CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #23 — If Memory Serves by Pascoite · 5:19am Mar 3rd, 2016
Today’s story uses not one, but two twists. Since the first twist is fairly obvious (perhaps intentionally so), I have not bothered to spoiler-tag it.
Title: If Memory Serves
Author: Pascoite
Found via: Good question
Short summary: Apple Bloom visits Rarity, just like she does every Tuesday, Thursday, and twice on weekends. She asks Rarity questions, tries to jog her memory. Rarity is still a seamstress, and all the little details seem easier when clothes are involved.
But no matter how much Rarity remembers, some important details still evade her. And no matter how many times Apple Bloom visits, those missing memories always hurt.
The Title/Description: The title could possibly be a very forced pun. It has a tenuous connection to the story at best (the characters drink tea), and isn’t particularly intriguing or memorable.
The description is intentionally vague, taking great pains to mask as many details of the story as possible. It succeeds in that goal, but by extension fails to give the reader a good idea of what to expect.
Genre(s): Sad, Wistful/Feels, Twist Delivery, Inspired By
What does this story do well?: This story does a good job of showing rather than telling. The narration assumes the reader already knows what is happening, and is very conversational. This style of worldbuilding and gradual revelation of detail creates a good sense of tension and buildup. There is one glaring exception about three-fourths through the story, but thankfully this blunt exposition is limited to only one paragraph.
The story also delivers a twist fairly well. It does this by having two twists. The first twist comes rather early and is fairly obvious: Rarity has Alzheimer’s and lives in an assisted living facility. Framing the story to have two twists is actually an effective trick. Revealing the first twist so early and hiding it so poorly disarms the reader, and it makes the second twist have more impact. The second twist lacks immediacy—it is delivered over several paragraphs—but it has enough setup to still be effective.
The story’s format is a good contributor to both these strengths. The use of first person allows the author to present details at a very controlled pace, without damaging the flow of the story. It helps sell the story’s tone.
Finally, as I have in the past, I must point out that the story tries to use verisimilitude to its utmost. The situation feels real, the characters feel sad without being bombastic. Given that this story was based on the author’s personal experience, this is not surprising, but after so many orphan and mutilation-type melodrama, it’s always a nice change of pace when a story is realistic about its emotions.
Where could this story improve?: Unfortunately, this realism is also a contributor to the story’s foremost weakness. The story is sad in a very distant way. The story’s major tragedy has become routine by the time it is told to us. The characters have already had their major struggles, the shock has become routine. This story is not about an emotionally intense moment or event, it’s about the grind and drain of a wistful routine.
This is all well and good: after all, such things can be far more emotionally damaging than a single event. The story’s second problem, however, is that its subject matter is at odds with its construction. The story uses present tense exclusively, which is often used specifically to create immediacy, to increase the reader’s connection to events. The story also, as mentioned, is constructed around delivering twists: it uses the standard formula of build-up and reveal. These tools don’t match the situation the story is presenting. The structure of the story is built for a single traumatic event, but the content of the story is about gradual emotional fatigue. I said above that the story uses its format well, but there is a still disconnect between content and delivery.
Finally, the story feels disconnected from the show. Some of this is little things: there’s a lot of atmospheric details and comments about weather and birds migrating and such that don’t gel with the way ponies operate. How can birds migrate early if ponies are the ones scheduling it? The far bigger issue, however, is the characters themselves. The major part of their characters (sisterhood and Alzheimer’s) are not unique to them by any means. The other parts of their characters are archetypal flourishes at most. They could have been anypony, anyone, and it would not have affected the plot a single bit.
Part of this may be intentional; after all, the story does take place in the distant future. The disconnect from the characters could be a way to underscore the scale of the tragedy. I didn’t end up feeling that way, though. This story could’ve been original fiction, and nothing would have been different.
In a single sentence: A well-written story that has issues with structure/theme disconnects and characters that are essentially OCs.
Verdict: Downvote. This story is well-written, and it delivers its twists and drama capably. The situation is presented realistically and tastefully. Unfortunately, it has a major disconnect between its structure and its themes. The characters don’t feel like themselves, but in a way that creates an emotional disconnect, rather than stirring feelings.
These issues prevented the story from giving me the “feels”. It only stirred the standard pity that comes of seeing an uncomfortable situation. For a story with the Sad and Drama tags, that is a dime a dozen. If that’s enough for you, you’ll enjoy this story, but I felt a bit robbed at the end. It pains me to give this a downvote, since the ideas and writing here could have resulted in so much more.
God, your reviews are a trip. "This story was well-written, presented its themes well, was coherent and had not one but two well-delivered twists. Downvote."
