And the Regis's ARE...

I'm sure the lot of you have been anxiously awaiting the results of this year's Conscripto. I'm not going to make you wait any longer, so please, enjoy the critiques down below, and I sincerely thank everyone for participating.

Oh, and one more thing:

As promised, the winner of the 60 Rubber Duckies with Beanies will be chosen

BY THE COMMUNITY

In order to vote:

Please go down into the comment section below and name ONE individual who you believed was the most talented and most ive community member this year. Yes, you can nominate teammates.

If you agree with someone's nomination, go ahead and give their comment a like.

The name with the most comments shall win the duckies~

With that out of the way, let us begin:

Narrative Coherency: 9/10

Grammar/Technical: 28/30

➤Consistency: 10/10

➤Accuracy: 8/10

➤Knowledge: 10/10

Narrative: 25/30

➤Tone: 8/10

➤Consistency: 10/10

➤Character Development: 7/10

Adherence to Prompt: 17/20

➤Interpretation: 9/10

➤Use: 5/10

Presentation: 10/10

Final Score: 85%

"...Her"

by Catch

The first thing that struck me about this piece were the sonics. The figurative language in “…Her” is perhaps its biggest strength, from the alliteration to the assonance to the constant metaphors. It’s a piece entirely fixated on its poetics and becomes clear even from the opening which is, in itself, a poem. And from the poem to the larger work as a whole, there’s an intended SHAPE and transition the author wants a reader to go through. Even the shift into standard, modern narrative is prepared for us by the opening poem. Going through the poem’s steps, we understand the order of this piece to be: “Falling, Deep, Devour, Crush[ed], Dark, Light, Hope, Rise, Love.” So, when we move from this ‘falling’ sensation into a deep disorienting much to the crushed car to the unconscious grey space and back into the hospital, the readers are unconsciously prepared for all these transitions. It’s all beautifully woven together and ends in the completion with another poem.

Although short, the distinctive narration and style does a lot of heavy lifting in a short amount of space. I have little to critique in it, though I do wish that in some parts the metaphor were not so strongly obscuring what needed to be shown; the metaphor CAN get a little convoluted in some places. My main critiques are focused, however, on the chances to really focus on the main characters and evolve their stories past metaphor. Although the metaphor is nice, in a fiction writing contest, there must also be sustenance behind that; such is the difficult balance of writing short or micro fiction. There is a lot of promise to be had in the individual characters, and the love held between them is no doubt felt. But there is so much more that could have been said and wasn’t delivered, and it truly felt like this was going somewhere but simply hadn’t had the time to develop to its full potential.

That being said, the true culprit of this piece’s lower scoring was actually in the prompt itself. Needing to be a stickler for scores because of the close competition and the variability of the pieces themselves, I needed to be scrutable to an extent. To place here is not a reflection of this piece being any less worthy or excellently written than the others, but rather that its focus was far more on the burning INTO ashes rather than the rising from it. The rise only occurs and is hinted at in the final line, and even that is not much of a rise. While the interpretation was nuanced and the writing was stellar, it did suffer greatly in the “Adherence to Prompt” section because of that limited attention. Once again, however, I must stress that the piece is well-written and entirely worth attention & praise.

Narrative Coherency: 10/10

Grammar/Technical: 26/30

➤Consistency: 10/10

➤Accuracy: 9/10

➤Knowledge: 7/10

Narrative: 27/30

➤Tone: 7.5/10

➤Consistency: 10/10

➤Character Development: 9.5/10

Adherence to Prompt: 19/20

➤Interpretation: 8/10

➤Use: 10/10

Presentation: 8/10

Final Score: 89%

"An Adult's Epigone"

by LoserFullofHope

“An Adult’s Epigone” is a well-crafted, honest narrative that tells you what to expect from the beginning and delivers on its promise. From the beginning, we know what we’re getting into, and the story is told in such a blunt manner that there is no room for a reader to become confused. As a reader, we’re there every step of the way in hand with the reader. It’s too easy to criticize a piece on such a thing and forget that there were fictions just like this that we all read in middle school and early high school. The piece itself focuses on that age group in characters, and so I find it unfair to judge it as a college level or higher piece when it’s quite simply and clearly one meant for a younger, simpler audience. There is no shame in that. The narrative is consistent in that delivery and in that tone, and as such, it is without fault. That being said, this particular approach to fiction is astonishing considering how prone to over-complications certain of this team are. It’s a welcome change of pace, and it was a pleasant & refreshing read.

However, this piece does struggle to contend with other fictions in this contest as a result of its simplicity. The points for understanding and masterfully executing a narrative’s complex nuances cannot be given to a piece that doesn’t show much interest in the finer points of the craft. It also struggles a little in presentation, paragraphs inconsistently spaced (which I assumed were to mark sections each member wrote in; it’s well-intended, but inconsistent enough visually to be distracting) and not as interested in capitalizing on the possible formats available in an online competition. Compared to those who understood the full limitations & pressed them to their benefit, this entry appears at surface level to be lacking. That’s not to say that the simplicity doesn’t hold its own charm, but the format of a competition does call for a higher standard of presentation and visible effort beyond what was no doubt put into this enjoyable work.

The grammar, although not ambitious, was consistent & mostly without errors (though a few were caught and little more than the understandable typos we all suffer from). The characters had clear motivations and arcs, and my only critiques come from one brief #menwritingwomen moment and how flat some of the characters came off as in tone. However, flat characters are an easy trap to fall into in this narration style, and being able to them off as somewhat dynamic and changeable in spite of it was enough to spare anything more than a half-point deduction (a bonus point added for difficult narration style).

