Author Games: Ace of Spades

Quarterfinals: Notes and Byes

Welcome to the chapter you've probably all been waiting for: Notes and Byes. Our feels have been wrecked like about nine times by all of you and maybe another eighteen times from re-reading and scoring. Needless to say, we're so proud of all of you for making it this far and giving these characters and entries your all. Without further ado, here they are!

For those of you who are wondering, notes are once again a compilation of feedback from all the Aces typed up by Ray (-Raven-), though if you do spot American English and ADHD references, you'll know that Lindsay (AverageEverydayHero) probably wrote yours.

Adam Burke

Your entry fit your song to a T. We admit that the one we gave you was very significantly Adam, which shouldn't have posed you too much difficulty, but you conveyed the meaning of every line of it perfectly. One of my favourite things about your entry was definitely your characterisation of Adam, which I have obviously loved since Task One. Since this is notes, I can say that it's one of the main reasons I sponsored you. Despite this being a relatively serious task, you managed to insert bits of humour and consistently retain his distinct voice. The choice he made was exactly what we expected of him and that's a good thing! Out of all the characters here, Adam has definitely shown the most growth. This entry really brought out the strength of his character and his transition from being his father's son to becoming his own person. It was—to say the least—refreshing, considering the fact that his decisions were driven not purely by morals but also by his development. However, we believe that the entry could still have been enhanced by including a bit more of his thoughts. Overall, I really enjoyed seeing the thought process of a young man finding his own way in the world. The writing used in this entry was really simple, which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing. It is understandably vital to use a simplistic style for certain characters, though it inevitably puts your entry a step behind some of the others. Besides that, we found a few typos here and there which could've been avoided with a once-over, though this isn't much of an issue.

Ren Cayse

First thing I want to say about your entry was how enjoyable it was. You made it really enjoyable to read, and it was the little snippets of humor that made the entry amusing and enthralling. The good thing about the humor was that it wasn't unneccessary—they really felt fitting to Ren, and I give you large sums of credit for how Ren's characterization turned out. At no point did Ren seem to break character, and the way you wrote his attitude towards life and his life, as well as the backstory that came in pieces at a time instead of a huge drown-out entry about backstory, was really refreshing. Overall, Ren himself was really refreshing and entertaining. However, as great as it was, your entry was all over the place. The entry seemed to have a bad case of ADHD, where the focus of the entry kept shifting left and right, and going so many places at once. It felt like one minute it was about his relationship with Milo, and the next it was about something totally different. Somehow, despite the continuous shifting of focus, you managed to pull it all together into a solid entry by the end, but just the middle seemed chaotic, if not confusing to read. All of us had to reread sentences a few times just to understand what was happening, and if there was something that hurt you, it was that. It got confusing at times, and it took us a few minutes to grasp certain things. Another thing was the ending that was too open-ended. While we don't mind Ren's choice of action, we would've liked more clarity of what his decision was. Aside from these problems, you tied the entry to the song really well, and I particularly liked the "table for two" and the "celebration of the death of a bachelor" references. It was creative and didn't seem too much like an afterthought. In general, it was a great entry—just confusing, and simplifying your entries is still something you could work on.

Florence French

I like the ideas used in your entry, along with their significance. For one, having the names of the players written beneath their pictures, which aided not only Florence's thought process but also the format of your entry. It made for a pretty realistic depiction of Florence's thought process which started from her trying to make a decision to giving herself reasons and dumbing down the effects of her choice before finally making her final decision. Another thing is the way her choice was made using a lighter, which was clever and made way for a few different meanings within the last sentence itself—the burning of the picture, the death of the other players and appropriateness to the song. Often, when people reference the songs in their entries, it ends up seeming awkward and out of place, but this didn't happen for you. It was quite impressive how well tied in references were. However, while it was a good entry, I think you already saw this one coming: typos! It would help lots if you spent five minutes scrolling through your entry, especially with spell check emphasising errors in red. I didn't spot any grammatical errors but your fingers spelled the name of a character wrong and that breaks my heart. In addition to this, something about the tone of the entry seemed a little off, and while Florence's thought process was well-written, her emotions seemed to lack genuinity. We wished we could've saw a little bit more of how she felt, instead of just what she was thinking the entire time.