7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
Kylo Ren had been awake for days. Poe knew this as fact, for he had done his best to avoid going anywhere near medbay since the man had been confined there, swearing that he could feel a phantom itch against his mind every time he drew too close. He also knew, by the tight set of the General’s face, that Ren’s awakening hadn’t brought with it good tidings.
What he didn’t know, as he left the rec room behind him, was why his feet were currently taking him in Ren’s direction, why the pulsing anger in his chest suddenly felt so insistent, why it was demanding he see Kylo Ren now after days and days of complete apathy.
(That was a lie. He knew why, even as he thought of his squad, laughing in the rec room, coming up with obscene theories for what lay beneath Kylo Ren’s robes in order to distract themselves from Ondura’s death. He didn’t blame them, he couldn’t, they didn’t know, and Poe wasn’t about to tell them, not in a million years, because telling them would mean facing it, owning up to it, and Ben Organa was none of their damn business. He wasn’t anyone’s damn business.)
He stopped for a moment, one hand flying out to grip the corner of the wall beside him, and he breathed out harshly in an attempt to clear the anger from his mind, making his shoulders relax as a wave of forced calm washed over him. When he felt in control again, the façade of a commander draping over him like a shroud, he pushed forward, intent on reaching medbay. He didn’t know why he was going, what he expected to see, but he had to—he had to—
He had to pause and rid himself of the blaster pistol that hung on his belt, and he knew what it said about him, that he felt he had no choice. (x)
Please help my sons? I don’t know, I’m not sure how to express why I’m proud of this particular piece, I just like it. I do. I cry over Poe a lot.
8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
“Wonder what’s under the mask,” Pava mused, pushing strands of hair out of her face as she looked down at Ren. Poe followed her gaze, thinking of wavy dark hair and pale skin and dark eyes, then he removed his own helmet and tucked it under his arm, turning away.
“A man,” Poe said flatly. “Nothing more.“ (x)
I actually have quite a few pieces of dialogue that I’m proud of, but hm, of my recent work I’m quite proud of this one because it just hurts in a way that resonates me. It was also a small nod to KOTOR 2, one of my favourite games of all time. After everything, after all he’s done, after all he’s become, and after all he once was to Poe… here, unconscious on Onderon, he’s just a man, stripped of everything.
14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
Whenever I see tumblr writing advice on my dash I almost always ignore it because it’s generally just. So bad. In general my least favourite ones are the ones that tell people that certain stylistic choices are bad/wrong, if that makes sense? That you should be writing in this one style, in this one structure, which just. Eugh. I mean, I have writing styles that I hate seeing (Tolkien’s comes to mind–I know someone who writes just like Tolkien because they love him but I, personally, can’t read their stuff as a result because it doesn’t draw me in), but I feel like everyone should feel free to develop their own writing style because what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.
There was another thing I remember coming across that I hated, but I can’t remember what it was at this current moment in time. Something about “good writers should be able to make any AU work” and it’s like. But sometimes they just don’t. Ex: I have literally tried for months to see benpoe Hades/Persephone but as someone who actively studies and has written multiple lengthy papers on Hades this is just an AU that I cannot see working if you want to preserve not just the integrity of the characters themselves and the integrity of the myth, if that makes sense? I don’t know. I really have a hard time seeing this AU work. Sometimes being a good writer means knowing when something doesn’t work, at least not for you, and not trying to force it to happen anyway. I’m fairly alone in this particular example, though. Maybe that just makes me the bad writer. [shrugs] Either way, my super lame classicist brain is having a hard time with this one, but that could just be the fact that I’ve literally been buried in Hades shit up to my ears for the past couple of weeks so I’m having trouble bending the myth.
I’m also not as fond of those post those big lists of “words to use instead of [x]” without explaining contexts because some of the words I’ve seen listed really just. Shouldn’t have been included next to their supposed synonym.
