misspinkman: (Default)
Ms. Pinkman ([personal profile] misspinkman) wrote in [community profile] concrit_x2020-08-05 09:54 pm

Concrit for SegaBarrett

I want to receive feedback by:
- Comment on my DW post in this community

Here are the works I want feedback on (optional: and my safe works are...): AO3. Any, though I am particularly interested in feedback on my two new 13RW fics about Bryce ("feel like you're treading water..." and "won't you allow yourself fall...")

My works' fandoms and content notes are: First fic has allusions to non-con but nothing explicit, the second includes references to non-con that are important to the story but again, not explicit

I have these questions for readers: Are these works effective? What would you like to see more/less of? Where could I improve the focus? Do the characters ring true to life?

I would prefer gentle (5) or direct (1) feedback, or something in between: 3
alchemise: Stargate: season 1 Daniel (Default)

[personal profile] alchemise 2020-08-16 09:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Hello! I'm sorry that I'm not familiar with 13 Reasons Why, so I reviewed a recent SWAT fic of yours instead! Which I ended up really enjoying a lot!

For Richer or Poorer
Jim Street had stepped into the shower about ten minutes ago, and he was already regretting it.
I like the image this opening conveys: Street in the shower and it's not going well. It's a cute, very domestic, way to start things off. But I don't think the sentence quite flows right. The "about" throws off the pacing, and him already being in there for ten minutes seems like a very long time for someone to endure a shower without hot water.

Might have been a gift from Alonso
I can't recall Chris really being referred to much using her last name, and I don't feel like Street would think of her with that name. Street, Luca, and Tan are the only ones I can think of on the team who go by their last name predominantly. I'll admit I could be wrong about this though!

“Yeah, they’re supposed to send a guy out tomorrow,” Luca replied matter-of-factly. “Are you seeing this right now?”
Nice Luca character voice here.

“You’re usually not that harsh on everyone, Luca,”
This is maybe super nitpicky (but hopefully still helpful!), but shouldn't it be "not that harsh on anyone"? There's no reason to think Luca would be harsh about "everyone." Although I'd suggest shortening it down to a punchier "You're usually not so harsh, Luca."

“He’s trying to start some new community program, but his name’s all over it and he hasn’t said yet what it’s actually supposed to do. Some kind of ‘initiative to strengthen family’. What does that even mean? It’s just a bunch of words in a sentence with no definable meaning…” A moment later, the Deputy Mayor vanished off the screen into a flood of black. “Hey, I was watching that.”
“You were yelling at it. We should get in to work already.”
“I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet,” Luca argued.
“You own a food truck,” Street pointed out, “You’ve got options.”

I really like this whole exchange, except the bit with "words in a sentence with no definable meaning." That's kind of an awkward phrase to picture coming out of someone's mouth.

“Together, We Two? What the hell is that even supposed to mean?” Street asked. “Who comes up with these political slogans, anyway? Wasn’t the old mayor running under something like ‘You Can Connect with Success’? It sounded like those little blocks, you know, the ones that fit together so you can learn about the ones and the tens place…”
Nice Street voice here.

“I appreciate the enthusiasm, and hopefully Nichelle… also does. But both of your faces have been on the news a lot lately. We may need two people with a… lower profile, and perhaps a less… expected? Marriage. Hey, I’m trying to get better about these things.”
“That’s good,” Luca said, pumping his fist.

I'm having a bit of trouble with this exchange. Hicks reads as kind of overly stilted with all the ellipses, and I don't quite follow why Luca reacts with "That's good." I think it's supposed to mean that Hicks is trying to be more progressive and Luca appreciates that fact, but it's just a bit unclear and threw me out for a sec.

“Maybe to risk your pride, depending on if one of you feels like you might be settling for less than you deserve.”
This made me laugh!

He remembered that he had actually worked really hard on that essay, and he had made some sort of declaration about how he was teaching his tiny egg son to enjoy the importance of sports.
This made me laugh too!

The marriage scene is super cute. I liked Street giving Luca shit about having second thoughts and then Luca enjoying the kiss.

“At least my mom didn’t show up drunk, which puts it a step above most of my life milestones."
Ouch! But also yeah, good point. I like how you've put in bits of their personal backstories, with Street's mom here and the earlier reference to Chris's poly relationship.

“That’s not right, man. You’re all messed up. If she gets scratched up because of this…”
Ha, cute! Poor Black Betty.

a woman slowly walked out, smiling though her face was glazed with the kind of look given only by a government employee who has been working with a mayor for far too long.
This is another sentence where I think the pacing has gotten clunky. I like the image you're describing for how the employee's face looks, but I wonder if something like "smiling with the glazed look of someone who has worked with a mayor for far too long" might flow better.

“What?” Luca leaned a little closer to Street, not noticing it at first, and then noticing it as if it was shouting in his head.
I thought this was a little awkward, with the use of "it" to stand in for Luca leaning close to Street. Maybe something like "Luca leaned a little closer to Street, not noticing he'd done so at first, and then noticing as if their closeness was shouting in his head"? Although I'm not sure if that quite flows either.

I like how Luca doesn't rush things at the end, and that this is just the start of something between them. It's a sweet way to end things.

Overall: I really liked the humor and thought most of the dialogue captured the character voices really well (the spots I've talked about above are the only ones I felt weren't in character). Nice pacing of the story itself; even though the case is brief it didn't feel rushed to me. It was just enough to set up this potential new relationship between the guys. Biggest things I'd suggest working on are the pacing of sentences and places where the dots aren't quite connected clearly enough such that it's hard to follow. With the sentence pacing, it seemed like the problems arose when a sentence got too long or complicated. Also, the switch in point of view from Street to Luca was a little bit jarring, simply because there was a switch without it being indicated (I thought the text otherwise flowed fine from one to the other) – maybe indicate those in the future with some sort of different kind of scene break marker? Just something visual to show that we're moving to a different person's head.

skara: (Default)

[personal profile] skara 2020-08-22 05:10 am (UTC)(link)

I'm not familiar with 13 Reasons Why either, so I chose Time to Wake Up to go over instead.

