Challenge #447
Mar. 5th, 2025 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivver posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tenminutesadayHmm, it took me three tries to type the word "Challenge" correctly. Maybe I really need this mug of tea more than I thought.
Anyway.
The word of the day today is "subtlety"! Let's practice being subtle.
Write a couple paragraphs of either a conversation between two characters or of a character thinking or remembering to themself, in which they're talking/thinking about something that happened in a previous episode or earlier in the movie/book/series/etc. However, the point is to make it natural and not spell out every single detail, because people don't speak/think that way, and because your reader is presumably another fan and already knows the details. (Also, giving too many extraneous details can appear to the reader as the writer trying to show off their knowledge.)
As an example, let's say you're writing a character introspection with Martha thinking about the Doctor and comparing him to what he'd been like in "Human Nature". You might be tempted to write:
----
She'd served as his maid when he'd turned himself human and became a schoolteacher at Farringham School for Boys in 1913, and wow, that had been a change!
----
People don't think like that. Martha doesn't need to voice these details to herself -- she already knows them -- and since the reader has seen the episode, they don't need the details either, and talking about maids and schoolteachers detracts from the main point, which is that the Doctor was human.
So be subtle and natural.
----
At one point in their travels, he'd turned himself human, and she'd had nearly three months to get to know a completely different version of him.
----
Or, if you're writing her direct thoughts, you might even go:
----
He'd been completely different as a human.
----
Anyway.
The word of the day today is "subtlety"! Let's practice being subtle.
Write a couple paragraphs of either a conversation between two characters or of a character thinking or remembering to themself, in which they're talking/thinking about something that happened in a previous episode or earlier in the movie/book/series/etc. However, the point is to make it natural and not spell out every single detail, because people don't speak/think that way, and because your reader is presumably another fan and already knows the details. (Also, giving too many extraneous details can appear to the reader as the writer trying to show off their knowledge.)
As an example, let's say you're writing a character introspection with Martha thinking about the Doctor and comparing him to what he'd been like in "Human Nature". You might be tempted to write:
----
She'd served as his maid when he'd turned himself human and became a schoolteacher at Farringham School for Boys in 1913, and wow, that had been a change!
----
People don't think like that. Martha doesn't need to voice these details to herself -- she already knows them -- and since the reader has seen the episode, they don't need the details either, and talking about maids and schoolteachers detracts from the main point, which is that the Doctor was human.
So be subtle and natural.
----
At one point in their travels, he'd turned himself human, and she'd had nearly three months to get to know a completely different version of him.
----
Or, if you're writing her direct thoughts, you might even go:
----
He'd been completely different as a human.
----