Spoiler: review

The opening sentence felt a little clunky to me

Could make it flow better by omitting blustering I think.

Hmm, I actually quite like how simple it is though I think you could give a bit more personality to the cheerful wizard

Say have another sentence in between the wizard understanding and cheering away the sadness, as it'd give more weight to the cheering charm.

From what I understand this would be like in ancient times of HP, while I do like the whimsy blithe tone of the story I think the ending could also have a one or two more sentences.

This sentence for example didn't quite stick the landing imo. But besides that it's a nice short story and besides cleaning up the grammar and making better flowing sentences I think it's alright for what you're trying.

 

This is incredibly clever, and well written. It really feels like a fairy tale a witch/wizard might tell their little children before bed time.

Also, to have this in only under 900 words, it's pretty cool.

 

Spoiler

Okay I like this. This is probably the only piece out of the many where I'd say stays true to its tone (or even begins with the tone) of a fairy tale to begin with. Some of it is a little over the top - moving from "fairy tale" to "rothfuss random sentence generator" - but luckily the monkeys typed something coherent here, so to speak.

My big issue with this is that I'm not sure what the lesson is. At the very end, the story of the fairy tale pushes out from the seams a bit because there is no lesson. All I really got from this is that vampires are evil and suck the soul out of the places they lord over. Which is fine, canonically with HP - the way Ron described what fairy tales warned you of means that maybe I'm looking for too muggle a meaning in this when this is, by and large, a wizard's tale. And maybe you're even ahead of me and there's a bit hand-on-nose look at how awesome we wizarding folk are - we stayed for some nationbuilding after mission accomplished innit.

But I do believe that isn't the case and this story, which could have certainly accomplished said moral lesson (happiness being the most important thing, not to trust people who might not have your best interests at heart, to be friends with everyone?) - could also fit in this space of wizard folk.

I don't think it'll come as a surprise that I voted for this: this is superb work.

 

Spoiler

I think this opening sentence is a bit confused. It doesn't read easily.

I think this would stand to be a sentence by itself, it's the middle of the story and should be out and proud, not hidden away. Like the happy wizard, I was a little confused to turn and see him gone.

I think this part also reads confused. Perhaps it should be: 'and what he in his part had played'.

I think this is a nice lesson for the fairy tale, but I'm not sure exactly how it ties in with the story, how it is evidenced. Exactly being the key word.

I think all the elements are there. You've done a fantastic job in creating what feels like a whole tale in incredibly few words, so it's a really good job. What I wonder is could you have tied this finding joy in the small things with some acceptance in the wizard of the need for sadness, the use of it? It felt like he should learn something too, with that taste of sorrow and melancholy, or that it should cost him more. But it didn't.

 

Spoiler

Hmm. I like the idea of a tower of sorrows, where the people come to drop off their sadness and get on with their lives. The thing is, though, that leads to obvious morals - "don't just pretend you're not sad", "don't surpress your emotions", something among those lines.

Instead the most obvious moral I can actually deduce from this piece is that being well and truly shitfaced gives you the power to kill vampires, and after everyone is sad you can apply the magical equivalent of prozac and it'll all be fine. Which is weird, to say the least. I dunno, though, am I reading this wrong?

Technically speaking this is fine. Your prose hovers at that fine line between "good" and "purple", and sometimes veers into the latter. It's personal, but for me one example would be:

The "marshes" haven't been mentioned before this, the "golden rays" make him out to be some metaphor for the sun. Do we need to understand this to be some allegory for the sun of spring dispelling the depression of winter? I don't know, and it's not exactly clear to me.

 

Spoiler

It's pretty clever. I don't mind the fact that there's no specifically overarching narrative since it's so constrained.

The writing does get a bit excessive at times but that is pretty easily ignorable.

This is good. You've created a coherent, well-rounded story that fits in with the constrictions, and the only thing that you really need to do is connect the dots.

 

Spoiler

Hmmm... I like the idea of a tower that grows out of people's sadness. But some parts of it didn't quite register. I think that is because a lot of the material of the story is abstract. e.g. the "sullen things" that make up the tower, and the wizard teaches the villagers to "find pleasure." I did like the drunk, good-natured wizard, but I was a bit disappointed that the tower didn't end up being more sentient/active since it was the focus of the first line (instead a creation of the vampire, who doesn't appear until halfway through the fairytale). And also that the wizard doesn't teach the villagers to deal with sadness but charms away their grief with a cheering charm.

