Weyr Life: The Drabbles

The usual notes:

The prompt words come from the standard drabbles100 & fanfic100 prompt tables. Google is your friend!

I've been asked if it's harder to write these than it is to write longer chapters. In short, they're very different, and have different challenges. One reason I'm writing the drabbles out-of-order (hence the delays in posting them here) is that it's easier that way - I can just go with whatever idea takes me at the time, rather than forcing myself to work around a specific prompt. The same is true for longer works like DD - I know more or less what happens in the chapter, but I have to be in the right mood to get writing. Sorka and Tarrie are easier for me to write than Pete, and chapter 14 with all those integrated flashbacks... gah, that one caused no end of trouble! As for how I write them, well, I know roughly where the chapter's going, so I stick myself in the characters' heads and start with the dialogue and some descriptive stuff around it (usually in the present tense at that stage), and then flesh it out/edit extensively from that point on. The first paragraph is always the hardest for me, and it's usually the ends of the chapter that need the least editing, because I understand what I'm doing with the chapter a lot better at that point.

Anyway, as always, it's good to hear your views. wonders if she should start an "ask the author" forum...


#7 - Days

N'ton inspects his corner of the Weyrling barracks with critical bemusement.

It's not how he remembered it, back when Lioth was still small enough to fit inside.

Three days ago.

Four years ago.

He runs a finger across the shelf above his old bed, looking for dust that simply isn't there. Just a couple of pretty rocks from home, one weighing down a letter from his mother, and a thick jumper he hadn't needed in the South. It wouldn't fit him now, anyway.

Laughing, he realises that he needs new clothes just as much as Lioth needs a new weyr.