Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Review: Drunkard's Walk V.3
Review: Drunkard's Walk V.3
#1
Okay.
I've read this chapter and, while the writing is of very good quality I have to say that it is a bit, nay a lot, slow. I guess I'm just not the audience for it but reading about Doug and Skuld and Megumi geeking out over the fictional specifications of Doug's fictional flying motorcycle... are boring to me. My eyes keep glazing over.
The character interactions are good. Though I'm kind of hoping something happens soon. Something actiony. I can see that this might not be an action kind of series, but my inner action fan craves it. Oh well.
Though I find myself kind of mystified by Doug's yo-yo relationship with the Norns et al. But its a good kind of mystified. Its a "how is Doug going to reconcile these two opposing viewpoints in his mind" not a "this makes no sense" mystified. I like it.
I hate to say it, but I don't really care about Chris, as a character. Not that I dislike him, just that I don't really find myself thinking about him. He's like a person I know I'm supposed to care about, but don't. It might not hurt that I read Oh, My Brother!... years and years ago. I just can't get a handle of the character. Was that ever "finished" or is this basically it?
In contrast, I actually really like your version of Megumi. Good work making me care about a character from the manga I actually didn't like much at all.
The Norns I run hot and cold on. I hate Belldandy, and always will. She is exactly the kind of female stereotype character Japan has produced that I find personally repugnant. So I don't think, unless you do something major, I'm going to warm up to her (or Keiichi the wonderwuss) anytime soon. On the other hand Skuld and Urd could be interesting characters if handled well. I'm surprised with how little you've done with urd, however. And Skuld... well, I'll withhold judgement until I see where your going with that next chapter.
Overall, I think this fic is good. It probably isn't exactly my cup of tea, from the looks of it. Unless the drama or the action really begins to ramp up next chapter. I can't really offer any advice, because most of my complaints are personal taste issues.
--------------------
Epsilon
Reply
Re: Review: Drunkard's Walk V.3
#2
Thanks for the comments, Epsilon.
The pacing comes in part from my Jordanian tendencies -- somehow, I find it quite hard to write good characterization in small spaces. Chris is a bit more economical in his writing than I am, but for the most part I've been overwhelming him on that front. The pacing might also suffer because this was originally the front half of a chapter twice as big. We cut it in half because it was getting way too large in comparison to the other parts, but that divided up its internal arcs, leaving some things hanging that maybe you're subconsciously noticing.
This is also a chapter where we needed to lay a little groundwork for what comes later. We needed some explanations and definitions, essentially, so when things go non-linear 1 or 2 chapters down the line, we don't have readers going, "hey, wait, what was that supposed to mean?"
As far as drama or action is concerned, well, we have both coming up. We've got the first Mara-Doug encounter coming in chapter 4 -- which, as I noted above, was supposed to be the end of this chapter. That's going to develop into another, somewhat more... active... encounter or two. And then for the climax we're going to go somewhere no one's expecting, but suffice it to say it's going to be something on the order of the hurricane over GENOM tower in DW2. Yes, there will be action. It's just that, in a peaceful setting like this, we have to build up to it a bit. (Oh, and it's not going to be what it looks like at first.)
Part of that build-up will be a resolution of Doug's love-hate thing with the goddesses. It's hinted in 3 and shows more clearly in 4, but Doug's getting close to utterly cracking under various stresses; this also ties in to things on the action side.
We have an arc for Chris which is just starting to ramp up; maybe when we get further along that you'll have a different opinion.
Megumi's been fun to write. In my original, non-OMB plot, she had much the same ultimate plot role and arc as she does now, but adding Chris's stuff to the mix just intensified her part and oddly enough made it work much better.
Both Chris and I feel that there's a lot more to Belldandy than she's been flanderized into in fanfic. Yes, she's abnormally pleasant and domestic for a Norse goddess, but she does have that slow-burning, world-breaking temper... Urd's more of a catalyst in this story than anything else, but we do have a couple of very nice moments planned for her. Skuld... well, her role has changed the most since this stopped being my project alone. Originally, the non-OMB Skuld would have adopted Doug as a big brother, leading to her participation in the (unwritten) parallel series "Girls, Girls, Girls". However, as we joked once a while back, "The ANGEL thy brother is a jealous brother; thou shalt have no other brothers before him." Somehow, in changing her focus on Doug, we've ended up shifting some of it to Megumi; and worse, Chris and I are in minor conflict about how that's going to resolve.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)