... fresh perspectives

I got my first lump of feedback from a new critic today. He pointed out three issues.

The first is with the opening narration. He says that this is fine for a pulp fantasy novel, but for literature it should be avoided. Not a problem per say, but with the way the story is written it seems to deserve a less cliche opening.

The biggest problem he had was with Ghost's humor.

His personality doesn't really feel consistent to me; sometimes he's rational and cold-blooded, but sometimes his internal monologue is too silly, too self-deprecating; it breaks the immersion for me. I think having a sarcasting internal monologue is good, but he goes too far, and combined with the repeated bumbling/falling down/etc, it seems more like slapstic comedy than anything else. It ruins the tension, but isn't funny enough to be comic relief, really.

Sounds like I need to do another revision.

He had the most to say about Nightfall though, and the confusion, contradictions, and otherwise obscurity (not in a good way) of the character's presentation. I couldn't find anything I disagreed with. Oie, more work!

... wheee, new poll

Not much to say other than that I may have gained a few new critics. That might spark me into some progress... but dromed's hold on me right now is pretty firm. I added a new poll - now VOTE!

... on hold? stalled? dead?

Time to fill in this blank.

I moved. I created an online cv/portfolio for my game design job hunt. I learned UnrealEd and 3dsMax. I resumed work in dromed. I have not been working on COT.

I am a little discouraged about it, thinking again that I don't really know what would make all of the work I've done worth it. I don't even really know what worth it would mean. I continue to grapple with the "fanfictions ought not to be written" concept versus the "this isn't really a fanfiction, it's something else" fantasy and the "I am really only doing this for practice and experience" excuse. On top of it all is the higher truth that I don't need to pretend this is something it isn't, I don't need to justify it to anyone, and I wouldn't have already spent so much time on if if it wasn't worth it to myself merely writing it. Noone will read it who doesn't actually want to and the only ones who will ridicule it will be the ones who don't actually want to read it.

It all comes back to Daneel Todulem. I am going to change the name. The question is... am I changing it because I think I should, or because I want to? The truth is that I like the new name I came up with more than that name - but is it honest to do so? Why pretend that this is something it isn't? Why disguise it? Will it make the story more accessible to people if they do not believe that one of the six main characters is "played by" the author? Maybe it will.

I also can't forget this truism: you can only be at your best when you're taking yourself the least seriously.

... who do you want to see?

I've been putting off this offer for a while now, because I am too indecisive about who I want to see. An artist whom I have worked with extensively has offered to do sketches of COT characters, on the basis that this would be concept art, and not fan art. (This means that her work would then become what that character actually looks like, and reflected in either the remaining chapters or revisions if they happen).

I am still indecisive, so I'll ask my (probably only three) blog readers. Who would you like to see?

... poll results on the pole

Looks like two polls have expired in the mean time. The first makes it clear that most of the people here (a whopping five of you) think that scenes set in OM locations are good for the story. Well, that's good, because there's a bunch of them!

The second poll about loose ends was split 2/2 between what would essentially be a COT2 that was a "second season" and a COT2 that is a sequel. (The third option would have been more like COT2 as a spin-off). Even though it's a tie, it sounds like most people don't want things wrapped up in a neat little bow. Well, I can promise you that, but because I have no idea if or when I'll do COT2, there's no way I am going to leave anything big unfinished at the end of COT.

Any ideas for a new poll? There's only two votes for the last open one. I don't think anyone reads this blog anymore.

... writer's block?

I took a break from writing for about two and a half weeks. More? I don't know. Having a hard time getting back into it. Ugh.

Supplemental: Okay, I managed to finish up the section I had stopped in the "middle" of. Now let's see if I can write the next section... one thing at a time.

... into the unknown

After too many days of banging my head and two crashes resulting in lost work, the first section of Chapter 18 is finished. It picks up right where 17 left off, with James and Jyre, because (you should know this by now) I find cliffhangers to be a rather dull and cheap tactic. Chapt 17 sort of ended in one, so I decided the first thing I needed to do was continue that, rather than force the reader to spend several hours with another character before finally getting it. I don't know how anyone else feels about it, but I begin to resent some characters when an author chooses to switch to what they're up to at the very moment when the one we had been following for the last chapter has become extremely interesting.

