> The final scene with Skuld and Keiichi seemed to be good example of how
> you convey description without actually saying anything. While you
> didn't drag the flow down with adjectives, the flow of dialogue itself
> was well able to give me a nice mental picture and idea as to how they
> were sounding when they had their quarrel.

There's my persistent quandary, right there: I'm so much more comfortable
with dialogue than with rich description. A few of my friends have pointed
out that description seems to be my weak point -- in fact, oftentimes it's
virtually nonexistent. In comparison to their works, my fics tend to seem
sparse and brief in comparison.

I'm afraid my comments on this chapter are going to be fairly breif, my life
seems too busy to be believed, and every time I think I'm coming to a lull,
something new comes up.

Having said that, my C&C isn't really about this fic in particular, but about
the writing in your fics in general.  The comments I pulled out of another
posting really touch on the heart of the matter.

At the heart of the matter, why should your excellent command of dialogue
be a quandry at all?  Isaac Asimov was well known for his use of dialogue in
a very similar sense.  His stories were almost entirely composed of dialogue,
and yet he is considered one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time.
Why?  Because stories, or at least good stories, are about people.  The
color of someone's socks does not affect the way that person is veiwed
unless that color deviates wildly from some accepted norm.  What a person
says to someone else in a given situation, however, can affect how that
person is veiwed for life.

I'm going to try to break away from the philosophy and offer some more
concrete ideas.

As is mentioned by Miashara, the story flows very nicely.  This is because
of, not despite the use of dialog as the main story telling tool.  The story is
expressed almost entirely in ideas, typically simple statements that one
would hear in everyday conversation.  This makes the story easy to digest,
but at the same time, allows the author to express concepts in a language
that is easily understood by any reader with a frame of reference to follow
the story from.

One of the greatest advantages of a story that is not heavy on description
is its re-read value.  A story with a lot of description tends to drag on if you
know what's going on.  Dialogue on the other hand, doesn't get old nearly
as quickly.  Rereading a story based on character interaction through
dialogue will usually reveal something new every time you read it.

In short, the way you write is the primary draw to what you write, and as
long as you keep this focus, I'll keep coming back for more.

On a side note, this story was particualarly lacking in spelling and
grammar errors.  Are you sure you aren't hiding a prereader in your closet?


Dennis Horte
winddance@direct.ca