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Hey sorry I disappeared. Was at a home visit. It’s getting late for you but are you still around? 😛
I’ll be around for a bit 😀 I’m supposed to be drafting, but instead I’m pondering problems in Stars Fill Infinity.
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
Oh no! At this rate, I won’t be able to read Wattle Fire for a long while!
But I suppose I have no right to complain, considering my own progress with QOD. 😛
But what problems are you pondering? I am curious to know. You got feedback from all your betas already right?
For some reason I never got notified that you’d replied 😀
I know, I’m so easily distracted! (and yes, I’m waiting eagerly for the next part!)
most of them, a few pulled out, but I have several thousand (getting close to 15-20k) words worth of feedback, so I have enough to go on.
I was considering talking to @rochellaine about it (and she can still put in her opinion when she awakens), but since you’re awake, I’m sure you won’t mind listen to my rhetoric ramblings. (is it rhetoric if I want your opinion though? Never mind)
A common thread I noticed in the feedback was that people expected Jean to be on the run from the police, as Jean Valjean is. I suppose this is probably fair, since he lives a very odd lifestyle and that fact is a central aspect of Les Mis. And I think a few people expressed some disappointment in his backstory. So I’ve been thinking it over and trying to find some way to tie it together. And this is my idea.
Jean mentions knowing Caderousse and that she tried to arrest him when he went to take Chessy away. Also, as it is now, he doesn’t know what happened to Chessy’s father. What if he did know, and knew the circumstances that had led to Dr Manly being imprisoned. And the MacLachlans know that he knows, so they send Caderousse (who’s really just doing her job and trying to eradicate a lawbreaker) to arrest him. He escapes with Chessy and goes into hiding. He’s already been established as something of a coward, so I feel that running away from the problem and consoling himself by saying he is doing everything he can to repay Dr Manly by raising Chessy, rather than actually standing up and doing something, as Manly did, is entirely within his character. He doesn’t necessarily need to tell Chessy all this, but it seems to me that this idea could fix some of the things people were unhappy with, as well as giving the Verdes a backstory with Caderousse and explaining why Caderousse knows so much about both Jean and Manly.
What do you think?
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
You’re probably asleep now so I’ll just post my response here for you to see later.
Yes, there’s something really off about the notifications for some reason.
Oh wow the thought that there’s someone out there who is eagerly waiting for the next part of QOD is really terrifying. 😛
Anyway, regarding your idea for Jean’s backstory… It’s been a while since I read Les Mis as well as SFI and WIIE so forgive me if I remember things wrongly.
I agree that Jean’s backstory needs some beefing up (especially since I distinctly recall being one of those who complained that the hint that Jean and Caderousse had some history together amounted to nothing). But there are some points that I am concerned about:
#1: Having Jean be on the run would justify his odd lifestyle, his protectiveness towards Chessy and also possibly why he was not able to do much (e.g. file a missing person report with the police, hire a detective) to find Sapphire when she ran away from home. However, this brings up the question of how Jean is able to stay in hiding for years without being detected in this futuristic society (I am trying to stop myself from repeating my rant about how a futuristic dystopia should be more technologically advanced and have better security systems). Is ‘Jean Verde’ a pseudonym? Did he fake his death (something I think Jean Valjean did once)? Did he use most of his money to bribe an official for false papers to create a fake identity? What’s stopping Jean’s ex-wife (Sapphire’s mother) from ratting them out to the MacLachlans in the hopes of a reward (maybe she is not that bad of a person but I am curious to know more about her)? I mean, if Jean’s a fugitive, I would expect Caderousse and the City Guard to be on him the moment he scans his tag to try to enter the New District to go for a walk with his daughters. In this scenario, I doubt he would step into the New District at all and that he’ll be so indulgent about Chessy’s sneaking out or her attraction towards some handsome young revolutionary who would certainly bring trouble. The way the Verde family lives and interacts will have to be adjusted for their status as outlaws if you go down this route. I would expect Jean to take a lot more precautions (especially given that he is a bit of a coward and actually has good cause to be wary).
