Let's write!

I went back and started reading my fills for this comm back in 2022, and this is the one I've chosen to critique:

https://tenminutesaday.dreamwidth.org/24874.html

The challenge was to take a scene from DW but write it using a different Doctor and companion pair, keeping in mind that with the new characters, with their personalities and goals different from the original, the scene might turn out completely different. I decided to rewrite the scene from "Enlightenment" in which the Guardians offer the prize to Turlough, with Rose and Ten substituted in for Turlough and Five.

In the original scene, the prize for winning the race was enlightenment, and when none of the Eternal teams win the race, the Guardians offer part of the prize to Turlough for helping -- a huge perfect diamond. Turlough had up until now been working for the Black Guardian, so the Black Guardian said that the prize was actually his, but he (Turlough) could take the prize if he gave up something of equal value, in this case, the Doctor. After consideration, Turlough chose to give the diamond to the Black Guardian, and the Doctor said that enlightenment wasn't the diamond, it was the choice. In other words, Turlough learned something about himself -- that though he was greedy by nature, he valued his friend above all the money in the universe -- through the choice he made.

That's what I tried to capture in the scene I wrote. Rose was a good stand-in for Turlough, as a teenager without much self-awareness and a healthy dose of greed, jealousy, and desperation. One of the things I think I did well in the scene was let Rose be tempted by the jewel but then try to take the high road and say that she doesn't need it.

The thing that I didn't do well was the subsequent part: I didn't make it clear what Rose was thinking when she finally made her choice, and thus the ending, where the Doctor walks off saying that "Enlightenment was the choice," was robbed of its meaning.

Unlike with Turlough, the Guardians don't make Rose choose between two things. Instead, the Guardians present Rose a choice of what her prize could be, and she decides she wants security, in specific, she wants to be secure in the knowledge that the Doctor loves her and will stay with her forever. After all, that's all she cared about in series 2. However, I was trying to be subtle with that and didn't make that clear. The only indication of this is the Black Guardian saying, "You wish to be assured of something," and that's it. It really needed to be stated outright that Rose thought that the crystal would make the Doctor love her.

Without that knowledge, the ending doesn't have any impact. The Doctor walks off because now he knows that all Rose really cares about is trying to own him, but that didn't come across at all.

I think the piece needed more of Rose's direct thoughts, especially right after the Black Guardian says the word "security". Maybe something like:

----
Rose bit her lip. Security? Could this jewel answer all my questions? Could it finally make him say...?
----

Even just that much could make the story so much clearer.

I did a thing! I wrote a short piece for fandomweekly, for their prompt "Chemistry". Here's the link! I'll be posting it for real on AO3 after the voting's done.

"Real Science"

Omg three in a row!

The last story I posted for my David AU ended in the middle of an argument. I haven't yet come up with the next story to resolve the argument, but I figured I could write an apology scene now, right in the editor.

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I'm really not going to write anything unless I sit down and do it, so I did it. I did ten minutes on a WIP that's been sitting open on my computer for the last few months. It did require me to read through a bit of what I'd already done, so I didn't get more than a couple of paragraphs of new words down.

And sorry, it's not going to make a lick of sense to anyone. :P

----

“Well.” She popped both hands against the steering wheel. “Be that as it may, I’ve got to be getting home.” Throwing the gearshift into reverse, she checked the rear-view mirror, pulled her foot from the brake, then switched the gears, pulled the car up to the house, shut it down, and hopped out with her handbag.

She gaped for a moment at the toes of her shoes, then shook her head. “I’m out. Might as well, well, I don’t know. I guess I should check up. That’s my job,” she murmured, firmly ignoring the voice reminding her that she’d never checked up on a sale before this. Nudging the car door closed with her hip, she left it unlocked. Somehow she knew that no danger threatened here.

The well-kept lawn, edged with flowering bushes and shaded by tall trees, hadn’t changed much in the short time since the sale - three months at the outside, it’d been - and the large house appeared exactly, but certainly the photos hadn’t done the place justice. In person, it fairly shone with peace. And happiness. That’s what he’d said. That the house looked happy.

Okay, my Real Ten Minutes is going to be the next bit of the previous challenge, so it's starting with the final paragraph copy/pasted in, then me typing in the DW editor. Here goes.

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I haven't actually done a challenge in a while, so I thought I'd do this one. I started working on a story idea I had a few days ago, just the first few lines, so you won't be able to tell what the story is actually about. But this was some fun dialogue to write. I ignored the description so that I could get the dialogue out in ten minutes.

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I've been working on this for the past few weeks - finished the writing a week ago and been editing and asking for feedback from my husband since. Did a lot more work this weekend, editing and filling things out, and, well, I don't feel it's as good as it could be but I don't know what else to do with it, so I posted it. *shrug*

"Back in Action"

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

Just a quick scene typed directly into the Dreamwidth editor...

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Since it worked so well last time, I'm going to write into the DW editor again today! Maybe I'll get a whole new story out of it! Actually, it won't, because I know what I'm going to write and it's going to be maudlin character introspection and no one wants me to post that kind of crap. (Edit after writing: I got a more interesting idea, well, more interesting to me anyway. So instead of maudlin character introspection, it's... I don't know how to describe it. But it's still character introspection, so nothing postable.) (Edit after re-reading: Maybe I will post this one, too, if only because it's really weird.)

I did get the previous first draft done, late on Monday, and planned to start reviewing and editing this weekend, but then I got a new idea for the end today, so I guess first draft was today. Or maybe that's second draft. Anyway, I can never leave well enough alone.

Big, big spoiler warning for season two of Good Omens. Also, if you haven't seen either season of GO, big big warning that this is not going to make any sense at all. (And yes, this was entirely inspired by the word "rain".)

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