May 2021 Madness Round

[morbane]

Madness will happen on this post and in its comments. Thanks for playing!

Getting concrit - Requesting Now Closed
Ask for concrit by replying to this post (until the end of May 31 - NOW PAST). Anyone's welcome, whether or not you just took part in the April round. If you did sign up, you're welcome to ask for concrit on the same or different pieces, or ask for responses to more specific or different questions or the same ones. Concrit is not guaranteed.

Please include:

• How you want to receive feedback - ie, by reply to your own comment, by posting a review where the work is published (AO3, ff.net, LJ...), or by another means. (Note: comments are not screened on this post, so if you post a contact detail, anyone can see it.)
• Any specific questions you want concrit-givers to focus on, and what level of bluntness you prefer, if relevant
• Which works you want feedback on, and if any of your works are "safe" or should be skipped over.
• What fandoms and content, roughly, your works contain - especially if asking for feedback on just a few pieces.

You can comment asking for concrit until the end of May 31 - NOW PAST in your time zone.

It's okay to be more specific about the kind of concrit you want in Madness than in a normal round. You might not get anything, but feel free to ask.

Please feel free to leave constructive criticism for those who have requested it in comments!

General feedback

If you have thoughts on this community's events or the April 2021 round, please leave your thoughts on the previous post, which is a feedback post.

If you are willing to provide feedback on the feedback you get - "Yes, this was what I was looking for / I was surprised you focused on this aspect / Actually, that wasn't quite what I was asking / etc" - consider saying so. Please be constructive in these replies as well.

If you don't want any more concrit, reply to your own comment to say so.

Comments

[eglantiere]

Ooooh, madness! Count me in!

1) Anything general about the shorter stories - here are stories between 1k and 4k, for reference

2) To steal a great question off the previous post: is there anything - a line, an image, a scene, a metaphor, an idea - in the fic you read that really stayed with you?

Any level of bluntness is okay! Comment anywhere you'd like.

[yelp]

Oh! I read "more than watchmen wait for the morning" during the concrit period! The thing I most remember is this image of the queen sitting in her prison/tower, all the other birds flying away at once, and the one remaining transforming into her daughter, probably still kind of hunched over, the two of them looking at each other. In my head it looked kind of like a classical painting!

From the first line, I found the writing in this really beautiful, both poetic and evocative. If I could offer one suggestion, I found the moment of transformation powerful but also a bit abrupt, like I haven't really caught up with the tragedy of their separation before it's already been resolved for me. Part of it is that the Queen is actively repressing the memories ("knows nothing, hopes for nothing"), but I wonder if it might be possible to foreshadow it somehow, e.g. give a sense of some absence, or have her narration about the seagulls be jarringly longing or affectionate in a way that would make us wonder. 

She wakes up to find her head pillowed on her daughter's knees. The wind still howls, but the sun is higher in the sky, and the ever-present salt in the air feels sharper. Being held is overwhelming.
I love how it feels like she's been distant from the world until now, blurred out somehow.

"I thought I killed you with my greed for you."
Ugh, this line really pained me, in a good way. The two of them discuss the spikes in the realistic understated dialogue of shared knowledge (and not wanting to put words to it), but paint a very vivid image of what happened nonetheless. 

I thought the ending was also lovely, open and implying change but content for now, perfect for a story of this length. 

[eglantiere]

Ohhh. It's about my third foray into OW, and it's super interesting to know what worked and what didn't. I think it was, essentially, two stories - of her loneliness and the sea/tower/birds imagery, and then of her daughter bursting back in - that could use some bridge in the middle, but I'm very pleased to know that the visuals and the overall... mood of this worked.

Thank you very much!