Hap Reviews Contest Entries 9: Love Will Travel As Long As You Let It · 4:20pm Jul 21st, 2020
Hello. As of yesterday, the judges from the contest 'right back at it again' have posted a list of finalists. Like I briefly touched on before, I don't really like the vibe of reviewing stories after the judges start making public decisions, which means that I don't want to review any of the others that are currently in the judging process, nor really review ones that haven't since that draws comparisons with ones that have made it in, and so on and so forth. That leaves one story that I can still review, though, which was actually posted, for fun or as a flex, by one of the judges themselves.
I may not like the vibe of reviewing fellow participants and potentially clashing with a judge's opinion of a story, but I am cool with the vibe of antagonising the judges by critiquing their hard work.
I like living dangerously. Or as dangerously as one can in the realm of pone-fiction writing.
Onto the story.
This is an interesting story to talk about, since it mixes up a few very overt styles of presentation. The story initially presents itself in an epistolary format (and I'm there for that) before switching into a meaty, third-person limited format centered on Gilda. This felt to me like it happened later in the story than it did because each letter got its own chapter, which broke up the letters and slowed down my reading pace. I'm on the fence as to whether that was a good thing or not. The switch to third person was a bit jarring to me, and frankly I was a little disappointed that it didn't continue, since I was kind of into that format and that style of storytelling up until that point, even if it did feel a bit janky or forced.
I do think the way it was presented was a bit chaotic, and not really in the 'by design' way. The letters don't feel quite right; they're written like they're sent quickly and urgently, especially near the end, but unless they have a telegram or dragon-mail (do they? I'm not caught up on all later episodes, but I would assume they don't) surely it would be faster to just... fly there? That's how the letters are probably getting there anyway. Rainbow is a top-tier flyer and I can't imagine Gilda is much of a slouch either. Then when they meet in person, and we switch to third-person, the urgency presented in the letters drops. I almost feel that this is back-to-front, as the epistolary section seems too fast paced whereas the third-person stuff seems artificially slowed down.
I should note that this is a fairly meaty story, clocking in at 14.5K words, and the third person section (presented in a single chapter) represents 12K of those words. That's a fair amount of chapter to start to get cagey with plot progression, and it's only until a bit after the halfway mark of that chapter that we actually figure out what has happened, leaving around 6K+ words of just sort of being presented a mystery which (to me) felt artificial. The story aims to use Rainbow's own shame and nervousness to sell this, but since the plot at this stage is pretty much just finding out what has gone wrong, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get frustrated here and there. This also sets back any resolution to the conflict as well as a tangible objective, which would have been great considering a chapter of this length, if only to keep me going.
My negativity mostly ends there, however. Finally, some good fucking horse-drama. None of this saccharine SoL stuff. We're looking at broken hearts, gritty love triangles, and unrequited feelings. I love more mellow stuff as much as the next guy (and write it, too) but it's kind of refreshing to get a story that really tries to draw blood, at least for a change.
The story presents a rather sobering depiction of how romance can end up after a long period of time. I wouldn't say this is the first story to do this, nor will it be the last, but it slots into that genre fairly nicely. It leaves an ambiguous ending, which is fitting, but it does mean that the story has a very subdued resolution. In the end, the main outcome is getting Rainbow back on her feet in the most basic sense, and whilst what happens next is left unsaid, this is still a resolution. I wouldn't have minded more of a focus on Gilda's outcome as well (given that she is the perspective through which we experience the majority of the story, epistolary narrative aside), but I'm not unhappy with the situation I got.
Whilst it takes some time to get there, I feel that the takeaway is pretty solid.
I should note that outside of maybe one mechanical issue, I thought the writing was fine mechanically and grammatically. I don't go looking for problems of that sort, admittedly, so unless they find me these things often tend to be invisible to me. So that's nice! It's really the pacing and presentation I find a bit janky, not the actual writing, which is something I specify because usually when I say the writing is wonky or janky in places, I'm referring to mechanical stuff that jumps out at me, like paragraphing or spelling and stuff like that. This isn't the case here.
Who would enjoy this? If you're on the hunt for a sober, bittersweet-ish, midlife-crisis-y romance story with a bit more grit, I think you should give this one a whirl. It's a bit bloated in places, but it's ambition makes up for some at-times wonky execution in my opinion. I'd also like to see more stories that use letters too, and whilst this isn't a full epistolary narrative (only partial as a framing tool), if that sparks interest, then it may be worth looking into for that as well.
That's pretty much all from me today. I may take a look at some stories in this contest at some point, but I currently want to just step back and let the judges just do their thing, as I usually do for contests.
As an aside, since this one is largely wrapping up, if anyone knows of any other contests of any kinds that are out there, do let me know! I find contests singularly stimulating and am always on the lookout for a fun one to jump into.
Cheerio.
