Eh, I can see how some people wouldn't like it. The tell:show ratio is extremely high. It's well written "tell", but still tell.

 

You say that like telling is a bad thing. I've never understood this massive obsession with 'show not tell'. Plenty of writers tell and do it beautifully. Show don't tell is important if you're writing children/YA/pulp fiction, but in this case it's clearly not applicable as it's being used as a narrative device. This story would be shit if we were shown rather than told.

Faulting this for telling rather than showing is like faulting Steven Spielberg because Schindler's List was shot in black and white.



Likewise, to fault this on foreign language nitpicks, perfectly legitimately used present tense and equally legitimate, excellently implemented third person omniscient point of view, is stupid. Then again, considering the review also said it had 'excellent ideas' means that the entire point of the piece was obviously missed.

 

The problem with telling is that it always feels like a summary, or an overview. It's almost essay-like.

Now, for this fic it works, given that's exactly what it is: an overview which stretches over time. But for most fics, it would feel like the reader was being cheated: the story would feel like it was being summarised for them like a synopsis, rather than being told properly. As a reader you want to see what is happening. You want to know what people said, you want to see reactions and details.

It's not so much faulting Schindler's List for being black and white. It would be like faulting an alternative Schindler's List that was 60 seconds long and is composed of a voiceover saying "TL;DR: Nazi helps some Jews" and then showed a few short part-scenes.

 

That was an awfully long post just to tell me that you agree ;D

I can't agree with your metaphor, or your assertion that it's 'essay-like', but I'm personally of the opinion that any short fiction with scope is going to have to require telling to a greater or lesser degree. I don't think that fundamentally it ruins a story, provided it is used effectively. As it is in this story.

 

Not necessarily - as you said, it works for what it is. If it was a full-length story, explaining in detail how some sheepherders from the dark ages cast a firebolt, I highly doubt it would be in any way as good is it is now. It's like faulting The Artist for being black and white - it could have been different, but that would not necessarily have made it better.

As far as the German goes: It was actually pretty good for fanfiction - it might have sounded strange, but neither speaker was a native German, as is noted:

All in all, a very good one-shot. While thinking about my rating however, I somehow avoided going for 5/5 - it's very good, but somehow not entirely satisfying. I guess I somewhat see where Taure is coming from, not because it's too much tell, but because it does feel a bit like a synopsis.

4.5/5