#2: Why does Jean not tell Chessy the whole story about her birth father if he is aware of all the details? Sure, for the first book, you can write it off as Jean thinking she’s still too young to know and wanting to keep her protected as that’s part of the character development. But after they have their heart-to-heart conversation and Jean explains to Chessy why he’s been so protective and all that, it would only make sense for him to explain further since Chessy spends several days at home with him before the revolution (I think) and she has all the time to ask. But I understand that you won’t want to bring this whole thing up in SFI as that will detract from the main plot of the first book. However, during the time skip between SFI and WIIE, I again see no reason why Jean would not tell the story to Chessy and once she knows that such injustice happened to her birth father (and the link to Justice once she knows his last name), would she just sit around and do nothing about it? As you can see, this has implications that would derail the whole plot of WIIE. In fact, Jean knowing the full story right from the start would ruin a lot of the mystery and drama of WIIE (not that there is much since it’s a retelling but you know what I mean). I would find WIIE frustrating to read if the characters are aware of the big, dramatic secret right off the bat but somehow still make the same decisions just so that the ending will be the same as that of ATOTC (aka plot-induced stupidity).
In gist, there is a general rule of thumb to avoid soap opera plots: If the conflict can be resolved by two characters just sitting down and having an honest conversation with each other, it is not a good conflict. Jean knowing about what happened to Dr Manly would, in my opinion, cause a lot of the conflict to become soap opera (Just imagine me screaming at the page, “Why don’t you just tell Chessy?!”).
I do like the idea of Jean being on the run (it adds to the motivations, the tension and the risks that Jean and Chessy take). However, I am not so keen on him knowing exactly what happened to Dr Manly. Perhaps you can keep Jean’s level of knowledge the same (he knows Dr Manly got into trouble because of something bad that concerns the MacLachlans) but maybe the MacLachlans for some reason think that Jean knows more than he actually does (maybe there was a letter that Dr Manly sent or something). So you can still have Caderousse pursuing Jean and Jean being an outlaw but at the same time Jean is not sure exactly why he is being pursued. And since he’s not brave enough to try to find out the truth of the matter, he’s content to just live quietly in hiding with his daughters.
Another suggestion that I have is to make use of Jean’s compulsory service past to give him more of a connection to Caderousse. Since he apparently used to be a City Guard (having the old uniform and all), perhaps he and Caderousse met each other while they were serving the same unit so they have a history. You could even add in Dr Manly as their medical officer or something so that Jean and Manly’s friendship can have more of a basis. Perhaps you can think up of one or two incidents that made Caderousse dislike Jean (and Manly) and gave her the impression that they have criminal leanings, something that is confirmed once she got the instructions to arrest Jean.
Oh my, I’ve written a whole lot. Thinking too much about fictional characters is so fun! 😛
Anyway, these are my thoughts on the matter. Let me know what you think. 😛
#1
Yes, I’d thought about some of those consequences but I hadn’t actually thought about Sapphire’s mother. I really should do something with her…she kind of only existed to explain why Sapphire and Chessy had no mother. And I’ve been thinking about the details of the ID system, but that’s a conversation for another time.
#2 That’s true. I hate those plots as well and they seem to be overused in YA. Or in fiction in general. So I’d prefer to steer clear of that.
I’d planned on using his cumpulsory service in there somehow, but I hadn’t quite worked out how. I like your idea of Caderousse being suspicious and then finally having those suspicions “confirmed”.
But I’m pretty certain Dr Manly sends a letter, doesn’t he? And reports the MacLachlans. So what if he sent the report to Jean, who is still an officer in the Guard, because he trusts him. Then Jean is in possession of a letter that explains most of it, but the MacLachlans get wind of this and send Caderousse to arrest him before he knows what’s in the letter, of course. I think Zac mentions (or maybe its only in my notebook, I’m not sure) that the MacLachlans circle is mostly made of corrupt officers and lawyers, so they probably have spies in the City Guard, and though I can’t imagine Caderousse having any knowledge of this or being part of it, she would be more than happy to arrest Jean, particularly if she already suspects him.
Don’t worry about it 😛 These are the sort of things you can only discuss with writer friends. No one else cares about the finer points of plot 😀
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
Re Sapphire’s mother: If Jean is a fugitive, I do think that the circumstances of her leaving her husband should be different and not so simple. But hey, if all else fails you can always just say that she is dead and thus won’t be complicating the issue to increase your parent body count. 😛
I’m still amused by how dependent this futuristic society is on letters when much of modern society does not even use it anymore. 😛
Yay, you’re heading towards a cohesive backstory! 😀
Ah, yes. The joys of having a writing community. 😀
Will you be around this afternoon?
