Concrit for Within_a_dream

[withinadream]

 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. 

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! 

Comments

The Devil's in the Moon

[isis]

I liked this a lot! I only read the first five books in the series, but I always liked the idea of this OT3 even though I never got particularly into the fandom.

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

[withinadream]

This was really helpful, thank you so much! I appreciate having it pointed out the places where the description and the path of the narration need fleshing out, and this will be very helpful in trying to find those places for myself going forward. Thank you!