Fill Challenge 21 (DW)

[romanajo123]

 "So this is what you've been working on?" the Australian asked. 

Nyssa turned away from the computer bank she'd been furiously typing data into. "Yes, it's a kind of modeling program using non-coordinate geometry to simulate patterns in the universe."

"Right," said Tegan. She stared blankly at the screen. "I like the...colors."

"Ah there you both are" began the Doctor, entering from a corridor to the left.  "Nyssa, how goes progress on your program?"

"You knew about it?" asked Tegan.

"Indeed" the Time Lord answered. "Do you know, I've always been fascinated by the intricacies of geometric patterns, Reminds me of the time I spent with the ancient Greeks."

Nyssa nodded. "It reminds me of the geometric sonatas back on Traken. Like the piece Father would play for my stepmother-"

The Trakenite paused. noticing her friend's expression. "I'm sorry Tegan,  are we boring you?"

"No!" the Australian responded. "Well, it's just...this has never been my cup of tea. I had enough trouble understand that binary code and why my cousin got so excited about his new computer.  Couldn't wait to show me all it could do. But if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go see if Turlough's left the wardrobe room intact before we land anywhere." 

(Notes- The Trakenite geometrical sonatas are mentioned in the audio Demons of Red Lodge (the second story, in a rather sweet scene). And Tegan not getting binary comes from Children of Seth.  Also...wow technobabble is hard! )

Comments

[shivver]

You did a great job with the technobabble! It made sense, and you didn't use too much, which is really easy to do with DW. I also love that you brought in canon technobabble - it's always good fan service and if you can use what's already in the universe, no one can fault you for it.

I love Tegan's line about liking the colors, as she's trying to find something nice to say about something she just doesn't understand. I think it needs just a little bit more to establish that Tegan isn't interested in the conversation. Tegan asks the Doctor her question, then the Doctor and Nyssa say two things, and then Nyssa's asking if she's bored - that's too quick (try saying their dialogue out loud to see how long it actually takes and think if Tegan would really get visibly bored in that time), and nothing tells the reader that Tegan is no longer attentive. I'd extend the Doctor's paragraph (explain what he did in Greece) and Nyssa's paragraph, describe what Tegan's doing (e.g. starts fiddling with a pen on Nyssa's desk or something), then have the Doctor ask Nyssa about the sonatas, and Nyssa starts to answer and she realizes that Tegan is bored.

Remember that readers like to read - they want the characters to talk, and they want to picture them and what they're doing - so make the effort to write more, not less.

One other thing that's a bit awkward - referring to the characters by their species/races. Since humans, Time Lords, and Trakenites all look the same, referring to them using those descriptors doesn't add anything, and actually requires that the reader know where they came from. If you feel it's important to the story that the reader knows Nyssa's species or Tegan's accent, certainly do point it out, but not as an identifier - for example, you had Nyssa mention she was from Traken here. If you do use the race (which DW writers often do with the Doctor, referring to him as "the Time Lord"), try to do it only when it matters to the story and even then, very sparingly.

It reads a lot better if you just use their names or their pronouns. If you really want to use descriptors, use visual cues (or less often, other senses), like "the woman seated at the computer". Or for multi-Doctor stories, "the man in pinstripes" vs. "the blond Doctor" (assuming we've already established which Doctors are in the story - is the second Five or Thirteen?).

[romanajo123]

Thanks for feedback!

And noted. Sorry it’s just so easy to say “ Time Lord” instead of Doctor sometimes. And

Oooh and I notice now I probably could’ve done better with showing this one. ☺️

[shivver]

Yeah, it's kind of hard to explain, but using "Time Lord" for the Doctor is a bit of a special case. Especially with the RTD and early Moffat era establishing that the Doctor is the only Time Lord left, it's kind of okay to identify him as THE Time Lord, even now that the Time Lords have returned (and disappeared again... sheez, can't they just come back and stay back?). In that way, referring to him as "the Time Lord" is actually an identifier, rather than a descriptor, sort of like if you have one nurse in a room of accountants, it's okay to refer to that person as "the nurse" occasionally, because that's actually identifying that person.

Which might make you ask, is it okay to refer to Rory as "the nurse" in a fic? Well, it's kind of the same thing as race. If the team is walking around in, say, Barcelona, in normal street clothes, referring to "the nurse" is a bit weird - the reader has to know which one of them is a nurse to know who you're talking about (which they probably will, but still), there's nothing about them to clue the reader in, and it's not relevant to the story. Now, let's say someone gets hurt and Rory runs up to look them over and check for concussion, you might use "the nurse" to indicate to the reader that Rory knows what he's doing - it's story-relevant.