Arrant Nonsense

You poor bastard.

You know what? I was going to post a long entry explaining what I'd just done. And then I realized that you haven't been graced with a snippet in awhile. So, here. Have one:

The tall one weighed a cattle prod in one hand and the stun gun in the other, eyeing Ben crossways with an expression that wasn't a smile. "This," he said casually, holding up the stun gun, "puts out about five hundred thousand volts, according to the manufacturer. It knocked you out in the parking lot pretty as you please. However, we don't want to knock you out. Knocking you out is counterproductive."

"I'd prefer it," Ben rasped, spitting blood. His blurred vision had honed in on the cattle prod, which brought back all kinds of memories from Afghanistan. None of them were happy ones.

"Of course you would. Now this--" He hefted the cattle prod. "--only puts out about eleven thousand volts. It's actually one of my most favorite toys, because it's painful as hell but doesn't cause any lasting damage, so I can use it again and again." He paused. "Tell us what we want to know, and I won't use it on you."

Shit. Ben closed his eyes and tried to breathe. He thought about making something up, anything to stop them, but if they didn't believe the truth after all this, then a lie wouldn't convince them either. "I. Don't. Know."

"That's really a shame."

I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to think that this might be actually good.

with ithildyn and ninjababe yesterday. We had dinner at Famous Dave's (sausage OMG YUM). And we talked writing and fandom and stuff and it was great. Hopefully we'll get to to it again soon. :)

In writing news, I'm having a tendency to agree that my opening scene needs toning down a bit. I've excised a paragraph, changed brass knuckles to a dog chain wrapped around the bad guy's fist, and substituted the same dog chain for the cat o'nine tails. I should also point out, somewhere in there, that a cattle prod has less zappage than a stun gun designed for humans. So, it's still evolving and continuing to SUCK LESS with every pass. I'll let you know when it ceases to suck AT ALL.

It may be awhile.

*eyes previous paragraph* I realize that it doesn't sound all that "toned down" from that description, but trust me. It also necessitated changing a sentence that I really really loved, but I didn't have to get rid of it entirely, so, WIN. Also, I think not!Harry's Mighty Sarcasm came through even more clearly, so, DOUBLE WIN.

It's better. Way better. My word choices before were problematic and pulling me out of the scene rather than into it. I finally remembered that panic attacks have more physical reactions than just OMG CAN'T BREATHE and have incorporated them.

Now I can't breathe. Seriously, I've got the shakes. Hopefully, so will a reader who isn't nearly as invested in not!Harry as I am...

Which leads me to think that I may have come to the point where I'm identifying far too closely with not!Harry. Shit. And, courtesy of TV Tropes, I've discovered the difference between a Woobie, a Butt Monkey, and a Chew Toy. Not!Harry = Woobie. Definitely.

In other news, I'm wearing my Puppet!Angel t-shirt and debating whether or not I'm going to a Twilight Release Party tonight to nosh on free cake and point and laugh and shout "REAL VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE, DAMMIT. NOR ARE THEY FRAKKING VEGETARIANS."

Clearly, I have too much time on my hands. Also, issues.

DONE. *squishes Mom & kicks Eudora (or whatever that email client she uses is) and Yahoo* By the way, Mom, those in-text [chapter break] things were there for reference and will be excised as soon as I decide where all of them are actually going. The three(?) I have in there are the ones that are definite.

I've also made a couple of improvements to my flashback scene. Physical reactions to fear for the win!

Also, I've cracked 95,000 words. \o/ And they're words in the middle rather than at the end, so my ending hasn't gotten more bloated than it already is.

And now I should probably dive into that opening sequence yet again. Because it still kind of sucks.

Appears to have faded somewhat.

I'm not going to call it "won," because I still have to be vigilant, but it's more like "mild skirmishes" and "holding action" rather than balls-to-the-wall battle.

Case in point: We ate at Golden Corral on Thursday. Fried shrimp, fried scallops, fried spicy potato logs, that yummy "crab" salad, clam chowder...you get the idea. I skipped dessert because I was so full from the actual meal.

And the next morning, the scale taunted me with "128.6, bitch. HAH."

Yes, well. This morning I got to taunt the scale right back. 126.0. SO THERE. I'm wearing my Skinny Jeans. Hubby is looking at me like I'm a swimsuit model. I'm not, yet, but considering the fact that we'd just about lost hope of me ever looking this good again...yeah. He's so happy. As am I. Let's see if I can drop it under 126 tomorrow...

In other news, I think I've beaten that opening scene into submission. Now I'm poking the rest of it (again). You know, rather than poking not!Harry (as fun as that is because of the aforementioned sadistic bitchiness), maybe I should poke at not!Tony for awhile. He only gets injured once. Which is probably some kind of record for me.

It 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 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.

I'm back to thinking it sort of sucks.

GORRAMIT.

I mean, okay, yes, it's better. But "better" is relative. Better than the absolute suckitude that sucked at me before, fine. Better as in "actually good"... not so much.

*squints* I think it might need more dialogue. I feel like I'm still telling instead of showing. The last bit I added is GOLD. *snuggles poor not!Harry like whoa*

And I have discovered the wonder of Googledocs. What better way to get instant feedback? And it's via invitation only, so I have control over who sees it. NICE.

I can even haz opening scene that sucketh not.

*breathes*

*snuggles not!Harry*

Many many many thanks to the lovely and effulgent pensive1 and sunnyd_lite and bigsciencybrain for suggestions and handholding.

I still think I've lost a good chunk of his sarcasm, but at this point he's just trying not to break into bitty shards because he flat does not have the information these bozos are torturing him for. And even if he did have it, he wouldn't give it to them, because he's a stubborn little bastard, so there. *adds even MOAR* OH GOD BEN.

I am a vile human being. They allow me to be around small animals and children because...?

Well. Opening scene is now a good 80% better than it was. I'm happier with it. I'm not going to say it "doesn't suck" anymore, because I kind of think it still does, just...not as much.

And, in the midst of this edit, I somehow lost not!Harry's sarcasm. HOW did that happen???

*glares @ Antubis* And, no, Fuzzybutt, I'm not going to drop an f-bomb in my third paragraph. WTF. Even though I think it kind of fits there.

I stuck the opening scene in first person present tense to see if I could figure out exactly where I went wrong with it, and then printed it out to take with me while we went to run errands, and, behold...

Not!Harry is totally channeling Michael Weston from "Burn Notice." Which would be cool if he resembled Michael in any way whatsoever. However, since he doesn't, at all, this is a bad thing.

And now that I know what's wrong, I have to figure out how the hell I'm going to fix it.

It's pretty bad when I'm writing a character I created myself OOC. *headdesks repeatedly* GYAH.

Also, I start it in the wrong place. I should start with them taking him, clearly. Either that, or start with them breaking his glasses against his face, because the later in the scene you can start it and still have it make sense, the better.

I shall now cease my gratuitous use of italics and see if I can't channel that into some not-so-gratuitous (really!) violence instead.