[Haruhi] Unusual Suspects - full version <ProbableDreck-NeedsSeriousAdvice>

[Brian]

Okay!  Fair warning ... my critiques have reduced many a writer to tears and flames.  I'm considered a jerk by my enemies, but my friends know I'm actually much worse (they keep encouraging me to keep track of how many fics my C&C has killed).  <_<

That being said, while I am harshly critical, my intent is to help people improve, so take away everything that helps you, and ignore everything that doesn't.  I often gripe about things that didn't actually bother me that much, but making a big deal out of it helps everyone take another look at things.  So here we go!


I'm looking primarily for grammatical issues and narrative flow, since Hal gave you a pretty good look at the structure; after that I'll revisit to answer your questions and address your area of focus.

"And you aspire to be in a brigade that investigates mysteries?"

Well, no, he doesn't, really.  He was dragged into that brigade, and I think at that point, Haruhi doesn't criticize Kyon's lack of enthusiasm very much.  She's still largely in the mindset she showed in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, where I think Koizumi would answer the questions Kyon asks, and then Haruhi arbitrarily awards him points and tries to get Kyon to be jealous of that (which he remains utterly indifferent to).

Photoshop is a proper noun, but 'photoshopped' is not (so it does not need to be capitalized).

Hmm.  I see some punctuation issues with your dialog.  Instead of pointing them all out, I'll give you a few examples and demonstrations:

"Oh, I remembered something that might help assuage your doubts!" Haruhi claims unstoppably.

This is correct.  The punctuation is an exclamation point, so the dialog leads into the narrative, meaning this is a single complete sentence.

...Brigade assignment." Haruhi states, eyes closed imperiously, pointing at me with the universal gesture for 'Kyon gets to carry heavy objects today'. "Learn exactly how to do that kind of thing....

This is not.  The punctuation is a period, which is a full-stop and does not lead into the narrative.  And that narrative is now an incomplete sentence.  You probably want to revise it like so:

...Brigade assignment[,]" Haruhi states, eyes closed imperiously, pointing at me with the universal gesture for 'Kyon gets to carry heavy objects today'. "Learn exactly how to do that kind of thing....

That is not the only valid construction for the same thing, however, and you could also reword, instead:

...Brigade assignment." Haruhi's eyes are closed after relaying her missive, one finger pointing at me with the universal gesture for 'Kyon gets to carry heavy objects today'. "Learn exactly how to do that kind of thing....

Now the narrative sentence is complete, and so the dialog doesn't have to lead into it.

I have an annoying feeling I just wasted a bunch of your time because you knew that and it was only a typo....  >_>;

Anyway.

Here's another instance:

"That's what Google's for." Haruhi intones mercilessly, arms folded.

Generally, if you don't lead into the narrative from the dialog, avoid speech indicators.

"Let's see, I'm fairly sure it was on an English-language site, which is why I couldn't be bothered to decipher the exact details of it..."

Okay, super-nitpicky mode here.  Before I explain the proper rules for using ellipses, there one far more important rule.  If you don't use them the 'proper' way, use them consistently anyway.  It's far more important that you use them in a consistent manner with yourself than anyone else.

That being said:  Ellipses are used to show where something has been omitted.  This means any instance that there's an ellipses, it theoretically is hiding what would have been real words.  This use is largely used in legal documents, newspapers, and other forms of non-fiction writing.  In fiction, we frequently use ellipses to indicate pauses, or (as you do above), to indicate a character trailing off into silence (and also, if we are writers, we may start typing our own dialog that way when we chat to friends...).

Now.  Ellipses are three periods, and do not terminate a sentence.  Which means that properly, if a sentence terminates with ellipses, those three periods should be trailed by a fourth (so, the punctuation ending the above paragraph is actually correct).  Also, this means that you can lead into narrative from dialog with an ellipses, like so:

"It's been ages since Brian used me to generate example text..." Rezantis mused, not wholly displeased with that turn of events.

And now that you know how to properly use ellipses, for added fun ... ff.net won't let you.  If you have four (or more) periods in a row without spaces, they reduce them down to three anyway. Stupid ff.net.

"Look, I did my research, I'm 100% certain that if Asakura Ryoko transferred to Canada she'll be in Vancouver, and since any flight from here to Kelowna will have a connection at the Vancouver airport, we may as well make it a stopover and look for her. We still don't know what made her leave so suddenly!"

