CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #38 — Miles to Go · 7:49pm Jan 30th, 2020
I’m continuing my critiques of the entrants into the Imposing Sovereigns II contest; more specifically, the “finalists” I marked as being worthy of a top spot. Today’s story is the third-best story I read in the entire contest. I would like to stress, however, that I only ranked them because FanOfMostEverything made me; they are all excellent.
Title: Miles to Go
Author: AugieDog
Found via: That contest what I judged.
Short summary: Filthy Rich finally retires, passes on control of his store to Diamond Tiara. But passing the torch means you have to find a new one for yourself.
Genre(s): Character Piece, Slice of Life
The Title/Description: The title is fine. The Robert Frost reference is overdone at this point, but it fits the tone of the story well enough.
The description is fine. It’s a little less subtle than the story itself, but not egregiously so.
Including a note about the contest is fine enough, but is “this story didn't reach the Top Seven” really the best first impression for readers?
The Critique:
This story portrays its characters excellently. Despite its short length, Filthy Rich is a grounded, realistic character. Some characters only get one or two scenes, but still manage to shine through in that short space. The butler Randolph and Diamond Tiara are the foremost examples of this; the former for his wily-yet-caring nature, and the latter for being the same daddy’s girl from the show convincingly aged up.
Nowhere is this good character work more evident than Spoiled Rich. Our fandom often has a very limited reaction to characters it does not like. Admittedly, the show didn’t give writers a lot to work with: her portrayal is one-dimensional and stereotypical. This story avoids those lazy cliches, and portrays the Riches and their relationship in a very believable way. It asks how their relationship might work and tries to show that to the reader.
Filthy Rich himself uses an old trope to good effect: after passing the torch to someone else, what does one do with their now empty hooves? This is a fairly introspective piece, and it never felt like Filthy’s character or conflict was being taken lightly. There’s even a few cute moments and solid jokes to break up the pacing.
The pacing is certainly slow, but given how short it is, I barely even noticed. There are also some minor typos; there needs to be more hyphens and commas than there are. These two minor points, however, are the only criticisms I could come up with.
In a single sentence: A fantastic character piece that treats its characters with respect and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Verdict: Upvote. This is one of those fanfics that, I daresay, has nothing worth criticizing in it. I may be pricing myself out of the business by saying so, but I’m nothing if not honest.
This is one of the few entries into the contest that I have re-read since the judging ended. It’s brief, but still has something to say. It’s tone and arc and characters are all top-notch. It may not be of a grand scale or scope, but not all things need to be. If you have even a passing interest in its genres, it’s an easy recommendation.
