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concrit_x2020-08-09 11:32 pm
withinadream) wrote in concrit_x2020-08-09 11:32 pm
Entry tags:
Concrit for Within_a_dream
I want to receive feedback by: Comments on this post (comments are unscreened), Dreamwidth PMs, emails to withinadream27@gmail.com
Here are the works I want feedback on : Anything on my AO3 account.
My works' fandoms and content notes are: I've written the most for Les Mis (AMT, usually book and musical hybrid) and the Benjamin January mysteries, but I have fics for a variety of fandoms. Full list of fandoms under the cut. I have ratings from G-E, gen and all relationship types, mostly NAWA with a decent minority CNTW and some noncon and major character death.
I have these questions for readers:
I would prefer gentle (5) or direct (1) feedback, or something in between: Anywhere from 3-1 is great!
Here are the works I want feedback on : Anything on my AO3 account.
My works' fandoms and content notes are: I've written the most for Les Mis (AMT, usually book and musical hybrid) and the Benjamin January mysteries, but I have fics for a variety of fandoms. Full list of fandoms under the cut. I have ratings from G-E, gen and all relationship types, mostly NAWA with a decent minority CNTW and some noncon and major character death.
Les Misérables - All Media Types (26)
Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly (12)
Les Misérables - Victor Hugo (7)
The Adventure Zone (Podcast) (3)
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) (3)
The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner (2)
Agent Carter (TV) (2)
Graceland (TV) (2)
Stanton & Barling - E.M. Powell (2)
Whitechapel (TV) (2)
Sins of the Cities Series - K. J. Charles (2)
The Magnificent Seven (2016) (2)
Phantom 309 - Red Sovine (Song) (1)
Green Men Series - K. J. Charles (1)
The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton - The Mountain Goats (Song) (1)
Like Real People Do - Hozier (Song) (1)
Hamlet - Shakespeare (1)
The Alienist (TV) (1)
The Witcher (TV) (1)
X Company (TV) (1)
Chicago Med (1)
Furnace Room Lullaby - Neko Case (Song) (1)
Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne | East of the Sun and West of the Moon (1)
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (1)
On the Bus Mall - The Decemberists (Song) (1)
Overlord (Movie 2018) (1)
Wolf 359 (Radio) (1)
The Bright Sessions (Podcast) (1)
Ghosted (TV 2017) (1)
Band Sinister - K. J. Charles (1)
Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater (1)
The Lighthouse's Tale - Nickel Creek (Song) (1)
We Know the Devil (Visual Novel) (1)
Timeless (TV 2016) (1)
Killing Eve (TV 2018) (1)
Marvel Cinematic Universe (1)
They Can't Take That Away from Me - George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin (Song) (1)
King of the Road - Roger Miller (Song) (1)
The Daemon Lover | The House Carpenter - Anonymous (Song) (1)
Apostle (2018) (1)
Affinity - Sarah Waters (1)
Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies) (1)
Alfie (Webcomic) (1)
Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare (1)
The Boys Are Back in Town (to kill you) - JerryTerry (Music Video) (1)
Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch (1)
Wait Till Helen Comes - Mary Downing Hahn (1)
Stumptown (TV) (1)
Bosch (TV) (1)
A Charm of Magpies Series - K. J. Charles (1)
I have these questions for readers:
-Anything that strikes you would be very welcome! Do my endings feel too abrupt?
-Do my endings feel too abrupt?
-How strong are my descriptions, can you visualize what's happening?
I would prefer gentle (5) or direct (1) feedback, or something in between: Anywhere from 3-1 is great!
The Devil's in the Moon
I realize this fic was written for a small-minimum exchange, but I feel it could have benefited from a great deal of expansion, not of scope but of detail. The canon is very visceral, with fairly intense imagery; this story cries out for a deeper and more evocative Shaw POV, particularly because the idea of werewolves carries with it the possibility of a wolf’s enhanced senses, and I think that having more than “a blur of noise and pain and a tang of blood in the air” would help ground the story in its setting as well as get us closer to Shaw’s head, and make his condition more present to the reader.
I also wanted a little more in his perception of where he was, and why, the next morning, partly for the grounding in setting, partly because the paragraph beginning ‘He woke up the next morning’ feels a little abrupt and short, hard to parse. I feel it would benefit from being slowed down, his mind going clearly from ‘why am I here’ to ‘safety, I think of Benjamin January’, to (and this is missing) ‘why do I perceive him as safe, even as a wolf?’ to ‘safety in one respect, fear in another’ (which, I love the phrasing you’ve chosen, ‘the house he never let himself stay too long in for fear of what he'd do.’)
(I should add that I think that you got the hillbilly cadences of Shaw’s speech/introspection right – that’s a really hard voice to do, I think, without overdoing it. Well done! I thought Rose and Ben were great, also.)