-- Two things here.  One, if Haruhi's got a subconscious awareness of things, as you say in other commentaries, it seems that even suggesting going after Ryouko is skirting a bit close to putting Kyon in danger for her.  Two, Haruhi drops things and forgets about them (intentionally) ... and Ryouko happened before Mystery Sign, which is another mysterious circumstance that Haruhi led everyone to, and then lost interest in (which does tie into your subconscious awareness if she knew she wasn't the one who had to deal with it, and used that to get everyone else to take care of the situation).

It occurs to me that if Haruhi could understand Nagato-speak she would probably be having a fit right now.

She would?  Why?  Because if I followed, Nagato was telling Kyon to calm down, which seems to be exactly what Haruhi wanted.

"This heat really makes you want to talk about any stupid old thing just to distract yourself, eh?" she asks in a tone which suggests she is no longer seriously considering a trip to Vancouver.

I know Hal mentioned the mindreading thing, but to contribute my own thoughts ... this makes Haruhi kind of unsympathetic.  Kyon can't even have his own thoughts and try to keep them to himself without being berated?  Admittedly, she's not aware of the problem (evidently), but that's still an unpleasant take on things.

Kyon having little restraint in snarking aloud makes Haruhi's reactions more sympathetic, because Kyon's actually (possibly unintentionally) saying things to provoke reactions.  Otherwise....  Well.

"Don't worry." Koizumi keeps reassuring me quietly. "It's just an ordinary summer home.

Ooh, this one's slightly different.  This could be one, or two, or three sentences.  Currently, the narrative block is an incomplete sentence.  I'd suggest picking one of these revisions:

"Don't worry," Koizumi keeps reassuring me quietly, "it's just an ordinary summer home.

"Don't worry," Koizumi keeps reassuring me quietly. "It's just an ordinary summer home.

"Don't worry." Koizumi offers quiet reassurances to me every time Haruhi's head is turned away. "It's just an ordinary summer home.

That last one is an extensive reword, and does have an implied speech indicator, but is also a complete sentence (on all three counts).

"Uh.. um... that's great... I think..." Mikuru opines fakely, grimacing fearfully at me. "I'm really looking forward to it?"

And, arriving on the island, the final group of suspects: our gracious host and his family.

Oof!  Stubbed my eyes on that scene transition; you didn't even show them getting into the boat.  I would suggest you just add something to show them boarding, and then have the rest of that conversation occur as they're headed to the island; makes the arrival at the dock feel a bit smoother.

With regards to the 'faces and vases' thing, I'd suggest the other optical illusion of the maiden and the crone ( http://www.moillusions.com/wp-content/uploads/photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5639/2020/400/chica_o_vieja.jpg ).  Probably, Kyon can tell she's not a vase, since she's obviously female, just of unknown age. ;)

"Kobayakawa-san..." Koizumi explains after glancing at her as if expecting confirmation "... is only staying in the country for a brief period of time, so when she decided to visit her relatives it was on a very short notice.."

Extra period at the end.  And ... now you're using the special ellipses character instead of three periods.  I'd strongly suggest either one or the other (and I'd avoid the special ellipses character, just like smartquotes), and being consistent about it.  Other than that, you're missing punctiation on the narrative:

"Kobayakawa-san..." Koizumi explains after glancing at her as if expecting confirmation[,] "... is only staying in the country for a brief period of time, so when she decided to visit her relatives it was on a very short notice.."

Koizumi pokes me in the ribs urgently at this point. Okay, stop it!

Eh?  Why's he poking Kyon?  To make him ... stop thinking?  Kyon's not doing anything before Koizumi pokes him, and his actions afterwards don't really seem to react to the poking, either.

...I'm sure you're all eager to meet the main dish..." she nods to Haruhi in particular "... or the master of the house, shall I say?"

Another missing comma:

...I'm sure you're all eager to meet the main dish..." she nods to Haruhi in particular[,] "... or the master of the house, shall I say?"

Well," Tamaru-san laughs, "Nothing of that sort.

'Nothing' shouldn't be capitalized here, since it's part of the sentence that begins with 'Well'.

"Geez." Haruhi was saying as though I wasn't there. "You can see Kyon's personality in every move he makes. It's practically a working demonstration of why he'll never amount to anything more than an underling."

*twitch*

That nailed one of my pet-peeves.  Just going to say your Haruhi has gone from unsympathetic to genuninely unlikable to me.  Picking on Kyon unprovoked is....  (Well; this is just me.  I'm insanely opinionated about Haruhi's characterization; Murphid can relate!  http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/2011-July/003059.html )

I'll spare you a rant and just leave it at that.

