~~on need and showing vs telling
Sep. 30th, 2002 01:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkai can't really believe it took me this long to get to the untold want, though really, i can totally believe it, because it takes me forever to get to anything, actually. *sigh* it's just-- i'm always looking for this. whatever i'm reading, i just want it to be believable, and yet mind-boggling, unbelievable, intense, but true. sometimes that means going slow and hinting at a lot of things and being all coy and developing one aspect of possibility at a time. and sometimes you start off with your neck broken and it just escalates from there. i mean, there are a number of fics where you start off with love as a given-- and in one i bristle and say, "no way" but keep reading because it's so good, and in another i totally, completely feel it and believe it. the difference is simple-- just like with anything else, i believe it because it's shown, proven, because the characters act "under the influence" so to speak, and you suddenly see, as if it was always obvious, the world, under this new light.
here, draco's definitely being "under the influence". in fact, so is harry, in his awkward, messed-up, clueless sort of way. i really don't see why some writers don't like harry, because really, i think his cluelessness and sincerity and innocence are absolutely essential and the base to build things on. like, i love it how in a plague of legends, harry sort of-- runs circles around himself, and he's the one falling, and it's just totally believable because harry can so do a lot of things someplace in his head without admitting it to himself. this is especially useful because, due to this obtuseness of his, a good writer gets to show, not tell.
you get harry's reactions, his unclouded take on everything, his lack of filters, his uncomplicated need for uncomplicatedness. i just love it. i mean, draco usually goes around all tangled up and so does harry, but it's adorable how you can play them off each other, one all repressive and stewing in secret, and the other just trying to break out of his shell and figure out what the heck's going on. one is unsuccessfully trying to close the door, and the other's unsuccessfully trying to open it, until they both get stuck in the doorway, and start, and stare at each other, and snog, maybe.
i like that sense of tension, of each drawing the other out, of the frustration and insanity and the way there's no room for happiness, no room to take a breath even, no room for anything but this wild ride, and even the fear gets swept away, because that's just how powerful it all is. you get draco cursing himself and harry and the world, and yet not being able to fight, and fighting anyway, and blaming his defeat on harry's lack of awareness that the battle is even happening. isn't that adorable?? hee.
and yes, it's not so much angst as-- just-- how it is. i mean, i don't think harry and draco are likely to be stopping to smell the roses, so to speak, anytime soon, and i don't mean that in a doom, doom, gloom sort of way. i am just elated to find this really delicate balance, this push-and-pull dynamic, being written so unflinchingly, so honestly. it's so true, that you can have this breathtaking exhilaration and need and desperation, without any love potion, and only the chemistry going on in one love-addled hormone-riddled teenage brain. and there's not necessarily any -reason-, and you don't need a reason, you just need to show the effects and we can kind of figure out the causes as we go along.
you would think that love at first sight (!) would be mushy and ridiculous-- but then, all love is mushy and ridiculous. everything is ridiculous, and painful, and real, if you make it so. both these fics make such great use of staring. i love that. the transmission of obsession-- how the focusing of one's being, of one's attention and yearning upon a thing can begin to claim it, to make it yours. that has been my experience, this tugging that can definitely be real, just another person's desire acting upon you, binding you, almost making you feel what they feel just because it's so intense.
i suppose both of these are probably going to be considered by some to be "angst", but.... i think it's just, the intensity and burning awkwardness and painful incomplete feeling of all things tangled and requited and unrequited at the same time. you'd think you could only get this tension from unrequited love, but it's not true, is it. so close and yet so far away. i was writing that stupid thing i turned into a poem, thinking of that. how you can both be yearning, and reaching, and talking to each other, and yet never truly -be- there, never connect. like, no matter how close or how far away, the other person is always too far away, and the ache never stops. and it's only in fleeting moments, in tiny instants, that you finally can relax and exhale and feel the release, the feeling that yes, you are not alone, and the other person's really there, and they are really touching you, and you can no longer deny it. even though really, come on, that was always bloody obvious (well to -us- anyway), wasn't it. but it's never, almost never obvious, not when you're in the midst of it, in a way, you're actually too close-- so close everything telescopes and feels far away, i don't know, everything's full of paradoxes.
