Facing The Music comment thread

[anthony]

Kereth telepathically contacts you with 'Yay! Good rp posts! Keep writing! Make a comment thread on the rp boards!'
Kereth telepathically contacts you with 'How am I supposed to make all my comments if there's no comment thread? Seriously.'

So... here it is. Comment away, folks.

[Kereth]

Right, so, since I demanded this go here, I'd better hurry and try to remember some of the stuff I was going to say. . .

Your allowing the characters to take over the story is great (see footnotes on in game posting). It's awesome that you're able to do that and shows quite a bit of experience, and your swapping out plans in the face of more immediate drama is a big plus for any serialized piece, as well as being a great strength to any bit of writing. Often writers will waste time trying to fill the gaps between the exciting parts and fail to realize that they need constant conflict to make the work interesting, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for you. You control the flow of information well, allowing you to manipulate it as a resource to add a great deal of intrigue. The only downside in all this that I can spot is that it suggests that you may not have planned everything ahead as much as you might have done so. If there's one thing I've learned from experience though, it's that the really great plot twists are only developed after you get into gritty details, whether from over planning or from actually writing, as those subtle, yet often crucial bits can be used to make or break the characters' grand schemes. It will be interesting to see how everything falls together as your story moves forward.

On another note, more to fellow readers than to Anthony, "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" is actually an amazing and beautiful piece of music, which I recommend you check out, even if that's usually not your sort of thing, particularly Mack Wilberg's arrangement.

Nice characters, particularly Sister Martha. I have a bit of trouble catching the vision of Rachael though. I can empathize with Anthony's reaction to her, just not the assessment. I find the descriptive techniques, interestingly void of much actual description, used for Meredith more effective. Not sure if others feel the same, or if I'm just naturally more at ease with the pretty-but-not-exotic girl-next-door charm and less able to mentally blend mind-bendingly-beautiful and house cat. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[anthony]

Mar 6, 2010 16:05:17 GMT -5 Kereth said:

The only downside in all this that I can spot is that it suggests that you may not have planned everything ahead as much as you might have done so.

True statement! I've got a few really important details worked out, and I know exactly how it's going to end, but the rest is fuzzy. I find that leaving lots of blanks helps me fill them in better, if that makes any sense.

If there's one thing I've learned from experience though, it's that the really great plot twists are only developed after you get into gritty details, whether from over planning or from actually writing, as those subtle, yet often crucial bits can be used to make or break the characters' grand schemes.

Exactly.

On another note, more to fellow readers than to Anthony, "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" is actually an amazing and beautiful piece of music, which I recommend you check out, even if that's usually not your sort of thing, particularly Mack Wilberg's arrangement.

*looks around*
*jaw drops*
...wow. That is beautiful! Of course, just about anything would sound awesome performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Even John Williams was a bit in awe when he worked with them for the Salt Lake City Olympics, IIRC.

Nice characters, particularly Sister Martha. I have a bit of trouble catching the vision of Rachael though. I can empathize with Anthony's reaction to her, just not the assessment. I find the descriptive techniques, interestingly void of much actual description, used for Meredith more effective. Not sure if others feel the same, or if I'm just naturally more at ease with the pretty-but-not-exotic girl-next-door charm and less able to mentally blend mind-bendingly-beautiful and house cat. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

*grin* Fair enough. It helps that Anthony's always had a thing for catgirls...

Well, I'm glad you like it, and I'll try to keep writing chapters worth reading.

[Kereth]

Re: Chapter Five

It's always cracked my suspension of disbelief a little when stories hit a part where there's an "argument" in which one side rants and the other sputters helplessly, unable to make a decent retort. Such situations often play in our minds as the "what I should have said" scenario, but they seldom actually occur in real life. For someone so angry as Father Grayson was supposed to be, he sure gave Anthony plenty of room to talk, and for someone to whom the criticism he's receiving is commonplace, he's sure lacking in prepared responses.

It seemed to me that, for example, his response of "How dare you?" should have been something more like, "And you have children of your own now, Anthony? Or do you imagine that, unlike you, I materialized out of thin air, without a mother or a father to care for me?" and so on.

Another reading would be that Father Grayson's so-called "anger" is merely a projection from the unreliable, Anthony-focused narration, and that the reason his comments are so brief is because he is actually quite level-headed, simply observing, "You would go so far as to rationalize your own acts of cowardice?" or "You dare revile against the holy scriptures?" while Anthony is reduced to ad-hominem personal attacks ("common sense. . . has never really been your strong suit, has it?" etc).

