A Fresh Start

So I figured that instead of doing this last Tuesday, why not start fresh next month? After all, it'll give me some extra time between the posts to collect my thoughts. Aside from that, I figure that the first Tuesday of a month will be a post like this where I share information about something specific that I'm passionate about and then some kind of summary at the very last day of the month. Maybe I'll add more posts between the two if I'm up to it, though. That's at least the goal now.

Anyways, today I'm going to talk about the novel revamp and how that's going.

The Old Scrap

Comedy and Scenarios

I'm not sure how many people even check my blog, or even the amount of people who do care about the fact I'm writing a novel. In either case, though, the point is that I've decided that it was best I start the whole thing over, save for some details. The reason that this was done is because the current story is.. okay at best I suppose? It was fine until I lost motivation again and then when I did pick it up, tried to modify the already existing data in the chapters. This really bothered me a lot because I'd look into what I could change to sound better or less "cheesy". Sometimes these things worked, but not all the time. It's fun that the novel didn't take itself seriously all the time and that's what I absolutely loved with it. However, too much of it can be a problem, like the following scenario:

During Chapter 1, Serena and Esmund are going to the forest and Serena is pushing branches out the way and one of them snaps back, almost hitting Esmund behind her. She shouts how she's sorry for letting that happen and Esmund comments to himself how forgetful or clumsy she is. It's funny and quirky, but at the same time, felt a bit.. weird looking back at it now.

That scene of "comedy" was just a single example of this happening. Yes, funny, but it was overkill to some degree. There's multiples of these feelings when I reread it, which don't feel properly done and so as a result feels repetitive.

Repetition

Dear God, Speaking of repetitive things happening -- I think that was some of the worst things that bugged me. One thing that stands out the most as being repetitive is Esmund passing out. This happened like three times in the span of the first few chapters. He passes out in the forest, at the end of that same Chapter, and then nearly does in the middle of the one after it. I'm not sure if the ending of Chapter .. (4 or was it 5..?) counts, or even Chapter 3. It's got a weird vibe how it's done and I just don't like it at all. I would go into more detail about these events, but it's a bit difficult to do since there's no actual way to present spoilers in Markdown.

Storyline

This is probably the least of the problems with the old content. I don't necessarily hate the way the plot is or anything, but realistically the way certain events happen bugs me. One thing for sure is the first Chapter ended. The simple way of how it ends, which what I had is the idea, was not the proper execution. It again had that problem of feeling weirdly done because of verbiage and it came out awkward or corny.

Another issue was not having enough backstory for the Prologue as well. That was something I always debated whether it was good or not. It was a mere few pages long, but it did set the tone and world up nicely. I just had the feeling I should have expanded on it instead of having it the way it was. However, I'll go into more detail in a bit.

New Overview

I don't think I can really tell as much information as I'd like at the moment in the same way for the old cruft. However, I do think that I can safely say that scenarios are less awkward and can be more of an appropriate serious tone.

Even the Prologue itself got the extension it deserved. The original is nice, but the new one hit a bit harder. It develops the plot even more by giving the reader the background on the character in the first place.

Sure a mysterious person in a forest is cool and thought provoking, but why are they there? It's addressed many Chapters later in the old version, but.. now it makes more sense: once for the reader and then again for the actual characters involved meeting this particular Prologue character later on.

Chapter 1 is the farthest I've gone so far, though. It was a bit of a struggle to start, but I think I got past that rather quickly. I mainly wanted to change up how interactions between Esmund and Serena were. Make them more human-like and less goofy or overly dramatic.

The scene where Esmund and Serena are eating breakfast in the morning has changed quite a bit. The conversation always felt rather awkward, even with a serious tone added to it. I tried this time around to make it more of what that interaction should have been. They feel more like the kind of interaction I'd expect from siblings that are close with one another. There's no arguing or such, just building the dynamics of their relationship in a better way than before.

The idea of Chapter 1's ending is still something I liked, even though it was definitely not the best laid-out. Having Esmund pass out and then realize he should go back home was a rather rushed concept. I think that this time around everything will just be going from the house to the forest, adding some.. interactivity there, and then end of the Chapter. I've got plans to change up the next Chapter (2) as well since everything will mostly happen in the forest in Chapter 1. Adjustments are always necessary to make it less clumped together, I think.

End Notes

Well, I tried to give a nice detailed view about the work so far without being too vague about some stuff. Just trying to avoid spoilers, really. I look forward to finishing the first Chapter and then publishing it on the proper section on the Blog.

I think that the next post I make will be about LÖVE Potion. I still need to get some kind of Q&A session going about that on the Discord server. That or figure out what to start talking about.

• TurtleP