Let's write!

I did ten minutes on that Ben Franklin fic I told you about. It's not really going where I want it to go, so I probably will throw this out, but I did do it, so here it is. This was probably more like twenty minutes, and I removed the part before the "..." because that had already existed.

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(Context: Will was trying to avoid sampling a disgusting-looking alien dish, and just got interrupted. The giffra is the eating utensil.)

Original paragraph:

Glad of the reprieve, Will dropped the utensil on the plate and turned to see two women, one bright-eyed with short blond hair and the other with long dark hair and a serious demeanour, trailing behind the first. From the greeting, obviously one was the Doctor, and judging from fashion sense alone, he knew it wasn’t the one in the back.


Edited paragraph:

Glad of the reprieve, Will stabbed his giffra in the mound of nauseating molluscs and pushed his plate away, then turned to the two women approaching their table. The blonde dashed past the other diners, her bright smile all for David, and Will guessed from fashion sense alone that this was the Doctor. The other, a slight young woman with long dark hair and a serious demeanour, trailed behind her.

Well, I did actually work on that WIP this past weekend, though I didn't do any actual writing. Basically, I worked through a problem I was having with the plotting.

The story involves two characters in a rather large, crowded, and maze-like area. Character A shouldn't be there and is trying to find his way out without getting caught. Character B finds out that A is there and is trying to find him. Much of the story is about near-miss shenanigans and misdirections.

The problem was that it didn't feel long or confusing enough. It's supposed to be a multi-chapter, and I had already plotted out the following:

1. A arrives and gets lost
2. B realizes he's there and goes to find him
3. A crosses to the other side of the area
4. B gets to the original side and realizes he's got to search some more
5. Someone engages A in conversation and at that point, B sees him and waves at him to get him to come over to talk.

That's not much, just basically one instance of missing each other. It didn't feel satisying or entertaining - and I've been stuck at that point for years now. A couple of months ago, I tried writing out a detailed outline, and I still couldn't think of anything to add.

I finally figured out what to do. I added a third character to the story and interspersed her between the events I listed above with scenes told from her point of view. So, in step 2, she's the person that B talks to, who says something that makes B realize A is there. She doesn't realize this, so later, after 3, when A is leaving the other side, he runs into her and has a bit of conversation which will be amusing to the reader even if it doesn't help A at all. Then even later, after 4, she runs into B again. And then she'll have a part in the end of the story, which is unrelated to these events but is the actual point of the whole thing.

So, I have my new(!) outline written, and I'm going to duplicate the parts I've already written into a new document and start rewriting from there. I am actually really excited to get working on this, because this idea has been, as I've noted above, in the back of my mind for years now. Unfortunately, life is also getting far more busy this week and not likely to let up for a couple of months. :(

All right, I'm doing this straight in the editor from memory. Luckily, there's no actual dialogue in this scene.

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I actually wrote! Not the challenge itself, mind you.

I mentioned an ancient WIP to romanajo123 earlier this week, and I decided to pull it out and actually start working on it. There are bits where I haven't worked out what's happening, so I decided to try out Paul Cornell's advice: write an outline of the story using storytelling language (e.g. "They traveled there, but suddenly...!"), to lay out the beats of the narrative. And here it is.

A good chunk of this story is already written, but many parts aren't yet. Also, there are a couple of bits that are left in parentheses because I don't have enough specifics about what's in those scenes to consider their lines done. I'll be working on those this weekend.

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I've been actively working on a fic, so rather than a Real Ten Minutes, here's a snippet I wrote today.

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Kit fought to keep the boredom out of her countenance as Mr Hellman and Arthur droned on about nothing. She'd never had much use for small talk. She found herself gazing at a seam in the MPs jacket or at the glimmer of the ice in Arthur's whisky.

"I do envy you this beautiful country," said Mr Hellman. "I spend too much time in London these days and - good Lord, what is that?"

Kit's head snapped up at his change in tone and, following the man's gaze, coughed hard into her hand to mask her grin. Alex stood in the doorway, perched back on hind legs and wings spread back, his front claws twitching as he surveyed the room. He played the part of feral predator well, growling low but loud enough for the room to hear and flicking his tongue in and out. He spotted the large tub of whole fish laid out near the second table and loped over, snagging the first one and settling down to feast. Kit's smile, however, had been all for the black bow tie someone had affixed to his neck.

I finally finished editing the fic I wrote last week and posted it to AO3. Here's the link: "The Temptation"

And I have an idea for a new GO fic, so I spent some amount of time researching over the weekend.

I thought that I would just start typing a bit in the Dreamwidth editor to fill this challenge, because it's worked well in the past, getting me to write. Well, I'm at almost nine hundred words now, the latter 3/4 of which is mostly dialogue, so there's a lot to fill in. So here's a snippet, and hopefully I'll finish the story and post it to AO3 sometime in the next couple of weeks.

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I'm working on a new (very short) story and here's a bit from it. Hopefully I'll have the motivation to finish it soon.


Trailing behind Amy as they strode down the corridor, Rory stared at the dirt and dust ingrained in her skirt and the heels dangling from her hand, rust brown against the shining white fabric. “That’s never coming out, you know. Not in a hundred cleanings.”

Amy shrugged. “A wedding dress is only meant to be worn once.”

“At least it’s yours.” He leapt forward to catch up with her, pointing at the similar streaks down his black trousers and grey tails. “My deposit’s gone on this. He could have waited for us to change first.” He looked up into her sceptical stare. “No, he couldn’t.”

“At least I was dressed this time. First trip, I was in my nightie.”

Rory slapped his hands to his face and moaned. “Tell me no one saw.”

“Everyone saw.”

He caught her hand and pulled her into his arms. “Well, from now on, only I can see, Mrs Williams.”