Hi. I came over to your journal to read Best Souvenir on A2zmom's recommendation - really enjoying it, and am intending to fb when it is finished -
The Confessional. Well I think this is a really virtuoso piece of writing. Very convincing and moving exploration of rage and self-disgust and the intricate dynamic between the two characters. Love the resolution: this is redemption. Love, in the craft sense, the way it leads up to the quotes from "Judgement". (Like doing a jigsaw backwards.) It's like a detailed excavation of what it took to get to that scene.
Also love the fact that it's so serious yet you've found ways to sneak some snarky humour in there - Cosmopolitan!
I think psychologically it's very rich and convincing - the anger between them, the way Faith is determined to hurt anyone who comes near her, her longing for redemption and despair about it, Angel's counselling/anti-counselling. And also the fact that you go to the place where the character's stream-of-consciousness is outrageously, involuntarily, scarily obscene. Must be a difficult place to go as a writer, with such a degree of conviction and honesty - it's of a different order to the sort of boundary-pushing titillation that fic has a default licence to explore.
At the beginning I got pulled up a little by some of Faith's thoughts being expressed in such a literary manner. But by the end I was sold on it. You'd pulled off the suspension of disbelief, you know? As a reader I'd come to accept that sort of double Faith's voice/authors voice as a beautiful part of the craft of the storytelling. The reflexivity as part of it's structure: "Think of what your eyes are doing right now—moving left to right, left to right. Think. I am with you, right here, in this very moment." Intricate. Nice work.
no subject
The Confessional. Well I think this is a really virtuoso piece of writing. Very convincing and moving exploration of rage and self-disgust and the intricate dynamic between the two characters. Love the resolution: this is redemption. Love, in the craft sense, the way it leads up to the quotes from "Judgement". (Like doing a jigsaw backwards.) It's like a detailed excavation of what it took to get to that scene.
Also love the fact that it's so serious yet you've found ways to sneak some snarky humour in there - Cosmopolitan!
I think psychologically it's very rich and convincing - the anger between them, the way Faith is determined to hurt anyone who comes near her, her longing for redemption and despair about it, Angel's counselling/anti-counselling. And also the fact that you go to the place where the character's stream-of-consciousness is outrageously, involuntarily, scarily obscene. Must be a difficult place to go as a writer, with such a degree of conviction and honesty - it's of a different order to the sort of boundary-pushing titillation that fic has a default licence to explore.
At the beginning I got pulled up a little by some of Faith's thoughts being expressed in such a literary manner. But by the end I was sold on it. You'd pulled off the suspension of disbelief, you know? As a reader I'd come to accept that sort of double Faith's voice/authors voice as a beautiful part of the craft of the storytelling. The reflexivity as part of it's structure:
"Think of what your eyes are doing right now—moving left to right, left to right. Think. I am with you, right here, in this very moment." Intricate.
Nice work.