CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #9 — Asylum · 6:31am Sep 12th, 2015
For today’s critique, I thought I would try something different. Rather than reading a new story, I took a story I had previously “reviewed” (by leaving a comment on it), and then rework that comment into a proper critique.
You may find my original comments on the story in the following links; one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven.
Also, I must note that this is based on the first eight chapters only.
Title: Asylum
Author: Daemon of Decay
Found via: Featured box update slot (Dem upvotes tho')
Short summary: One day, Twilight wakes up in a mental hospital instead of her library. She gradually encounters alternate versions of her friends, and discovers more about the alternate self she replaced.
Genre: Ontological Mystery, Sad
What does this story do well?: This story is well-written on a sentence level. The descriptions are rich, yet they achieve that tricky balance of being engrossing even if they do not advance the plot. The reader gets a sense of the locations and actions, without being bored in minutiae.
The characters are well-written. They feel real and genuine. Not only do they behave believably, but their emotions and actions resonate with the reader. We not only believe Twilight’s actions and emotions, but we sympathize with her, agree with her, connect with her. Even the flatter characters still feel like actual people.
Finally, the scenario is interesting. Twilight’s sudden transition is not well-explained, but that only heightens the tension. It uses that tired formula of “alternate universe where we gradually encounter the main six in turn”, but the execution is spot on. Each encounter is interesting because it not only represents a character we like given a new spin, but another piece of the mystery that Twilight finds herself in.
Where could this story improve?: I found a significant number of typos, awkward sentences, and vague wordings. With a story this long and dense, this is perhaps inevitable. Even the most capable editing team is bound to miss things after tens of thousands of words. Most of these do not ruin the reading experience, but in a story so richly written and so immersive, they absolutely stand out.
This story also relies on a cliché that I hate; the “well-meaning but incompetent medical professional” used as a villain/antagonist. The hospital staff are almost uniformly portrayed as insensitive, jaded, obstructive people. Applejack is the only exception, and she is often neutered by her low place in the hospital pecking order. The story hinges on this portrayal, and I always take exception to reducing such a complex profession to an insensitive stereotype.
Finally, the story’s foremost flaw is sheer length. This story is, for reasons stated previously, very effective at getting the reader to emote. It is nihilistic and grinding and depressing, in the most well-executed, cathartic way possible. It maintains this mood, however, for hundreds of thousands of words. There is no up or down, no variation, no gradual clues that point to a bigger mystery. There is only sadness. A good story requires variation to engage its audience. Eating nothing but ice cream would get tiresome, no matter how healthy and delicious it tasted. This story is wearisome. After eight chapters, it simply lost me. The good writing cannot circumvent its structural and pacing issues. It takes thousands of words for Twilight to make the barest headway into finding answers. The driving question is drowned out by emotional punches, one after the other. The only brief breathers or spots of hope end too quickly.
This is not going to be a problem for everyone, obviously. The serial nature of the story might mitigate this somewhat. Fanfiction in particular, has a predilection for stories which are monotonous and repetitive; which favor continuation over conclusion. For me, however, such structure creates fatigue rather than investment.
In a single sentence: A very well-written sad fic that goes on far too long.
Verdict: Upvote. This is among the few stories that I upvoted despite not finishing. I simply can’t deny the skillful writing on display; the emotion and characters are genuine and gripping. The story’s structure, however, makes this a very tough thing to recommend. I read eight chapters and had enough. For those who desire answers to questions, or at least eventual hints, this is not a story you will enjoy. For those who like emotional situations and good writing, and don’t mind an absence of plot, this is an easy recommendation. It succeeds as a cathartic sadfic, but fails as an engaging Ontological Mystery. The combination results in an effective, but emotionally tiring story.
Since Doctrix Applejack is a mare, so it should be "Spayed".
Speaking about spaying, in later chapters, we learn about the horrors visited upon the incurable patients.
The story is a slow-burner. Indeed, I feel it is a bit too slow, but in later chapters, we investigate whether the life from FiM is real or a delusion. If FiM is real, some dark force manipulates her for unknown reasons, if FiM is a delusion, she must embrace reality soon or else:
She applied to Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, just like in the show. As in the show, she lost control, but unlike in the show, her loss of control lead to the death of another applicant. She had a psychotic break. She is unstable and very powerful. This experimental procedure is a last attempt to treat her before more drastic measures:
One could cut off an horn, but horns regenerate. One must open the skull and remove much of the brain along with the horn where it interfaces with the brain for permanently depowering an unicorn. This always involves the complete removal of the frontal lobes and corpus callosum, and partial removal of the Temporal and Parietal lobes. In later chapters we see a character from the show after a dehorning. I shall not spoil who it is, but in retrospect it is obvious because of dropped clues She is in a persistent vegetative state. If this is the real world, as opposed to an illusion created by an Eldridge Abomination for manipulating Twilight Sparkle, if she does not embrace reality soon, she will be dehorned. Frankly, it would be more humane to euthanize psychotic unicorns, rather than dehorn them.
3386470 I am using "neuter" here to refer to being made useless, not the biological process. Using "spayed" would not have anywhere close to the same meaning.
There is plenty of implication that Twilight is being manipulated in the earlier chapters (particularly her interactions with her toothy doppelganger). And this sub plot does have its merits; it makes the readers question reality in the same way that Twilight does. Considering how early it is introduced, however, it simply goes on for far too long.
The way Twilight's "delusion" is portrayed also goes some way to explaining the behavior of the medical staff. Presumably, they sincerely believe she is delusional, and the tone of the story is much more suited to a cynical portrayal (More One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest than K-PAX, if that makes any sense). Their dismissive, condescending attitude is still extremely stereotypical, though, and it makes the medical aspect of the story harder to swallow.
3386481
Sorry. It was a bad joke. The implication is that incurable patients are spayed and gelded.
I agree that the story drags too long. I even wrote that:
This story should pickup the pace. If you want a psychological horror story with much better pacing, I recommend Piracy:
Piracy
Piracy accomplishes twice as much with half the words.
About "1 Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", this story has many references, down to Nurse Ratchet and her Orderly Cyrus. Interestingly enough, the majority of cuckoos are broodparasites, so do not even have nests, thus rendering the poem nonsensical:
1 Flew East
1 Flew West
1 Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
It's kind of funny, I think I may have very well stopped reading at roughly the same point you did. I'll have to get back to it at some point. Eventually. Maybe.
One thing that I'll give the story credit for is that the medical professionals being poor makes perfect sense in the supernatural explanation. They're not really antagonists, they're fellow victims, given their own false memories and issues in order to break them. If they were capable of doing their jobs well, they wouldn't have been given them in the first place.
3418772 if the story ever bothers to offer that as a concrete explanation (or any other concrete explanation), I will retract that particular criticism
3436574 I'd say "the cloak of ambiguity over their meaning is impenetrable" is an accurate assessment.
This is one of those stories where ANY interpretation is completely valid, because the story doesn't offer enough of a base to build off of. I could offer some interpretations of the story's events, or of the author's intent. Until the story meanders to its conclusion, however, any and all interpretations are equally valid.
Sadly, this means that all the interpretation and discussion of the story is less meaningful, not moreso. Every comment or theory or speculation is equally uniformed, but the story forces it to be that way.
If the author was trying to intentionally build to a concrete conclusion, the amount of leeway they've given to readers on the way there will not help. It will only serve to make the eventual conclusion unsatisfying to everyone. A situation I have firsthand experience with