I think it's likely been that the narration has not proven unreliable so far (unless Anthony's crazy and imagined the 'ghost'?), combined with the natural reader bias toward the protagonist, that causes me to assume the first reading, which admittedly comes a slight mark against the writer, rather than the second, which comes as a strong mark against the character.

(Look at me being blunt today! Woah! I criticize only because you've earned some higher standards from me. *hugs*)

[anthony]

Thanks! Believe it or not, there's an actual reason why he came off looking like a total strawman, beyond just "the author couldn't think of any good retorts." But I'll probably add a bit of lampshade hanging into the next chapter to make it clear that that was intentional.

As for what it is... you'll see, eventually.

[Kereth]

I had a silent bet going with myself as I read chapter 6 about what new conflict would be developed at the end of the chapter. You've made a good habit so far of keeping a constant set of conflict to hold suspense throughout, usually dropping new situations right at the end of chapters, to keep interest between posts (a good tactic in serial fictions).

My wagers were- and the casual reader should be warned that even though these were wrong, they may still be accurate predictions of stuff to come, so if you think that that's a spoiler for you, by some weird definition of spoiler, stop reading- mostly centered around the behavior of Rachel, though the details were fairly fuzzy, but the most coherent prediction I came up with as I read was that she might turn out to be much more directly interested in Anthony in some way, a way that would be considered unacceptable to the general populace, and proposition him either privately or publicly to that effect, presenting him with the chance (assuming a private proposition) to give his fantasies a whirl at the risk of being caught or otherwise jeopardizing his already shaky relationship with his family and his village, or (if a public proposition) creating immediate turmoil before he has a chance to respond.

But no, I was wrong. It's another new face, and another awkward reunion. . . (DUN DUN DUUUN!)

[anthony]

*grin* I think this will be the last "new face + awkward reunion." We've got enough characters to keep track of, for the moment at least. Glad I managed to surprise you, though.

I've been sort of thinking of the first part of the story as a "Book of Job plot," except that Anthony deserves most of the stuff that's gonna happen to him. (And he's not gonna end up with his family all dying in catastrophic events.) He's come home, and now he has to face the music, as it were. And he hasn't hit rock bottom yet.

As for Rachael, yeah, I sorta considered that, but decided it would be more fun to keep it to ambiguous maybe-flirting that would drive our poor protagonist to distraction. Besides, it would be out of character for her. You'll understand why later on...

[Kereth]

I've been commenting fairly regularly, so I know everyone is waiting with baited breath for me to comment. Well, here goes. . .


"I have nothing to say to this one."

[Kereth]

Chapter 8 Commentary:

So the lore's a bit vague on the point of the passage of time in the Retroverse. Were it not for slayers, it'd be safe to assume that the Retroverse is locked in stasis, where nothing ever changes, and no one leaves, not even the gods, and the only progress that does occur is the work of the immortals (wizards) piecing together fragmented bits of reality to reconstruct the universe. The trouble is, it kinda' makes a lousy story if you assume that nothing you do with your non-gifted characters (who are inevitably* the majority of your cast) ultimately matters, that they don't know you're Gifted, and that they're completely unaware of the workings of the gods and immortals at all.

How this is dealt with varies. Some people just don't address the Gifted/not question at all, treating events as running in the Retroverse as the non-gifted probably see it. Others do you like you, where the Gifted are Gifted and the rest aren't, and they know it. Few, to my knowledge, really go the full way and treat events as though they take place in what is essentially the game world as we know it (Something Shiny was sorta' like that, and Something Shinier was going to be drastically more so, but I never finished it). What makes your story unique is that Gifted Ones seem to be unpopular. This doesn't seem to translate to the game so much, except in the form of slayer statuses, and Gifted Ones may often by perfectly well accepted. After all, if all you farm is a bunch of fallen over on crypt, you're a pretty popular guy on Welstar.

This isn't to say this is necessarily bad, the way you portray it, but it is unique, and some difference between story world and game world is inevitable. So basically all I have to say on the matter is:

Anthony Peers is a level 30 of the human race.
He leads the Bard Guild.
He has been linkdead for 7h 56m 29s.
He was created: Wed Jul 4 22:34:14 2007.
He last reincarnated on Wed Jul 4 22:34:14 2007.
He is single.
Best Party Kill: Firestorm Phoenix : 1390782 exp, in a party of 8.
Last Killed By: Shadow anthony
Plan:
Mama Genevieve <retro>: (this anthony guy is trouble. I'm
gonna have to deal with him)
Trieste smiles seductively and says 'I never say
quite what I mean, even when I don't quite say it.'