The rest of that scene ... nails another one of my pet-peeves (though, it's CANON, so I can't complain too bitterly:) Kyon's considered to have screwed up despite the fact that he did his best.  Bleah.

Unhappy coincidence, that.

Anyway.  That's chapter one, which is where I'll stop for a bit to re-read the commentary in this thread (particularly yours), for a better overview of youe plans.

[Brian]

Replying to many posts in one thread (because my postcount is high enough):

- Yutaka - who she is, why she hates Haruhi, and how being a slider would give her Mary Sue abilities. Unfortunately, I'm less clear what kind of take on her Mary Sue-ness wouldn't be too grating. There's an element of horror in actually meeting a character like that which could be played up a bit. Particularly since her motivation in this case is so unhinged.

Mulling this over, I think I'm going to agree with Hal that you'll be better served telling this story in third person instead of from Kyon's PoV.

- The fact that this is a very early point in the series, so Nagato hasn't developed emotions, Kyon doesn't see himself as the de facto leader of the supernatural side of the Brigade, and Koizumi basically has responsibility for running the Remote Island circus. (Mikuru? Yes, I'm kind of weak on how her character works. Is she basically a slave to will of the time-traveler organization, whose inner workings aren't very clear?) There's two ways to deal with that:
   - Rewrite the fic to stick to the canon characterizations. The bit with Nagato having less empathy should help with the fact that the IDSE essentially trades away Haruhi for an alternate potential source of data to study.
   - Scratch that and somehow turn "Year Two characters running around Year One" into an explicit feature of the fic. (Just great, exactly the opposite problem to what everyone else has!) Maybe Yutaka could show up expecting Year One characters and be thrown off somewhat by this strange divergence.

Third solution:

Move it from the island to the haunted castle that Tsuruya said she would take them to after the Winter vacation.  I think Hal mentioned this one, too.  That happens in the second summer (novels haven't covered it yet), but lets you keep the characterizations and come up with a more original scenario to introduce your new character.

As for the 'angry Kyon' stuff, it seems that's an issue of precision in my writing. I try to go the snarky route, and it comes out as seethingly mad ;-/ - I'll have to tone him down, then.

Although, since you mention Tanabata, one thing I find slightly weird is that Middle School Haruhi comes across (to me) as slightly more polite and reasonable than Year One Haruhi. Yeah, she orders Kyon to paint the field, but Kyon is used to being ordered around at that point, so she doesn't even have to try to grab him by the tie or anything. Is it just because he's older than her at that point, and she tends to be more restrained in front of elders? Then she questions him politely about espers, aliens, and time travellers and gets her twisted version of career advice from him. But when she comes to high school it takes Kyon several weeks to even get her to give the time of day. So how much of Year One Haruhi is just the result of her being in a shell after developing her reputation as a weird delinquent, as opposed to being inherently callous and stupid?

Well, I think it was more that while she was willing to boss around an older boy, she didn't feel she knew him well enough to grab his tie in middle school.

You're probably also forgetting that even though she doesn't usually care too, even early on Haruhi can fit into social situations.  She manages to interrogate the old superintendant of the apartment that Ryouko used to live in without any trouble, just posing as a concerned classmate.  Her attitude is more a reflection of the fact that she doesn't feel a need to keep up a pretence around other people of caring what they think about her.  Really, you can interpet (considering this is Japan, a much more reserved country than most of ours), her willingness to lead Kyon by the tie as a sort of intimacy.

I don't think Haruhi is inherently callous ... to me the issue is more that she tries to separate herself from normal humans to the point where (at the begining of the first year), she has almost no empathy.  She looks at people at that point as objects.  Mikuru's a collection of moe attributes, Yuki is a decoration, Koizumi is handsome and mysterious (which I think she wants him more because other people would covet those things than from personal interest -- but she'd catch on and pursue).

The only person she cares about at all (at that point) is Kyon, which is demonstrated best by the conclusion of Melancholy, (can we say Big Damn Kiss?).  When Kyon almost hits her in Sigh for calling Mikuru a toy, that prompts another evolution in Haruhi's character growth....  After that she starts developing more protective urges for Mikuru.  And then, Kyon still has to tell her she's not allowed to use Yuki as a bargaining chip with the computer club (but she goes along with his demands anyway).

