Private Lives

Fanfiction
Title:	Private Lives
Author(s):	Alexfandra
Date(s):	1995
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
Relationship(s):
External Links:	online here
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Private Lives is a slash Professionals story by Alexfandra.

It was published in Truth to Tell and is online.

Reactions and Reviews

Competent. This was the first DiaG story I read, and so it stayed in my mind. This one takes the tack that Bodie and Doyle go off on an extended holiday before Doyle returns to active duty to try and rebuild their trust after Doyle's shooting. Something like that. In this one Doyle and Bodie are each writing in their journals about their feelings on the shooting, which is a nice way of getting the switching POV -- and I think for an effective telling of this particular story it would be useful to alternate POV -- although I generally don't like it. Especially for myself. Sebastian alternates character POV along with an omniscient POV that actually works very well for her. Kate, on the other hand, does that really tight third person -- which is almost as good as first person. Oddly, though I'm most comfortable writing in first, I can't do it with these fics. The characters just don't feel like mine -- and, of course, they're not. Which is what makes writing them so relaxing and amusing.

I did NOT like "Private Lives." I thought the premise didn't work, and I didn't think the "voices" sounded anything like I imagine Bodie and Doyle. Too touchy-feely for me. I tend to enjoy stories that don't have too much dialogue. If Bodie and Doyle start having long conversations about their "feelings," then I'm probably not going to be into the story.

The setting is Doyle recovering from Graveyard. The emotional context is both guys want the other and neither has screwed up the courage to say anything. The plot is send them into seclusion, and make them write in journals which are open to the reader, but not to each other. The story was well executed, but routine. I enjoyed the descriptive bits most, including the nude sunbathing. I didn't think that the journal concept was used to its best advantage; I didn't see the evolution of awareness through the process (and if that wasn't the point, then what was?). Boy gets boy in the end by applying the old "naw, you can just sleep here" technique (which seems completely unrelated to the whole isolate them alone plot, they could have done that in London.) I didn't get the point.

I have some problems with both the content and the text. Not huge niggles but they were enough to make me stop and think and make notes. They won't stop me re-reading but I am unable to deliver unalloyed praise. Some of you might think my complaints are quibbles but they are important in that they can jar the reader out of the story.