One tiny bit that threw me: the lines ‘When Ben came running down the stairs, supply bag in hand, he was flat on the floor shivering. Cold in the middle of a New Orleans summer—not a good sign. ‘ felt as though they were in Ben’s head, not Shaw’s. I would maybe have said something like, ‘Even he knew that to be cold in the middle...’ and maybe add ‘but he couldn’t help it, couldn’t keep his teeth from chattering and his lungs from breathing out short, frantic puffs of air’ - both to keep things firmly in Shaw’s head, and to again up the visceral sense, make the reader feel it.
A place where I think you nailed the description is ‘Shaw shut his eyes and felt deep in his gut for the last bits of the wolf that kept its claws in him until the sun rose...’ That’s great imagery and very fresh-feeling.
I also feel that you needed to have maybe a bit more fever-dream-ishness around his blurting out the revelation, and to have his speech more clearly delirious (in delirium veritas!) just to make it more believable.
I like the fairly unadorned ending, making the dialogue do the work of painting the pictures, which works well at this point of the story in both a literal and figurative sense – their hearts are stripped bare for each of them to see and acknowledge.
(So to address your questions directly: I don’t feel the ending’s too abrupt, and I feel you need more description.)
Re: The Devil's in the Moon
Truth or dare
The beginning, however, failed to grab me at first. Since it’s a very tropey and canon-adjacent, maybe you could’ve skipped some of the narrative summary. We don’t need to know how they got caught, only that Delafield does nasty concoctions and has captured them. That could have given the actual central action, the sex under duress, more breathing space.
Laboratories, in Napoleon’s experience, were never good, but this one was particularly ominous. There was a table with worn straps in the center of the room (what was it with these sorts of men and tying people to tables?) and a table filled with vials against the wall.
For example, that line could’ve been the first one. It’s a better hook and it would have established your Napoleon voice straight away, which is one of the strengths of the fic.
Whatever tortures the other drug would inflict, it would at least give him and Illya enough time to formulate an escape before they began spilling all of their secrets.
This is one of those asides where their dynamic shines through. They’re very in sync.
When it comes to the description, I think you focus a bit too much on making the reader visualize the action, so the other senses aren’t as present. It could help if there was more tactile or flavor description that was also… specific. For example, we only know that the injection makes Napoleon feels “a floating feeling like particularly good painkillers”. I think you could’ve been more specific about that ‘floating’ feeling. More phrases like this the nausea returned, like his stomach was in an ever-tightening vise. could make your writing a bit more vivid. When you mention Illya smells like soap, what’s that smell like? Bland? Fresh? Does it contrast with how the laboratory smells? How does Illya sound? Your writing gets more descriptive during the sex scene, but that focus could help the rest of your writing.
"Let me handle this. We’ll play this likeAnkara." There had been a laboratory there as well, and nearly as many armed men. It was just a matter of waiting for the right distraction.
Again, the way you establish their post-canon is great and feels natural in the fic. It’s also very present during the sex scene and that gives the fic emotional weight.
Your ending didn’t feel abrupt, but I wonder if you couldn’t give the climax a bit more attention. and the thing was, it was still the best sex Napoleon had had in years. If this could be given some more attention, some more signposting of ‘this is what the fic’s about’, the fic might flow better. The actual ending does really work, for me. It closes the fic, but leaves the question of how they’re going to deal with it open.
Re: Truth or dare
no subject
I think the storyline/plot sequence of this works, but I don't think you're taking advantage of character elements as much as you could.
Jaskier lays out the setup, but it's a bit static - he's taking a job that overpays and thinks he knows why, so he's not as engaged as he could be if he was still second-guessing his choice. Like He squashed any regrets by reminding himself of the coin waiting for him at the end of this trip (although it was beginning to seem like less of an overbid the longer he spent on this trail). If Jaskier wasn't quite sure why before this, then he could've started off a bit anxious and then this relieves him when he thinks he has an answer while the reader knows he's completely wrong. And you could also use that to solidify who your Jaskier is, especially how much sense he has. Is he motivated by gaining more money and fame even though he knows this is risky, or is it that where he has less experience about how bad things can go for people, or has he been in a number of scrapes before and gotten out fine so he's overconfident? Or he could be concerned but in the wrong direction, like resolving that he'll definitely have to stay out of anyone's bed because he sure wouldn't want to need to leave here in a hurry, haha.
"Ah, you’ve arrived! Wonderful." He took Jaskier’s arm, fingers tracing over his sleeve in a not particularly subtle manner. It would be one of those jobs, then. The payment began to make more sense. Well, Jaskier had flirted with many employers, and fucked a few, before, and he could do it again.?
I quite like this both as a general story beat - there's just not enough of rapists who are awful enough they're going out of their way to make sure it's rape - and also this is very Jaskier, the combination of resiliency and positive attitude about it.
think tooffer their bard a drink
Dropped a space there.
He swung at Petrov, managing to land a blow to his face before Petrov got hold of him.
