Concrit for egelantier

[eglantiere]

I want to receive feedback by: Comments on the published fics are the best, but if you prefer to be more private, the mods have my email, and my discord handle is egelantier#0472.

Here are the works I want feedback on: anything on egelantier is good to go!

There are several recent fics that are out of my usual wheelhouse and so I'd be very interested in feedback on them, but honestly anything goes, regardless of posting year:

give us a little love (TGE, Maia/Csethiro arranged marriage canon divergence AU)
create in me a clean heart (VME, fairly graphic hurt/comfort fic with crucifixion)
the rivers of the sky are dry (Narnia, ensemble)
lead me down to the dusty garden (FFXV, fairly graphic whump)

I have these questions for readers:
- If somebody's read my earlier fics, I would really love to know if there's a visible change/progress in my writing over the years.
- The other question I'm burningly curious about is whether the stories in different fandoms feel samey because my writing 'voice' - the cadence, the word choices, et cetera - overwhelms setting/characterization differences.
- Is there a stylistic quirk / repeated pattern that feels really visible to you, in an inorganic way?

The style of feedback I prefer to receive is: Pretty much everything goes, including SPAG and stylistic, sentence-by-sentence feedback. I'm ESL, and I would be grateful for any comments here (I'm endlessly beholden to my betas for saving the readers from the worst of my comma and semicolon sins before they see the light of the day, but...).
It's fine to be blunt as long as there's an elaboration on what didn't/did work for you.

Comments to this post will be: unscreened

Comments

[ember_keelty]

Concrit left on here comes this rising tide!

create in me a clean heart

[morbane]

OK friend! Have crit. I hope this is useful. Reactions are adjusted as best I can for our differing preferences in h/c /she says affectionately, bowing with respect from atop a completely different hill.

You ask for comments on writing style changes. I'm not sure that's within scope, sorry - I have read many of your stories over many years but I'd still need to review a lot to answer you. Maybe we can make it a separate trade. Still, I've tried to keep my impressions of past fics in mind here.

I like what you focus on. There's just about zero waffle or unnecessary detail; at the same time, I feel I mostly have the information I need. You're very good at bringing relevant emotions quickly to the fore.

I'm not totally sure that the place where you start it makes sense. I think that the baseline time context being "we've conducted some interviews" might more sense than "we've just arrived". The alternating POV between Hiraga and Roberto mostly works, but a pure Roberto viewpoint until the last scene might also work, because, to me, there are some big gaps in the Hiraga perspective.

Details:

Hiraga had loved the town from the first jet-lagged glance.

No grammar problem here, and it's a nice clear sentence doling out a useful and manageable amount of information. However, on second reading, "loved" rather than "had loved" would make more sense to me because we don't spend enough time in this story hanging around the town before the action begins for this to feel like a distinct past. (If I'd been beta reading and making that suggestion, you would also have needed to tweak some grammar in the following paragraph. "Roberto had grumbled" would be fine; "Hiraga hadn't minded" would need adjusting.

I like maple shadows and green knees.

Ryuota's remission held, on the phone his brother was effortlessly cheerful, and all was right with the world. - Minor quibble. It's a little odd to me that you refer to Ryuota in two different ways in such a short space of time - on the first read, canon-unfamiliar, I assumed Ryuota and brother were different people. But it's minor because I don't really see how else you would efficiently and clearly convey this set of ideas.

an audit of a would-be saint - minor quibble but I thought the premise of the show was that that described all their cases?

Over the forty years since - Minor quibble. You later say the woman is in her sixties. "Child" here doesn't require the woman to be a teen or younger at the time, but does imply it; the timeline currently requires her to have been in her twenties at the time. "Forty-odd" or something would smooth it over.

It was a bit weird that the town’s community wasn't quite united behind this petition. The parishioners, while polite to them, seemed very cautious with their words.

