Susan, awkward how? Is it a kind of impatience - a "shit, I don't want to bother with all this stuff, I just want to get right to it" deal?

That, and my writing itself seems to loose all its polish and nuance. E.g., this week I've been drafting a scene from Jack's POV where he's part of the escort to a wagon convoy of wounded who are going to Lisbon so they can be shipped back to England, and they're surprised and captured by a larger French force that was scouting in the area. The key aspects of the scene are as follows:

1. Jack's commanding officer isn't competent to quickly organize a defense. Jack is.

2. Since I need to get the officer off the stage without actually killing him, I've got him on a nervous horse who runs away. But now that I think about it, having him severely wounded would work just as well and be more plausible, so I think I'll rewrite it that way.

3. There are two ladies in the convoy--Anna and an older officer's wife who's travelling with her wounded son. The other woman gets killed, because I need her offstage. Anna (who has decided that given the choice of being angry or freaking out, she'll take anger), once the shooting is over, gives the French commanding officer a piece of her mind in her best English schoolgirl French.

Those are the key pieces of the scene, and if I could get by with writing just that, I think I'd be fine. But I need to describe the terrain and how many French soldiers there are, and what the British do in their attempts to drive them off, and it reads terribly, like a report I might've written in middle school or something.

t ETA--off to take a shower. Back later.

Susan, you might try writing cinematically. In other words, don't feel you have to describe the whole scene and place everyone but let yourself roam around picking out interesting details. Reveal the troop strength by describing the sun glinting off bayonets, or the terrain by having a character tripping over one of the rocks which litter the scrubby hillside or something like that.

If the POV for the fight is Anna's she wouldn't know the military aspects of what she's seeing.

Connie, when I first read the drabble theme this week, I couldn't imagine anything to write, probably because I didn't want to think about it. Other than being unsure of the exact number of times they had to resuscitate my brother over the years (and he always signed a DNR when he went in) before he was finally able to die at home, the drabble's true. He hated them for bringing him back over and over.

Susan, why do we need that much detail? It's good that you know it, I think, because it informs the writing (using it as Robin suggested) but I don't think I'd want to read that level of detail in a story.

If the POV for the fight is Anna's she wouldn't know the military aspects of what she's seeing.

But the details could be telling nonetheless. Even her being unsure of what's she sees can be informative.

If the POV for the fight is Anna's she wouldn't know the military aspects of what she's seeing.

True, but then I'm afraid I'll lose the incompetence of the English lieutenant, and that really needs to come through. And I also really want the scene where she's yelling at the French major to be from Jack's POV. But I might try the fight part from her POV--if I can have her at the right place when it starts, I think I can make the incompetence issue come through.

I need to describe the terrain and how many French soldiers there are, and what the British do in their attempts to drive them off, and it reads terribly, like a report I might've written in middle school or something.

Now see, this is my meat. And where I spend entirely too much time and effort. As Robin recommends, I see it cinematically, but unlike her directorial editing, I'm filming every damned bush and outcrop, every button on every tunic, every sweat-soaked stock and dust-shrouded boot toe, smelling the acrid scent of the junipers bruised by the wagon wheels, the odor of untended wounds and unwashed bodies clad in woolen clothes worn too long, hearing the moans and cries of the wounded, the call of ravens stalking the train from above, the mutters of the men as they shuffle over the uneven ground, the creak of harness and the scrabble of hooves for purchase on dusty rock strewn with hoof-threatening pebbles, and the roll and skitter of those pebbles as the wagons pass, feeling the ground tremble as the wagons lurch through shallow rain-dug washes, dry now from the present drought....

Or suchlike. My advice? Turn off your editor and just do it. Don't worry about it sounding like a dull report; the more you do it the easier and handier it gets. Be there, see it hear it smell it all. Taste the dust in your mouth and feel it coating the perspiration on your skin, clumping in your sour and unwashed hair beneath your bonnet's brim, or the bill of your shako. Feel the blisters on your feet in their boots worn without socks because you walked the last pair you had into holes, or the delicate slippers never made for such a trek. Feel the sun beat on the dark wool of your jacket, the muscles of your back straining to climb against your stays beneath the cambric of your bodice, the sand in your collar chafing the back of your neck. It's the only way to put your reader there with any sort of sympathetic sensory realism, and I can't do it if I'm thinking about the next dialogue exchange or the next ball or the next love scene. Battle scenes are chaotic.

Of course, battle or fight scenes are effortless for me, the way sex scenes are for some people. And I can't get interested in writing sex scenes. And I can't shut up about the sensory input--but then that's the way I live my life, and why I am not a happy extrovert.

I hope at least some of this can be helpful.

And I can't shut up about the sensory input--but then that's the way I live my life, and why I am not a happy extrovert.

Huh. That's the way I live my life, and I am a happy extrovert. Go figure.

I am all about the idera, however, that less is more. I subscribe to the reverse of "a picture is worth a thousand words"; I think one word cam bring up a million pictures.

Ominous, for instance. Grief. Pearlescent. Silent. They all conjure up any number of endless possibilities.

I say, stop being the writer lady for a minute. Put yourself firmly in one of the character's shoes. Close your interior eyes for a minute and just be there.

Now. What do you see?

Anna may be feeling more daring/foolhardy than she might normally, under the circumstances. They'd try to get the womenfolk away from the fight, but she could creep up front to see what's going on, then she could see the lieutenant yelling things and contradicting himself and his soldiers looking scared and baffled. And Jack trying to hold up some sort of defense on the side.

I'm fascinated by Empress Josephine, and one of my books tells of her travelling to join Napoleon in Italy and nearly getting ambushed on the way. Her carriage isn't up to the stress of speed and loses an axle and they have to hide in a ditch for a little while.

Deb, I've said this before, but it bears repeating. It undoubtedly has been honed by excellent use, but you have a gift for choosing each word for the weight it will bear of description: mood, atmosphere, physical or psychic surroundings. Your writing could never be called spare, but you have no extraneous information, either. Every word chosen moves your story forward, while at the same time providing immersion in that story for the reader. It's a rare gift, and I feel privileged to be familiar with your work.

I've studied how you do it, and have come to the conclusion it can't be copied. I doubt you could teach it. It is truly a gift, and you use it well.