This is the fourth post in the series where I critique the beginnings of my own stories, written long ago, and try to make them better. Here are the previous posts:
The usual method is to look at the first 250 words and examine/edit that excerpt in detail. But today I’ll do something different. I want to talk about some of the material that I cut from Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre, the Mass Effect fanfiction novel I finished last year, and explain why it never made it into the final version.
Continue reading An Exercise in Self-Critique 4
This is a very old version of chapter 1 of Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre, the Mass Effect fanfiction novel I finished in 2019, posted here as part of An Exercise in Self-Critique 4. Compare it to the official final version here.
A bright morning in Har Triste on Palaven. He’s standing on the edge of a crater, ankle-deep in the rubble. Where the Subourus Plaza used to be. The buildings around still stand. At angles. Burnt and punctured, shattered windows and naked armature. He can’t remember which war he’s fighting in, but war it is. His planet is under attack, his people suffering. Yet as he looks up at two winding missile tails in the serene yellow sky, he only thinks, it’s beautiful.
Continue reading Adrift (2012)
Two years before Eden Prime, Saren enlists Nihlus’s help to get an old friend out of some serious trouble. But it’s only the tip of the iceberg. How far will he go to ensure the success and secrecy of his misguided quest?
This is the story I timidly announced some time ago. I’ve been brewing the concept for it since 2013, but only dared try my hand with it now. Writing it was surprisingly smooth and easy (though it did take three months of daily work). It seems I’ve forgotten, again, what a joy it is to write new stories, compared to the struggle of continuing and/or salvaging the old. Despite the dark themes, The Precedent was a breath of fresh air.
Read it here, or on AO3.
Image: I was wrong by PaleCaesar
Saren woke to a nauseating headache. His eyelids were heavy as if shot with lead and it took him a while to lift them. He was back in the cabin. In the very center of the crime scene, in fact. Realizing he was on that same bed, lying on that pillow, he tried to crawl away, but his limbs lacked the strength and all he did was shuffle among the sheets.
“Calm down,” Nihlus said. “You’re alright.”
He was there, of course. Sitting on the chair with his feet propped on the desk. He was always there, for better or for worse.
Continue reading The Waking
I knew it, Nihlus thought. I bloody knew it.
Under the white sheet, Elethea lay, dead. Nihlus carefully wiped the crusted droplet of blood from the corner of her cold lips. Her arms were folded somewhat clumsily over her chest. The deathly stiffness was already settling in.
Continue reading The Aftermath
As the rented skycar sped away along the misty Citadel airway with Nihlus and Eleni tucked inside, Saren’s anxiety mounted. He retreated into the airlock, closed the outer hatch and locked it with a code Nihlus didn’t have. The ship was his, for the time. His and Elthe’s.
Continue reading The Deed