Soulriders 5.0: Legend of the Unending Games

Right. My story.


The plot:
(I'm not sure if the spoiler tags are necessary, but...)



Anyway, I had posted the prologue and gotten some advice. It's revised, but it's not perfect yet. I also have chapter one ready for review. I'm more confident about that, but I'm unsure about names/titles/etc.


I'll be posting further as things go further.
Enjoy, and thanks for the help! Now to go figure out how to write that fluff section...

Looks interesting.

A note: the docx file format is remarkably inconvenient for anyone who's not running Windows; you can theoretically read it with free software, but it's annoying enough that I, myself, am probably not going to bother. I would recommend using a different file format; rtf is decent, plain doc is not as good but still better than docx. (I personally post as plain text, but that's harder to get decently formatted from Word.)

Converting to plain text is not actually that hard, although you'll lose any italics/bold formatting. Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, open Notepad, Ctrl-V. Save. Congratulations, you now have plain text.

I'll second alethiophile here; I'm running Windows, but I have nothing capable of editing a docx file, and so I'd prefer to see some other format in order to review (since I'll want to make notes in the fic itself as I go.)

Right. Sorry about that. It's now in rich text format.

Prologue:

QuoteWhy do people fight? I guess it's because people want the same thing, but there isn't enough for everyone to have some, or some people want more than they're given. It's an irrational way to go about things. Usually, a war to gain more money, land, or whatever you're going out to war for isn't even worth it. The body count almost always outweighs the value of whatever it is that you want. You have to pay off your soldiers and pay out more than you gain. Your nation's economy crashes and nobody wins. It's unnecessary, so why do we have it?

You repeat the "whatever [qualifying phrase]" construction twice in this paragraph.  I would also suggest "why do we do it" instead of "have".

QuoteI wonder how she feels about war. Haruhi could end war forever, she has the power to do that without much difficulty, yet she doesn't. Is it because of her common sense? Considering that she summoned aliens and time travelers just by wanting them despite knowing that they can't exist, it's probably more complex. Maybe she's okay with war, because she wants, and is willing to fight for what she wants.

"forever," is a comma splice.  Personally, I find the implication that Haruhi is okay with war quite frightening.  There are many more nuanced possibilities, though I can't speak for whether they fit with your story.

QuoteAnyway, I had felt like something had been brewing. I ran into Sasaki on my way up as had happened a few times before. The last couple of times this had happened it hadn't ended well, but I felt it had been worth the risk. After all, I'm assuming Koizumi 'disposed' of that b*****d Fujiwara back in April, and Kuyoh probably just faded into the background. There would be no meetings with the Anti-SOS Brigade.

I had felt like there had been some violence brewing on the horizon, and we had segued into a conversation about violence in general.

Note that both of these paragraphs begin (more or less) with "I had felt like..."  I suggest varying one of these.  The second can be made much more direct:  "I suspected violance was brewing..."  That's probably best.

QuoteBefore I could mention that consideration, however, our conversation was interrupted by the voice of our beloved brigade leader.

She's not Sasaki's brigade leader, so "our" in that sense doesn't seem appropriate.

QuoteI check the time on my phone. Typical Haruhi, calling me late when we don't even need to be at the station for another ten minutes.

Now we lapse into present tense?

QuoteThe last time the two of them had met, Haruhi was rendered speechless. I mean, she shrugged it off after, but she could've just been burying it to protect her tough exterior. She could've been seriously upset by that.

This seems unusually direct for Kyon.  Even though he may actually think this, I'm not sure this is something that would get through the screen that separates what he would usually keep from the reader.  I don't think Kyon needs to realize (or rather, that Kyon needs to spell out that he realizes) that Haruhi might be jealous.  What he does is important.

Quote"HURRY UP KYON! YOU'RE KEEPING US WAITING! PENALTY!"

Personally?  I don't think all the caps lock is really required.  Exclamation points get most things across fine.  But that may be a matter of taste.

QuoteYup, Haruhi's definitely upset. I need to go talk to her. Now. The last time she was like this was that time I almost hit her while we were working on that movie. She must feel like I betrayed her or something. I need to go talk her down before things get bad. I start to jog over to do just that. However, a noise stops me dead in my tracks. I turn and see a truck barreling toward where I had just been talking to Sasaki at breakneck speed. My friend, however, was still there, staring at the truck like a deer caught in such a pair of headlights.