3789278 I knew as I was writing this that I was explaining some elements poorly. When I say "well-written" I usually mean "well-written on a sentence/paragraph level". "Well-written" is often used as a generic compliment or shorthand for "good", but I don't use it that way.
It uses realistic themes, and presents them in a verisimilitudious way, but this is distinct from its structure. The presentation is how the drama is portrayed and shown to the reader, as well as the real life experience and situations it draws on. The structure is how the story is told, the events and story beats that tell its plot to the reader. The themes are the overarching and underlying ideas that inform the story and tie everything together. I felt there was a mismatch between several of these (and other) elements. Individual aspects of the story are good, but others are not, and they lack synergy. More than that, they work against each other.
Ultimately, this story didn't make me feel anything for the characters. It didn't make me emote. Regardless of how well-constructed its sentences are or how capably it delivers its twists, that is what truly matters. If I don't feel a connection to their characters or their struggles, then the story has failed at its fundamental goal. That's why I downvoted it. I tried to explain that in my review as best I could, but given your misinterpretation of it, it seems I failed.
Also, point of order:
3789737
I was mostly being silly. :B Of course, I'm also a smidge miffed because I really loved this story and cried a bunch, etc. <:B
3789991 That's the great thing about opinions, they aren't mutually exclusive.
That's one reason I do longer critiques that cover positives and negatives: I want readers to be able to make an informed decision in spite of my personal verdicts. Fiction and personal taste are so subjective, quality and execution aren't always the final deciders of how entertaining something is.
Case in point: my previous critique covered a story with an abundance of problems in a variety of areas. I still personally enjoyed it, however, so I upvoted it.
I remember you doing a column on how to write synopses and (maybe) titles. I'll just say that I disagreed with the majority of your reasoning there, and this instance is no exception. The title is not a pun, and I don't see how you could have taken it as one. It's not a play on words at all, and it's not meant humorously. It's a phrase meant to evoke the faultiness of memory, which is entirely appropriate here. The synopsis... well, yes, it's vague, but it's not the kind of story you can come up with one that doesn't spoil things up front. Just look at the best Chris could muster for his review of it: "Rarity has a visitor for tea."
I can't tell if you're actually taking the tack here that all exposition is bad. Because the exposition that occurs in the middle of the story is short, it's relevant, it's important information, and it gets brought in right as it becomes important and relevant. That's pretty much the definition of how to handle exposition.
Not so. If that were the case, the narrator wouldn't be so upset about Rarity forgetting her anymore. That part still stings, and more than any other event, it gets a pronounced reaction out of her. Some things have become routine, but not that, though the narrator is certainly looking forward to a time when even Rarity's catharsis (on the good days when it happens, anyway) fails to move her.
I'm afraid I couldn't follow your argument on this one. But I'll attempt to address the things you seem to be pointing out as symptoms.
True, and I don't see how that's a problem. Present tense does that, but it's not the only thing it can do.
I still don't see what present tense has to do with this, but as I've already said, Rarity's tendency to forget the narrator still is a rather painful event for her for several reasons, not the least of which being that the narrator is the one causing it, which opens a fresh wound every time. Do you really think using past tense would improve anything?
Look, I know certain people get hung up on certain things—they get locked into feeling like there's one acceptable formula to make something work. But on this point? Take John Gardner's The Art of Fiction. He goes on at length twice about narrative voicing (oddly enough, decrying the modern tendency to prefer close third-person limited). But through the entire book, he never says one word about tense. I agree that it creates a sense of immediacy, of being right there with the narrator. I don't agree that that necessarily means it has to apply to events on the bombastic end of the spectrum, independent of whether that's actually where my story sits.
In Jerome Stern's Making Shapely Fiction as well, he also speaks to the immediacy of first-person, though he argues that third-person can be made just as immediate. And aside from noting that present tense also creates an immediacy, he doesn't mention tense again, not through all of the pitfalls and don'ts he discusses, several of them about very similar concepts, but this one is conspicuously absent. There are certainly stories that demand to be in this tense or that perspective. I'd argue this story has to be in first person, for instance. But I'm not seeing anything in works on writing fiction speaking to how this story's structure, choice of perspective, or choice of tense is at odds with its structure or portrayal of a long-term tragedy, nor can I reason through myself why that might be the case.
Given some things you've said about being dissatisfied with these "structures" in your own stories that I've never been able to decipher, I think you have some pretty rigid ideas about them in your head that nobody else understands.
Uh-oh. I feel a "Your headcanon doesn't match my headcanon!" coming on.
These are the facts we know from canon:
Winter Wrap Up is scheduled, and in Ponyville, it usually happens late. Ponies go south to retrieve the birds in the spring. The weather factory gears up for winter.
Notable things canon doesn't say:
Winter Wrap Up is scheduled on the same day every year. The first day of winter weather is on a rigid schedule at all. Ponies lead the birds south before winter.
