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Okay 😀
Well, I’ve rewritten the prologue so far. A few betas (I think Valtmy could have been one of them) suggested that the current prologue wasn’t really that important and it was told in a strange way (since it’s in third person when Sapph is one of the narrators anyway), so I redid it a bit different and am working the original prologue in as a flashback sort of thing.
Ah, Rain and Quillon/Kendall…probably my most controversial decision ever. Some hated it, and some loved it. I still haven’t decided what to do with that 😛
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
Hi, it’s been SO long since I talked to you guys on this forum. 😀
Ooh the third draft of SFI? Yes, I do believe that the thing about the prologue was one point that I raised for my review.
Dinner now, I’ll be back in a little while probably. Hope you’re still on then.
When I was younger I used to skip the prologues along with the Author’s Notes and Introductions. Now I read all three…as well as the dedication. 😛 But the prologue is most important to the story. 🙂
Oh, were there others who agreed with me about Rain and Kendall? I thought I was the only one. 😛
I think your Chessy&Justice pairing was an extremely controversial one as well. 😉 And of course everyone complains when you kill their favorite characters.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
Yep, and I think someone else might have mentioned it as well. And I tend to agree, so I changed it. Would you like to have a quick look at my rough draft for the new one? I feel you may like it, seeing as you insisted so warmly on a backstory between Jean and Caderousse (which I also agreed on).
Most people didn’t comment on it, actually. I guess they were expecting Rain/Quillon because of Eponine/Marius?
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
Sorry, I forgot to tag you above. 🙂
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
I think that’s where my perspective is different from others. I would possibly represent the readers who have not read/do not know well the story of Les Miserables as I had but once skimmed through Les Mis a while before I read the first draft of Stars, and did not notice the connection, so I viewed it simply as a novel of itself. Once I’d been informed of the connection, and researched more about Les Mis (still haven’t read it, 😛 ) I saw the similarities. I don’t know if it’s because of my background of not noticing the connection at first, but I do prefer it as a less exact retelling, since I feel that gives more of your own personal touch to it, rather than making it a nearly scene-by-scene, character-by-character, relationship-by-relationship mirror of Hugo’s work. The second draft to me feels much less you and much more Hugo than the first draft was.
So, yeah, my pique regarding Rain and Kendall has a much more in-depth background. 😉
Of course, the second draft is great, and mirroring Hugo isn’t necessarily a bad thing, obviously, since you are writing a retelling of his work and are trying to copy it to a great extent. And I really don’t think anyone else shares my opinion on this, so take it with a grain of salt if you will. 😀
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@valtmy Hello! I didn’t get a chance to say hi before dinner happened. 🙂 Are you still here? How are you doing?
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. In my opinion, that’s where its difficult to balance in retellings how similar and how different you are from the original work. One of my other readers loved the similarities and some of them (like yourself) loved the differences. I have been leaning more toward cutting the Quillon and Rain relationship out again, just because it doesn’t impact the story at all, the way Marius and Eponine do in Les Mis.
I definitely know that’s how @valtmy felt about the second book though. And honestly (I’ve been reading through it with a critical eye) that’s how I feel about it too. It’s almost word for word A Tale of Two Cities.
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
Sure, I’d love to take a look. 🙂
As for your character pairings… Apart from Chessy’s silly crush, I honestly don’t have much of an opinion on that matter actually since I don’t really think of SFI as a romance so I did not read it as such.
Usually for romances what I like to see is two people coming together, supporting each other and teaching each other how to live. So the main requirement for me to support a pairing (apart from fun, delightful chemistry) is that the author must convince me that these two are better together than apart (though they still strive to be better people by themselves of course). That, to me, is how love should be, so I like pairings that give me a glimpse of how the characters would interact and face problems together if, say, they marry in the future.
But for the pairings in SFI, I know these characters are doomed. Thus I already know many of these characters don’t have futures together. I can’t imagine how they would live life and interact with each other when they are not doing revolutionary things. As such, I don’t really see SFI as a romance even though there is quite a big focus on it and I don’t think it’ll be appropriate for me to judge the pairings based on my usual standards for romance writing.
Hi. Yes, I’m still around. Unfortunately, I’ve been sick 🙁 (But I promise I am still working on Part 3 of QOD, @seekjustice so do not worry!)
@seekjustice I will admit, had Rain in the first draft been carrying a torch for Quillon, it’s very likely I would have liked it that way. I think I may have told you this before.
Ohh…do you picture “carrying the torch” as “carrying the flashlight” since you’re Australian? I just thought of that…and it’s a very disturbing thought. 😛 (You do call them “torches” right? I think I remember that conversation from a while back.)
Yes, I can see the ATOTC similarities better than the Les Mis similarities since I’ve seen the ATOTC movie. Having not read either of the books, however, I’ve usually refrained from commenting on what matches or doesn’t match the original works, and simply viewed your books for themselves.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
Well, with Rain and Kendall, I honestly want to spend more time developing Kendall, because I feel like he could be a vastly interesting character if I just put a bit more effort to him. That will probably come at the expense of any romantic hints though.
(Honestly, I never met for them to be a romantic pairing anyway. They were just both annoyingly flirtatious . I’m not even sure how it happened, except for that fanfic of Rochellaine’s)
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
I have never heard that expression before, but what immediately came to mind was something along the lines of the Olympic torch 😛
And yes, they are torches. 😀
Well, at least I know I’ve succeeded in the aspect of making sure they’re enjoyable to people who have never read the source material, which some other retelling authors aren’t really that great at (in my humble opinion).
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
Haha your book is not even published yet and you are already pandering to the fanbase? 😛
Yes, Kendall really, really needs to be developed more. If removing all romantic hints is needed for that, I’ll say go for it. You are already in a dilemma regarding the genre of SFI, right? 😛 (Whether or not it should be a dystopian or not). Perhaps it’ll be better to reduce the romantic elements and not confuse everyone further and make people think you’re writing a romance novel (that simply happens to take place in a futuristic Les Mis).
Here’s the rough draft I wrote the other day (really late at night 😛 ). It’s in omniscient pov, since that’s how most prologues seem to be done, but i’m still to decide whether the abrupt switch of focus at the end works? Let me know what you think 😀
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
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