Writing, writing

[neveralarch]

Hey, does anyone have time to beta a 9k-odd Master/Rani and Master/Doctor fic? I am unhappy with it, and I can't tell if that's because there's something wrong with it or if it's just the general antipathy I always have toward my finished and unposted work.

Also, in the interests of making this post worthwhile and also making sure this meme gets absolutely everywhere:

Pick a character and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them. Any and all characters welcome (including ones I haven't written but might know about).

From aralias and a bunch of other people.

Comments

[birdsarecalling.livejournal.com]

I don't mind taking a look at it, provided that you don't mind waiting until the weekend to get it back.

Now, talk to me about Jaimie!

[neveralarch]

Awesome, thanks! I'm assuming your e-mail's still the same? I will clean it up and send it to you, and then whenever you get a chance is fine. (I am going to send it to roachpatrol also, because I'd like a couple opinions on this general wrongness thing [I'm kinda insecure about it].)

Jamie! Man, it's been a little while.

1) Jamie really wants to be traveling with the Doctor. Some companions get kidnapped or kind of just go along with it, but Jamie is so excited to be there. That's why he and Zoe make such a good pair, and that's why he's so devastated when people leave. He can't understand why anyone would want to stop.

2) Jamie's really clever. He might not have as much knowledge as we take for granted in the 21st century, but he's good at figuring things out even if he doesn't understand the details. He thinks on his feet, and he's flexible about new facts and realities.

3) That said, he gets frustrated by explanations fast. It doesn't help that the Doctor has a tendency toward technobabble, but Jamie's generally much more interested in the practicalities of things. Not only does he not know what a plane is, but he really doesn't care, as long as it does what he thinks it does.

4) Jamie was a piper. He went into battle playing his bagpipe, and he stuck with his laird just like a good piper should, even after the battle was over. That steadfastness and loyalty is always there. (And also the ability to actually play music, as opposed to the Doctor, why did they ever give him a recorder, augh.)

5) Jamie was a soldier. The Battle of Culloden was a huge mess, but Jamie got through it - I'm not sure if he realizes how lucky he was, but I'm sure that the experience sticks with him. He's willing to fight for his people and his beliefs, and he doesn't back down for anything.

[tardiscrash.livejournal.com]

What about Eleven? :)

[neveralarch]

Hm, Eleven...

1) Eleven's very concerned with image, but he's not good at projecting what he wants to. He settles for telling people what they should think of him, and it doesn't always work.

2) Eleven always comes at things sideways. He's very much a lateral thinker, and it comes out in the way he talks as much as in the way he acts.

3) Eleven would really like to be childish, but he's not. He likes children and people who aren't letting adulthood make them serious, but when events catch up with him things get very dire very fast. His instinct is to snap and shout, but he buries that as much as he can.

4) Eleven has some unhealthy issues that he tries to gloss over, but they're still there. Self loathing, for one, or a very harsh appraisal of his own personality, anyway. Food aversion, which is a huge pain for non-aliens to deal with, and probably a pain for the Doctor as well. His companions dying and disappearing, River hinting that she's going to kill him. He doesn't angst about his problems, which is good, but he doesn't try to deal with them either, which is bad. He just ignores them until he can't anymore.

5) On a lighter note, Eleven's always either moving or talking. If he's standing still and silent, something's wrong. When I'm writing an Eleven fic, he always has to be doing something - he doesn't have an off switch. He's very liquid and abrupt in both speech an motion as well. The definitive Eleven action for me is that twirl he does in The Eleventh Hour.

[tweedymcgee.livejournal.com]

I dearly love this meme, even though it is reminding me of all the many, many, MANY classic!Who episodes, audios, etc. I have yet to consume.

(Er, that would be just about all of them. Ulp.)

I'd gladly have a look at any stuff of yourn whenever, but I don't know nothin' 'bout nothin' pre-Christopher Eccleston, except what I have gleaned from porn. Which is sad. (See above.)

[neveralarch]

Ha, there is so much Who! I am almost always in a state of Who-consumption, but I am still way, way behind. It is (mostly) good, though, so I definitely encourage you to check it out.

Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it! This thing is somewhere between Two and Three, so not really your area, but I've got a couple people to send it on to now anyway.

[roachpatrol.livejournal.com]

I'd like to know what you think of writing Ainley's Master.

Also, I'd love to take a look at your fic. I could probably have it to you by thursday night or friday.

[neveralarch]

Thank you! Birdsarecalling is going to take a look, but I'd really like another opinion on this general wrongness thing. If you want to let me know your email or something I will clean the fic up and send it on.

Aha, Ainley!Master, the bane of my Doctor/Master fic. I am going to have to get back to this in the morning, because he demands more thought and coherence than I am currently capable of giving.

[neveralarch]

Okay, Ainley!Master. My grasp on his character is pretty tenuous at the best of times, but this is what I think anyway.

1) He speaks in a very disjointed way. He emphasizes weird words, and takes pauses where it feels like it should flow. My favorite dialogue for him is the stuff that reads in a very clunky way until you start hearing his voice and then it's prefect. He can do the rolling monologues that Delgado!Master was prone to, but they're not as much him.

