![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feedbackathon feedback for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zellieh.
This is for the feedback exchange that iamtheenemy ran, feedback for zellieh's lovely SGA fic. It's unforgiveably late, and yet more evidence for why I shouldn't write feedback, but I hope she likes it!
First, some general things. For the first couple of stories, the header turned me off a little - I'm kind of obsessive about minimizing headers, mind you, so maybe it's just a me thing, but reading the title four times before I even got to the story seemed somewhat obsessive. Also, I was occasionally confused about where the story started - especially in 'Extreme Remedies', going from the quote/title right into italicized story text made me think for a second that the italics was yet more introductory stuff. I noticed in your later stories that you changed this a little - I liked the changes, although I would probably aim for minimizing the space it requires even more, particularly for a drabble. Some of those things could share a line, and the summary gets kind of lost - the summary should always be easy to pick out if someone is skimming; it's the hook. The content of the header was great, I'd just try to make the formatting a little less cluttered.
And while we're on publicity - your titles don't do much for me. Particularly the ones that are long quotes - I know, I know, titles are hard, but I have a feeling I may have missed some of these when they first came through because the titles turned me off, and I really wish I hadn't missed them. Titles should catch the eye, and give the reader a reason to want to read *this* fic. "Extreme remedies" just kind of dwindles off there, and I would probably have cut the title to the first two words - pithy - and included the full quote in the header material. "And we all long for mother's arms" is both very generic and full of cheap emotion, and makes me expect a story that's full of generic, cheap emotion - which this one certainly was *not*. Even your PWP titles seem awfully portentious, to go atop fic that isn't heavy at all. (I liked the lighter titles, though; they worked quite well, I thought.)
I have made almost no technical comments about the SPAG, the flow, that sort of thing, because I didn't notice it - which for me is always a good thing. You should either thank your betas, or be glad that you're a natural, because that was all great.
Extreme remedies are most appropriate for extreme diseases
Now, the fic itself. I really like the idea here - Carson really does have hidden ... depths, and people so rarely plumb them in fanfic. Beckett is terrifying under that facade, isn't he? And you've given us a horrifying glimpse here - both of what pragmatism and secrecy have done to Beckett, and what they're doing to everyone else on Atlantis.
I think the weakest thing, here, though, was voice. Beckett and Zelenka both have very distinct voices to me, way beyond just the accents, and I didn't really hear them much here. Capturing that is something I worry about a *lot* in my own writing, though, so I might just be oversensitive. Of course, you're intentionally taking them a little bit OOC here, for very good reason, and that could be part of it ... still, I'm not convinced that this is Beckett and Zelenka instead of any other two scientists on Atlantis. I love the little vignette about Zelenka's neighbor, though - possibly I'm just a Cold War junkie, but I like little references to the cultural differences.
I really love the structure here, though; it takes what could be a boring introspective piece and takes it farther. I particularly love the way you've interspersed exposition with unanswered dialogue -- I love one-sided dialogue in stories anyway, and in this story in particular it takes on an added meaning, because, yeah, who *does* Beckett answer to, anyway? And what you're telling me is 'nobody.'
And we all long for mother's arms
Okay, what I said about problems with voice in the last story? Totally does not apply here. This is excellent Radek voice, and excellent Rodney voice as well. You've painted a really vivid picture of what life must be like on Atlantis for the scientists and the back-up personell, who just have to keep working and working with nothing ahead of them but Wraith and Death... my chest stuttered in sympathy at all the coffee + pills meals, too, especially coming off of this evil virus the way I am.
I love Rodney and Radek's relationship on the show, and you've captured it perfectly here, all the little ways they just take *care* of each other, even when that care is in the form of insulting each other's work or yawning in each other's faces. I especially loved when Zelenka cursed at him in *Russian* - it just adds that extra touch of intimacy when you insult each other in a language you both hate, heh. And I share Radek's horror at Rodney trying to be Supportive and Understanding - " I’m going to lock the door now, and it’ll take you days to figure out what I’ve done!" - ah yes, *that's* Rodney being *truly* supportive and understanding! (There've been times when I wished I had a friend who'd do that for me, too.)
