Subject: Arright, let's see.
Author:
Posted on: 2022-01-20 15:21:44 UTC

I know you've been waiting a while on this; all I can say is that we're all bone-weary these years, and it has nothing to do with you personally.

You: Yeah, you've been around a while and not done anything bad. Tick.

The Agents: They look fine. The only thing that flags is that "may or may not have powers" on Deirdre, which is fine - characters change as we write them - but don't turn it into a sneaky "she gets new powers every time she shows up".

The Badfic: I wouldn't say hilariously bad, but for a short mission centred on the typos and the presentation (block paragraph, Schrödinger's green highlighting) it should work fine.

The Sample: So! In general your SPG looks good. Your plot looks fine; I think you've heavily edited it from the first version, which you should never be afraid to do (even if it's published!). One plothole which seems to have hung around is that the agents just... grab the Suvian from right next to the canon characters, and then charge her right there. I feel like the hobbits would have said something even if the lack of plot had zoned them out.

In terms of critique, the key phrase that's coming to mind is "run-on".

  • You start us off with a run-on sentence about how Rebecca got transferred. It kind of works as a stylistic thing, but you need to be sure you realise you're doing it (and can turn it off).
  • Your dialogue tends to run together. Check out Deirdre's first speech: she throws at least four bits of information at Rebecca without taking a breath, and doesn't seem to be doing it because she's in a rush. People don't usually talk like that in real life: they leave gaps for the other person to reply, or you could break it up with actions. "I’m Deirdre Oharan; I was told you were assigned to be my partner." Deirdre stepped back, allowing Rebecca to peer into the cluttered room. "This is RC 3791, and this is my mini-Balrog, Baelrog."
  • You're trying to handle action sequences in single paragraphs. Deirdre rescues Rebecca in a single paragraph, and somehow(?) they drag a conscious warrior!Suvian up a ruined tower in a single sentence. In both of these cases, you could do with letting the other characters have space to react. How did the Witch-King take another stranger popping up, yelling at him, and fiddling with a bit of equipment? So far as you've written, he just sort of stood there for a minute until Deirdre got her act together.

All of these issues could be resolved by making sure to give your writing room to breathe. If a sentence or a paragraph feels too long, too squashed together, break it up! Let a different character do something in the middle of it - talking ain't a free action, and people don't really wait their turn to act. I know (believe me, I know) that dialogue is the easiest thing to write, but if you've committed to an action segment, make sure you give it as much space to work as it needs, rather than hurrying to get back to the dialogue.

(As an aside to this: there is no good way to include a full charge list in dialogue, but if you want to list all the charges, you should probably paragraph break it in the middle.)

So, basically... your writing has room to grow. Well, so does everyone else's, mine included. I see nothing here that would wreck PPC canon, and it seems like you've responded well to the concerns Nesh and Nova raised last time (a lot of which were about unrealistic behaviour and skills). I'm going to go ahead and say Permission Granted.

hS

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