#i'm not going to select paragraph after paragraph 😑

[jenseits-der-sterne]

for the writing ask game: 4, 5, and 6?

Woo! Let's gooooo!

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

I really love a bit from Under the Surface. The fic is post-Calamity. Zelda and Link haven't been getting along, feeling awkward and unsure of each other. That leads to this paragraph that I really like:

During their second evening in Kakariko, she steals glances at him as he converses with Impa’s guards. To watch him like this is a revelation: Link chatting… Link laughing at a joke… Link gesturing as he recounts some story she cannot hear... And, oh goodness! Link catching her watching him, his eyes wide… Link giving her a tentative smile, a shy and fragile thing… Zelda flushes, and has to look away.

I wanted there to be a surprising and shy scene that would signal the beginning of a positive direction for their relationship. 

I remember @littleredwritinghoodxx pointed out this paragraph to me in a review as being so simple and so effective and that really was great feedback because to let me know it had worked as a whole scene essentially squished down into a paragraph!

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

This answer is going to get long, brace yourself!

Both BotW Zelda and Link, lol 

Like Zelda, I can get really passionate about science, which for me is linguistics. I can really ramble about this and go down rabbit holes looking into something.

I fear upsetting my dad, that I'm going to offend him in some way. A couple of months ago I was paralyzed over how I should organize family photos on our dining room wall because I was certain he was going to read meaning into the photo placement and say something shitty to me about it. I was overreacting and being sort of unfair to him, but also... he does do things like this sometimes!

Like Zelda, I think I often don't recognize something about my own behavior that may not be the most charming. When I wrote Under the Surface, I was trying to explore times where I've realized my behavior wasn't great, where I've realized some of my ways of thinking may be a good thing in some circumstances, but can actually be a bad thing in other circumstances. In that story, she starts to "over-engineer" the problem and then has to recognize she's doing it and make herself stop.

When I was in my senior year of high school, I didn't have a lunch period because I was taking too many classes 😑 Yup. That was a bad idea in hindsight 😂 But it's probably something Zelda would do too because she'd have to LEARN ALL THE THINGS!

There are Zelda scenes Before and After that Very Me. There's one scene in ch20 where Zelda begins to cry after Link tells her the letter she wrote for King Dorephan is good. Link's like "AH, WHAT?! WHAT'S WRONG?!" Zelda explains she was anxious he was going to tell her the letter was, in fact, bad. In this case, I'm definitely Zelda. I can be anxious about feedback and I assume the worst.

Oh boy, Link... So. I was a pretty quiet kid? Certainly not in a clinical sense of selective mute-ism, but I was a different person at home versus outside of the home. At home I was the kind of kid who was bouncing off the walls, but at school I was very quiet and obedient. My husband has watched home videos of me as a kid and he's like "whoa, you were kind of wild, weren't you?" He's right: I was jumping on the couches, climbing all over stuff, singing, and generally just being a huge goof ball. I think this was surprising to him because when he and I met in high school, I was generally pretty quiet in both school and friend group settings. I think this is still somewhat the case for me now, especially in situations with weird power dynamics. I'm lucky to have some colleagues who sometimes slack me after meetings and check in on if I'm okay if I was particularly quiet in a meeting 🥺 💖

Also, I joined high school JROTC and I'm 100% sure Link would do the same thing, lmao I have a High School AU WIP fic with a JROTC!Link that's been on the back burner for me for a long time now. Who knows when I'll get to that, lol

Also, I was a horse girl and Link's a horse girl 🐴

I think I've injected a lot of myself into Before and After Link, as well. My husband has read some of the story and when he read these lines in Ch5, he said Link’s thoughts were Very Me:

Dorian gives you a look, his brows set and arms crossed, “Our past mistakes don’t define us.” Those are your words that he’s throwing back at you.

You hold his gaze for a moment before responding with a non-committal hum. You meant those words when you said them to him. Sometimes it’s easier to be kinder to others than yourself.

When he told me this, I was surprised. But this is definitely the sort of thing I would say and think, so go figure!

Wow, that was a really long and rambling answer, huh? lol

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Oh gosh... Link and Zelda! I don’t think I could possibly narrow it down to one of them! I have fun writing them together, obviously, lol

I’ve had a lot of fun writing Impa in “Before and After,” because she’s antagonistic to Link and Zelda pretty frequently, but she’s also got a softer side and there’s one particularly emotional and sweet moment I really like shared between her and Link. When I write more B&A and especially in the planned sequel fic, Impa’s going to remain antagonistic but supportive and I’m looking forward to writing that!

I’ve also had fun with the scenes in B&A that have Koko and Cottla. 

The most I’ve written with the champions was in be B&A. I’ve found Urbosa to be fun in the few scenes she’s shown up in. I’d like to try to write more with Urbosa... maybe that’ll happen one day in some story! Revali was also surprisingly fun to write in the single scene he’s been in in B&A.

I did have fun writing Traysi in The Story Mill for those 2.5 chapters that are in her POV.

So... idk! I’ve had fun with A LOT of characters. But Link and Zelda are for sure the most fun for me to write. 😄

Thank you so much for these @ink-and-moonbeams, this was fun! 🥰

#ask game #ask #ink-and-moonbeams #my writing #my fics #under the surface #before and after #the story mill