I like the way you built up The Nightmare, too - it's not the nightmare itself that's important to us, after all, it's what it's doing to Radek, and that you don't even hint at that until the end I think nicely emphasizes that difference. And then it turns out that it isn't even about Atlantis, anyway! - it's just common Earth horror that Atlantis has brought out. I'm not sure Kate quite gets that (I'm not sure I'm quite clear on exactly what happened, either) but it doesn't *matter*, what matters is that *Zelenka* finally faced it down, and he had a lap to cry on afterwards. (On the other hand, coming right off 'Extreme Remedies', I find the ending of this to be *deeply* creepy. Just so you know.)
This basic scenario, taking a character and breaking him down, is *really* common in fic, of course, but I think you've done something very different and great - you've given us a realistic picture instead of going for the cheap h/c, but I find it no less effective for that.
Aliens made them do it. Again.
This is a lovely shiny piece like sugar candy. I'm pretty sure you didn't intend anything more. I love the bit at the end, about describing kinky sex rituals to Hammond. (On the other hand, I can totally see Jack going into *meticuous* detail the first few times, until Hammond got tired of the migraines and gave him permission to just 'edit the mission reports as necessary in such situations'. But then, Jack's a bit more outgoing than John.) The one thing that bothered me in this fic ... possibly a slight overpopulation of ellipses ... possibly ... not that I don't overuse them myself, but I try cull them a bit more than this in a finished story ...
An ever-fixed mark
Whee! Rodney/Radek! And *language porn*! Are you *aiming* for my kinks? (Concrit: You need three more words. I recommend decontracting a few contractions or adding some 'ands'. q-: I've never seen the point in aiming for a drabble and then missing *on purpose*.)
Twenty Random Facts About Atlantis
This is great, the mix of funny and utterly tragic and then the ones that are both. I got about halfway through #3 and immediately started imagining that this was from the city's point of view - that somewhere in her database, she's got a personal log like this, and whenever her new children do something that makes her feel particularly inadequate, she adds another item to the list ...
I'm just going to add comments for the ones I particularly liked.
1, 3, and 9 are just beautifully sad, and it's the sort of thing that must happen all the time; Rodney probably feels it more than anyone, there's so much *potential* that they just can't *see*...
5: Yes, thank you! Somebody else who agrees with me about who runs the still!
8: I have a soft spot for the energy cloud and its ten thousand year purgatory. Thank you for remembering it.
12 and 14: I am simultaneously horrified by these, and *really* want to see the follow-up. (A similar reaction to 17, but for different reasons.)
16 cracks me *up*.
20 is just ... utterly *perfect*. I'm not even sure what it *means*, but it definitely *happened*, just that way.
Later that night..
*snicker* You mean Carson doesn't *already* get sheep-shagging jokes? Also, it's totally unfair for you to give us a glimpse of that OT4 and then *stop* at drabble-length! Bah! Baaaah!
Crime and Punishment
I don't usually have a lot of patience for PWPs, unless they're *very* special, or they hit me at just the right point in my cycle. By 'not a lot of patience' I mean that I tend to skim the sex in order to get to the *good* bits, and I'm afraid that's what I did here. I didn't have any problems with your sex-writing - nothing stood out to me as 'bad' - but very little stood out to me at all. I'm just *really* not the right person to review this. That said, there *were* some good bits here. I love that Rodney makes inappropriate sexual advances to his food in order to get his companions to leave early, so he can steal theirs. That's just so *Rodney*, and a lovely image to boot. And Rodney is good at sex! And unbearably smug about it! Of course he is! And you had laughter during the sex scene, which there isn't enough of, in general, either, so yay.
I am somewhat less sick now. I guess. The doctor said I should be getting better, anyway. Also, should probably mention that there's happenings over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
highlander_lj, just so nobody can claim later that I didn't tell them.
iamtheenemy ran, feedback for zellieh's lovely SGA fic. It's unforgiveably late, and yet more evidence for why I shouldn't write feedback, but I hope she likes it!First, some general things. For the first couple of stories, the header turned me off a little - I'm kind of obsessive about minimizing headers, mind you, so maybe it's just a me thing, but reading the title four times before I even got to the story seemed somewhat obsessive. Also, I was occasionally confused about where the story started - especially in 'Extreme Remedies', going from the quote/title right into italicized story text made me think for a second that the italics was yet more introductory stuff. I noticed in your later stories that you changed this a little - I liked the changes, although I would probably aim for minimizing the space it requires even more, particularly for a drabble. Some of those things could share a line, and the summary gets kind of lost - the summary should always be easy to pick out if someone is skimming; it's the hook. The content of the header was great, I'd just try to make the formatting a little less cluttered.
