Filler stuff

[subtletylost]

I need help with this. It's a short filler chapter/scene and I am not sure what to do with it. It basically establishes why one character is not in the next couple of chapters and another is doing something strange.

---
--- Chapter 4 --

“Comic Con? Mega geeks dressed up in costumes to outdo and impress other mega geeks. Who the hell would want to go to something like that?"

That has got to me the biggest insult and worst description of Comic Con I have ever heard. Now I can accept when Jamie makes fun of me, but when she targets Comic Con she has a world of people to get through first. It's stupid not to speak up, I know, but there is no reasoning with her. Ever.

The cafeteria is full of people like always. And just like always it is so loud I can barely think at all. I hate having to be in here.

I am not going to fight with her though. It's pointless and not worth it. Respect. She needs to learn respect, but fighting with her will not teach her. Fighting will not teach her anything at all.

I pick up my things and head up to the library. At least up there it is quiet. Anna waves to me as I enter the door. I walk up and sit my stuff on the table that she is at.

"Comic Con," she says.

"I know. Thirteen days. Are you going?"

"My mom and I are going to run a booth. We've already rented it."

"That's awesome what are you going to sell?"

"That's a secret. I can't tell you. It'd ruin the magic. After all there's a certain degree of fun in not telling a friend something."

"I guess you are right, but that's so mean." I reach in my bag and hand her a bottle of Dr. Pepper and get one for myself. "I owed you that." I raise mine up and motion for her to do the same. "I'd love to make a quick impromptu speech if no one minds."

"I don't mind at all. I love your speeches."

"Good. That's the way to be a friend. We all know that there is something special in a friend. Something wonderful and something unique. Something weird in ourselves that just so happens to be in the same way weird in our friend. So here's to friendship. Here's to adventure, here's to secrets that when kept compromise nothing and neither help nor hinder. Here's to the laughs and jokes, here's to the time spent that will never be lost. And certainly here's to us all making a one hundred on that Biology test today. Here's to old friends and here's to new,” I glance around the library. "Friends? Have you seen Diana today?"

"She's out there." Anna points to the courtyard.

"Let's go see what she's up to."

Rude as it is to spy on people, Diana is my friend and I am curious as to what she might be doing out there. We exit through the left side door of the library and stop. The chilly air has a hint of spruce scent on it. Odd, considering that there aren't any spruce trees nearby.

"Diana are you out here?"

Footfalls greet my ears about three seconds before Diana comes running around the corner of the building. I step backwards and she crashes face first into what was once a flower garden.

"Nice face plant. However, I don't think that's the right kind of plant for that used to be garden," Anna says laughing.

"Yeah." Diana sits up and brushes the dirt out of her blond hair. "Mari, you have good reflexes, most people I've seen around here wouldn't have been able to move fast enough to avoid getting hit when I did that."

"I know. People are slow. I've always been just a little faster than most people. Hey, Diana. We need to get on to class. We don't want to be late for that Biology test."

Diana stands up and brushes herself off. She goes off around the corner and comes back with her stuff.

“Diana,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“There’s an event coming up.”

“Yeah, this ComicCon thing. I hear it’s supposed to be good. I can’t go however. It starts the same day as something my mom has planned.”

“Oh well okay.”

 

[Hex]

Hi fishii,

This is neat and well-written. I've been picky.

I think maybe there's a little too much repeating the point at the start of this section -- by the time I got to "...anything at all." I felt I'd had the point hammered home.

"After all there's a certain degree of fun in not telling a friend something." -- that read to me like narration rather than genuine dialogue.

"We all know that there is something special in a friend. Something wonderful and something unique. Something weird in ourselves that just so happens to be in the same way weird in our friend. " -- and again. This would be better as the character's internal thoughts, in my opinion.


Right. So if Comic Con is going to be seriously important to the plot then this is generally fine.

What makes this scene better, though, than a sentence at the start of the Comic Con scene saying something like: "Jamie despised Comic Con, and Diana's mum had roped her in to babysit her cousins, so when I walked through the door, I was looking for Anna..."?

 

[subtletylost]

It is supposed to reveal just a tiny bit about the characters or at least I thought it was. Now I am not so sure. I think I was originally going to have this scene lead to something else that cause two other characters to being roped into going to Comic Con with her. I'm not sure what happened to that.

 

[Hex]

It does show stuff about the characters too -- but only you know whether that could come in somewhere else instead.

It's kind of hard to know out of context. Sorry not to be more help.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

I had a quick look at this. Mostly it seems okay, and one gets a real sense of the character and enthusiasm of teenage girls. If the Comic Con is important to the plot, it's probably okay to go on about it at this length, but if not you could find stuff to cut.
In the last scene, I found the action rather unbelievable. Why does Diana fall over just because her friend steps smartly out of the way? Why does she fall on her face and not on her hands?

