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Post by Pipe Organ Wolf on May 23, 2007 8:36:31 GMT -5
Wow! Jonathan's girlfriend is from EASTER ISLAND! WOOT! Uh, sorry. Got a little overexcited. If she's not actually from there, that is the same culture. I know what you mean about redesigning characters. I decided to make that one character about 40 years younger. Unfortunately, that means about thirty pages need to be completely rewritten, and the rest edited. I'm amazed at how well it's coming together, though. I had a list of horses owned by the characters, and I felt it was rather unreasonable. I ended up halving the number of horses, and swapping a few genders to make it more believable. I ended up having to go back through everything and double check that I was using horses I'd decided to keep. What a headache!
That is quite appropriate for Joey! Awesome!
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Post by Poofiemus on May 23, 2007 16:34:40 GMT -5
The Maori are actually from New Zealand. ^^; She's going to teach Joey how to use a taiaha! 40 years younger? Holy crap! I'm sure he didn't protest, though. *bricked* Sometimes my characters practically beg for redesigns, but other times I have to drag them into it kicking and screaming, if you know what I mean. Jonathan, while not exactly that bad, seems a little...peeved about it. XD Yeah, my characters take on that much life when I get them to work out. Every now and then I'll end up with one with NO personality, and then I have to pretty much re-create them from the ground up *cough* Kana *cough cough*. (I still need to mess with her, but it's hard. I need her to be likable, but not too likable...She's from my novel.) This is why I'm glad I don't have to redo Joey's hair. He gave me puppy eyes. You just can't say no to the puppy eyes! I have to go back in my novel and revamp a whole slew of crap before I go in and edit. I need to make a map of Lauradasia, the country where 2/3 of it takes place, decide which towns' water supplies Ethermant poisoned and with what, decide where Morgana Valley is relative to Lauradasia, research parliamentary governments and edit Lauradasia's to be feasible, and, oh yeah, finish the freakin' first draft. Talk about a to-do list. =P I also need to update my character data sheets to make sure I don't randomly change Josai's eye color again. That sucked. I'm glad it's appropriate! I really should work with that story more. Maybe I'll do that one instead of New Mesopotamia. =P After all, it takes place first.
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Post by Pipe Organ Wolf on May 24, 2007 20:55:32 GMT -5
Whoops! I think I got Maori and Maoi confused. He hasn't expressed an opinion one way or the other. This was that Tolkien-esque character I was referring to earlier. I think I'm happier about the age change than he is. It's another way for me to distance him from Gandalf. I was thinking earlier when I was playing my Harry Potter video game that one doesn't need to worry about referencing as much as one would think. Rowling's dementors are the same creatures as Tolkien's Ring Wraiths, just with a different name.
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Post by Poofiemus on Jun 2, 2007 2:28:07 GMT -5
You'd think he'd be happy about it, you providing him with the fountain of youth and all! *bricked*
I don't care how much Jonathan digs his heels in, though, I do need to redesign him, since I'd love to do his and Joey's story as a comic rather than a novel. And yet I'm certain that the sequel will be a novel. Odd, eh?
And you do have a point. Even Tolkien borrowed; apparently he took the whole tall Elf idea from an old English legend. It's just a matter of creating distance. THe dementors are somewhat different, in that unlike the Ringwraiths they can breed and were never human, as well as apparently not needing steeds.
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Post by Pipe Organ Wolf on Jun 2, 2007 13:38:02 GMT -5
I I know think the reason "Maeniel" (that's his nickname) doesn't like the change, but if I explained it, it would sort of be a HUGE spoiler for where I want the story to go. Unfortunately, that age change means that about 38 of the 50 pages I've written so far are nearly completely useless. A lot more work, but I really think it's going to help overall. It's amazing how much a story can come alive! At this point, my characters are the only people I have to hang around with! Wow, I'm pathetic! I think that's kind of a neat idea with a comic followed by a novel. Comics are really appealing. A lot of people who wouldn't normally pick up a novel will read a comic. By following it with a novel, you're getting people to read more. I think that's awesome! Yeah, Tolkien was a thief too. The orcs are also from an Old English legend. It seems sometimes that the distance doesn't need to be too great for something to work, though. I can't remember the name of the series, but some guy about 10 years ago did something that borrowed extremely heavily from Tolkien and he got away with it. Like to the point where about all he changed were names.
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Post by Poofiemus on Jun 3, 2007 2:32:02 GMT -5
There's really no reason for Jonathan to dislike changes; he's just stubborn like that. I think he's afraid I'll make him cut his hair. XD Don't worry, I won't! I might turn it red or brown though. =P
I feel like my characters are real people too. It's great when you're writing consistently, or even manically *cough* NaNoWriMo *cough cough*, but then when you DON'T write your characters put you on a guilt trip. The weird thing is how differently they go about it. Emryana and Yuso look at me and say, "Pleeeeaaase?" Joey too. Terri lectures me, while her boyfriend Josai looks on and tries to figure how to shut her up without jeapardizing the chances of getting the story worked on. Flikara, the dragon, she's scary. She screams her lungs out. And Regolith has recently started bonking me with her curtainrod, not to mention she's taken to pointing out that I keep working on her namesake WoW character but not on her. ^^; I'm glad you're likely to understand this; normal people think I'm crazy when I say this!
I like the idea of the novel sequel just because I don't want the story broken up, even though it's long. I feel it's okay for the first one, Bushwacked!, to be presented a little at a time, in great part because of some of the mystery involved in it. But New Mesopotamia is more a suspense/thriller tone, and I don't want to have to go a few chapters or pages at a time. Hell, even if I did it just in graphic novel form, it would still be broken up too much unless I wanted to kill the binding. So I don't care if people are weirded out by it, that's how I'm doing it. =P Though I will probably start every major section with a drawing, just because I'm nuts.
I think I remember reading that too. In fact, even weirder, Tolkien later stole from himself, I've heard. He wrote the Silmarilion first, but publishers rejected it. He rewrote it as the main trilogy, but threw in a clause that those three wouldn't be published if the Silmarilion wasn't! That's why the Silmarilion is so similar to LOTR.
...And that theiving thing sounds very familiar. Not to mention Eragon, which many people claim is unoriginal even though their own faves borrow just as heavily. >.<
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