Subject: Some belated thoughts.
Author:
Posted on: 2016-07-25 00:09:00 UTC

First off, I'd have to agree with HG about the balance between the badfic and the mission. There were multiple points where I wasn't sure what your agents were talking about—September being surprised by "the Excaliber blade," the incense being an aphrodisiac—because you didn't show the actual badfic text.

The mission itself also feels very mechanical. Neither agent did or said very much that distinguished them from each other. I feel like you could have switched their names around and the story wouldn't have been all that different. I feel like you missed some good potential moments for characterization by telling rather than showing. The line "September knew that they weren't allowed to drink on duty, but also knew that Synthale's effects could be dismissed easily." is fairly dull on its own. You could have written a much larger scene here that could have allowed both agents to shine.

A few technical things to note:
— There are extra paragraph spaces around the seventh paragraph on the first page (the one that starts "Kelly sighed…").
—It should be "coming to," not "coming-to" on the final page.
— This is more a subjective technical note, but single-sentence paragraphs should only be used for either dialogue or as a means of emphasizing lines. The second paragraph on the first page fits neither category and could easily be merged with the following paragraph. Or you could throw in a line of dialogue; as simple as September saying "What's up?" or similar.

There's a great deal of potential here. You could do so much with these two provided you put in the time and the effort. Maybe try writing some interludes focusing on both agents and their interactions. I've always found that to be a good way to find out who characters are and what they're like.

Best of luck with your next mission.

PC

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