Fill: Challenge #290, sorta

[shivver]

Two things here, not actually for this challenge, but hey, the rules allow this.

First, I wrote a thing for a challenge in fandomweekly last week, but their rules are to post directly to the comm (not post to AO3 then link to the comm) and to not post it anywhere else until voting is over. Voting ended yesterday (and I won! Though that's not all that impressive, as there were only three entries), so here's the link! It's from my origfic, so it's not going to be posted anywhere else.

"What It's Worth" - origfic, Kit and Alex

Second, my husband and I were talking about "Wild Blue Yonder" (the latest DW episode) last night, and when I mentioned that I can't get any fic out of it because the story is so tight, he said, "Of course you can!" and he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, in a hilarious way as is his wont, and I said, "You're right, I can do that!" And I did, though not in a hilarious way. It took me about thirty minutes - ten minutes of writing and twenty minutes of massaging it into a true drabble, so I guess it does kinda fill the Real Ten Minutes challenge. Warning though: it does not spoil the episode, but is also totally not understandable if you haven't seen it.

"The Long Journey" - Doctor Who ("Wild Blue Yonder"), the Doctor

Comments

[romanajo123]

First, congratulations!!! And thanks for alerting me that Fandom Weekly is a thing. Apparently the current one is Catastrophe. 😃

Second, I saw your Drabble but haven’t read it yet. Was it difficult to do just 100 words? it can be for me

[shivver]

Well, you haven't seen the episode yet, so you probably shouldn't read it. On the other hand, it's entirely non-spoiler - the language is vague about the episode, so it actually won't tell you anything about the episode. On the other, other hand, the language is so vague that the drabble itself won't be understandable until you've seen the episode. :D

Drabbles are always difficult for me. If I'm going to write something, anything, it's going to be original and it's going to be a complete idea. It's not worth my time to just parrot what's in an episode like someone we both know. So, in general, a complete idea is really hard to cut down to 100 words, to say everything you need to say, in the right order with the right amount of detail.

When my husband suggested the idea, I knew I could do it in 100 words, because it consists pretty much of one description, one action, and then one more description. Even then, the first attempt was around 130. I then had to change things around a bit and cut out some stuff to get it to 100.

But this is why I always say to not write drabbles (or other limited word count formats) when you're practicing writing. If you're trying to learn to write, putting an arbitrary limit on the amount of words you can use makes it infinitely harder, and for no benefit/learning to you. You end up sacrificing your story - the plot, the characters, the world, etc. - to the word count. Writing 100-word drabbles is not going to get you to writing your 200,000-word novel.