Concrit for Soryenn

[soryenn]

I want to receive feedback by : Email, Discord PM, Comment on my DW post in this community

Here are the works I want feedback on (optional: and my safe works are...): Anything on this list!

My works' fandoms and content notes are: Fandoms are Gundam Wing (5), YuGiOh!DM (3), X/1999 (1), Simoun (1), Rogue One (3), A Song of Ice and Fire (1), Monkey Island (1) and Original Work (1).
All works rated G or T. Pairings are M/M, F/F, M/M/M and M/M/F.

I have these questions for readers:
- How is the characterization? Do the characters feel likable? Can you relate to their emotions, and in general, are the emotions well conveyed or not?
- Are my in medias res beginnings working? How can I make the endings better?
- Can you follow what’s going on in action scenes? Is my general lack of descriptions an issue?
- Are there parts that left you confused? I usually leave a lot unsaid to leave room for interpretation, but do I leave too much unsaid?
- How can I make better summaries? I also have issues choosing tags, so any help with that would be appreciated.
- And/or anything else you want to point out and that I'm not thinking of!

The style of feedback I prefer to receive is:
- Direct and geared towards improvement would be best: tell me what works and how I can do better for what doesn’t.
- A note on SPAG: I’m ESL. Please tell me if there are misused punctuation, awkward sentences, words I’ve mistaken for others, etc. (especially for repeating mistakes), I'd really appreciate it. If you want to do only SPAG concrit, I’ll be super fine with that as well. (Except for All Three of Our Hearts and Cherry Blossoms and Camellias which have been SPAG-checked by a native speaker already)

Comments to this post will be: Unscreened

Comments

[ember_keelty]

Hello! Here is line-by-line concrit for Trailblazers. For context, I have seen Simoun, but it was about a decade ago, and my memory of it is a bit fuzzy.

“You’re tired from the day, the fatigue makes you more sensitive to cold.”

This is a comma splice. Either change the comma to a period and break it into two sentences, or add an "and" or a "so" between the comma and "the fatigue".

Curious eyes lifted to meet hers, but Rimone didn’t comment, only thanked her.

A bit awkwardly phrased. I got tripped up wondering whose eyes were lifting to meet whose before deciding that Rimone must be looking up at Dominura, because there's no way I can picture this scene where Dominura is the one positioned lower down. So I guess Rimone is curious about why Dominura is being so nice to her, but just thanks her instead of commenting on the level of niceness being unusual?

“Come in,” Dominura said.

Rimone slipped in without a word and settled in her arms.

“What’s wrong?”

It was unlike her younger partner to seek comfort in such an open manner, even exhausted as she was.

Only silence and distant thunder answered her. She was dozing off when she finally heard her whisper.

“It reminds me of those nights on the Messis.”

I would regroup these paragraphs to more clearly show who's talking, like so:

“Come in,” Dominura said. Rimone slipped in without a word and settled in her arms. “What’s wrong?” It was unlike her younger partner to seek comfort in such an open manner, even exhausted as she was.

Only silence and distant thunder answered her. She was dozing off when she finally heard her whisper, “It reminds me of those nights on the Messis.”

Or maybe, if you want to have the rhythm of the paragraphs demonstrate the beats of silence:

“Come in,” Dominura said.

Rimone slipped in without a word and settled in her arms.

“What’s wrong?” It was unlike her younger partner to seek comfort in such an open manner, even exhausted as she was.

Only silence and distant thunder answered her.

Dominura was dozing off when she finally heard Rimone whisper, “It reminds me of those nights on the Messis.”

With the names used again after the paragraph break to reorient the reader.

The following day, she would feel her eyes never leaving her, as if she was afraid she would vanish.

Another mildly disorienting, "Wait, who's doing what?" sentence. I first read it as Dominura keeping her eyes on Rimone, before realizing it would make more sense for the kid who'd had a nightmare to be worried about her partner vanishing.

Rimone never told her what the nightmares were about; she didn’t need to.

The war?

Dominura hold her tighter

Should be "held," past tense.

In the evenings, and whenever Aina’s mother requested it, they’d sang.

Should be "they sang." There's no need for past perfect here.

