ooooo. This works, really well. It does lay things out a bit more clearly than the original, but I don't think it's given too much away at all. Especially with Chris being, as you said, an unreliable narrator.
I'm glad you think it still retains some mystique! That's actually a problem I've been working on for-EVER, that balance between half-articulated and totally confusing. *g*
You keep the same 'spikiness' of tone, but with the subtle differences that go with a first person POV - Chris second-guessing himself, or correcting himself, which doesn't happen in 3rd. And yes, there's a bit more made explicit, I suppose because in 1st your narrator can hide things, but in 3rd, things can be hidden without it being made clear that they're hidden... um. I think this is a little bit more likeable, in tone, again probably because of that distance in the original - it's not an intimate 3rd POV.
It's interesting how different it feels to write, isn't it!
Oh, neat. I wasn't sure if Chris would come off more reprehensible or more sympathetic, and I'm glad it was the latter. You're very right about what exactly stays hidden depending on what POV is used!
Ohhh - interesting. The shape of your writing is so distinctive - and if I say 'fragements of mirror' it's going to sound pretentious, but that is what it puts me in mind of - so much so that I had to concentrate to see the shift from third to first. That 'guys like me' in the first para threw me entirely.
Eeep, I never responded to this! But thank you -- it's definitely interesting to hear the way my writing strikes other people. "Fragments of mirror" is AWESOME. *g*
The way I envision your writing, by the by, is like nailpolish. You know in magazine articles when they're analyzing different polishes, how they have photographs of the polish spilled out of the bottle? You know how the shiny, metallic polishes are like these tapestries of flat pearls, each perfectly contained and with unexpected shimmery bits? Exactly like that!
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It's interesting how different it feels to write, isn't it!
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Oh, neat. I wasn't sure if Chris would come off more reprehensible or more sympathetic, and I'm glad it was the latter. You're very right about what exactly stays hidden depending on what POV is used!
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The way I envision your writing, by the by, is like nailpolish. You know in magazine articles when they're analyzing different polishes, how they have photographs of the polish spilled out of the bottle? You know how the shiny, metallic polishes are like these tapestries of flat pearls, each perfectly contained and with unexpected shimmery bits? Exactly like that!
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