Moving this back to a slightly more topical conclusion: Kyon determines to Koizumi that he doesn't believe Haruhi would want someone to die, so she's had at least enough character growth (probably connected directly to the conclusion of Melancholy (hmm, I've never actualy thought about this specific before)) to go from 'willing to destroy the world because Kyon wouldn't look at her increasingly skimpy outfits throughout the day' to 'wouldn't want people to die, even if she wanted amazing things to happen'.  This is interesting, contrasted against Koizumi's, "She wants to witness something horrible," instead of, "She wants to be the great detective (and recieve admiration/praise for solving a mystery)."

As an example, a friend of mine from this site (hi Eb!) wrote the absolute worst short story he could come up with and published it under a pseudonym to see what would happen, and it still ended up getting something like 95% positive reviews.

Hahahaha!  I reread that a few months ago.  Knowing what he was trying, I admit that it is hilarious ... but for all the wrong reasons.

Okay. Point especially taken on Middle School Haruhi's behaviour. Seems I've happily forgotten the original and allowed myself to engage in wishful thinking that Haruhi is a much less hateful person than she actually is.

Gonna step in here -- Haruhi doesn't have to be a hateful person to have done hateful things.

Read it as her losing her ability to sympathize with or care for others because she's so desperate to find something amazing/different, and she's actually more sympathetic.  Especially if you take it that Kyon is the one who (through familiarity to 'John Smith', the last person Haruhi cared about), rekindles her dwindled empathy and lets her grow back into a positive and awesome person again.

That's my take on it, anyway. >_>

To emphasize, my original question was phrased in terms of "whether it could be salvaged with a rewrite". The more I think about it, the more I see that, while slider-Yutaka is a character which I might eventually understand and develop, writing a fic where she's holding all the strings is completely the wrong way to get to work on that. There's absolutely no room in this one to give her limitations.

From what I can see of it, probably, but characterization is going to make it take a lot of work.

That still leaves the problem of the Lone Island stuff you haven't got to yet suffering from a bad case of Idiot Plot. You know, the kind of plot that relies on the characters being idiots so Yutaka can manipulate everyone :-R Again, I'll need to spend time on this. The question "how do you prod Year One Haruhi into seeing the SOS-Dan as filled with shady people" isn't intractable, but I need to be more clear to myself that that's what Yutaka should focus on doing.

Hmm.  I'm not sure how well a plan to turn Haruhi against her closest allies will really work if Haruhi's supposed to be subconsciously aware.  Your slider is going to need to pull a lot of strings, and then the question of a positive ending becomes truly murky.

And yes, getting a decent C&C for the first time is painful, but pain just means you're still alive - and it's nothing that judicious application of a Grief Seed can't fix!

Bah, that's weaksauce.  Around here, we use (maaaaaaassive Madoka spoilers, FYI:) MORNING RESCUE.

Long, poorly constructed sentences. Schizophrenic alternation between American and Canadian spelling (you don't have to run off and check for it, but that kind of thing tends to jump out at some people). I have trouble making sure important stuff stays onstage. I like to write scenes where characters talk at one another without listening, leading to misunderstandings; but I'm not very good at making said scenes work.

In the chapter I read, actually, your style seemed fine.  I didn't see any of the issues you mentioned, at least.

As I mentioned, as a first step I'm trying to rewrite the story with a framing device of Kyon and Yuki wandering through a fleshed-out version of the slider bureaucracy. So instead of "dangerously Mary Sue-esque slider invades the plot of Haruhi" (which is the best I could accomplish by just polishing what I have right now) it would at least become "Kyon and Yuki wander around a strange setting looking for someone to complain to about Mary Sue-esque slider". Then with the right tweaks in emphasis it might become at least passable as a parody, although saying 'oh, it's a parody now' seems somewhat dishonest at this stage.

It ... could be a parody, but I don't know that it really needs to.  You can probably present that plausibly, though it may be easier to do it as humor instead of serious. :p

To make the fic work I'd need to fix the mechanism by which Yutaka defeats Haruhi. Since it results in an unresolved/downer ending I need to be extremely clear how it works, and how it depends on actual established character traits - because if it doesn't, then the defeat doesn't say anything about the characters, just about the willingness of the writer to hash and rehash plot contrivances. (And if a downer ending is completely unacceptable, I still need to fix the mechanism so that I can be clear why it *doesn't* work.)

You can write a downer ending if you want -- it's just not really my cup of tea.

