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xmenfirstkink2011-12-18 05:18 pm
starkmodistries.livejournal.com) wrote in xmenfirstkink2011-12-18 05:18 pm
Entry tags:
round 3 overflow post
This post is for Round 3 fills only. We ask that when a round hits 8500 comments, fillers begin moving their fills to this post.
Format:
SUBJECT LINE -- Round #, short description of fic (ex: "Alex/Hank, lab partners")
--- Link to the prompt
--- Text of the prompt
--- Link to the fill
OR
--- Entire text of the fill
EXAMPLE:
Prompt: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6437.html?thread=1038472#t2038174
Charles/Erik -- Charles is a bakery owner whose most frequent customer is Erik.
Fill: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6437.html?thread=0139482#t4502942
Charles started off the morning the same way he always did...
Re: God this turned into an essay or something. [2/2]
(Anonymous) 2012-01-21 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)Yes, it really is my absolute favorite. : ) I have a chart for these things. Okay, not really, but I know that it's my favorite one.
I struggle with show-vs-tell, I think, but I'm working on it. You execute it beautifully. I feel like too much expository writing in fiction makes it...jerky, I suppose? It feels very stunted to me, and since I've been writing and reading for years, I get just as immersed in the words as I do the images. So. If. You. Write. Like. This. Then it gets to be very annoying for me. Just the same as saying something like, “Erik walked into the room, and the room was too cold so he knew that something was wrong.” It has that choppy feel.
I think my biggest concern with trying to get things across about back stories with show vs tell is that people might not pick up on it. But you're right, it's a risk that usually works out for the better. At least in my experience. I could sing your praises all day in terms of style, which is why I'm really flattered that we seem to have a somewhat shared opinion about things like lexicon and flow concerning each others work.
(In your defense, it would be very hard not to get some Stockholm Syndrome with Erik. I mean, look at him. And I mean that beyond his attractiveness but that weight that you give him. I feel like he's the type of person you could look at and you could see such a hard life on him, but still be so aware that you don't have a clue who he is. Unf, tormented characters kink, yes please.)
Your back and forth with them is painfully human. A friend of mine the other day was talking about his boyfriend and how his boyfriend keeps himself behind a shell, and he knows that he does, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier to let it go. It's ten times harder to learn about a person who locks themselves away like that, even if you know they must have very valid reasons for doing it.
Charles and Erik both have their work cut out for them in determining this relationship, because it isn't like Erik's a prize at the end of the maze, just waiting for Charles to find him so he can say “Yay, you win, you've found the real me!”. He's just as lost in the labyrinth as Charles is. And I think that makes it genuine. You can learn about yourself through people, and sometimes you don't always discover the things you were hoping to. And for Erik, in particular, who you've clearly made lose so much in his life, that has to be terrifying. He can't help Charles over the roots and underbrush of his problems if he's wandering in the same dark, after all, and he doesn't know which stumble will be the last before Charles just gives up.
But it breaks my heart to have that lingering possibility of artificiality over all of it. It's like the movie Tangled, if you've ever seen it, where Rapunzel loves Gothel because Gothel is all she's ever known. The second she got a taste of the real world it didn't matter that Gothel had been taking care of her for eighteen years. For selfish reasons, but she didn't torture or starve or beat her. She brought her books and paint and food—she did what she could given the circumstances. Gothel's trespasses are different than Erik's, they originally spawned from selfishness rather than turning selfish (and Charles' hair doesn't glow when he sings...I don't think), but the point is the same. There's that hanging, horrible question of if the world will win out, and I really can't blame Erik for being afraid of the answer.
Re: God this turned into an essay or something. [2/2]
I've never especially noticed any telling in K&C, if that helps. I always think that if you're aware of what you struggle with (dear God run-on sentences are the bane of my existence) then you can fix it as you go along, and the more aware of it you are the less you do it until eventually you don't do it any more.
I get what you mean about subtlety when it comes to showing, though. It's a debate I've had with myself more than once, but I came to the conclusion that I want to write something I would want to read, and that means learning through observing and intuiting and sudden thunderbolts of understanding (hopefully!) I've debated this with
You know, I think you've just pinned Erik right there. I love that whole paragraph. (I wish I'd written it!) Erik is just always waiting for Charles to give up on him, or disappoint him somehow, and he's fighting as hard as he can to reach Charles through this tangle of his own issues but they're choking him back as well. He tries and he tries and he tries, but he gets so caught up in I can't let him see this and he would hate me if he knew and don't give anyone the ammunition that he can't stop it any more. He can only hope that Charles is stubborn enough to keep going. And the thing is, there's so much Erik doesn't know about Charles, either. (But no, his hair doesn't glow when he sings :D)