Dominura noticed the patterns she was absently drawing in the snow, but said nothing.

Aw, practicing ri majon in the snow! That is cute and clever. Must be kind of limiting only having two dimensions to work with, though.

she said: “I think you should teach them.”

Should be a comma, not a colon. Only use a colon to introduce speech after a word that isn't a verb.

Again, each line of dialogue does not have to be its own paragraph. You can group it together with actions, and doing so can make it easier for readers to keep track of the back-and-forth. I would make the following edits:

Rimone frowned. “I’m not flying if you’re not there with me. You’re my Pair.”

And:

“Yes.” Dominura was smiling at her, a hint of the way she would carry herself when they first met in her pose.

There's more sections like these throughout the work where I would suggest grouping together paragraphs when people are talking and performing actions at close to the same time, but since it's a subjective stylistic thing, I'm not going to keep pointing them out. I hope the few examples I've given up to this point give you an idea of what I'm talking about. If you want to see more, let me know and I'll go back and find some.

she said: “I’ll teach, then.”

Comma, not colon.

She had tried to draw the moves on the ground. Then she had tried to mimic the moves with rocks in her hands, but that only worked for Ri Majon that didn’t involve more than two Simouns.

Ha, yeah, I called it about the 2D versus 3D problem! Good detail.

in a way or another

The idiom is, "in one way or another".

do good to Rimone

Should be "do Rimone good" or "be good for Rimone".

She knew finding a way to thank everyone for all they did for them since their arrival had been a recurrent worry of hers.

Aw, poor Rimone. This fic has shown she's been more than pulling her weight! It's kind of sad to think all the cool, helpful stuff she's been doing has been partly motivated by insecurity. (Which I also had no idea about until this line spelling it out. You asked about getting across feelings, so I guess one thing you could do if you wanted to dive more into this part is show Rimone emoting while she's helping people or reacting to their reactions to her helpfulness, instead of just describing the things she does and then having Dominura fill us in about her motives.)

I don’t have the books, I don’t even have paper I could draw on.

Comma splice. Should be a period breaking it into two sentences.

And we can’t travel the country and every village to explain, either.

And, huh, this doesn't sound like it's about wanting to pay back people who have helped her! If that's the main thing driving her, I would think she'd be more focused on helping the people in the village where she's staying specifically. I wonder what's driving her to feel like she's responsible for upgrading technology for the whole country.

“Really? You found candies?”

“Really.”

Rimone opened the bag, letting the candies fall in her hand. They were red, orange and yellow supple ribbons. She picked a dark red one and nibbled at it. It tasted almost bitter at first, then just sweet. She closed her eyes, savouring the taste she had missed so much.

Now I'm curious why candies are hard to come by and how Dominura got some! Either one of those on its own wouldn't raise any questions, but putting them together implies that something changed. Did Dominura go out of her way searching markets she wouldn't normally visit? That would be kind of romantic! Or are they only available in a certain season, fitting with that overarching motif of the story?

I can’t come back there

"I can't go back there" would be the more typical way to phrase this.

Is this their first kiss? (edit: Apparently not! But I'll still leave my initial reaction to it here in case that's helpful to you.) I would have liked to see more of Dominura's thoughts and feelings as she decided to go for it, as well as Rimone's reaction. Kissing just because is a subtantial shift in the nature of their relationship, isn't it? In a story that's about their relationship shifting, I think that warrants delving into.

Some of them, like Shanna and Aina were only there to support their sisters,

There should be another comma after "Aina" to set off the appositive phrase.

Each time, they patiently explained, and each time new girls they met left their home with their parents’ blessings to follow them.

Hm... I really wonder how they feel about that responsibility, given the complexity of what it meant to be Sybillae in their own time.

Oh, okay, so the candy kiss wasn't their first, and the first kiss happened before the start of the story, and we're flashing back to it now. That means I've been reading the arc of their relationship wrong this whole time. I kind of assumed since it's tagged "partners to lovers" that the story would be about that happening. But I guess they've been lovers since before the autumn harvest scene and I just... didn't get that? I have to admit, I don't really understand what the point of structuring it like this was supposed to be.

praying the skies

Should be "praying to the skies".

