#exponential63

What’s the hardest thing to write for you?

The only reason I haven’t written any Elementary fic yet is because I really want to do an actual real mystery plot, and…I am absolutely terrible at mystery plots and intricate clues and call-backs and that kind of tight construction, I can never guess the murderer reading the most formulaic whodunits and so actually writing one of those, I suppose I could but it’d be pulling teeth. (Whoever is reading this and going, “But the mysteries on Elementary are…well, you’ve seen the show,” it doesn’t matter, when they don’t follow what seems to be the steady Elementary formula of The Second Witness They Talk To Is Almost Invariably the Killer I CAN NEVER WORK THOSE OUT EITHER.) Because I also have, I don’t know what to call it other than a sort of geographical/architectural mental “blindness”–when I read intricate descriptions of, say, a cathedral’s interior construction or the layout of a natural landscape I get only the vaguest picture in my head, at all, and no spatial perspective whatsoever–you’re not going to see me writing intensely realistic descriptions of that kind of thing any time soon. I did do reasonably well writing about a beach-dunes landscape for a book where that landscape was important to the plot, but I had to physically go there and take notes almost step by literal step to place any decent picture of it in my own mind.

Do you have a favorite character to write for?

If I don’t enjoy a character’s company in a serious way–even if, strictly speaking, I don’t like them–I can’t write them, no matter how otherwise appealing they might be (because enjoying watching a character from a distance isn’t at all like the get-in-their-head action that is writing them). I do, however, seem to gravitate repeatedly toward certain archetypes:

1. The Hyperverbal Histrionic. Just as it says on the tin, they never shut up, they always demand the last word, their views and actions are often appalling, they’re always hard done by the rest of the world no matter how much they brought the situation down on themselves (which they did, nine times out of ten), and everything, everything, everything is always all about them. Dear God, they are so much fucking fun to write. Examples I’ve written: Sherlock Holmes (BBC version), Mycroft Holmes (ditto), John Munch, Peter Dragon, the Tenth Doctor, the Master/Missy.

2. The (Mostly) Internally Angsting Neurotic. They’re quiet, awkward, faltering, avoidant and/or eternally overlooked, but inside they are smarter and tougher than they’re given credit for (including, often, by themselves), and are boiling cauldrons of suppressed emotion, rebellious tendency and a whole lot of internalized anger. Examples I’ve written: Howard Moon, Molly Hooper (in progress).

3. Fuck You, I’m Stalwart (But Also Rather Consistently Freaking Out Inside). A lower-key version of the (Mostly) Internally Angsting Neurotic, who displays much more calm, internal balance and exterior competence, and often more of a social conscience, but on the inside is also a tightly-wound ball of anxiety and self-doubt. Examples I’ve written: Martha Jones, Reinette (in progress), Danny Pink, the Twelfth Doctor, Romana I, Romana II, and, I’d argue in his own way, the Fourth Doctor.

Give us a snippet of something from your WiPs!

Two tiny bits of the two in the hopper now:

1. So, she thought, as she knelt flicking impatiently throughher little shelf of CDs (doubtless he was curling his lip at that too, a true music aficionado would shun anything but vinyl, butthat wasn’t just bloody expensive but she’d always frankly thought it more thana bit affected, thanks very much), what would really make him recoil in horror,poke at his so terribly well-bred eardrums like pins in a great gas balloon?Hated the Beatles? Well, he was out of luck, she liked all happy bands withhappy songs, or at least upbeat melodic ones even if it was John or George orwhoever singing about their dead mother, and tonight he’d get an earful…bloodymen and their bloody Mount Sinai pronouncements about music. Still, sheconsidered, as she pulled out another disc at random, still better than thoseinterminable months of pretending to enjoy This Heat and the Fall. She hit playagain, and sat back against the sofa cushions waiting for the next sarcasticeruption.

2. He feltcompelled to do this lately, not knowing why, revisiting those places he’d gonenot just once but again and again with companion after companion. The churning,crystal-pink waters of Ixtithia; a dozen-some royal coronations in as manydifferent galaxies; the seventh moon of Hyrkryspsian; New-New-New-ad-infinitum-York,that sorry dump; an Ornette Coleman gig that Martha, transported, had wanted toloop back and see again the second they’d stepped out of the Salle de laMutualité (and he’d agreed at once, because why not, because after everythingthat’d happened between them what she asked for herself was next to nothing). TheVillage Vanguard, Fillmore West, Bayreuth, the Paris Commune, the Golden Steppesof Fraesix, that hidden White House wing that the Americans, even theirpresidents, didn’t even know existed—he was heartily sick of them all, yetvisiting again, just one or two or five more times, quieted some odd urge insidehim. He’d felt it, on and off, ever since Rory—no, he and Amy came before, ifhe was remembering this right—ever since someone had…madehim an omelette? Some sort of egg dish, anyway, and then they’d taken the trainto…a beach? And somehow a volcano was involved, and a diamond far bigger thanthe Ritz, and then, just as swiftly, they’d skived off (Donna, yes, it wasDonna!—no, couldn’t be, but somehow it felt like it should be) and it was justhim. Again. Not at all awful, this solitary life, but he still wasn’t certainhow he’d found himself alone.

******

1. Marc Almond - She Took My Soul In Istanbul

A curtain fell /Before my eyes I did/ Succumb into her healing breast She sang that song I gave her all my soul /And my all /To the pleasures of the flesh I cried that night / For those forsaken times /Those times when I was Simply satisfied I turned to dust /That night a thousand times That night a thousand times I died inside /And through what's left Of my sad life I hear /Her singing in the fevers of the night

2. James - Lose control

Don't be deceived, no land in sight We're all adrift in this dark night We float on seas of disbelief While singing songs of pain relief Shake my body, release my soul Punish my senses, lose control This body's young but my spirit's old Scatter my ashes and let my feelings go

3. Portishead - All mine

All the stars may shine bright All the clouds may be white But when you smile Ohh how I feel so good That I can hardly wait To hold you Enfold you Never enough Render your heart to me

(kinda creepy)

4. Tindersticks - Jism (just as creepy, but oh so good)

Need those gravel grind /Need those pictures to wake me Give up the drugs /Take the power I offer Oh the deeper I go /The further I fall/ The more I know The tighter your grip around me /So easily broken/ Running down your skin And the pain runs into the blue /If there's ever anyone else, I'll understand/And kill them

5. Terry Hall - Ballad of a Landlord

I tried to tend the garden /until the flowers fell to weed so now the place lies in a ruin /the way you lied and ruined me

6. Pulp - This is hardcore (oh well)

Come over here babe & talk in the mic. Oh yeah I hear you now. It's gonna be one hell of a night. You can't be a spectator. Oh no. You got to take these dreams & make them whole.

7. Pleasure feat. Brett Anderson - Back to you

You roll those eyes and trap my hand in your thighs /It's slavery but in disguise [...] And when the war machines / Rust eternally Thats when I come back /when I come back to you And when your heart bleeds / For a love that's dead like me

8. Genesis - Dancing with the Moonlit Knight

Citizens of hope & glory, /Time goes by - it's the time of your life. Easy now, sit you down./ Chewing through your wimpey dreams, They eat without a sound; /Digesting England by the pound. Young man says you are what you eat - eat well. /Old man says you are what you wear - wear well. You know what you are, you don't give a damn; /Bursting your belt that is your homemade sham.

9. John Barrowman -  Man of la Mancha

Oh thou bleak and unbearable world, / Thou art base and debauched as can be; And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled / Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee!

10. Elvis Costello - I want you