Congratulations to those who made it this far into the competition!

Let's take time to also thank your judges, Olvaaarrdd and AdrielleReina!

We hope that you've enjoyed your time in the competition!

Note: If you would like a medal with the background removed, please message AdrielleReina 

Without further ado, here are the final results!

Vaksani Dharmã : The song of Mahabharat by panchxlratna 
Writing style: 8/10
Plot: 7/10
Creativity: 9/10
Conflict:8/10
Organization: 5/10
Character Development: 7/10
Total: 44/60
Notes: For Mrithika's perspective, I would have liked to be more immersed. She's a girl that has been transported 5,000 years in the past and this alone would have given you so much opportunity to play with details and scenery. What are the sights? The smells? I think we get a good look into her emotions and headspace, but it's so important to utilize the senses and that's something I didn't see a lot of going forward in your book. When judging writing style, I want to see more detail.

There were also quite a few grammar mistakes that took me out of the story (I didn't take off a lot for this because I'm still on writing style), but it seems like after the fourth chapter, the chapters were rushed and not double checked for grammatical consistency. An example would be in the beginning of chapter six, your opening sentence is, "Mrithika couldn't believe at the fact that Sahadev was a fast learner." There were also tense changes that need to be corrected throughout the story too. "Taught" was also replaced with "thought." Things like that.

The plot is good, but it can be hard to follow because there is a lot going on and a lot to keep track of. A similar story I would recommend to you is Inuyasha. It follows a girl who is also transported through time and has a cohesive story that introduces characters methodically and makes it easier to follow. So, this also ties into organization. The plot right now is very disorganized and hard to follow. It's also very dialogue heavy (externally and internally). Set the scene. Give more detail.

The conflict is central to Mrithika being transported 5,000 years into the past and navigating that. A lot of the issues stem from Mrithika's place as a woman. There's a lot of sexism and misogyny she combats throughout the story. This really helps as her character develops. I see her becoming even more stronger and I appreciate that.

One side note I'll also add is to break the chapters into sections instead of changing POV in the middle of chapters. 

THIRD PLACE:

All The Colors We Missed by onlinewings 
Writing style: 8/10
Plot: 8/10
Creativity: 8/10
Conflict: 8/10
Organization: 9/10
Character Development: 9/10
Total: 50/60
Notes: At its surface, the WRITING STYLE is fairly standard: two main POVs, third-person limited, slow-burn character portraits. The flavor is in how the characters' head and hearts are being depicted. The style is well suited to the genre, a contemporary drama where both Nixie and Rhys (mostly Nixie in my opinion) are forced to grapple with the traumas of William Mace's crimes. The descriptions of these characters are tremendously rendered. We're given a full depiction of the small town of Chatsworth. The style suits the story well. The only hiccup with the chosen style is that you could get a little lost in the details. There are a ton of named characters, most of which I could identify clearly if you gave me a pop quiz, but definitely needed a lot of concentration to keep track of, especially since there's so much focus on Nixie, Rhys, and Owen.

PLOT, CHARACTER, CONFLICT: the drama unfolds as gradually as the style used to depict it. There's the trial, the sentencing, the family lives of Rhys and Nixie, and the Nixon/Kara drama so far. The plot is easy to understand and follow when it comes to the events. Nixie's struggle is especially heartfelt: her spatial awareness, male-gender awareness, and general claustrophobia around her family was pretty gripping. There's no shortest of moments where you want to hug the poor girl. Rhys began to really come to life for me by chapter 9, the ways in which he feels displaced and disconnected from his social and economic privileges--and his family. Owen was Rhys' grounding agent, I believe, and if I were to speculate, Stevie as well. I only wish for a stronger sense of Rhys' motivations. I still don't understand why the beef between him and Nixie carried on to the present moment. I know there was grade-school bullying and such but we don't actually know how they treated each other, or what specific incidents really stick out in their minds, or even what Nixie herself thinks of Rhys. This relationship is central to the story's tension, and what we get of them in the same room is gripping enough--but we need to know much more here. Owen might help define the tension further, and ten chapters in it seems like his presence could also be strengthened. It would've been cool to see more of how he spent time with Nixie and Rhys, and what his role/knowledge of the strained Nixie-Rhys relationship is. We could use way more Owen for sure--these characters seem like they'd talk to him/his spirit a lot more than they currently do. Overall, I like this plot but there's still a good deal more juice you can squeeze out of this drama, even at this early stage in the book.

