Snippet, because if I don't post it then it'll explode or something.

2007-11-16T12:25:51Z

Not that it'll make much sense to anyone who hasn't been reading rose_and_lizard's From the Ashes, and tangentially relevant to morganmuffle's Nov 12 posting.

The date is sometime in the 1920s, the first speaker is Dumbledore, the subject is Luna.

"You made that…" "unworldly?" "…unworldly young woman into an Untimely?"

"Well," Tim sighed, "I don't think there's a prison in Christendom that'd hold her. And you know what Johnson said about Hoover… actually, I guess you don't. "

She paused wondering how to explain the concept in contemporary terms.

"It's better this way, trust me."

Between two wars: a potion, a promise, and Aunt Petunia

2006-04-16T22:59:58Z

This is actually the first thing that I've written since creating this journal (grand plans having failed to fruit so far):

Between two wars: a potion, a promise, and Aunt Petunia (In comment, HP, PG).

I generally fit quite well with the drabble format – it gives about enough space for a simple vignette or to get one idea or impression across to the audience. The pieces I like writing tend to be once where I subvert expectations to increase the punching power at the end of the story, but this one was never going to work out like that given the prompt.

Usually I find that successful drabbles come out at about 110-120 words in first draft, and it's not too hard to trim the excess – this one was 219 which added an entire new dimension to the problem. The reduced version is much better than the original though.

mctabby's challenge exchanges tend to be great fun, and the quality of writing is always superb – people who like this kind of thing should probably have a flick through the rest of the comments.

Serialisations of a Square Circle

Snippet, because if I don't post it then it'll explode or something.

Between two wars: a potion, a promise, and Aunt Petunia