i just love how![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
penelope_z's harry -and- draco both need each other, need the same things from each other, are almost desperate to give these things away-- so lonely-- so unable to touch even though they're scrambling and trying, and almost, almost achieving. not quite. just like a stare-- can touch you-- and bind you-- and consume you-- and yet the person can be a whole room away from you. *sigh* anyway. yeah, need is a big h/d theme, and the better the story, the better it develops it. and it's impossible to really remain fluffy/sappy, if it really does, just because of the nature of need itself, the hunger and the insatiability and the desperation and pain and burning. i'm reminded, suddenly, of antenora's `the losing side', and draco's one bit of painful honesty there, being an admission of need. for understanding, for more than understanding, for that leap of -- something -- that we all try not to believe in, because it gets too painful -- that need for someone to save us from ourselves, the very impossibility and ingrained yearning for that. yes. *sighs again* that's what i love seeing expressed so vividly, in these latest fics and most others that have really meant something to me.
here, draco's definitely being "under the influence". in fact, so is harry, in his awkward, messed-up, clueless sort of way. i really don't see why some writers don't like harry, because really, i think his cluelessness and sincerity and innocence are absolutely essential and the base to build things on. like, i love it how in a plague of legends, harry sort of-- runs circles around himself, and he's the one falling, and it's just totally believable because harry can so do a lot of things someplace in his head without admitting it to himself. this is especially useful because, due to this obtuseness of his, a good writer gets to show, not tell.
you get harry's reactions, his unclouded take on everything, his lack of filters, his uncomplicated need for uncomplicatedness. i just love it. i mean, draco usually goes around all tangled up and so does harry, but it's adorable how you can play them off each other, one all repressive and stewing in secret, and the other just trying to break out of his shell and figure out what the heck's going on. one is unsuccessfully trying to close the door, and the other's unsuccessfully trying to open it, until they both get stuck in the doorway, and start, and stare at each other, and snog, maybe.
i like that sense of tension, of each drawing the other out, of the frustration and insanity and the way there's no room for happiness, no room to take a breath even, no room for anything but this wild ride, and even the fear gets swept away, because that's just how powerful it all is. you get draco cursing himself and harry and the world, and yet not being able to fight, and fighting anyway, and blaming his defeat on harry's lack of awareness that the battle is even happening. isn't that adorable?? hee.
and yes, it's not so much angst as-- just-- how it is. i mean, i don't think harry and draco are likely to be stopping to smell the roses, so to speak, anytime soon, and i don't mean that in a doom, doom, gloom sort of way. i am just elated to find this really delicate balance, this push-and-pull dynamic, being written so unflinchingly, so honestly. it's so true, that you can have this breathtaking exhilaration and need and desperation, without any love potion, and only the chemistry going on in one love-addled hormone-riddled teenage brain. and there's not necessarily any -reason-, and you don't need a reason, you just need to show the effects and we can kind of figure out the causes as we go along.
you would think that love at first sight (!) would be mushy and ridiculous-- but then, all love is mushy and ridiculous. everything is ridiculous, and painful, and real, if you make it so. both these fics make such great use of staring. i love that. the transmission of obsession-- how the focusing of one's being, of one's attention and yearning upon a thing can begin to claim it, to make it yours. that has been my experience, this tugging that can definitely be real, just another person's desire acting upon you, binding you, almost making you feel what they feel just because it's so intense.
i suppose both of these are probably going to be considered by some to be "angst", but.... i think it's just, the intensity and burning awkwardness and painful incomplete feeling of all things tangled and requited and unrequited at the same time. you'd think you could only get this tension from unrequited love, but it's not true, is it. so close and yet so far away. i was writing that stupid thing i turned into a poem, thinking of that. how you can both be yearning, and reaching, and talking to each other, and yet never truly -be- there, never connect. like, no matter how close or how far away, the other person is always too far away, and the ache never stops. and it's only in fleeting moments, in tiny instants, that you finally can relax and exhale and feel the release, the feeling that yes, you are not alone, and the other person's really there, and they are really touching you, and you can no longer deny it. even though really, come on, that was always bloody obvious (well to -us- anyway), wasn't it. but it's never, almost never obvious, not when you're in the midst of it, in a way, you're actually too close-- so close everything telescopes and feels far away, i don't know, everything's full of paradoxes.
