7,8 and 38 for the Meme for Fic Writers, if you don't mind answering them!
7.Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
Oh my holy cheesebeans. Honestly, I’ve written so many fics, it’s a touch difficult to pick just one. But here, I’ve picked one! It’s from the one-shot 'How It Ends (And Begins, Once Again)’.
Izayoi could picture her here, how utterly ecstatic shewould be by everything here, pulling out and inspecting everything, possiblyeven deciding to make something right there and then and donning thestrawberry-patterned apron hanging on the kitchen door (it looked like one he’dgiven her for a past birthday, but newer) before proceeding to do just that.Perhaps he’d be roped in with helping, but it was not as if he had a clue.Sure, he had spent countless hours over the years, sitting in one kitchen oranother, watching her do her thing, but that was the point. He was neverwatching the procedure, it was always her. How she moved around the kitchen,the way she’d run her fingers along the packet sides or the labels on thebottles before selecting what she wanted from the cupboard, how she carried thedifferent bits of equipment to and from where she needed them to be. Theexpressions she had-frowns, smiles, blank concentration, confusion-whenmeasuring out ingredients, when tasting the mixture, testing the oven, watchingher creations cook, taste-testing the final product. The sounds of herfrustrations when it didn’t go right and her utter delight when it did. He hadmemorised it all, and as a result, he could conjure her up here, and now, alltoo easily. It was almost as if she was really here, right now, and he wasalmost disappointed when he reached out to touch her shoulder and reality madea fool of him.
How, exactly, do Imanage, existing like this for the rest of time?? It was not as if otherrooms didn’t evoke other similar potent feelings in him, other imaginings ofRuruka. But there was something particular about the kitchen, and thosememories. Perhaps because he knew that while she was in the swing of things,while she was in the creative zone, her demons had little to no power over her.Perhaps. Either way, he knew that from this point on, it was here that he wouldconstantly be making a lonely fool out of himself with his memories. And yet,it was here he wanted to stay the most.
So he got up from the chair he had been sitting on, and wentto make himself a cup of coffee (and, imagining Ruruka doing her thing, madesure he wasn’t getting in her way while he was doing it). Once he had done so,he went back to the chair and sat down again, and continued to watch her.
It just flows really well, don’t you think? :) I certainly do.
8.Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
“So, the school festival.”
Tada wrote ‘school festival’ on the blackboard and drewthree circles around it. Adding in a few arrows around the circle, he wasreminded of launching the Ending the End Class project, back near the beginningof the year. We are making progress.
“Does anyone have any ideas they want to put forward?Anything at all?? We might even be able to combine ideas, too.”
“Well, it’s going to need to be pretty amazing, right?”Hirigi said. “I mean, to get people to thisplace.”
“Yeah, it’s gotta be worth the trek up here.” Jori agreed.
“In other words, we need to be out of the ordinary. No maidcafes or anything like that.” Kuroba stated. Tada nodded.
“That’s right! Not that there’s anything with the usual farethat school festivals come up with, but I think we should definitely play onour distinctiveness.”
“I’d say Kinomoto-kun’s flowers should do the trick in thatregard.” Koujiro commented. “I mean, it’s freaking autumn and they’re still bright. Like, how does that even work???”
“Well…” Kinomoto prepared to launch into a long explanation,only for Ruko to cheerfully go over and cover his mouth playfully. After a fewmoments of squirming, she released him, and grinned before going back to herseat. Kinomoto, to his credit, didn’t seem particularly fazed or annoyed as heblinked a little and then spoke again.
“In any case, the flowers that we do are just a littlething, really. The real beauty comes from the nature that was already herebefore us. I think that we should do something that highlights this to thegeneral public. Maybe then they’d understand how wonderful the earth is…”
“That would work.” Eriko agreed, and she wrote this on theboard, next to one of the arrows.
“I agree!” Tada said. “So, anything else??”
“What about a caféwith a different sort of theme? Like, a theme relating to the food?” Akirapiped up.
“So…what, like cakes specifically? Or maybe a particularkind of cuisine? Oooh, we could recreate an all-American diner! That would beso cool!!” Koujiro enthused.
