New Target

[game_byrd]

Title: New Target
Characters: Claire Bennet, Tammy Wilcox (Jackie's mother)
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word count: 500
Setting: Post Brave New World
Summary: Claire comes clean about the real reason Jackie died and Tammy finds a new target.
Notes: Beta by dancingdragon3. Written for the heroes_contest prompt, "New". Follow-up to " Dearly Departed", where

Comments

[means2bhuman]

Wow. I really like this. It felt longer than 500 words

[game_byrd]

The story clocks in at 496 words, so it's right there at the limit

[amles80]

The story clocks in at 496 words, so it's right there at the limit.

*lol* I'm sure that's true, but it still feels longer - not like "can this really be 500 words?", but because so many things are going on in this scene with a lot of details and even more details that aren't even written (Claire; what's going through her head as she re-tells the story we remember from S1, Tammy; her emotions, the stage, the audience, the moderator who is looking at both of them trying to think of follow-up questions to use all the emotions and all to make a good show, etc) as opposed to a drabble that's more like one person's inner thoughts about something. That's why it feels "longer". I had that thought, too... but as so often, I couldn't put it into words until someone else did it first. ;)

[game_byrd]

Ah! Yes. I've been trying to experiment lately with getting away from as much introspection and inner dialogue as I've been using for the last year or so. Obviously, I'm not ditching it entirely or going to any extreme in that direction, but it's something I'm incorporating as much as possible, asking myself every time I start to write what a character's thinking if it's really, really important to have that in there. I'm glad it's noticeable!

[game_byrd]

Hm. "make-upped" or "made-up". What do you think?

[amles80]

What do I think? Oh, um… I think that’s a question for a native English speaker! *lol* To me, this is a good example of something that I would avoid to write even if I needed it because I wouldn’t know what’s correct, and I would just stick to “make-up” as a noun, even if that makes the phrase clumsier (but I wouldn’t ever question the choice of word in a fic by an English speaker, at least not a heroes_contest writer because you guys obviously know what you’re doing!), and I’d be like “whyyy am I even trying my English is sooo bad *facepalm

[game_byrd]

"Make-up" comes from using cosmetics to 'make' your face pretty (or if not pretty, then at least different). 'Make up a story' is like 'create a story' and 'make up after a fight' is like 'make peace after a fight'. I hadn't thought of how many other uses there were for the word!

So I guess if I'm treating 'make-up' as a noun, like cosmetics or lipstick, then it would be right to say 'make-upped', just like lipsticked or penciled. It's a weird way to write it and might be a case of improperly verbing a noun.

But if I treat 'make-up' as a verb, like 'I'm going to make-up my face', then it would be conjugated as 'made-up'. But that's not the usual usage of it in English as I know it. The sentence would be 'I'm going to apply make-up to my face', so it's used as a noun in all the cases I can think of.

I dunno. 'Make-upped' just looks weird. And none of know what we're doing, heroes_contest writers or not! LOL. Your English is great! I am amazed at the fluency you achieve in a second language. It's incredible.