Kadushy Posts

You're welcome. Even with the errors I found, the quality of your entry for this contest is still fairly high, and congratulations for that.

Regarding all-caps, the issue is that people, especially online, are using all-capitals to signify sound volume when that wasn't their initial purpose. Different languages use capitals for different purposes, but proper English (as you may well already know) uses capitals to begin sentences, proper nouns, and in the case of acronyms and headers in formats like newspaper headings, comics, tombstones, and monument plaques for their ease of reading from further away.

Rather, the illusion that all-capitals represents louder speech volume is a trick of the mind trying to rationalize how capital letters take up more space than lower case letters. When something takes up more space, it demands more attention, and things that demand attention are often loud and attention-grabbing.

That is not to say professional writers don't use all-caps in dialogue. This was actually common when writers were using typewriters. Often it comes down to an individual's perception as to their purpose, but that is their own choice. My role as a judge, at least in my opinion, is merely to analyze the level of your writing according to the rules of proper English decorum. Using all-caps to signify yelling could very well become more acceptable in the future, often that is the evolution of language at work. It's a very interesting topic to me, but I'll put it to rest. If you want to use them in the future, that is your freedom to do so.

I'm glad that I could provide you with some insight about my critique of your piece and I hope that you don't shy away from sharing other material here in the future.

Initially this story was a bit of an abstract work, but it progressed a bit to develop a hectic and chaotic plot very sexual in nature indeed. As the main character’s name was Leo, I could not help but imagine our very own leonard experiencing the predicaments within the story. On the plus side, I imagine it was abstract and dramatic enough in its various plot twists to especially entertain him.

Myself, I thought this story was incredibly epic and well-written. The chaos doesn’t appeal to everyone, obviously because much of it seems random, but this surprisingly became more coherent as it went on, and the development of the conflict was epic and comedic at the same time. It was quite enjoyable and had me snickering more than on occasion.

Below are the major things I found issues with.



Bit of a run-on. Might want to turn this into two sentences.



Man-rod should be hyphenated.



I highly doubt you meant “galleons,” probably “gallons” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleon



Towards is an unnecessary inclusion.



The use of "down" is repetitive. Awkward although acceptable, it could be worded better.



All-capitals are never suitable for proper writing unless it’s quoting a message written in all-capitals. An exclamation mark is sufficient enough to convey yelling. You do this a few more times in the piece, and my opinion there is the same.



Comma after "Yes."



Since it's revealed that he's an elf, you should use the word "elf" to describe him instead of "man."

It’s kind of an amazing sight, the quality of your entries have drastically improved over the years. Your sentence structure, in particular, is quite impressive. Additionally, your use of vocabulary is improving to such a degree that it really is astonishing. There was a great sense of dramatic closure to this tragic tale, a lesson conveyed through death and a message bequeathed towards the reader with wisdom, the assurance of the importance of family, closeness, independence, and assertiveness in the ability to follow ones dreams and path. It does this well and properly conveys the message through emotion, in sadness, anger, frustration, melancholy, and depression. This entry is a gem, and one within your portfolio that will age well. Congratulations.

Here is some much needed criticism, however, that you can use to improve: This story suffers from the occasional comma splice (although you use em dashes) so it’s worth watching out for them. A comma splice is using a comma to separate two complete clauses when a period would suffice. If you still want to connect the two complete sentences because they are related to one another, then you don’t use a comma or an em dash, but a semicolon. In addition to that, on the topic of punctuation, the spaces after ellipses before punctuation you included are unnecessary, the ones in particular before final punctuation marks, and sometimes after beginning quotation marks. Also, watch out with ellipses. I find that they’re acceptable within dialogue to signify long pauses, but they are looked down on in proper writing. My rule of thumb is to question if what you’re doing with them adds anything to the sentence at all. Does it help me further understand the meaning of the sentence or the emotion provided by the pause? In some places, the answer is no and you should not use them because of this. Lastly, you use the past tense of “want,” (that being “wanted”) but unfortunately because of the structure of the sentence already addressing the past tense with “did,” and the exceptions that English uses (very confusingly), the correct form in the instances that you used them is simply “want.”

Below are the major things I found issues with:



"I smiled feeling triumphant. She got her just desserts."



Golden-blonde, color mixes are often hyphenated, or separated by a comma if used with excessive adjectives. Speaking of excessive adjectives separated by a comma, one should be after "fine."



These ellipses are purposeless. They don't add much of anything in narration.



