FanFic Commentary

Hey, how did it get to be Wednesday already? I promised my comments on the fanfic stories, and then on Monday, I forgot. I'm sorry. It's that same old end of the school year stuff clouding my brain.

First let me say that there was a word limitation on this. It's very difficult to do an entire story in the number of words I gave you. You have to choose between action/dialogue and description/characterization. Both authors assumed that we'd be familiar enough with the settings, mood, characters, and other background stuff, and chose to focus on the action/dialogue. That was a good choice.

Portrait of a Jedi:
You created a complete story. That was good for the purposes of this exercise. If it were the end of a chapter, you would want to follow up with something that would entice the reader to continue on, sort of a mini-cliffhanger. I thought having Obi-Wan feel what the droejan felt was cool. (Gross, but cool.) I would have liked to see just a bit more intensity of emotion--why was the boy important; was Obi-Wan afraid he would fail and was he sad or angry about that; was he afraid he would die, that finally he'd done something so reckless that he was doomed; and maybe some relief when Qui-Gon showed up. The sort of placid, matter-of-fact tone doesn't let us connect with Obi-Wan as a real person.

Final Word: Good start; add more emotion.

Supernatural:
I've never seen this show, but I could clearly understand what was going on. That was good. I liked the way you started right in the middle of the action/conflict. Good choice. I liked the salt pellets. There was a lot of dialogue but it worked. I might add a little internal dialogue, so we know how the boy's are interpreting what they're seeing. Are they afraid? Or is this old hat to them? If this were a book, you'd need to add more description (which you left out due to limited word count). Having the old man "crackle" was distracting. Use "said" then you could say something like Sam could hear his bones crackle when he stood, or something like that. I like the ending. It provides the motivation for the boys' conflict and also sets up that there will be future conflict between them.

Final Word: Good job. Makes me want to watch the show.