To me, this is an abrupt transition. We've had the past of them arriving, then info about the case, and now "They arrived and then…" is still the context for whatever happens next. It makes me blink a bit that you then imply and skate over a raft of other events (check-ins, interviews, note-comparings) that are also in the past. The information in the paragraph is otherwise clear and it doesn't take me too long to catch up.

Roberto would find everything out in the due time - delete the

unexplainable and durable - unexplainable is fine, but inexplicable is less marked in this context. Durable isn't quite right - it's how you'd describe how you'd expect something to behave in the future (like if you're selling a suitcase), not how it's behaved up until this point. Enduring or resilient are options that work better for me.

woman in sixties - woman in her sixties (I like the food details to establish an unwelcoming atmosphere)

she was in very good health for all that she didn't seem to like them much - this distracts me; "for all" requires there to be some relation between these two facts, and there doesn't seem to be one.

which was weird because - does Hiraga use the word weird a lot? If not, that's twice in quick succession, distracting me a little. And he uses it soon again below.

no older than Ryota - Same person previously spelled Ryuota, or different?

He told her as such, and saw a first real expression - He told her such, and saw the first real expression

As always when the conversations lagged, Roberto stepped back into fray - the phrase before the comma is grammatically fine, but because it's plural, it's better suited to describe a group of situations, ie, "As always when the conversations lagged, Roberto [did a similar thing over several separate events]". Because what's being compared is single/unique, "As always when a conversation lagged" works better as a direct comparison. Also: into the fray.

until the coffee was finished and they left - probably best to have a comma after finished, if not some other tweak, otherwise both attach to "until", and "they finished coffee & left" is not a simultaneous, compound action.

"growing up with the other people thinking of her mother as a saint." - delete the before other? Fine if it's Hiraga's specific speech pattern, and okay as part of the general imperfection of speech otherwise, but not standard.

Roberto said pensively and refused to comment further. - You can get away with it, but when it's dialogue - speech verb - other stuff like this, I tend to prefer a comma after the phrase including the speech verb (or, comma after pensively) to avoid the structure of said & refused both taking the dialogue as their object.

Roberto caught Lauren scowling at him darkly from the screen and hastily excused himself before Hiraga could notice and become upset with both of them.

- I found this transition a little difficult. For one, there are hints, but since I wasn't expecting the POV to switch, I was trying to reconcile this with Hiraga's POV. For another, I'm a little confused about the sequence of events - did Roberto not know Hiraga was planning to call Lauren? Not clear if so. Did he know and think it would be fine and change his mind? That fits the text better, but in that case, I'm surprised Lauren's Lovelorn Scowl (over a very routine call) changed his mind so much. Does Lauren really scowl at Roberto for existing when Hiraga has called him to consult? It seems a little dramatic. Basically, I feel I can see why you want this sequence of events in order to bring up Roberto's feelings, but it feels a little forced.

Otherwise, from Hiraga's impression, I like the sequence of ideas. I like how this allows Roberto to overlook/justify Hiraga talking about Roberto's virtues without coming to the conclusion that Hiraga adores him - that's clever.

The wheels of the Vatican turned slowly but surely, grinding visionaries into dust one year and elevating them the next - I'm not sure about how the dust fits into this. Is it a progression? It doesn't work for Hiraga's elevation since he isn't being ground into dust first. If you're talking about caprice, I'm not sure how the sentiment fits. If this is a comment on how people have to be dead to be elevated, it makes sense but it might be too subtle for a comparison that works for people who are alive.

Sooner or later he'd be raised high, way beyond Roberto's grasp. - very minor note: I'd use far rather than way, since far is more formal, suited to the elevated tone

And no, Roberto wasn't a good enough man to console Lauren with this knowledge. - Hm. I like how this bridges to "But he could do his work". I see the callback to the sentiment about telling Lauren they aren't in competition. Here, though, is where the sentiment loses me, because it makes me imagine Roberto saying this to Lauren and Lauren reacting with disbelieving exasperation to the melodrama. And it's hard for me to buy any other character reacting with the kind of grudging gratitude Roberto seems to expect would occur. The idea that Roberto thinks this speech about the pedestal he's put Hiraga on - because imagining Hiraga's kindness to others as perfectly impersonal is kind of insulting to Hiraga, actually - makes me question Roberto's judgement and therefore makes me less willing to entertain his other emotional pronouncements.

there were weird lacunae in their interviews with the locals, slow undercurrents of tension - the use of weird is definitely chiming for me now; I like the feeling I get from "slow" here but I'm not actually sure what you mean by it.