Which leads me to CREATIVITY: this is a well-crafted contemporary drama. The small town setting is a classic element as well. I love the modernized setting. I love how Nixie's home and humongous family come to life. And I love how Rhys' own home is distinct. Even the boat is a unique setting. While we've seen these things before, you've done them well. I'm actually only docking points here because Nixie and Rhys' relationship is still has vague points to me, especially when adding Owen to the mix, and I feel like defining that relationship would be what really pushes/challenges the creativity of this piece. As far as ORGANIZATION goes, the story is structured solidly. The progression, the arcs contained within the chapters, the chronology and sense-making are all clear. The organization only suffers slightly due to some moments not crystallizing as strongly as they could. By heightening the drama of certain key moments, we'd have stronger landmarks to follow along. Mind you, I had no issue following along, but the landmarks are your money makers.

EX: my round 2 review mentioned us not getting Nixie's verbatim letter quotes in Rhys' POV. In chapter 5, the victim statements were great but the missing ingredient was William Mace's presence: his body language, his eye contact, his gestures, were largely missing from that scene--an element that would've definitely brought even deeper feeling out of Rhys' POV. Another moment is chapter 10 where Kara and Stevie scrapping on the boat was summarized but not shown. That was a very juicy dramatic opportunity. I know that this story is character focused, largely internal, but when the drama occurs we have to see it. For a personal craft note (my opinion lol), I don't think character-driven stories have the benefit of skipping physical drama. It's a cool/useful landmark to organize the story. A chapter where this was executed very well was chapter 8. The Color of Betrayal chapter had it all, the internal tension, the build-up, the explosion (Nixie asking for the room key), and even the double tap (Nixie getting in Nixon's butt about Kara). Well enough out of me being long-winded. Great story! The feel of the piece, the pacing, the characters--all tremendous work. Nixie's family in particular is so strongly written. I love that hurricane of a household. Rhys and his friends are great as well (Stevie and Kara in particular come to mind). I wish you the best with this tale. It's good, good, good. Thanks for the read!

SECOND PLACE (TIE):

Love at Dawn by LiebeKlara 
Writing style: 7/10
Plot: 9/10
Creativity: 9/10
Conflict: 9/10
Organization: 9/10
Character Development: 9/10
Total: 52/60
Notes: This was a pleasant surprise for me. I wasn't expecting there to be commentary on aristocracy and human rights scattered throughout the book. I wish you'd change your blurb so that it reflected the story you're telling more.

Writing style: I've said this before and I'll say it again— this is written like the classics and really pays homage to classical literary fiction. I enjoy that quite a lot. However, for a modern audience, we still need more descriptive information. Use the five senses to immerse a reader. Go into detail about the sights, the sounds, the smells, etc. Sensory language is such an important tool you can use to immerse readers into a story. There were also a few instances of grammatical mistakes I've noticed, like when Charlene says "run," instead of "ran" when she and Edith are talking about her marrying Rafael. Things like that. I would go back, do some line edits, and add more descriptions.

This was very creative and I like how you weaved politics of the period with a romantic storyline. Typically, I don't enjoy romance on its own. This has enough going on that 1) is easy to follow and 2) doesn't solely focus on romance even though it's largely a romantic book.

There's a lot of conflict going on! Edith is heavily involved in politics, but is still friends with former aristocrats. One, Rafael, may be another love interest and thus, love rival to Andre. Not to mention, Andre's role in the political landscape! Is he a former aristocrat too? What's going on with him? I liked that you included the death of Louis, but I think that adding more description around it would be beneficial. What was the atmosphere like? How loud were the crowds? You said they hugged and kissed each other but I think adding more detail would be really helpful.

Your story itself is very organized. I think some chapters need editing, but it's still easy to follow. You could expand so much of the chapters by incorporating more details and strengthening the story.

I've enjoyed Edith's development so far and I'm curious if Rafael comes back into the picture too. Andre is also very complicated and one of the more interesting characters. He's definitely hiding something and sometimes he does tend to treat Edith like a child or that his opinions are better. Curious to see how it unfolds!

SECOND PLACE (TIE): 

Hardwired by marsaumell 
Writing style: 9/10
Plot: 9/10
Creativity: 8/10
Conflict: 8/10
Organization: 9/10
Character Development: 9/10
Total: 52/60
Notes:

STYLE and CREATIVITY: The voice is lovely, consistent, and funny as hell. The first-person stream of consciousness from both Penelope and Noah are well done. They're just living their lives, making irritated observations about the world--and charming observations about each other. They're such honest narrations, too, very up front and emotional. It's refreshing to see how earnest their interests are in their activities and in their desire for romance. Major complaints? I don't have any. My only fine-tuning note is Noah's POV. Sometimes he seems to read like Penelope, especially when the narration says things like "exquisitely buttery" or "kissing each other with a feverish passion" (both examples from chapter 9). While Noah's voice is wholly his own, some of the modifier choices made me think of Penelope at times, especially since in his dialogue and italicized thoughts he doesn't speak with the same elevation. And for a final note, chapter 7 was so cool. I love the flying skateboards and the whole environment/vibe of the chase scene. I wish there were more appearances of casual advanced tech throughout the story as that could def push the cool-points for this story, especially maybe if we could see a couple more instances indoors/at the gym--since the gym is a frequent setting. Basically the setting kind of makes the story appear more normal than it is (so my setting thoughts are reflected in the creativity score). But current state, this is well executed. I was easily immersed into this world.

