This Bird Has Flown / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page This Bird Has Flown.

UncannyClown 05 Apr 2025 13:39

thank you to zip

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poet

Snapdragon133 05 Apr 2025 16:42

I like this piece a lot. It seriously excels at the aspect of JoTW that I myself am not the greatest at? Where you're supposed to leave the reader wondering, whether about if the characters were right or something else. I think it's because you've weaved a multiple strong elements together rather than fully focusing on the "monster of the week" so to say. One of my biggest worries with a JoTW is the understandable desire to include a preamble of the wanderer's journey before happening upon whoever he's meeting, which can sometimes become overwrought and repetitive, but for this story you've done that but made it very important to the mystery of the piece so things balance out. Very nice!

zipzipskins 05 Apr 2025 16:54

i read this before it went up and said "no notes;" i think it's pretty excellent. the thematic elements are seamless and still important to the work — sometimes in a series with proscribed tasting notes, things can feel shoehorned in, but that's definitely not the case here. i think too something that's really good about this is that it feels like it's pretty universally relatable as a metacommentary on writing in general, which again, can feel extremely preachy, but you avoid the sanctimonious angle by making it feel personal as well as leaving out value judgments, just as the narrator of the collection would in reality. easy +1, really great