Talk:Banshee's Cry/@comment-27838637-20180228134736

My final review of the contest!

It seems I saved the best for last.

Lyrical Interpretation – 25/25

So clearly you took the time and effort to decipher the lyrics and pull apart all of the key themes in order to inspire what is truly a unique and original story. Everything that the lyrics puts forward is utilized in an extremely competent manner; the cry of the banshee, the legends of the past, the lovers of the dark stepping into the light, just every key point is nailed here. Though, I do think the simplicity of the lyrics helped you to interpret it so well, but the level at which you have done so is commendable.

Horror Factor – 21/25

This was an excellent dark comedy. Every time the protagonist spoke it caused me to chuckle; his nonchalant demeanour even in the face of demonic evil is hilarious. You’ve balanced the horror and the humour quite well too. The descriptions of the beasts were actually quite scary, and the looming dread and impending doom of the protagonist also serves as a great horror device, especially as you have made him so likable. However, I do feel like the Banshee was somewhat underused. You had great opportunity to have her as a kind of final boss-battle but it seems you squandered that opportunity, probably to make the word limit. I feel that the end of the story was a good time to pull away from the comedy and have a really intense and scary scene, but it just didn’t last long enough for that to happen.

Entertainment Value – 24/25

The action, the story, the description, the dialogue; absolutely everything here does a fantastic job at keeping the reader invested and involved. You could make this story and extra thousand words and I don’t think it’d lose its magic. The world you’ve built is incredibly intriguing and it makes me kind of upset that we did set a word limit for the contest because this story could have gone on for much longer. However, the very start of the story felt a little slow to kick off, but when it did, it really didn’t let up.

General Quality -  22/25

There were a few instances of misspelled words and awkward wording. Everything else was mostly superb, except the pacing.

Now, I know there was a word limit, but I felt like the story just rushed itself a tiny bit. After the protagonist enters the Abandoned Capitol, the story seems to rush quite quickly to it’s conclusion, when everything prior to that was paced really well. I hope you make a few extensions to this tale after the winner is decided, but that might not even be necessary. This is a really great story as is and I’m glad you submitted it.

Final Score – 92/100