Mostly the same as what I said; while I feel Kyon can be this considerate, I don't feel like he would bother telling us so.


Chapter 1:

QuoteThe first thing I notice is the sky. It looks like Closed Space, but not one I've ever seen before. It looks like a mix between the gray sky of Haruhi's and the sepia color of Sasaki's. However, the colors aren't blended together. Rather, the sky almost resembles tie-dye. However, rather than a curved pattern, it's all jagged. It almost appears as if the sky is at war with itself.

Repeated words/phrases are underlined.

QuoteI saw two Shinjin fighting. To further confuse matters, they were both the same color of blue.

But Sasaki doesn't create Shinjin.  It might help if Kyon at least acknowledged the fact.

Quote"It would seem that Suzumiya-san became incredibly angry when you were talking to Sasaki-san. She was angry at and jealous of her, and snapped. She wanted her dead, and a truck appeared."

This is remarkably direct for Koizumi.  Not unduly so, as a bottom line, but.

Quote"Anyway," continued Koizumi, "Notice the lack of buildings. The only thing they have to destroy is each other. They seem to only be getting stronger, so I'm not sure how long this is going to last. What we do know is that as soon as one wins over the other, that world will be created."

The last sentence is confused; I suggest something like, "What we do know is that as soon as one wins over the other, the victor will recreate the world."

In other words, it's not the worlds that are winning/losing.

QuoteDang.

As Kyon is someone who employs grammatical correctness even in the face of common usage, I doubt he would use such a crude expletive if he could speak English.

Quote"Now?"  asked Koizumi. "I don't think there's anything we can do but try to convert the new world back to the old one.

Missing a quotation mark.


So far, Kyon is simply an observer, being led through events out of his control, so there's not much to say.  It doesn't reflect well on Haruhi that she went so far as to try to kill Sasaki, but however much I may disagree with it, there's no story otherwise, and it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

I would probably end the chapter on a dash.  It's better than no ending punctuation at all.

Also, both the prologue and this chapter seem to be one scene each.  I know you said this is your first fanfic, so my opinion on the matter is this:  making 1 chapter = 1 scene is the kind of thing I see new writers often do.  Often times, scenes jump out at us clearly and write themselves, but a chapter can do something more--it can be a collection of scenes all with something in common, with plot elements that are introduced and resolved but that span more than a single scene.  You don't have to do that.  What is and isn't a chapter is always a writer's personal preference.  Not knowing how much of the long-term structure you have planned, considering how chapters could be a collection of scenes may give you a better idea of what's to come and how it all fits together.  Something to think about, at any rate.

Okay. I'll preface by saying I tend to be fairly brutal in reviews; I don't pull punches, and I'll call out what I see as being off. Since you're newer here, I'll state up front that my 'specialization' (if you can call it that) will be more towards characterization and plot issues; I do comment on technical errors as well, but the bulk of what I'll be looking at is your characters and your plot, since those are what will (or will fail to) carry your story.

I'll lead off by echoing one of Muphrid's comments. Seeing a story on ff.net that has a prologue this short would pretty much be an instant "don't even bother opening" for me. While chapter length is at the author's discretion, and there's no hard rule about how long a chapter should be, there are nevertheless some things that each chapter should accomplish.

- The chapter needs to introduce new events and plot threads, resolve old ones, and present a sense of progress for the story as a whole. For a prologue in particular, it needs to set up the central premise that the rest of the story is going to be based around, as well as present any necessary background information that will be needed to support that premise.
- Prologues tend to be shorter than actual chapters, since you're basically only setting up and presenting one plot thread, but it's the central thread for the entire story - so cutting corners, failing to support or provide enough setup for that premise, or giving the reader a solid hook to continue to follow the story, are all points which can easily set one up for failure.
- Each chapter should both answer existing questions (early chapters may not do this as much just by their position in the story) and present new ones. A lack of new questions tends to kill continuing interest in the story as a whole; failing to answer questions that have previously been opened results in the reader left with a giant pile of unresolved threads of varying importance. Simply continuing an existing plot thread throughout a chapter leaves the story feeling stagnant, if there's no sense of progress or resolution for anything.

