Writing meme

[aurora_novarum]

Ooh, writing meme! I can never resist these...to do or to visit at other people's.

Comment with a story I've written, and I will tell you something I knew, learned, or wondered about while writing it that didn't make it onto the page.

Gakked from kalquessa.

You can find all my fic listed here.

Comments

[thraesja.livejournal.com]

Doh! "Just a Scientist" was already nabbed. Ummm..."Drawing Straws".

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Drawing Straws was supposed to be one scene! The actual straw drawing scene. But then I got these ideas about Sam bursting in on Hammond and Daniel and Teal'c talking.

It was actually difficult because I purposefully wrote it more from "team" pov, not getting into anyone's heads--a third person limited unseen narrator as it were. I wanted to try and convey all their thoughts and emotions through their dialogue and action. A way of keeping us somewhat in the dark the way they were kept in the dark of what Hammond and Jack and us as readers (and watchers of Shades of Grey) already knew.

I ended up putting everything in the fic I wanted to. Some people think I should've dropped the Makepeace scene additions, others say it's their favorite part. I wished I had morphed two of their missions into one. It was hard to believe the canon that this all took place in one week.

[thraesja.livejournal.com]

I have to admit the POV thing threw me for a bit of a loop while I was reading, mostly because you're usually more solidly in a subjective one, but this is a good explanation for the difference. I think since I've read so many fics where the author head hops back and forth due to ignorance or laziness, I'm unfairly biased against any sort of third person (quasi) omniscient.

I liked the Makepeace scenes, especially the commissary make-up scene where he doesn't know what to say after finding out SG-1 doesn't know Jack's leaving. Makes him more rounded as a character than he's often portrayed in fics.

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've experimented and find I'm mostly comfortable in third person limited (if sometimes alternating) narration (in past tense). It's interesting you say that the POV threw you. I was trying to carefully not be in characters heads...except for hammond in the beginning a bit and o'neill at the end.

I considered shifting between them in point of view, but I didn't want to focus on one over another of the threesome. It was the reaction of them all that equally mattered an being omniscient would be too much a mind trip for me as author or the reader, and also elevating the reaction of one over that of the others, even if I switched back and forth.

At least that's what I tried to do. The result may have been a flat less-emotional impact than moreso.

ETA: And re Makepeace. Yes, that commissary scene is my favorite moment with him. Because he did feel he was doing his duty, he just had a warped view of how best to achieve the SGC's mission. (The actor reportedly hated he became a traitor...aside from the fact he lost his gig, he didn't see it as part of Robert's character).

[thraesja.livejournal.com]

I usually write third person limited (altering) as well, generally also in past tense, though I've been messing with present more recently. And I have a stalled WiP that I may try rewriting in first person, which will, er, be a first for me.

You were definitely in Hammond's head at the beginning. It was in the middle that I wasn't quite sure what you were going for. Most of the time I got that you were in an objective/neutral POV, but a few things struck me as crossing the line into omniscient . E.g. "Sam arrived first, looking around lost and wondering if she shouldn't have gone to her lab instead" as opposed to "It was obvious Daniel was weighing the question heavily in his mind." To me, the first is in Sam's POV, whereas the second is either in someone other than Daniel's or in an objective one.

As I said before, I'm pretty heavily biased against omniscient, mostly because authors often (lazily, in my opinion) use it to tell what a character feels instead of showing it through action and dialogue (and boy, do I ever regret once trying to explain that thought to an author who always writes sloppy third person subjective omniscient). However, that's clearly not what you were or ever have been doing. I was momentarily distracted trying to figure it out, but got caught up in what was happening. I actually think the neutral perspective was a good way to go, I just found you sidestepped out of it occasionally. And that's entirely my own preference and opinion; yours and everyone else's may differ substantially.

I totally agree on Makepeace. Good character. Decent guy. An inappropriate view on what was best for Earth.