I enjoyed this immensely, and although it could use some editing on formatting grounds (and to fix the few remaining typos, I think I caught maybe four in the whole thing), it's some of the best writing I've seen in any fanfic (not just KS).
Thanks. And as I said in this thread before: if there are any typos you spot, don't feel shy about pointing them out so I can correct them. In fact, if someone were to volunteer doing a thorough editing job on it, I might even repost the story at some point.
I certainly can appreciate the "I'll post it when it's done" ethic, especially when the poster actually comes through.
Well, that's the advantage of the approach. If I hadn't been able to finish the story, nobody would have known it existed in the first place.
I like being able to work without feeling the obligation towards others to keep going or feel the pressure of "Is this fic dead?" posts. That said, there are pros and cons to this approach.
Pros:
- No outside pressure for the writer. No feelings of being left hanging for the reader.
- Readers can read through the story at their own pace and aren't like "What happened again last chapter?" upon the release of a new chapter.
- The ability for the writer to have total control over ever part of his story until the finish, rather than being locked down by stuff that was written 10 chapters earlier.
- No need to say "Stay tuned, your question will be answered in the next chapter." to people questioning certain characters' actions.
Cons:
- Some people are intimidated when faced with a whole story at once and that keeps them from quickly jumping into it.
- No feedback on stuff until the very end. (I was lucky to already be rather familiar with the English language)
- No discussion on individual chapters. Most people reading a story of this size simply go with a "Great read" at the end.
That said, I'm glad I didn't read it until now. It probably would have had an excessive influence on my approach to Hanako as a character, might or might not have steered me away from the very rapid pacing of my own writing (can't say for sure, I was manic when I started writing the story and have kept up that kind of rapid-fire approach despite not usually being in that state), and might have dissuaded me from writing in the first place because this is a rather high bar to try to reach.
I can only cheer on the practice of trying to come up with one's own interpretation of the characters rather than relying on other works for that. There's nothing inherently wrong with fanon, but it shouldn't stifle fresh points of view.