About the things I write . . .
It only just occurred to me that maybe I should say something about this, because it'd been so long since I wrote the character sketch for Darra that I found myself having to go back and check facts against that sketch when I was typing up Tru's story, but I tend to write things in waves, in bunches that feed off of each other and are informed by each other and that really make a whole lot more sense if you read them in their little groups, and there are things that tend to get . . . lost in translation, almost, if readers skip over things that were written in the same group. I probably should've said something about this before, but it's something that's just so obvious to me, as the author, that it didn't occur to me before that maybe I should clarify the point, for the sake of readers who aren't, well, me or my idea beta (who gets to listen to me rambling about stuff while I'm in the process of outlining/writing and knows to expect this kind of thing). Sorry about that, folks! Here's me correcting myself, since some of my stories tend to work like nesting dolls and almost need to be taken together as a set for the full effect.
This grouping effect is most obvious with my Star Wars character sketches, since most of the other things I write tend to be stories in series and are clearly marked as being such. So. If I'm writing about a specific family (like with Bail Organa's family, for example), the pieces will build off of each other and end up fitting together like the teeth of a set of gears (or links in a chainmail shirt), meshing into a bigger whole that's meant to reflect the overall family. This also holds true for the "family" units in the Order - that is, the Master-Padawan lines - so that Xanatos' character sketch will gain more layers of meaning if read with Qui-Gon's piece, which will in turn gain extra dimensions of meaning if read with Dooku's character study.
This holds true for classes of handmaidens of Naboo, too (romantic couples, as indicated in the notes, should be read back to back, if possible, and the specific classes of handmaidens should also be read as groups).
(And speaking of romantic pairings, Shmi Skywalker's character study also gains a bit by being read alongside Qui-Gon Jinn's character sketch, though not as much as, say, Breha Antilles Organa's piece gains from being read alongside of Bail Organa's character study.)
Perhaps more importantly, though, in the case of someone like Tru, the groups I write in for my SW characters sometimes includes agemates and friends at the Jedi Temple. So Tru's story makes more sense if read along with Darra's character study and will make even more sense (hopefully) if I ever get the blasted character sketch for *Ferus Olin* finished and posted so people can read that, too. Similarly, for Obi-Wan's friends, Bant and Garen and Reeft should be read together, and their stories will gain more if also read with Siri Tachi's piece and (if I ever get around to writing it) Quinlan Vos' character sketch.
Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that odds are that some of the SW character study pieces will end up meaning more and may even make more sense to folks if they're read as part of a larger group of stories, based on family ties and/or romantic pairings and/or strong bonds of friendship and/or other strong relationship bonds (as with the handmaiden classes). If people would keep that in mind as they're reading, it'll probably help give them a clearer picture of the characters in question and how they fit in the larger 'verse of the You Became to Me series. And if anyone has any questions about this, let me know, and I'll try to get back to you with a comprehensible response, okay?
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*While I'm on the subject, a word to the wise about Ferus and his character study piece (which I'm hoping to work on some this weekend). About a year to a year and a half ago, I was merrily working my way through a whole list of SW people I felt like I needed to do character study pieces for when my Grandma got sick and we had a scare with her having to be hospitalized and it eventually turned out that she needed to start having regular dialysis treatments, because apparently if you have rheumatoid arthritis and it's bad enough over a long enough period of time it can cause amyloidosis that damages your kidneys. So I was going through kind of a rough time because I was worried about her, and I was just finishing Darra's piece and about to start on first Ferus and then Tru when we had the scare with the hospital. As a result, that group of character sketches turned out a lot darker in some ways (and a bit more violent/gory, in Tru's case) than I originally thought they would.
In the case of Ferus Olin, for some odd reason, what I ended up with was so dark that I told my idea beta literally one disturbing thing from the story and she freaked out and flatly told me that this was not a person we would be able to try to redeem at any point later on in the over-arching 'verse that these character sketches belong to (the You Became to Me series). She gently but firmly suggested setting Ferus aside until I was in a slightly better frame of mind, and I did so, fully intending to go back and write a second version of that piece for him, but things happened and before I knew it, it was NaNo time, and all of my character study pieces fell by the wayside in favour of the NaNo project (which I am ashamed to admit in turn fell by the wayside, somewhere around when it was reaching the 300,000 word mark, because of the project I was working on when I found out about my dad having cancer, which I'm pretty darn sure will never be finished, since I can't stand to even think about it too hard anymore because of all the bad mental/emotional connotations it has now).
Anyway. Long story short, I never did get the Ferus Olin piece rewritten so that the character would fit in my main SW AU 'verse. The thing is, though, that character sketch as originally written (dark and violent and rather disturbing though it is) would fit or mostly/almost fit with the 'verse that's supposed to host my next NaNo project, the MCoD or Massive Crossover o' DOOM (as my idea beta and I call it, when discussing possibilities for the story come November, when we aren't laughing about how I should call it the Saving Benighted Souls 'verse, that is). MCoD's Ferus is going to be a lot darker than the Ferus in my You Became to Me series is. So. What I'm hoping to do, between now and November, is to get the original piece as I wrote it for Ferus Olin typed up and posted, and then get a reworked version for the You Became to Me series written and posted.
I get the feeling that the original version of the Ferus Olin character sketch may end up being too dark even for the MCoD, but I figure if that turns out to be the case it can just stand on its own, like that weird "Dormé in Darkness" thing I wrote ages ago does. Either way, odds are that the next story that gets posted to my LJ won't be the version of the Ferus Olin character piece that should be read along with Darra's and Tru's character sketches, okay? When I do get the version of Ferus' character study for the You Became to Me series written and posted, I will be sure to label it clearly as belonging to that 'verse, so that people can read it with the Darra piece and the Tru piece, alright? And if I go completely insane and decide to do three versions of Ferus, I will mark each one clearly so that readers will know which version is meant to be for You Became to Me, which one is the version of Ferus who'll be in the MCoD, and which one is just the insanely dark version of Ferus, alright? And again, if anyone has any questions, please just let me know!