Oh, speaking of the odd lifestyle of the Verde family, it randomly occurred to me why you might be struggling with wordbuilding more compared to other dystopian writers.
Most dystopias use an average Joe type of character as a POV to show how life is like for an average person in the dystopian society. But since your POV characters are very purposefully living very different lives apart from society, this naturally presents to you fewer opportunities to showcase how the world is like for the typical non-revolutionary. It is details like these that help make a world feel more real.
My first thought on reading your question was on how that would impact the original confrontation between Caderousse and Sapphire. If Caderousse had been observing and examining the Verde family for years in attempt to find a pretense to arrest Jean, (or something similar, I’m not sure exactly what you’re intending here, but the question remains the same as long as she’s been watching them) wouldn’t she know all about Sapphire and Chessy’s relationship, know Chessy was Jean’s daughter, know what Sapphire and Chessy looked like and even possibly know Sapphire’s entire backstory including all about Sean and Kai? I mean, she’s a spy. That’s what spies do. They know everything about the people they’re spying on. So I’m just trying to think through all the instances of her interacting with Chessy and Sapphire and trying to rewrite the scenes in my head to figure out how she would act if she knew the entire story of their lives – or at least most of it. 😛
On another note, have you heard of the opera/musical/notsurewhatitis called Silent Night? I think it’s based on the 1914 Christmas Truce. The reason I ask is because my family is going to go see it at the Kennedy Center soon, so I’m planning on looking it up but haven’t gotten to it yet. And because when I heard of it from my mom I thought it sounded like something you might be interested in. 😉
I’m still amused by how dependent this futuristic society is on letters when much of modern society does not even use it anymore.
I think a reasonable explanation would be that in a government as intrusive as the one in the Infinity series anything written online would be heavily monitored, especially by someone suspected of crimes like Manly or Verde. So if you wanted to send a secret letter like the one Manly wrote, it would be a much wiser decision to write it on paper, as that is not as easy for the government to find.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@seekjustice Oh, and I don’t mean that Caderousse herself is necessarily a spy per se. Just that she seems to be acting like one in the hypothetical you proposed. If she’s targeting one particular person for one particular reason, rather than crime in general, she’d likely have some sort of spy system looking out specifically for what Jean is doing. At least, that’s my impression.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
I agree a letter would be the most appropriate form of communication in that situation. It’s not about that. It’s that letters appear to be the only form of communication available in this supposedly futuristic society. Even when people are talking about safe, non-revolutionary stuff (which granted, the characters don’t often do but still). As I told @seekjustice it is little things like this that build up and make the worldbuilding appear lacklustre.
Oh, and regarding the Sapphire and Caderousse interaction thing… It does not make sense for her to be on the lookout for some pretense to arrest Jean. In this Fugitive!Jean situation, she should already think that Jean is guilty of some crime and she would be going straight to arrest him once she’s found him. No pretense necessary. The reason why she has not done so yet would be that she has simply been unable to find him.
@valtmy I see. Yes, regarding worldbuilding that makes sense.
Well, in that case I think Jean would be stupid to be living still in the same city instead of relocating to another city or country. The world is huge, and he can go anywhere he wants to, as he has a lot of money (I think that was established, right?) so why would he stay right there where Caderousse makes him a voluntary prisoner? Wouldn’t he want to go somewhere that his daughters could be free? The only reason I can think of for him to stay in the house would be if he actually didn’t have any money to go anywhere else and the house was the last of his or Manly’s inheritance.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@seekjustice @rochellaine @jenwriter17 @alia @dekreel @valtmy @ariel-ashira I’m here writing. 🙂
IMMA KAPEEFER! Til we're old and gray!
Haha stupid fugitive characters right?
I suppose a way to justify it would be to have the government ban/restrict people from going abroad. So going to another country would be just very risky. He would definitely be flagged out and arrested during the border checks.
And maybe he did relocate to another city (where the Verde family is currently staying is where he is hiding). It just so happens that Caderousse was transferred here years later. That is I think the situation in Les Mis as well.
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