2) He's very grabby. I mean, there's the physical presence and the lack of respect for space, but he also just takes things from people. Delgado!Master will hypnotize and plot, but Ainley!Master sees something useful and then it's in his pocket. Not so much with the creating elaborate machines and so on.

3) No shame! Ainley!Master can disguise what he's thinking and what he's feeling, but if it doesn't serve a purpose, he doesn't bother. He doesn't hide his emotions just because other people would find them embarrassing or weird.

4) He is such a method actor. If he's in disguise, he keeps in character even when no one can see him, even when he's talking to people who presumably already know who he is. If I ever wrote an in-depth Ainley!Master fic, probably half of it would be about researching parts and working out backstories for each of his disguises, even though he knows he'll be in character for less than an hour or whatever.

5) I really do think he's insane, and I think he knows, too. His morality's internally consistent, and he's generally coherent, but sometimes he does things that just don't make any sense, or seems to have expectations that don't even remotely tally with reality. Every once in a while I see him trying to figure out what he just did, but then he laughs and it's all okay and I despair at ever writing an Ainley!Master POV (except for when he's simplified by the cheetah virus, I guess).

[neveralarch]

Or perfect, even. The best Ainley!Master dialogue does not sound like Percy from Harry Potter, I think.

[janeturenne.livejournal.com]

I am mad impressed by your Leela. Talk 'bout her, please?

[neveralarch]

Sure! I haven't seen any of her episodes since I was seven or eight, though, so this is all Gallifrey-derived.

1) Leela's not really that clever. There's a tendency to make all of the companions into awesome amazing people, and Leela really is awesome and amazing, but not because of her intelligence. Sometimes she gets things because she's looking with an outsider's eye, but more often she just gets confused and waits for someone to explain. Which is fine with her, that's what Time Lords are for (also K-9).

2) Leela does remember things, though. She pays attention to what people say and never has to have anything repeated. It's part of having grown up with an oral tradition, I think - when you don't have the mnemonic extensions of books and computers, the actual memory of things becomes very important.

3) As a character, Leela's very much a point-and-shoot kind of person. I mean, it's wrong to have Leela standing around wondering what to do or considering her position. If there's something that she should do, she just goes and does it. She's constantly bouncing from goal to goal, reacting as events occur.

4) This is more of a technical thing, but when I write dialogue for Leela, I do so knowing that I'm going to have to go back and throw half of it out. Her vocabulary's not large, and she speaks in a bit of a stilted, old-fashioned way. For On Her Lady President's Secret Service, I finished the fic, went back and rewrote all of Leela's lines, went back and rewrote half of them again, and then made my brother read it and ended up having to go back and rewrite all of Leela's lines one last time.

5) Leela doesn't care much about Gallifrey. It's an alien planet that she married into, and that's it. Romana, Brax, and Narvin all have varying degrees of devotion to the idea of Gallifrey, but Leela's only interested in the specific people. She'd die for Romana, and she'd fight for the rest of them, but the collapse of Gallifreyan society wouldn't be much of a blow to her. Especially considering that she can't stand Gallifreyan society.

[janeturenne.livejournal.com]

You are clearly much more dedicated than I am. I have a chronic inability to edit. All right, that's a lie, I copyedit and copyedit until I'm blue in the face, and if a beta tells me I need to rewrite a given scene I will, but going through and rewriting all of a given character's lines impresses the hell outta me. Also, you're so right about remembering things, and that being part of an upbringing where knowledge was imparted orally--very, very true, and a really cool observation that I wouldn't have thought of meself.

[neveralarch]

Ha, I edit so much. Usually dialogue gets left alone, actually, but I found Leela incredibly hard to write (which is why I'm really glad you think she turned out okay).

[bagheera-san.livejournal.com]

Narvin!

Also, I friended you, because I've recently realized that there are a bunch of b_e people I haven't friended that I really want to :)

[neveralarch]

Narvin! I have so many opinions about Narvin, yet I am not at all picky about other people's characterizations of him. I guess this is just stuff I keep in mind for myself.

1) Narvin goes in this little box in my head which I have labeled 'hard-working bureaucrats that I am obsessed with.' He certainly thinks he's a cool secret agent guy, but he cares about procedure and he gets annoyed by change and really, if it weren't for the fact that he actually is a secret agent, he would probably be buried under a pile of paperwork and never be heard from again.

2) Narvin is there to serve Gallifrey and her government, in that order. He's very loyal to Romana, and he will obey orders with which he disagrees. But he's hardly above sneaking through loopholes or ignoring the spirit of an order while obeying the letter, if he thinks Gallifrey would be better served by it.

3) Narvin is working in a job with a very high turnover rate. The fact that he's held on to his position in such turbulent times really speaks to his ability. His ability as a Coordinator, because his ability to act in a politic way is practically nil.

4) Narvin is always angry or unhappy about something. He does get little moments of wry amusement, but a content Narvin is a Narvin who is about to have something awful happen to him. Part of that is that he's constantly juggling so many issues that if he stops to be pleased with himself the rest will come crashing down. I think he's much more aware of that than Romana is.

5) Narvin is not a nice person! He's xenophobic and dismissive of views that run counter to his own. He's much more interested in security and expediency than other people's rights. To be fair, he's more interested in security than his own rights as well. He does become more flexible during the series, especially as regards Leela, but I still think this basis to his opinions is important.