Signs you're reading a story by me

[altariel]

1. At least half of it is by TS Eliot.
2. Much of the rest is by Wilfred Owen. And I call it "intertextuality" rather than "ripping off other people".
3. The climax is whether or not someone will kill someone else.
4. A male character will be struggling with a dysfunctional relationship with his father; the cycle is broken later in life through a functional relationship with a daughter.
5. "Why," asked the beta reader, "do you insist on breaking up dialogue with pointless speech tags? The effect," she added, "has long worn thin."
6. Everyone bangs on about politics all the time. Or bureaucracy (unnoticed by me until recently, when gair pointed it out). Basically, it's all about authority.
7. Italics are overused for emphasis.
8. It's an AU.
9. There's probably torture, or at least some interrogation or politicized betrayal.
10. Involving Garak.