TheGoatman wrote:So, it's not cancelled per say, it's being rewritten from scratch? Cancelled implies it's over and done with but you just said you're redoing it.
It's cancelled as a "route", which implies a single POV (usually Hisao's), and sometimes multiple endings. It is being rewritten in much the same way a book is rewritten to make a screenplay -- and just like a screen rewrite, the end result may or may not be fairly faithful to the original. I am also abandoning chapter titles for simply the name of the character whose turn it is to narrate. Lately I've been completely engrossed with the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, and having finished "A Dance With Dragons"
and after re-watching all three seasons of "Game of Thrones", I've decided there are some
enormous advantages to the narrative style used there. Rotating through the POV characters allows the opportunity to reveal their reasoning, opinions, and motivations, without necessarily bringing them to the notice of other characters. It also allows for misdirection, as a character can only narrate their own perception of reality (which often differs considerably from the truth). It also allows for the reverse -- having characters lie to one another
without misdirecting the reader. It allows characters to be more likeable, since they have a strong tendency to reflect themselves positively in their own inner monologue.
Here, have a sample chapter.
-------------------------------------
NEKO
What kind of twisted, rat-bastard psychotic is hammering at 7 am on a Sunday? I try to pull my spare pillow over my head, but I realize the pounding is coming from inside my head, not outside the room. Dust motes dance in a laser beam of sunlight streaming through my window, and the light glints green and white as it refracts through something at the corner of my eye. Rolling back slightly to get a better look, I see that there is a bottle of Midori on the nightstand, about two thirds empty. It has a fallen brother on the floor. I also notice that there is something – no, make that
someone – lying behind me.
Miki Miura is blissfully unaware of the ruckus in my head, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to suffer through this indignity alone. I toss back the covers and slowly raise myself to a vertical position, taking great care not to accelerate the inevitable nausea that comes with a solid hangover. After glancing down to make sure I’m not completely exposing myself to the world, I hop across the room and draw the curtains tightly shut.
Much better. At least now my head is being split from merely one direction rather than two.
While assembling myself for the morning pilgrimage to the bathroom, I see a third, unidentified empty bottle has rolled into a corner. I don’t remember drinking
that much last night, but frankly, I’m a little fuzzy on the whole event. I stop to conceal the dead soldiers in a paper bag and toss the partial into my fridge. I set my alarm clock to roughly emulate a 747 at takeoff two minutes from now and hightail it out of there as fast as one good leg will take me.
I’m still brushing the taste of death out of my mouth when the bathroom door opens.
“The fuck was
that, gaylord?”
I keep brushing, spit, rinse, spit again. “Oh my, did I wake up before the alarm again? Sorry about that.”
She pushes her way past me toward the shower area, pausing long enough to thump me on the back of the head with her stump. “Have I told you lately that you totally suck?”
“Only daily. Or when you want me to suck harder.”
She brushes her teeth in the shower, which is a damn fine sight well worth the waste of water, then lathers up. I feast my eyes on her graceful and athletic (yet still nicely bouncy) curves and bronzed tone and realize I haven’t forgotten
that many of last night’s events. I hang my nightshirt over a hook and heel-toe my way into the shower as well. Hopping on wet tiles with a hangover is likely to earn me a concussion.
“Make way for the Dread Pirate Rogers,” I say as I slide up against her back. “Or not.”
She turns to face me and makes a show of raising her arms behind her head and stretching. I’d kill for a figure like that, and she knows it. Her 15 cm height advantage over me works to her further advantage as she flaunts her assets.
Although the past year has seen her make great strides at living with one hand, she’s still got some catching up to do when it comes to creative use of a stump. Turning my short stature to my advantage, I take the opportunity to remind her of that fact. Her moans seem to indicate that she appreciates the lesson, but she interposes her hand and whispers, “Not here, not now. I have to check on Snoozu.”
“Have I told you lately that you totally suck?”
?
.