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agilebritIt sucks less. I guess. I think.
There's a fine line between "show, don't tell" and "wallowing in it." Very bad things happen to not!Harry in this scene. But there comes a point where the character himself is so out of it, that he's just enduring this and hoping he doesn't die (or wishing they'd just kill him and get it over with) that you pull back and start summarizing because it's just too damn horrific. He's not quite stepping outside it and saying "Hi, my name is Harry Lockhart, I'll be your narrator, and this is the scene where I get the shit beat out of me and nearly die for information I don't actually have," but it would almost be nice to have that extra layer between what's happening here and me.
Almost. Because (I freely admit) I am a sadistic bitch at times, and this is one of them.
I spent...about a page on the horrificness. And after that, yeah, his mind isn't all there, and it starts sounding like it's happening to someone else because that's how it feels. Hopefully I pulled it off so that it's still visceral and awful. I'm not one to shy away from doing mean and bad things to my characters--anyone who's read any of my stuff will know that by now.
But like I said above: There comes a point.
Anyway. I'm going to sleep on it and see what I think in the morning. Because, yeah.
Many thanks to the handsome and talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kurukami for handholding and assuring me that, yes, it really did suck as much as I thought it did. At this point I don't need people petting me and telling me the MS is okay when I know it's horrible. And woe: I lost the lines about him thinking "he wasn't going to give them the info unless they half-killed him" and then a few 'graphs later "half-killed was getting to be more than a euphemism." Murder your darlings. Dammit.
Poor not!Harry.
There's a fine line between "show, don't tell" and "wallowing in it." Very bad things happen to not!Harry in this scene. But there comes a point where the character himself is so out of it, that he's just enduring this and hoping he doesn't die (or wishing they'd just kill him and get it over with) that you pull back and start summarizing because it's just too damn horrific. He's not quite stepping outside it and saying "Hi, my name is Harry Lockhart, I'll be your narrator, and this is the scene where I get the shit beat out of me and nearly die for information I don't actually have," but it would almost be nice to have that extra layer between what's happening here and me.
Almost. Because (I freely admit) I am a sadistic bitch at times, and this is one of them.
I spent...about a page on the horrificness. And after that, yeah, his mind isn't all there, and it starts sounding like it's happening to someone else because that's how it feels. Hopefully I pulled it off so that it's still visceral and awful. I'm not one to shy away from doing mean and bad things to my characters--anyone who's read any of my stuff will know that by now.
But like I said above: There comes a point.
Anyway. I'm going to sleep on it and see what I think in the morning. Because, yeah.
Many thanks to the handsome and talented
kurukami for handholding and assuring me that, yes, it really did suck as much as I thought it did. At this point I don't need people petting me and telling me the MS is okay when I know it's horrible. And woe: I lost the lines about him thinking "he wasn't going to give them the info unless they half-killed him" and then a few 'graphs later "half-killed was getting to be more than a euphemism." Murder your darlings. Dammit.Poor not!Harry.