Why are you spacing out the quotation and the ellipsis? There should be no space, not unless you were creating a space after each dot, which would be acceptable. To make matters worse, you sometimes place the question and exclamation marks after the space. With the way you're doing the ellipses, there just shouldn't be any spaces.



In both cases, "want" is the proper form.



"Hers" is the appropriate possessive. "Her's" is never correct.



Very is unnecessary.



Advise is British English. Advice is American English.



Not an error, but this buzz word. The youth aren’t the only capricious ones, are they?



Did she just... give her consent?



What'd you want me to do?



Since they're both complete sentences, a semicolon should be used to separate "It's your life; it's your path." Also, "they seek you from you" sounds a bit awkward, I might suggest "they seek you for you". It's not too terribly bad though.



"Someone...breathing." This is a sentence fragment, just put a comma before it instead of a period.

An interesting tale of cannibalization and the personification of these small mammals is very typical of your previous works. It’s hard to read a story from you and not expect the characters to just be symbols, but I wouldn’t necessarily call that a bad thing. The repetition in this story is acceptable to further signify the importance of the feelings and emotions going through Judas as he continues to witness the things that haunt him, which is very common for moments of trauma. However, if you remove the repetition, then you can see that you only used half the space you needed for the content, which is an amazing feat. However, I feel like some parts could have used more explanation. For instance, when Judas returns to his mother in the climactic scene, he asks her why she’s doing it again, but it’s not certain if she’s doing it again by cannibalizing another sibling, or doing it again by still continuing to consume the corpse of John. Although that’s not detrimental knowledge, it does further expose whether it’s a repeat offense or the continued apathetic sin of the previous, and I think that one of those makes her into a bigger sinner than the other.

On a positive note, the status of your story is something I’m proud to expect from you, something lacking in errors both in syntax and grammar. There were some areas I had to be certain about, such as capitalizing Mother and wondering if “The less we are in the family, the more food there will be for each of us, and to keep you all alive, I had to get rid of the weakest link.” could have been better arranged, or possibly spliced. Also, in my opinion, you should eliminate your use of the word “then” to describe the proceeding motions and descriptions of characters, since the word actually provides very little when the continued sentence already applies the knowledge that the motions occur subsequently. I’m referencing your sentences “I then proceeded to the dining area.” And “She then put up a face of anguish.” It’s just a fluff word and serves little purpose in those instances.

Well done on this entry overall.

Below are the major things I found issues with, in addition to the previous "then" sentences.



This implies that he’s eating himself. I suggest a better subject identifier. Even later it’s discovered it’s a she doing the eating, it doesn’t help the initial mental image created by this lone sentence.



This could be worded more appropriately, such as “The less of us there are in the family,…” “The less we are in the family” implies something like genetic distance, or some odd physical phenomena.

I enjoyed this tidbit of a world fantastical and medieval in nature. It reminded me both of the worlds of Strike! and also from where Innocent and Jason come from. I was also pleased to see that it was absent of most typical errors, however I did have a handful of notes to mark. Do pay attention to them so you can improve.

If I had critique, it would be that this story wasn’t very funny. Obviously it wasn’t trying to be overly much, though there were some funny bits, the overall dark theme of Isaac’s true nature overshadowed it. Then again, that could be the point of trying to find humor in a dark and dangerous world. When I think about it that way, it seems much more appealing. Also, Eadweard might have just been shoved in to satisfy the theme guideline, but I did like him as a character regardless.

I know you had a previous version of this, but I didn’t read or care about it in the context of the competition. If you would like to repost it, I would like to read it now that it’s over though.

Below are the major things I found issues with.



A bit repetitive with the “saids.” I don't mind said, but it starts getting too repetitive after so many times.



This comes as a surprise to her? Did she forget to talk about it immediately? Seems like the kind of thing you would say first before anything else.



His eyes.



Maybe "before himself" might be more appropriate. Maybe you meant "before her?" Hard to tell, though it's grammatically acceptable.



Isaac it is, then. "Then" being a follow-through like a supposition. Without a comma, it's being used like time.



Noticed.

An amusing read, considering I have been following the story of this pair and your obsession with tragedy involving them. Happy to see they didn’t die, but only because it’s supposed to exist within a universe addressing the fourth wall. It makes me wonder about who these people are in real life, if they even exist at all, because let’s be honest, you invent such drastic properties to their story, they probably have different names or something like that.

Anyway, although it may be a bit basic to write a contest entry about writing about a contest entry, I did find the atmosphere in this entry to be quite endearing.