Chapter 18 has the dubious honor of mirroring events that were cut from the original COT, only to end up (probably) being read far more than COT actually was. I am talking about the excerpt that was included in Thumper's Guide to the Strange and Unusual. I edited it out of the original because I felt that it contained too many direct and obvious references to the work of H.P.Lovecraft, a nod to the Cthulhu statue seen in the original mission, The Lost City. (The authors for James and Jyre were both fans.) I felt it appropriate to include in the rewrite because of its probably infamy as part of the guide, the fact that I've now read some Lovecraft and actually know what it's all about, and because it was one of the few parts of James and Jyre's adventure where something actually happens. Of course, don't expect it to go anything like it does as seen in the strange and unusual guide.

The Ultima Underworld references, on the other hand, I did without.

... can I write something new, now?

After two heavily edited sections, one totally new one, and two new segues, I think this last back of revisions is actually done. This one was a bit unusual... before all of the revisions were to bring the older chapters up to date with the facts, and quality of the later chapters. In this case it was to outright change the way something happened, and introduce some totally new ideas that (while they don't come out of left field, it's still an organic progression) I decided I wanted to introduce earlier in the story.

I'm really tired.

Oh yeah, and with these revisions, the story actually broke 400,000 words. Scary.

... more revisions, meh

I haven't been able to get much work done this week, and I don't think that's going to change, due to some family affairs. I intend to take a hiatus from civilization after this, which should let me entrench myself in some thiefy atmosphere and a writing mood. I hope.

As I mentioned in the last post, the side effect of outlining the final chapters has been more revisions. Again, it has to do with Sheam (go figure?) but this time it's because I need to change a small aspect about what happens at the end of Chapter 16, which was shoehorned from the start, seemed forced during the revision, and in retrospect while planning the next chapters, simply doesn't work. On the other hand I am taking this opportunity to do more work on the chapter in general, as benefited from a new understanding of where the story is going, as only finally writing it down in an orderly fashion can generate. It won't be a huge change or an addition, just a bit of a smoother transition into new territory we need to get into, and a chance to visit with a character who was mentioned and described in great detail, but I realised was impossible to meet without having him make an appearance sometime before chapter 18. He's much more pertinent to COT2, but I've decided that making a big deal about something (or someone) only to never hear about it again is probably a bad idea - especially if it's just a setup for something in COT2.

Also, and embarrassingly, I've finally corrected all the times where I mistakenly called Othello "Oberon". I can see how that would be confusing.

... going back to go forward

As I was deciding what to put into the final chapters today I wound up adding two new sections to previous chapters. I hadn't wanted to do more revision, but I found that there were some things that needed to be in (not events, but character development type scenes) which I did not want to put into the final chapters - they needed to be dealt with much earlier in the story. The end result was a new rather long Sheam section in Chapter 12, and a new segue before chapter 14. Sometimes you need to go back in order to go forward.

Blah blah blah.

... concerning finishing

While the actual writing of the end of the story is still many weeks away, I am trying to outline the concluding chapters, which means that I have a pretty good idea of how the story is going to end (one would only hope, right?). The pole about multiple endings is drawing to a close, with most people interested in separate, personal endings for the six characters, though not necessarily symmetrical endings. Of course, the plan is to not actually tell anyone what the plan is for the ending.