Usually, when auditioning a saint, the challenge was - I'm not familiar with this phrase. Should this be auditing? This is also a dangling participle, since the challenge isn't auditioning - the subjects carrying out the action of auditioning are missing from the sentence.

They should've had petitioners under their door - at their door? Something else? "under their door" isn't an idiom and doesn't make literal sense either.

I like the observation about Roberto's growing unease about the townspeople's reticence.

And he didn't like the way Signora O'Brien looked - had looked

Hiraga probably forgot - had probably forgotten (can get away with had probably forgot if you prefer it)

The way the woman had looked at Hiraga when he said anything, with zealous hunger. - No quibble here! You asked for notes on your overall style and how it's changed, and I fear that project is out of scope for now for me even though I'm familiar. However, this is a technique I'd recognise as one you favour, possibly even in an exchange's anon period - the thoughts trailing off, then a grammatically independent statement, that uses a different structure so it can't follow on from the trailed-off thought, but that is emotionally relevant and emotionally charged It's doing what you need it to here.

just to give his panic some shape - I like this phrase! And I like the short urgent preceding sentences.

Hiraga must've - You use the 've contraction in non-dialogue more often than I expect, in general.

half-strangled by his burning lungs - Hm. I like the intensity of this, but the actual image doesn't work for me when I think about it - I only get something absurd, someone's esophagus twisted in a knot or something.

You'll have to stall until then, and I don't care how. - This instruction confuses me a little. He hasn't even found Hiraga; "stall" seems to require they are aware of a specific likely time-sensitive occurrence, and I don't think they can have that information. Also, I realise Lauren is also pining over Hiraga, but this seems like a big ask that is likely to get two Fathers killed, not one. Or, tl;dr - this is a dramatic statement but it doesn't quite work for me.

He would've missed the clearing if Lauren, in-between the bouts of swearing, wasn't giving him very precise directions. Here, your use of "would've" is particularly marked and unusual because although this is continually in his perspective, I don't think we're meant to take this as close to a reported thought, since it's a summary. The further away from dialogue they are, the less natural "should've" and "could've" and "would've" feel. In between should not be hyphenated here. I also quibble about the directions. You might know better than I would, but I don't see how Lauren, at a distance, having never been there before, and relying on what - Google Maps? - can give Roberto directions about the individual twists of trails on the ground in a small town/rural area. I would believe he'd be able to direct Roberto to the start of an old trail that's since grown over, maybe, but something more detailed than that seems implausible. And how did Roberto even know which direction to take? Are they going off Hiraga's phone's GPS signal? The sheer urgency smooths this over a bit in the moment, but not entirely.

His exhausted brain - already? Maybe overworked? I like the grim incongruity of the mental cartoon, though.

he was familiar with the cloth intimately, after years of ironing it - no grammar problem here and the phrase is perfectly serviceable, but I'm quibbling: the explanation feels a little intrusive, like Roberto's looking at the camera to say "You must be wondering how I knew it". And the only reason is it's worth raising is that I feel you could get more mileage out of that important sense of service if you tweaked this a bit more.

and the stained glass - stained glass, no 'the'. (In what way is it "roughly" built if it has stained glass? I'm willing to believe but not quite sure what I'm meant to picture. I think you're using roughly to gesture at a sense, but it doesn't offer up anything concrete to me.) I like the way you finish on "Its doors were open".