Not sure whether to feel complimented or insulted:
Rualii telepathically contacts you with '"Fayht tells you with
'Anthony is your damned replica, I swear'"'
Slayer Status
-------------------------------------------
Meredeth Walker: infamous

(She totally is a ghost, and all because you were farming her so much! We're on to your twist ending already!)

*Okay, technically you could write a story using only your fellow Gifted Ones, but it's trickier.

[anthony]

*laughs* Oh noes! He figured it out!

Oh well. I'll just have to go and write a different twist ending, then!

[anthony]

As a more serious reply, it's part of human nature, when there's an easily-identifiable group of people who share a major trait that makes them different from you, to think of them as "all the same" until you start to learn better through specific examples.

Between that and the actions of certain Gifted Ones, especially the Fallens who love to slaughter all those helpless civilians in Utiopia, Elysium, etc, don't you think they'd tend to give us all a bad name by default? Why do you think so many NPCs are aggro to everyone?

[Kereth]

Well, the npcs who are aggro to everyone are usually that way for reasons that would imply the aggressiveness to non-Gifted as well as Gifted (big, angry monster, guards in a forbidden area of a fortress, demons, etc), but we're the only ones who happen to wander into the room.

As for the easily identifiable group, the group you're looking for is "fallen" in that case. Presumably, non-Gifted fallen go out and slaughter innocent people in large numbers all the time as well. A Gifted paladin probably wouldn't be associated with such things, at least not in the minds of Sikkarans, more likely becoming their champion than their dreaded enemy (There's the "secret weapon we bring out when things need to get broken, and we don't like to talk about the rest of the time" option too, but it doesn't seem as likely in these circumstances).

Still, I've favored the interpretation that the general populace is unaware of the status of Gifted Ones at all, just as they are unaware of the precise workings of the gods or immortals in the way the Gifted are. This allows for exceptions, of course, who have heard of Gifted Ones either through rumors or personal experience, but not as a general rule. This is facilitated largely by the fact that there may be a hundred or two Gifted Ones running around at a time, across six planets. . . very well could just be the stuff of legends for many people. In my interpretation though, Gifted Ones are all members of the adventurer's guilds, and may easily be identified as adventurers through those means, as many quest descriptions may suggest. I'd contest the existence of non-Gifted adventurers too.

Even with that, the ship's captain could deal with Gifted Ones periodically. Maybe he had a job sailing the arches on Wysoom before, and he had to run a "If they're Gifted, they ride free" rule, as part of company policy (or self-preservation?). Just the same, Anthony's village may have personal experience with some group of Gifted, or with someone who had personal, negative experience with the Gifted, and have a bias on that account. . .

Fancy details like that don't have to come up in the story though, unless they become relevant, and a great deal of the world is largely up to personal interpretation.

[Kereth]

"Hastily, Anthony typed 'me' to get a summary of his explore for the session. There were numerous new rooms explored, but had those been from the village he just entered, or from the boat? Was it really possible this was an entirely new place? There didn't seem to be much other possible explanation. He checked his bard points on his lute and his explore percentage and tried to remember exactly how big the boat had been, how much of the city they passed through. . . did that unfamiliar terrain he passed count as overworld? He couldn't be sure.

Anthony dismounted, muttering something incoherent to Merry and darted into the chapel, being careful to keep to the background, to avoid drawing unwanted attention. He checked. . . no new room from the chapel. That meant he'd been here before. This was his home town.

But was that other village. . .? Anthony silently cursed himself for not paying closer attention to his exp on the previous trip. Now he'd explored most of the town already, and it would be difficult to tell if it was really new terrain or- the chapel! He had only walked by the chapel and not gone inside! Of course! He nearly started the spell right there, when he remembered his current situation.

His mother's funeral was going on, and he would be ill-advised to miss it. After that, it looked like there would be a series of awkward reunions to go through, all over again from the start. This was one time when Anthony wanted to make as quiet an entrance as possible."

[Kereth]

That was re: Chapter 9, by the way, for later reference.

[anthony]

*laughs* Not bad! But I try to be a little less meta than that when writing a story.

BTW it's worth noting that, even though I haven't made everything explicit yet, you've got enough information now to make a pretty good guess as to what's really going on.

One more clue for you: There will be, fairly soon, another chapter whose title comes from a Weird Al song.