Anne, OK. Ooh, Meldrick. Quite the challenge. I've never felt able, myself. But I can write Pembleton. I guess because he speaks like my little-used but still powerful "Of course, I belong here," voice.

Cool! I'll email you later this evening (I'm being unproductive at work, and I have no access to my fics, darn the luck).

Oddly enough, I find Meldrick easy to write, but cannot for the life of me write a convincing Pembleton.

Part of me must have the same speechifying instinct. And the same need to prove myself, not only as good, but superior. In my life, though, I don't get to act it out that often. And my voice is not as nice.

What's the highest level of education you've had?

BA, Honors English.

Did you do any *formal* (and by that I mean did you have assignments in school at any level) that required you to imitate a writer?

Oh yeah. Several. I know I had some poetry workshops in college where I had to imitate the style of a poet (Sharon Olds) -- and wow, was imitating poetry more difficult than prose. At least, for me.

I'm fairly certain I had some assignments in both high school and college where I had to write fiction in the style of a well-known author (Faulkner, I think). Mostly in intro to creative writing classes, as I remember. I think some professors considered it a tool for teaching students how to write by giving them something familiar to work with, followed by assignments where I had to write in a particular genre or format, like writing a surrealist play.

The prevalence of this teaching technique is surprising me. Honestly, I never heard of this before.

Honestly, I never heard of this before.

I hadn't either. It's kind of cool to know that it's really used quite a bit. Besides talking to you guys about it, I've also read three articles on the subject.

I'm in my fourth semester of college pursuing two BA's in Women's Studies and Communications. I'm actually taking my first English course this term, and I've never taken distinctive writing courses.

Somebody help me write a fight scene... what are some things I need to keep in mind?

I didn't finish a BA in Mass Communications and Public Relations. I didn't take many creative writing classes, though quite a few that were journalism-related. I've written quite a great deal of fanfic (comics- or TV- related), and written and sold some profic, which includes a Lewis Carroll pastiche ("Wonderland Express") that appeared in Fantastic Alice.

Somebody help me write a fight scene... what are some things I need to keep in mind?

Fight scenes are tricky because there is usually a lot of stuff going on that needs to be kept straight, while at the same time, describing all of that stuff in detail will slow down the pace of the story, which is very much not what you want to have happen during a fight scene.

One way I cope is by narrowing in the narrative focus onto one character's perception of what's going on. That character will only see/hear/encounter a fraction of what's going on, and won't necessarily understand what happened or why. Plus, the narrow focus will help keep you from accidentally overwhelming the reader with information and will rack up the suspense because the reader doesn't know everything that's happening.