Okay, here’s a thing! This is inspired by the first-sentence meme, but instead of first sentences, it’s about particularly evocative passages in your fics. Sometimes what you really want out of a fic (as a reader or as a writer) is experiential vividness, rather than a snappy narrative: to be transported to a time or a place, or to have a particular emotional state richly evoked. This meme is meant to lift up fics that do that.
Directions: pick some passages (2-4 sentences each) from fics you have written that you think are effective at evoking a particular place or mood.
1) “Sherlock sighs into the cool dark noises of a late summer night in Sussex, and John suddenly feels acutely conscious of the place that they are in, the scent of sweet autumn grasses on the newly-prickling chill in the air and the hum of the apiaries in the distant background, all so real and immediate that it is almost overwhelming. He shivers.
“ (My Heart The Red Sun, Your Heart the Moon Clouded, John+/Sherlock, retirement fic, maybe kind of on the nose for this particular meme but WHATEVS)
2) “The first time they came here, John had been wide-eyed, wrecked, staring at nothing; the second time, Sherlock sat silent and watched all the data of the outside world land on a dull surface. The third time, John was more alert, and flinched at every detail like it hurt him. But this is the fourteenth time, and evidently it’s all normal now, the rhythms of their weekly coffee at the Costa two streets away from the surgery.” (Five Times, At Baker Street, 2013, 221b series of historical AUs)
….and then I’m going to do two different passages from the same fic, since it’s long and the whole thing is basically a series of evocations of moods and sensory experiences.
3) “The patio was closed in on all sides by the walls of the surrounding buildings, sunlit at midday but already surrendering to the creep of deep shade that surely possessed it most hours of the day. John looked all around him, and smelled as much as saw thick verdure climbing up trellises, welling up out of boxes by his feet, spilling out of pots that hung from the eaves or sat perched on precarious columns of stacked brick.”
4)
“Meanwhile, John returned to the task of learning to draw orchids, which Sherlock had set him the prior week, shortly before his grim spell had descended. They were the first specimens that had presented John with any serious difficulty. Some species were simple enough, gentle and stately in their curves and points and slow, predictable flushes of color. But it was the more uncommon-looking flowers that befuddled him, even as they entranced him, startling and grotesque in their improbably ruffled edges and bright hot bursts of pigment. Often the shape of the blooms eluded him as if they were moving beneath his eyes, petals stuttering with strange texture, inner sepals curving in strange gothic grimaces. John drew until his hand ached, and discarded page after page, his fingers unlearning tulips and daisies and roses as his eyes sought a new language that could capture the peculiar beauty in front of him.(All Our Gifts At Once, or The Young Sea-Man, John/Sherlock, Victorian AU)
This meme is inspired by a conversation with @havingbeenbreathedout, so she’s tagged, and so is @shinysherlock, because she seemed into it. So are you, if you’re interested! But wait, this is a new meme, that might not be enough. so okay, I also tag @fleursdumol, @tea-and-liminality, @prettyarbitrary, @greencarnations, @holyfant, @faerymorstan, @coloredink, @ancientreader, @patternofdefiance, @redscudery, @doctornerdington, and @anarfea. But also you! definitely also you!
Tragically it’s been weeks since I’ve read any fanfic and my head is completely empty of examples. But I’m reblogging this because it’s a great meme and this is my favorite kind of writing.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1KSySde