PLOT, CHARACTER, CONFLICT: A clear plot. Penelope and Noah have a shared enemy (Liam), their own dangers (balaclava girls and Baskerville!), and romantic tension. The story is mad cute--plot wise, narrative wise, dialogue wise. And then the story introduces some darker elements: the Penelope attacks, the disclosure of candid images, the threats, the street chasing. Penelope is going through it and it's fun to see. I love the intrigue that you'd introduced with her plot line. And a similar intrigue can be found with Noah's cyborg secrets and Baskerville issues. I love the way you've progressed this story. I think my only issue is really with the handling of the darker elements of the story. This story is not dark, but there's explicitly dark elements which both narrators don't seem to be taking super severely (so I docked conflict points here).

EX: I'm wondering about the lack of consent that's happening with Penelope (the threats against her) and Noah (the Baskerville situation/his original non-consensual transformation into a cyborg). I wondered about if the characters needed to be more dramatic about this. I, myself, haven't actually made a decision about that. I just know I have to mention that it was a distracting part of my reading experience. I don't really know if the author wants to really highlight the darkness either. I think there's a way to handle these things comically if that's the choice, but I think the darkness just needs more explicitly acknowledgement, if not drama. I hope this makes sense! (Please reach out if it doesn't). So overall, the romance parts, the physical threats and chase scenes, the development and apparent escalation of Liam's behavior: all well done!

ORGANIZATION: no prominent notes on this (surface wise). It's a chronological telling. It's clear, paced well, and dramatic. I had no issue keeping track of this. I wondered about chapter 6 and 9 (both Noah POV). These were light and easy to read. I liked these chapters individually, but I definitely wondered if we could've gotten more backstory about Liam's cheating or about Noah generally, especially since these aren't very dramatic scenes. I think I'm pushing for drama/memorable moments in Noah's POV because Penelope's POVs have been so fast-paced and perilous. So Penelope's chapters are very clear and organized. Noah's chapters seems like there's an arc that's not fully, fully revealing itself yet. Even though the clear trajectory is Baskerville, we could do with a ton more information about Noah's feelings, his body, his feelings on Liam, and the importance of the upcoming fight. In totality, though(?): very cool story! So funny, so stylish, and beyond colorful at times. This was a fast read, a cute read, and an action packed one. Thanks for sharing this tale. I dig it a lot. Best of luck going forward!

FIRST PLACE:

Gehenna by Zerseus 
Writing style: 10/10
Plot: 10/10
Creativity: 10/10
Conflict: 10/10
Organization: 9/10
Character Development: 9/10
Total: 58/60
Notes: I've enjoyed your book so much. The detail, the imagery, and the underlying details that weave commentary and something a bit more sinister afoot. This has an existential dread to it that creeps down your spine the more you read and is very Lovecraftian in nature (I've said this a lot— I'm sorry lol).

Your writing style draws readers in. It's very immersive. There's something you pick up on while reading that something is not quite right. Even with the issues stemming from the inquisition and their evils, what else is afoot here?

This is a very creative plot interweaving various elements to really create a tale of numerous horrors. By chapter 5, you really see the terrors of the human condition and I think that's why it draws me in so well. It's thought provoking in the sense that humanity fears great evil and while we may look to supernatural occurrences to blame, it really resides within us. We are the monsters. This is also a theme I like to incorporate in my own writing, so I very well may be biased. As a side note, I would add trigger warnings where applicable and I think you know what instances I'm referring to (I don't want your book to get reported).

The conflict is also really interesting because it comes from both internal and external factors. Gabe is someone who knows right from wrong and here we have another theme I've noticed: who is worse, a perpetrator or a bystander who doesn't do anything?

The story is very organized and cohesive. I think that doing some slight editing will elevate the story more. This is because I do think there is more you can expand on.

Development is great so far— this is only ten chapters in and I'm curious to see how Gabe continues his journey. But I'm very impressed and I've enjoyed reading your book! 

Once again, congratulations to the winners and thank you to all who have participated! 💛

Good luck in all your writing endeavors!