This is a bit awkward... perhaps because "grow" is used transitively? Maybe you can change it to something like "with a pebble of pain, the tower grew that much more"?

 

Spoiler

While I like this, I have to agree with some of the other reviewer's that it doesn't convey the clearest meaning. I'd have liked to see the wizard learn something more from his interactions, since aside from a moment of sadness he remains largely unchanged, unlike the vampire(content, irate, forcibly drunk, then dead), or the presumably muggle villagers(sad all the time, content, balanced).

I guess that fits the wizarding culture we saw in the books, with magic and wizards/witches being oh-so-great, while other beings are treated like lesser creatures, so I could see it being told as-is, but it still doesn't hype up that point of view enough. It just sort of muddles in the middle.

Also. Please. Don't use exotic fonts. ow.

 

Spoiler

What a delightfully wistful story.

I really enjoyed watching this tale unfold. I was simultaneously fond and suspicious of both the master of the tower and the cheerful wizard. Neither of them turned out to be what I expected. The ending took me by surprise, in a good way. I expected more calamity, but that's not how sorrow works, is it? No matter how much we try to ignore it, sadness swallows us up. But we find things to appreciate, and we carry on. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

My favorite lines:

• Under the morning light the master met his end, still clasped arm in arm with the joyful wizard.
• Before he left, the wizard cleared the rubble of the sullen tower, and left a grave for the late master, and a mug to his memory. *

You also get a +1 from me for the large type of the first letter. A nice fairy tale touch like that illustrates how much care you put into this entry.


* I would change the punctuation so that it reads this way: Before he left, the wizard cleared the rubble of the sullen tower. He left a grave for the late master and a mug to his memory.

Commas shouldn't cut a verb from its subject. I noticed you make this mistake a couple of times. This post illustrates the rule I'm talking about: https://copywriter-editor.com/compound-predicate/

 

Spoiler: In the first entry of Q4 (Part II), Niez sent to me:

Generally speaking I like how this entry is written. I find the prose compelling and the tone appropriate. Feels like a proper fairy tale, is perhaps what I'm trying to say, with one major caveat; I don't really think this is a fairy tale at all. As far as I can tell there is no 'moral' to be learned, nor any universal truths to be uncovered. There's not even a little warning about staying away from creepy German woods. And I do think those are an essential parts of fairy tales, what separates them as a genre from, say, fantastical stories about talking trees and people with pointy ears. And the prompt specifically states a 'magical fairy tale', which I understood as a didactic story for wizarding children. Something that Arthur Weasley would tell his children to make them grow up right (spare the tale, spoil the child). Yes you have that bit about 'the wizard taught them to take happiness from all the little things' but that is undercut by his napalming the village with cheering charms. So though I think it is a fine entry, it's not really what I was looking for, by which I mean that it will likely not be my winner (though lets be honest its not like I'm going finish all thirteen reviews before Ched calls it).

A last few bits and bobs:

Of all things (sullen) great and small. Then you give an example of a big sadness (a heartbreak) and a small sadness (a rainy day). Putting aside the fact that rain is a joyous occasion if you are a potato farmer (which I will assume most villagers are for no particular reason), I don't see how 'bluster' adds anything to the sentence, buster.

'Distraction'? Relieving yourself of your misery daily would be more than a distraction methinks. Reprieve? Consolation? Diversion? Thesaurus?

The evening came and the villagers knew not what to make of this strange and uninvited fellow. He drank... (basically I don't see what the 'as' is doing in this sentence, other than confusing me).

Spoiler: A nice, if slightly botched, Christmas treee

_\/_
/\
/\
/ \
/~~\o
/ o \
/~~*~~~\
o/ o \
/~~~~~~~~\~`
/__*_______\
||
\====/
\__/

Its a monstrosity true, but nobody ever accused me of being able to draw, or copy paste properly.
​

 

Thank you all for the reviews(and the votes). It warms my heart that this entry was so well received on the whole.

I started this around the evening of the 18th, completed the initial 1000 word draft on the 19th, and sent it off to Xiph0 not long thereafter. As the deadline approached I felt that what I had written was not strong enough. With about half an hour to midnight, I logged back in and wrote the majority over again, retaining only the opening paragraph. That is the draft before us.

It is not the strongest tale, as evidenced by some reviews. It could be shaped up, tightened in a few places, expanded in others. But I think that I am satisfied on the whole with what I was able to pull together.

For anyone who might want to see the original draft, here it is.

