Concerning Systems · 12:58am Jul 31st, 2016
Alright, so this chapter has been a difficult one to write for sure.
Chapter 49 Spoilers below you've been warned.
In a nutshell, I've been looking at Memoirs as a story primarily about young Starswirl, but that shouldn't be the case. Young Starswirl is this isolated character that I've had a lot of fun with, however, there's another protagonist to the story: Narrator Starswirl. It's a memoir, a recollection of past events, and I feel like I should be using that to our advantage moving forward. That's why this chapter has a bit more of a reflective somber note at its end. I've, regrettably, been neglecting showing narrator Starswirl's persona, and it's one that's integral to the story.
Let's just say that, without spoiling anything else in the story going forward, I caught this at just the right time. Memoirs hasn't suffered measurably because of this oversight, and I have a whole laundry list of things that are going to fit much better with this perspective.
I dunno, maybe you'll find this interesting to read about. I guess it's proof that this is a multifaceted story with a lot of depth, some of which will be revealed more clearly in the future.
Maybe Do what "home for the weak" does which has the intro foreword note say whether it's happening before or after certain point and jump around in time.
4123230 I may end up doing something like that. My aside system works well enough, at least, I think it does, but Narrator Starswirl doesn't have much character development at all. Thanks for the suggestion!
I'm thinking "book three" will be ride with things that narrator Starswirl will be commentating on, for and everyhing before here has been pretty straightforward narration. So yeah. You did catch this at the perfect time.
4123720 I still haven't quite pinned down how I'm going to approach book 3. However, if you want to know a secret, everything in book two thus far kinda happened out of thin air. I checked my outline yesterday and realized part 2's outline and, no shit, the last 50,000 words is literally a single bullet point in a sub point for book two.
The best part, the next bullet point is completely blank, iii though, is a major spoiler that I ain't tellin no one.
To be honest, Memoirs hasn't really felt like a late-in-life collection of memories as all the details are entirely too sharp, up to and including full verbatim conversations. Adding to that, there are very few personal thoughts and commentary on the events leading to a feeling that the memoirs are told from a recent first person past tense than through the filter of a lifetime of experience.
Mind, I'm not complaining. I've thoroughly enjoyed the story thus far and look forward to more.
4123868 yeah, I've noticed this as well. I've got a few solutions I could employ to fill this minor hole, but if I had made it feel more like a memoir it would have been 1000 words long or so. (source: I wrote this concept out a long time ago at that scale)