Interpretation of the prompt was sadly a little lacking in creativity comparatively, but the idea that it entertained WAS well-executed and used to its fullest potential. I have no qualms about it.

Without giving any spoilers for those who have yet to read it, I recommend this piece for the younger audience and anyone whose mental capacity is not ready for an entry like, say, Forsaken Cradle. It’s pleasant, it entertains a good message, and it’s written by 3 really great guys. Please them.

Narrative Coherency: 9/10

Grammar/Technical: 30/30

➤Consistency: 10/10

➤Accuracy: 10/10

➤Knowledge: 10/10

Narrative: 27/30

➤Tone: 8/10

➤Consistency: 9/10

➤Character Development: 10/10

Adherence to Prompt: 20/20

➤Interpretation: 10/10

➤Use: 10/10

Presentation: 10/10

Final Score: 96%

"Forsaken Cradle"

by Nini

The beginning of this piece, I feel, is probably the strongest opening in the entire competition. Between the strong descriptions, the layers, and the subtle introduction of the characters before our formal introductions, this opening serves to do all the things a good opening is supposed to accomplish. Likewise, the strength of the opening calls for a strong ending as well, and although the ending isn’t exactly as strong as the opening in of what I’d personally like to see, it nonetheless delivers a satisfying punch.

“Forsaken Cradle” is an interesting, nuanced approach to the prompt of “Rise From the Ashes,” following a group of teenagers that feel, in some small part, ostracised from society and find their own place in the world through some interesting means. It’s the type of fiction one might expect sitting on the shelf of the teenage dystopian section in your school library; I dig that. From the action to the drama to the fantastical elements this fiction flirts with, all the concepts were delightfully amusing and engaging throughout my read. No pressing grammatical errors other than some slight frustration with paragraph spacing and understandable typos (which were extremely rare) got in the way of the enjoyment.

There is only one real critique for this piece, and that is its love affair with the participle. Participle phrases and “Forsaken Cradle” seem to go hand-in-hand, and almost every sentence (especially in the beginning) flirts with a participle phrase usually found as an addition. This lack of variance did detract a little from the work and didn’t allow for the freedom that I generally like to see in young-audience-target selections. Sentence variance is important, especially in works geared to younger audiences because of struggling attention spans. It’s very easy for a young reader (or someone with attention deficit problems) to zone out while reading a text with repetitive structure, so variance is very important. My second - not as real - critique is the general unbelievability in regards to characters experiencing traumatic events and quickly rebounding from them, but as this is a trend in works for young audience with a young cast, it was not graded harshly or worked against this piece’s score. Please note that these are nitpicks, and the general vibe of this piece was enjoyable. It was well-crafted, sported excellent use of syntax, and genuinely a ride from start to finish. Deserving of its place, no doubt.

Narrative Coherency: 1010

Grammar/Technical: 30/30

➤Consistency: 10/10

➤Accuracy: 10/10

➤Knowledge: 10/10

Narrative: 30/30

➤Tone: 10/10

➤Consistency: 10/10

➤Character Development: 10/10

Adherence to Prompt: 20/20

➤Interpretation: 10/10

➤Use: 10/10

Presentation: 10/10

Final Score: 100%

"Last 'F'light"

by HumanExpresso & Jounzey

I want to begin this critique with saying I tried very hard to deduct points. I do not like giving perfect scores because I do not believe in perfect pieces…

But here we are.

100%.

While typos (missing commas mostly in places where I could tell revisions or changes had likely been made) were present, they were so exceedingly rare that I could not feel justified in being the nag that gives someone a 99.5% score because of a genuine accident.

But as far as the real commentary goes:

“Last ‘F’light” drags us into the world of the narrative from the very beginning. We’re given a set of by which to understand the piece, its conflict, and even its characters. The excellent use of flashback sequences in order to give us by which to understand even character PSYCHE is phenomenal. The presentation of structure, organizing the sections into clear, concise chapters, reflects the militaristic/minimalist tone that the piece feels like it’s striving for and even mirrors the opening scene with Runa stacking the provisions - a sense of a need for organization. A whole section can be written on just the naming of the chapters themselves and the duality they set up for us before meeting the characters that inhabit each of them: the Ravens Adrift & the Iron Tide. Then, of course, there is the clear research that has gone into this project, from the weaponry to the military tactics (even those tactics used for the indoctrination of civilians) is astounding.

What is so striking is the delivery, mostly, of this piece. It’s clear to see that the tones of each section, clearly each written distinctly by the authors, are COMPLIMENTARY in their voice & their intention. While we’re set up for an expectation of opposition by the images of sky and sea (or land), the voices themselves are distinctly harmonious. Their reading is smooth, fluid, and entirely engaging.

To talk about the content is a disservice to those who have yet to read this fiction, but I plan on spending the rest of my week rereading it in my own time. Honestly, if you haven’t already spent the time to read all beautiful 48 pages of this, what are you even doing here? Go. Get to it. Because. Holy shit. *chef’s kiss.*

So congratulations to our Co-Regis's this year, HumanExpresso & returning champion Jounzey!

It's been a great year!

I'm glad to have seen you all return this year, and I have some news for future Conscripto which will be posted with the celebration post for our "Community Winner" on August 30th~!

Until then, thank you all, and keep writing!

#Conscripto2022