Is the story you want to tell about Haruhi being driven slowly insane and ultimately losing?  In that case ... having some new character show up to (basically) kill off Haruhi is ... er ... really a massive bummer.

If the story is that the slider is manipulating things to aim for that (and then gets thwarted), then that's fine, too, but we need her character to be rounded enough for us to understand her motivations (even if we can't agree with them).

Somewhere above, Halbarad mentions doing much more work on the notion I raised that the boundary between Haruhi's conscious mind and her subconscious (the part of her that everything strange gets blamed on) isn't as clear-cut as everyone assumes. This leads first and foremost to the potential that Haruhi keeps making Freudian slips about her powers without realizing, makes assumptions about Brigade members that seem like random snap judgments when she thinks about them consciously (but actually make sense if you take their identities into account), and embarks on ridiculously impossible projects because she knows that she can just rely on Koizumi's connections and Yuki & Mikuru's powers to take care of things for her. This last notion seems to be briefly played with in canon, somewhat, obliquely, maybe. I can dig up the passage in the earlier novels that brings it to mind.

Probably any of the times Koiuzumi said, "Well, we did what she wanted, so ... she got her desires!" (or words to that effect).

The only thing is, this presentation of Haruhi is a different one than the one in the novels.  While it can work, it's not a characterization of Haruhi I'm used to.  Probably....

I could even split that idea out *first* as a practice fic (although I'd need to figure out a suitably one-off plot for it) since it seems like a neat notion that deserves to exist unsullied by the presence of slider-Yutaka. And I still haven't thought through all the potential implications of the idea.

...this is a very valid point.  You probably want to consider more implications before pursuing the idea. :p

So, you've got two ideas that it sounds like you haven't fully considered.  Probably, trying to impliment both of them without fully exploring them could lead to a lot of issues.

Well, in that case, I strongly advocate the idea of a shorter story exploring the schizm in Haruhi's mentality, if for nothing else than to make sure you've got a solid grasp of it.  I'm actually quite interested in reading that story, too. :)

Now when you look at Haruhi's position without the qualification of obliviousness, it seems frankly ridiculous. She has three of four desired strange beings in her group, but gets absolutely no excitement out of this. Instead of exploring the universe or whatever that Hare Hare Yukai song is about, their job is to play baseball with her, act as living furniture for the clubroom, make tea, play dress-up, set up party games, do her odd jobs, I'm making this sound like babysitting because it is. This would result in severe frustration - which, taking this perspective, wouldn't decrease when the Brigade members try to distract her with further babysitting-type tasks. It would instead just be a vicious circle.

So thus we answer the question of why Yutaka would even be permitted to manifest in Haruhi's universe, as a supernatural being directly hostile to her. Like the espers are said to represent Haruhi's 'conscience' that destroying the world is wrong, Yutaka only gets to enter the universe when she figures out that she can be a living embodiment of Haruhi's cognitive dissonance; and she has to carefully play that role in order to not get spontaneously booted.

I'm not sure that justification needs to be provided for this.  Haruhi doesn't prevent people from doing things that we know of in canon (typically).  Certainly she wouldn't react to things she wasn't aware of.  In fact, saying that Haruhi doesn't have any effect on sliders allows you to tone down the Mary-Sueishness of the slider and just make her a straight-up villain.

If everyone Haruhi disliked went away, there would be no Student Council President (and the Organization probably wouldn't have put someone in such a position intentionally).

Now the question is whether Yutaka can take advantage of this in any way. From here on the premise is shakier. If she can make Haruhi so frustrated with the situation that Haruhi is ready to wish for almost *any* way out, she can then interpret that as permission to stick her in a box with her collection of Haruhi alternates, and proceed to do so. At least initially that would be a strange adventure, but then...

Again, the problem for Yutaka would then become, if she has a hundred Haruhis who ended up in a box because of an ill-advised wish for interesting things to happen, they're going to be invoking all of their powers to get out of the box and into a better situation, whether consciously or unconsciously. It's essentially an overload of reality-warping power that Yutaka has to discharge by finding some way to let the Haruhi alternates out temporarily, and use them for tasks that happen to suit their personality/personalities. If I deal with all the problems above, the most I can do for this one is to raise the question during Kyon and Yuki's wanderings, then perhaps deal with it in a separate fic.

If she's got a hundred Haruhis in a box, it's a huge surprise that she's going to fail on number 101.