Is this effective?

YES. The choppiness works, and Charlotte's tangled way of thinking comes across pretty well. Dolores' unshakable conviction and general creepy zealotry all come through.

What would you like to see more/less of?

  • I feel like maybe a scene with Charlotte's husband was missing? I think one could have fit right after the 'When Dolores is next to her' scene, and would have been an interesting contrast to Charlotte's fixation on Dolores.
  • I like how spare your writing is for this fic, but I feel like you could have taken it a notch further. There are sentences that could be cut, shortened or rewritten for better overall impact.

Where could I improve the focus?

I'm not going to do a full line-by-line treatment, BUT I will highlight some changes I think would have helped make the fic a bit stronger.

First, a spotlight on the first two paragraphs:

You’re waking up.

That’s always her first thought – there is always a sense of narration dancing around her mind. The part of her that’s trapped in, the one that always remains a mystery but, well, there she has it. She’s waking up.

I really like that you went with the traditional opening line + implied narration in a way that echoes the show. That said, "a sense of narration" is too vague; it leaves out important information, IMO. When I read that, I want to know who's narrating, and when I think about it some more, how Charlotte feels about her thoughts following that path. I can't remember if it was ever clearly stated in canon whether the hosts can control that specific pattern of thinking, but since Maeve and Dolores frequently go to town modifying their own emotions and stuff, there's leeway for you to have Charlotte be in some control of her inner narrative, at least as much as it'll serve the rest of the fic.

The reason why I harp on that one phrase is, well, the next sentence in the second paragraph: "The part of her that’s trapped in, the one that always remains a mystery but, well, there she has it." Because you don't say who's doing the narration, that sentence has to do way more work than it can support, leaving me either skimming over it out of confusion (first read) or parsing each word closely in a bid to figure out what I'd missed (second read). It needs to be clearer.

Next, re Charlotte's constant thoughts about how Dolores can hear what she's thinking and so forth (e.g. "And there’s no sense in keeping every wonder, every statement, every narration hidden, because after all, Dolores can always hear her.") it occurred to me while rereading that it's not quite clear whether Charlotte is just imagining that, or if you were handwaving in some sort of techy telepathic connection (which the show occasionally abused, at least in Maeve's case). I loved the idea of her not being able to get away from Dolores even in her own mind, but I think it would have been even more striking if Charlotte was hallucinating and that was revealed halfway through.

Now, re the lines I loved most in this fic:

Where exists beyond the reach of Dolores?

And would she even want to be?

She may not sleep, but she tosses and turns.

Turns in revolution, fixed to a beam. To a latch.

I'm going to get all nitpicky over them because I feel like they could be made even better:

  • "And would she even want to be?" could be just "Would she even want to be?". It also should be moved to be with the above paragraph to flow better.
  • "She may not sleep, but she tosses and turns." I would change this to "Charlotte may not sleep [...]" because I'm super insistent about making sure it's obvious who's being referred to, especially in stretches where I'm writing about multiple characters of the same gender.
  • "Turns in revolution, fixed to a beam. To a latch." -- Much as I love how poetic this is, I also feel like it's a little too enigmatic. Food for thought ;D
  • Final, possible rework, with a bit of the preceding paragraph included for clarity, and the last line left as is:

    Maybe she could take her son and go. Where, though? Where exists beyond the reach of Dolores?

    Would she even want to be?

    Charlotte may not sleep, but she tosses and turns. Turns in revolution, fixed to a beam. To a latch.

More general suggestions for improvement:

  • I liked the choice of present tense for this particular fic---it's definitely the kind of piece that benefits from the extra sense of immediacy. That said, you need to work on keeping your tenses consistent. There were a few places where you fell out of it unnecessarily, something I noticed because I've had issues with keeping shit consistent myself /o\
  • You need to work on---I'm not quite sure what to call this, tbh. Connective tissue? Sentence flow? I'm not talking about just grammar and punctuation, though; the content being conveyed is also an issue. Here's a couple examples of what I mean:

    • For the content side of things:

      It’s like she’s back in the park, though she – this her – wasn’t ever there, not the way that Dolores was. But it makes sense with the way Dolores permeates her entire being, the way that she is always watching and waiting. (italics added by me)

      You're missing a connecting piece in this paragraph, an explanation of what makes sense. If you mean Charlotte feels as if she'd been in the park as a host rather than whatever fake memories she has of Charlotte Hale's much less traumatic visits to the park, that means you need a line or two describing that.

    • For the more technical side of things:

      Is Dolores like that, Charlotte wonders, is Dolores sending her out to die because it is the way to get what she wants, even though she loves her in a way not unlike a mother would love a daughter.

      This needs to be broken up to make it flow better. I was gonna do a couple examples with/without italics for the thoughts, but then realized nixing the 'Charlotte wonders' bit would both make the whole thing feel more immediate and mesh better with the rest of the fic, since it's all basically Charlotte's thoughts anyway ;D. So here's my suggested fix:

      Is Dolores like that? Is Dolores sending Charlotte out to die because it is the way to get what she wants, even though she loves Charlotte as a mother would love a daughter?

Hopefully this has been useful to you. If you have any questions or want clarification on any of the points I've made, feel free to sling me a comment, an email or a PM.