H:tLJ drabble #6

[marycrawford]

Crossposted to herc_xena100. The challenge word was 'Trinity', a tough one if you ask me. :-)



Family

Hercules had wanted to name his third son after Iolaus, although he'd never told him that.
In retrospect, he was glad he hadn't.

Before his wedding, Iolaus had joked about naming his sons Iolaus. "All five of them!"

But Iolaus' only son had been named Anacles, and he'd soon followed his mother to the Elysian Fields.

Then Hercules had discovered why Deianeira smiled whenever the subject of a name for their son came up.

Ilea, they'd called her, their little blonde darling, and if Hercules heard the echo of another name in hers he kept it forever to himself.




---

I used the name Pythia came up with for Iolaus' son, because I don't think it was ever established in the series. And I don't know the relative ages of Herc's and Iolaus' children, either, so I'm just winging it. :-)

Comments

[halimede.livejournal.com]

I like this one. The paragraph breaks read a little counter-intuitive to me, but I like the soft-spoken feel of it. Seen too much, lived through a lot. That feel.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your comments! It's so nice to get feedback on what worked and what didn't. :-)

About the paragraph breaks, I'm terrible at those. Probably because I don't have an 'ear' for them yet. And if there are rules (beyond the obvious ones like 'break when someone else is speaking or the action changes') I don't know them. Suggestions are very welcome.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

And if there are rules (beyond the obvious ones like 'break when someone else is speaking or the action changes') I don't know them.

Me either, but I think mine improved when I payed attention to the ones in Harry Potter. Those make sense to me. Suggestions:

The first one reads fine. I feel like the second two should be one instead. You're still talking about the same thing, and in this case the word 'but' suggests a continuation. This would give you:

Before his wedding, Iolaus had joked about naming his sons Iolaus. "All five of them!" But Iolaus' only son had been named Anacles, and he'd soon followed his mother to the Elysian Fields.

I know it's intuitive to linebreak after dialogue, but in this case it's more a quote, something Hercules *remembers* him saying, than a real live line of dialogue (or you would have put it on a line by itself in the first place). You might even want to italicise.

The next paragraph I like by itself, but the last paragraph I would punctuate differently. I would suggest splitting the line up into two sentences. In the current version the bit between commas is technically what we in Dutch call an 'uitbreidende bijzin' (which is the only punctuation bit I actually understand). It's a very sweet description, and I think it deserves to be more than that. So I'd suggest ending the sentence there, giving you:

Ilea, they'd called her, their little blonde darling. And if Hercules heard the echo of another name in hers he kept it forever to himself.

The whole thing:


Hercules had wanted to name his third son after Iolaus, although he'd never told him that.
In retrospect, he was glad he hadn't.

Before his wedding, Iolaus had joked about naming his sons Iolaus. "All five of them!" But Iolaus' only son had been named Anacles, and he'd soon followed his mother to the Elysian Fields.

Then Hercules had discovered why Deianeira smiled whenever the subject of a name for their son came up.

Ilea, they'd called her, their little blonde darling. And if Hercules heard the echo of another name in hers he kept it forever to himself.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Uhm, if you'd prefer me to take this kind of dissection to email, you'll let me know, right?

[barbaraa.livejournal.com]

Can't speak for Mary on that...
but posting it here is a very good way to show writers how changing punctuation makes a big difference in strengthening the drabble.

Mary had a great idea. Good words. The way you 'rewrote' it made it a much stronger read.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the compliment on my beta-reading skills. :)

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

No, I'm fine with this. More than fine, and thanks a lot! That's very helpful.

I know it's intuitive to linebreak after dialogue, but in this case it's more a quote

Yes, of course, there's a difference here. I'll use your version when I post this to my webpage. (I could change it here, but then anyone reading the comments would get very confused. )

The last paragraph - interesting. There is something I like intuitively about the original run-on sentence, and yet your punctuation makes more sense. I wish I could put my finger on the difference between the two.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

I found that when I just started to write I had a hard time letting go of the steering wheel, and kept trying to give the reader direction on exactly how it was supposed to sound. Mostly I did this by dramatic paragraph breaks, and obstinate punctuation. And just because I'm writing this in the past tense doesn't mean I'm past that. ;)
It's hard to give up control and *trust* that the reader will get it, and I resorted to all sorts of sins against apostrophes and semi-colons to try to force my reading on the reader.

Could it be that you like the run on sentence because it forces the name thing, which is both the origin and climax of the piece, closer together in that last climactic paragraph? The run-on thing makes it feel more lyrical when you're writing, but it probably isn't for the reader.

Your mileage may vary, but I know that when I get emotionally attached to punctuation this is usually what's going on.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Could it be that you like the run on sentence because it forces the name thing, which is both the origin and climax of the piece, closer together in that last climactic paragraph? The run-on thing makes it feel more lyrical when you're writing, but it probably isn't for the reader.

is v. impressed

That is unquestionably it. Obstinate punctuation, check. Dramatic paragraph breaks, check. Forcing the reader? Check. Not that I was aware I was doing it until you spelled it out. :-)

This is something I'm going to have to watch closely. (Not in NaNo, right now, because I'm basically shutting my eyes and going 'Neener neener, rules don't apply here' for the sake of flow, but when editing time rolls around - hoo boy.)

I've re-done the herc_xena100 drabble, and that's the one I'll put up on the webpage later on.

Thank you so much!

Mary

[halimede.livejournal.com]

{blush}

I love beta-reading. Luckily I'm getting better at applying the same skills to editing my own stuff. And knowing to do it on the re-read. :)