Cons first: the way you're using italicized prophecy, you probably could've saved lots of wordage by shortcutting the inconsequential stuff like repeating that he touched something right after explaing that he touched something in prophecy- skipping straight to describing how it felt, right or wrong, works. There's a few of those, but also, your story is a perfect example of how to build a story around a theme without stating out right. Even though you did in the end😅 That said, story was freaking great. Probably one of my favorite in jam history as far as use of theme goes.
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Thanks. That is a fair read.
The contrast was meant to show the prophecy losing authority in real time, but some of the repetitions are probably over-explaining the same mechanism. The seal moment especially could be cut tighter
Glad the theme still landed. I wanted the impossible to be less about a failed prediction and more about a deterministic culture encountering an unwritten event.
And thank you. That last compliment means a lot. I’ll keep the structure, but sharpen the italic sections in revision.