Concrit Exchange

Felt like my handle on Star Wars canon was too casual for good feedback, but you mentioned your love of drabbles so wanted to pick something shorter for you! Then your Helen of Troy ficlet caught my eye: A Wrinkle (a path to trace)

At first, when the envoys from Helen's ex-husband came, Troy laught at them. “Would you start a war for me?” became the fashionable, joking question to ask your lover. And the answer was always “Yes, yes, yes.”

I really love this introduction, it's strong and immediately draws me in! Grammar notes: I might say "laughed" instead of "laught" and add a comma before "Yes, yes, yes".

The fashion started dying when the first Achaeans’ ships appeared on the horizon, when the first troops landed on Trojan shore. First deaths killed it for good.

This is a good turn into the somber mood that is the war! I feel nitpicky about the use of the word "dying" in the first sentence, it seems a little too on the nose when you have the trend being "killed" in the next. Because my tastes run toward alliteration I might suggest "The fashion faltered when..." or something similar, but that's a personal preference.

Now, years of the war after, even the jest's memory seems shameful. So Helen is surprised and hurt upon hearing it from Hector. And when she has just tended his wounds!

The history of this joke you draw through to here is excellent. I do think you could make Hector's use of it and Helen's reaction stronger! Most of the beginning felt formal and heightened, and "So Helen is surprised and hurt..." lands on a register that's more casual for me, which dilutes the impact. I wonder if including Hector's actual line would help, since it can't be the exact joke that's been mentioned. I'm assuming it's something like "This war is for you," but if we see it directly then Helen's shock/affront can come across more viscerally, I think.

‘It haven’t been an appropriate flirting line in years.’ She turns her head away from his kisses.

He doesn’t understand for a moment. Then shakes his head.

‘But I mean it. Literally. I fight for you just as much as for Troy and her people.’

Helen turning away from kisses is a great detail to include. A note that I did see this tagged as Helen/Hector, but is this a universe where Andromache doesn't exist? I know it's a short fic and you don't necessarily have the space to get into it, but this confused me on a first read. And Helen thinks about Paris, but Hector doesn't mention him at all, whereas including that and the complexities of navigating such tangled relationships would help with sustaining tension, I think.

Helen supposes it should be comforting, to be loved so much – by so many. But instead, she swallows down the question if “people of Troy” means his wife and her husband, too. If she’s not one of them, still and forever a foreigner.

Helen's line about being a foreigner is great, it adds to her feeling unmoored throughout the piece. Grammar note that "swallows down the question if..." reads awkwardly to me here, "question of if" or "question of whether" would sound more idiomatic. Might also swap out "includes" for "means" but that's a formality/register preference.

‘Yet you never allows me to come admire your fight and cheer you up from the walls,’ she says instead, placing a hand on his bicep; careful to not touch the injury.

Perhaps it’s her version of a plea.

‘I can’t. My father would never allow it. He fears, and rightly so, that the sight of your beauty would remind Achaeans what they fight for. Strengthen their resolve.‘

Love the way Helen chooses to deflect with who she is: her touch, her looks, cheer and admiration. Grammar-wise, it should be "you never allow", and I might also swap the semicolon for a comma and say "cheer you on" rather than "cheer you up", since the former folds her a bit more into the war effort itself. Also, it's not quite clear to me what she's pleading for? To be allowed on the walls? Being set off in a new paragraph makes it seem like there's a deeper meaning I'm not catching.

‘Do you really think they forgot?’ If they were younger, if the war was younger, this might be another flirting line, “do you think me so forgettable?”, a sweet, pouting face and a lock of hair tactically escaping from the braid.

As it stands, the question is deadly serious, the face – sweet, cursed with sweetness, but tired; the lock of hair falls down Helen’s cheek, because the braid was hastily made after she had heard Achaeans had been preparing yet another attack.

"If they were younger, if the war was younger" is fantastic, and I'd cut it off with a period or colon right after "another flirting line" so it retains a kick. The next paragraph contrasts the reality from the fantasy very well, but the punctuation makes it a little confusing to parse. A comma instead of the dash, and adding an "and" after the semicolon to soften the rhythm a bit.

‘No,’ answers Hector. ‘If they had done, they’d have returned to their lands long ago. I don’t think it’s possible to forget you.’
So there will be no peace, only the victory or the crushing defeat, thinks Helen. But before she can voice this thought – she isn’t sure she wants to voice it all – Hector adds:

‘I certainly can’t. I always carry your image beneath my eyelids. In my bed, in fight…’ He laughs, but there’s no joy in it. ‘I suppose I’ll keep seeing it even after my death. You and Troy.’

The contrast between how the Greeks keep Helen's memory and how Hector keeps it is excellent! Phrasing-wise, cut "thinks Helen", the line's strong without it.

She shivers and there’s no hiding it, for bandages and pins fall from her hands; yet she tries, forcing herself to laugh: ‘I’ll be old, all grey hair and wrinkles, long before you die!’

‘I’m sure you’ll remain the most beautiful woman of the world until the end of your days.’

‘It is written,’ she says flatly. ‘Promised.’

Again, Helen trying to hide her feelings is great. The change from her attempting a light airy tone to "she says flatly" seems too fast, though; I'd either add something before "It is written" about her feelings about her gift/curse of beauty, or just cut "flatly".

‘So I’ll be happy to see Gods making good on their promise. If I survive long enough.’ He shrugs his good shoulder. ‘I’m a warrior and the loving son of Troy and Priam. I can’t promise you – my heart is yours to command, but my life’s not.’

‘But you do fight for me, too.’

‘And I’ll continue to do so, even if my father changes his mind. But then – not in Troy.’

Is Hector (obliquely) promising that he would leave Troy with Helen if Priam decided he didn't want this war any longer? This feels a little off to me -- you've been drawing this delicate balance of Hector in balance between Helen and Troy, two things equally important, and coming down in favor of Helen would do a disservice to the complexity of Hector as a warrior, fighting for home (whether that home is a place or person).

So let’s escape now, she wants to say, take Paris with us – she can’t leave him behind, much as this stubborn, almost alien attachment surprises her – and leave Troy behind, finally free from us and safe.

Providing Achaeans would content themselves with pursuing them and leaving Troy with its treasures behind, returning empty-handed, without a vengeance or coins, from the war which already cost them, if the rumours are true, much more than just gold.

Helen's push-pull with Paris here is again, great. I'd like to see a stronger about-face at the paragraph break, the fantasy and then the intrusion of the harsh reality of the economic costs. "Providing Achaeans would content themselves with pursuing them" as its own sentence fragment would work, I think, and then repetition: "Providing they would leave Troy with its treasures, returning without vengeance nor coin, from the war which..." etc.

Hector kisses her forehead.

‘I came back victorious today – let’s hope I’ll keep doing so. I’ll be glad if I preserve my honour – if anyone will weep after me, if the world'll remember my name, for this is the only immortality this life has to offer – but whenever I’ll die and wherever I’ll end up after, if I’m going to see you and Troy in your eternal glory – it’ll be Elysium.’

I really like the rhythm of Hector's final lines, the bang of "it'll be Elysium". Just a small nitpick that "whenever I die" rather than "I'll" reads more naturally, but other than that it's a great end to the piece.

Overall I really liked the concept of the piece and the execution was sound, I just suggested some things I thought might help make it even stronger. I'm happy to have found this piece, I hope this was helpful, and definitely feel free to ask if you have anything you want me to clarify or explain further!