[Winter Contest Entry 2014] The Curse of My Kind

I'm curious, what game is that? Because if that is some kind of SRPG or Visual Novel, I would love to play it.

It's DS game called 'Rune Factory 3: A Fantasy Harvest Moon'. It's a RPG from Natsume, and it's not far from being a Visual Novel with action really, haha. It's a spin-off game from the Harvest Moon game series. In the series, you play a life simulator that takes place in a rural village where you can explore a fantasy-filled world, farm crops, fishing, mining, meet villagers, befriend them, woo girls then you can finally marry one of them. It keeps these same elements in Rune Factory and add a lot more like fighting monsters, crafting stuffs, more story-focused gameplay and faster-paced timing simulation. I used to love playing the original series when I was a kid, so I also enjoyed this game very much a few years back. I'm been wanting to buy the 3DS so I can play the new Rune Factory 4 and some few other titles.

Well I sort of changed some words to avoid redundancy and I also switched the order of the first few paragraphs. I consider that major so yeah, haha



Raven > Sofia > Carina > everyone else

For me, it is just Raven and Sofia > everyone else. It's Karina btw.

I would love to be able to choose Evelyn though, haha.

Ommg this is so cute and interesting ~ i did guess it was an animal wondering if it was a spider then a shark and loled at it being a salmon. I like these kind of "mindfucking" stories where you don't really know what is going on but later you get the answers to all your questions! I do wonder what the morale was though? You can't change your destiny?

It was a nice different aspect of life and I enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on and what the entire beginning was about. It gave gore feels in the beginning turning out to be something more deep!
Nice job writing it and Good luck in the future~

I didn't really see this as "cute" when I wrote it haha. Well the moral really depends on the reader's interpretation. It could be like you said, how you can't change destiny, or maybe how you should strive to conquer the challenges that you encounter (while the protagonist was escaping towards the sea), or perhaps even how some people are locked into their family traditions or the like.

Thanks for the comment!

Interesting! O0O I think all the morals you just mentioned fit perfectly and it is nice to be able to get more meanings than one from a story. Also all the morals are important for self evolution and development! *_*

I express my gratitude to everyone who supported me until the end. I probably wouldn't have made it this far without your insight and comments. *bows deeply*

This was a quaint and unique take on the perspective of an average salmon’s life cycle. Although it became very obvious to me only after a bit of reading, it creates an interesting revelation as to the process salmon must undertake in the beginning and end of their lives. This salmon was quite a philosophical one, asking some complex questions and settling for the contentment of the living process, only to meet her end, but not without leaving us with a message questioning the repetitive process of life as opposed to the survivalist changes evolution might bring. It might be reflective of our own lives and brings about the question if we’re living through a pattern that has been walked before, or questioning how much we wish to change for our future generations. Considering that, I feel this entry holds a lot of weight in that regard. Well done with this piece.

Disclaimer: For those unaware, the Track Changes mode in Word 2007+ provides an efficient and handy method to review written material. The black vertical line to the left of the written lines indicate a change edited in the corresponding horizontal written line. All font that is blue are direct changes to the original text. Words and letters that have strike-through are suggested removal and those with an underline are suggested additions. Comments, as you can see, highlight an appropriate area and are placed in the right-hand margin followed by a dotted line corresponding to the correct comment.

As always, if you have any questions or concern over specific edits or about parts of your story in general, I would be happy to discuss them.

Images from my Word document are below.

My 'problems' with your entry are few and far in-between, and I would argue against myself that these problems are hardly notable, but I would like to bring them to your attention anyways. There are two instances in which the fish's thoughts are rather awkward:



In both of these cases, the fish is taking part in actions that it cannot control nor can it feel. When I wake up, I do not think 'I wake up'. Instead, I think about my surroundings, which the fish does do. That said, I think you could either put the thoughts into the narrative, or you could omit the thoughts altogether. By omitting, you would further entice the reader to try and understand the fish's circumstances.

For instance:


Could simply be:
[Where are my parents?]

By cutting out the 'I am born', you can immediately open the situation to a wider variety of circumstances. While that effect does not last long, your work is very short and grabbing the attention and keeping the reader guessing becomes that much more important. Like I said though, this is a minor issue. I believe your work is next to spotless in terms of grammar; you can refer to Xenon's document for what little you did miss.

Nitpicking aside, I loved your entry. There's just no way around it. First off, I have to commend you on staggering your narrative and the fish's thoughts. The flow is sublime. It's just so easy to read, I can't help but go from sentence to sentence. There is a fine line between creating quick and dirty sentences and having the reader simply read fast because the sentences are simple, and creating meaningful sentences that both grab the attention of the reader while seamlessly flowing into each other. This work treads that line very, very well. Even if you are unaware, or even if I am a bit off base, but I believe that the work put into carefully weaving small sentences like these together are underrated. I'm here to tell you I appreciate it!

Moving on, I thought the whole premise was both well thought out, and well executed. It takes a bit to realize that our protagonist is actually a fish, but I think that makes it all the more interesting. And even once I figured it out, the 'flavor' of the story doesn't really die out. I mean, this fish is just so existential! It's great ahaha.

While the salmon's tale ends with his death, the story for the reader does not end there. I take the salmon to be symbolic of humans. The moral of the story does not present one directly, but instead it challenges the reader to develop and take a stance on traditions. It challenges the reader to weigh the risks of both continuing tradition and branching off. This fish is possibly the most thought-provoking fish I have ever encountered.

Needless to say, I enjoyed your entry. The debate between you and El Chacal's work was extremely heated. Make no mistake, your work deserves every bit of that 2nd place and some. I hope you continue to enter contests. Also, feel free to submit any other stories that you have written or any that you plan to write.

Thanks a lot! I'll keep these tips in mind in future works.



I'll try to enter contests as much as possible. By joining just this one contest, I was able to pick up on the mistakes I wouldn't have noticed without everyone's constructive criticism and advice.

I'm currently writing a "feels parody" on a TV show I watched as a kid. I'll post it as soon as I finish it (won't be soon though, schoolwork has been quite hectic).