A couple of years later, the elder council had decided they wanted to build something bigger to thank Tempus Spatium, and there she had been, inside the chapel, placing flower bouquets for the official opening on the following day.

Huh, and this is even before they started teaching girls to fly, because that only happened this past year. Was all this just in response to Dominura and Rimone showing up? That does explain Rimone feeling anxiety about whether or not she's giving enough back to the community, I guess.

“It’s been a long time since I haven’t been able to pray like this,”

Should be "It's been a long time since I've been able to pray like this," or, "I haven't been able to pray like this in a long time."

When you’ll be ready, we’ll go together.

Should be, "When you're ready, we'll go together."

Aw, so Rimone initiated the first kiss! That feels appropriate. I'm glad that you did go into her feelings in that moment, but I would have liked to see more of Dominura's reaction.

“Let’s come back home, then.”

Again, the more typical way to say this would be, "Let's go back home."

And now a few final thoughts to try to answer some of your questions that I didn't address in the line-by-line commentary. The sparse description was not a problem for me. For one thing, the seasonal setting details did the job of making the story feel grounded in a particular place and not like the characters were just floating in an abstract void. For another, this fic didn't really have any action scenes or other bits where being able to visualize things was important to understanding the story, so I guess that makes it a good fit for your style. What I thought fit a bit less well for a slice of life story about a developing romance was the also somewhat sparse emotional detail. On the other hand, I remember the Simoun anime itself also being a bit emotionally understated, so perhaps you were just matching the tone of canon.

Also, I'm left wondering if they ever got the mills sorted out!

[soryenn]

Hi! Thank you very much for your concrit, and my apologies for not answering sooner.

The comma splices! I love my commas too much. Thank you for explaining those because it never clicked in my head before.

So I guess Rimone is curious about why Dominura is being so nice to her, but just thanks her instead of commenting on the level of niceness being unusual? > That's absolutely what happens. I edited to made it clearer.

The punctuation rules trip me so much that I had slipped into separating each sentence spoken from each action in order to avoid making mistakes with those.
Your examples are very clear and this helps me a lot.

I first read it as Dominura keeping her eyes on Rimone, before realizing it would make more sense for the kid who'd had a nightmare to be worried about her partner vanishing. > That's what happens, also edited it for clarity.

Rimone never told her what the nightmares were about; she didn’t need to. / The war? > I was actually intending for the nightmares to be about Dominura's near dying after she looked into the Helical Motoris, hence why she was scared of Dominura's disappearing. In the show, she states that Dominura has the eyes of someone who is going to die, and for a kid this young this must have left a mark.

Should be a comma, not a colon. > I actually found out about this at some point in 2022 (the first punctuation guide I stumbled upon was... not good). I cringed reading it, so at least some progress is being made.

Ha, yeah, I called it about the 2D versus 3D problem! Good detail. > =D

You asked about getting across feelings, so I guess one thing you could do if you wanted to dive more into this part is show Rimone emoting while she's helping people or reacting to their reactions to her helpfulness, instead of just describing the things she does and then having Dominura fill us in about her motives. > I did a bit of that (like her frustration with not being able to teach the kids properly), but obviously not enough. I focused more on the Dominura/Rimone relationship but I see now that it's lacking there, too.

I wonder what's driving her to feel like she's responsible for upgrading technology for the whole country. > What Dominura saw in the Helical Motoris was them teaching people to control Simouns, eventually building up to the war. At the end of the show, they're depicted as having accepted this as their "mission" (Rimone deals with this in the last ep) so I thought it'd made sense for them to gradually build to this since it's set during the time skip.
Rimone does want to pay back for the help she's been given, but she also has a "mission" to spread the knowledge about Simouns.

Now I'm curious why candies are hard to come by and how Dominura got some! > I did some research on how candies could be made in a pre-industrial society like early Simulacrum is. So those are fruit jellies, because that's one of the easiest thing to make, and they are seasonal (yes, that's to fit the theme).

