this week's story: "In the Water" by gurrier

[gurrier.livejournal.com]

To get the ball rolling, I'm submitting a story of mine called In the Water.

Due South is the first fandom I've ever written in, and the first time I've written fiction since leaving school nearly 20 years ago. That's a long time without worrying about plot, structure, characterisation - anything! People have said nice things, which feels really good, but I'm left wondering. What didn't work? What could I do better? So i'd really appreciate some critical feedback.

This week's moderator is sprat, sprat75@gmail.com.

Comments

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

This is a beautiful story. The balance between Ray's literal swimming and the swimming/drowning-as-metaphor is very nicely handled, and the spareness of the language is extremely effective. Ray, in my view, tends to think (at least about his emotions) with his body first and his mind second, and you capture that here without falling into the trap of making Ray seem dumb.

I enjoyed the swimming sections so much that I was almost disappointed by the switch to the actual revelation scene with Fraser. Don't get me wrong, I liked that they got together, but there's something about the scene that breaks the mood a little. The fic might have been a little stronger, in terms of mood and atmosphere, without it--if you had just ended on Ray's intentions, his decision to go and talk to Fraser after swimming.

Or it might have helped to trim the last section a bit. The swimming sections are very brief and leave a lot unsaid, whereas the final section, especially in its early parts, seems a bit bogged down by detail--bagels and tea and coffee, Ray thinking that maybe Fraser would've already gone out, and so on. It could be that the contrast was precisely your intention, but in that case, it should've been played *up* a bit more. Right now I guess it's a little too betwixt-and-between.

I'm in two minds about Fraser's cluelessness, since I think much of his usual cluelessness (with Frannie, for instance) is largely an act, a performance he uses to defend himself. But on the other hand, I can imagine him simply being stunned and too uncertain to immediately respond to what Ray has said. And Ray could interpret that as cluelessness even though it isn't.

The moment at the end, when Fraser finally responds, is really quite marvelous. The specificity of the physical detail, especially of Fraser's kiss to Ray's throat, gives the moment a really sharp focus and the effect is highly erotic. There's a sense of a lot of desire being, just barely, reined in.

Finally, a few comments on specific passages. Or you might prefer to call them nitpicks. *grins*

Course, that only lasts a couple of lengths, and then he turns wrong, or forgets to breathe, and he's the skinny jittery guy with only a turtle at home again, but still.

This sentence doesn't quite work for me. The last part, "He's the skinny jittery guy . . ." feels a little too obvious, somehow. Throughout, you've been showing how Ray is gaining confidence and control over his life through the act of learning to swim. But here you tell us that, and I don't think you needed to.

no-one

This shouldn't be hyphenated. Normally "no one" is just two unhyphenated words.

"And the thing is, the thing is, it's more than that."

No nitpick here--I just wanted to mention this as a particularly nice bit of dialogue. The repetition of "the thing is" seems very Ray to me.

[gurrier.livejournal.com]

there's something about the scene that breaks the mood a little.

You put your finger right on the thing I had most trouble with in this story. I could see the beginning and the end, but the bridge between them just wouldn't come clear.

This sentence doesn't quite work for me.

::nods:: Yeah, re-reading the story now, months after I wrote it, that sentence really breaks the flow. Even more than the mood change you mentioned earlier, I think.