SNIPPETS!

[skarabrae]

If it is ok for me to post here...

One of the things my friend and I have been doing to overcome our inner neurotic editors --who feel abused and neglected and insist that everything we've written must be just awful without their constant input -- is post snippets of a few lines or a scene that we really like.

Something that, even if 80% of the final product goes through the editing wood-chipper, we are still pretty proud of. I think it is a pretty motivating stepping-stone, every 1500/2500 words or so.

So if you've got something, anything, post it here! Let's cheerlead each other on.

Comments

here's mine...

[skarabrae]

From my belatedly concluded intro

Then the speaker raised his arms over the table, fingers delicately quaking. “Gentlemen, madame, I would ask that you remain still and silent, insofar as you are able. ”

By some indiscernible trick-- perhaps that of his own mind-- the doctor observed the candle flames rising with the old Spiritualist's voice.

“Each of you must take the hand of his neighbor, and must under no circumstance release it.”
Watson took the hand of one of the journalists to his right, and grasped the detective’s at his left. Holmes’ hand was clammy-- trembling as if with an electric charge.

The speaker closed his eyes, and surely the licking candle flames were no trick of his expectations, now-- swelling as if doused with kerosene, making the little room hot and stuffy.

“I am not going to show you ghosts,” the old man continued, smiling.

“I am going to show you yourselves. I, as a humble conduit of narrative, shall reveal to you the broadest picture of existence-- of which you would otherwise live and die content to see only in part.”

He opened his eyes again, to look directly into John Watson’s face.

“Tell me, Dr. Watson; if I had pointed to only one of you, would you both have come?”

The words were nonsense, and everything before them cobbled philosophical vagaries-- yet the doctor felt himself fixed in place and struck dumb. Quick and quiet, close enough to feel each word as a damp breath in his ear, John heard Sherlock gasp:

“Whatever happens, John, do not lose hold of my hand.”

The candle flames rose and rose until the light outpaced the heat, swelling until everything was yellow and blinding as the sun. It all happened to quickly to shout, or stir. Through watering eyes, John could make out the speaker bringing his hands down against the table with a slap that reverberated throughout the whole room.

Then the light went out altogether.

[teahigh]

This is from part two of the story. Sherlock attempts to help Mycroft take down Moriarty's network while being in prison for attempted murder. It's also sort of a dystopian AU type thing. It switches from POV to POV through-out the story. This little bit is in the POV of one of the prison guards:
__________

Finally he reaches the end of the line, the last prisoner on this side of the wall. Dom peeks into the dark cell and sees the man huddled in the corner, shivering. The dirty grey blanket wrapped around his shoulders does little to block out the cold, especially for a man as small as he is. Dom knows that feeling well.

When the man doesn’t look up, Dom taps the bars with his baton.

“You alive in there?” he asks. The man pulls his blanket tighter around himself, but otherwise doesn’t respond. Dom sighs and tucks his baton away. “Listen, mate. You won’t be dying on my watch. Do you understand me? I don’t have the energy to clean up another dead body. So suck up whatever it is that’s ailing you. Die on someone else’s watch.”

“I’m not fucking dying,” the man snarls.

“He lives!” Dom announces to the room at large. Then he checks his clipboard, sorting through papers, asking, “Who have we got?”

He finds him, near the end of the stack: Cell C140: Holmes, Sherlock. #1895016. Attached to his page there’s a yellow sticky note with one word, written in red ink: Spider-Man? Dom smiles to himself, taking the post-it note and tucking it away into his pocket.

“How about I get you another blanket?” he asks. “That one looks about ready to fall apart.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Holmes says. He draws his knees up toward his chest. Dom watches him, their eyes locking. Holmes has never given anyone trouble, as far as he’s aware. Mostly keeps to himself, doesn’t ask for favours. Occasionally asks to be allowed in the library; the only prisoner who ever asks.

Dom hasn’t had much experience with him, but he’s heard stories from the other guards. Holmes was a famous detective before he wound up in jail. Helped put half these men behind bars. Then he turned on his friend and colleague and tried to kill him — or so the story goes. The other guards keep an eye on him, if only to ensure they won’t have to clean up a body at the end of the day. He’s as fast as a whipcrack and just as sharp, according to the other guards.

Dom likes him already. He’s a pretty young thing, he thinks, even with all the cuts and bruises the other prisoners have been happy enough to treat him with. A bit scraggly for Dom’s tastes, and a bit pale. Those sharp eyes are unnerving, but it’s that mouth that Dom focuses on. Plush bow-shaped lips, soft and inviting. Good enough to eat, to savour.

If Sherlock Holmes wants help, Dom is more than happy to provide.