@Allamorph:

Aye, it can be so irritating when you've been taught one way and then get told that it's wrong by someone else. To be honest, I like to stick to what I was taught originally, but I can't help but feel awkward since the majority of my audience are actually American. "OMG THERE'S NO 'U' IN ARMOR YOU DIV!"

Aggrandise is a fun word. It's not used enough.

Also, not to self-aggrandise, but my submission Invictus is basically entirely POV action. It has fast and slow bits, since it's longer (by necessity), but when writing it I was basically tied to Third Person Limited the entire time—which made one of the scenes somewhat humorous.

Also also, I dunno if you notice, but I tend to use the British-English variant of words like "aggrandise". I started doing that several years ago and it's so second nature to me now that when people look at me sideways when I'm writing on whiteboards that it takes me a few seconds to figure out why.

@Starscream:

Interesting on the regional punctuation thing. Hadn't considered that.

My usage of commas and quotations is situationally-dependent. For dialogue, it goes inside ["So she likes pie," said Buttface.] since it takes the place of the period for that sentence without actually terminating the primary sentence.

But for anything not spoken or directly cited (papers are weird about that), it gets placed outside: The use of inkwell terms, such as "verisimilitude", should be avoided when possible.

My journalist uncle gives me copious amounts of grief for doing so, though. It's physically impossible for him to separate the usage of the quotation into different situations. Rather annoying, really.

@Allamorph:

To be honest, I've never been very comfortable with POV fics anyway. I may just re-write after another read as a standard fic.

Also, the thing regarding triple ellipses is actually how I was taught years ago. Also, regarding publishers, I was told that to have anymore than three was 'too American' and wasn't acceptable. As was not adding a capital letter after any set of ellipses regardless of if it the same sentence or not. Maybe it's one of those stupid regional things, I don't know. I recall Someguy flipping over the fact that I used a comma after quotation marks instead of inside them, but that's a UK standard. So, meh. Who knows.

[IE: "So, she likes pie", said Buttface. instead of "So, she likes pie," said Buttface.]

But, anywho. I have been considering going for the more 'offensive' approach when I go through it again and change it to the more 'gritty' side that I feel it should be.

Cheers for ze commentage. I'll be sure to check the 'notify subscribers' button when I do update this.

Our Swings-Mids transition is awful. bleugh

So. You said you hadn't gone through and messed with word choice and phrasings, so I'll leave most of my comments in that regard alone for now. I would like to see what the scene looks like after you make those changes, though, so if/when you get around to it, let me know.

I think the most pervading issue through the scene, really, is that it feels like you can't make up your mind how you want the narration to present itself. One the one hand you seem to be painting an intense, vivid action scene, pulling the audience in to flinch when the character ducks, grab onto their armrests when she goes down, and cheer when her failing partner comes to her rescue with one last-ditch, superhuman effort.

But you also seem to fall in and out of a more nostalgic feel, as if the character is recounting the events to some unknown listener in the tea room, with memory fading the intensity of the adrenaline and lending a perspective the focus of the moment can't see.

I think you should figure out which way you're really leaning, and school yourself to stay in the confines of that approach. Neither is incorrect for the scene, but each one will lend a slightly different focus to the scene itself, and can and will reveal separate aspects of the characters' personalities that the other can't access.

Short of that, and leaving out the phrasing, I'd keep an eye on your sentence construction. Don't be afraid to get complex, especially in action scenes. Short sentences communicate the lack of fully-formed thoughts well, but long ones, broken up with commas and an absolute minimum of articles and conjunctions, create a breathless, tense atmosphere, and alternating back and forth between those keeps the motion fast-paced and gripping.

Also, don't capitalise after ellipses. Ellipses do not mean a sentence has ended, only that it's being delayed. Once you put the period after the ellipsis, then the sentence is over. And it'll look strange at first, four dots instead of three, but that is the correct usage of the punctuation.

@Starscream:

Okay. I have a short day tomorrow and then 36 hours off, so I should have some time to devote to it.

@Allamorph:

No, no. Feel free. I just wrote it super quick, so I haven't had the chance to go through and correct some of the errors and wording yet. :)

Hnn.

I could provide some input if you would like. But I warn you, I can be a little rough. Not maliciously, just thorough.

This was so cool to read, you are a really good writer! You have the command of the words (Just like my English professor would have said :D) nice job

Have a good one