Signora O'Brien held court, standing in front of the altar, glowing with intent anger. - this is a nice balance of clear and dramatic

Lord's will, but - I would change that comma to a spaced hyphen or en dash to match what's after words, since "the lamb and our children and Lord's will" is a parenthetical interjection and should have the same punctuation on either side.

He knew what to do with perfect clarity - I like the emotions here, and I like his own certainty about his priorities. Very subjectively, I think I'd like it even more if this paragraph were slowed down or broken out or expanded, so that you give us space to linger on this very emotional moment even more. (Plus helps smooth over the contradiction from not knowing what to do three paragraphs ago to knowing perfectly now.)

In his other ear, Lauren was demanding updates with increasing fervor. Roberto whispered to him what he was going to do and hid the phone under the vestibule bench, cutting off Lauren’s anger. - Hm. You only give Lauren one line of dialogue in this scene, compared to at least four indirect summations. And I actually think more Lauren dialogue would get in the way. But because the summations are quite vague - he's swearing constantly, or he's giving directions I find implausible, or you talk about "increasing fervor" and thus imply a significant chunk of dialogue in order to allow that fervor to build, within a very compressed space in the narrative - that to me starts feeling noticeable as authorial shortcut. Separately, Roberto telling Lauren what he's going to do gives me pause - does he need to? why does he want to? Is he hoping this will reassure Lauren about Hiraga's fate? I'm skeptical that anything Roberto could say about that would be very reassuring.

Then he slammed the doors open I thought the doors were open? otherwise, what would he see when peering through the vestibule?

[filigranka]

Ok, ok, ok, soo – I’m a great fan of your writing, especially the way you write the drabbles and how much you’re able to pack into each of them, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to offer much in terms of the actual criticism. Which is probably the nicest possible disappointment, but still.

I love your drabbles, so I decided to use this exchange as an excuse to do some quick comparison and interpretation of them, and this is why I write here, not under each of them separately, as you asked.

For me, the main themes in your works – drabble or otherwise, actually – are:
a) Family, above all – blood relatives and found family both, and how complicated, fragile and painful these relationships could be, but also, ultimately, how much strength, love and safety they bring (sometimes it is a found family, or more distant relatives, which give this to the characters instead of their closest relatives, like e.g. in your Vader-Leia fics, or in Natsume’s ones); family is IMHO more important than romantic love in your works in general, although I didn’t read them all, so feel free to disregard this point.

b) Water – pantha rei, everything flows, drowns, swims and finds itself mirrored and mesmerized by streams, waves, rives, lakes, seas. Water appears in your fics as a part of a scenery, of course, but also as a great metaphor for life in a metaphysical or sometimes (depends on the canon) religious sense. The Force, The Life, that great, deep feeling of connection to others, not only people, but the whole world, and readiness to being lost in this feeling and in this universe, in the meaning which tries material with metaphysical – from dust to dust, from atoms to atoms, constant circle of life and smallest particles of the matter. So, it’s the life which has death in itself, of which death is a central part, and readiness to truly accept life – and therefore ability to live it – lies in one’s readiness to accept the death, getting melt in the stream of life, becoming one with nature, again, losing individuality. Which is a crux of many philosophical and religious concepts and, accidentally or not, you tend to write for canons which uses these. ;) And of course, writing this, I already started the third theme, so going back to water – when you write about The Life in this meaning, you almost always use water imaginary, more verbs than nouns, which makes sense, because Life (and a lot of other beings/things when they’re given divine-ish importance) is better described by what it does than what it is.

