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Thank you so much for participating in the awards. The entries all had something truly unique or special about them. However, there can only be one winner and just like a good steak, our judges must trim the fat.
Below, are the second round results for Historical and General Fiction.
Good luck to those continuing and thank you for your efforts to those who didn't make it through.
Sidenote: Apologies for this being delayed, Adrielle started a new job and is in Watty's Bootcamp. She needed extra time to judge. We and she sincerely apologize. She wanted to make sure she could read and judge thoroughly.
Queen of Arrows by BellOfSilence Character/s Introduction: 10/10 Genre Fit: 9/10 Grammar/Mechanics: 6/10 Details: 10/10 Total: 33/40 Notes:
First of all, your descriptions are amazing. I was sucked into your world immediately and I enjoyed my stay in it immensely. Marian's introduction, especially, was penned really well. You had me hooked. Why did she give the man this wine? What is she doing? What's going on? I wanted to keep reading. Roger was also adequately annoying and made me root for the "outlaws" so much more.
I also enjoyed the overall tone and atmosphere of the story too, which I think is also important to make note of. This is a strong suit of yours and I think you do it wonderfully. The story has its own life and the characters all feel real. They're also familiar because it's a retelling, but you've made them your own. That can be quite hard to do, so I have to give you credit.
The biggest issues I've seen and can make note of are the large gaps between paragraphs (I do think going back through and fixing these will make a better reading experience) and run on sentences. In that same token, there are also a lot of paragraphs where they're not separated at all (quite a few in chapter 3). This is especially important too because a lot are dialogue based and need to be spaced.
Separate the longer sentences and make them shorter. It will improve some issues with flow and pacing. There are also some issues with using hyphens when you need en dashes. Example: "Ready to end the hapless thief - your life!" I also think that should be "his life." This was in chapter 2, I believe. But it's something that does recur in subsequent chapters too. Just something to be mindful of because clarity is important!
Other things that may be helpful but are more stylistic choices: Using "?!" triggers the AI as a mistake. If this is a story that you plan on submitting to the Watty's, you'll have to get rid of that. Also, using all caps to indicate screaming will also be marked against you.
Otherwise, I think this is a dang near perfect book (in my opinion). The writing is fantastic, you just really have to improve on the mechanics (which is why I primarily commented on that so that it can be fixed).
