I'm probably the last person on LJ to do this...

[wendymr]

Nicked from just about everyone everywhere...

Put a number in the comments and I’ll answer accordingly.

I promise to try to stay positive about my writing and myself and also to be fair about my shortcomings

Comments

[lindenharp]

Because I admire the quality of your writing so much, I'm curious about #11.

[wendymr]

Oh god... everything? I'm terrible when it comes to evaluating the quality of my work. I either think it's awful or that it's maybe halfway decent. In terms of style, I think I'm better than I used to be, thanks to a writer friend who took me to task several years ago and taught me a lot about active versus passive voice in writing and got me to dump a lot of the 'bloat' I'd got into the habit of adding

[bailangwang]

You're ceratinly NOT cliched. And NOT so very predictable - as A Fine Afternoon For a Stroll would show - a very different story from your previous work. (And the one I absolutely love!) Every Author (in the Lewis fandom, since this is the one I read, and regularly, too:) has their own style and inclinations. I would describe your style as humanitarian, solid, strong and serious, with an undercurrent of humour - a little like Robbie Lewis :) And certainly, certainly NOT cliched!

[wendymr]

Thank you!

And it's interesting that you pick A Fine Afternoon... since that's the story I referred to in my answer to you below, where I changed some of my usual habits. I wanted to write a story which deliberately avoided the kind of tropes we see in many fics - not that I think there's anything wrong with them; in fact, many of my favourite stories contain several popular tropes. I just wanted to see if I could write something that didn't have the usual themes we see in a lot of fics. So: James and Robbie are sent off undercover together, but not as a couple - in fact, Innocent explicitly says no-one could take them seriously as a couple. They stay in separate rooms, so there's no accidental sharing of a bed. James isn't pining for love of Robbie. And, though they do end up closer by the end of the story, they're not on the way to a relationship.

This, though:
I would describe your style as humanitarian, solid, strong and serious, with an undercurrent of humour - a little like Robbie Lewisis an enormous compliment, and I'm

[paperscribe]

Number 8, please! :)

[wendymr]

Right now: Robbie. I find him much easier to write than James, and (just as when I used to write the Ninth Doctor a lot) I hear his voice in my head, so I know the sort of things he'd say and how he'd say them. His facial expressions - so visual and expressive! - are clear to me as well. I find him fascinating because I know his past very well, from Morse, and then the shocking start to his present incarnation in Lewis changed him so much - yet the underlying Robbie is still there, even if at times he's difficult to see

[paperscribe]

Thank you! I loved reading this answer. :) Sometimes it is very strange for me, being so ensconced in the Lewis time frame, to go back and watch Inspector Morse and see Robbie there, because he's generally so…cheery! Not that he's not a cheerful character at heart in general, but as you say, what happened in between the end of Morse and the start of Lewis did change him.

[fortesomniare]

No. 4, please. :)

[wendymr]

I'm assuming it won't surprise you one bit if I say hurt/comfort? I think, if anyone were to analyse the hundreds of fics I've written in the 15 or so years I've been at this, that theme would probably appear in three-quarters or more of them.

I think perhaps - though it's more subtle in what I write now - I like writing about people who are outsiders in a way, and some less obviously so than others. My first fandom was The New Adventures of Superman - so Clark Kent/Superman was the obvious outsider, yet Lois Lane was also an outsider by virtue of her inability to trust others, which meant that she pushed people away and made them resent her. In Doctor Who, the Doctor's the outsider - but so too sometimes are the companions, either in terms of what makes them leave their lives to travel with the Doctor in the first place, or they become outsiders by virtue of what travelling with him turns them into. And in Lewis James is the outsider in so many ways: the Cambridge graduate, almost-priest, treated with suspicion because of his

[trobadora]

#1, please.

[wendymr]

I don't think you could have asked a more difficult question! I should have taken this one out, probably, because I'm not sure I can even answer it. Not just because I have so much fic (and you didn't help me by specifying a fandom!), but because I don't think I am "proud", as such, of any of my work. There are some fics that - from time to time - I will consider that, perhaps, are fairly good. But I waver on those, too.

Maybe the closest I can come is some of my Doctor Who drabbles - the ones where the final line provides a real gut-punch, which is what, to me, a really good drabble should have. Took me a while to find it, but this one, Pre-emptive Strike, may be the one that comes closest to 'pride' for me:

They all leave eventually, some sooner than others. Responsibilities, the ties of family, of their own planet, or ultimately of their own mortality

[trobadora]

It's always cool to hear about how other people view their own fic. I wouldn't have guessed you'd pick a drabble, though I probably should have, in retrospect - you're so good at them! And this one is a punch to the gut indeed.

[uniquepov]

#9

and #12: What is your favourite fandom trope?

[wendymr]

Hmmm. WIP (and don't expect to see this any time soon, if at all - it's WAY down the list):

“Almost wish you hadn’t told me about James.” Robbie drops into a chair at the dining table and sighs, mouth downturned

[uniquepov]

Thank you!