Talk:Not Quite Furry

Great. I really enjoyed this. The manic ferrityness especially. Sorry, this is more of a fan letter than a critique. --Alveric

No prob. The ferretyness is nice to have appreciated. ^^ -- Traxer 05:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I was quite impressed by this, I'm a sucker for this kind of story but it was well written and there were no errors serious enough to break the flow. On a broad critique I would say that the story declines as you get further through, the mental change to the POV character is intentionally confusing so that works, but still is hard to follow. Also the story kind of just... ends, without much build-up or finality. The drama worked up until then but once the story begins to wrap up it evaporated to become rather choppy and contrived (as much as any story about a six foot ferret can be serious ;)).

It's a good TF story. But if you wanted to work on it some more I'd suggest putting some significant event at the end, or ending at the personalities merging and focusing on that. For example, having the personalities split and have to work together to [blank] would work well, or having some big show down as they realise each other's existence. It really needed to run a little longer to a climax to properly finish off a nice story. --Fibio 23:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I must admit that the ending has haunted me and I've been debating a proper way to change it. At this point, I'm prepared to completely drop the entire dinner scene and rewrite the ending from scratch (though keep some elements). I believe your comments did give me a nice idea to play with when I do so actually. So thanks for that too! -- Traxer 05:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello! Finally found time to give my two cents' worth. Fibio's given a lot of great comments already but I thought I'd throw in some of my own (as well as elaborate on the matter of your ending, so brace yourself for lotsa reading).

First, praise! I thought this story was very well-written, and I enjoyed it a lot. As before, what impressed me was the character development. I thought each character was brought forth quite well, and the flow of the mental change was handled very well (considering that such things are usually quite tricky). For me, this story is one of the gems in the mental-change category, particularly because you do an excellent job in bringing out the personality of both Jacob and Regi in their own individual, characteristic way. Great work on that! As with your other works, you could sort of feel the difference in flow-of-thought and personality between the two characters. It seems to be a characteristic of your works. I couldn't help but laugh at the ferrety goodness throughout the story; you, sir, have a flair with quirky characters that I very much envy.

However: I thought that, like before again, there were some tiny errors in sentence flow and word choice, although significantly less pronounced than in your other works. No, my main complaint here is that you have lots of strange things introduced for no particular reason. Like Fibio said: the first part starts off great, but after a while it goes spiralling into odd things, especially near the end. For example, you introduced Dr. Ralph, and you introduced the Men in Black, and you introduced Jess Winters, but I don't see them furthering the plot very much. The Doctor was okay, I guess, because you sort of used him over the rest of the story, although he could have been done away with without much actual effect on storyline; but I don't quite see how the confrontation with the Government Agents did much in the way of furthering your story. I mean, the introduction of the conflict is so abrupt and unexpected, and just when you got the readers thinking, "Oh shit, Jason/Regi's really screwed this time," you abruptly resolve the conflict in true deus ex machina style, by again simply introducing another character who chases off the baddies, says hi, and then promptly goes off on her way. Bam, conflict started; bam, conflict solved. Back to square one. It kind of left me (and maybe some other people) wondering "Wait; what's the point of all that, again?"

Well, something about Occam's Razor or Chekhov's something, but it's usually a bad idea to introduce a plot event for no particular purpose because that will detract from your main story. For example, if a mugger walks up to a character and tries to rob him, only to be arrested three seconds later by a policeman conveniently strolling around the corner, what does it do for the story? Nothing has happened to the main character; in the end he just goes strolling off on his way, and the mugging might as well have not happened at all.

Something I often do when thinking about adding in something new to a piece of work is to ask myself: "How does this add on to the story? Does it develop a particular character (reveal facets of a character's personality previously unseen)? Does it further the plot? Does it build dramatic tension (or something like that)?" If it fulfills no real purpose and resolves no real problem, then it should be abandoned. You don't want the reader distracted from the main point. Essentially, what you have there is a essentially five-second anticlimatic conflict—it not only lets down the readers' expectations a little, it also detracts from the main conflict of your story, which as I understand it is Jacob/Regi's internal mental-change conflict. You resolved that last one nicely, but the government agents attacking wasn't really very good for your story. Unless, of course, you intend to have a second story in which aforementioned agents form the main conflict, in which case, your introduction of them, and Jess Winters, is fairly justifiable.

Last thing: I just thought I should mention that you have a very elegant way of ending off your stories with that hopeful, warm-and-fuzzy feeling (which I know somebody appreciates a lot—I think I read that somewhere, was it FA?). That ability of yours is pretty much a valuable skill in and of itself (and one I have never been able to grasp, so I confess some level of envy as I read and reread your stories).

I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh, but I'm sort of in a hurry so I haven't the time to carefully edit my work, so my apologies. Please don't be offended or anything. To sum up: great writing, great character development, some very minor sentence flow and word choice issues, and a problematic conflict-introduction, and a very nicely done ending. On the overall, great work! Post more stuff next time. --Wolfy 14:43, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Posh. Not need to apologize for your critiques. Your critiques are some of the most solid ones I've run across for a looooong time. They are the sort of critiques I always wants to get but never seem to know where to look. I am not offended at the least because you bring up legitimate points and give ways for me to improve. I am quite happy with your critiques. I am a soul who knows he has a long way to go and wants to improve his work. ^^

Now to my response: As I said to Fibio...this ending (or rather, last act) has haunted me. I think you pegged all the reasons that it has haunted me in your review. At first I thought it was a fun quirky ending to a fun quirky story, but the more I've thought about it, the more I feel it doesn't match up with the rest of the story. There is certain things I sorta like about the ending, but...nothing that really gives the story the proper ending it needs. I lead up to this ending and don't properly satisfy the characters, the readers, and, most importantly, myself.

I suppose I could argue that the existence of Regi causes the universe itself to bend around him, in turn causing random conflicts like the Men In Black to appear, and that was the idea at first, but still, I can lead up to it better.

Anyway, glad you enjoyed the tale as a whole and thanks for for the compliments. ^^ Not all my stories have warm and fuzzy endings...but I am a chap who believes that life is too dark in itself to have all depressing endings.

Thanks again for the critque. I hope to use yer suggestions to the best of my writing ability. Traxer 05:39, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

((On a side note about posting more stories, actually have one more tale posted on Shifti called Nothing Up My Sleeve. ^^))

Heeey, I'm just glad you're taking this in your stride. I mean, sometimes people critique my work and I can get really sad even when I know they don't mean to be hurtful—so when I critique stuff I worry that I'll make someone else upset, too. Heh heh.

You're right about the ending, I guess. As in, the pre-ending scene. Ending was good. But I guess changing the scene is your own call—for me, I usually wait a while before returning to my older works. As for your universe-bending idea, it could work, but you really need to present it more clearly because I for one didn't really get it... Sorry. Anyway, I'm happy you like the critique. I've read Nothing Up My Sleeve already, and I'd critique that but I'm busy with real life for now so maybe by the end of this week you'd get my critique on that. :)--Wolfy 16:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC)