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vulgarweed...these are the ficlets I did for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oxoniensis's comment-porn-a-palooza last week. Reposting them here to keep my stuff quasi-organized, and also to play a little writer's-worshoppy thing.
Due to the limits of LJ's comment sizes, and MS Word's tendency to lie about number of characters used, one of my ficlets wound up being too long and had to be edited on the fly (since I was down to the wire deadlinewise) right in the comment box. So two versions of it exist, which doesn't happen when I edit in Word as usual.
The question is, which one is better? I know I tend to verbosity. I much prefer Thomas Wolfe to Tom Wolfe and the early chapters of the The Lord of the Rings are my very favorite part. My early writing was all screaming electric purple, a sort of H.P. Lovecraft/Jack Kerouac bastard child with the Southern Gothic taking over like kudzu. So one of the things I love about drabbles and limited-length fic challenges is I have to go against this grain and I learn a lot that way.
One person's already said she likes the longer version better because it's richer and sounds more like me. What do you think?
Sentimental Value
(Good Omens; Crowley/Aziraphale, NC-17. Warnings: D/s like whoa. The prompt word was "collar")
I.
“You can’t just go helping yourself to things from their excavations!” Aziraphale chided. “You know perfectly well how much every little trinket from the past means to them.”
“Yes, I can tell by how generously you share your collection,” said Crowley.
“That’s different!” huffed the angel. “A lot of my books have…sentimental value.”
“And this doesn’t?” said Crowley, presenting his trump card: a wide, tapered collar of beaten bronze, in very good condition for its venerable age. As soon as Aziraphale touched it, Crowley could see his eyes dilating with memory. Rome, in that crazy Little Boots’s day, when lust and bloodshed were competitive sports, and there’d been that brothel and that festival…
Crowley could still feel the cool tang of it against his skin if he thought about it, and his gratuitous pulse quickened with remembrance of the abandon and surrender it had meant.
“I suppose…yes, it does,” was all Aziraphale could say, and he could say less as Crowley took it out of his hands and stepped around behind him. There was a rustling of silk and linen, one ascot discarded, and Crowley hissed softly just once in Aziraphale’s ear as he fastened the collar around his neck.
“Oh…” Aziraphale said, trembling. “I really don’t think…”
“I do think,” said Crowley. “It’s my turn. Or yours, if you look at it that way.”
“Well,” Aziraphale said, his voice gone thrillingly hoarse. “I won’t…do what you did, I mean, no strangers.”
“Definitely not,” Crowley said, hand fisted in Aziraphale’s hair, finger running down the placket of his shirt and obliterating buttons supernaturally. The collar really didn’t work with clothes on--especially not Aziraphale’s clothes. “You’re all mine,” he whispered, and Aziraphale’s little gasp at that was most rewarding.
The trousers were next to go, and Crowley knew why Aziraphale wasn’t putting up a fight. He lingered his hand there, rubbing through thick wool and then through nothing at all, pressing his hips up against the angel from behind to show him they were very much on the same page, of a book quickly taking a turn for the erotic. Crowley just inhaled the sweet scent of his hair for a moment, letting his tongue work and worship at the places where warming bronze met skin, licking slowly all the way around and tilting up Aziraphale’s chin for better access to his throat, nipping both playfully and sharply.
Aziraphale made a soft sound and met Crowley’s eyes for a moment, then lowering them, then closing.
Crowley shivered inside at the sight of it. Of course they could talk all night about free will and willing submission, obeying and rebelling, blind pride and blind faith and consequences. How they’d got around to acting it out instead, well…
Aziraphale looked and felt so good like this Crowley felt compelled to turn half the wall into a mirror so he could see himself, all but naked and shaking and all-too-visibly aroused. Crowley wanted Aziraphale miles past embarrassment, all the way over into shamelessness, but he relented with a drape of his cloak as he circled nipples with his fingernails. A fig leaf would be too retro.
“Don’t you appreciate how hot you look right now? How mad you’re driving me? The things you’re making me want to do to you?”
He could feel the heat in Aziraphale’s face, and other places too, his hand sliding downward, cloak falling away, flesh flushed dark red rising into his palm, and Aziraphale groaned quietly, a pleading sound. Crowley took the back of the collar in his teeth and pulled back as a warning, choking Aziraphale a bit roughly and very harmlessly.
“On your knees,” he hissed, and the angel complied so quickly he must have been on the verge of falling there. Crowley looked down at him and Aziraphale dared to look back up at him, an incredible expression of desire and relief and acquiescence and something cagey and calculating blurring all together in his darkened, heavy-lidded eyes, a pink tongue flickering across his lips as momentarily as a serpent’s. With a quick growl, Crowley pulled Aziraphale’s hair and pressed the angel’s face against his still-clothed crotch, grinding his hips slowly as that mouth obediently nuzzled through fabric against his already-aching cock. He could not recall ever wanting anything as badly as he wanted to tear his trousers open and fuck those pretty lips hard and deep until…
That’s so good it’s no good. Have to make this last.
Willpower. Crowley wanted to be good at this, thinking now about taking his time, going all night, pulling Aziraphale down deeper and deeper until he was flying in the abyss, no longer weighed down by wings of decisions and power, just turning into a garden himself full of the pleasures of plucking fruit after fruit. A feast. Gratification delayed.
It’s Crowley’s people who said “I will not serve,” not Aziraphale’s, but in being served, Crowley did. With his free hand he worked off his necktie, and as he pulled Aziraphale’s face away—to a moan of protest—he sank to his own knees behind him, tying the angel’s hands behind his back and whispering. “So much of you for me to play with. What’s the hurry?”
“I just wanted to…”
Crowley backhanded his cheek ever so gently. “What I want is you to beg me to take you hard, right in your paradox.”
***
II.
“You can’t just help yourself to things from their excavations!” Aziraphale chided. “You know how much every little trinket from the past means to them.”
“Yes, I can tell by how generously you share your collection,” said Crowley.
“That’s different!” huffed the angel. “My books have…sentimental value.”
“And this doesn’t?” said Crowley, presenting a wide, tapered collar of beaten bronze, in very good condition for its venerable age. Crowley could see that Aziraphale remembered: Rome, in batshit Little Boots’s day, and there’d been that brothel and that festival…
Crowley's own gratuitous pulse quickened with remembrance of the abandon and surrender it had meant when he'd worn it.
“I suppose…yes, it does,” was all Aziraphale could say, and Crowley took it from him and stepped around behind him. Crowley licked Aziraphale’s ear as he fastened the collar around his neck.
“Oh…” Aziraphale said. “I really don’t think…”
“I do think,” said Crowley. “It’s my turn. Or yours, if you look at it that way.”
“Well,” Aziraphale whispered. “I won’t…do what you did, I mean, no strangers.”
“Definitely not,” Crowley said, finger running down Aziraphale's shirt and obliterating buttons. The collar really didn’t work with clothes on--especially not Aziraphale’s clothes. “You’re all mine.”
The trousers went next, and then Crowley knew why Aziraphale wasn’t objecting. He lingered his hand there, rubbing through wool and then through nothing, pressing his hips up against the angel from behind to show him they were very much on the same page.
Crowley inhaled the sweet scent of his hair for a moment, letting his tongue work and worship at the places where warming bronze met skin and tilting up Aziraphale’s chin for better access to his throat, nipping both playfully and sharply.
Aziraphale met Crowley’s eyes for a moment, then lowered them.
Crowley shivered inside. Of course they could talk all night about free will and willing submission, obeying and rebelling, blind pride and blind faith and consequences, but, well…
Aziraphale looked so good like this Crowley felt compelled to turn half the wall into a mirror so he could see himself, all but naked and shaking and all-too-visibly aroused. Crowley wanted Aziraphale miles past embarrassment, all the way over into shamelessness, but he relented with a drape of his cloak as he circled nipples with his fingernails. A fig leaf would be too retro.
“Don’t you appreciate how hot you look right now? How mad you’re driving me? The things you’re making me want to do to you?”
He could feel the heat in Aziraphale’s face and other places too, his hand sliding downward and flesh flushed dark red rising into his palm, and Aziraphale groaned. Crowley took the back of the collar in his teeth and pulled back as a warning, choking Aziraphale a bit roughly and very harmlessly.
“On your knees,” he hissed, and the angel complied so quickly he must have been on the verge of falling there. Aziraphale dared to look back up at him, wearing an expression of desire and and acquiescence and something cagey and calculating too, tongue flickering across his lips.
With a quick growl, Crowley pulled Aziraphale’s hair and pressed the angel’s face against his still-clothed crotch, grinding his hips slowly as that mouth obediently nuzzled against his already-aching cock. He had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted to tear his trousers open and fuck those pretty lips hard and deep until…
That’s so good it’s no good. Have to make this last.
Willpower. Crowley wanted to be good at this, thinking now about taking his time, going all night, pulling Aziraphale down deeper and deeper until he was flying in the abyss, no longer weighed down by wings of decisions.
It’s Crowley’s people who were said to have said “I will not serve,” not Aziraphale’s, but in being served, Crowley did. With his free hand he worked off his necktie, and as he pulled Aziraphale’s face away he sank to his own knees behind him, tying the angel’s hands behind his back and whispering. “So much of you for me to play with. What’s the hurry?”
“I just wanted to…”
Crowley backhanded his cheek ever so gently. “What I want is for you to beg me to take you hard, right in your paradox.”
***
The second one was short enough already, and so only one version exists.
For Real
(Lost, Sayid/Sawyer, NC-17. Warnings: BDSM, racial slurs, references to torture, unsurprisingly. The prompt word was "knot")
So that’s the way this goes on Mindfuck Island – it’s not Dr. Martyr, it’s not Miracle Man, it’s not even Mr. Big-Dick God-stick. Shoulda known right off—the man had a way of getting under Sawyer’s skin from the beginning, and that was before the day he got under his fucking fingernails.
He even has a way of making the goddamn knots hurt, those huge hard lumps of itchy hemp tangled like a clusterfuck of snakes but full of wicked and impenetrable purpose.
In Saddamland, even the Boy Scouts played rough.
And Sawyer is not thinking for one moment about how easy it’d be to take the guns or anything else he’s got, even his fucking books and his fucking broken dork glasses and leave him with nothing when he’s in this position. Oh no, he’d never think of that, even when just a moment ago it was all he could think of.
Because Sayid doesn’t seem to be thinking of that at all, though he probably is. Sawyer is too busy kicking himself for not realizing who was really the cagiest bastard out of all of them, the desert fox. Fuck. In more ways than one. Those eyes. Sawyer’s glad he’s blindfolded. The sight of himself; naked, bruised, and hard as a missile poised to pop might just be too much as it was—never said he couldn’t appreciate a nice bod, even his own—without the tickle of black curls over his chest, the sadistic bastard torturing his nipples in some deviously primal way, with his teeth. Sawyer trembles and bucks under him, half-surprised he isn’t being worked over with some electrical monstrosity wired out of radio parts and chewing gum.
Sayid is rewiring him though, stringing and unstringing his nerves, and Sawyer’s decided he wants to see his face after all—only fucking fair, he’s seen the look on the man’s face when he’s doing it for real after all, for screams and damages and information, and the look on his face is pure cold hungry damnation.
The knot digs into his wrist. It’s annoying. It’s like a rock under his back, but on purpose.
There’s a slick finger probing him open and twisting, and he yells, but he still can’t forget that knot.
There’s a tongue skillfully avoiding his cock and helping itself to his balls instead, and Sawyer can’t help but shout, “Fuck! Do you pray to Mecca with that mouth?” and revel in the sharp smack to the cheek that it earns him.
That’s it, that’s the way. He’s played this con enough times that he knows exactly how it ends—Sayid driven to vicious impatience with Sawyer’s helplessness and his smart mouth combined, spreading him open at last and breaking through that façade to fuck him like a beast, muttering and threatening to him in a hot whisper of Arabic. Well, he could be reciting soccer stats for all Sawyer fucking knows, but it doesn’t matter because it sounds hot and dirty, and who’d have thought he could get some gen-u-ine Iraqi torture in the best possible way without even enlisting.
Cause the bastard acts at first like it’s all just business, nothing personal—just like the way you work a mark, meaning nothing by it but the purpose, the pot of gold. And the look of devastation at the end when the penny drops. The money shot. The shouting, in this case, the making of abject silly faces, his own come soaking his chest. That’s the only fucking lie, right there—and Sayid is good at everything else he does but sometimes he is a damn lousy liar. It was always personal. Asthma medicine, my prison-bitch ass.
“Fuck me already, you fucking sadistic terrorist.”
Smack.
Thoughts? What is your natural inclination? Are you drunk on the music of words enough to stagger around vaguely sometimes, or are you a goal-oriented speedfreak? Are you lush and voluptuous, or lean and mean? How much do you struggle with your own style?
oxoniensis's comment-porn-a-palooza last week. Reposting them here to keep my stuff quasi-organized, and also to play a little writer's-worshoppy thing.Due to the limits of LJ's comment sizes, and MS Word's tendency to lie about number of characters used, one of my ficlets wound up being too long and had to be edited on the fly (since I was down to the wire deadlinewise) right in the comment box. So two versions of it exist, which doesn't happen when I edit in Word as usual.
The question is, which one is better? I know I tend to verbosity. I much prefer Thomas Wolfe to Tom Wolfe and the early chapters of the The Lord of the Rings are my very favorite part. My early writing was all screaming electric purple, a sort of H.P. Lovecraft/Jack Kerouac bastard child with the Southern Gothic taking over like kudzu. So one of the things I love about drabbles and limited-length fic challenges is I have to go against this grain and I learn a lot that way.
One person's already said she likes the longer version better because it's richer and sounds more like me. What do you think?
Sentimental Value
(Good Omens; Crowley/Aziraphale, NC-17. Warnings: D/s like whoa. The prompt word was "collar")
I.
“You can’t just go helping yourself to things from their excavations!” Aziraphale chided. “You know perfectly well how much every little trinket from the past means to them.”
“Yes, I can tell by how generously you share your collection,” said Crowley.
“That’s different!” huffed the angel. “A lot of my books have…sentimental value.”
“And this doesn’t?” said Crowley, presenting his trump card: a wide, tapered collar of beaten bronze, in very good condition for its venerable age. As soon as Aziraphale touched it, Crowley could see his eyes dilating with memory. Rome, in that crazy Little Boots’s day, when lust and bloodshed were competitive sports, and there’d been that brothel and that festival…
Crowley could still feel the cool tang of it against his skin if he thought about it, and his gratuitous pulse quickened with remembrance of the abandon and surrender it had meant.
“I suppose…yes, it does,” was all Aziraphale could say, and he could say less as Crowley took it out of his hands and stepped around behind him. There was a rustling of silk and linen, one ascot discarded, and Crowley hissed softly just once in Aziraphale’s ear as he fastened the collar around his neck.
“Oh…” Aziraphale said, trembling. “I really don’t think…”
“I do think,” said Crowley. “It’s my turn. Or yours, if you look at it that way.”
“Well,” Aziraphale said, his voice gone thrillingly hoarse. “I won’t…do what you did, I mean, no strangers.”
“Definitely not,” Crowley said, hand fisted in Aziraphale’s hair, finger running down the placket of his shirt and obliterating buttons supernaturally. The collar really didn’t work with clothes on--especially not Aziraphale’s clothes. “You’re all mine,” he whispered, and Aziraphale’s little gasp at that was most rewarding.
The trousers were next to go, and Crowley knew why Aziraphale wasn’t putting up a fight. He lingered his hand there, rubbing through thick wool and then through nothing at all, pressing his hips up against the angel from behind to show him they were very much on the same page, of a book quickly taking a turn for the erotic. Crowley just inhaled the sweet scent of his hair for a moment, letting his tongue work and worship at the places where warming bronze met skin, licking slowly all the way around and tilting up Aziraphale’s chin for better access to his throat, nipping both playfully and sharply.
Aziraphale made a soft sound and met Crowley’s eyes for a moment, then lowering them, then closing.
Crowley shivered inside at the sight of it. Of course they could talk all night about free will and willing submission, obeying and rebelling, blind pride and blind faith and consequences. How they’d got around to acting it out instead, well…
Aziraphale looked and felt so good like this Crowley felt compelled to turn half the wall into a mirror so he could see himself, all but naked and shaking and all-too-visibly aroused. Crowley wanted Aziraphale miles past embarrassment, all the way over into shamelessness, but he relented with a drape of his cloak as he circled nipples with his fingernails. A fig leaf would be too retro.
“Don’t you appreciate how hot you look right now? How mad you’re driving me? The things you’re making me want to do to you?”
He could feel the heat in Aziraphale’s face, and other places too, his hand sliding downward, cloak falling away, flesh flushed dark red rising into his palm, and Aziraphale groaned quietly, a pleading sound. Crowley took the back of the collar in his teeth and pulled back as a warning, choking Aziraphale a bit roughly and very harmlessly.
“On your knees,” he hissed, and the angel complied so quickly he must have been on the verge of falling there. Crowley looked down at him and Aziraphale dared to look back up at him, an incredible expression of desire and relief and acquiescence and something cagey and calculating blurring all together in his darkened, heavy-lidded eyes, a pink tongue flickering across his lips as momentarily as a serpent’s. With a quick growl, Crowley pulled Aziraphale’s hair and pressed the angel’s face against his still-clothed crotch, grinding his hips slowly as that mouth obediently nuzzled through fabric against his already-aching cock. He could not recall ever wanting anything as badly as he wanted to tear his trousers open and fuck those pretty lips hard and deep until…
That’s so good it’s no good. Have to make this last.
Willpower. Crowley wanted to be good at this, thinking now about taking his time, going all night, pulling Aziraphale down deeper and deeper until he was flying in the abyss, no longer weighed down by wings of decisions and power, just turning into a garden himself full of the pleasures of plucking fruit after fruit. A feast. Gratification delayed.
It’s Crowley’s people who said “I will not serve,” not Aziraphale’s, but in being served, Crowley did. With his free hand he worked off his necktie, and as he pulled Aziraphale’s face away—to a moan of protest—he sank to his own knees behind him, tying the angel’s hands behind his back and whispering. “So much of you for me to play with. What’s the hurry?”
“I just wanted to…”
Crowley backhanded his cheek ever so gently. “What I want is you to beg me to take you hard, right in your paradox.”
***
II.
“You can’t just help yourself to things from their excavations!” Aziraphale chided. “You know how much every little trinket from the past means to them.”
“Yes, I can tell by how generously you share your collection,” said Crowley.
“That’s different!” huffed the angel. “My books have…sentimental value.”
“And this doesn’t?” said Crowley, presenting a wide, tapered collar of beaten bronze, in very good condition for its venerable age. Crowley could see that Aziraphale remembered: Rome, in batshit Little Boots’s day, and there’d been that brothel and that festival…
Crowley's own gratuitous pulse quickened with remembrance of the abandon and surrender it had meant when he'd worn it.
“I suppose…yes, it does,” was all Aziraphale could say, and Crowley took it from him and stepped around behind him. Crowley licked Aziraphale’s ear as he fastened the collar around his neck.
“Oh…” Aziraphale said. “I really don’t think…”
“I do think,” said Crowley. “It’s my turn. Or yours, if you look at it that way.”
“Well,” Aziraphale whispered. “I won’t…do what you did, I mean, no strangers.”
“Definitely not,” Crowley said, finger running down Aziraphale's shirt and obliterating buttons. The collar really didn’t work with clothes on--especially not Aziraphale’s clothes. “You’re all mine.”
The trousers went next, and then Crowley knew why Aziraphale wasn’t objecting. He lingered his hand there, rubbing through wool and then through nothing, pressing his hips up against the angel from behind to show him they were very much on the same page.
Crowley inhaled the sweet scent of his hair for a moment, letting his tongue work and worship at the places where warming bronze met skin and tilting up Aziraphale’s chin for better access to his throat, nipping both playfully and sharply.
Aziraphale met Crowley’s eyes for a moment, then lowered them.
Crowley shivered inside. Of course they could talk all night about free will and willing submission, obeying and rebelling, blind pride and blind faith and consequences, but, well…
Aziraphale looked so good like this Crowley felt compelled to turn half the wall into a mirror so he could see himself, all but naked and shaking and all-too-visibly aroused. Crowley wanted Aziraphale miles past embarrassment, all the way over into shamelessness, but he relented with a drape of his cloak as he circled nipples with his fingernails. A fig leaf would be too retro.
“Don’t you appreciate how hot you look right now? How mad you’re driving me? The things you’re making me want to do to you?”
He could feel the heat in Aziraphale’s face and other places too, his hand sliding downward and flesh flushed dark red rising into his palm, and Aziraphale groaned. Crowley took the back of the collar in his teeth and pulled back as a warning, choking Aziraphale a bit roughly and very harmlessly.
“On your knees,” he hissed, and the angel complied so quickly he must have been on the verge of falling there. Aziraphale dared to look back up at him, wearing an expression of desire and and acquiescence and something cagey and calculating too, tongue flickering across his lips.
With a quick growl, Crowley pulled Aziraphale’s hair and pressed the angel’s face against his still-clothed crotch, grinding his hips slowly as that mouth obediently nuzzled against his already-aching cock. He had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted to tear his trousers open and fuck those pretty lips hard and deep until…
That’s so good it’s no good. Have to make this last.
Willpower. Crowley wanted to be good at this, thinking now about taking his time, going all night, pulling Aziraphale down deeper and deeper until he was flying in the abyss, no longer weighed down by wings of decisions.
It’s Crowley’s people who were said to have said “I will not serve,” not Aziraphale’s, but in being served, Crowley did. With his free hand he worked off his necktie, and as he pulled Aziraphale’s face away he sank to his own knees behind him, tying the angel’s hands behind his back and whispering. “So much of you for me to play with. What’s the hurry?”
“I just wanted to…”
Crowley backhanded his cheek ever so gently. “What I want is for you to beg me to take you hard, right in your paradox.”
***
The second one was short enough already, and so only one version exists.
For Real
(Lost, Sayid/Sawyer, NC-17. Warnings: BDSM, racial slurs, references to torture, unsurprisingly. The prompt word was "knot")
So that’s the way this goes on Mindfuck Island – it’s not Dr. Martyr, it’s not Miracle Man, it’s not even Mr. Big-Dick God-stick. Shoulda known right off—the man had a way of getting under Sawyer’s skin from the beginning, and that was before the day he got under his fucking fingernails.
He even has a way of making the goddamn knots hurt, those huge hard lumps of itchy hemp tangled like a clusterfuck of snakes but full of wicked and impenetrable purpose.
In Saddamland, even the Boy Scouts played rough.
And Sawyer is not thinking for one moment about how easy it’d be to take the guns or anything else he’s got, even his fucking books and his fucking broken dork glasses and leave him with nothing when he’s in this position. Oh no, he’d never think of that, even when just a moment ago it was all he could think of.
Because Sayid doesn’t seem to be thinking of that at all, though he probably is. Sawyer is too busy kicking himself for not realizing who was really the cagiest bastard out of all of them, the desert fox. Fuck. In more ways than one. Those eyes. Sawyer’s glad he’s blindfolded. The sight of himself; naked, bruised, and hard as a missile poised to pop might just be too much as it was—never said he couldn’t appreciate a nice bod, even his own—without the tickle of black curls over his chest, the sadistic bastard torturing his nipples in some deviously primal way, with his teeth. Sawyer trembles and bucks under him, half-surprised he isn’t being worked over with some electrical monstrosity wired out of radio parts and chewing gum.
Sayid is rewiring him though, stringing and unstringing his nerves, and Sawyer’s decided he wants to see his face after all—only fucking fair, he’s seen the look on the man’s face when he’s doing it for real after all, for screams and damages and information, and the look on his face is pure cold hungry damnation.
The knot digs into his wrist. It’s annoying. It’s like a rock under his back, but on purpose.
There’s a slick finger probing him open and twisting, and he yells, but he still can’t forget that knot.
There’s a tongue skillfully avoiding his cock and helping itself to his balls instead, and Sawyer can’t help but shout, “Fuck! Do you pray to Mecca with that mouth?” and revel in the sharp smack to the cheek that it earns him.
That’s it, that’s the way. He’s played this con enough times that he knows exactly how it ends—Sayid driven to vicious impatience with Sawyer’s helplessness and his smart mouth combined, spreading him open at last and breaking through that façade to fuck him like a beast, muttering and threatening to him in a hot whisper of Arabic. Well, he could be reciting soccer stats for all Sawyer fucking knows, but it doesn’t matter because it sounds hot and dirty, and who’d have thought he could get some gen-u-ine Iraqi torture in the best possible way without even enlisting.
Cause the bastard acts at first like it’s all just business, nothing personal—just like the way you work a mark, meaning nothing by it but the purpose, the pot of gold. And the look of devastation at the end when the penny drops. The money shot. The shouting, in this case, the making of abject silly faces, his own come soaking his chest. That’s the only fucking lie, right there—and Sayid is good at everything else he does but sometimes he is a damn lousy liar. It was always personal. Asthma medicine, my prison-bitch ass.
“Fuck me already, you fucking sadistic terrorist.”
Smack.
Thoughts? What is your natural inclination? Are you drunk on the music of words enough to stagger around vaguely sometimes, or are you a goal-oriented speedfreak? Are you lush and voluptuous, or lean and mean? How much do you struggle with your own style?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 07:51 am (UTC)My natural inclination is verbosity, but I don't struggle with my style. I allow myself to be lush where that best suits the story and where the slower pace will be in balance with the atmosphere and characterisation. However, I also enjoy the discipline of cutting back and producing something minimalist. I like to see how much I can say while saying very little. It depends on the demands of the story.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 08:13 am (UTC)My natural inclination is verbosity, but I don't struggle with my style. I allow myself to be lush where that best suits the story and where the slower pace will be in balance with the atmosphere and characterisation. However, I also enjoy the discipline of cutting back and producing something minimalist. I like to see how much I can say while saying very little. It depends on the demands of the story.
