#and i’m obsessive enough about characterization to want to catch every single word of dialogue

[iatheia]

EDA reviews part 2 - books 10-18

Previous part here

10) Legacy of the Daleks - A very enjoyable read, even though it doesn’t mesh well with Big Finish continuity. I have a few headcanons on how to rectify that, though... The meeting between the Eight and Delgado’s Master left me grinning ear to ear, the way Eight was posturing, wholly aware of the way the Master ticks. I’m not sure I liked Susan quite as much, though - nor was she that fundamental to the story, spending most of the time off screen, but being somewhat unlikeable when she was there. Her final confrontation with the Master was a bit much... Similarly, it was hard to accept Master not recognizing her. That said, the rest of it was a fun romp, and Eight’s thoughts towards the end were particularly poignant, 9/10

11) Dreamstone Moon - Starting right off the bat with an author self insert, and have him being both the source of the conflict and the one to ultimately save the day, kind of - it’s a bold choice.... It’s been said before, but Doctor’s companions really should unionize huh? Eight’s in particular. It really is quite striking that the situation with Sam is pretty much the exact same one as it will be with Charlie - thinking that the Doctor is dead, abandoned, alone, without any network of support. And I’m finally about to have context for that post, so, cheers, I guess. That said, Sam and the Doctor are very much representative of the “quit telling everyone I’m dead - sometimes I can still hear his voice” meme. I’ve lost count how many times Sam decided that the Doctor’s dead within five minutes of seeing him very much alive. (Ok, no, I jest, but it’s a good book, throughly enjoyable from the beginning to end, 10/10)

12) Seeing I - I, uh, really struggle to follow Sam’s logic in the beginning here. I don’t really understand how she ended up in the place she did, after the last novel. Because, she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t abandoned, she was in a company of people, who, uh, cared about her might be putting it a bit too strongly, but who at least could vouch for her. So this disconnect is a bit odd. And, as good as this novel is, as good as the character work in here is, I have a slight disconnect with the rest of it, too. There is too big of a gulf with where the story begun and where it ended - there are too many things going on, too many plots introduced and then unceremoniously dropped. It’s like... Revolution of the Daleks inside of Kerblam, with Nightmare in Silver thrown in with half a dozen other themes from other episodes. When you have the doctor in the machine and the psychologist guy go from primary antagonists to the supporting cast we’re supposed to root for, there is something mildly dissatisfying about it, thematically speaking. Overall, the story in its entirety is less than a sum of its parts. Breaking it into pieces, though, there is a lot of exciting stuff there. 9/10

13) Placebo Effect - Controversial opinion time - I don’t care for Ark in Space. I think it’s a pretty forgettable episode. So any time I encounter any reference to the wirrrn, my reaction is “wait, who?”. And even though I like Leisure Hive well enough, I dare you to find anyone who has been clamoring for the return of Foamasi. This rather made me immediately apprehensive, straight from the preface. In general, there was too much continuity. Stacy & Ssard, really? How deep do you need to be to appreciate their appearance? They are so utterly unnecessary, too, they disappear less than a quarter of the way into the novel, they aren’t even there for set up, they are there for a set up of a set up. If you are actually a person who knew who they were, and wanted to see more of them, I can’t imagine this being all that satisfying. It’s a rather abrupt transition from the previous ark. I dare even say, aggressive, to the degree you have Sam going from “she is afraid to be even in the same room with him, lest she kills him with her soaked through panties” to “she is absolutely delighted when he imparts onto her his grandfatherly wisdom”. Then again, any time either Eight or Sam opened their mouth, I didn’t see Eight or Sam. I saw Four and Sarah Jane. It’s not well written, either. It’s very clunky. The dialogues in particular are obnoxious. Stacy’s and Sam’s conversation, and later on dogmatic discussion between Sam and the priests gave me full on psychic damage. I mostly skimmed beyond that, can’t say there was much to catch the eye. 2/10

14) Vanderdeken's Children - This book is aiming to be a masterpiece, but it’ll just have to settle for being good enough. It does have some interesting twists and turns in here, even though most of them are pretty predictable and expected from the set up. The last couple of chapters, the ending overall, are quite decent (even though all the ebook versions I was able to find cut off the last couple of pages, argh!), but the middle is very middling, with mostly uninspiring secondary characters that are ever so slowly being positioned on the chess board. 7/10

