this week's story: "Perfection in the Work" by KindKit

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

I kind of agonized over which story to submit for critique, but in the end I decided on the due South story that I'm proudest of. My reasoning being that I don't need people telling me about the story flaws I can see already, but about the ones I don't notice.

I'm still pretty new to the fandom, and I suppose my main worry in fic is getting the characters' voices right. Especially Fraser's--I haven't dared attempt his POV yet. So comments about the voices and how to improve them, in both dialogue and narration, would be particularly welcome.

Anyway, here's the story: Perfection in the Work, Fraser/Kowalski, rated R.

ETA: This week's moderator is gurrier, gurrier @ comcast.net.

Comments

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It literally never occurred to me to have Ray actually say the thing about not being Fraser's wife. I see what you mean about his tendency to mouth off, though. But I guess I see that as something he mostly does to authority figures (FBI, Internal Affairs, etc.), whereas in the story, he's talking to an older woman who's been kind to him and who means well. I think, if nothing else, Ray's "mom" reflex would kick in--as in, you don't yell at mom.

Fraser-in-canon is stubborn as hell, and he's really overt about that with Ray

Yes, absolutely. Fraser's stubborn when he thinks he's right, which is most of the time. What I was trying to get across was that this new situation, this love-and-relationship situation, has sort of cut the ground out from under Fraser's feet, made him uncertain and terribly afraid. After Victoria, I can't picture Fraser not being, on some level, deeply frightened of everything that can go wrong in love. Frightened of abandonment, frightened after every little disagreement that he's going to be left alone.

If I gave the impression that this is clingy!helpless!Fraser, though, it certainly wasn't what I intended. After all, this is still a Fraser who threatened to arrest Ray if he started working illegally. My feeling is that Fraser's uncertainty and insecurity here are (largely) temporary--I think he may always be somewhat insecure--and that in a year or two he and Ray will be back to bickering as usual. Maybe I should have done something to bring that out more.

Thanks so much for your comments--you really got me thinking.

[sprat.livejournal.com]

If I gave the impression that this is clingy!helpless!Fraser, though, it certainly wasn't what I intended.

No, not at all! This story really had me thinking, too, because I found these characterisations to be totally believable, but also somewhat different from the ones I see in a lot of other Due South fic. Fraser, when feeling scared or uncertain, is often written as using one of his famous Fraser-ish defense mechanisms (being extra polite or proper, or pretending he doesn't know what's really going on)--or else he's written as withdrawing from the playing-field completely. Which is the problem I've run up against trying to write F/K, especially post-COTW. It just seems like you need to make Ray do way more than his share of the work if you want to write a happy ending. Which always makes me get pissy and write Ray/Ray instead, because with those guys everything's so much *easier*.

But I could believe this Fraser, too, because if Ray can make the guy lose his temper, maybe he could bring down those other defenses, too. It's a nice thing to be reminded of. Now I just have to figure out how to *write* it. :)