I started up a new poll, concerning what is to come. Since COT2 is what inspired the rewrite to begin with, it seems logical to assume that COT2 is in the cards. Of course, as long as I am not getting paid for this, nothing is set in stone - but it's still worth thinking about. Basically, it comes down to this. Even if I never write a COT2, the "lives" of the characters and the world they live in will go on after the final chapter of COT is set in stone. The plot for COT2 has been decided for years, and though it's changed dramatically because of the rewrite (as was the point of the rewrite to do so) in essence it's there. The one thing I haven't decided yet is how heavy-handed to be with that thought. Personally I can't stand it when the last thing an author does (this goes for scriptwriters too) is tack on a cliffhanger to let everyone know that Part 2 is on the way. That's worse than simply not ending it at all. Horrible. So don't worry - I am not going to do that. So I am avoiding the two extremes of a non-ending / tacked-on-cliffhanger versus the complete-closure / everyone-dies / the-epilogue-tells-us-how-each-character-lives-the-rest-of-their-lives thing. Where the ending will fall in the middle of that is yet to be seen, and something that blog-readers are invited to comment on.

... need non-taffers

I'd like to finally get some feedback on the story from people who have never even heard of Thief. Optimally though, I'd like for them to not know me, either. Chances are if you're reading this, you either know me or know Thief, but maybe you know someone who knows neither, but they love to read fantasy and don't mind doing it at the computer. Anyone?

... segue to segues

One thing I didn't do while doing the revision was completing all the segues, the inter-chapter mini-sections which tell things from the point of view of a mini-character observing a minor character (there are some exceptions, where segues are told from sub-principal characters!) in order to flesh out plot elements which would otherwise be completely hidden from the reader (since we're tied to the observations of the principals).

They're not easy, because they have to...

• Be told in around 300 - 1000 words.
• Involve a snippet of story that isn't involved in the plot-flow around it.
• Deal with and rely on characters the reader may never have met (and will never).
• Still need to fit in with the framework and tone of the chapters around it.
• Actually provide some relivant information.

So even though they're short, writing the segues was just as hard as writing chapters. Crazy!

... the breakdown

Want some pie? 'Course you do!



The numbers are all 'words' (according to MSWord2007) and the pie chart shows what percentage of the story is told from which character's point of view (excluding the segues) with the bar chart showing the chapter lengths. The only surprising thing is that Lytha, Jyre, and Ghost are all so evenly divided.

Chapter length looks slightly top-heavy, with the earlier chapters tending to be longer and the later ones tending to be shorter. Again, I think this can be attributed to the 'world building' done early in the story that isn't as abundant later. As you can also see, a good number of the segues (red bars, shown as ... in the chapter list) haven't been written yet.

... revisions complete

I met a goal. I decided I wanted to finish the revisions before the new years, and I did it. That's always nice. With the read-through of Chapter 17, the revisions are complete. Naturally Chapter 17 wasn't to see much work, because it was the chapter which inspired most of the revisions in the first place! Still, several spots were tweaked, a few clarifications added, and for some reason I forgot how to spell one character's name. Oops.

385,575 words. 964 pages at 400 wpp.

Trivia for fans of the original - At the moment, Nightfall is at around Chapter 22. James and Jyre are at around Chapter 17. (Merely a coincidence!) Sheam, Lytha, and Ghost are all, of course, far beyond where the old story ended. Why are they so far out of sync? Because in the original events were paced unnaturally to allow the characters to conviniently meet where we wanted them to.

Before I begin writing Chapter 18, (or outlining it - I always do that before I write a chapter) I'm going to see what segues I want to add (bits of story told between chapters from the point if view of very minor characters who are seeing things that I want the player to know, such as what mid-level characters are up to - I intend to do one between each chapter, but I am not forcing them, instead waiting for inspiration before writing the very short segments) and then will be sending the whole thing out to my critics. Nailbiting as it is, I will be attempting to find non Thief fans to read the story and get their opinions on it as well. I have a few suspects, but if anyone can make any suggestions or can help me find some unbiased bookworms with no knowledge of Thief, now's the time for it.

With the revisions over I will certainly be updating the blog much less, but I won't just vanish.

... only one left

Remarkably, there's very little to say about Chapter 16. There was very little editing to do, and thank goodness - I wrote it along with 15 and 16 just a few months ago. The 'revision' of it is done, and now there's just one chapter left to go.

Then... you know what that means.

... epic

Chapter 15 is epic.

