Concrit for ziskandra

[ziskandra]

I want to receive feedback by :
-Comment on my DW post in this community
-Comment where the work is published (AO3)

Here are the works I want feedback on:
Anything eligible that's complete, authored solely by me, and has been posted from 2017 onwards is fair game. Here's the link.

If you're having trouble deciding, here's a selection of works I'd be particularly interested in having critiqued:

Grounded (Mass Effect: Andromeda, Liam Kosta & his parents, 2.2k, M)
Retrospect (Mass Effect: Andromeda, Alec Ryder/Ellen Ryder, 10k words, M.)
Duty (Dragon Age, Loghain Mac Tir character study, 6k, M)
Aulia & Haidrul's Enchanted Weapons and Wares (Original Work, Daughter of a Blacksmith & Son of a Witch, 10k words, M.)
Best Served Hot (Ace Attorney, Franziska von Karma/Miles Edgeworth, 2k words, E.)

My works' fandoms and content notes are:
My main fandoms are Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Ace Attorney, Harry Potter and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The ratings on my fics range from G to E, with Major Character Death being the most frequently occurring archive warning. I like exploring messy, complicated relationships, but plot and pacing are probably my weak points.

I have these questions for readers:
(All of these questions are just suggestions; feel free to remark on whatever is most salient to you!)

1. What do you think of the prose? What worked for you, and what places are confusing and/or long-winded?
2. Do the characters' motivations/actions appear internally consistent through the story? Does their dialogue seem realistic?
3. What parts of my writing could afford to be embellished more? Are there leaps of logic that don't make sense to you as a reader? Conversely, is there anywhere I'm getting bogged down in over-explaining things or repeating obvious details?
4. Is there any aspects of the title/summaries/tagging of my works that could be improved?
5. What thoughts do you have on the plot and pacing? This is especially pertinent for more recent works, and/or works that are at least 1000 words. It's one of the weaknesses I've identified in my own writing and something I've been working towards improving in recent months.

The style of feedback I prefer to receive is:
Any is fine, so long as not solely negatives are listed. Also, please feel free to mention any SPAG issues you might notice, with the caveat that I probably won't edit them immediately. But I usually do minor edits on published works a few times a year, so I'll be able to fix anything up in my next sweep.

Comments to this post will be:
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Comments

Concrit for Aulia and Haidrul's Enchanted Weapons and Wares

[witchorvegan]

I really liked the tone of this - it's so warm and loving, and paints such a lovely picture of how much Aulia and Haidrul care for each other and how well they support each other. Both of them feel fully fleshed-out as characters and I really enjoyed getting to know them!

This fic does feel, to me, like two separate stories competing with each other. Every time it switched back to the present or into the past, I felt like I was being pulled away from what I really wanted to read. Both stories are very compelling, and that's why I wish one had been given the primary focus, so it could really shine.

It might be something to keep in mind going forward, if you have multiple ideas you're trying to work into one fic. (In this case, Aulia and Haidrul's story of their youth, and Kamaria's story of being told that story.) Do they compliment each other, or do they compete? Can you devote equal attention to them both? Here, Kamaria feels less developed than Aulia and Haidrul, almost more of a plot device than a person, like your attention wasn't really on her.

I want to repeat, though, that I really liked this fic, and the structure only started to nag at me as I sat down to deliberately pull it apart.

To specifically address some of your questions:

What do you think of the prose? What worked for you, and what places are confusing and/or long-winded? Your writing style is clear and easy to read; the prose never got in my way, and only caught my attention when it was with a particularly nice turn of phrase, rather than pulling me out of the story to puzzle over a sentence.

Do the characters' motivations/actions appear internally consistent through the story? For Aulia and Haidrul, yes. Not only do their past selves have clear and consistent motives, but it's very easy to see their young selves aging into the characters in the present day of the fic.

Does their dialogue seem realistic? There are some places where they seem to be saying what you need them to say, rather than what they would want to say in that moment; I noticed this primarily in the present day segments. A few examples:

“I suppose you’re going to tell me about cleansing the house next,” she ventured.

“I can see you thinking,” Aulia said, her eyes twinkling once more, “do I still have the amulet now?”

“It paved the way for what came next,” she agreed.

There are present day segments that don't draw attention to the fact that the past segments are a story being told in the present, so the dialogue that only serves to reinforce that framing caught my attention.

That said, the dialogue in the past segments is solid and enjoyable to read!

What parts of my writing could afford to be embellished more? Are there leaps of logic that don't make sense to you as a reader? Conversely, is there anywhere I'm getting bogged down in over-explaining things or repeating obvious details? I think you hit just the right balance between detail and sparsity, actually. Setting and action are always as clear as they need to be, and when you do linger on details they feel worthy of the attention.

[adriennefae]

I picked "The Arrangement."

"Amelia Bones had looked down at him, over the rim of her spectacles, and Percy had wanted to crawl into his chair, have it swallowed up by the floor beneath him." You do a great job in the whole beginning part of showing how upsetting and overwhelming this all is for Percy, and really how young and inexperienced he is at this point in his life.

There are a couple of minor phrasing things I might change, like “obvious changes” and “obvious problems” close together in the same sentence. There are also a few SPAG issues (a couple of misspellings of Dumbledore’s name, “there was to be no further extravagances,” “a bit more closer,” “a reminder of the way he had different from his peers”).

Going forward, I like the way his thoughts go off to things like his shoes and he keeps trying to remind himself that the important thing is that Crouch died. Very realistic and makes total sense. And then when he compares himself to Crouch and tries to push that thought away too. Dumbledore’s actual entrance almost seems a little anticlimactic after how in-depth you’ve been going with Percy’s internal experience up to that point.

Dumbledore cutting Percy off when Percy tries to thank him and just getting straight to what’s relevant to him seems very in character. As does the throwaway mention of the ballroom dancing lesson.

I’m not sure what “at least Mrs. Bones hadn’t dissolved into tears in hole hugging him” means, if that’s a typo or just a phrase I’m not familiar with.

"Percy bit his tongue so often these days." I like this observation and the way it’s separated out as its own line.

Brief as McGonagall’s appearance is, I think it’s well placed and says a lot - you can tell she knows something of what’s going on, and is concerned for Percy

I also very much like this conversation in Dumbledore’s office - the casual way Dumbledore offers candy and the way Percy sees it, the contrast he draws in his mind between Dumbledore’s Gryffindor values and Percy’s own “more political ambition” which he sees as more of a Slytherin trait despite also being a Gryffindor himself. The reference to Percy’s childhood awareness of the first war and specifically him hearing about his uncles dying, which is something we know happened in canon but is never given much more than a throwaway line in the books if I remember correctly, but is treated as something that had a bigger impact on him here which I like.

I think some of the things that were stated in that last section could have been shown to us in Percy and Dumbledore’s conversation instead of being summarized at the end like that. It almost feels a little rushed/glossed over.

That said, though, I really liked this fic - the premise, the characterization, the dialogue and Percy's internal emotions are all written very well.