Sorry for the delay.
Have a great time PC, we'll see you when you return (hopefully we will be able to have Round 2 started, at least, by then! lol.
Round I: Match 4
SteelDraco's Untitled (which I'll refer to here, for simplicity's sake as "Alchemist")
vs.
Wild Gazebo's Summer Spark O Magic
This match brings us two tales of two houses. Each containing, in very different moods and ways, secrets all their own. Let's get right to it...
1)Writing Style & Skill: This becomes more and more difficult with the diverging of the types of story. Alchemist's dark and sinister undertones of a pulpy kind of story versus Spark's lighthearted and sincerely strange romp into a folktalesy fairy realm in the "new world." Both do a wonderful job with description and evoking the mood of their respective piece.
Characterization in both is decent though I, for one, would have liked a bit more of Patricia fleshed out and the oddness of the Whimsies, while clearly conveyed, had a few moments that left me wondering/confused about their exact nature...but this lent to the overall "unbelievable" realm, itself. But all in all, well done to you both.
The settings of both pieces are thoroughly described, no small feat when trying to explain the unexplainable world of the Whimsies. There were several moments that my mind immediately went to a Tim Burton-esque stop-action animated story...which I do love.
That said, there are several mistakes (however unintentional) in Spark. "Might" where "mite" should be, "There" instead of "Their", etc. I notice Gregor mentioned one that had escaped m y notice. I've had it happen to me more times than I can count. But they are not unavoidable.
[Steel Dragon's note/aside to all contestants: Spell Check is NOT the writer's best friend. You have to personally edit these things, preferably more than once, to catch these kinds of context-driven errors. They are real words so Spell Check is not gonna help you out with these kinds of, inadvertent I'm sure, mistakes.]
Also, accents are hard! One needs a very clear idea of how the person sounds to attempt to tell an entire tale believably in an accented voice. There are times when the accent slips, both in description and speaking parts of Spark. I got lost a few times trying to discern if we were in the rural South of the U.S., or this was some undereducated black man telling the story. At one point, I thought it slipped into, what read as, Jamaican. While I admire the attempt, each of these moments gave me, as the reader, pause as I was drawn out of the story to try and figure out what/how exactly I was supposed to be reading the lines instead of being immersed/swept away in the story.
Also, as relates to accent, I believe (but don't quote me on this), that all of those uses of "a verbing" should be written as "a'verbing" or "a-verbing". Again, the lack of the punctuation contributed, somewhat, to my getting lost, mid-sentence, in the accent. For me, as a reader, this detracted from an otherwise solid "whimsical" American tall tale.
SteelDraco receives a more-than-marginal edge here.
2)Picture Use: Both stories did a wonderful job of utilizing them. The ant as a pivotal character in Spark was thoroughly enjoyable, along with the "strict by the book" attitude it is easy to imagine an ant would have. Use of the chess piece was similarly good.
The chess piece falls short in being "seen" other than the cursory mention of the game of chess, but then using it as an image the ants can grab and impress on Patricia's mind to make her understand was rather brilliant. Use of the faces beneath the sea as Dr. Heinrich's dumping ground was equally literal but completely engaging.
I am giving no one an edge here as both were equally good and creative with different images.
3) Personal Enjoyment: Again, the choice for the judges becomes more and more difficult. Alchemist's dark mood of the ever-young doctor who is very aware of the predicament of his work and addiction, his guilt, the rather dusty gloominess of the house all made the story congeal into a wonderful dark-ish pulp story.
Spark's, again, whimsy and fantasy of the world of Whimsies beneath the house, his transformation/falling into it and subsequent "trouble" when he arrives are all enjoyably reminiscent of an Alice in Wonderland kind of story and reads well as an actual American "tall tale" versus a strictly European flavored"fairy tale."
All in all, this would be a significantly more difficult choice for me if not for the interruptions of the accent in Spark.
I am left with little choice than to give the "Enjoyment" edge to SteelDraco as well.
Steel Dragon's vote for winner of Round I: Match 4 is...
SteelDraco
