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zeborahThe last two episodes of Criminal Minds season 4 are called "To Hell" and "And Back". I think the latter is a misnomer in that I don't see anyone returning from hell, although possibly the title could be said to stand alone in referring to a certain villain who has returned from the past. --Okay, I'm making up this interpretation, but CM can be tricksy with titles: the 'past' that said villain returned from was an episode called "Omnivore" and these episodes made much of the omnivorous qualities of swine. I'm pretty certain I'm not making up that.
But anyway. So the thing is, I have this bad habit of writing fanfic based on episodes I haven't seen yet. It started with a truly appalling Janeway/7 fanfic, in which I got everything so wrong it was almost brilliant. *This* time, of course, I was writing a CM fic and I accidentally came across a spoiler about Hotch getting shot in his living room so I used that to start the story, casually assuming as I did that:
a) He still lived in the same house he did before the divorce;
b) He's been getting closer and closer to breaking point;
c) He was shot in the back, specifically the spine.
So seeing him enter an apartment, pour himself a drink in a manner suggesting he's been broken for quite a while now already, and have a gun pointed in his face...
Old writing lesson #1: I really shouldn't write scene 2 before I've written scene 1. It breaks everything, in ways you just can't predict.
In this case, I'd known he might be shot under other circumstances and figured I could fix it up if that turned out to be the case -- and sure enough, there's a really easy fix. (Specifically, my option 4 in this comment on matociquala's LJ.) Setting it in an apartment instead of a house destroys about a fifth of my story-as-written... and yet, big as this is, that's workable too.
But that brief moment when the first thing he does when he gets home is pour himself a drink... and the look on his face, with the gun pointed at him, of "Go on, then, get it over with"... the realisation that, far from feeling helpless at the thought that he's going to die, he's welcoming it -- that kind of turns upside down a story that's all about him feeling helpless.
Old writing lesson #2: Details make everything a thousand times better.
In my original, I didn't know who was shooting him and why. So I glossed over it because I didn't care anyway, and carried on with the story. But, though I didn't notice it, the story was... more generic for all that.
When I realised that Hotch feels helpless because he realises he's going to live - that turned a generic "Yadda yadda shot, yadda yadda blood on the wall, yawn" paragraph into a few short paragraphs where we see the villain get inside his head and really stick the knife in. (Metaphorically. Well, literally too, but that's not important, it's just his signature.)
And when I thought more about how one member of his team would react to seeing that he's been drinking, that turned a generic "Yadda yadda in hospital, yadda yadda can't move legs, yawn" scene into a scene where the helplessness associated with losing leg function is swamped by the helplessness associated with no longer being able to keep his private thoughts private.
And these two scenes, due to Old Writing Lesson #1, don't contain a single word in common with the original two scenes, but they're both much much better.
The rest probably will be too, except I still have to write it because, even though I'd almost finished the story when the show aired, now I'm obviously rewriting the whole thing from scratch.
But anyway. So the thing is, I have this bad habit of writing fanfic based on episodes I haven't seen yet. It started with a truly appalling Janeway/7 fanfic, in which I got everything so wrong it was almost brilliant. *This* time, of course, I was writing a CM fic and I accidentally came across a spoiler about Hotch getting shot in his living room so I used that to start the story, casually assuming as I did that:
a) He still lived in the same house he did before the divorce;
b) He's been getting closer and closer to breaking point;
c) He was shot in the back, specifically the spine.
So seeing him enter an apartment, pour himself a drink in a manner suggesting he's been broken for quite a while now already, and have a gun pointed in his face...
Old writing lesson #1: I really shouldn't write scene 2 before I've written scene 1. It breaks everything, in ways you just can't predict.
In this case, I'd known he might be shot under other circumstances and figured I could fix it up if that turned out to be the case -- and sure enough, there's a really easy fix. (Specifically, my option 4 in this comment on matociquala's LJ.) Setting it in an apartment instead of a house destroys about a fifth of my story-as-written... and yet, big as this is, that's workable too.
But that brief moment when the first thing he does when he gets home is pour himself a drink... and the look on his face, with the gun pointed at him, of "Go on, then, get it over with"... the realisation that, far from feeling helpless at the thought that he's going to die, he's welcoming it -- that kind of turns upside down a story that's all about him feeling helpless.
Old writing lesson #2: Details make everything a thousand times better.
In my original, I didn't know who was shooting him and why. So I glossed over it because I didn't care anyway, and carried on with the story. But, though I didn't notice it, the story was... more generic for all that.
When I realised that Hotch feels helpless because he realises he's going to live - that turned a generic "Yadda yadda shot, yadda yadda blood on the wall, yawn" paragraph into a few short paragraphs where we see the villain get inside his head and really stick the knife in. (Metaphorically. Well, literally too, but that's not important, it's just his signature.)
And when I thought more about how one member of his team would react to seeing that he's been drinking, that turned a generic "Yadda yadda in hospital, yadda yadda can't move legs, yawn" scene into a scene where the helplessness associated with losing leg function is swamped by the helplessness associated with no longer being able to keep his private thoughts private.
And these two scenes, due to Old Writing Lesson #1, don't contain a single word in common with the original two scenes, but they're both much much better.
The rest probably will be too, except I still have to write it because, even though I'd almost finished the story when the show aired, now I'm obviously rewriting the whole thing from scratch.
