Sep 14, 2022
To:Fuzzy Rabid Usagi
Don't worry, my notes might sound a bit harsher than they actually are. As I said, I liked the novel very much and a few things might be just my opinion. But I'll gladly share it with you in the hopes that it somehow helps you a bit.
One thing that you might already be aware off is the fact that if you've lived a life under one regime with a certain set of beliefs it is hard to impossible put them down. For example: During the Hitler Regime existed institutions like the "Hitler Youth" for boys and "Federation of German Girls" for girls ... obviously. They both were part of the propaganda machinery of Germany. From a very young age the kids were playfully taught stuff like throwing grenades and shooting weapons and whatnot. Everyone not participating was ostracized and bullied. They essentially raised young fighting machines (if you are up to date with Attack on Titan - Gabi and Falco would be the fictional equivalents of them). This young boys and girls would fight until death because they have been indoctrinated to hate the enemies from the depth of their hearts and were feared by the soldiers of the allied forces because they were so brutal and reckless despite being kids. And then Germany lost the war. Even though they tried reeducating the kids, even to the day they died, a few were not comfortable with democracy and the developments until their last breath.
To adapt this to the bunker: No one would be able to simply put down the rules from one second to the other. They have learned them from the day they were born and while they then had to silently accept it, it would still feel strange to allow non-partners to interact the way Jason and Moira did especially with other people present. I don't think that they would be like "Ah, okay now that you're allowed to, have your fun!" (more like awkwardly turning away) ... unless the people in the bunker would already doubt the system and question it.
And you already implemented this to a degree through saying that it felt a bit awkward to have physical contact in public and so on. But I think this would be a way longer development and require very small steps ... essentially like the way Moira and Jason got closer to one another with small steps at a time. I still get why you constructed it the way you did - to have the emotional ending of both of them together.
Next thing I noted is that despite the story being very intimate and close (its a love story after all), the narration sometimes feels slightly distanced and sterile - and I don't think that this was just due to the third-person narrator. Again, this is rather subtle. On a conceptional and narrational layer the story worked really well for me. Only the feelings they created had this slight issue. It's not that I questioned it happening, but I sometimes asked myself why Moira and Jason actually fell in love. Moira on her own is a strong character, really quirky and her feelings actually shine through vividly. Jason on the other hand is a bit more dull - which I always thought was intended and a understandable decision to counter her ways. But these polar oposites never actually clashed together for me - or at least not hard enough. When they shared the secret with the book and actually talked about how they found the latest chapters, I really had this feeling of them slowly finding together and actually felt that there was something special developing between them. And then came the moment where he avoided her first but they somehow found themselves kissing in the Oxygen Farm.
In other words they reached the "peak" of their development in the story (the sessions at Sylvia's excluded). And when the story and its developments were not longer holding them together, what was? Their physical contact and the unbearable craving for it? The once shared interests in the stories of the book? Their shared secret? I think their connection would feel more meaningful and sustainable with more real substance backing it up. It's shared interests, shared time, what happens if two opposing forces collide with each other. Like smashing two songs together and discovering them swinging in harmony. You surely made things harder for yourself with the setting you choose, but I'm certain that it's possible to pull this off. Both of them have the potential to form an amazing, new melody. You would just need to emphazie different character traits more, experiment and find the way the both of them really fit together like two puzzle pieces. Give them the space space they need to breath, even if the plot has to make a bit way for this.
Lastly, I think that the novel had a few lengths. This was not dramatic, but I think you could have also made this into "just" 50-55k words without loosing any deeply substantial information. The classes and their life at the beginning was described in lot of detail and I think that it would have worked just as well with the plot points being a bit more closer together.
And yeah, that were the few things. As said already none of them was major enough to have a huge impact on the fun. Ai and her character was amazing, the general idea and the plot progression was really great. You had a few smaller twists and turns that made the story varied and always interesting. Only until close to the end it was possible to predict the route you would take and I am really a bit envious in how fast you wrote all this alongside two other stories in just three months! ๐๐
Again, thank you very much for writing this! I wish you a lot of success with the contest! Maybe we'll see around Honeyfeed!
