Summary: kindkit's "Perfection in the Work"

[gurrier.livejournal.com]

Thanks to kindkit for volunteering her story, and to everyone who commented! Here's a summary of the discussion:

sprat liked the use of detail, which she felt gave an accurate impression of northern Canada, and made both the town and the relationship feel more real. She and zebra363both liked the OC Butch.

zebra363 loved Ray's take on Fraser's relationship skills, and felt his thoughts sounded very in character. sprat thought Ray's voice was excellent, and particularly liked how he imagined he might have reacted to Butch while still in Chicago. She wondered whether he'd really have been able to hold back on his not-Fraser's-wife speech, and gave some examples of Ray failing to do exactly that. kindkit replied that she sees Ray's mouthing off as a response to authority figures, and that here he was talking to someone more mom-like. akite agreed that Ray would hate to be seen as Fraser's wife.

sprat questioned Fraser's characterisation, pointing out that in the show he's even more stubborn and reluctant to apologise to Ray than to others. She felt his uncertainty might be explained by feeling vulnerable because he's in love. kindkit believed that after Victoria, Fraser would be "deeply frightened of everything that can go wrong in love." dannymax agreed that Fraser is stubborn, and pointed out that he has been known to swear (however mildly).

zebra363 wondered whether gardening would really make Ray that sore, and felt that the mention of dancing in the paragraph about types of work was a bit jarring.

This week's story: "April After All" by sprat

[sprat.livejournal.com]

I liked kindkit's approach to choosing a story to link here--it seems more useful to hear about possible flaws that I don't already see. This story's fairly recent, so it's pretty close to the way I write now. And though it's not my favourite of my own stories, I do like it quite a bit.

I guess I most want to hear about characterisation, especially Ray K.'s--I've always found his a tricky voice to get right. I'm also curious to know if the structure of the story worked--like, were there slow spots? Was there enough information to let you know what was going on?

The story is here: April After All

And this weeks moderator is gurrier, because she was nice enough to take my turn for me this week. She can be reached at gurrier@ comcast.net