Is this their first kiss? > True! I thought I made it clear from the ellipses that a lot of development is not mentioned, since we skip multiple months each time to cover the seven years.
But I didn't have any flashbacks before the last one, so I agree it's confusing. I'm giving myself some time to decide if I want to restructure it or let it be.

Was all this just in response to Dominura and Rimone showing up? > This is happening roughly in the middle of the time skip so they started the teaching, if not the actual flying. People of the village they're living in are shown to have this level of reverence for them in the finale, but they're also building a temple for their deity. It's not to thank them, but to thank Tempus Spatium (for everything, since it seems to be their only deity).

What I thought fit a bit less well for a slice of life story about a developing romance was the also somewhat sparse emotional detail. On the other hand, I remember the Simoun anime itself also being a bit emotionally understated, so perhaps you were just matching the tone of canon. Both! Simoun is emotionally understated, so it fits my writing style well, which is also quite subdued. It works here, although from your comments I can see some parts could have been more emotional, but it comes off as lacking for other canons.

Also, I'm left wondering if they ever got the mills sorted out! > They did, after they started dismantling the Similes. At least that's how I see the population eventually getting to Helical Motoris-powered boats and trains.

Thank you again! I edited the fic along with your corrections and this was very educational.
Hope you're having a wonderful day!

Concrit for On The Edge

[unspeakablehorror]

Hi, here is concrit for On The Edge.

Having seen Rogue One twice, I have enough background to understand who these characters are and how you've changed their trajectories.

- How is the characterization? Do the characters feel likable? Can you relate to their emotions, and in general, are the emotions well conveyed or not?

I do get some sense of the different character personalities here. Likable is a quite variable quality depending a lot on reader preference. Many of the characters I personally 'like' are often those I would loathe if I could somehow meet them in real life, but I can also find more laudable characters interesting. Cassian and Jyn's backgrounds are intriguing to me, and I like K2SO a lot. Bodhi is a lot more of a cipher to me--I just didn't get as much of an impression of him as an individual from the movie. So I think it could be interesting to fill in some more details about him, either from your own speculations and extrapolations or from other canon materials. I thought it made sense that Cassian and Jyn would be more aggressive in arguments than Bodhi from what I know of their personalities, which is what you presented here. I would have enjoyed getting a little more details of their argument dialogue before the trail off.

In general I often don't relate to character's emotions so much as I either do or don't enjoy them being played out. What I enjoy most are the tensions and conflicts between characters and how those are (or aren't) resolved. Here Cassian, Jyn, and K2SO provide a decent amount of tension and conflict in their interactions between each other and with Bodhi. I felt that their emotions for each other and their situation were fairly clear. I think you captured a clear polyship dynamic here. It's clear they all have feelings for each other. My understanding from the tags and story content is that this is where Bodhi admits his feelings and finds out they are reciprocated.

Personally I'd like to see a bit more of Bodhi's thought process here leading up to his declaration.


- Are my in medias res beginnings working? How can I make the endings better?


I think where you started is perfectly fine. Your ending makes sense as well, though I'd enjoy a little more interaction between them and K2SO.


- Can you follow what’s going on in action scenes? Is my general lack of descriptions an issue?


Yes, I can follow the action scenes well enough, though more context wouldn't hurt, either. I'm a big fan of action, so I like to get the details on what's going on, especially things that help increase the tension, like when characters are discovered, barely escaping a deadly attack, or escaping somewhere just in time to avoid death. Drawing out the scene where Jyn, Cassian and Bodhi successfully neutralize the droid and think they're safe only to be attacked shortly after, for example, could increase the narrative impact of that scene.

I think more description in certain areas could improve the story, particularly more detail in the action scenes as mentioned earlier, the dialogue, and the character's thoughts. Of course it's also important not to make such things overly detailed to the point it breaks suspension of disbelief, but I think there's room to add a little extra here and there.

Some miscellaneous description thoughts:

"Cursing Agaris’ climate, Cassian wipes his forehead with his sleeve for what seems to be the hundredth time today."

This sentence starts out with the very general 'Cursing Agaris' climate...'. I think it would do better with the specifics put first, maybe something like this:

"Cassian wipes his forehead with his sleeve for what seems to be the hundredth time today, cursing the climate of Agaris."

