Day 8 (Team July)

[elmey.livejournal.com]

wiseheart is off carousing (I hope) on a well deserved vacation, and I'll be leaving the prompt posts for the next week.

So here's today's prompt for your updates and any extracts, thoughts, or comments you might have.

Comments

[saki101.livejournal.com]

I was trying to write the connecting scenes, right? Well, did write some and then I starting writing scenes after the freezer scene! An excerpt -

***

John listened outside the door. It was silent within. Rest. What Sherlock had been doing for months had clearly allowed him little time for it. Pain was exhausting; John knew, of course, and he had an idea of how much chemical burns hurt. Biochemical burns. John corrected himself and his eyes dropped to his hands.


He had been afraid of skin to skin contact near the wounds, had managed to avoid it while debriding and disinfecting them. John had wanted Mike or Molly to do it, but Sherlock had been adamant in his refusal.

“I may hurt you by accident,” John said and his hands clenched at the idea of it and the memory of Molly exclaiming and shaking her finger after he had kissed it, how his lips had thrummed from touching the tiny pinprick.

“I’m tired, John,” Sherlock had replied as if that summed up everything.

***

Would appreciate views on my use of the past perfect. I have been lectured on its modern usage and that I tend to overuse it. This bit includes a flashback within a flashback though.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Funny how stories jump ahead on you like that :) John has such a physical reaction to to everything connected with Sherlock, it seems difficult for him to continually conrtol those reactions!

I'm going to be interested in seeing the replies on past perfect--I think it's fine in this scene. I use it a lot in the type of flashbacks I do, though when the scene gets long it seems awkward and I tend to drift into past tense. I have been called on that at times, and am now constantly conflicted because as a reader, it seems to me if the switch is done the right way, it's not noticeable and gives the scene a better flow.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

It makes me wonder whether I don't need as much bridging as I think, but then I re-read and think otherwise.

Yes, that past perfect issue is one I struggle with a lot. I glean that the modern approach is to establish the timeframe with some use of it initially and then shift to past tense. Sometimes that sounds all right to me and sometimes it seems too conversational, so my "hads" go in and out and occasionally back in again!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

better to write the scenes that want to be written, it seems to me! :)

interesting developments :)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Yes, best to snare them while they're in reach. I was trying to be methodical about the connecting parts and something in that area did get done in the end, but afterwards!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

That scene reads fine to me.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

I'm always taking hads in and out! I needed other perspectives. Thank you.

[six-old-cars.livejournal.com]

The pluperfect feels fine here to me, though I wonder whether “I may hurt you by accident,” John said should also be pluperfect. The use of plu for entry and exit of a flashback in normal past tense... seems to me to need a longer flashback. The nested flashback is OK here as it's only mentioned as a memory. Even if it gets de-nested into a parallel flashback in the reader's head, I don't see a problem with that.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'll add in a couple more hads. :-)