Spoiler

In a quiet village, there stood a tower. It was made of sullen things, all things great and small alike, be it a lover's heartbreak, or a blustering rainy day.

The people of the village came to this tower with their aches and their woes, and they laid their gloomy thoughts before the dark doorway like a muggle tossing coins down a so-called wishing well.

The tower's master sat deep inside of his tower during the day, and each night he walked about, collecting the mementos left upon his doorstep, and reaping more from the troubled minds of the people on his silent strolls.

They gave up their grief gratefully. And he, in turn, received their misery with welcome arms, for he had a secret; he found it delectable. He was a vampire, you see, but not as muggles dream of them. He took his sustenance by emotions, and he found a special pleasure in such suffering.

What he could not eat, he mixed into a drink. What he could not drink, he poured into his tower, and fed the hungry stone. They were much alike, the vampire master, and his tower made of sullen things. The more that he fed his tower, the closer that it grew to he.

One rainy day, a cheerful wizard came. His hat and cloak radiated with joy, and he spread his charm into the quiet village one villager at a time. He gave them bright memories to replace the sad, and he settled into the inn with great delight, 'to be in such wondrous company, of course!' he said to the bemused inn-keep. 'Another round for the house! Have a spot of gold to brighten those faces!'

The master of the tower found him insufferable. That very night, he crept upon the cheerful wizard, intent on smothering him as he lay there, and instead found himself caught up in a drunken one-armed hug and crushed tight. 'Say, are you that sallow fellow who lives inside of that foreboding place up on the hill? Come! Drink with me! Let us be merry, my friend!'

The vampire hissed. 'Be gone from here, man! Let me go! I want no part of this strangeness you have brought upon my home!'

'Don't be that way! Here!' and the wizard forced his mug beneath the vampire's curled lip. 'I promise you, such a taste you'll never know again as a round shared with joyous friends!'

'Nay! Go away!' said the vampire, and he pushed from that tenacious grip at last. Then he fled, for he could not yet best this champion of pleasant smiles, and he found no food amongst the villagers that night.

The weeks passed. Fewer and fewer came to the tower to cry their misery. The tower's master became weak. He lay there, deep inside of his sullen memories, nursing from a pebble of pain.

'I must be rid of this intruder, or I shall surely perish,' he said. 'Or else I must flee. But where else may I go?' He thought and he thought, through the next days and nights, and hardly slept at all.

Then came the knocking outside of his tower. 'Hullo! Are you still holed up inside of here, like a lonely niffler? Come out, my starving friend! I mean to feed you well, for you have done great good upon these people, haven't you? Come out, I beg!'

'Away!' cried the vampire, fearing that this, his last domain, must be invaded. He bade the tower close its door, yet it too had grown weak as its master grew weak, and it could not respond.

'Oh, don't be that way! Come and see the feast I have made, and then you may choose if you are still so stubborn!' the wizard answered.

And so the master of the sullen tower gathered what strength as he still had and slunk out to meet the cheerful wizard. 'What is this?' he cried, for all of the villagers stood there, sad and tired.

'My time here must come to an end, and my joy is but my own. I have loaned it for a time, and the time has come to take it back.' The wizard grinned enough for two men, and waved good-bye. 'Eat, and be merry again, my friend!'

So the cheerful wizard departed, and the vampire ate and ate and ate, as if he had never eaten before. He gorged upon their memories, one after the other. When at last he grew full, he returned to his tower and laid there in a wonderful stupor.

'I know not what trickery he performed upon them, but perhaps the wizard was not so bad,' he said. The tower flexed. 'I shall feed you next time,' he told the groaning stones. 'For I have nothing left to give.'

As he slept that day, he did not awaken to roam the night. He slept into the next day, and all the while, the sullen tower sighed and shifted. When at last the night came again, the sullen tower could not hold its own hunger at bay, and collapsed upon its master.

His last moments of misery bled across the masonry, too little, and too late.

And so ended the sullen tower and the vampire inside. For a time, the villagers mourned his passing, but with no outlet for their melancholy, they eventually learned to accept that gloom is necessary for a brighter life.

When the cheerful wizard came again, he drank to the tower's memory, and he drank alone, for the villagers would have nothing from him, not even his presence. ‘Alas! They have learned without you, my distant brother. May we meet again in another life.’

For, you see, he too was a type of vampire, and his magic only made him that much more powerful with his cheering charms to bring false joy.

Thus ends the Tale of the Sullen Tower. May you find a balance, as the villagers came to know at last.