I also think it's weird that it sounds like the slider has some sort of administrative control over Haruhi's powers.  That's ... veering towards the worst aspects of Mary-Sueism.  And also turning this into a massive Cosmic Horror Story.  A hundred enslaved Haruhis....  Yeesh.

Not sure if this will inspire any commentary (it's extremely iffy to be posting concepts that one may or may not be able to execute on), but thanks for the opportunity to think aloud.

We actually have a thread for just that!

It's right here:
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,101763.0.html

We encourage discussion of fic ideas, absolutely.  An extra voice or three to bounce ideas off in the planning stages can be a huge asset!

Anyway, concluding my commentary for the evening, I'll leave on this note:

You have a pretty solid degree of technical skill, as far as I read, and your style was largely consistant.  I look forward to whatever you choose to share with us next, and hope that my commentary hasn't driven you away forever (and forced me to mark another 'killed fic' on my iPad)....

[Muphrid]

Belatedly, thanks for the welcome, Dracos.  Also, let me expand on one thing Brian said just now: the story right now is very readable.  There are some issues with characterization and punctuation for uncommon situations, but the latter will certainly come, and the former just needs readers like us and consistent exposure to the source material whenever possible.  Overall, these are not big issues.  So that's a word of encouragement I want to offer.

I was thinking more about this story later on, and I realized that what felt just a bit off with this was that the thrust of the story was intellectual in nature.  There's a tendency in some circles to make a story into a puzzle, to challenge the audience into unraveling the hidden clues and riddles.  Even outside of genre mystery stories, there's a temptation to do that.  I look at how Yutaka forces Kyon to keep things quiet and protect her from Asahina.  Kyon himself wonders how Asahina could ever come to threaten anyone, let alone shoot a person.  This a problem the audience will try to figure out for themselves.  Forget for a moment that it's not something they would've reasonably deduced (after all, Poe's Dupin deduced an orangutan committed two murders).  My point is that it's an entirely cerebral exercise.

What's missing then, in my opinion, is emotional engagement.  As written, it's a downer ending, but what are the reactions we can expect from the cast?  Haruhi is disillusioned.  Kyon should feel what--resentment toward this Yutaka and disappointment with himself for failing to protect Haruhi from this plot?  Koizumi, Asahina, and Nagato would all rightly fear, in their own way, what may happen with Haruhi plucked from the universe, even if that time to fear is short-lived.  Emotions reflect motivations, and vice versa.  I don't think this is at all uncommon.  Starting out, I think we all think that the emotional content of a scene is apparent and doesn't need explaining, but more often than not, it does.  Show the audience what the characters are feeling and how it affects their decisions, their choices.  It's a little more apparent in the final chapter, but I guess my concern there is the suddenness of it all--Haruhi's feelings of betrayal come instantly.  They appear when the plot needs them and not a second before.  Foreshadowing isn't the right word for it.  There should be some indication that that's a fundamental point.

These are only my opinions, however, and how much one agrees or disagrees with them is a matter of taste.  I know what I like to see in writing isn't what everyone chooses to do, so I'm aware that there's a bias in that respect, just as Brian has a very, very critical eye for Haruhi's characterization, if only because (if I understand it correctly) she's a borderline character to begin with, having come back from being stuck across a moral and ethical line to a more reasonable persona after 11 novels and over a year of in-universe time to grow.  So there's all that to consider, too.  But I would like to end on something positive, which is that I like the ideas presented here.  There's something actually pretty chilling about Yutaka bottling Haruhi up in a box, and I think that could've been played up to very nasty effect.  Something to think about.

[Arakawa]

Okay, thanks to everyone for the detailed advice. I'm writing the initial practice fic first, and I think I'll hold off on a detailed response to all your comments until I've posted that.

As for the full fic, it's not been killed by all the C&C, but I'm still thinking it through to make sure that Yutaka's updated capture plan actually makes logical sense. So far it seems simple, straightforward, and tries to hit squarely at a (real or perceived) Haruhi character flaw. And it uses the haunted castle setting, so it's not a Haruhi flaw that goes away by itself over a year of development (which would otherwise make Yutaka's efforts to punish it completely pointless). An actual slider-Yutaka would hopefully give the plan a grade of 'C' as opposed to the 'F' of my previous effort.

The only trouble with the haunted castle variant is going to be that I don't presently have a copy of novels 10-11. If I can't find one, I'll see if I can't fudge away the confrontation set up in novel 9 somehow, because there are definite advantages to using that scenario. Although I'm not sure at what point either Haruhi or Tsuruya mention the castle to specifically be haunted. I seem to remember Haruhi's criteria just being that it had to be built of stone, have a weird and mysterious name/history, and be located overseas (in a foreign country).