PS: The next time I try to post an update on my SW stuff with links to everything, I will try very hard to group things in such a way that readers can tell which character sketches are meant to be read together, okay?
This grouping effect is most obvious with my Star Wars character sketches, since most of the other things I write tend to be stories in series and are clearly marked as being such. So. If I'm writing about a specific family (like with Bail Organa's family, for example), the pieces will build off of each other and end up fitting together like the teeth of a set of gears (or links in a chainmail shirt), meshing into a bigger whole that's meant to reflect the overall family. This also holds true for the "family" units in the Order - that is, the Master-Padawan lines - so that Xanatos' character sketch will gain more layers of meaning if read with Qui-Gon's piece, which will in turn gain extra dimensions of meaning if read with Dooku's character study.
This holds true for classes of handmaidens of Naboo, too (romantic couples, as indicated in the notes, should be read back to back, if possible, and the specific classes of handmaidens should also be read as groups).
(And speaking of romantic pairings, Shmi Skywalker's character study also gains a bit by being read alongside Qui-Gon Jinn's character sketch, though not as much as, say, Breha Antilles Organa's piece gains from being read alongside of Bail Organa's character study.)
Perhaps more importantly, though, in the case of someone like Tru, the groups I write in for my SW characters sometimes includes agemates and friends at the Jedi Temple. So Tru's story makes more sense if read along with Darra's character study and will make even more sense (hopefully) if I ever get the blasted character sketch for *Ferus Olin* finished and posted so people can read that, too. Similarly, for Obi-Wan's friends, Bant and Garen and Reeft should be read together, and their stories will gain more if also read with Siri Tachi's piece and (if I ever get around to writing it) Quinlan Vos' character sketch.
Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that odds are that some of the SW character study pieces will end up meaning more and may even make more sense to folks if they're read as part of a larger group of stories, based on family ties and/or romantic pairings and/or strong bonds of friendship and/or other strong relationship bonds (as with the handmaiden classes). If people would keep that in mind as they're reading, it'll probably help give them a clearer picture of the characters in question and how they fit in the larger 'verse of the You Became to Me series. And if anyone has any questions about this, let me know, and I'll try to get back to you with a comprehensible response, okay?
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*While I'm on the subject, a word to the wise about Ferus and his character study piece (which I'm hoping to work on some this weekend). About a year to a year and a half ago, I was merrily working my way through a whole list of SW people I felt like I needed to do character study pieces for when my Grandma got sick and we had a scare with her having to be hospitalized and it eventually turned out that she needed to start having regular dialysis treatments, because apparently if you have rheumatoid arthritis and it's bad enough over a long enough period of time it can cause amyloidosis that damages your kidneys. So I was going through kind of a rough time because I was worried about her, and I was just finishing Darra's piece and about to start on first Ferus and then Tru when we had the scare with the hospital. As a result, that group of character sketches turned out a lot darker in some ways (and a bit more violent/gory, in Tru's case) than I originally thought they would.
In the case of Ferus Olin, for some odd reason, what I ended up with was so dark that I told my idea beta literally one disturbing thing from the story and she freaked out and flatly told me that this was not a person we would be able to try to redeem at any point later on in the over-arching 'verse that these character sketches belong to (the You Became to Me series). She gently but firmly suggested setting Ferus aside until I was in a slightly better frame of mind, and I did so, fully intending to go back and write a second version of that piece for him, but things happened and before I knew it, it was NaNo time, and all of my character study pieces fell by the wayside in favour of the NaNo project (which I am ashamed to admit in turn fell by the wayside, somewhere around when it was reaching the 300,000 word mark, because of the project I was working on when I found out about my dad having cancer, which I'm pretty darn sure will never be finished, since I can't stand to even think about it too hard anymore because of all the bad mental/emotional connotations it has now).
Anyway. Long story short, I never did get the Ferus Olin piece rewritten so that the character would fit in my main SW AU 'verse. The thing is, though, that character sketch as originally written (dark and violent and rather disturbing though it is) would fit or mostly/almost fit with the 'verse that's supposed to host my next NaNo project, the MCoD or Massive Crossover o' DOOM (as my idea beta and I call it, when discussing possibilities for the story come November, when we aren't laughing about how I should call it the Saving Benighted Souls 'verse, that is). MCoD's Ferus is going to be a lot darker than the Ferus in my You Became to Me series is. So. What I'm hoping to do, between now and November, is to get the original piece as I wrote it for Ferus Olin typed up and posted, and then get a reworked version for the You Became to Me series written and posted.
I get the feeling that the original version of the Ferus Olin character sketch may end up being too dark even for the MCoD, but I figure if that turns out to be the case it can just stand on its own, like that weird "Dormé in Darkness" thing I wrote ages ago does. Either way, odds are that the next story that gets posted to my LJ won't be the version of the Ferus Olin character piece that should be read along with Darra's and Tru's character sketches, okay? When I do get the version of Ferus' character study for the You Became to Me series written and posted, I will be sure to label it clearly as belonging to that 'verse, so that people can read it with the Darra piece and the Tru piece, alright? And if I go completely insane and decide to do three versions of Ferus, I will mark each one clearly so that readers will know which version is meant to be for You Became to Me, which one is the version of Ferus who'll be in the MCoD, and which one is just the insanely dark version of Ferus, alright? And again, if anyone has any questions, please just let me know!
PS: The next time I try to post an update on my SW stuff with links to everything, I will try very hard to group things in such a way that readers can tell which character sketches are meant to be read together, okay?