meandering though the writing patch
Why do so many people say "I usually hate 2nd person, but..." when they want to complement a 2nd person story? Where is this spate of 2nd person POV fanfic? Because I can think of like, maybe ten I've ever read, and three of them are mine. How much can you have possibly read? Do you think then, maybe it's not the POV that bothers you, but that most people do it badly? So it's no big complement to say "I don't usually like it but..." What you should say is, "I find most 2nd person POV to be crap, but yours is good." There is nothing to like or dislike about a POV. There's something to like or dislike about what a person has DONE with a POV.
In any case, even if, after extensive sampling you don't like 2nd pov, it I dunno gives you hives or something, please think of something to say other than, "I don't usually like 2nd pov, but you did a good job! You made a silk purse out of the sow's ear of 2nd person!"
This really had no point. I just feel for others who write in 2nd and when 75% of their comments start with that I feel like checking to see if comments are being made accidentally triplicate.
Anyway, I don't actually care enough to discuss it. I have episodes of Johnathan Creek to watch. WHO IS THIS HO IN THE 4TH SEASON? AND DAMN YOU BBC FOR INTRODUCING HER IN THE CHRISTMAS ONE OFF SPECIAL THAT ONE CANNOT ACQUIRE LEGALLY FROM NETFLIX. FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR, YOU BBC AND YOUR "HOLIDAY SPECIALS".
I know she's Saffy from AbFab. I just don't like her. I don't like that she and Johnathan had sex. I don't like that she's married and they're still playing the UST all over the place. God does that get old. SOLVE THE DAMN CRIME WITHOUT YOUR BOOBS FALLING OUT OF THAT TOP--OOH LOOK, IT'S MANNY FROM BLACK BOOKS.
So, I said that I was at like 58K in my MBABB, and it's upped to about 60 now, but I stopped the other day and went, "What if this is shite? Jesus, what if people are tired of your writing style?" So I thought I'd dump some stuff out on the table for you and make myself feel better.
It's like the bodyswap in a lot of ways--teamy, funny, actiony. It's less about relationships. It's more about Torchwood and what they do, and the emotional/relationship stuff is all in the back. I mean, it happens, but at about the level you see in the show. It's episodic. As in, I'm writing 13 stories, most of which hover around 20K. It has an arc. Like five of them, well okay a lot of them, and it's complicated and I'm writing all the eps at once, actually, though I try to front load, so like 1 is done and betaed, and 2 is done and waiting for beta and 3 is almost done, and I have 4 already well underway. 5-10 are pretty much outlined and started. 11-13 are still in the planning stages, with chunks written, and I add and change as I write from the front.
But right now it feels like a lot of 'Holy crap, what if I do all this for nothing?' And while I'm having a great time, I still like to share what I'm doing, and it's...wow is it fun. It has OCs and old favorites, old gadgets and new ones, a few characters who barely made an appearance in the show. I even manage to find places to work in things like UNIT, the Valiant, PC Andy, etc. It's awesome.
So, because I can never wait,
SAMPLE ONE:
"Dear God, how did Jack do it all?" Gwen mumbled around a bite of cold pasty. Lunch had come and gone, and she didn't know who had deposited the pasty on her desk-that was probably not wise, accepting food from unknown sources around here-but it had been a welcome thing thirty minutes ago.
"He never slept," Ianto said primly. "He also screamed 'Torchwood!' into the phone a great deal."
Gwen closed the file folder and pushed it into the 'Later' pile. "Well, I can't very well do that."
"Not a recommended course of action, no."
Gwen dug the heels of her palms into her eyes and immediately realised that she had probably just given herself raccoon eyes. "Oh bugger."
"Also not recommended," Ianto added.
She checked the clock for the billionth time: one-thirty. Their inquisi-inspecto-superviso-no, no, liaison was late. Well, maybe not. She had thought that he would be here at the gates five minutes ago, ever since they had received word that his helicopter was in flight and en route to the compound. Gwen stared at the helipad landing X on the CCTV: helicopter free.
"I suspect wishing it there won't change the velocity of the aircraft," Ianto said over her shoulder, right in her ear.
SAMPLE TWO:
"Soooooooo," Gretchen said suddenly into the comm, and Dee forgot that there was no beep that signalled the arrival of someone else on the open line.
"Jesus," she griped. "Wear a bell."
"So," Gretchen said again into the comm. "Captain Harkness is hanging about the front gate, looking like the most conspicuous tourist in the history of Great Britain."
Dee sighed and Cooper peered at the rubble in her bin. "Really?" she asked distractedly. "Found us already, has he?"