 

[Boneman]

I need help with this. It's a short filler chapter/scene and I am not sure what to do with it. It basically establishes why one character is not in the next couple of chapters and another is doing something strange.

---
--- Chapter 4 --

“Comic Con? Mega geeks dressed up in costumes to outdo and impress other mega geeks. Who the hell would want to go to something like that?"

That has got to me the biggest insult and worst description of Comic Con I have ever heard. Now I can accept when Jamie makes fun of me, but when she targets Comic Con she has a world of people to get through first. It's stupid not to speak up, I know, but there is no reasoning with her. Ever.

The cafeteria is full of people like always. And just like always it is so loud I can barely think at all. How did he hear what she said, then? I hate having to be in here.

I am not going to fight with her though. It's pointless and not worth it. Respect. She needs to learn respect, but fighting with her will not teach her. Fighting will not teach her anything at all.

Why all the infodumping? If we've met the character before, don't we know this about her? It's quite hard to read, because you're trying to make something from nothing. So someone has an opinion of comic con that the MC disagrees with (which most of the readers will agree with, possibly...) and he's showing what a geek he/she is by getting upset. Personally, I think it would be better if you cut the infodumping paras altogether, and go from the speech to the MC storming out - that way we see his/her anger, without having to be told three times.

I pick up my things and head up to the library. At least up there it is quiet. Anna waves to me as I enter the door. I walk up and sit my stuff on the table that she is at.

"Comic Con," she says.

"I know. Thirteen days. Are you going?"

"My mom and I are going to run a booth. We've already rented it."

"That's awesomeFull stop what are you going to sell?"
"That's a secret. I can't tell you. It'd ruin the magic. Three short staccatto sentences... is this a feature of this character? Because if not, it's stilted and comes over as unreal. Read it aloud and see...After all there's a certain degree of fun in not telling a friend something."

"I guess you are right, but that's so mean." I reach in my bag and hand her a bottle of Dr. Pepper and get one for myself. "I owed you that." I raise mine up and motion for her to do the same. "I'd love to make a quick impromptu speech if no one minds." Do they hold the bottles up for the rest of the scene? And were the bottles open in his bag? Do they drink them? Are you being paid for product placement?

"I don't mind at all. I love your speeches."

"Good. That's the way to be a friend. We all know that there is something special in a friend. Something wonderful and something unique. Something weird in ourselves that just so happens to be in the same way weird in our friend. So here's to friendship. Here's to adventure, here's to secrets that when kept compromise nothing and neither help nor hinder. Here's to the laughs and jokes, here's to the time spent that will never be lost. And certainly here's to us all making a one hundred on that Biology test today. Here's to old friends and here's to new,” I glance around the library. "Friends? Have you seen Diana today?" I skipped all this, I was bored after the second sentence...

"She's out there." Anna points to the courtyard.

"Let's go see what she's up to."

Rude as it is to spy on people, Diana is my friend and I am curious as to what she might be doing out there. We exit through the left side door of the library and stop. The chilly air has a hint of spruce scent on it. Odd, considering that there aren't any spruce trees nearby.

"Diana are you out here?"

Footfalls greet my ears about three seconds before Diana comes running around the corner of the building. I step backwards and she crashes face first into what was once a flower garden. Erm, face first... into what? Any bruising, and bleeding, any concussion? It was once a flower garden and now it's.... what?

"Nice face plant. However, I don't think that's the right kind of plant for that used to be garden," Anna says laughing. This character does have a strange speech pattern. Maybe read it aloud?

"Yeah." Diana sits up and brushes the dirt out of her blond hair. "Mari, you have good reflexes, most people I've seen around here wouldn't have been able to move fast enough to avoid getting hit when I did that."

"I know. People are slow. I've always been just a little faster than most people. Hey, Diana. We need to get on to class. We don't want to be late for that Biology test."

Diana stands up and brushes herself off. She goes off around the corner and comes back with her stuff.

“Diana,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“There’s an event coming up.”

“Yeah, this ComicCon thing. I hear it’s supposed to be good. I can’t go however. It starts the same day as something my mom has planned.”

“Oh well okay.”

To be honest, Diana is somewhat strange, so that works, but who the heck isn't going to be in the next couple of chapters? For me, it's not working at all, I'm afraid. Personally, I feel if you want to presage something, maybe consider having them all outside the Biology test and compress it into dialogue between them - the first saying it's for geeks etc, the second saying my mom and I have a booth and the third saying she's doing something with her mom, so can't make it... as though it's incidental to the test, just students talking amongst themselves. That could be quite natural, but here, it doesn't come over that way.