Talk:11 Miles/@comment-26054278-20150502004026

So, the pasta that actually won PotM. I should be expecting a good product, but to honest, I'm not too sure after some of the pastas that have won so far (Lost Episodes and Teeth.jpg, for example). Therefore, I wasn't quite sure if this would be fantastic or a letdown.

In the end, although I really, really like this story, I don't really see this being better than My Grandfather Suffered from Dementia or some of the other pastas nominated throughout the months. I mean, it is well-written, don't get me wrong, and I do think the story is still great, but it does have some problems (some possibly just specific to me) that I think make this weaker than something like My Grandfather Suffered from Dementia.

Firstly, the grammar/spelling is spot-on. Pretty much no sentence feels awkward, but I didn't really feel any powerful emotions or see any particularly powerful lines rather than the final line, which even isn't too powerful. That doesn't necessarily need to be in every pasta, but in the amazing ones or the ones that are fantastically written, I think this story needed more moments where I could feel the emotions or feel the depth.

The story kind of tried to do a powerful moment with some of the sequences talking about getting what the reader/driver desired, but I can't recall or think of a single line in those sections that really stuck with me or talked to me on some sort of level, and I have read this story at least 3 times.

However, the writing that is there is still good and flows well, it is just not particularly great. What I really do love is how this story looks at the ritual angle. It was developed very logically, made sense as to why somebody would try this, and actually does an incredibly smart thing by having no huge consequences if completed.

Actually, if this story was real, I would probably consider doing this (for reasons of romance, if I had to pick). A ritual pasta needs to convince the reader as to why they would do it, and this one does that the best out of any of the ritual pastas I have read. It not only has danger during the actual experience but low consequences if finished, but it has a reward that literally anybody could want and doesn't just apply to certain people as some ritual pastas do.

The credibility of this pasta can be kept intact easily and can actually seem kind of realistic, as the pasta leaves a reason why not everybody can do this ritual:

If you're looking for the road, it will turn up eventually, but you need to search for the road's hint in order to pull down the right one.

For one, a person could give up searching, which makes it credible as to why nobody has done this. Secondly, somebody could miss the hint given, which also explains why this ritual may not work. Of course the story is fictional, but it does a fine job at trying to convince the reader that this story could be real.

The ritual itself is intriguing. I didn't find it creepy, but it was interesting, and I always prefer quality over something terrifying. For me, perfect pastas need to have both of those elements perfected, so the lack of anything really scary does drop the score by a little bit (but not really too much).

With no main character to talk about (except myself, which I'm sure wouldn't be very proper in a review), I believe that I've said all I can. A great ritual pasta and, although I don't think it is the best pasta to win "PotM", it certainly was still a good pick. I originally had the score at 8.5/10, but I went ahead and rounded it up because of how well it did a ritual story. 9/10.

More critiques here: My Critiques