I was thinking more about this story later on, and I realized that what felt just a bit off with this was that the thrust of the story was intellectual in nature.  There's a tendency in some circles to make a story into a puzzle, to challenge the audience into unraveling the hidden clues and riddles.  Even outside of genre mystery stories, there's a temptation to do that.

I think that nicely summarizes the mindset in which I let the more ludicrous aspects of the fic through my own filters.

As for Morning Rescue video, episode 8 (?I think) of 12 isn't quite MAAASIVE spoilers. If Brian had posted the Madokami version of that clip I'd be more worried (note: pointless attachment).

[Muphrid]

As far as a copy of 10-11, I can send you the one I put together (really just copy/pasted from the translators and bundled it with 9 because I thought it'd be cool to have that whole arc as one package), or it'll come up on google reasonably easily (that's me not knowing how okay/not okay it'd be to be more direct with such things around here).

[Arakawa]

I found it. Turns out it's just posted as raw PDFs all over the internet...

[Brian]

As for Morning Rescue video, episode 8 (?I think) of 12 isn't quite MAAASIVE spoilers. If Brian had posted the Madokami version of that clip I'd be more worried (note: pointless attachment).

Butbutbutbut--  I love pointless emphasis! ;_;

Seriously, though, glad it was well received.  As far as making your story novels 10/11 compliant, you can freely diverge from volume 9 instead of 10/11.  (Not that you shouldn't read them, or anything.)  Still, if you've got a reasonable idea, and it existed before those novels, just break off from what you know, instead of worrying too much the new novels if it doesn't work for you.

As far as a copy of 10-11, I can send you the one I put together (really just copy/pasted from the translators and bundled it with 9 because I thought it'd be cool to have that whole arc as one package), or it'll come up on google reasonably easily (that's me not knowing how okay/not okay it'd be to be more direct with such things around here).

And Muprid, we're pretty casual about those things, though do generally veer away from direct links in public places.  (Check out our somewhat defunct fansub update board, at some point. ;))

I found it. Turns out it's just posted as raw PDFs all over the internet...

...as I go to preview. ^_^;;

Well, excellent, then.

Edit: By the way, cute picture.

[Arakawa]

Okay, let's not stop, let's keep moving. I've written and attached a short snip (well, 5,000 words - that's about a... third? of my outline for 'Hypothesis Two') of a Haruhi character exploration fic. I'm interested to see whether I'm moving in the right direction.

I'm jumping on the "let's use Haruhi's inner perspective" bandwagon a bit (via third person omniscient). This snip isn't strictly devoted to schizoid-Haruhi. But it's definitely a nothing-happens sort of affair at the moment. Well, Haruhi thinks about stuff and Tsuruya's father gives Kyon some

Spoiler: ShowHide

cigars

, God knows why.

'Hypothesis Two' is a fic where due to a small but important divergence, they don't run into slider-Yutaka.

'Hypothesis One' will hopefully be the fic where they do run into slider-Yutaka, with the expected cosmic horror ensuing.

Now to respond to your awesome pile of feedback:

I was thinking more about this story later on, and I realized that what felt just a bit off with this was that the thrust of the story was intellectual in nature.  There's a tendency in some circles to make a story into a puzzle, to challenge the audience into unraveling the hidden clues and riddles.  Even outside of genre mystery stories, there's a temptation to do that.

As I noted already, this is how the first version of the fic got past my filter, Mary Sue and all. I think this attitude comes somewhat from having played a lot of text adventure games (those got brought up recently...), where more often than not the puzzles come first, atmosphere comes second, and having good characterization (or any sort of characters for that matter) is a distant extra. Definitely a danger factor, that I need to be clear I'm working in literature (of a sort) and not just in the field of random lulz.

Regardless, figuring out a character is in and of itself a good puzzle..

It's a little more apparent in the final chapter, but I guess my concern there is the suddenness of it all--Haruhi's feelings of betrayal come instantly.  They appear when the plot needs them and not a second before.  Foreshadowing isn't the right word for it.  There should be some indication that that's a fundamental point.

Right, I'm trying to manoeuvre my thought process in that direction with the current fic. At the moment it looks like it'll probably establish a completely different basis for Haruhi's capture, though..

