3: What’s your favorite line of narration?
I have a lot of lines that I’m proud of, but this one stuck out as I was rereading some of Ghost:
She might have been wearing new armor, with new, clean skin stretched over her rebuilt bones, but Garrus felt a shudder run through him as she lifted her eyes and met his gaze. Not of revulsion, not of fear, but recognition: this was Shepard. Not the bleak, cold woman who had saved him on Omega, but his Shepard, fierce-eyed and straight-backed, a hunter’s smile on her mouth. The Commander, the woman who could face down a Reaper and not flinch, who could drag herself out of whatever nightmare memory had trapped her — the woman who could come back from the dead.
6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?
Ghost is so special for me because it’s the most obvious example of how I’ve grown as a writer. The first few chapters suffer because I was still nervous about exploring my voice as a writer, and for following my instincts for the story. I mean, they’re good, but there’s a lot of telling and a lot of places where I missed emotional beats, and the Shepard isn’t quite Eliza Shepard. I cringe when I reread it, but I know I’ve learned and gotten so much better (not to mention I trust myself now!), and I think I’ll leave those chapters as they are, as a reminder that I’ve come a long, long way.
9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?
Indeed there were! Originally, the story was planned for seven chapters, and would end with Garrus seeing Shepard vault over the barricade, while wondering if he was hallucinating or not. It cut out most of the supernatural aspects, and didn’t get as in-depth with the squad. But then Weaver and Butler and all the rest happened, and then the burned woman happened, and I said well, dang and rolled with it.
Then, the story was going to end with Shepard waking up in the hospital, post-ME3, and finding out that Garrus had died after he had been evac’d on the Normandy. The last line of the story had her hearing footsteps behind her, and closing her eyes to wait and see if it was Garrus, come back to haunt her.
Then, the story was going to end with Shepard dying in the final assault on Earth, and Garrus going on to live a long and productive life on Palaven. In that version, Garrus hears about the Normandy SR-4 being assigned to explore outside the Milky Way galaxy, and turns around to find Shepard waiting to take him “beyond” (because I have always and will always love The Ghost and Mrs. Muir).
Maybe those endings would have worked in previous versions of the fic, but as Ghost stands now, it needs a different ending.
12: What do you like least about this fic?
I cringe, like I said before, when I reread the earlier chapters, and I still feel like I painted myself into a corner when it comes to the burned woman. Her execution isn’t as strong as I would like, and I’m not proud of it, but I’m hoping her part in the story will improve, because she has a lot of potential (in all honesty, I’m always paranoid about readers hating her (and me) when she shows up).