While it's possible to do these things in a short chapter, it's very difficult. A single-scene chapter will at best introduce a thread or resolve a thread; it's almost impossible to get it to do both. Once the story's underway, single-scene chapters will most often be used to simply prolong an existing thread. Consider the way the writers you see as good handle these things; most good fanfic authors will span several scenes, sometimes several different character PoVs, and a fairly good span of time in a single chapter. Print authors will certainly take quite a bit of space in each chapter to explore events.

Note that these comments are based only on your chapter size; at this point, I haven't actually read over any of the story itself at all - it's just that given the length of what's already been presented, I can already predict that some of these points will present themselves as problems - if not here, then going forward.

On to the fic itself.



Apologies, but I can't even say that you've got a decent setup here; the premise of renewing the split timelines (from reviewing your plot summary) doesn't seem strong to begin with, and the setup provided in the prologue stretches the bounds of credibility to the breaking point, to such an extent that your representation of Haruhi is completely incompatible with what's shown of her in canon. The premise might be salvageable, but you'll need to set it up in some way that doesn't necessitate turning Haruhi into a complete monster in the process for it to remain believable.

To add to what Halbarad said, a few things about the outline are just general warning flags for someone looking at a Haruhi fic. You could manage to pull some of them off, but having these elements creates extra work for you, the writer, to convince the readers that this fic isn't like other poorly-thought-out fics that have the same elements:

• A number of minor giveaways people have pointed out -- short chapters, "this is my very first fic". These things only make people give you a hard time because they've seen a hundred uninteresting fics with the same features. Nothing personal, just as a matter of basic statistics.
• Kyonko and the whole genderbending thing. That's powerful voodoo. In my experience, few people manage to do something interesting and non-squicky with it, so you really have to work to sell the audience that your attempt is going to be interesting.
• Haruhi killing Sasaki. That's... awfully impolite of her, isn't it? -_-;;

At least, those seem to be the biases common around here. They seem entirely reasonable to me.

In general, the deeper problem is that stuff happens in your outline and you haven't thought through the reasons stuff happens, and especially what it says about the characters that they do this and that. For example, supposing... that's a huge stretch... Haruhi suddenly does decide to kill Sasaki, what is the reason she does so now and not earlier, say, during the books? Beyond "because Sasaki shook hands with Kyon in front of her". Why didn't she ever apply such disproportionate treatment with regards to Mikuru, when canon-Haruhi was far more sociopathic in the early novels than in the later ones, and had far more reason to suppose Kyon was attracted to Mikuru?

Why does the genderbending happen? Sorry, let me rephrase that: Why does the genderbending happen? (Gratuitous genderbending is an effective way to alienate at least some of your audience. Not nearly as effective as 'one day, Haruhi decides to kill someone', but it's still somewhere down the list.)

What does it mean, Kyonko is panicking? What does that entail? What does it imply about Sasaki that her version of reality has Kyon turned into a girl just so they can attend a girl's boarding school together? And then Kyonko 'breaks out' of the boarding school... um. Unless we have to assume the boarding school is located in a Victorian England stereotype or in the mosquito-infested cottage country of Muskoka, you need to explain what exactly is so strict about the school that breaking out entails more than just walking out the front gate and buying a bus ticket.

Thematically -- in what sense are the realities 'warring'? How do they interact? How does Kyonko end up in Kyon's reality? Or by 'breaking out' did you mean she breaks out into Kyon's reality?

(You may have answers to some of the questions -- because some obvious ideas on how to answer them are coming to my mind -- but the answers don't come through in the outline.)

Beyond that, the outline is all "X somehow happens", or "insert some vague scenes of X here". But how well the fic turns out depends on how X happens and what X is in the first place. It's very hard to foresee from the outline that this is going to come together without some more thinking.

Things about the fic that I think are potentially interesting:

• A - Haruhi and Sasaki having a conflict which results into them going into separate realities -- one in which Kyon is with Haruhi, and one in which Kyon is with Sasaki. You really need to have a better reason for the conflict, keeping in mind that at this stage in the novels Haruhi is much more mature than at the beginning. (And it seems to me that it would take longer than just one scene to establish a conflict like that.)
• B - Sasaki and Kyonko at a girls' boarding school... if there is an actual legitimate reason for this happening and it's presented skillfully and it reveals something about the characters. If it's just window-dressing, then it's basically a turn-off.

I don't know. I'm interested in helping you brainstorm a more solid outline, but in practice having other people come up with ways to improve your fic idea can actually be a bit of a drag. (Mostly because other people have no idea what you find special about the fic that you felt inspired to write it, and will inevitably give suggestions that feel disrespectful of that essence.)

