this week's story: Down Burning Down, by Ekaterinn

[ekaterinn.livejournal.com]

The story I ended up choosing was one where I took some risks and am not entirely sure whether these risks panned out: Down Burning Down

What had started out as an angry sex scene in my mind had turned into a longer, plotty story that involved a hate crimes case, RayK's sexuality, and eventually some maybe-not-so-angry sex. *g* I alternated POVs, though I think I wrote from Fraser's POV more often than I did Ray. I'll be interested in any comments dealing with that, as I know that third person limited is the more usual convention. Looking back, this piece was highly emotional and I'll appreciate knowing whether people thought this was overdone or well-balanced. The story also dealt heavily with gay issues - the case they're working on involves somebody murdering gay kids - and Ray is doing some serious repressing of his own. I'll be interested to hear if y'all think I handled that well, or not. Beyond all this, any comments to do with the story would be both insightful and helpful.

You can find the story here: Down Burning Down, Fraser/RayK, NC-17.

This week's moderator is gurrier, reachable at gurrier @ comcast.net.

Comments

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

First time I've had a chance to do this, and it's a nice story for me to get my feet wet with.

I don't have a problem with alternating POVs, so I wasn't bothered by the switching back and forth. In fact, I didn't even notice so I don't think it's disruptive to the story. I also liked the tone of the story. It's a heavy issue, and Ray having an empathic response to the situation adds impact to the story for me. I also liked Fraser's response to Ray's emotional tone, and his decision to try to fix things.

One thing I really liked was how Ray pegged early on that the baddie is setting a pattern before there was any solid evidence of that - that just seems so "Mr Instinct". I would have liked to have seen him get closer to solving the case, though, and not needing to be rescued (although Fraser does rescuing so well, doesn't he?). I'm not sure what good a stake-out would have done (other than set up the coffee-drugging) - unless they saw the guy dragging someone out of the building, how would they know who were regulars coming and going? Particularly since he was a staff member who could have been walking one of the guys home for protection.

The only issues I have with the story are really due to its brevity, which isn't easy to fix because of the condensed nature of LJ challenge stories. While this has its pluses, it also has its minuses. The only real problems I saw were:

1) The sudden ending. Yours is not the first, will not be the last, story with this problem. You've got a nice build-up of the tension, of the connection between Ray and Fraser, of Ray's increasing frustration and gut-churning desperation to solve this. And then wham! the climax followed by the story ending in one short paragraph, leaving me with a jarring sensation. Like an amusement ride that suddenly plunges and then dumps you out at the bottom without a chance to catch your breath. While this can be effective, particularly in short horror stories, in my opinion a story of this nature needs a little more decompression time at the end, a bit more basking in the after-glow before rolling over and going to sleep.

2) Because of the brevity of the story, there's not any real satisfaction to the catching of the bad guy. I'd pegged him as the killer the moment we met him just because of the set-up, but we never got any sense of *why* he was killing these guys. I get that he's got a religious bigotry thing going on, but at his age why did he suddenly snap and start killing people? And why did he so suddenly focus in on Ray to send the messages to? He'd only met him briefly in passing, not enough to really catch his attention, and there didn't seem to be any media attention on the murders. When you see this happening in movies or books, it's usually because the killer somehow identifies with his pursuer and thinks that his pursuer identifies with *him* over the course of several murders, clues, and near-misses. (In fact, it would have made more sense to have him first send the messages to the precinct, then switch to a more personal contact in Ray, but there would also need to be more killings as well.) He doesn't seem to be taunting Ray in the messages, or conveying "you're next", but trying to explain, to make him understand. I can see him thinking "this guy is a cop, he probably agrees with me" - in which case, he would either a) not be targeting Ray at the end and instead Ray would figure it out in time to rescue his latest victim, or b) if he finds out Ray is gay, he would feel as if Ray betrayed him and would be far more upset about that betrayal than that Ray is trying to catch the killer, which is the sense I got from the ending. If you want the story to involve Ray as a target and being threatened from early on, then that needs to be more clear in the messages, more along the lines of "I've seen you at those places and you're on the list" (in which case I'd think he'd try not to let anyone else see the messages, especially Fraser).

Er, sorry - seem to have rambled a bit, and done probably more what a beta-reader would do. Really, I would love to see you expand this into a longer story - I think you have some great potential for a dramatic, angsty story with this one.

[ekaterinn.livejournal.com]

Wow! Thank you for this lovely feedback and constructive criticism. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you - I've had a rather hectic week. I'm glad you liked the emotional tone and had no problem with the alternating POVs.

in my opinion a story of this nature needs a little more decompression time at the end, a bit more basking in the after-glow before rolling over and going to sleep.

*nods* I do think you're right about the sudden ending. Looking at the story again, it does seem to stop very abruptly. If I was writing this now, I think I would include an epilogue, at least.

Because of the brevity of the story, there's not any real satisfaction to the catching of the bad guy.

Hmmm. I like your suggestions on how to make the case more organic within the story - I think I focused on the characters to detriment of the plot, i.e. why did he focus so suddenly on Ray? Because I needed him to. *g*

Really, I would love to see you expand this into a longer story - I think you have some great potential for a dramatic, angsty story with this one.

*blushes* Thanks! And maybe I will, actually, once I get some free time. This was written over a year ago and it would be an interesting exercise to rewrite now, paying more attention to the plot and the ending this time.