Player Comments on The Little Princess of the Forest

That was an enjoyable little story with decent branching. Very much a traditional cyoa.

I think the main critique of others is well warranted, if it was a regular old story.

However....

I have a feeling all of this was done very much on purpose. The disjointedness, the very cringy dialogue of the prince (who the frick says honey so many times), the sudden appearance of him, the odd deus ex machina and of course that Marie turns out to be a princess, the lack of any setting details, the very dry 3th person omniscient perspective, oh and that all the characters are very very bland, especially the princess.

All these elements would be on its own pretty bad, but together they give off the impression of a classic fairytale or perhaps more like amalgamation of everything a fairytale would be.

There were also pretty often fourth wall breaks, I think the main one was where the narrator is actively telling the reader that the princess had not been killed by the evil queen due to the intervention of the fairy god mother. These fourth wall breaks are pretty well handled. From what I read it's more as if someone is telling you this story directly in front of a fireplace with you chiming every now and then to ask what happens next. I would have liked to see this aspect a little bit more pronounced.

While I do appreciate it that the author doesn't back down on his vision, there is also a reason why modern retellings of fairytales like Disney heavily tweak the original tales, mainly because the original ones often don't have that much character development or overarching story arcs.

Ahum, ahum, I therefore think that the reception would have been better if you took a more liberal interpretation towards the prompt of the contest (perhaps lean into a story within a story format. In the storyteller of the fairytale and the listener you could add more conventional modern writing in it while you keep the overall structure and language of the fairytale. The integrity of the story will be kept as it is, while you also have more leeway for things like characterization and a more cohesive theme), but I did like it for what it is.

There was clear purposeful writing going on here and if what I was describing was what you were going for, then kudos to you!

This isn't great, but there are some things I would like to point out that if fixed can potentially make this a better story.

First off: The lack of description,
Each sentence is very vague and short and shares no details with the reader. Descriptive language can help break the barrier between your story and the reader and helps better describe what's going on.
For example: "This shadow was the one of a big old bald eagle"
Instead of this, you can add more description.
"Cast upon the grass was the distinguishing shadow of a bald eagle." Or something like that, that is more descriptive.

I get that this was a contest entree (You may have been short on time), but I would recommend giving readers more paths and options toward the end, instead of focusing on branching out later which most players won't even get to.

I think this fits the prompt very well, there may be some things you can fix but there's always something that can be improved.

Overall this was a pretty solid story, despite the lack of description and lackluster characters, this is a story to be proud of.

8
- 2, for little description
-1 for being predictable and boring

Overall this is solid 5/8

I really liked this story. I was a princess

It was a nice story. A little light on the descriptions on some parts for my liking but you did get the story to make since and it is quite beautiful. I also understand that this was for a competition so god knows how much time you had.

I think you should work on your descriptive skills. You like to use a lot of the same and basic words. I'd suggest doing something as simple as googling "another word for _____" Cute little story but I didn't really get to know the characters. One more thing, the whole princess part seems like it was forced to be added to fit in with the theme I think a prince falls in love with a commoner trope would've been fine. Even more so seeing as she just kind of adopted that nickname. Anywho 3/8 I'm sure you'll improve and I can't wait to see more!

I enjoy a story about a cute little princess told in a surreal and disjointed style in a way we are expected to accept with fairytale logic. But this story is very amateurish and rushed. We are given no inclination that this little girl is a princess at all, or what her effects on the forest and others are and why she must be killed. I would like to learn more about every character in this story with added background.

It was creative and the choose your own adventure was fun!