Still, keep in mind that you can always ask here for feedback on how you could improve an idea, especially given that you're in the very early stages of writing this anyways. It's your choice, since only you know whether or not it would be useful.

Wow.
That bad, huh?


You know, I'm really not sure why I had thought this idea had any merit in the first place.


You're right, Halbarad. It's really nothing that would be writeable at this point. Honestly, I really wasn't sure how to set it up, and I'm starting to see how off my interpretations really were.


I mean, yes, I actually do have moderately valid reasoning behind a couple of things. For example, Kyonko wouldn't be used for fanservice/squick/etc.; however, in retrospect, that's actually a reversal of part of Sasaki's personality. The story as a whole is too much of a stretch, and it's kind of cliche. I really don't see how I can set this up without demonizing Haruhi. I mean, it can probably done without bloodshed, but I still don't have the skill to try to pull off that type of story.
I've actually seen stories where Haruhi killed/almost killed pulled off quite well, (for example, The Coin,) but even if I had a good grip on characters I wouldn't be able to pull it off yet.


I'm thinking I'll just leave that story for anyone interested in trying to write it.
Meanwhile, I think I'm just going to try Melancholy of Sasaki out. I mean, I've seen something similar once, but it juxtaposed rather than reversed, and didn't exactly get very far.


Thanks for pointing out how bad of an idea Warring Realities was. Maybe if I figure out some canon friendly setup in the future, I'll look into it, but not yet.

Quote from: Gotonis on March 04, 2012, 04:05:04 PMRight. My story.

Okay; since you have some stuff written, I'm going to jump right in.  At a glance, there's a ... lot of focus on the content, so I'll probably try and stick to the technical elements (at least at first), just to keep you from being overwhelmed with way too much of the same feedback.[/quote]

Here's the prologue:



I didn't quite finish the prologue (commenting on it, I mean) given your last post.

I'll ... need to read the rest of the thread and comment after I get the bigger picture.  I don't know that you should give up just yet, but ... well -- I'll look at this more closely and get back to the thread in the morning.

If your takeaway from my post was 'stop writing entirely'; I do apologize; that wasn't the intent at all. As stated, I tend to be fairly brutal, and I don't soften my opinions to avoid stepping on people's toes - Arakawa, for one, can freely attest to this.

What I get as an overall sense of your story idea is mostly that you came up what what sounded like a fun idea ("hey, what about running a story where Kyonko and Kyon are split parts from Kyon himself?") and then proceeded to jump into it feet-first without really stopping to consider all the implications. It's definitely a common error, particularly for new writers; having such an idea is by no means a bad thing, and as I said with my post, the premise may be salvageable - but you should really stop to work out at least a good chunk of what it implies before launching into actual writing.

The only real exception to this would be (as I mentioned) something where the goal is slapstick or gag-based comedy; in that, characterization and continuity get token nods at best, and so you don't actually need to spend much time worrying about them. The statement that you're in the wrong place for feedback on that is just that; you're not in the wrong if this is the kind of story you want to write, it's just that it's not what most people here are interested in, and any feedback you get here will be limited by that fact.

The best advice I can offer in reviewing and outlining your concept is a single word: "why?" For a serious concept, I'd say this is the most important question to answer; of the major questions (who/when/where/what/why/how), who, where, and when will be answered naturally in the course of the story.

The question that a writer focuses on of the remaining three gives an indication of where problems might arise in the story, at least in my view. What I'm seeing in your prologue is that you're focusing primarily on 'what' - the things that are happening to the characters. It's a common pitfall for new writers; you've got this great idea, and you want to get it out there, but in the process you focus so much on the idea that you lose track of other things - and so we get Haruhi attempting to murder Sasaki in order to justify the premise for the story you want to tell. 'What' is certainly not a question to be ignored - you don't have a story without it, after all - but it should be a secondary concern.

'How' can also be a common pitfall, but it's a step up from 'what'. Getting lost in 'how' tends to take you a level deeper, but it's more an indication that you're getting lost in the mechanics of the world - stuff like 'how does Haruhi's power work', 'how does the split between realities happen', etc. These tend to work a little better than 'what' stories do, and can work for original fiction where you can mold new characters to fill in the gaps, but doesn't work too well for fanfiction since you're still going to be focused more on what you need the preexisting characters to do and it leads to shoehorning them into unrealistic characterization.