I agree with all of this - I'm just not sure I can always trust my instincts on it. I hope most of the time, at least. Characterization and POV is a big part of it, so is where we are in the story WRT climax, so is setting--that's the effect of my Lovecraft and Tolkien influence, that setting and atmosphere are so crucial, especially in longer stories, that I'll gladly lay that on too thick, as I feel that's a much lesser sin than skimping on them.
But there's also nothing quite like the thrill of condensing something that could have been a novella into the exactly right 100 words. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 04:19 pm (UTC)But I think that in most of my long stories the language is also a character, and so there has to be lots of it. It creates the atmosphere, and every word has a job
Yup, and I try to be sensitive to rhythm as well. I try to write things that can stand up to being read aloud.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 07:50 pm (UTC)I write what I like to read. I tend to get bored quickly with stories that are too lush for my tastes. I want dialogue, and I want a clearly discernable plot that moves steadily. For me, descriptive details work best when they're invisible - when I don't notice them, but they build images in my mind without calling attention to themselves.
And I don't want to give the impression that drabbling is always padding rather than cutting! Just sometimes.
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Date: 2006-06-22 09:39 pm (UTC)I think we all write what we like to read, or try to. Or don't even try, it's inevitable that the writers we enjoy most will influence us most.
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Date: 2006-06-22 02:15 pm (UTC)I prefer the first/longer version -- it's got the added extras, the additional imagery, the few extra seconds of prolonged pleasure .... And it does sound more like you, V.
I enjoy rich tapestries of story -- when I'm reading. When I'm writing, however, I'm far more likely to write tightly and succinctly (vignette, drabble, haiku) -- because my mind runs ahead of me, my coherent composition lags behind, and to some extent, I bore myself with the mechanics of telling the tale. And if I'm bored, my readers must be too, right? Well, no, I know that doesn't follow logically; but that's how my muse natters at me .... I truly admire and enjoy your long, complex, involved historical A/C stuff, V., but I usually despair of ever emulating you.
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Date: 2006-06-22 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 08:25 pm (UTC)It means, however, that I can appreciate all the more the work that goes with the vision, in others such as yourself. ;]
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Date: 2006-06-22 05:01 pm (UTC)Well, there's certainly that to consider! As Crowley says, "What's the hurry?" I do agree that smut of all things shouldn't be rushed through. :)
See, sometimes with the long, complex stories I worry that I'm spelling too much out (and yet at the same time I'm so aware of the historical details I have to gloss over quickly) - that's going on in this ficlet too, in microcosm, with the sort of metaphysical/psychological symbolism of it all that's so much more explicit in the longer version. But my editors at work are always telling me that things I think are perfectly clear really aren't, so maybe I do need that directness and just have to accept that it takes more words to get there.
because my mind runs ahead of me, my coherent composition lags behind, and to some extent, I bore myself with the mechanics of telling the tale.
That's interesting! That has happened with me before, but more often, I'm not sure how it goes until I'm mostly done telling it to myself.
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Date: 2006-06-22 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 04:14 pm (UTC)Struggling with style - yeah, sometimes. It varies but I'm probably closer to lean and mean than lush, most of the time. Although for smut not necessarily.
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Date: 2006-06-22 04:36 pm (UTC)I think I struggle with it most of all when my style comes in conflict with the pace the events described need to have: too slow (more often) or too fast (more rarely).
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Date: 2006-06-22 04:49 pm (UTC)This is at least in part why we write, though, isn't it? For the challenge and joy of making it all work together to the best of our ability.
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Date: 2006-06-22 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 06:02 pm (UTC)The style of "About a Boy" is me aping JK Rowling while using Patrick O'Brian's brain. I use a lot of exposition to try and move the story along, and I'm working on keeping that interesting.
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Date: 2006-06-23 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 11:57 pm (UTC)Crowley's extremely hypocritical stance on the thought of Aziraphale and people other than Crowley always amuses me.
Demons excel at double standards, because they don't feel the need to rationalize them as much as angels do. Makes them more aerodynamic. :)