It's also the only chapter that's one single section. There's no switching back and forth between points of view. It covers events that spanned about a half-dozen chapters in the original, though in the original it was all only given a bit at a time as the point of view switched around.

... Ghost plays an FM

After 12 and 13 went so smoothly, it was a little jarring to have to go back into revisions mode for Chapter 14. It wasn't because I suddenly devolved (well, maybe I did) or had plot points to change, but because I made a bad decision while writing it.

When I first wrote it, I decided that COT needed to get back to its roots, so I wanted a character to go on an actual mission, and do the things that we taffers do on missions, and see the things we see, and have the same basic kind of experience. At the time, I figured I had pulled it off nicely. Stacking crates. Stealing loot. Twacking guards. Listening to servants babble. Reading diaries. Getting confused by samey level design. It had it all. Looking back at it, I found it a convoluted mess of asides, in-jokes, fourth-wall snickering, and outright nonsensical rubbish that gummed up a perfectly good humorous suspense sequence. I wasn't happy about it, since I thought that some of the things I had put in were clever, but I realised that they would only be clever to Thief players, and so the deal was off. I removed everything from the section that was unneeded, which basically amounted to everything which acknowledged the fact that Ghost was playing a game of Thief. I could keep a copy of the unedited scene on archive somewhere as a curious outtake, but I seriously think that all of the gamey stuff detracted from the storytelling. Close to 600 words were removed in all - the section itself around 4 ,000 words total.

14 marks a complete break from the original COT. Not a bit of it is based on the original story, because it deals with events in The City during the time when James, Jyre, and Nightfall are all away, and with Ghost and Lytha now a full day after their adventure in the original had already concluded. (None of it is borrowed COT2 material either.)

... more of a proofread

What used to be the second half of Chapter 12 and is now Chapter 13 has been revised, though now it's more of a proofread than a revision. Even though I wrote these chapters several months ago, I think I am still too "close" to them to seriously revise the contents like I've done for the past eleven chapters. Either that, or they're just fine and don't need many changes.

Like the new 12, the new 13 works very well in its divided state. The only problem was that many of the Lytha sections were designed with breaks in between, so that a 'boring' part would be simply left out (rather than narrated through) by switching to a different character and then coming back to Lytha later. Well, it seems that all of these switches were to either James, Jyre, or Sheam, which means that now chapter 13 is dominated through the middle by a very long stay with Lytha. As suggested above, the breaks were supplanted by bits of narration to connect one section to the next.

... easygoing from here?

Unexpectedly, I completed my revision of Chapter 11 and, in record time, finished Chapter 12 as well.

Chapter 11 was also very hard to work on, but for a new reason. It is the farthest COT has traveled from the Thief Universe thus far (and yet in one important way swings back around and becomes far closer to the Thief Games than COT ever dares elsewhere!) The rather longish chapter could have been even longer, had I included everything I wanted to, but so much is presented so fast, and all of it so new and so strange, that I had to hold back on several things.

Chapter 12 used to be the longest chapter in the story (twice as long as any other) and I now experimented with cutting it in two. The reason why I didn't divide it before was because splitting it down the middle produced something that I felt didn't provide a complete episode. I've discussed this before in the blog at length. However, electing a different method, I feel that the division was extremely successful. Rather than just finding the mid-point and inserting a new chapter title, I divided it by character. Everything for Sheam, James, and Jyre went into chapter 12. Everything from Nightfall, Ghost, and Lytha went into Chapter 13. I haven't read through the organized 13 yet, but I found it remarkable how much more entertaining 12 read when it focused only on three characters rather than jumping around between six. It's also a welcome break from 11, which was mysterious, slow moving, dramatic, and tense. 12 is fast paced, clever, familiar, and slightly humorous.

I believe that 12 also marks another resume after a break from writing, as the quality of the work is much, much higher than 11 and everything before it.

I'm going to tackle 13 now - I am feeling much better, and would really like to stick to my goal of finishing the revisions before New Years Day. Two days left!