Well, the rework has been in progress for a bit. Over the past few weeks on the few days time zones can sync, I've been wrangling the overall story with Suizo in order to get some clarity in this manuscript.
Work on continuing chapters for the original one for now has stopped. Though I've come up with better ideas and better mental imagery for the fight choreography, the truth is that I've grown troubled with continuing the story as it is. Not the project overall, just this rendition of it.
I understand why plenty of long term projects encourage its creators to not go back all the time and polish stuff. One of the greater struggles of any writing project is getting past the first chapter. In my honest opinion though the current manuscript has some good pieces, but ultimately a lot of failures in its efforts to deliver the vision as intended. Any writer who looks at their manuscript as they try to deliver it to a publishing house's editor would know what I'm talking about. When you look at your work you either know it's good enough or you know it's not. It's why it's kind of embarrassing to share rough material, but that's a good experience to go through as well.
Several hours of discussion has pointed out a few things and current efforts for the Rework (mass editing) will attempt to keep the good and drop the bad. Looking at the drafts I can see the starting of interesting ideas or characters, that honestly take far too long to truly express themselves. There are some parts such as Reader's appearance which are used for an impact reveal, and though it kind of works it isn't something that should have been stretched out so long. Other things become noticeable such as the appearance of the Twins. For a visual entity that is supposed to have such an impact as a form of antagonist it has such few descriptions given that those not working on the project or those who have not seen the images of the characters (of the few made) will likely struggle to come up with anything. There's plenty of mystery and there's bread crumb trail feeding to give answers and ask questions, but there are problems with the mystery element that both succeed and fail. Sure the result is surreal, but it can end up creating a type of detached-ness to it which isn't desired. Despite working with words it can be kind of hard to explain, so I'll leave it up to other readers to decide.
Since a lot of the original content was brainstorming prototypes written off the hook and thrown forward into a story, a keen eye should determine the weak points and failure stresses given enough looking. Ever saw one of those videos of robots that were designed to mimic walking? The early years where you watch those things try to run and they stumble, stilt and move with stiff gaits... They fall a lot. Sometimes you have to help them back up. That's what it feels like when I look back at these drafts. Take for instance the fact that the character Reader is called Reader. It might seem a bit odd, but the name was chosen at the time for an early concept that the longer we worked with started to fall from favor in comparison to another one. Despite this even as we discuss stuff for Rework it is common for us to slip and use the old name. It's that ingrained!
Suizo often struggles to explain why a part here or there doesn't seem good now that he's had a chance to look at it in more detail, but when he finally understands why and explains it to me it becomes obvious that 'this way' is better than the alternatives we come up with. In a session we spent 5 hours struggling to find out why one suggested path didn't sound good to him, in fact 5 or so different ways to write the story path failed to resonate. We agreed that I could make any of them work and so I wasn't against writing it in any of the directions suggested, but the question was whether or not we wanted the story to develop into 'that kind of story' or 'with these kinds of solutions'. Sounds like nitpicking? Sure, but a good story shines with polish just like a good blade. It's easy to take that for granted until you start noticing all the flaws in a product.
I'm kind of rambling... anyways, there's a lot that goes into this stuff. You might hear a lot in writing, "Kill your darlings" as advice. It means even if you like something, if it's not working in the story you get rid of it. Even if you have something you like, you have to be willing to do something to it else you won't have a story. ED Project's first iteration is likely to be left as is. The Rework, revamp, mass edits, w/e you want to call them is currently in progress.
For those who have gone through the chapters all the way to the end I want to thank you for coming along for the ride. If you're a little disappointed with the idea of having to start anew with these characters then I'm sorry haha ^-^;; But it's happening! I feel the new version will be better. It'll at least make more sense and be a more solid story since we have a better idea of the core elements of the story. The who, what, where, how and why's of it all.
I'm looking forward to it.