And while we're on publicity - your titles don't do much for me. Particularly the ones that are long quotes - I know, I know, titles are hard, but I have a feeling I may have missed some of these when they first came through because the titles turned me off, and I really wish I hadn't missed them. Titles should catch the eye, and give the reader a reason to want to read *this* fic. "Extreme remedies" just kind of dwindles off there, and I would probably have cut the title to the first two words - pithy - and included the full quote in the header material. "And we all long for mother's arms" is both very generic and full of cheap emotion, and makes me expect a story that's full of generic, cheap emotion - which this one certainly was *not*. Even your PWP titles seem awfully portentious, to go atop fic that isn't heavy at all. (I liked the lighter titles, though; they worked quite well, I thought.)
I have made almost no technical comments about the SPAG, the flow, that sort of thing, because I didn't notice it - which for me is always a good thing. You should either thank your betas, or be glad that you're a natural, because that was all great.
Extreme remedies are most appropriate for extreme diseases
Now, the fic itself. I really like the idea here - Carson really does have hidden ... depths, and people so rarely plumb them in fanfic. Beckett is terrifying under that facade, isn't he? And you've given us a horrifying glimpse here - both of what pragmatism and secrecy have done to Beckett, and what they're doing to everyone else on Atlantis.
I think the weakest thing, here, though, was voice. Beckett and Zelenka both have very distinct voices to me, way beyond just the accents, and I didn't really hear them much here. Capturing that is something I worry about a *lot* in my own writing, though, so I might just be oversensitive. Of course, you're intentionally taking them a little bit OOC here, for very good reason, and that could be part of it ... still, I'm not convinced that this is Beckett and Zelenka instead of any other two scientists on Atlantis. I love the little vignette about Zelenka's neighbor, though - possibly I'm just a Cold War junkie, but I like little references to the cultural differences.
I really love the structure here, though; it takes what could be a boring introspective piece and takes it farther. I particularly love the way you've interspersed exposition with unanswered dialogue -- I love one-sided dialogue in stories anyway, and in this story in particular it takes on an added meaning, because, yeah, who *does* Beckett answer to, anyway? And what you're telling me is 'nobody.'
And we all long for mother's arms
Okay, what I said about problems with voice in the last story? Totally does not apply here. This is excellent Radek voice, and excellent Rodney voice as well. You've painted a really vivid picture of what life must be like on Atlantis for the scientists and the back-up personell, who just have to keep working and working with nothing ahead of them but Wraith and Death... my chest stuttered in sympathy at all the coffee + pills meals, too, especially coming off of this evil virus the way I am.
I love Rodney and Radek's relationship on the show, and you've captured it perfectly here, all the little ways they just take *care* of each other, even when that care is in the form of insulting each other's work or yawning in each other's faces. I especially loved when Zelenka cursed at him in *Russian* - it just adds that extra touch of intimacy when you insult each other in a language you both hate, heh. And I share Radek's horror at Rodney trying to be Supportive and Understanding - " I’m going to lock the door now, and it’ll take you days to figure out what I’ve done!" - ah yes, *that's* Rodney being *truly* supportive and understanding! (There've been times when I wished I had a friend who'd do that for me, too.)
I like the way you built up The Nightmare, too - it's not the nightmare itself that's important to us, after all, it's what it's doing to Radek, and that you don't even hint at that until the end I think nicely emphasizes that difference. And then it turns out that it isn't even about Atlantis, anyway! - it's just common Earth horror that Atlantis has brought out. I'm not sure Kate quite gets that (I'm not sure I'm quite clear on exactly what happened, either) but it doesn't *matter*, what matters is that *Zelenka* finally faced it down, and he had a lap to cry on afterwards. (On the other hand, coming right off 'Extreme Remedies', I find the ending of this to be *deeply* creepy. Just so you know.)
This basic scenario, taking a character and breaking him down, is *really* common in fic, of course, but I think you've done something very different and great - you've given us a realistic picture instead of going for the cheap h/c, but I find it no less effective for that.
Aliens made them do it. Again.