'Why', by contrast, starts at the other end and works outward to the rest of the story. Once you have your basic premise, and have established some places it needs to go, step back and start probing the idea and the characters involved in it with 'why' questions like an inquisitive five-year-old. For each answer you're able to come up with, keep walking it backward - why is Haruhi splitting the world into separate timelines again? If Haruhi's splitting realities again because she's afraid of or jealous of Sasaki, that's going to color her reactions to Sasaki. Why is she jealous? If it's because she sees Sasaki as a rival for Kyon's affection, that's going to color the way she reacts to Kyon. Ideally, you want to walk this back - particularly for your characters - until there are reasons that you can ground in canon; at that point, they're supported by the weight of canon and you don't have to worry about justifying them further - just be careful that it's something that actually -is- in the canon, and not just a fanon interpretation, like Haruhi being overtly jealous of Sasaki. It's a reasonable interpretation, and it's common because it -is- so plausible, but it's technically not stated outright in canon.

You'll want to do this with pretty much every aspect of your concept, and if at any point you find yourself unable to explain why or come up with a reasonable justification, it's a good indication that part of your premise is weak. Having someone to bounce ideas off of or spot check you in this process is also helpful, as what can seem like a perfectly valid train of logic to you might cause someone else to cock their head on the side and go 'huh?'

Doing this might seem like a lot of work, and it may get into areas that you never actually cover in the story, but it will make a vast difference in the finished product. The whole process of 'why' is basically creating the skeleton for your story (in an anatomical sense): it provides a general structure for the story, makes a place for you to anchor things, and gives you a solid basis from which to move the story forward - the same way that your bones hold you up and give you a place to anchor your muscles. You never -see- that skeleton directly (except in rare circumstances) but you'd certainly notice a huge difference if it was missing.

Writing is good! I don't want to discourage you from doing so at all. But the best advice I can offer here is 'look before you leap' - take some time to explore the ramifications and implications of an idea, get some basic outlining done, flesh out the concept a bit before you jump straight into writing it and find yourself in an untenable position.

Okay.  I hadn't ... read the outline before, so that caught me by surprise.  Rather than pick holes in the entire thing and say 'throw it away!' and also because I'm ... not sure you want to jump into the Melancholy of Sasaki without at least giving this a try....

So, as a warning, I ramble a lot when I give feedback.  I also tend to throw out ideas that are pretty stupid -- but I find that frequently, people can take my ideas and come up with better ones on their own.  So, that thought in mind....

You can actually salvage quite a bit of your outline, as I understand the story.  There's still some missing elements/holes that you'd need to fill in, but it's not all a loss.  Before that, based on the prologue and the title (and your ff.net summary), I somehow thought your story was going to be about Sasaki (effectively) running off to an alternate reality that's less fantastic with Kyon to save him, and then her reality and Haruhi's coming into conflict because Haruhi doesn't want to let Kyon go.

The above could be done while keeping Haruhi sympathetic, and I think you really, really want to keep Haruhi sympathetic if she's going to match up with Kyon in some timeline, or else....  Well, unfortunate implications.

Anyway.  Some ideas, which you may or may not find useful -- ignore anything that doesn't help, absolutely.

It's hard to portray from Kyon's PoV, but the whole truck thing can actually be painted in a way that doesn't cast anyone in an awful light.  If Haruhi's wish is not that Sasaki die (which just feels too extreme), but that Sasaki go away, it could be played off as Sasaki's own powers (and rationality) not accepting any kind of banishment, but finding a truck plausible.  Then Haruhi can be more sympathetic because as she see's what's happening ... she wanted Sasaki to go away, not get hit by a truck.  She could call out to not just Kyon, but also the friend she met once before -- because Haruhi didn't want Sasaki to die (or even be horribly injured).

This does mean downplaying Haruhi's anger/resentment, and playing up her uncertainty.  How this plays out could be a few different ways, but I think one of the critical elements for your story is that Sasaki and Haruhi be opposed.  This actually is pretty easy given the above -- Haruhi subconsciously recognizes that Sasaki is responsible for the truck (which hurt Kyon), even if she only ever states it as something bland like, "She's bad luck," and Sasaki can recognize Haruhi's responsibility for some element of the conflict as well (even if the 'truck' aspect was just Sasaki reshaping Haruhi's wish into something she found plausible).  Both of them are then sympathetic (if a bit foolish, but let's face it, that's probably an inevitibility anyway -- they are fighting over a boy, pretty much) and yet still in conflict.

