The most consequential edits aren't that kind of nuts and bolts stuff though. The first big edit was to replace Revya from Soul Nomad with Richard from The Sword of Truth. Everyone's favorite Seeker, Richard Rahl, has arrived as a new playable character. The reason Revya had to go despite being the stronger swordsman is multi-fold.
Revya in Soul Nomad can be either a girl or a boy, the sex is choosable by the player. This makes his/her identity difficult to pin down and at best vague. Calling such a character a 'son' or a 'daughter' seems inaccurate, as Revya is non-binary at least at his/her core. I don't want to deal with non-binary crap in my story and just want straight male or female fictional characters to name male or female children after.
The next problem is Revya is only a hero along one plot line, in the other, equally 'canon' story line Revya is the arch-villain. In fact, arguably, Revya is cooler down the villain route! At least it's the more fun to play route. Christopher's children are all supposed to be named after heroes, but again, Revya is a non-binary hero. It's vague whether you could classify the character as hero or villain. Enough with the non-binary-ness! Revya had to go into the vague undefined abyss.
This made room for a new hero, and Richard Rahl has always deserved a seat at the table, as well as the Sword of Truth franchise in general. I'm surprised I hadn't included him already. My favorite Richard scene is in Faith of the Fallen, when he builds a beautiful statue encompassing mankind's hope and strength, and then smashes it in front of the crowd, explaining that this was a metaphor for their entire society's way of life. It was such a brazen affront and injustice that it inspired the crowd into a nation-wide revolt.
When a name changes a bunch of other downstream edits are also necessary and naturally I did all those as well.
The second big edit was for Sherria's sake. I'd recently added a Sherria scene into the novel, but it didn't transition seamlessly from the new content back into the old. I now built a 'bridge' between the old and new which should make the scene easier to swallow:
"Cute-sama, do you eat and drink? Would you like some sweets?" Kobeni gestured to the basket in the middle of the room holding all sorts of good things.
"I have never eaten or drunk before, but I can certainly do anything, including eat and drink. Plus I'm a goddess so it all just radiates away as holy light afterwards." Cute-sama put her nose up proudly.
"Ii-na." The crowd of girls sighed morosely. When Cute-sama reached for the offered snack bowl Sherria quickly withdrew her hand as though escaping from a hot pan.
"You can go first." Cute-sama gave Sherria a perplexed look, worried she had somehow violated good manners twice in a row.
"No, I mean, you're a God and I'm a God Slayer, so I was worried if we touched you might dissolve or something. . ." Sherria blushed nervously.
Cute-sama gazed at Sherria with wide-eyed shock, and then broke into laughter so fierce she had to clutch her stomach.
"Oh but don't worry!" Sherria waved her arms defensively. "I was only raised to slay warui kami! Cute-sama is our Cupid, in other words ai, so I'd never harm you!"
Cute-sama looked like she was taking critical damage already. She wiped a tear from her eye and seized Sherria's hands in hers, looking directly into her face to show there was nothing to fear. "It appears Gods are taken a little too lightly where you come from, so it might help to think of me as a reality programmer instead. Reality is exactly what I've made it to be with each passing second, the world is newly created according to my blueprint with each tick, so it's impossible for any power to go against me. In fact, every power every one of you possesses is actually your minds sending a prayer to me for the world to be changed in x manner, after which I remake the world such that the prayer is granted, so long as it's in accord with what your source works say your powers should be able to do. Otherwise the paradoxes from clashing laws of nature would multiply endlessly."
"So that's how it works." Sophie nodded to herself satisfiedly.
"In that case, yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" Sherria bowed deeply to her Maker who was still holding her hands.
The other wives saw the wisdom of Sherria's gesture and joined in chorus. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" Everyone in the gathering was bowing deeply towards Cute-sama like she'd suddenly become the Kaaba.
"Yoroshiku." Cute-sama bowed back uncertainly, not knowing which way to point.
"In that case, yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" Sherria bowed deeply to her Maker who was still holding her hands.
The other wives saw the wisdom of Sherria's gesture and joined in chorus. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" Everyone in the gathering was bowing deeply towards Cute-sama like she'd suddenly become the Kaaba.
"Yoroshiku." Cute-sama bowed back uncertainly, not knowing which way to point.
"Getting back on track, how are we going to introduce Cute-sama to Christopher? Should we arrange some sort of surprise party for him and then have her emerge from the crowd in the swing of things?" Chiwa asked.
As best I could the conversation now flows naturally. Depending on my tenacity I should be able to finish up the 16th read through before year's end. Based on what I've seen so far, my past edits are paying off -- I feel like there are much fewer plot grievances where things don't make sense, everything reads easier and most of all the distracting grammatical errors are mostly gone. I even cut another usage of the terrible 'just' plague.
A book is as bad as its worst part, so fixing the stuff that wasn't working multiplies the value of the story tremendously. If people aren't distracted by bad portions they can more enjoy the good portions, so even small edits have huge payoffs. I'm looking forward to the day my 16th read through is over and I can declare definitively there's nothing left to fix.
In other news, plenty of new health studies have shown that vaping is as bad or worse than smoking on the lungs, so Andrew Anglin's hypocrisy is final and total. Giving health advice to people concerning masturbation and diet while ignoring the fact that he's vaping his way to an early death, emphysema, bronchitis, cancer, etc., is so rich. What a loser. How about you fix your own addiction before lecturing other people on completely innocent and harmless habits? At least then you wouldn't be a total hypocrite. In 2030 it's projected that half of adult Americans will be obese. I'm against fatties and want to round them up and gas them as much as the next guy, but you can't give that lecture while you're puffing away on a hookah. You especially can't give that advice to people who in general eat healthy but are just having some fun on a special occasion with a box of donuts or enjoy the taste of soda. What a ridiculous clown.
Another farce is this impeachment. Donald Trump's 6 page takedown letter to Pelosi is a beautiful response to all that, so there's no point adding anything more: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6581969/Letter-From-President-Trump-Final.pdf
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