Climate could also be replaced with a more specific word or phrase like 'muggy' or 'stifling' heat.

You could also mention insects, which are generally common in hot, moist areas, and large mushrooms, which Wookiepedia indicates are prominent and large on this planet, based on the cover of a comic it features in.


- Are there parts that left you confused? I usually leave a lot unsaid to leave room for interpretation, but do I leave too much unsaid?


Was a little confused by this part:
"Later, as they finally reach their ship, panting and not a little bruised, Cassian kisses him hard against the closing door, trembling hands holding on to his jacket like a lifeline."

Agaris sounds sweltering, so why was Cassian still wearing a jacket? Not completely implausible, I guess, but he doesn't always wear a jacket in the movie either, and it seems like having just come out of sweltering heat combined with exertion would be good reasons not to wear one.

But overall I don't find the story particularly confusing or difficult to follow. I'd love to see more dialogue between the characters and internal ruminations, though. Dialogue responding to their current situation can help add depth to character interactions while still leaving a lot to interpretation since characters generally don't just say everything that comes to mind. And sometimes it's interesting to explore what a character says vs what they think.


- How can I make better summaries? I also have issues choosing tags, so any help with that would be appreciated.


Summary and tags seemed quite adequate to me.

"AU: Somehow, they survived Scarif."

Clear and to the point! I like it!


- And/or anything else you want to point out and that I'm not thinking of!


I probably wouldn't have noticed that you weren't a native English speaker if you hadn't mentioned it--your English seems pretty good, and in general I've seen enough overlap between the types of errors native speakers make and the types foreign speakers make in my time as a reader of various texts that I've started to doubt my ability to reliably distinguish between the two. Still, most works have a few SPAG errors, so here's a couple I noticed here:

“I had backup plans, just not one specifically for being stuck there,” Cassian answers through gritted teeth.

This should say 'stuck here' instead. Here always refers to the place the speaker/thinker currently is at, there to some place they are not currently at.

Also this:

“The death time confession,” Cassian answers in a ragged breath.

should maybe say something like "That dying confession" or maybe "Waiting until you think you're about to die to say something like that". I don't think 'death time' is either grammatically correct here or an informal speech pattern I'd expect in this context.

I don't think any of that's a huge deal, but I thought I'd mention it since you mentioned being interested in SPAG errors.

Overall, I enjoyed that this story combined the romance with action and a specific goal (uploading K2SO to a new body), and just would have liked to see a little more of what the characters were thinking and saying about either of those things, and maybe a bit more detail on the action scenes.

Re: Concrit for On The Edge

[soryenn]

Hi! Thank you very much for your concrit, and my apologies for not answering sooner.

I think you captured a clear polyship dynamic here. It's clear they all have feelings for each other. My understanding from the tags and story content is that this is where Bodhi admits his feelings and finds out they are reciprocated. Personally I'd like to see a bit more of Bodhi's thought process here leading up to his declaration.

Ah, great! Polyship dynamic can be tricky to set up in a short piece so I'm glad it worked well here. Agreed that I could have been closer in POV and detailed his thoughts more.

I think more description in certain areas could improve the story, particularly more detail in the action scenes as mentioned earlier, the dialogue, and the character's thoughts.

I know this is one of my weaknesses, but I'm glad it didn't stop you from understanding/enjoying the story. Thank you for the details examples, those are very useful. I did saw the mushrooms, I remember that... and yet somehow they never ended up in the story.
As for Cassian's jacket as you mention a bit farther... I could pretend it's a sci-fi cooling jacket but the truth is that I forgot.

Dialogue responding to their current situation can help add depth to character interactions while still leaving a lot to interpretation since characters generally don't just say everything that comes to mind.

Yes, and I do love playing with that. I just end up with a lot more unsaid than is desirable.

Since my usual process is writing down the actions beats + dialogue then doing multiple passes during which I detail thoughts and actions, I think adding a few more passes is probably the way to go.

I corrected the mistake on "stuck there" and am trying to think on a suitable alternative to "death time". I rather liked it, so it's a kill your darlings time for me. XD

Thank you again! This was very useful. Hope you have a wonderful day!