"Breathing"--Author's Commentary

[ailis_fictive]

This one...whoa.  I really don't know where this came from, except that I was reading some fic about Simon and Aral, around Escobar and after, and a few things that touched on the Aral/Ges relationship, and then I got the first line and the last line for this, and had to put together enough middle for them to fit around.

This was my first Simon PoV, and it's rather addictive; I'm working on a much longer piece.  I finally figured out that part of the reason Simon wants to be in present tense (I can write in past tense, truly I can!) is something to do with his chip-recall, and the fact that the past is as accessible as the present to him, and in much the same way.  Which is possibly my rationalization of the fact that I cannot write him in past tense.  Believe me, I have tried!  He's in such a neat--well, awful--position here, privileged and powerless.

The Ges/Aral relationship interests me, because it is so broken--and in such odd directions.  I'm not sure I could write much more of it than this--I can write broken, but I have trouble with monster.  I'd probably end up having to write an epic about why Ges ended up the way he did, and I don't want to give him that much head-space.  He's of interest to me mainly as he illuminates some of Aral's fracture-lines--which, of course, is what I'm playing with here.  I hope it's worked.

This piece was actually conceived as part of a thematic set--most of which has not yet been written, so I don't want to go into it too much.  Writerly superstition.  All the bits are self-contained ficlets, though, so you're not missing any context!

(timing notes, written early Oct '12, posted 12/5/12, author's commentary written in a haze of fatigue 12/5/12.)

eta: so far, these are going up without beta.  I welcome comments, and if anybody is interesting in beta-reading for me...the longer stuff I'm not going to post without at least one set of eyes on it that aren't mine.

Comments

[hedda62]

Interesting about Simon and present tense. I can see where that comes from, though I tend to write him in past which is my default anyway (except for some visual fandoms) though I have slipped into present when writing Simon on occasion (and had to go back and fix); odd that.

I'd be happy to do some beta-reading. You can contact me at [user name] at gmail dot com.

[ailis_fictive]

Yeah, I figured the present tense thing out a couple of days ago, working on Simon/Aral (which has acquired the working title Recoil, as it's the only thing I've come up with that's not an awful pun, a melodramatic quotation, or, in one wretched case, both.) I'm not sure I'm right--but Ekaterine is perfectly happy to stay in past tense, and Varader Tau fought me on it but I won. Simon...I got about two lines of Recoil out in past tense, and it was awful.

Thank you--I will probably shoot you an email.

[avanti_90]

Interesting - the same thing happened to me in 'Oathbreaker'. Past tense is my default and all the other fics in that series are in past tense, but Simon simply insisted on being present tense. It was a very weird feeling, and yes, is probably due to the chip.

[philomytha]

Writing Ges is fascinating in a trainwrecky kind of way. I kind of like writing him, but not for long stretches - every time I write him I think 'not doing that again' but then I come back again for another try. And - well, broken vs monster is often a lot to do with how closely you're looking.

A little typo in the first sentence: 'lass oxygen'.

As for Simon during this period - oh yes, a privileged view of everything that happens, absolute access - but no ability to do anything about it. Awful for him, neat to write about :-).

[ailis_fictive]

Argh, thank you. That gave me the excuse to also go back in and fix the one place where I used almost the right word ("the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning"...thank you , Mr. Twain.)

Train-wreck...just about covers it. I'm not sure I'm capable of not looking fairly closely at any character I'm trying to do justice to (as opposed to this piece, which is about how Aral feels about Ges, and how Simon feels about watching, and Ges is just the motor that makes the story go)...and I'm back around to the fact that I do not want to give him that much of my brain. Broken can be interesting, but Ges doesn't break in ways that I want to investigate.

Huh. I almost wonder if the Aral/Simon thing (which has acquired the working title Recoil, as it's the only thing I've come up with that's not an awful pun, a melodramatic quotation, or, in one wretched case, both) is me trying to give Simon back some agency. For a piece ostensibly about Simon and Aral, I'm spending a lot of time looking at Simon dealing with other people, and...huh [thinky thoughts about plot shape here] I hope that now I'm figuring this out I won't break it. Sometimes I'm a better writer (at least of first drafts) when I don't know what I"m doing.