NaNo '13

[erin_hime]

I know it’s a little late, but between writing and going to see Frozen in the middle of it, as well as working on a rather complex Lego set my boyfriend got at the Lego Store on Black Friday, which he was waiting for me to finish writing to start on, I didn’t really have much time to write up a journal for this year’s NaNo. Which is strange,

Comments

Re: Congratulations! (Part 2)

[erin_hime]

The first time I made Buttercup and outsider was when I gave her powers over metal…I think you made a comment about ‘there is no spoon’, which I misinterpreted. ^^; But yeah, the idea of her being an outsider just seems to have come from nowhere, really, but I love the idea. I probably could have done that angle a little better, especially since she’s an outsider in her village as well. That was something not planned, but I liked the idea of Buttercup being able to read, and then Robert obsessing over her because of it. I mean, no woman can read, and no man wants one that ca…except Robert, of course. And really, the dynamic between the two of them should have been vastly different…except they sort of liked each other (as in friendly liked) from the beginning, such that they were comfortable enough to strike up that initial friendship without the prejudice. The only issues they had was when they talked about culture, which Buttercup was annoyed with. But Robert (and Clover) was trusting enough to change their opinions whenever Buttercup pointed them out.

Yeah, when switching between POVs like I did, it’s sort of hard to keep track. The two books I read like that, it got a little confusing, and I feel like I should have done something consistent from the beginning, or at least from when they met up. I tried to make it clear from the start who was the main focus of the chapter, and it was fun to look at different perspectives of the same event sometimes. Granted, in most fantasy that’s third person, you can get into various perspectives, not just two, but I wanted to keep it fairly simple. But yeah, the main reason I wanted to do shifting POVs is because I saw the story starting off as Robert…and I wanted to put Buttercup’s POV in there as well. ^^; But yeah, when I decided to do the shifting, I thought it would be neat to see the trouble start within Buttercup’s world as well, so you could see how different yet similar the two kingdoms were. It was fun. :D

(I definitely wouldn’t have done it from Dante’s POV. Even before I was plotting the story, I was thinking of taking him out, sadly.)

I was fine with the plot until I reached the end, where I was pulling things out of my ass, and then looking at the outline and going whoops. >.< It sort of worked itself out, though, so it’s all good. I sort of like the idea of a one-shot as well, mostly because I’ve never done it, but I think Rick Riodan said it best when he said he liked to work in series because he always liked reading about familiar characters. Its like…you get emotionally invested in characters, and then it’s like…you can’t read about them again. With series, you get to revisit them again and again, and when it does conclude, it usually feels like a complete ending, if that makes any sense. Either way, I’d have to rewrite the ending of this. With a one-shot, I’d have to take out of the asspull ending, and with a series, I’d have to take out the wedding, and Buttercup worrying about it. ;P

The nice thing about it, though, is that I do like most of the story. It’s just that I’d have to rewrite the final battle and everything after, so consider that a first draft. >.< An easy way out. So don’t look too deeply at the way Aria acted. It might be healthier.

But yesh, I suppose the crossover ideas just come when we work with the same genre. The SE/Gatekeeper crossover ideas were just fun, but for the past two, we’ve been including them in our books, so they’re a little more canon. And I think it’s added a little more depth to our stories. I mean, how often does a world actually have several sets of gods, where their creation stories are still accurate in some way? Like, maybe the Lumentians just attributed Tara and Aquarius with creating the basic life because they don’t have a greater god like the Creator to explain where they came from, but all they really did was create dwarves and mermaids (and unicorns by accident in Tara’s case). But the creation of the sentient creatures is still accurate. I’m not sure about the Northrop creation story, but what if her god is just yet another Messenger who came down, and actually did become slightly evil? The possibilities!