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Salvage Chapter 51 Commentary
Been a while since I've gotten a commentary post together. Figured I might as well take a few minutes to reflect on Chapter 51, since I think it exemplifies a lot of the qualities present in this current run of chapters--roughly 49-53.
The main scene in this chapter, the picnic, was a NaNo scene from I can't remember how many years ago now. Might be 2020. I think I may have mentioned it in a post here before. Here we see socially awkward panda Mewtwo who doesn't understand such things as polite conversation, dining etiquette, and the general concept of relaxation, largely because he's spent the majority of his life either being experimented upon or in a close approximation of solitary confinement. I can't remember if I wrote this before realizing that I was going to shuffle around the Orre and Kanto chapters yet or if I simply wasn't thinking of it at the time, but in the original version of the scene, the protagonist's pokémon team was not present. I'm deeply curious how obvious it is that an entire five of the characters in this scene were pasted on later.
And it should have been six! I once again forgot Absol existed. At least it makes more sense for her not to show up than it does for the others. In the end the scene clocks in at a whopping ten characters total, and it won't be the only one of its kind. I think I've said it before, but this part of the fic is tricky because in the original version, none of the protagonist's pokémon were here. Which means that there's not a lot for them to do! They can't actually change the way events play out at this point... they were never supposed to have the opportunity.
Fortunately, this won't be an issue for long. But it does make the meantime quite awkward! I can't help but see Rats' whole "stop leaving us behind, we want to be involved" thing as my subconscious pointing out that I keep leaving them out of things by accident because, well, they were never supposed to be there! And, at the same time, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they wouldn't have a big impact on the situation; at least some of them aren't the sit-around-and-take-life-as-it-comes types. I think their role here works fine for what they'll have the opportunity to accomplish before I hustle them off the stage again, but it's definitely a weird artifact of the restructuring of this section, along with the whole "oh no this scene really ought to have a dozen characters in it" thing.
All that said, I certainly had fun with the picnic scene. Mewtwo hasn't had a lot of call to try to act normal or interact with other people in non-murderous ways, so I enjoyed throwing him into the social deep end here. You know you're in trouble when our protagonist is starting to look like the normal and socially well-adjusted one. All the scenes with the Musketeers in them are fun to write, too. In a sense they play the same role as Nate otherwise would in this arc, as the straight man in the midst of all the protagonist and Mewtwo's batshit. They're trying so hard to keep things normal and non-awkward. Sorry, guys, but absolutely none of this is normal, and it's not about to get normal anytime soon.
Nonetheless, it's hard for me not to feel frustrated with the pacing of this section. It feels like so little is happening (literally this chapter: two conversations and a picnic), and what is happening is fairly repetitive (the protagonist goes to hang out with the Musketeers; the protagonist and Mewtwo go out to murder someone). I can tell myself that we're still at the beginning of this arc and what would be, if I was splitting this into literal books, also the beginning of the novel; what we're doing here is establishing characters and their relationships before things really hit the fan. And in the grand scheme of things, five chapters is not a lot to spend establishing our characters and setting, especially since they're short (for me) ones. Plus it's not like this is a chronic issue that's going to drag down the whole rest of the story... it's not going to turn into a meandering, directionless mess. Although I absolutely am going to indulge in a couple chapters of Characters Just Fucking Around at the opening of the next arc, which looks to be roughly chapters 61-62 at this point. I think everybody's going to need it at that point. :P And outside of that, everything should be going, going, going, I think... the end of this story definitely does not sit around a great deal. So... it's fine! It's not my favorite set of chapters, but it's going to be fine. At least that's what I keep telling myself. :P
I think the play may have been, after I realized I was going to have all these extra characters involved, to move the Musketeers (or even a more generic collection of background shadow pokemon) to the background and fill in their role with the protagonist's team members where possible. Shadow pokemon are necessary to move the plot of the arc forward, and I love the conceit that the reason the protagonist and Mewtwo are able to successfully track down Cipher agents where other attempts have failed (besides, like... corruption and shit) is that they're able to actually talk to the pokemon who were at the center of the "shadow incidents" themselves. However, for the emotional side of the plot, a number of the protagonist's pokemon could probably work as well with some appropriate modifications to what all goes down. This would make the ending of the fic more emotionally messy, I think, but we do love mess. It would also mean needing to go back and make a lot of moderate changes to earlier chapters, though, so not really feasible unless I wanted to do some fairly substantial rewriting. Which I do not want to do at this point! But it is interesting to consider, how I might approach this in an "I've written a complete draft of the fic, now what do I need to change in the edit?" sort of perspective.
Thus far Chapter 52 is coming along well, and I don't anticipate any major problems with it. It does include one little scene that I've been waiting to get to for a looooong time, although I'm still not 100% that this is where it belongs. We'll have a little fun with it! And I'll enjoy clicking one notch closer to the proper explosion, and the fun part in all this for me. The hurricane's brought an abrupt fall in this year, so it's been cold, rainy, and dark--perfect weather for getting on some fuzzy socks, grabbing some hot chocolate, and retreating under a stack of blankets to do a bit of writing. (Or editing one of the two other stories I'm supposed to be editing. But about those, more later.)
(I started writing this entry a while ago, and since--just two days ago--have decided that I can actually merge 52 and 53 and so get to the good stuff a little faster. Which is great, honestly; it's only one chapter different in the end, but it feels like a huge improvement, heh. Means 52 won't be out as soon as I was expecting, since I have to do another big scene merge, but no regrets. I think this is going to work out much better, and it's a big relief!)
