Play story
Mightier - OPR Writing Jam #12 Submission's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Flow & Clarity | #8 | 3.905 | 3.905 |
| Overall | #18 | 3.746 | 3.746 |
| Adherence to Theme | #20 | 3.619 | 3.619 |
| Concepts & Originality | #26 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Cool idea and flowed nicely.
I did find it a bit hard to believe the girl’s transition from “grin and bear it” student to blood-drenched murderer. I think maybe fleshing out her motivation a bit more might have helped?
Thank you for the feedback! I was aiming for "quietly-simmering resentment and rage" more than "grin and bear it"; what sorts of fleshing-out were you looking for?
*tips hat 🎩*
Always a pleasure to read one of your short stories.
This was great. Pushed some boundaries, but I think you handled them in a manner with purpose.
Story was quite good, though the flow and clarity sometimes stumbled a bit.
Honestly, what confuses me the most was the one review saying the ending doesn’t track with the story.
I guess it seemed obvious enough to me that she’s received similar treatment in Vinci, and her new life allows her to take what she was held back from and punish the rest for her old life.
Oh well, everyone has a different opinion, I suppose.
Thank you for your kind words and feedback! Can you point out some places where you thought the flow stumbled? I'm not that pleased to include asterisk-breaks and time skips in a story of this length (I mentioned that in another comment, I think) and I'd like to know if those are what negatively impacted the flow to you, or if the problem lies elsewhere.
Mostly some run-on sentences and a bit of drag in the middle column of the page.
A few rough sentences of dialogue.
Also noticed a few grammatical errors (the professor’s speech opens with quotation marks but doesn’t feature any at the end, for example).
A few sentences that could have been combined for clarity (make quick into quickly, and the sentence could turn into Professor Cornacchia lunged quickly for an old man), but I can see the thought process (surprisingly quickly is a better sentence, but word count prevents some of the more illustrative sentences).
It’s not a massive deal, a lot of it is stylistic choices, such as the asterisks. I’ve used those before a lot, and don’t find them a problem.
The interactions between the student and professor are a bit heavy-handed, albeit not entirely unrealistic. The departure from wanting recognition for scholarly excellence to "[give me what I want and burn the rest]" is somewhat... odd. I take it our "heroine" may have not been the most pure soul in the first place, but I don't consider that a mark against the story. Overall it had a good pace and flow, barring the six month time skip during which I cannot fathom what bridged the gap between those two scenes.
Thank you for your feedback! I would have preferred to take a lighter touch RE: Orsinia's interactions with her advisor, but I feel that in a story of this length it's hard to find a subtlety that works with the pacing and is still picked up on by most readers. I was waffling on the time skip myself; do you think it would have been better to leave it out completely? Would that have tightened up the story while still making the conclusion, well, conclusive?
Hard to say for sure.
This flowed really nicely, well done!
Thank you! I was worried about the section breaks (to me, that usually denotes a story that's just too long for the word limit) so it's nice to know it worked out.
Fantastic characterization. I want more of the main protagonist in future stories!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wouldn't mind writing more Orsinia in the future, but it probably won't be for a jam: I like self-contained jam entries and I worry a serialized story might stray from that.
Nicely done. Takes "bibliophile" to a whole 'nother level.
Thank you!
Very good !
Thank you!
Very well written, original and with memorable characters.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I think having strong characters is super important in really short stories like this; you don't have a lot of room and you need to make your reader care.
This flowed well and was a great snapshot of a larger story!
Thank you! I wanted to write something that was mostly self-contained, but still hinted at being part of something larger.
Spectacular!! I want to read more about the siege now!
Some things have to happen off-screen, I'm afraid - I wouldn't want to try and cram a whole battle onto one page.
That was great! Really loved how you built the relationship between the two humans then the catharsis of the climax and nice touch with the epilogue. What more creative resources than a fountain pen 👍
I'm glad you liked it! Meaningful character work is hard to cram into one page.
woah, that took a bit of a turn, although with a great creative use for the pen!
Thank you! I've got a friend who uses fountain pens to write, and it's all I can think of when I see them: they're awfully sharp.