So if the first day of winter could plausibly float (it may occur earlier this year than last), there's possibly not even a rigid deadline for it (event driven—it starts whenever preparations are finished), and birds are left to their own devices to decide when to leave (they can see the ponies preparing the snow and feel it getting uncomfortably colder, unlike spring, when they can't see for themselves from where they are and have to rely on the ponies to say spring's ready, especially given that Ponyville was perennially late doing so), I don't believe it's a stretch that the birds might be migrating sooner this year than they normally do.
If you're going to boil down a story to its core theme (really, how many fanfics would just become "friendship" then?), you can always say it's not unique to the characters. Luna's not the only one ever to have a tragic downfall. Twilight's not the only one ever to engage in hero worship. She's also not the only one ever with a devoted adoptive sibling relationship. And she's not the only one ever who's curious and with an affinity for books. The point here is that if you make this about two other characters, say Spike and Twilight, it'd take significant rewriting to tailor it to their relationship. Yes, some OC could take Rarity's place, but it would have to be an OC who shared an awful lot of characteristics with Rarity. So I don't follow your argument here.
As written, this couldn't be anyone else. And saying that I could change those details to evoke Pinkie, say, is true of so much good fiction out there. Could you change "Twilight, Revised" so it's about Sunset Shimmer instead? Could you rewrite "Blink" so it's about Starlight Glimmer and her childhood friend? Could you rewrite "All the Mortal Remains" so it features an OC librarian? Yes, yes, and yes. It'd require redoing parts of them to recast the situation a bit to fit the new characters, or in the case of AtMR, subbing in an OC who was curiously similar to Twilight. But it can be done.
And here's Rarity, who still looks at everything through an eye of fashion, goes around being generous to the other patients, and clothing jogs her memory. That's pretty closely tied to Rarity, and saying you could just make an original fiction OC out of her is true of any number of good stories, where a simple find-and-replace of "hoof" for "hand" would leave it suitable for non-brony consumption. The thing is, those readers would have no idea why it's important Rarity's still generous. They'd have no idea that the stories she tells are wrong. Without it being a pony story, all that stuff has to be explained, and "the reader will miss out on quite a bit of what's happening if he's unfamiliar with the show" sure makes it sound pony to me.
Okay. This is still a matter of personal preference, certainly something I'd never begrudge you.
But then you had to throw that out there. I'll just respond with two quotes. The first is mine: "There's a huge difference between 'I didn't like this' and 'this is bad.'" The other comes from a very smart man (Bad Horse): "I think the key skill of a reviewer, the one most difficult to find, isn't understanding grammar or common story problems. It's understanding the difference between an editor and a reviewer, and between story flaws and personal preferences." (emphasis mine)
I don't doubt that you disliked the story. Downvote to your heart's content. That's your prerogative. But when you want to make that into a reason that other people shouldn't like the story, either, then you've got some convincing to do. And where you did try to point out a few things you thought were objectively missteps, what I could follow of it at least, I've presented my counterarguments to characterizing them that way. Not that it'll win you over—no amount of rational debate will suddenly make you like the story. But I don't see anything here that's going to incite me to make any changes to it.
Even with all that, maybe I just don't get it. And when I just don't get it, I ask the people I know who will be very frank with me and who have a lot of credibility as reviewers.
Chris gave it a very enthusiatic review on his One Man's Pony Ramblings blog. Present Perfect gave it a highly recommended. The Royal Guard accepted it, and GaryOak gave it a glowing blurb. If I read the signs correctly, the Royal Canterlot Library is holding it in reserve in case they need to go back and feature authors a second time. It got the highest score ever for a /fic/ write-off winner (for the ones under the old scoring, anyway—the new system is incompatible, so I have no way of knowing how it compares to those). And during that write-off, there were very positive reviews from Pearple Prose, alexmagnet, Belligerent Sock, and Golden Vision, among others. Stories are submitted anonymously, so it's not like those folks were hugboxing me because they knew I was the author.
These are all experienced reviewers who wouldn't pull any punches in telling me I'd written a clunker. I'd normally expect a few to be on either side of the fence for any given story, but when they all say the same thing...
To be fair, there are 6 other downvotes, and I'd bet InquisitorM is one of them, since I know he didn't like this one, either, but that's hardly a noteworthy occurrence for him.
4119224 A reply to one of my reviews--by the author of the story--that is twice as long as the original post? Be still my heart
Firstly, let me just say thank you for writing such a detailed and erudite comment.
Secondly, let me preface my reply by saying that all fiction is ultimately subjective. What may be a "problem" for one person could very well be unimportant or even a selling point for another. Even problems that can be called "objective" are mostly limited to a small handful of situations, and can have their exceptions.