15) The Scarlet Empress - Where to begin... It’s a series of mostly unrelated short stories in a trench coat pretending to be a novel. It’s set up in a middle of a road trip, unrelated not just to each other, but also the measly bit of plot that was given to us? I found it’s quite difficult to engage with the story overall, or follow it, really. It tries to be more character driven than plot driven, which is an admirable aim, and some of the character stuff they have in here is nice, except... Outside of may be bits of chapter 1, I couldn’t really hear Doctor’s voice - any version of him, let alone Eight. Sam fares a bit better, but, at the end of the day... It doesn’t really feel like Doctor Who story. The pacing is completely off, as is the structure, and it was quite nonsensical and whimsical, more akin to Alice in Wonderland than Doctor Who. Not bad in and of itself, just, hard for me to appreciate as a part of this marathon. A note on Iris. I haven’t yet listened to her stand-alone adventures, but I generally enjoy whenever she shows up in Big Finish. Here, though, she was rather lacking Katy Manning’s charm and personality. And, I feel, if you didn’t have any existing fondness for the character before, this novel isn’t going to give you much to care about her. Except, *checks notes*, this was one of her first major outings? Not really a good start. Oh, and prior to this she was in a few short stories, by the same writer. Well, that checks out. 6/10

16) The Janus Conjunction - I really liked this one. Not much to say beyond it, but, very well written, very easy read, practically in a single breath. Excellent characterization for both Doctor and Sam, just a right degree of joyful, determined, adventurous, death defying, mad, delirious, and codependent, almost moreso than any other I’ve read so far. Rather dark, though, I can feel it resonating in the pit of my stomach, and it gets inside your head. 10/10

17) Beltempest - What did the Doctor do to deserve this character assassination??? It’s not without redeeming bits (looks like “I’m not a man” quote comes from here, big yay), but, in large part, is barely a pale shadow of a character I like. Especially in the beginning - he think that Sam might have died and he is ok with this??? After the Dreamstone Moon??? And he is incredibly obnoxious? And Sam was barely herself, even before being... uh, possessed? for plot related reasons. I can’t describe how much disconnect I have with the protagonists here, or with any characters in the rest of the book, for that matter, and how much the dialogue made me roll my eyes. And, ah, the technobabble. I generally try not to overthink the physics of most things in fiction, because, as a certified space scientist, otherwise I’d be here all day, but there comes a point where it crosses the line. After everything else, to read the words “newly born main sequence star” with my own two eyes is just too much. I’m a good person, I do not deserve this nonsense... The first half of the book left me rather put off. The second part left me feeling absolutely flat. No emotions, either positive or negative. And, uh, there was a post going around on tumblr along the lines of “the worst you can do to the character is having them mention a certain food, because the fandom will turn it into an obsession” - it’s rather the same here with Eight and books & classical music. I am rather starting to loose count of the number of times they are trying to emulate the scene with the ending of the movie, where he is lounging about and reading, or specifically mentioning Pucchini. To be fair, it’s not just this novel, but it definitely starting to take me out of it. 5/10

18) The Face-Eater - I’m generally a bit wary of cold opens in the books, because some tend to ramble a bit, with the characters I don’t already know and love, so it’s often is a chore to muster enthusiasm to care about them. This one, though, despite all that, starts very effectively, in a way that made me immediately sit up straight. Very snappish, in a style of noir novels. Too bad it doesn’t quite sustain that energy throughout it. The plot is... interesting, I guess. Characterization is decent, for the most part - although some moments, especially early on gave me a pause, it more than makes up for it in other places. 7/10

Overall impressions so far: Much better than the first set of 9, which often were too deeply rooted in nostalgia to try to offer anything unique. And, I guess, with more writers having a chance to read each others works, the characterization is a bit more consistent (not for every writer, mind, but, in general). How long does it take for them to write a novel of this length, I wonder? A book a month is a rather grueling pace for the series - how far in advance do they start? How many other books come out during that time? 

Sam in particular incrementally found her footing (though, there is a bit of a lag from novel to novel). Instead of imagining literally any other companion, there were certain novels that really helped me to grasp her character. Though, hmm... being Doctor’s companion is not a safe job by any stretch of imagination, but this girl has really been through a wringer. I’m rather struggling to think of any other companion that has been put through so much (non-lethal) battering. There comes a point when one just wants to just to let her have some good time. And, uh, there was a horrible thought that occurred to me, and went to look up how she will depart the TARDIS in the end, and... well, I have a feeling that sometime afterwards I will not like what will happen.

Also, there is this trend of separating her and the Doctor, for a prolonged period of time, them having no idea where to find each other, without any contact, just, stumbling onto one another eventually. It’s a way for writers to have them cover more narrative ground, and you certainly don’t want them attached by the hip, but when they spend less than 20 pages a book in each other’s company, that’s, uh... not a trend I particularly care for.

