WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY
Judge {2130}
The unique perspective of the narrative voice gives the story a distinctive and inventive edge. Victor’s aloof feline attitude pours off the page thanks to the finely balanced use of language, description, and vocabulary; imbuing the story with a captivating sense of character through the writing style as well as the content. The simplicity of the plot is effective for clearly and concisely establishing a strong mental image of the setting, allowing the focus to be on the entertaining, amusing, and unique perspective of a house-cat in this otherwise ordinary scenario. It is a refreshing spin on a recognizable situation that is highly comedic and original.
Judge {2230}
I love how this story sort of reads like an animal (or an alien, even) is watching humans and reporting on their winter-based activities — it’s very fun! It’s descriptive, as well, with a great last line for the ending. Creative use of the prompts, too! This story reads quite smoothly — but also feels deliberate — at least partially because of those italicized words.
Judge {2112}
This was a clever take on the prompts. I like that your characters are viewed from the eyes of a creature, giving them animalistic qualities as well.
WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK
Judge {2130}
Whilst the intention behind calling the humans by their kinship noun can be seen, there could be an argument for using their first names in the story instead to more naturally reflect how Victor might recognize them. When going about his daily life, where does Victor gain the concept of Cousin, Father, and Uncle from in order to relate them to these three humans he shares his territory with? Would it be more likely for him to hear them speak to one another using their names, and therefore pick these up as their identifiers? The intention to create a sense of “other” is clear, and in many ways suits the context of the story overall, but it’s specific presentation in this way perhaps doesn’t feel as logical or authentic as it could do. Using ordinary first names and relying on other elements - such as the early introduction of Cousin as a "diminutive human" - to establish these differences instead; or finding a way of blending this intention with the story logic in a more seamless way, such as writing their names phonetically on the page so that they appear as Victor might hear them (e.g., using “Tomuhs” for “Thomas”), could make this element smoother, and allow focus to be drawn to the other fantastic elements of the story overall.
Judge {2230}
This is a minor suggestion, but perhaps there could be just a bit of dialogue to help break up all of the action. This could make for an especially comedic moment if this story is, in fact, told through the eyes of an animal, or something other than human. They might struggle to translate what exactly the humans are saying — perhaps grossly misinterpreting their language. If the humans are speaking English, for example, then perhaps it could come across more as “Simlish” (that is, the sort-of-English-but-not-quite language that those animated characters speak in The Sims games!) Just some food for thought; excellent work on this story!
Judge {2112}
The italicized bits are a little distracting; I'm not sure what their function is here. I think, too, you could amplify some of the physical comedy for a more humorous effect, and make it a little more clear who/what Victor is.
My Thoughts
I love getting judge’s feedback for these competitions. Honestly, the real value of the exercise, in my opinion, is the feedback itself! (Of course, I would say that, I’ve never won!) In this instance, the constructive feedback consisted of several things that I had never considered, and several other things I actually did on purpose. I find the mixed opinion on the italics is interesting. One judge liked them, the other judge found them distracting. This I’ll toss up to preference. I like the italics. I think including the emphasis on certain words or phrases over others helps us understand the characters.
The suggestion to use “Simlish “ dialogue is fantastic, and I think I’ll use that idea in one of the future Cat Chronicles! I feel like it’s kind of a waste of space in a story like this with such a low word allotment. Why waste space on nonsense words when you only have 100 to throw around? But I love the concept generally.
The biggest note that I go back and forth about is the use of kinship nouns. I actually originally wrote this story using names for all the humans! For some reason, it felt kind of weird... In other Cat Chronicle entries, the cats only ever talk about Father and Mother. Not too cumbersome. But the introduction of a more extended family definitely made the use of kinship nouns a bit more cumbersome. So I’m not sure if using names is a better option or not. I do really appreciate the judge’s suggestion of having the names be phonetic spellings, but I worry that the names will sound too child-like. I also have had a sort of head-canon for all the cats that only other Cats get Names. Like those names come from the cats themselves, and aren’t given by humans. But then, why would they make that distinction? It’s certainly something I’ll be considering more for all future entries into the series!