Hello! I’m just about familiar with Raffles so I had a look at Lovely on the Water. You pull off the pastiche really well and the subtle references to Raffles and Bunny’s relationship blend in very effectively. I think that can be one of the real challenges of the “pastiche but make it more overtly slashy” style, but none of it seems out of place here. Beyond that, you evoke the setting very well in the way you refer to the seasons and all the features of the natural world. It made me feel very nostalgic about the short time I spent living in south-east England even if it was over a century later!
I’m really impressed by how you mimic Hornung’s writing style; there were a few things that I thought might not be quite right, but when I looked back at the canon I found the same features there. There was just one thing – to be very pedantic! – that seemed slightly off to me, which was your use of “agreed” as a quotative, in the phrase “agreed Raffles”. It just didn’t sound quite right to me, especially in that inverted format, and when I had a look over the canon it seemed like the verbs typically used in that phrase related more directly to the act of speaking: I found “cried”, “murmured”, “whispered”, “continued”, “exclaimed”, and “laughed”, as well as the obvious “said”. To me, “agreed” doesn’t quite fit in with those – it seems less directly related to speaking, I think. I feel like that’s a ludicrously specific point to make, but I hope it doesn’t seem too out of place.
I think the second angst section (by which I mean from “I was unable to stand the continual lightness of his tone” to the end) blends in with the plot very well, and the story transitions effectively from more action-driven to more emotion-driven material; I was slightly less sure about the similar earlier section (from “That book of yours” to the end of that scene). I just wondered if the scene could be expanded slightly, and perhaps made a bit less subtle in places, to really root it in the story and make it clear how the characters feel at this point. When Raffles says “had we known that such a to-morrow as this were to follow”, I just feel like it would be good to have slightly detail on why this is significant at this point, and what Raffles understands his own assertion to mean.
Overall, as I said, I’m very impressed by how you pull off the style! You clearly know this canon extremely well, and you write for it with a lot of skill.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-07-24 10:32 pm (UTC)Hello! I’m just about familiar with Raffles so I had a look at Lovely on the Water. You pull off the pastiche really well and the subtle references to Raffles and Bunny’s relationship blend in very effectively. I think that can be one of the real challenges of the “pastiche but make it more overtly slashy” style, but none of it seems out of place here. Beyond that, you evoke the setting very well in the way you refer to the seasons and all the features of the natural world. It made me feel very nostalgic about the short time I spent living in south-east England even if it was over a century later!
I’m really impressed by how you mimic Hornung’s writing style; there were a few things that I thought might not be quite right, but when I looked back at the canon I found the same features there. There was just one thing – to be very pedantic! – that seemed slightly off to me, which was your use of “agreed” as a quotative, in the phrase “agreed Raffles”. It just didn’t sound quite right to me, especially in that inverted format, and when I had a look over the canon it seemed like the verbs typically used in that phrase related more directly to the act of speaking: I found “cried”, “murmured”, “whispered”, “continued”, “exclaimed”, and “laughed”, as well as the obvious “said”. To me, “agreed” doesn’t quite fit in with those – it seems less directly related to speaking, I think. I feel like that’s a ludicrously specific point to make, but I hope it doesn’t seem too out of place.
I think the second angst section (by which I mean from “I was unable to stand the continual lightness of his tone” to the end) blends in with the plot very well, and the story transitions effectively from more action-driven to more emotion-driven material; I was slightly less sure about the similar earlier section (from “That book of yours” to the end of that scene). I just wondered if the scene could be expanded slightly, and perhaps made a bit less subtle in places, to really root it in the story and make it clear how the characters feel at this point. When Raffles says “had we known that such a to-morrow as this were to follow”, I just feel like it would be good to have slightly detail on why this is significant at this point, and what Raffles understands his own assertion to mean.
Overall, as I said, I’m very impressed by how you pull off the style! You clearly know this canon extremely well, and you write for it with a lot of skill.