This is a lovely shiny piece like sugar candy. I'm pretty sure you didn't intend anything more. I love the bit at the end, about describing kinky sex rituals to Hammond. (On the other hand, I can totally see Jack going into *meticuous* detail the first few times, until Hammond got tired of the migraines and gave him permission to just 'edit the mission reports as necessary in such situations'. But then, Jack's a bit more outgoing than John.) The one thing that bothered me in this fic ... possibly a slight overpopulation of ellipses ... possibly ... not that I don't overuse them myself, but I try cull them a bit more than this in a finished story ...
An ever-fixed mark
Whee! Rodney/Radek! And *language porn*! Are you *aiming* for my kinks? (Concrit: You need three more words. I recommend decontracting a few contractions or adding some 'ands'. q-: I've never seen the point in aiming for a drabble and then missing *on purpose*.)
Twenty Random Facts About Atlantis
This is great, the mix of funny and utterly tragic and then the ones that are both. I got about halfway through #3 and immediately started imagining that this was from the city's point of view - that somewhere in her database, she's got a personal log like this, and whenever her new children do something that makes her feel particularly inadequate, she adds another item to the list ...
I'm just going to add comments for the ones I particularly liked.
1, 3, and 9 are just beautifully sad, and it's the sort of thing that must happen all the time; Rodney probably feels it more than anyone, there's so much *potential* that they just can't *see*...
5: Yes, thank you! Somebody else who agrees with me about who runs the still!
8: I have a soft spot for the energy cloud and its ten thousand year purgatory. Thank you for remembering it.
12 and 14: I am simultaneously horrified by these, and *really* want to see the follow-up. (A similar reaction to 17, but for different reasons.)
16 cracks me *up*.
20 is just ... utterly *perfect*. I'm not even sure what it *means*, but it definitely *happened*, just that way.
Later that night..
*snicker* You mean Carson doesn't *already* get sheep-shagging jokes? Also, it's totally unfair for you to give us a glimpse of that OT4 and then *stop* at drabble-length! Bah! Baaaah!
Crime and Punishment
I don't usually have a lot of patience for PWPs, unless they're *very* special, or they hit me at just the right point in my cycle. By 'not a lot of patience' I mean that I tend to skim the sex in order to get to the *good* bits, and I'm afraid that's what I did here. I didn't have any problems with your sex-writing - nothing stood out to me as 'bad' - but very little stood out to me at all. I'm just *really* not the right person to review this. That said, there *were* some good bits here. I love that Rodney makes inappropriate sexual advances to his food in order to get his companions to leave early, so he can steal theirs. That's just so *Rodney*, and a lovely image to boot. And Rodney is good at sex! And unbearably smug about it! Of course he is! And you had laughter during the sex scene, which there isn't enough of, in general, either, so yay.
I am somewhat less sick now. I guess. The doctor said I should be getting better, anyway. Also, should probably mention that there's happenings over at
highlander_lj, just so nobody can claim later that I didn't tell them.
no subject
Thank you for the feedback. It's been very useful, and I've been thinking about it a lot.
Story summaries: I hate really short story summaries, because I feel that they leave a lot out; but I knew mine were too long. (Especially for the drabbles!) I was just being a bit lazy, I suppose, using pre-made layouts. Now I've set up a new & shorter summary layout to use in the future, and I'll change the posts on my lj soon.
Titles: I also hate titling my fics. My working titles are short: 'Carson & Radek lab' or 'J&R PWP', and my brain goes blank when I have to think up proper titles. That's why they ended up with quotes. But I know that those titles are just too long (and a bit silly), so they're geting changed too. I'll try to keep my titles short in future.
I agree with you on most of the con. crit. I think I already knew where most of my weaknesses were, so having them pointed out just helped me to analyse them more clearly.
Mother's arms, the Radek story, is (slowly) getting a sequel, so I may well go back and look at it again. I think a rewrite of the scene in Kate's office to make things clearer could help. I know what I intended to say there, but now I'm not sure if that's what the readers heard. Thanks for pointing that out to me. *g*
I'm glad I joined this challenge. I've added this post to my memories, because I've found it so useful. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into this - I really appreciate it. *G*
no subject
I'm glad you found my comments useful - I had a lot of fun writing them up. And I'll keep an eye out for that sequel, too.