas. There are several places in your entry where an article (a, an, or the) is needed. The sentence doesn't read correctly without them. For example, in the beginning of your entry, you have "It had been a month since I had cleaned this place, thick layer of dust adorned my bow, and spider web formed a labyrinth in my quiver." An article (a) is missing in front of "thick layer of dust". Without it, the sentence is broken and is strange to read out loud. These are usually very easy mistakes to catch if you read sentences you're unsure about aloud. 

For commas, you seem to use them in places you don't need them. This is a mistake I personally make all the time. Twice in your entry, you begin a sentence with the word "since" followed by a comma. Both times, the comma is not needed. Additionally, there are several times in your entry where you have a comma followed by the word "and". An example would be this sentence here: "I took his backpack, and tried to run away from the scene". That comma is unnecessary and choppily breaks up the sentence. The best way to catch those tricky fellows is to read the sentence out loud. When you reach the comma, stop and take a breath before continuing. If it sounds weird, take it out. 
 

★ROSELIA LOCHTON★

Score: 8.4

Notes 1: I rather enjoyed your character, but your emotions fell flat. The dialogue could be vamped up, and the emotional aspect was lost on me. Why should I care about your character? Give me a reason to care. Give me emotion. You have to earn this, you can't just write emotion. Try to work on describing more, getting into your characters head more, and portraying other people as well as your character in ways that might be more realistic. As the other judge said, you begin a LOT with dialogue. Mix things up. Use different ways to tell a story. There's more than one way to write a conversation.

Notes 2: The biggest problem that I saw in your entry was your lack of description. Your entry was very short, roughly 750 words I'd say, which left you with a thousand more words you could have built up the scene with. The idea you have for this task is a very emotional one. Without description, however, I could have just as easily been reading the newspaper. You need to show us the feelings Roselia has. When she's crying, I want to feel her throat swelling with tears and how her fingernails dig into her palms when she clenches her fists. Because of this lack of description, a lot of your paragraphs begin the same way, especially when characters begin speaking. Almost half of your paragraphs begin with dialogue. While this isn't necessarily bad, it makes the writing look very bare from a distance. My best advice to you would be to spend a little more time polishing and adding details before you submit an entry. If it helps, try acting out the scene and make notes of all the little actions you do that Roselia may also do.

★JOSEF THOMAS★

Score: 9.1

Notes 1: I'm going to say something weird, but bear with me. You have an advantage right now that most people will not get. Right now, your grammar is bad. Your character reads bland. Through the entire entry, I had no clue WHO Josef was. I didn't know why I should like him. The only character I actually really liked was little Ben, because he was cute. But here's the thing--you can actually fix everything here with some editing and hard work. I can see you becoming a strong competitor. I'd advise you to find someone who's willing to look through your work and to help you fix your grammar, because I see so much potential here. Your descriptions are good, but they're broken. You need to sit down and write your entry, and then make certain you have a good one to four hours (not all at once, that's not necessary) to edit. Check grammar first, it's easier, and then go and look at your sentences. If everything starts off the same, fix it. Change things up. I know it sounds extreme, but I take around four-ish hours to edit every entry I write and the difference between my draft and my final product is insane. I have poor grammar, I write awful, but my writing doesn't end up like that. It's hard to edit something, even when you're proud of it, but trust me, if you can...you're going to go far. If you'd like, message this account later and I'll go further in depth into what I mean and give more advice on how to fix it.

Notes 2: Can I just say how adorable Ben and his Kraken are? Is that something I'm allowed to do? He makes me want a toy Kraken too. This was a long entry, almost at the word count as far as I can tell, but it read very short to me. You have a few technical errors like breathe/breath and overtake/overtaken that stood out to me, and while your descriptions of everything going on around Josef are good, Josef himself seems to be detactched from the situation. It's almost like he's revolving around the scene, watching himself go through the motions, but he's not there.

★TEFF RANCOURT★

Score: 9.2

Notes 1: Before I begin, what was that straw for? With hash, it's commonly smoked or eaten, or you use the oil, but I can't imagine trying to snuff hash. (I don't use it, I just do a lot of research. Also I used to live in the bad sides of town.) Anyways, onto the entry. This was good, but overall a bit bland. Your character is boring, honestly. I like the thrill of excitement they get, but that's really all they've got going. Try to distinguish your character from others. Also, here's a good link on hash and the use of it, and also the addiction of it and other such. It might help you. http://www.narconon.org/drug-abuse/signs-symptoms-hashish-use.html

Notes 2: Teff is going to be an interesting character to portray. I like that he gets a thrill out of killing and I'm excited to see how that plays off into the next few tasks. His use of drugs is going to be something you have to research to know all the effects and withdrawls that he might face later. (Which I'm hoping you don't know from experience because drugs are bad.) I think that some line editing and more focus on where he is and how he feels in relation to the world around him will do you good. 

★KAI ZALE★

Score: 8.5

Notes 1: I feel that you and Josef are in the same boat, as improving even just one aspect of your entry could be a major improvement. Your grammar was not the worst I've ever read, but it definitely wasn't the best out of everyone here. You need to work on remembering punctuation inside of dialogue, as well as the dialogue itself. Your emotions were flat, very telling, and really that could be fixed if you showed more. I don't like repeating myself, so look up to Josef (the one literally two above you) and read the part about editing. You need to edit more.

