Owen and Ianto Hate Me. Or Possibly Each Other.

[osprey_archer]

I have one last part to Tea and Sympathy to go. Specifically, I have the middle section of that last part to go, because I’ve already written the beginning and the end. I need the filling for the chocolate sandwich cookie.

I am not receiving cooperation in this endeavor. Owen and Ianto are, in their own separate ways, very, very against me.



(The setting: an interrogation room. A single bare bulb swings over a scarred table. Owen Harper, dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt, sits with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. He looks like a hoodlum. The Authoress is sort of floating in the ether.)

Authoress: Owen, I really need you to help me out here.

Owen: Sucks to be you.

Authoress: No, really. Can you just explain your relationship with Ianto? Why do you even still have a relationship now that you’re healthy?

Owen: (bristling) Have you looked at his arse?

Authoress: I meant psychological reasons, you dumbass.

Owen: I have no psychology. I’m driven by my base impulses. Is this discussion over yet?

Authoress: I need something to work with or else this damn story is going to devolve into porn!

Owen: I’m fine with that.

Authoress: I’M NOT.

Owen: Well then, SCREW YOU.

(They glower at each other for a few minutes. The Authoress attempts to regain control.)

Authoress: I just want a little help here, Owen.

Owen: I don’t help people.

Authoress: But you’re a doctor!

Owen: All my helping gets used up in my professional capacity. AND DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT STABBING YOURSELF WITH THAT PENCIL. THAT WILL GET YOU NOWHERE. (storms out).

(New scene, same setting, except now Ianto sits in the chair. His suit is immaculate. His hands are folded neatly, and his smile is friendly.)

Authoress: Okay, Ianto, let’s talk about your relationship with Owen.

Ianto: (smiles politely until the Authoress gets antsy)

Authoress: So. Ianto. Can you tell me what you’re getting out of this relationship? (Another long pause. Ianto’s smile is beginning to look like it was painted on.) Ianto, please, help me out here.

Ianto: (fidgets miserably) Would you like some coffee?

Authoress: I don’t like coffee.

Ianto: Tea?

Authoress: I don’t like tea either.

Ianto: (looks like a small animal that is about to be run over by a car) Oh.

Authoress: I just want some insight into your psyche, Ianto. Why are you still sleeping with Owen?

Ianto: (beginning to slump) It makes him happy?

Authoress: Aside from the times it makes him hit you over the head with things?

Ianto: (slumping further) He’s a kinky bastard?

Authoress: Besides, you’re totally encouraging him. What are you getting out of this?

Ianto: (slumped almost under the table) Are you sure you don’t like coffee? Maybe you’ve just never had a good cup of coffee before.

Authoress: Ianto!

Ianto: Sorry. I’ve got to go. Myfanwy’s shrieking for me. Sorry. Bye!



Basically, both of them refuse to narrate the interior section. They’re also being vague and cagey about what exactly goes into the interior section, It’s some kind of summary of about a month of relationship between Owen getting better and Jack returning, but precisely what events it summarizes, and how?

Evidently, what happens in Cardiff, stays in Cardiff.

So, if anyone has any helpful thoughts, please share. I would really like to finish at least the first draft of this before I leave for Florida next Friday.

Comments

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well. Me, I regard interior monologue with great suspicion, because it's really hard to do without getting all high-handed narrator. If you have a high level narrator, you have essentially created another perspective, and it competes with character development. It becomes really easy to fall off the edge of "show" into "tell." So, yeah. An extreme possibility is to ditch the interior section.

If you decide to use it, one way you can reveal something about the character without having them say "I feel this," (which with Ianto and Owen, they're not highly likely to do), is to have them observe some action from their perspective, or have them remember some things, and let the nature of the memories convey what you want. I suggest this, because that's what I'm doing in my current long thing. It worked for me.

Another possibility is to just put on the headphones with some loud music, have a coffee, or a gin, or both (er...actually not both, that's a bad combo, but you know, something), and just do some serious free writing. Do writing that you know *won't* make your final page, and then you're probably better able to put something useful down on paper that can form the basis for what you end up writing.

