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Stepan (Season 8 Runner Up)
Stepan's Submission
Final Score Breakdown:
Creativity and Originality: 21/30 pts
Structure and Organization: 19/25 pts
Engagement and Impact: 18/25 pts
Grammar and Spelling: 10/10 pts
Prompt Adherence: 10/10 pts
Total: 78/100 pts
Creativity and Originality: I enjoyed the originality of a supernatural entity that caused someone to get stuck in a dream. It took me awhile, but I finally realized that the entire sequence had the main character gong back and forth between two different dreams until they finally broke the spell at the end. Nicely done.
Structure and Organization: While the structure of the story was fine, the formatting was unnecessarily distracting. The lack of traditional paragraphs and indentation drew the reader’s attention away from the story.
Engagement and Impact: The story did a good job of keeping the reader invested. The uncontrolled floating and loss of time created a sense of mystery that begged to be solved. Although, I did find a lack of contrast between the two dream states. While I understand it was intentional and integral to the story, I believe a couple more hints and cues could have gone a long way. Also, the characters had muted reactions to what was going on. One of them flew and the literal reaction was “Huh. That’s new.” Dreaming or not, I don’t know of anyone who wouldn’t freak out if they suddenly floated up to the ceiling.
Grammar and Spelling: There were no noticeable errors in grammar or spelling.
Prompt Adherence: This piece did a good job of following the prompt.
Overall:
Even though I could see it coming, I still enjoyed the reveal at the end of this piece. However, I felt like the lead up lacked something. Perhaps some more nuanced characters?
I also found the dialogue to be a bit dry. For a person who was losing days and weeks at a time, the main character was sort of blasé about the whole situation. Granted, he did have a couple of outbursts, but the reactions from both him and his friends could have been amped up to give a feeling of immediacy and help the reader have the feeling of increased stakes.
You didn’t use traditional paragraphs or indentations. This was an unnecessary distraction that takes the reader out of the story. I mention this because if this story had been submitted to a magazine for publication, this would give them cause to send it back without reading any of your story.
The overall concept was solid, if not a little familiar. With a few tweaks, this piece has a lot of potential.
Writing Challenge:
Suppose you are in a lucid dream of your own creation. This lucid dream lasts for an entire month in your dream world but only one night in the real world and you have complete control over what happens in this dream. Write a 2000-word short story that vividly describes the experience of having this dream. This experience does not need to be exclusive to the events you encounter in the dream itself. Some parts of your story can focus on what happens to you and your surroundings before and after the dream. Finally, the dream you refer to does not need to be a dream you have had before (i.e, you can make up all the relevant details as needed to complete this challenge).