i just love how
penelope_z's harry -and- draco both need each other, need the same things from each other, are almost desperate to give these things away-- so lonely-- so unable to touch even though they're scrambling and trying, and almost, almost achieving. not quite. just like a stare-- can touch you-- and bind you-- and consume you-- and yet the person can be a whole room away from you. *sigh* anyway. yeah, need is a big h/d theme, and the better the story, the better it develops it. and it's impossible to really remain fluffy/sappy, if it really does, just because of the nature of need itself, the hunger and the insatiability and the desperation and pain and burning. i'm reminded, suddenly, of antenora's `the losing side', and draco's one bit of painful honesty there, being an admission of need. for understanding, for more than understanding, for that leap of -- something -- that we all try not to believe in, because it gets too painful -- that need for someone to save us from ourselves, the very impossibility and ingrained yearning for that. yes. *sighs again* that's what i love seeing expressed so vividly, in these latest fics and most others that have really meant something to me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
:faints:
Date: 2002-09-30 12:13 am (UTC)you... just roundaboutly compared me to
:blushes:
i think i need to go have a lie-down, now.
love,
i
(p.s. when are you going to get me something to beta? :winks:)
no subject
Date: 2002-09-30 06:10 am (UTC)Thanks for the wonderful review at the ff.net, it's really everything I wanted to show in this fic, and I'm glad that I have somehow achieved this.
I'll post the 10th chapter as soon as it's back from my betas, which should be around 2-3 days.
no subject
Date: 2002-09-30 04:14 pm (UTC)All Writers Being Equal, All Things Considered :D
*hugs* also, i kinda go, -this- is sparkly and -that- is sparkly, and this -other- thing is sparkly, wheeeee~! you're all spaaaarkly..!
um. if you know what i mean. it might be better if you don't. -.-
hee. must... work... on...draco/ginny... am...scared...~:)
as for the um. carnival fic. i'm on it. sort of sideways, but on it... not falling off yet. am tied with a silver ribbon and otherwise adhered draco's secret sticky!hairgel. (what the -hell- am i on?? guh.)
hee~:) my real-name initial is "i" also (except um. reena is my name, just not my initial :)
~i-
ree-
na~:)
no subject
Date: 2002-09-30 04:34 pm (UTC)although. um. i shouldn't get too happy since i'm sure Bad, Bad Things are in the offing. or something like that.
it's weird, because i pic a few fics to get obsessive about having end happily, and then the rest i just kind of enjoy the ride. well. this is the hp fandom so i'm just guessing, because like, what, every single wip isn't finished yet, or something like that, or if it is, it's got a sequel that's not finished.... or the sequel has a sequel... -.-
i'm not so much for being complimentary, and more for just paying attention, and being somewhat overly thorough in describing things i like~:) (and talking a lot. yes. like now.)
~reena~:)
no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 04:12 pm (UTC):rubs hands together:
if you need someone to bounce ideas off of for the carnival fic i'd be *very* happy to do so. and if you're on something, it's a very good something indeed. =^_~=
:laughs:
sticky!hairgel? maybe it'll get him into a 'sticky' situation! :whaps self for punning:
~i
(or, in truth, ~r)
no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 07:40 pm (UTC)nooooow it comes out..! underneath that harmless exterior you're really.... a d/g-sympathizer...!! get out the mad dogs! ;)
um. i'm only writing it to purge me soul, you see. but. um. if you read (http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~lorien/story/_hp_ginny.txt) the bit (a third..?) so far... um. i dunno where to go with it 'cause like. draco is mean, and i don't want to just bring them together, and there's no -impetus- unless he -gives- and stops being such a hard-ass and they have no reason, really, to ever do anything and do you think i can just let it hang, with ginny coming to some sort of... realization?
or with draco thinking, "hmm..."
er. i dunno. maybe she can get really pissed off and go after harry again *laughs*
maybe she can get all angry and confront him about harry and he can get all vulnerable...
hee
i cannot write d/g...! i'm ending up with d/g-in-which-draco-is-really-only-using-ginny-because-he-wants-harry :D
muwahahah. anyway.
draco-anyone-but-harry freaks me out big-time.
harry with other people, on the other hand, is just slightly distasteful, like when i read `the shining prince', i think i was only vaguely disturbed, whereas if it was draco i'd be all "KILL HIM NOW", etc :>
ha. with the carnival story, the problem isn't lack of ideas, but rather the presence of an outline. i hate outlines. they make it harder to write for some reason, because i feel like if i write something down (no matter what it is), i get "the bug" out of my system-- it's like my system doesn't know that really, it's just an outline, and -i didn't really write anything-.
so i just need to buckle down :> ha.
it's tough because i never actually force myself to do writing. homework is also a problem :> um. but things -do- get done. kind of. sort of. eventually. when the moon's right ^^;;
*is lost in envy of actual writers*
*cries*
*remembers she can be an actual -reader- at least*
*feels vaguely better* ;p
~reena~:)