"What's he doing?" Maggie said into the comm, and Dee started. Maggie was all the way across the street with Lois, and she had forgotten that they were also listening in. Strange, she never forgot things like that before. God help her if she was actually starting to gel with them as a team. She didn't want to think about how they would be the unmaking of her, of her discipline. Sometimes she caught herself slouching.
It was all Cooper's fault.
"I dunno," Gretchen said slowly. "Brooding. Standing. Looking dashing. Waiting?"
"You didn't feed him, did you?" Cooper murmured. "They'll never go away if you keep putting food out."
SAMPLE THREE:
"What are we all doing in here?" Gwen asked, pushing Jack from behind so that he stumbled into the room. He sat on the last remaining stool and made eyes at Dee, which she ignored. Lord, he was antagonising her on purpose. On the other hand, now Maggie knew that he knew what Griswalds were. She was going to get him to help her build one.
Because making bombs was a great use of her time. Go Torchwood.
"I'm helping Maggie fill in some spaces on the forms from last night," Lois said.
Dee waved her bottle. "I'm getting cleaning solvent." She looked at her legs swinging under the counter. "And now I'm just sitting here."
Jack slurped the whipped cream from the bottom of his cup loudly and Gwen raised an eyebrow. "Oh me?" he asked. "I'm slacking off."
Gwen jumped up and sat next to Dee on the work counter and Maggie bit her lip. "Oh, right then. I just got off the phone with DI Swanson, who wants to know why Twun was speeding away from a four-alarm fire last night." She leant back and hit her head against the cabinets behind her. "I prevaricated."
If you made it this far, have some o' dis:
SAMPLE FOUR:
"Lois Habiba, my favorite Lois in the whole wide world," Jack sang, sailing into the conference room with two sets of braces dangling from his fingers.
Lois finished her glass and set it where her place would be. "I am the only Lois you know, Captain."
Jack winked at Robert. "She knows all my secrets."
"Oh I'm working on it," Lois muttered. "Mimosa, Jack?"
Jack blinked at the set table and looked surprised. "Oh, that's why…" He held up the braces. "Gwen says to wear the ones that don't make me look like a blue collar dock worker. Which ones are those?"
Robert smiled and pulled the cardboard box of seven cloth napkins that someone had folded into swans from the sideboard and went about depositing them onto the plates. Now he really wanted to know who was coming for breakfast. He might have worn a nicer shirt.
"Do I look like I'm into men's fashions?" Lois griped, but she pulled at the braces in both hands and held them up to his shirt. "Is this the only shirt you have?"
SAMPLE FIVE:
When Gwen returned to the med bay with some of Jack's clean clothing, a vest and a pair of what she thought were pajama bottoms, it was hard to tell, Jack was more alert, sitting up and talking to Dee in hushed tones. She had no idea what they spoke about when they did this, maybe guns, maybe it was sexy, though she hadn't pegged either of them for intimacy. She'd been wrong before anyway.
Jack looked up at the sound of her shoes on the stairs and he smiled wearily. It took her a split second to realise that he was chewing. "Gwen," he said with a full mouth, and then forced himself to swallow. "Gwen, this is the best muffin I have ever had in my life." In his free hand he waved a stump of what had probably begun life as a muffin, but was now just the bitter end of a muffin.
"It's banana nut," Dee supplied.
"It's banana nut-awesome," Jack returned. "Gwen should hire you to be our official baker."
Gwen set his clothing on the table and checked his drip. Half the bag to go. She opened the IV wide to speed up the process. "We don't need an official baker," she told him.
Jack shoved the last of the muffin in his mouth and closed his eyes. "We so totally do," he said, spitting crumbs out over the sheet that covered his open wounds.
Dee shrugged at Gwen and held out the box. "Muffin?"
SAMPLE SIX:
"So how many have you had?" the man asked her, and Lois tore her eyes off the sex display long enough to blink at the arm of his red coat. "I've had about…double-blurred vision."
She stared at her empty glass. "Eightenty," she said, and he laughed. "You, wait a second. Hang on. I know you."
He turned towards her then, swiveling on the chair and smiling unbelievably. "Yeah? That's brilliant. Tell me."
She couldn't answer because she'd dragged her purse up onto the bar and was digging about in the bottom. Oh this was fantastic. This was how it was going to happen. She was going to get him back to the Hub and then they'd all see how bloody spectacular she was. "I know all about you."
"Oh you do, do you?"