Well, onto the next batch where we meet Fitz, and say good bye to Sam.

Next part here

[flamboyantommo]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

Thank you @a-writerwrites for tagging me in this! It took me a while, but I did it!

1. List of works published this year: 

Like to Keep You Laughing

Shut It Down When the Time Comes

Get My Good Side

So Long I've Been Waiting

Bye Bye's Are Not For Legends (I'm Forever Young)

Wednesday Edits (the only one not for an exchange of some sort)

Day 10: Scrub a Dub Dub (from the 30 Days of Smut Challenge)

Plus, one fic in the Girl!Direction Exchange, and one in the HL Exchange. I can’t say which ones yet, since authors haven’t been revealed. =)

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

Probably Like to Keep You Laughing. It’s the only fic I’ve written with ace or aro characters. I researched asexuality so much before attempting to write anything with that fic because I really wanted to avoid offending anybody. It took a lot of putting myself in the character’s shoes to really figure out how they would act. Well, more than usual, anyway. And it turned out really well. I’ve gotten so much good feedback on it and I’m definitely proud of that. 

This is totally cheating, but just want to say that I’m also super proud of Wednesday Edits, because it took me a year and a half to finish that, and I wanted to give up so many times, but I didn’t. And I’m so happy I finished because I think it wound up being great. So I’m proud of that, too! 

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

I wouldn’t say that I’m least proud of it, but I wish that I had more time to work on Get My Good Side, which was the fic I submitted for the Winter Exchange. But I was a pinch hitter, so I only had like, three weeks, I think? I wound up going in an entirely different direction, no pun intended, with it than what I planned on, just because I ran out of time. But I’m still happy with the story! 

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

This is from Bye Bye's Are Not For Legends (I'm Forever Young). 

“Leaving so soon?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder, only to see a third man; Louis, he guessed.

This man was far more beautiful than the others, with bright blue eyes, a button nose and light brown shaggy hair that had a single strand that curled down the side of his face.

He stood with a wide stance, and his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was staring Harry down, daring him to make a move.

Harry turned to face him and said, “I guess you’re Louis?”

“Maybe. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home, fucker. I don’t know you and there’s no reason for me to stay.”

“How about this reason? I know what you did to Bennett.”

Harry stilled. There was no way he knew about the money.

“What was it? Ten thousand dollars? No, a hundred thou- No! It was four hundred and seventy thousand dollars that you stole. That’s impressive.”

“Shut up.”

“What’d you do with the money?” Louis wanted to know. “I mean, we saw your apartment. You definitely didn’t do any remodeling with it.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, thanks. So how’d you do it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Of course I would,” Louis grinned. “And so do Liam and Niall.”

At the mention of their names, the other two men appeared from another room, flanking Louis on either side.

“I mean, we already know it’s some kind of mind control. But I get the sense that it’s more complex than that.”

“Why would I tell you?” Harry asked.

“Because we want you to join us,” Louis answered.

“Excuse me?”

Niall nodded happily. “See, we’ve been working together for nearly ninety years now. It’d be nice to have someone else join the ranks. And your power is very interesting.”

“And what exactly is it that you do?”

“Save the world,” Liam answered simply. “Save people from destroying themselves and those around them. Prevent the fall of mankind, that sort of thing.”

“How?”

“Well, like you, young Harry,” Louis replied, “we’re immortal. See, we did some research on you. You stopped aging in 1951, and have been traveling the world ever since. You mainly lived in London up until last year, when you moved here, to this fine city of New York. And last week, you robbed Adam Bennett of almost half a million dollars, which, like I said before, is very impressive.”

5. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

I love every single comment that I get on my stories, but the ones that meant the most and that made me want to cry the most were the ones on Like to Keep You Laughing. Most of them were from people who identify as ace or aro, and hearing from them that my representation was accurate was incredible. 

Like these ones: “Wow, thank you thank you for writing this! There's definitely not enough ace/aro-centric fiction in this fandom (or most fandoms, really) and you did such an excellent job repping those communities here--at least, I thought so, based solely on my own personal experience being ace and talking to some other ace people. And of course it was very well written and thoroughly enjoyable to read, and I loved your characterization. No pressure, obviously, to keep working on something you feel in your heart is finished, but if you write anything else in this 'verse I'd definitely love to read it. Thanks again for taking the time to write this and posting it! Pleasure to read <3″

“No offense but this was perhaps some of the best characterisation I have ever had the pleasure of reading, like honestly the dialogue was so good and natural and so /them/ it felt like I could hear those words coming out of their mouths, like I wasn't just reading them saying something because it was necessary for the story. And the way you depicted being ace and aro, it was just so good and so well-written and well-thought, I've seen some fics either over do it or just fall completely flat I truly adore this as someone on the ace/aro spectrum and just as someone who loves great writing. If I could leave even more kudos I would!!”