“I think it would be cool if we could make food from adifferent culture.” Tsukuda commented, half shrugging.
“French food, maybe.” Eriko commented randomly. “Or perhapssomething else European? Italian cuisine is supposed to be good, I’ve heard.”
“Oh, it really is!” Haru agreed. “One of my uncles took meto an Italian restaurant downtown when I was about 12, and I really enjoyedit!”
“Yeah, I like those ideas too. “ Tada said. “My mother’sclass did a restaurant for their school festival, themselves, as it happens. Aramen one, to be specific.”
“Well, that’s rather ordinary.” Ayako sounded disappointed.
“What if I said that it was ramen made with ingredientssourced from this very forest?” When everyone stared at Izzy, he shrugged.
“I was talking to them the other day, and they happened tomention it.”
“Yeah, Izzy-kun’s right about that.”
“That’s pretty cool though! I don’t think I could have everthought of that!” Haru exclaimed.
“How come you didn’t suggest it yourself, Tada-Chan??” Rukowanted to know.
“I didn’t want to, well, overtake the festival or anything.It’s not just about me and my mother, it’s about all of us.”
“Still!” Tsukuda retorted. “You could have at least put iton the mindmap.”
“Well, I can always do that now.” Tada cheerily replied. Hecarefully wrote ‘themed restaurants’ next to another arrow, then did a fewother arrows coming off of that one, and wrote down some of the specific ideasmentioned, including that of the ramen. Then, he turned and invited more ideas.
“A games room?? Like, arcade games?”
“Something for kids?? Like, an interactive playground??”
“A mini movie theatre!”
“Maybe a shop?? We could make little things, pretty things,and sell them!”
“A kissing booth!!!”
“What about a mini concert?? We’ve got some musically talentedpeople here, after all!”
“Or we could put on a play!!!”
“A museum.”
It took a moment, but the quiet suggestionreached every corner of the classroom, and everyone else’s clamouring ceased.
This is from Chapter 48 (‘Welcome to the Museum’ part 1) of 'Ending the End Class’. As with Q7, I had trouble picking a particular dialogue scene from any of my fics, but I decided to choose this one, because I remember it vividly as a scene that came to me almost fully formed, from the moment I accepted Hana into the story’s cast. Certain things were tweaked as the cast formed more, and then as I wrote more of the story it evolved more, but even so, I had this very clear image of the conversation stopping with Hana’s suggestion of a museum, and what that would look like. And it was one of those scenes that, when I actually wrote it, it came out exactly as I envisioned.
There’s also a little snippet from the as-of-yet unpublished part 2B of my fic 'Before the Beginning, and After’. To be honest, though it’s probably not my objectively best work, emotionally it is-this fic is pretty precious to me and even though I’m about 100% sure nobody’s even reading it I’m really looking forward to finishing and publishing the final part. Anyway, though it’s still admittedly in a first-draft stage, meaning the final version may look a little different,here’s the particular snippet:
“I….I…..”
What, what do I say?What am I meant to think of this?
“If I did join the police out of school, can I say it’syou?”
“What?”
“If I was asked, ‘what made you want to join the police’ canI say that it was you, like you’d probably say that it was your uncle thatinspired you?” she explained.
There was a beat of silence after she said this, and onceagain she had the distinct sense that she had said something stupid. But to hersurprise, it was Naoko whose cheeks seemed to be red.
“Well, if that’s the truth, then there’s no reason for youto not say it.” She answered.
“Okay.”
It’s from the POV of the character Hanayo, talking to the other third-year in Niðavellir, Naoko, while they’re guarding the school one night, talking about their futures after graduating. Admittedly the full scene provides better context, but it’s essentially a look into the mind of a character who’s never really thought about her future and has always been afraid to-here, for the first time, she’s getting to think about her future in a way that actually shows her a glimmer of hope.
38.Talk about a review that made your day.
The very lovely CandiedStars left a wonderful review on my most recent chapter of the SHSL Survivors’ Society. I’d had a lot of trouble with writing that chapter, and knowing that someone really enjoyed it made me feel better about it. Not to mention, what a honour it is being the author of someone’s favourite SYOC!
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