Move it from the island to the haunted castle that Tsuruya said she would take them to after the Winter vacation.  I think Hal mentioned this one, too.  That happens in the second summer (novels haven't covered it yet), but lets you keep the characterizations and come up with a more original scenario to introduce your new character.

As you can see from the timing of the attached fic, I'm moving towards this option. Thus I won't have to combine Yutaka's plot with Koizumi's plan into a poorly motivated Rube Goldberg monstrosity. The Snow Mountain style 'scripted mystery' setup is much nicer to work with...

The downside is that the haunted castle scenario gives me even more weird ideas to execute on top of the existing ones... wait, where does it say that the castle is going to be haunted? All I remember is Haruhi wanted it to be a stone castle, with a weird name and history, somewhere overseas, and Tsuruya saying she knows a place like that.

(snip lengthy Haruhi character analysis)
(snip back and forth noises about "hmm, interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it can actually work")

I think the practice fic is going to be extremely useful for figuring this stuff out. Whether or not I write a happy ending, a downer ending, or a massive cosmic horror that gets turned into a happy ending via a weird saving clause, the question of whether the fic works is going to depend on whether I can gain the readers' trust via my take on the characters.

If I understood the characters well -- then I could project that understanding onto Yutaka -- she would exploit their flaws appropriately -- then even a downer ending would be subtly convincing. If not, then it would just make an already problematic concept that much worse.

... This last notion seems to be briefly played with in canon, somewhat, obliquely, maybe. I can dig up the passage in the earlier novels that brings it to mind.

Probably any of the times Koiuzumi said, "Well, we did what she wanted, so ... she got her desires!" (or words to that effect).

Actually, I'm thinking of a Kyon remark early on to the effect that "the trouble with Haruhi is that she gets these ideas, but it's other people who have to deal with the consequences". I can't remember where it is and what nuance in it made me think of this notion, though.

Okay!  Fair warning ... my critiques have reduced many a writer to tears and flames.  I'm considered a jerk by my enemies, but my friends know I'm actually much worse (they keep encouraging me to keep track of how many fics my C&C has killed).  <_<

As long as my writing doesn't suddenly prompt Dracos to revive the Evil Commentary Bureau, I think I'll be fine... if something like that does happen, I'll have to seriously rethink what I'm doing on the Internet.

I have an annoying feeling I just wasted a bunch of your time because you knew that and it was only a typo....  >_>;

I have a terrible feeling that I wasted a bunch of your time because I knew a bunch of the rules here and ignored them _{because it's all just going up on ff.net anyways}. Actually, no, I learned a lot of useful stuff already. Everything with the ellipses was new to me. Although there may be one or two instances in the attached fic where I still did weird things with them out of sheer stylistic inertia, argh. Tell me if it bothers you.

And now that you know how to properly use ellipses, for added fun ... ff.net won't let you.  If you have four (or more) periods in a row without spaces, they reduce them down to three anyway. Stupid ff.net.

On the upside, their stupidity filter cured me of my fondness for '!?'.

With regards to the 'faces and vases' thing, I'd suggest the other optical illusion of the maiden and the crone ( http://www.moillusions.com/wp-content/uploads/photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5639/2020/400/chica_o_vieja.jpg ).  Probably, Kyon can tell she's not a vase, since she's obviously female, just of unknown age. ;)

The last thing Yutaka should be reminding people of is a crone... seeing as she comes from a universe inhabited by perpetually underage-looking moeblobs (I'm looking at you KyoAni).

Although I'll make sure to lampshade your complaint about the vase somehow.

Extra period at the end.  And ... now you're using the special ellipses character instead of three periods.  I'd strongly suggest either one or the other (and I'd avoid the special ellipses character, just like smartquotes), and being consistent about it.

And here is a very good lesson on why you shouldn't edit the same fic with three different word processors... that was also the origin of my fears of mixing Canadian and American spelling. Now that I'm sticking with using Markdown --> HTML it should at least be consistent.

Koizumi pokes me in the ribs urgently at this point. Okay, stop it!

Eh?  Why's he poking Kyon?  To make him ... stop thinking?  Kyon's not doing anything before Koizumi pokes him, and his actions afterwards don't really seem to react to the poking, either.

Watch me pull out a completely stereotyped gesture without thinking about what it actually means, and totally get called on it!

And that's it for now. I'll keep working, thank you all for the encouragement!

[Arakawa]

Nota bene: departing far, far away from the Internet for the next few days, so any responses on here I won't be able to receive and reply to until Tuesday. Just a heads up.