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

I already mentioned that it was tough during Wednesday Edits, but it was also really hard when I was writing my fic for the HL Exchange. This was the most recent, and there’s just been so much shit going on in the fandom that there were so many days when I felt like I wanted to just leave for good because I stopped caring and just couldn’t handle it. So writing these characters based on Harry and Louis was really difficult. But I did it! I had support from a bunch of people and I continued reading fics and I just kept reminding myself why I love them so much. 

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you

Definitely Ace Harry/Aro Niall in 'Laughing,’ because I’m just so happy with how I described them and how I had them act in the fic. But also, OT4 in Bye Bye's Are Not For Legends (I'm Forever Young), because in that fic, the boys all have super abilities. They’re immortal and have been working to ‘save the world’ for a long time, so it was interesting to write them as characters who change over a long period of time. Plus, I got to write them in fight scenes, and I’m surprised that I managed to make those somewhat believable. 

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I’m not sure, really. I’ve definitely tried a lot of new things in writing - this year I wrote mpreg, superheroes, ace characters, kid fics and girl!direction - in addition to writing my standard pining and fluff. So maybe that’s it? 

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

DESCRIBING THINGS. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t been called out on this more, but I’m horrible at describing setting and appearances. If a character walks into the living room, for example, I almost never tell the reader what the room looks like, what kind of furniture there is, how the character looks, etc. That’s just never been my strong suit, probably because I usually skim over a lot of that stuff when I read fics. So maybe I’ll try to work on that, haha. 

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

First and foremost, I have to thank Michelle @temporaryfixlouis for being the best beta in the world. You’ve helped me through so many fics, probably more than I have the right to ask for! And you translated some awesome German for ‘Bye Bye’s,’ which made sure I didn’t sound like an idiot writing subpar German. Also, Jen @evenasyoungastheyare for working with me and drawing amazing art for Day 10. Your drawings made me so much more excited to post the chapter! And of course, every author who’s written an amazing fic this year that kept me motivated to keep working on my own stories.

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Uhh, most things, haha. Wednesday Edits (and the first part, Monday Meetings) are largely based on my years as a newspaper editor and my time in college, as well. So much in those fics are actual things that I experienced, which helped me write them. Also, my fic for the HL Exchange is based on a lot of things I’ve done in my hometown, and even my job. Let me stop before I tell you which fic is mine. 

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

1) Don’t give up. You’re going to get so frustrated some times, but it’s all worth it when you have a fic that’s done and ready to be posted. 2) PROOFREAD. Don’t rely on a beta to catch every mistake for you. Proofread while you’re writing, after you write a scene, after you write a few scenes and at the end. And then read the whole story all the way through again. (I’m a little obsessive over proofreading, if you couldn’t tell.) 3) Don’t write in order. I’ve lost inspiration so many times because I couldn’t figure out how to start a story. Usually, one specific scene in a fic stands out for me, and it’s most likely a scene that happens in the middle or toward the end. So just write down everything that you’re thinking of, and then go back and fill in the rest. I usually outline the fic around whatever I have written, and put little notes in if I have an idea of something I want to happen before or after what I already have. 

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Not right away. I’m taking a much needed break from writing because it’s been overwhelming lately. But I have the third and final part in The Taylor Times series, which I’m excited to work on. I already have a title, so I’m hoping that helps with writing it. I also want to go back over the 5.5K words I had originally written for the Winter Exchange and see if there’s something there that I can salvage. Plus, for at least a year, I’ve been wanting to write a fic based on my day care job, because I think it would be adorable. There would be a lot of cute three-year-olds saying funny things and it would definitely be genderswap, because that’s what I’m experiencing, so... Finally, there are a bunch of my fics that I’ve always wanted to write sequels for, so maybe I’ll finally get around to doing any one of those. 

14. Tag three writers whose answers you’d like to read. ;)

I know it says three, but I never follow the rules for these things, so let’s go with @jaerie, @100percentsassy, @suddenclarityharry and @louehvolution. 

And anyone else who’d like to participate!

*All answers should be about works published in 2016. Also, you can skip any questions you hate or don’t want to answer, but please leave them on the list so that others can do them if they want. :)