Given this approach, you can also cut out Haruhi's increased anger, and have her just watching Kyon and Sasaki without them noticing -- that gives her time to really get worked up about things (stressed/uncertain, not furious).  This makes the truck a bit out-of-the-blue, and it's really, really hard to convey all of that from Kyon's PoV.

So, the closed space encounter could be with both Koizumi and Kyouko, who are (to a lesser degree) mirroring the respective 'goddesses' they follow, and explain Sasaki/Haruhi's PoVs as best they can, given the situation.  A pair of shinjin duking it out is kind of neat, but just having the space itself conflicting around them (like at the end of novel 11) could also suffice.  Then the explanation comes down to (from the esper duo) something along the lines of, "They're fighting, because each thinks themselves better able to protect you."  They both make great excuses for exposition that Kyon can't/doesn't observe directly.

This lets them come across as feeling justified and at least portrays them both as well-meaning and well-intentioned in their actions.

The A/B timeline split can still come into play, but from this point -- I think the rest of the outline could bear some shoring up as far as determining where you would go from here.  I don't know what Kyon turning into Kyonko really adds; it's traumatic for Kyon, but if it's something that's not critical to the plot, I can't see a reason to keep it.  An 'all girl' school wouldn't work to keep Haruhi away, after all, so that doesn't add much, either.

It'd be easier for Sasaki's reality to have Kyon have decided on some whim to just go to the same school as Sasaki.  If you want to avoid unfortunate implications of mind-control, etc., then maybe she just overtly asked him when they were in middle school, and he decided he may as well (in that reality).

For the rest ... well, again, need to hear from you regarding what you would plan on doing, or if you come up with a different (possibly better) idea for how things work out in the prologue.  I'm not sure I'd suggest scrapping it and moving on -- in fact, that's absolutely not what I'd suggest.  You have a start here, and there's a foundation.  It could use some work, but instead of throwing it away, see what you can make it into; there's an entire community of people here who can offer advice and (dare I say it?) insight.

So ... my advice is to take a few bracing breaths, gird yourself, and pare your outline down to the bare minimum.  From there, start building it up -- ask yourself a lot of questions about the why and how as you build it.  If you're uncertain, then don't be afraid to offer up a revision and say, "What about this?"  Keep trying; I'm certain you'll get it.

You've already proven yourself better than the majority of writers just by being willing to listen to constructive criticism.  The next step is in your reach. :)

Quote from: Gotonis on March 05, 2012, 03:00:32 AM
I mean, yes, I actually do have moderately valid reasoning behind a couple of things. For example, Kyonko wouldn't be used for fanservice/squick/etc.; however, in retrospect, that's actually a reversal of part of Sasaki's personality. The story as a whole is too much of a stretch, and it's kind of cliche. I really don't see how I can set this up without demonizing Haruhi. I mean, it can probably done without bloodshed, but I still don't have the skill to try to pull off that type of story.

I've actually seen stories where Haruhi killed/almost killed pulled off quite well, (for example, The Coin,) but even if I had a good grip on characters I wouldn't be able to pull it off yet.

*hehe*

The irony behind what you just said is that there's a C&C thread for The Coin on this forum where Muphrid got even more scathing pushback than what you just received. The final result is something like the second or third attempt by Muphrid to resolve the basic setup, and if I remember correctly it diverges a lot from what he thought he was going to write when he started the fic.

I don't know, it's of course better for Muphrid to decide if he wants to comment on this further, but I couldn't help pointing it out as the most obvious indication that you might be giving up far too early on this one.

Quote from: Gotonis on March 05, 2012, 03:00:32 AM
I'm thinking I'll just leave that story for anyone interested in trying to write it.
Meanwhile, I think I'm just going to try Melancholy of Sasaki out. I mean, I've seen something similar once, but it juxtaposed rather than reversed, and didn't exactly get very far.

Melancholy of Sasaki has the problem that it's a "let's reset canon with some variables changed", so the idea isn't complete unless you figure out a scope and a logical endpoint for it. Maybe you're feeling more confident about this one (since you were confident enough to mention that 'Warring Realities' is intended to build up to it in your outline), but it's hard to say. How would you make it work?