Lois yanked her cuffs from her bag, and they whipped up in the air, the loose end almost catching him in the face. He blinked with surprise that melted into something else. "You are unner arrest," she slurred.
John Hart set his drink down, licked his lips, shrugged at the bartender and held out his wrists. "Oh, please do."
So, uhm, does this look remotely promising?
In any case, even if, after extensive sampling you don't like 2nd pov, it I dunno gives you hives or something, please think of something to say other than, "I don't usually like 2nd pov, but you did a good job! You made a silk purse out of the sow's ear of 2nd person!"
This really had no point. I just feel for others who write in 2nd and when 75% of their comments start with that I feel like checking to see if comments are being made accidentally triplicate.
Anyway, I don't actually care enough to discuss it. I have episodes of Johnathan Creek to watch. WHO IS THIS HO IN THE 4TH SEASON? AND DAMN YOU BBC FOR INTRODUCING HER IN THE CHRISTMAS ONE OFF SPECIAL THAT ONE CANNOT ACQUIRE LEGALLY FROM NETFLIX. FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE EAR, YOU BBC AND YOUR "HOLIDAY SPECIALS".
I know she's Saffy from AbFab. I just don't like her. I don't like that she and Johnathan had sex. I don't like that she's married and they're still playing the UST all over the place. God does that get old. SOLVE THE DAMN CRIME WITHOUT YOUR BOOBS FALLING OUT OF THAT TOP--OOH LOOK, IT'S MANNY FROM BLACK BOOKS.
So, I said that I was at like 58K in my MBABB, and it's upped to about 60 now, but I stopped the other day and went, "What if this is shite? Jesus, what if people are tired of your writing style?" So I thought I'd dump some stuff out on the table for you and make myself feel better.
It's like the bodyswap in a lot of ways--teamy, funny, actiony. It's less about relationships. It's more about Torchwood and what they do, and the emotional/relationship stuff is all in the back. I mean, it happens, but at about the level you see in the show. It's episodic. As in, I'm writing 13 stories, most of which hover around 20K. It has an arc. Like five of them, well okay a lot of them, and it's complicated and I'm writing all the eps at once, actually, though I try to front load, so like 1 is done and betaed, and 2 is done and waiting for beta and 3 is almost done, and I have 4 already well underway. 5-10 are pretty much outlined and started. 11-13 are still in the planning stages, with chunks written, and I add and change as I write from the front.
But right now it feels like a lot of 'Holy crap, what if I do all this for nothing?' And while I'm having a great time, I still like to share what I'm doing, and it's...wow is it fun. It has OCs and old favorites, old gadgets and new ones, a few characters who barely made an appearance in the show. I even manage to find places to work in things like UNIT, the Valiant, PC Andy, etc. It's awesome.
So, because I can never wait,
SAMPLE ONE:
"Dear God, how did Jack do it all?" Gwen mumbled around a bite of cold pasty. Lunch had come and gone, and she didn't know who had deposited the pasty on her desk-that was probably not wise, accepting food from unknown sources around here-but it had been a welcome thing thirty minutes ago.
"He never slept," Ianto said primly. "He also screamed 'Torchwood!' into the phone a great deal."
Gwen closed the file folder and pushed it into the 'Later' pile. "Well, I can't very well do that."
"Not a recommended course of action, no."
Gwen dug the heels of her palms into her eyes and immediately realised that she had probably just given herself raccoon eyes. "Oh bugger."
"Also not recommended," Ianto added.
She checked the clock for the billionth time: one-thirty. Their inquisi-inspecto-superviso-no, no, liaison was late. Well, maybe not. She had thought that he would be here at the gates five minutes ago, ever since they had received word that his helicopter was in flight and en route to the compound. Gwen stared at the helipad landing X on the CCTV: helicopter free.
"I suspect wishing it there won't change the velocity of the aircraft," Ianto said over her shoulder, right in her ear.
SAMPLE TWO:
"Soooooooo," Gretchen said suddenly into the comm, and Dee forgot that there was no beep that signalled the arrival of someone else on the open line.
"Jesus," she griped. "Wear a bell."
"So," Gretchen said again into the comm. "Captain Harkness is hanging about the front gate, looking like the most conspicuous tourist in the history of Great Britain."
Dee sighed and Cooper peered at the rubble in her bin. "Really?" she asked distractedly. "Found us already, has he?"
"What's he doing?" Maggie said into the comm, and Dee started. Maggie was all the way across the street with Lois, and she had forgotten that they were also listening in. Strange, she never forgot things like that before. God help her if she was actually starting to gel with them as a team. She didn't want to think about how they would be the unmaking of her, of her discipline. Sometimes she caught herself slouching.