Notes 2: Punctuating dialogue is definitely something you need to work on. I had a lot of difficulty with it for a long time as well and there are so many rules it can be hard to tell what really needs to be done. When you end a sentence with a dialogue tag (he said, she said, etc.), end your quotation with a comma. Like this: "I'm thirteen years old," he said. If there's no dialogue tag, you can end it with a period. You seemed to have difficulty with the task as well. I couldn't tell which option you had picked, because while we had your first reaping, we also had a scene involving Kai's family at the beginning. Backstory is wonderful, but there are much better ways it can be inserted into a task. 

★KIEFER ELWOOD★

Score: 13.7

Notes 1: I really enjoyed your ability to narrate this so well--and it's within the narration that I found the only real problems I had with this. At times, it felt a bit overboard, as narration can get. Otherwise, this was very detailed, very good, and I loved the people. It felt very closed in, at times, and that made it hard to figure out what was going on. Where are other people in relation to your character? At times, you surpass everything. Others, it falls a mere bit flat.

Notes 2: Kiefer is a character I've been looking forward to, and you didn't dissapoint for a minute. It was very detailed and well written and gave me a good sense of who he was. Like the other judge, though, you do need to remember how the scene and background characters interact around him. 

★ASHRE RELICKS★

Score: 12.6

Notes 1: I love this, but I don't love how you can't just do a simple dialogue tag. It's always, he said, doing this or that. He said, while this goes on. You do that, or you lack a tag at all. While it's great to have more than just a dialogue tag, the amount of times you use them to tell about other things is noticeable. (Also, and this changed NOTHING, I want to let you know that you can tuck a thumb inwards, but unless you've got some insane joints, you ain't tucking that thumb backwards.)

Notes 2: My biggest concern for Ashre has more to do with comfort zones than it does with the entry at hand. Overall, I thought this was a lovely entry. The interaction between characters was cute and your descriptions were wonderfully vivid. However, I worry that you are going to fall into the same patterns you know worked well for you in the past. The entry reads almost like a poem and you have competed with us frequently enough that I have begun to expect that from you. You can write emotions and actions just as beautifully as you can describe the scene around you. I know because I've seen you do it. Don't forget to surprise me. 

★VALENTINE RACHMANINOFF★

Score: 9.7

Notes 1: Sentence structure, as appears in a lot surprisingly, hurt you here too. It's always, "He did this, she did that, the whatever does this, they did that". Nearly every sentence begins the same. Action, then effect of action. Your descriptions were rather nice except for the fact that they were expected--meaning, it was predictable.

Notes 2: There was so repetition in your entry that I really liked, and there was some repetition I didn't. The characters were sweet and their relationship to each other, while brief, was very touching. However, your entry reads a little bit thin, if that makes sense. All the essentials are there, but it's just barely enough to tide me over. You use a lot of different scenes, but for future tasks, I suggest you pick the best scene, the strongest one, and try to build on its emotion and strength as much as you can. 

★EVELYN GRAY★

Score: 12.6

Notes 1: I've never read something so short and that had such an impact. I doubt you wasted a word. However, it's because it's so short that I have issues. I like it, but I think for a first task it would've been better to give us as much of your character as you could. This was too short for me to truly grasp too much of your character, but from what I have I do enjoy it.

Notes 2: Short, sweet, and to the point, but impactful enough that it stuck out in my mind long after I'd finished reading. Although I'd like to see more, I'm expecting you to keep up this voice you have going for Evelyn right now because I'm loving it. 

★SEQUOIA "MADAME" CARLISLE★

Score: 12.9

Notes 1: I love her voice. You have quite the way with making a character specific and noticeable--I feel like I could tell her apart from anyone else, and that's beautiful. But I'm not a sap and let's not pretend I am. Here, you relied on humor to pass by (from what I noticed) actual description and pacing. While the humor's great, don't think you can do this all the time. Your writing was okay, except you'd go from the Sequoia humor, to more of a voice that was definitely you and not the character, and while that can be okay, it also took me out of the entry at times. I could tell the difference.

Notes 2: Sequoia is a powerful woman that I would most definitely step out of the way for if I saw her coming towards me. She's sassy, her interaction with other characters is fun, and I'm looking for more. But don't forget that there's someone ferocious underneath all that sass, and don't let it cloud over your wonderful descriptions. The next task is going to be a fast paced one, and if Sequoia stops to snark at everything, she's going to have trouble keeping up. 

★CADETTE LANCE★

Score: 13 [-.5] 12.5

Notes 1: I enjoyed how this wasn't from her point of view, which was something not a lot of people will do, but I will say that leaves me curious as to what she's actually like. Seeing her from the outside is nothing like seeing her from the inside--which isn't saying she's two-faced or anything, merely that others don't know about the inner character of people. One thing I did notice here was that you describe EVERYONE besides her as being one person and I don't like that. I don't buy into the "everyone else is like this and she's like that" cliche like it's not very realistic. There's no way EVERYONE wore the exact same thing and she put so much effort into wearing color and such and that there's no unique personality and everyone has a hive mind. That can work at times, like if you're writing a book about a world where everyone is a clone, but I'm doubting that out of an ENTIRE district she was the only one to wear color, the only one with a heart, the only one who was nice, and just also happened to volunteer on the same day. Otherwise, your writing is very nice.

Notes 2: The idea of writing her volunteering from someone else's point of view was absolutely genius. It was a very out of the box concept and I really enjoyed reading her entry and seeing Cadette from a glance. She's changed a lot since then, of course, which leads me to wonder what she's going to be like for the next task. You've taken almost a cliffhanger approach to the task and left us wanting more. Unfortunately, we decided to take off half a point only because of the technical problems you had with your entry. We thought it was fair, although it was a difficult decision to make because of the quality of this entry. Hopefully, it will not hinder you in the tasks to come.