#it’s a long longfic so i keep wondering if i should stop now and switch to a different one that is new to me

[yyyyanyan]

I am enjoying a fic but ik I dropped it in the past and I Cannot Remember Why

[reliquiaen]

I wrote a thing and I was wondering if you would read it? It's a bubbline fic. It's called i could live without you (just don't want to) If you left a comment on what you thought I would greatly appreciate it. (Also apparently you can't post links in asks!? Who the heck thought of that?)

would you believe ao3 had the AUDACITY to tell me my comment was too long? outrageous. check below the cut.

It’s a little awkward to have Bonnie’s hand actually hit Marceline’s chest. Stand in front of your door and open it. Picture where the person on the other side is. There’s more space there than could be comfortably crossed by a casual arm swing from knocking. She would’ve struck air.

Set the scene more clearly. Has Bonnie ever been to this house before? It seems like she hasn’t but the reader doesn’t know that. We have no idea the pre-established relationship (whatever that is) between them either, so we don’t know if it’s even reasonable to expect that Bonnie has been here before. The lack of context also raises questions about the stuttering, especially since Marceline uses a nickname quite easily right at the start. Basically what I’m getting at here is that there’s a disconnect between how familiar they’re being with each other; Marceline is being real casual/familiar but Bonnie seems to be treating this like they’re strangers (or the next thing to it). Shoot for a little more consistency.

Following on from this point: the house is lovely? We have to take Bonnie’s word for it. You don’t have to go into any great amount of detail, just give us the top three things that make it lovely (well-lit, classy decorations, homey, photos on the walls, colour scheme, tidy - just a few ideas, fill it in how you think lovely looks!). Also not expecting you to have a floor plan (unless this is a longfic in the making and we’ll be spending a lot of time here, then yeah make a floorplan for your reference and consistency), but in your head you should know where things are and where the characters are going. So where’s this hallway in relation to where we started? Did we go through any rooms? Are there doors? What the heck is this rope??? Explain (from Bonnie’s POV) as she tries to figure out what’s going on before it happens, our brains work quickly, try and throw some of that in there.

Be careful using traits/descriptors in place of names as well. It can be useful when the character is a stranger (referring to them as ‘the tall guy’ or whatever if it’s a defining trait) but we know who these two are, use their names. Or pronouns. I find the best way to use pronouns in place of names is that the last character who’s name was used gets the following pronoun.

Description of the bedroom is pretty good, we have no guidelines to go by though; is this like the rest of the house? How tall is the house? Were the on the bottom floor and the attic is the only other floor? Or did they go up stairs? How on EARTH did a piano get up there? Strange items? Those seem like a focus point; take Bonnie’s personality into account: she’s the sort of curious where she sticks her nose where it shouldn’t be regardless of consequences. Plus ‘strange’ is the sort of word that readers will expect exploration for. Be careful of wording; Bonnie’s not analysing this, just taking it in. If you want her to be analysing, give us some more thought processes. What does she think of these things, is there anything in particular drawing her attention, is she uncomfortable and why, etc.

This is the first mention of them being in school together? There’s a basement? Definitely work on figuring out how all the rooms fit together.

Coming back to my point about setting your scene rn bc Bonnie has a crush? We are just learning this. Also why is Marceline tickling her? That’s VERY comfortable. I feel like we defs need some more details about their relationship as it stands. Especially now that Bonnie is using a nickname.

Careful with transitions. Felt like a whirlwind of situation changes happened right there between Bonnie lying down, Marceline leaving (??? not good host etiquette), Marceline coming back, the tickling??? and then the alcohol announcement. There’s very little to help with those transitions or explain any reasoning behind them.

(This is probably as good a time as any to just ask you to be careful with your speech tags and punctuation. Is Bonnie giggling the ‘stop’ or is she saying that around giggles or is she saying that and THEN giggling? Please don’t overuse smirk. It’s a great word for a sassbox like Marceline but too much smirking and it just becomes the smile of a shit-stirrer.)

Again: transitions. Marceline is pouting now. Describe it. Is this different? Has she got a reputation for being the sort of person who’s pouts folks can’t say no to? If not consider how that factors in. Please also ask where Marceline got the alcohol, why she’s drinking it, how old they are, why Bonnie is making this exception, Marceline’s motives behind sharing it (is it bc she wants to look cool? Does she understand what sorts of things Bonnie thinks are cool?). Also ask what YOUR motive is for the alcohol. Is it just to lower inhibitions and get them to talk more freely than they usually would? If that’s the case, reevaluate your use of it. It should serve a purpose for the characters as well as for you. (Pet peeve: this is an especially tricky situation for other reasons: they’re underage and consent. It’s brought up heaps in other fics, I know, but it’s worth considering anyway.)

Tie your references to blushing into what else is going on at the time. Otherwise they feel disjointed; like things you’re just reciting. Don’t give us facts! Give us emotion!

Check your tenses. By which I mean just make sure you’re not switching between past and present tense accidentally when referring to multiple actions in a single sentence. (Should be ‘plopped’.) “Shook her head yes” - check that, should be nods I think, yes? Yeah just some grammar issues here and there, a few missing words and tense mix ups, punctuation problems, capitalisation. Nothing major (we all do it) just make sure you check for them.

Use of omniscient narrator for the briefest of seconds. I get that you’re trying to convey to the reader that Marceline has a crush too, but Bonnie has thus far been your sole narrator so if she can’t hear something we shouldn’t either. Alternatively, grab a Virginia Woolf novel and welcome to the omniscient narrator club!

New speaker = new paragraph. But same speaker = same paragraph. You’ve split up some of Marceline’s dialogue into two paragraphs which can be confusing. Marceline is playing music she wrote? Why? Is she shy about this? Does she do it often? Again, is it bc she’s trying to impress? Is it bc she’s going on drunk?

Marceline is getting her way a lot. We, the reader, know why. Consider from their perspective though: does Marceline know why? Does she suspect? Does she feel guilty for pressuring Bonnie? How does Bonnie feel about it? Growing frustration? A little bit of that patented Hopeless Gay™?

Why the boredom? If this was a planned get together why did neither of them think about what they were gonna do? Bonnie especially would be the type to have a plan. She probably googled ‘platonically hanging out with your crush’ to see what came up lol.

The innuendo at the end feels a bit rushed, too. But that could just be bc we haven’t seen any of the build up to this. Have they been pining for several years (unlikely if they’re in high school)? Is it the alcohol talking? Is Marceline joking? How can we tell? Is she phrasing it like that just to get a rise out of Bonnie? What does she think NOT getting that rise out of Bonnie?

Anyway that was a lot of rambling I’m very sorry. Overall a good tight storyline, it starts, it builds and it concludes satisfactorily. You just need to practice writing as a thought-process sorta thing, I’m not sure how to explain it better than as a connecting of ideas together. I mean I won’t claim to be great at that sometimes I force a situation to get to where I wanna go (sometimes you have to), but yeah just check in with your characters, plan things out (doesn’t have to be a huge spread out thing, just make a few notes about where things are) and ask questions! To question your story and motives can only make it better! It’s all that background stuff that the reader doesn’t see that makes up this underlying network of ideas, concepts, actions and characterisation that really holds up the plot and keeps shit consistent!

And that is… all the advice I’ve got! Sorry if any of it came out sounding a lil brusque it’s been a loooooong day u.u