"Being Alive" Torchwood drabble Jack/Gwen, Gwen/Esther Rating-PG13

[karaokegal]

Title: Being Alive
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Gwen, Gwen/Esther
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 100
Notes: Drabble-a-Day 2011. Day 327. Prompt from larebilinyc: Gwen/Esther - Survivor's Guilt (during/after 4.10). Unbeta'd. Comments and concrit welcome.
Summary: Jack deals with death in his own way. Gwen has something else in mind.

Comments

[xenoamorist]

Ideally, you don't want to explain things outright to the reader-you want to leave them with tiny pictures that they can put together to infer from. Instead of saying "Jack was embarrassed", you'd say "Jack blushed", and the reader will fill in the rest. Just as an example, here's my take on Jack seeking out Gwen after loss of a Torchwood member:

He's rough with her, just like the first time in his office after Owen and Tosh-he slams her up against a wall, pins her hands down with his, nips at her neck and makes her gasp-and yet, when they lie together in the afterglow, he sighs and holds her close, his voice soft: "At least you're still here."

"I'm sorry about Esther," she whispers. His only response is to pull her in closer, but she squeezes her eyes shut and thinks of Rhys.

This version is 85 words long with minimal telling ("He's rough with her" is the only line that really tells anything). It's definitely different than what you were going for; in your drabble, I presume Gwen turned down Jack because she realized he wanted to use sex to deal with his survivor's guilt, but she recognized that she can't keep doing that. So this isn't a direct rewrite of your drabble, but rather pulls some ideas from it.

Here's my rationale behind my word choices:

• just like the first time in his office after Owen and Tosh → A reader familiar with Torchwood and reads on for more context will most likely pick up on this being post-character death and being Jack's response to loss.
• he slams her up against a wall, pins her hands down with his, nips at her neck and makes her gasp → Mostly I wanted to show his need to release his emotion/aggression/guilt/whatever.
• and yet every time they lie together in the afterglow, he sighs and holds her close, → I wanted to show that, despite his aggression during sex, Jack is gentle and does care about Gwen.
• his voice soft: "At least you're still here." → To show his guilt over loss: the rest of them are gone forever, but Gwen remains.
• "I'm sorry about Esther," she whispers → To show that "Gwen knew what Jack was thinking": he never mentions Esther, and yet Gwen can pick up on his signals (sighing, vague dialogue) and understand what he's really thinking about.
• but she squeezes her eyes shut and thinks of Rhys. → Showing Gwen's guilt over the extramarital affair and conflict over being in Jack's arms.

So, like I said, it's not a rewrite of your drabble, but hopefully you can pull out some of what I mean by showing instead of telling and can identify places in your drabble where you can show instead of tell. Here are a couple lines that I felt would work way better as telling:

• Gwen knew what Jack was thinking; what he wanted. → How does she know? What is it about his body language that conveys that to her? Is it something he says? Is it something he doesn't say?
• Esther’s sweetness and courage had touched the part of Gwen she thought she’d lost to Torchwood. → How did her sweetness and courage touch Gwen? How do Gwen's actions now reflect Esther's influence on her? What exactly is the part of her that she lost to Torchwood? etc. etc.

Sooo yeah, apparently I like writing long comments. \o/ But really, it's because I think your fic is wonderful in character analysis and development, and I would really love to see the writing match the level of depth you have with the characters, because that would make for an incredible and poignant drabble. :) Hope that helps.