Sestina!fic #2: "A Typical Day in Diagnostics"

[bironic]

Sestina the second, also known as Fun with Alliteration. Slightly different tone from the last one.

Title: A Typical Day in Diagnostics
Characters: Main Cast of House; ~Chase POV
Rating: PG
Word Count: 330
Prompts: Chase, House, Foreman, Cameron, Cuddy, Wilson
A/N: This is the proper/standard format for the end words, if anyone's curious. Thanks

Comments

[daasgrrl]

Heh - what was fun was that it was pretty much meta, and what makes it are the wry comments, I think - I particularly liked 'weekly B&E' and 'patient's dying again'. Also, 'House-hunting', and the H/W undertones. And that you start and end with Chase, although I don't know if that's a standard part of the form, because I didn't bother to read about it :)

[bironic]

Praise and amusement from the queen of meta-fic! I bow down humbly before thee. Heh. Glad you liked all the little asides.

H/W will work its way into just about everything, won't it. Even gen.

The way a sestina works is you assign each of your six end-words a letter or number in the first stanza and then rearrange them in a set pattern for the remaining stanzas. So in this case Chase would be A, House B, and so forth down to E for Wilson. In a standard sestina you have the option of concluding with the end words A-C-E (Chase, Foreman, Cuddy) or E-C-A. Since this turned into a day-in-the-life and I'd started with Chase, I thought it would be appropriate to go with E-C-A and end with him as well. After all, from his perspective, he's there before each crazy day starts and he's there after it ends.

[elynittria]

This brisk, playful sestina is a nice counterbalance to the last one. I loved the line Sideshow over, Wilson saunters off. He does seem to use the goings-on in Diagnostics in much the same way that House uses General Hospital. Hee.

[bironic]

I'm glad you think so; I was afraid this wouldn't stand up after the intensity of the previous one.

Hee, that's true -- Wilson does seem to use Diagnostics as a distraction, but I hadn't thought of it as an equivalent to House's TV-watching. Sweet.

[simple__man]

Oh, wow, nifty. I just watched an entire episode! And it was a very good one, too...I love "long-suffering" Foreman, "steadfast" Cameeron, "scrubs-clad" Chase, "ever-helpful" Wilson, "House-hunting" Cuddy, and of course, "symptom-scribbling and sarcasm-spouting" House. You have summed them and the show up very precisely, but with each word saying so much.

[bironic]

Ha, I hadn't realized I'd assigned all of them exactly one "meta" tag. ...I mean, totally on purpose. Heh. Sometimes the unconscious muse is a wonderful thing.

[simple__man]

Absolutely it was. You're so brilliant, your genius took care of it for you.

[jadesfire]

Sooo much fun with alliteration! My favourite is in the 4th stanza, with the 3 r's - clever and keeps it tripping along.

I had mixed feelings about this one yesterday, which is why I've waited to comment. I loved the atmosphere and emotion of the first one, and put next to it, this one didn't benefit from the juxtaposition.

BUT! I've come back to it this morning, and my jaw's dropping at your use of the form. You manage to tell a complete story, with the whole cast and a pig of a challenge without it seeming forced at any point. As with all these things, the beauty's in the details:

Today's pretenseSurely Wilson always has a good, solid reason for visiting House. Doesn't he

[bironic]

this one didn't benefit from the juxtaposition. [...] they don't necessarily read well together

Ah, as I feared. These weren't designed to stand alone as a pair; they just happened to be the first two I finished, while the rest are still a few stanzas from completion. Then again, the first, I think, was a hard act to follow anyway.

But I'm very glad you came back for a second go and that it generated such a reaction!

I love the framing with "eight o'clock".

Thanks. I tried to work in a few ways in which the story comes full circle from morning to night, a cycle Chase completes every day: the whiteboard gets scribbled on and erased, Wilson wanders in and saunters off, everyone gets in and goes home, patients are sick and get healed, etc.

"Tripping" and "rolling" and "swirling" -- I like it. Using the characters' names for the prompts ensures that we keep swinging back to everyone, like a ball they're tossing around, tying them together as a team.

Surely Wilson always has a good, solid reason for visiting House. Of course he

[beatriceeagle]

I love sestinas. I love you. Amazing.

[bironic]

Ha, thanks. Pleased to meet you, fellow poetry-lover.