The main scene in this chapter, the picnic, was a NaNo scene from I can't remember how many years ago now. Might be 2020. I think I may have mentioned it in a post here before. Here we see socially awkward panda Mewtwo who doesn't understand such things as polite conversation, dining etiquette, and the general concept of relaxation, largely because he's spent the majority of his life either being experimented upon or in a close approximation of solitary confinement. I can't remember if I wrote this before realizing that I was going to shuffle around the Orre and Kanto chapters yet or if I simply wasn't thinking of it at the time, but in the original version of the scene, the protagonist's pokémon team was not present. I'm deeply curious how obvious it is that an entire five of the characters in this scene were pasted on later.
And it should have been six! I once again forgot Absol existed. At least it makes more sense for her not to show up than it does for the others. In the end the scene clocks in at a whopping ten characters total, and it won't be the only one of its kind. I think I've said it before, but this part of the fic is tricky because in the original version, none of the protagonist's pokémon were here. Which means that there's not a lot for them to do! They can't actually change the way events play out at this point... they were never supposed to have the opportunity.
Fortunately, this won't be an issue for long. But it does make the meantime quite awkward! I can't help but see Rats' whole "stop leaving us behind, we want to be involved" thing as my subconscious pointing out that I keep leaving them out of things by accident because, well, they were never supposed to be there! And, at the same time, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they wouldn't have a big impact on the situation; at least some of them aren't the sit-around-and-take-life-as-it-comes types. I think their role here works fine for what they'll have the opportunity to accomplish before I hustle them off the stage again, but it's definitely a weird artifact of the restructuring of this section, along with the whole "oh no this scene really ought to have a dozen characters in it" thing.
All that said, I certainly had fun with the picnic scene. Mewtwo hasn't had a lot of call to try to act normal or interact with other people in non-murderous ways, so I enjoyed throwing him into the social deep end here. You know you're in trouble when our protagonist is starting to look like the normal and socially well-adjusted one. All the scenes with the Musketeers in them are fun to write, too. In a sense they play the same role as Nate otherwise would in this arc, as the straight man in the midst of all the protagonist and Mewtwo's batshit. They're trying so hard to keep things normal and non-awkward. Sorry, guys, but absolutely none of this is normal, and it's not about to get normal anytime soon.
Nonetheless, it's hard for me not to feel frustrated with the pacing of this section. It feels like so little is happening (literally this chapter: two conversations and a picnic), and what is happening is fairly repetitive (the protagonist goes to hang out with the Musketeers; the protagonist and Mewtwo go out to murder someone). I can tell myself that we're still at the beginning of this arc and what would be, if I was splitting this into literal books, also the beginning of the novel; what we're doing here is establishing characters and their relationships before things really hit the fan. And in the grand scheme of things, five chapters is not a lot to spend establishing our characters and setting, especially since they're short (for me) ones. Plus it's not like this is a chronic issue that's going to drag down the whole rest of the story... it's not going to turn into a meandering, directionless mess. Although I absolutely am going to indulge in a couple chapters of Characters Just Fucking Around at the opening of the next arc, which looks to be roughly chapters 61-62 at this point. I think everybody's going to need it at that point. :P And outside of that, everything should be going, going, going, I think... the end of this story definitely does not sit around a great deal. So... it's fine! It's not my favorite set of chapters, but it's going to be fine. At least that's what I keep telling myself. :P
I think the play may have been, after I realized I was going to have all these extra characters involved, to move the Musketeers (or even a more generic collection of background shadow pokemon) to the background and fill in their role with the protagonist's team members where possible. Shadow pokemon are necessary to move the plot of the arc forward, and I love the conceit that the reason the protagonist and Mewtwo are able to successfully track down Cipher agents where other attempts have failed (besides, like... corruption and shit) is that they're able to actually talk to the pokemon who were at the center of the "shadow incidents" themselves. However, for the emotional side of the plot, a number of the protagonist's pokemon could probably work as well with some appropriate modifications to what all goes down. This would make the ending of the fic more emotionally messy, I think, but we do love mess. It would also mean needing to go back and make a lot of moderate changes to earlier chapters, though, so not really feasible unless I wanted to do some fairly substantial rewriting. Which I do not want to do at this point! But it is interesting to consider, how I might approach this in an "I've written a complete draft of the fic, now what do I need to change in the edit?" sort of perspective.
Thus far Chapter 52 is coming along well, and I don't anticipate any major problems with it. It does include one little scene that I've been waiting to get to for a looooong time, although I'm still not 100% that this is where it belongs. We'll have a little fun with it! And I'll enjoy clicking one notch closer to the proper explosion, and the fun part in all this for me. The hurricane's brought an abrupt fall in this year, so it's been cold, rainy, and dark--perfect weather for getting on some fuzzy socks, grabbing some hot chocolate, and retreating under a stack of blankets to do a bit of writing. (Or editing one of the two other stories I'm supposed to be editing. But about those, more later.)
(I started writing this entry a while ago, and since--just two days ago--have decided that I can actually merge 52 and 53 and so get to the good stuff a little faster. Which is great, honestly; it's only one chapter different in the end, but it feels like a huge improvement, heh. Means 52 won't be out as soon as I was expecting, since I have to do another big scene merge, but no regrets. I think this is going to work out much better, and it's a big relief!)