It was all Cooper's fault.
"I dunno," Gretchen said slowly. "Brooding. Standing. Looking dashing. Waiting?"
"You didn't feed him, did you?" Cooper murmured. "They'll never go away if you keep putting food out."
SAMPLE THREE:
"What are we all doing in here?" Gwen asked, pushing Jack from behind so that he stumbled into the room. He sat on the last remaining stool and made eyes at Dee, which she ignored. Lord, he was antagonising her on purpose. On the other hand, now Maggie knew that he knew what Griswalds were. She was going to get him to help her build one.
Because making bombs was a great use of her time. Go Torchwood.
"I'm helping Maggie fill in some spaces on the forms from last night," Lois said.
Dee waved her bottle. "I'm getting cleaning solvent." She looked at her legs swinging under the counter. "And now I'm just sitting here."
Jack slurped the whipped cream from the bottom of his cup loudly and Gwen raised an eyebrow. "Oh me?" he asked. "I'm slacking off."
Gwen jumped up and sat next to Dee on the work counter and Maggie bit her lip. "Oh, right then. I just got off the phone with DI Swanson, who wants to know why Twun was speeding away from a four-alarm fire last night." She leant back and hit her head against the cabinets behind her. "I prevaricated."
If you made it this far, have some o' dis:
SAMPLE FOUR:
"Lois Habiba, my favorite Lois in the whole wide world," Jack sang, sailing into the conference room with two sets of braces dangling from his fingers.
Lois finished her glass and set it where her place would be. "I am the only Lois you know, Captain."
Jack winked at Robert. "She knows all my secrets."
"Oh I'm working on it," Lois muttered. "Mimosa, Jack?"
Jack blinked at the set table and looked surprised. "Oh, that's why…" He held up the braces. "Gwen says to wear the ones that don't make me look like a blue collar dock worker. Which ones are those?"
Robert smiled and pulled the cardboard box of seven cloth napkins that someone had folded into swans from the sideboard and went about depositing them onto the plates. Now he really wanted to know who was coming for breakfast. He might have worn a nicer shirt.
"Do I look like I'm into men's fashions?" Lois griped, but she pulled at the braces in both hands and held them up to his shirt. "Is this the only shirt you have?"
SAMPLE FIVE:
When Gwen returned to the med bay with some of Jack's clean clothing, a vest and a pair of what she thought were pajama bottoms, it was hard to tell, Jack was more alert, sitting up and talking to Dee in hushed tones. She had no idea what they spoke about when they did this, maybe guns, maybe it was sexy, though she hadn't pegged either of them for intimacy. She'd been wrong before anyway.
Jack looked up at the sound of her shoes on the stairs and he smiled wearily. It took her a split second to realise that he was chewing. "Gwen," he said with a full mouth, and then forced himself to swallow. "Gwen, this is the best muffin I have ever had in my life." In his free hand he waved a stump of what had probably begun life as a muffin, but was now just the bitter end of a muffin.
"It's banana nut," Dee supplied.
"It's banana nut-awesome," Jack returned. "Gwen should hire you to be our official baker."
Gwen set his clothing on the table and checked his drip. Half the bag to go. She opened the IV wide to speed up the process. "We don't need an official baker," she told him.
Jack shoved the last of the muffin in his mouth and closed his eyes. "We so totally do," he said, spitting crumbs out over the sheet that covered his open wounds.
Dee shrugged at Gwen and held out the box. "Muffin?"
SAMPLE SIX:
"So how many have you had?" the man asked her, and Lois tore her eyes off the sex display long enough to blink at the arm of his red coat. "I've had about…double-blurred vision."
She stared at her empty glass. "Eightenty," she said, and he laughed. "You, wait a second. Hang on. I know you."
He turned towards her then, swiveling on the chair and smiling unbelievably. "Yeah? That's brilliant. Tell me."
She couldn't answer because she'd dragged her purse up onto the bar and was digging about in the bottom. Oh this was fantastic. This was how it was going to happen. She was going to get him back to the Hub and then they'd all see how bloody spectacular she was. "I know all about you."
"Oh you do, do you?"
Lois yanked her cuffs from her bag, and they whipped up in the air, the loose end almost catching him in the face. He blinked with surprise that melted into something else. "You are unner arrest," she slurred.
John Hart set his drink down, licked his lips, shrugged at the bartender and held out his wrists. "Oh, please do."
So, uhm, does this look remotely promising?