"If memory serves" is one of those idioms that has been used in so many different contexts so many times that an individual's reaction to it is going to be hard to predict. It is so generic that it has no meaning and every meaning. I took it as a sort of tongue-in-cheek wordplay, but someone else might have keyed in to your intended effect. One reason I often warn authors about choosing very commonplace titles is because of this lack of control over the impression it creates.
A description can give information about a story while still withholding important details. In this case, the story does try to hint at the tragic nature of events--the last line "And just as quickly, they're gone." hints at the large role loss plays in the story. But this isn't clear until after the story is read. A description shouldn't spoil the story, but neither should it give the reader nothing to go on. A description needs to give the reader some idea of what the story is about, because it is often what convinces people to read it. There's plenty of room in between those two extremes. Notice how my own summary doesn't mention either twist, but does make the importance of loss more apparent.
Obviously I'm not taking the position that ALL exposition is bad: exposition is a crucial part of storytelling. My issue was its delivery. Having the details bluntly and straightforwardly stated to us contrasts so sharply with the rest of the story that it feels awkward. After a long amount of time dancing around the issue, being poetically and intriguingly vague, the narrator dumps a lot of details on the reader. She mentions a lot of things about Rarity's initial diagnosis and symptoms. It's an appropriate time in the narrative, sure; the narrator's train of thought is reasonable enough. But even though she never says a specific term, never names a particular disease or condition, the amount and timing of all these detail is a severe mismatch with the rest of the story.
This is obviously one of those subjective things: is punctuating a climax by breaking the style of the story worth it? Does the tonal and stylistic mismatch compensate for the greater weight of the reveal? That will vary from reader to reader, but for me, it was not a worthy tradeoff. Especially since it was already fairly obvious by that point: having it stated so explicitly doesn't add much.
I'm not sure what you're referring to when you mention "being dissatisfied with these "structures" in your own stories". I agree that this story works well in first-person: I didn't make any mention of perspective in my review. The use of first person helps mask the second twist, and also helps give a bit more weight to the narrator's feelings.
This is one of those points that I will have to, again, point to its subjectivity. Ultimately, I didn't think the present tense added anything to how the story was told. But it is a stylistic choice. I can't say if changing the perspective would've helped the story or hurt it. One gimmick I've used in past stories was to switch from past to present tense during particularly emotionally strenuous events/etc. but that's all it was: a gimmick. Perhaps I was thinking of that gimmick in my own writing and it made me biased. Who can say.
I noted in my review that the characters feeling more like OC's may have been intentional. Adjusting/changing characters to be less like their canon selves, in order to create an intentional disconnect, is one thing that fanfiction can do that original fiction cannot. Altering pre-existing characters in order to evoke a specific audience reaction is a valid technique. Does that mean that it could be an original story without many changes? Yes. Does that mean it has more impact as a fanfic? Well, I can't say. It's subjective. For me I didn't feel its nature as fanfic added much. But as I just said, tehre are techniques and literary tricks being used here that wouldn't work in original fiction.
In the case of the weather mechanics, though, you're right: I guess this is a case of headcanon mismatch.
In terms of feels, my perspective on this has actually changed since the time I wrote this review. At the time I read this, I hadn't experienced any real loss in my life. After watching my father die from cancer, however, my perspective has shifted. I had suspected this at the time: that's why I included the "Inspired By" tag in the list of genres. Those who have experienced loss will get more out of this story than those who have not.
As for the last part of your comment, I'm afraid I don't understand your point. Are you mentioning all these other reviews and ideas as an Appeal to Popularity? Is it a roundabout way of saying you disagree with my opinion or that you don't feel my review was delivered well? I'm being sincere here; I genuinely am not quite clear on what you're getting at.
For my part, I will say that if I re-wrote reviews, then this one would be a prime candidate. As you pointed out, my point about the stylistic disconnects, as well as some other parts, could have been clearer.
I do not, however, feel that including subjective reactions and stylistic elements in a review is bad form. As I mentioned in my reply to PresentPerfect over here (3790204), I want readers to be able to make an informed decision. My personal Verdict takes things besides the points I covered into account. But ultimately, it is just that: a personal reaction.
Roger Ebert once said that his job as a reviewer was not to tell a reader if a movie was good: only whether they would enjoy it.
After all, fiction is too subjective to give something besides opinions. Those opinions can (and absolutely should) have concrete reasoning behind them. But one part of being an author is appraising the value of critique. Sometimes it is valuable and applicable, and sometimes the reader and author are too disconnected for it to be valuable. It's an inevitability of working in a medium with so many personal elements.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply so thoroughly to my review. I'm still learning too, and this sort of response is the sort of thing that always feels great to see. If you have any further questions or I did not explain something adequately, please do ask