An unusual thing about Jaskier is that for all he's fine offering to cheer on a murderous witcher or wishing some guy dead or complaining when his bodyguard handles problems by talking rather than violence, when he gets confronted at the banquet he's not aggressive at all and is easily backed into a corner and threatened, and the same happens with Yennefer. Which isn't to say I found this OOC, this is far worse than anything we see him face in canon and also you gave him ample time to process it so he knows exactly what's happening, but it's the sort of reaction that you could get out of a lot of people in this situation. And it'd add bonus weight when Jaskier does end up stabbing the guy if it's not that he always would've but was waiting on something sharp but the result of just how far he's been pushed by the captivity and abuse.
The door was open, and Jaskier and the girl were alone. He looked around, then said to her, voice low, "We can get out of here.I’ll take you with me, please, just help me find my way out – "
If he didn't have anything to offer, it's reasonable to just say anything because it's hardly going to make it worse. But Jaskier has two Jaskier-specific things he could try here: get me out I'm friends with a witcher and I can protect you with Geralt and get me out I'm minor nobility and I can protect you with the law. And he could also try to compromise on getting just word out he's here - obviously you don't want Geralt actually showing up for Jaskier, because he needs to be shocked, or Jaskier to be told that okay that sounds like a good idea they'll get a message out so he has any hope it'll actually happen, but it'd make it a bit less luck that Geralt does show up if there's a bit of a telephone game getting played and someone got part of the message out that for some reason, Geralt is a good person to ask to deal with whatever the hell is going on with their count.
The guy's thrilled to have Geralt, the Butcher of Blaviken!!! show up, and also blithely trots Jaskier out and offers him up. Adding what you said about Jaskier taking the job for the money, and it lines up nice with this happening relatively early on - Jaskier is working at improving Geralt's reputation but hasn't flipped people's opinions yet, and also people don't know Jaskier's got anything to do with Geralt or witchers at all. (Also works nice with Geralt being currently at the pining but hasn't done anything yet stage.) And if that's true, then it could be the reason the miller thinks to hire the witcher famed for murdering innocent people to find and rescue his daughter is a servant was convinced by Jaskier's certainty that no really, Geralt showing up would not just make things even worse, he helps people, and got one of the few people who are traveling back and forth to pass it along. (Or Jaskier's insistence was so strong that even though all that filtered out was just to get a witcher, the guy is willing to take a chance on even the Butcher of Blaviken when that was the only witcher who'd come by.)
He nodded to a servant, who brought two plates to the table. Petrov’s was piled high with meat, grease spilling over the sides. Jaskier's held a single thinly-sliced piece of bread.
I like the coverage you have here - corset, makeup, food. One's an immediate restriction/discomfort, one's not inherently unpleasant but all about proving he's there for someone else's enjoyment, one's a slow-burning threat. I'm curious what Petrov's exact angle is for this. Like, is he coming at the kink from the control aspect of being able to restrict their appearance/breathing/movement/eating and kinking on seeing the visual evidence of how much he's forced on them and the way he can order them around even though he's doing stuff he knows they hate, or does he really like the look of it and the fact it's unwilling is secondary and he wants to break their will because it's in the way of having an obedient doll, or is the misery and humiliation key and the other elements are in part because they're really good at producing that? Did he pick Jaskier because the guy isn't exactly waifish to start with and so trying to force him to pass for a woman gets to be extra abusively involved and that's fun (you are going be starving him for a while!) or does his victim's appearance not matter and Jaskier just happened to be passing through at the wrong time? (I realize Jaskier's not exactly in a good position to get any answers, but they intrigue me.)
"Kill him quickly, or I will," Geralt said. "I have a job to finish."
"He’s going to pay for this." Jaskier sighed when Geralt shook his head, already sounding more like the man Geralt remembered. "Literally pay, you dolt. Do you really think he’s been paying the servants’ wages? We need him to find the key to his treasury, and I’d rather like him to stand trial.
I think it would be good to elaborate on this a bit more. The people in the town seem to get that the count is the problem but couldn't do anything themselves, which sounds like there's problems dealing with this legally, as does the fact this is a noble thing and not just a wealthy man. Is it a big concern that they won't get paid if they don't take the money now, and also they can't just break into the treasury for it - is the plan to get it open, take the money he owes them only, and then pretend he paid them willingly? Doe the legal trial accomplish something worse than just killing him, which it seems it must if Jaskier prefers that, but in that case what is it, and can Jaskier really be sure the count can't wiggle out of punishment? (And there's also the question of what happens to the other party guests they've tied up, who haven't definitively committed a crime right then but are clearly horrible people who've been doing horrible things.) It doesn't exactly need to be an extensive laying out of the legalities, Geralt should be pretty aware of how things work already and if he's missing something else, Jaskier could say it briefly (for example, some law where the peasants under a lord can't bring suit against him, but Jaskier can).
Ending on Jaskier finally getting out of the corset is good, but it's weird they got everything else done when it'd be easy to at least untie it. I can see how you wouldn't want to untie it and then get into the more mundane issues of how many horses, but I think you could get away with just leaving it assumed they'll leave successfully.
no subject