BTW, do you the song “Waters of March/ Aguas de Março”? Because if not, I think you might love it.

c) So, life as something which contains Death, and it’s Right and Good, and how it should be, life as countless small being parts of big things which are parts of even bigger things; the constant change; life as polyphony of voices and death (but also enlightenment, true understanding and acceptance) as losing one’s individuality and this being OK, too, this being a great secret and ultimate wisdom to be learnt by the characters sooner or later – to let go of “I/me/ego” aka accept Death and Ceasing of I as Right, not “the metaphysical scandal”, to accept that having a good, which means: fulfilling life – to fulfil one’s sense and purpose in life – is more than enough and there’s no need to ask for eternity different than being part of the great, ever-changing symphony of life. “What-Exists/The Being is God, ‘I’ is a sin”, as Theologia Germanica says (btw, I don’t know if you read it, but if you didn’t, you should, you sooo should, I think you will like it and find a very good source of quotes for your titles). So, classic mysticism, even in the most pro-individuality religions! I love mysticism, even if makes me cry, so, ekhm, I totally love this layer of your fics, too, although I cry on them like a kid, because I’m far from this level of acceptance. ;)

d) Ah, good life as fulfilling life and fulfilling life as meaningful life, life which fulfils its purpose, mission, duty, sense, meaning, adventure – I’m multiplying words not only because we both like enumerations and syntax parallels (oops, that should be the next point), but because these aspects are connected and mixed into one in your works; or rather, they play the same narrative and philosophical role, function, in your fics, I think – or a very similar one – and whichever one is used depends mostly on the canon, I think. And even when one of these aspects dominates the other, at least a couple of others is present, too. And from them, the most surprising is probably “adventure”, but I mean it like in folklore- anthropology- and similar studies, mostly, so as a part of the “quest”, an adventure which marks the rites of passage and is a liminal space, sacred quest/adventure, tied to the mission, and via mission tied to duty and via liminal space, tied to finding meaning and true purpose.

e) Ok, now when I mentioned it, of course rites of passage, usually the two classic two: the moment of death and start one’s adventure/quest, with all the anthropological and psychoanalytical (in literary theory sense more than current psychological school, to be honest) meanings and layers. Going on a quest to become independent from the family and find one’s “I”, finding one’s purpose and role in life, in both inner (what I am, what I like, what I dislike, recognising one needs and wishes…) and outer (what my family, my time, my community and the world needs me to be, recognising one duties and obligations) sense, starting this great adventure called life… And then, when the death comes, as the death comes, learning to de-learn all of this, accepting the death, learning to letting go of our youth, our visions of ourselves and our “I”, to find our meaning in giving back to The Life and the life in non-metaphysical sense (other people, community) what we got from it – and, in the moment of death, the one you often describe in your drabbles, just letting go, not trying to hold on to life or to self, letting go, contented with the knowledge that stream of life is eternal and will go on – without us.

Sniff, sniff, I got teary-eyed writing this and above, but it’s a good thing, it’s a very good thing when 100 words fics makes the reader(s) so moved! But yes, rites of passages and sometimes that liminal space which comes just after/before (like in Leia-Vader fic, this long one, where she saves Luke – it’s one long liminal space, triangle of liminal space, Luke is between life and death, Vader is between dying and going further, letting go of self/ghost, Leia goes into Luke’s liminal space with Vader as her guide – classic antro- and cultural themes are piling, I know – but she’s also the one starting this fic’s adventure and finding her – new, post-defeating the Empire – sense/purpose in life, and learning to accept her legacy and family – which parts of the family she wants to keep and which don’t quite deserve it – so she’s in her inner liminal space, between choices, and because these are choices of the Force- and blood-family weight, so the biggest caliber in traditional communities, it’s fitting it calls narratively for the proper liminal space, life-death, Dante’s Inferno and all that jizz, too) it’s a very constant theme in your fics, drabble or not, for me.

f) Btw, because – theme sixth! – you often write your drabbles about older than fanfiction’s average characters, characters middle-aged or older, that adventure might come to your characters after their youth, too; the best example, for me, is your Natsume’s “a ribbon at a time” drabble, in which it’s Fujiwara Touko who is getting drawn into an adventure and magical world of spirits and “talking cats”. Like a young boy or girl in most of the kids’ stories! The very, very, very same trope! And she goes to save her boy, not her father or mother, or the romantic interest! :D I loved this little twist and turning of traditional roles for older characters, especially women – supportive and/or mentoring.

