[FFML] [Doctor Who] Ascension

[Gary Kleppe]

Ragman Jack <stevedtav at gmail.com> wrote:

> Desperately needing Feedback, please.

I'm giving you feedback, but in return, I challenge you to do a couple of
things:

1) Once you've read and thought about these comments, write and post a reply.
Whatever your honest reaction is will be fine. If you read this and think that
I'm just wasting your time, then just say so and you've met this challenge.

2) Go into the FFML archives (http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/, or
your own email box) find somebody else's story that looks potentially
interesting to you. Read that story, and write a critique of that story and
send it to FFML. It needn't be anything brilliant or super insightful. Again,
just an honest reaction is good enough.

Number (2) above is great for anyone else reading this to do, by the  
way. Okay,
then, with that out of the way, here we go.

I really liked the idea, and I thought your execution of it overall worked
pretty well. We got a good picture of the inner conflicts that our nameless
protagonist was going through. The encounter with the random (or was she?)
woman was a good way to showcase the mental state of our hero.

What didn't work quite so well for me was the second-person narrative. Clearly
the idea is to say that this guy could be you the reader, but it results in us
not knowing much about who he (I'm assuming it's a he, though really we don't
even know that) is or what he would have to give up in order to become The
Doctor. I think I'd sympathize with him more if I knew something in his past
that I could relate to, rather than him being mostly a blank slate,  
and knowing
more about him would give us an idea of how to expect him to react.

The writing was okay, but could stand to be spiced up with some descriptive
metaphors. Even if this guy is a Who fan from way back, actually experiencing
the Tardis interior would blow his mind, and I don't feel like this came
across.

It's not clear whether you meant this as a one-shot or as the beginning of
something longer. I for one would like to see it continue. It's really not
that hard for someone to say okay, I'll be The Doctor. The harder part comes
when he has to make calls and take actions as The Doctor that will have real,
serious consequences. That's something we haven't seen in your  
story... yet. Of
course he will be hampered by not having The Doctor's abilities. Okay, maybe
the Tardis will fly on auto-pilot (though that hasn't worked well in  
past), but
who's going to fix it when it breaks? The Doctor also has a preternatural
ability to walk into a situation and get people to trust him/her. Does this
guy automatically get that?

Incidentally, since the guy is a fan, I'm surprised he didn't think of _Human
Nature._ "Maybe I ALREADY AM The Doctor! Do I have a fob watch?"

Thanks for writing, and good luck with this and any other stories.