[Naruto] Little Wonders (p2) -- Naruto/Gaara, PG-13 (T)

[finnimbrun]

Title: Little Wonders (2/2)
Pairing: Naruto/Gaara
Rating: PG-13 or thereabouts
Other pairings: None intentional, though I guess one could read between the lines as they see fit.
Warnings: Some heavy petting and boy love.
Word Count: ~12,000
Summary: On the little wonders of life, and, through them, finding the humanity you possess.

Comments

[hieronymousb]

Hah, funny thing, that. The focus on sensation everyone keeps commenting on is actually mostly because I didn't think Gaara would have a lot of introspection (because I view him as more of an observer), so I focused more on objective experiences ... but then some introspection ended up slipping in anyway! O_o

Anyway, yeah, I started writing this after we discussed objective point of view in class, and how some authors (i.e. Hemmingway) would write narrative without ever giving the emotions/opinions of the PoV characters, such that everything is either dialogue or the stating of objective actions/descriptions, like scenery or what a character does externally. I was like, "Hn, I should try that. It might work for Gaara." Voila.

The idea with this fic was to convey as much emotion as possible without actually stating the emotion (i.e. no "Gaara was sad" crap); I wanted to try to convey emotion through imagery and gestures, mostly because I've always felt like, as a writer, I've had trouble suggesting emotion rather than outright stating it. I feel like I'm prone to too much telling, not enough showing, but perhaps that's me being paranoid.

In what way did I show restraint? By not porning them right off? :D

[militsa]

[hieronymousb]

Ahhhh, yep, I'm a terrible tease. This whole fic is kind of a tease, isn't it? NaruGaa is one of the rare pairings that I like so much that I enjoy the gen interaction between them just as much as the more pairing-oriented stuff, though, so I am likely to get caught up in things like them walking around talking.

Of course, I like the physical contact a lot as well, and the whole fic really sprang out of the idea "have them make out in the rain"--that was my mental "prompt", as it were [which just goes to show that I write my stories around the stupidest mental prompts XD].

No, WL wasn't so bad about the telling, but it is a problem I've had before. I recently looked over some old original fic I wrote back in like ... '03, '04, maybe, and while the ideas had potential, man, every other line was stating way too much information and not showing enough. I'd just come right out with everything. Totally killed a lot of tension. And since those writings were from '03-'04 and I hadn't even looked at them in years, it was almost like reading someone else's stuff, such that I think I was better able to evaluate it objectively than I was at the time I wrote it.

Edit: Oh, yeah, I definitely agree that Gaara is not a very verbal person. Tricky for me, since I am a very verbal person, haha. Sometimes I believe he thinks less in actual words and more in terms of imprints and sensations. He comes off as a very reactionary, instinctual sort of creature to me. I actually did a post on this on my LJ. I had formerly planned not to write in Gaara PoV due to all this, but I'm actually glad I did, in the long run.