Can you tell I've just come through a similar battle? These are the various things that worked for me.

And if you want, if it helps, I'd be willing to beta you.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I see there's a slight misunderstanding here--by interior section I meant the middle of the story, not an interior monologue.

I tend to agree with you about the dangers of interior monologues, especially if they're extended musings that aren't broken up by action. If they're done well they can be excellent, but they tend to either lose focus or be too blatant--and Ianto or (especially) Owen even approaching emotional honesty with themselves would count as too blatant.

The problem is that even if they don't (or won't admit) what's driving them, I have to have some idea, for which free-writing would probably be helpful, now that you've mentioned it.

Just talking about it seems to have broken the block somewhat.

I may take you up on the beta--it depends how the timing works out.

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay, that makes a whole lot more sense. You're so terrific at conveying a character from an exterior perspective; interior monologue would be a departure for you (from what I've read of yours so far, anyway). Not that you couldn't do it, but it would be different from the rest of the sections in this story.

I got stuck for a week on my current thing because Ianto asked Jack a question that he couldn't answer, mostly because *I* couldn't answer it, and it took me several days to really nail down what the answer even was, then figure out if Jack knew that's what the answer was, then figure out how much he'd be likely to communicate of what he knew.

Talking it out helps enormously. I have a writing buddy who is specifically *not* my beta, just someone to bounce ideas off of. It's made all the difference on the rough sections.

PM me for my email address if I can help.

[silksieve.livejournal.com]

omg, this just made me snorfle soup up my nose! I'm sorry I can't be more help beyond that since I haven't really watched Torchwood (*hides*) due to my time constraints and fannish tendancies :DDD.

But I wait eagerly for what happens nest.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I suspect what happens next is that Owen and Ianto hole up somewhere in the archives and plot against me in between make-out sessions. It's the kind of thing they would do.

Always glad to cause soup snorfling. (That's a wonderful word that ought to exist.)

It's a good thing to be wary of Torchwood. In terms of quality it's pretty horrendous, yet it sucks scads of otherwise rational people into mad fannish frenzies.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I'm terrific. What fun!

I think I've mostly figured this one out, but if in the future I actually write the one where Ianto tracks Owen down at a bar, and after much yelling and frothing and attempting to kill Ianto, Owen decides they need to visit every make-out spot in the city (or something of that ilk), I may speak to you about it.

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

I'm all-over quivering with the idea of Ianto/Owen multi-location smut, written by you. Ping me anytime.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Must finish T&S first, but after that--!

Would you believe that that scene is actually based on an out take from this last section of Tea and Sympathy? They just couldn't get to the "let's make out all over Cardiff" part. Either Owen went far enough with the physical violence that Ianto couldn't forgive him, or Ianto offered to sex Owen up right there in the alley behind the bar and Owen took offense. :/

[sanginmychains.livejournal.com]

Outtakes are useful to keep around. I think of my "not here, but somewhere" file as equivalent to a quilter's scraps basket. Not that there is anything wrong with the individual pieces, they just don't fit in the current project. But they'll be awfully pretty somewhere else.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

And you know how I'm looking forward to the conclusion of T&S...

I'm afraid I'm absolutely no help, but I do appreciate that meta-fictional-Owen is totally okay with bypassing motive and character development altogether and going straight to the porn.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Oh, he's not just okay with it. He'd really, really prefer it that way.

Unfortunately for Owen, he's already allowed our relationship to be defined as one where I wrench character development out of him, with hooks if necessary, so he's unlikely to ever get that wish fulfilled. No, even in the story where he moonlights as a rent boy, THERE WILL BE PSYCHOLOGY.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

"even in the story where he moonlights as a rent boy"

If Life on Mars fandom taught me anything, this is hot. Even if it shouldn't be.

I rewatched "Adam" last night (man, I have problems with the lack of cohesion from the same general people who bring up the brilliantly foreshadowed Doctor Who), and Owen just breaks my heart. I miss him already!