g) You pick the very best titles, which often add layers and layers to the interpretations!

h) That one drabble about Luke and Leia you wrote for me, the one with “the world is unfair, but not unkind” still makes me cry even when I think about it, which is why I couldn’t check the quote and had to pull it out of my head. But oh my, it’s incredible, incredible, how perfect and good this drabble is, you know? I just find it unfair and like I said, I have no acceptance of the life world the death Star Wars sequel trilogy, either existentially, psychologically or philosophically. ;)

i) A bunch of stylistic quirks – you like repetitions and enumerations, especially the ones based on three and pretty often based on “two-three things following the same theme, and then the last one, contrasting” (I’d stick to my opinion both are three-based, the two-one obviously, and three-contrasting one because of the first part ;)). You tend to use strong rhythm and a rhythm which adds to the meaning of the text, e.g. adds the sense of motion – like, again, in “a ribbon at a time” (again? Again, it’s such a good drabble, so light and funny, and gives one all “ahoy, adventure” fuzzy feelings) – “and rising up, and up, and up” – it not only tells us how high Touko feels they are rising, it also suggests us the way they’re flying, these little waves of air she’s feeling, and that the motion for her isn’t smooth, but more jump-like. And of course alliterations, a lot of them. Also, you like to use pauses/n-dashes to emphasise the punchline, the last line, just before a few last words (I love this).

And something which is probably connected to being ESL, because I and a lot of people from EE writing in English (ekhm, Conrad) do it too, but it seems that native speakers almost never – putting All The Things into the middle of the sentence. Small digressions, descriptions, adjective groups, the whole additional stories within stories – ha, as 1001 Nights’ tales proves, every single sentence can be a thousand stories within a story, if you try hard enough! – all of them. Which is nice, imho, because it gives me the feeling of getting the information… organically? synchronically? in a way which suggests me they’re all organic part of the e.g. describe character, I get to know them before I go to the end of the grammar sentence, so they’re a part of the story told to me by this sentence; if something is told after, then I assume it’s done on a purpose. But English does it differently, of course… Which is not to say it sounds unnaturally in your writing – I’d not be able to tell either way! I just I notice it now, after being told about it, and so I notice it in your writing, too.

j) Two interesting – not so much exceptions as variants – of the above themes are in the “but they’re not yours, they are my own” (aka Criminal Minds’ drabble) and “captivate the sweet machine” (the Jupiter Ascending drabble), perhaps because these are one of your earliest ones. In “but they’re not yours…” we have water, yup, and liminal space, yup the second, but not in starting adventure or dying situation – JJ’s liminal space is connected to death, absolutely, but in the worlds of traditions and archetypes she would be more of a guide, guiding the troubled souls to the afterlife via finding their murderer (and stopping them for hurting others – and here, a role of an angel, saving victims from a certain death, pulling them from liminal space back to life). Her adventure started long before drabble and is a circular one – the charm of episodic TV series. So, in this drabble, for her, the water and the liminal space it symbolises, it’s more like a ritual of cleansing, again, connected to death – ritually, she’d be cleansing herself after and because of the contact with the dead – but not in terms of her dying. In the case of Jupiter Ascending, the water being a symbol of re-birth is already present in the canon and the drabble isn’t about it, in theory… But Jupiter, even if her hero journey was done in the canon, tries some new things and chooses her next steps, here, tastes the family ties (and I love that it’s not specified who exactly she meant as “Mom”), and the water of rebirth – being cursed in the canon – is still the cursed thing in the drabble, too. The pool is a luminal space, but a luminal space of the dark queen, buying her long life with the deaths of young peasants, and buying it because she can’t accept her own death. The stream of life being absorbed instead of absorbing, the image of a sin or unnatural monstrosity across the (pop)culture (Lifestream in FFVII and Shinra, and Sephiroth!). It’s all canon and this is probably you wrote it this way, but still, an interesting variation.