Tales of the Parodyverse

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Anime Jason

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Member Since: Sun Sep 12, 2004
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Subj: Re: Uh-oh...
Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 11:01:58 pm EDT

Reply Subj: Uh-oh...
Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 10:34:30 pm EDT (Viewed 378 times)

> Part of the problem is that I waited too long to solve that problem. When someone watches a multi-part movie or reads a multi-part book, and they don't like how it's going, they usually don't stick around till the last part. I think what happened so far turned off the audience, and it's almost certainly at the point where quite a few people won't care what Part 3 says anymore.

I doubt that's true. I can't speak as to whether breaking it up into chunks caused more problems for you, though. I can see how it might have.

She would have come off well after Part 3, and it would have left some interesting questions about who exactly was in charge of the situation. The problem was, the list of complaints had grown to the point where I would have also had to re-write Part 1 and 2.

Again, only you know what you had originally planned, but most of the criticism has focused on the questions that have been raised: Why would Akiko do this, and why behave as she did when confronted? Those could still be answered in a new part 3 without any rewrites to the first two parts. Ian offered one such addition by e-mail, and I had ideas for others even before reading his. I can understand if you say you couldn't do your originally planned ending without major changes to what came before, but that doesn't necessarily mean the whole thing needs to be scrapped.

I still have a point I'd like to get across story-wise but I have no idea how to do it anymore. Part of the problem is that my own cast isn't large enough or balanced enough for them to provide that kind of motivation to each other. And sadly the point is to damage Chiaki's relationship with the organized crime families, so it can't be a gentle interaction like the rest. In other words it can't possibly work right now.

Well, give it some thought after you get a little distance from this. Personally, I think there are many ways this could still work.

As for collaboration, that's tricky in this case - very tricky, because so many have a stake in Akiko that I'd essentially be sending the entire story to everyone who's going to read the story before I post it. Then nobody will need to read it once it's on the board. Also because of the scope of Akiko's participation vs the number of people's input it needs it's likely I'd have to re-write it several times, and then it may be so far out of date it wouldn't be worth posting anymore.

Well, allow me to be possessive and all that, but frankly you don't need anyone else's approval besides my own. I created Akiko, and set up her status quo. She's part of my rogue's gallery. Everyone is free to use her... provided, again, that they put her back more or less where they found her. As such, it's my job to keep track of her, who is using her, and what can and can't be done with her.

And, again, I have collaborated with most everyone on the board, and I have eagerly devoured the finished stories once they were posted. I think you greatly underestimate people's interest even when they have some broad idea of the plot.

Otherwise on the topic of collaboration, I seem to have a problem with really bad timing. Every time I've tried to ask poster-Hatman something, he'd leave town for weeks. It happened once with killer shrike, and at least twice with Ian. Then I usually give up waiting for a reply and finish writing anyway. It paid off so far, so I stuck with that model.

It's not that I don't like collaboration, it's that I'm not good at it. My timing is terrible, my writing schedule is too strict - I usually don't like to spend 2 or 3 months writing something because I'm waiting for replies.

Well, in my experience it doesn't usually take months to work out the details of these things. Still, collaboration means being open with how things will go... It's not a question of writing something and then getting approval so much as it is suggesting an idea and then incorporating the feedback you get into it. You have to be flexible to change.

(After all, my original idea for Miiri giving birth was that she and Vizh would only have one child, a boy, and that it would be part of a big space-faring adventure. But hey... I'm open to new ideas...)