Critically, however, you have comma problems, and problems involving both repetition and punctuation when it comes to ending quotation. You also need to improve your ability to be consistent. You can’t see on my copy because I just copied the font, but on the forum, you italicized Free! the first time, but not the second. Try to remain consistent.

Other than that, I’m glad you entered this year, and more importantly glad that you didn’t kill off this cute couple.

In before “they died anyway seventy years later from old age!”

Below are the major things I found issues with, but I have more on my .docx file. If you would like it, feel free to PM me and I'll email it to you.



This paragraph has little reason to be separate from the previous one. She’s even still the one talking.



You already said “anyways” at the beginning of the sentence. Only use one to decrease repetition.



He just said “just.” Again, best to avoid repetition.



Repeated “was” after "nothing."



The series name should be italicized like you did previously. (Unless you meant maybe it's free, which I feel like a lot of people were doing on Fakku earlier.)



"well, it looks like we don't have to worry.

The Winners have been announced and you can find out who they are and all information pertaining to them here!

A very special congratulations to them. Well done!

Yanker:


Cinia Pacifica:


Sound of Destiny:




RavenxSinon:

This year's annual Winter Writing Contest has reached the end and the winners have been decided by both the judges and community!

Congratulations goes to Yanker for winning the Judge's Choice award with his most favored submission of A White Christmas. It would be difficult to assign a collection of words that would adequately express the quality of this entry, but I shall attempt to do so. Comedy is a difficult genre to tackle, especially to those who normally don't write with humor. After all, there are many kinds of humor, some light, some dark, some dumb, and some intelligent and clever. This entry that you have so wonderfully crafted utilized the concept of random comedy to such a degree that, although unsure what could happen next to make the situation more absurd, the story still came full circle in an epic and complete fashion. In addition to being well-written and well-proofread, it is easy to see just how great it stands on its own. Thank you for causing me to laugh more than a few times, and more than just an easily dismissed chuckle.

We also wanted to honor RavenxSinon as the Runner-up for the unique tale of Mother Knows Best. Your piece was as interesting as last year's. You are, proclaimed by myself and perhaps agreed upon by our community as being this section's resident expert on symbolism. Thank you for your dark tale of revenge, cannibalism, and matricide.

Congratulations also goes to Cinia Pacifica and Sound of Destiny for winning the Reader's Choice awards with your respective submissions The Enigmatic Lady and Like Holding White Elephants as the Writing and Fanfiction community determined them to be the top entries in the final poll. The Enigmatic Lady, a touching tale of the strained and growing relationship between a mother and a daughter, only for that growth to have been cut down as soon as it began. Similar in respects to this, Like Holding White Elephants also approaches the concept of relationships with older family, whether they be strained between a father and son, or creating new relationships like between a man and a half-sister, now adopted-daughter. Dialogue is heavy in these entries, as these relationships show their growth through this literary medium. Together they give us a treat with stories that will be remembered as the partnered victors of the Reader's polls for this year. Thank you for your gifts to us.

Since there was a tie in the poll, and the runner-up to them won the runner-up for the Judge's Choice award regardless, we'll just be ignoring the runner-up to Reader's Choice position this year, as they are technically runner-ups to each other.

With some details about the prizes, the winners of the Judge's Choice and Reader's Choice awards, Yanker, Cinia Pacifica, and Sound of Destiny, will each win $25 of value to the FAKKU store, as a gift certificate to J-List, or similar online retailers within reason. This can include two months of subscription to FAKKU! or a physical FAKKU! publication delivered to you.

The Runner-up RavenxSinon will receive any one (1) current or future digital download of a FAKKU publication, a $10 value towards the FAKKU store. For a list of current and planned releases, check this link to the FAKKU! Store Manga & Doujinshi page. This could also be a full month subscription to FAKKU!

Additionally, Yanker, Cinia Pacifica, and Sound of Destiny have won a 3 stanza poem each dedicated to their honor. RavenxSinon will be regaled with a limerick. You may find these in the next post.

Although, the forum rank title of "FAKKU Writer" was never confirmed for this contest, I will let someone among the higher ups know of the winners just in case it could be granted to them for their most deserving entries. No promises, but I hope they'll grant it.

Lastly, special thanks goes out to all the submissions and authors who participated in this year's contest and I hope it was as rewarding for you as it was for us, on behalf of the judges: leonard267, high_time, and myself. Thank you, it was an honor to arrange and judge this contest for you all. I will now provide my specific corrections and comments on entries to those of you who desire it. Please post here or message me if you would like and I will post it publicly, or privately if you wish.

Honorable mentions for this year:

xninebreaker submitted I’ll Never Give Up

Thank you, xninebreaker, for granting us this sweet, endearing, fourth-wall-breaking entry. They live! They finally live!

Masayoshi submitted Priorities.

Thank you for your unique tale of the suffering of an individual, and the unfortunate ire directed at him by people and life in general, I suppose.

Lastly, thank you again to everyone who participated and read, and may next year hold even greater things for us all.

This is a pretty satisfactory summary of the majority of lives lived today in a modern world. Although you claim it is anticlimactic, it actually did a decent job at creating the climax through the hypothetical narration of what was likely to occur.

I rather enjoyed the poetry both in the beginning and in the middle. You're becoming quite the poet, leonard267!

Alas, for some critique, I think you forgot a word here:

Wow, for the first time ever in the contest, it appears we have a tie in the final polls! Well, I guess that just means you'll both have to win!

Congratulations goes to Cinia Pacifica for his entry The Enigmatic Lady and to Sound of Destiny for her entry Like Holding White Elephants! The results show it so closely that you two are the winners of the Reader's Choice awards. The community clearly has shown a close balance of favorites in this group, but it appears that you two received even votes! The fact that they raised your entries up so evenly as their favorites is no small matter. It shows both of your skill and talent in the area of your respective literary expertise. Well done to the both of you!

Since there are two winners, I'm making an administrative call to eliminate the Runner-up position this year since it's clear they're runner-ups of each other.

Stand by for a winners thread to come in a few days when we will also reveal the winner of the Judge's Choice award.

The third poll has ended! Congratulations to RavenxSinon!

You can find the fourth and final poll posted here.

The opening post has been updated with links to the new and closed polls.

All the top finalists have been voted on and so the last step in deciding Fakku's Reader's Choice and Runner-up awards remains. Please vote for the author who you see fit winning such a prestigious award for their work.

The Reader's Choice and Runner-up winners will be obvious when the poll ends in three days. The winners of the Judge's Choice and Runner-up award will be announced a couple days at most after the end of this poll.

If you didn't already for these bracket winners: When you read each submission, please take a moment to stop when you finish and write the author a little note how and if you liked it or some constructive criticism they could benefit from. I know that if you are an author, you may want the same done for you. Happy reading and may the most astounding piece of literature be the victor. As a judge, I will withhold my comments until after the contest is over to those who request it.

Entries in this poll:

Sound of Destiny submitted Like Holding White Elephants

Cinia Pacifica submitted The Enigmatic Lady

RavenxSinon submitted Mother Knows Best

This poll has ended. As we can see with the results, RavenxSinon is our winner of the second preliminary poll and will go on to the finals poll. Congratulations!

The second poll has ended! Congratulations to Cinia Pacifica!

You can find the third poll posted here.

The opening post has been updated with links to the open and closed polls.

Third poll, good luck with voting.

When you read each submission, if you have not already, please take a moment to stop when you finish and write the author a little note how and if you liked it or some constructive criticism they could benefit from. I know that if you are an author, you may want the same done for you. As a judge, I will withhold my comments until after the contest is over to those who request it.

Happy reading, everyone.

Entries in this poll:

d(^_^)(^_^)d submitted To Become a Memory

Dawn_of_Dark submitted The Verdict and The Chase

RavenxSinon submitted Mother Knows Best

This poll has ended. As we can see with the results, Cinia Pacifica is our winner of the second preliminary poll and will go on to the finals poll. Congratulations!

This poll has ended. As we can see with the results, Sound of Destiny is our winner of the first preliminary poll and will go on to the finals poll. Congratulations!

The first poll has ended! Congratulations to Sound of Destiny!

You can find the second poll posted here, so go give your vote!

The opening post has been updated with links to the new and closed polls.

The second poll is here!

Again, the winner of each poll will go on to the fourth and final poll. The top two of the final poll will receive the benefit of winning the Reader's Choice and Runner-up awards. These groups were randomized on random.org.

Reposted from the first poll: When you read each submission, if you have not already, please take a moment to stop when you finish and write the author a little note how and if you liked it or some constructive criticism they could benefit from. I know that if you are an author, you may want the same done for you. As a judge, I will withhold my comments until after the contest is over to those who request it.

Entries in this poll:

xninebreaker submitted I’ll Never Give Up

Cinia Pacifica submitted The Enigmatic Lady

Masayoshi submitted Priorities.