Okay, now to throw out a set of suggestions that agrees with Brian's on some points and diverges in others.

In the 'Warring Realities' outline, one way I could see the conflict developing is if Kyon and Sasaki just see one another as friends, but Haruhi believes they are kidding themselves and that Kyon could easily find himself falling in love with Sasaki. This makes Haruhi understandably miserable, but she doesn't know what to do; the conflict comes to a close, and the reality warpers wind up in separate realities, each with their own copy of Kyon.

Kyonko could be brought in at this point if Sasaki were to become aware that Haruhi was thinking that way, and if she were to become permanently anxious that bystanders in general always judge her and Kyon as a potential couple, or (worse) that Kyon really might fall in love with her, which she would have trouble dealing with. Hence Kyon is a girl in Sasaki's reality, so they can remain friends without having to fear either of those things. That still runs into the problem that Sasaki is (unconsciously) forcing a gender swap on Kyon. Absent a few complex notions in my mind of how one might handle involuntary gender change without an associated horror factor, in that case it makes sense for Kyonko to be the one with the false memories. I'll have to think about how you would handle this sort of scenario before I can really feel comfortable suggesting it. It reflects a bit weirdly on Sasaki... I can almost see something like this happening, but not quite, it definitely depending on the details of how her conflict with Haruhi proceeds.

Moreover, it would place the burden to justify rejoining the timelines on the Kyon that stays with Haruhi. There has to be some reason besides "Kyon misses having the Brigade around" to justify him turning upside down Haruhi's life, Sasaki's life, and especially Kyonko's life and reverting what's starting to look like a workable solution. (Moreover, Kyon would be reluctant at best to repeat the exact same thing he did in 'Disappearance'.) Maybe Haruhi and Sasaki need to be in the same universe because their powers balance each other, and after they separate each of the split realities is thus incomplete in its own way, with dangerous repercussions.

(EDIT: Or maybe Haruhi's power still exists in Sasaki's universe and vice versa, but without a person to contain it; so it looks like Haruhi's powers are being unleashed uncontrollably on Sasaki's reality and Sasaki's on Haruhi's reality, which everyone misunderstands to be a war between the two 'goddesses'. That would turn the title into an interesting sort of red herring.)

At least, that's the way I see it. I hope someone comes along and points out the problems / (possibly) agrees with the above reasoning. (Especially since I have no reason to suppose my view of Sasaki's character is at all accurate.)

Quote*hehe*

The irony behind what you just said is that there's a C&C thread for The Coin on this forum where Muphrid got even more scathing pushback than what you just received. The final result is something like the second or third attempt by Muphrid to resolve the basic setup, and if I remember correctly it diverges a lot from what he thought he was going to write when he started the fic.

I don't know, it's of course better for Muphrid to decide if he wants to comment on this further, but I couldn't help pointing it out as the most obvious indication that you might be giving up far too early on this one.

Eheh. Indeed, while I kept a lot of the same events that I'd planned for The Coin, the theme that comes across ended up very different.  I originally intended the piece to be one about temptation--about Haruhi embracing the primacy of the extraordinary to the exclusion of all else and feeling betrayed that her friends weren't so gung-ho about it, only to realize at the very end that this pursuit was giving her no real satisfaction either.  It didn't work, and I rightly was eviscerated for it.  It didn't resonate, and it was too much of a step backward for her to be reasonable, so I retooled it into Haruhi seeing that those around her, who'd all been involved in the extraordinary and forced to put aside what they wanted for the good of the world or timeline or whatever.  Haruhi slowly became horrified to the point where she would consider changing things to erase the negative consequences of her existence, but she rejected that and resolved to fix things the hard way, so to speak.

Let me give a concrete example:  Haruhi going forward to Asahina's native time and happening across the time-travelers' training ground would've happened in both the original and the current version of the story, but where in the current version, Haruhi just finds it sad that the time-travelers spend so much effort looking at her and not at other amazing things, in the original Haruhi would've condemned them for not really being interesting and extraordinary at all (or something like that).  Same basic event, different reactions and emphasis.  What to take from that is what you want to happen can (almost) always be rearranged or reorganized; you just have to find the angle that works.


Anyway, I want to second the notion that there's no need to give up.  It's just going to take some thought as to what it is you're hoping to accomplish.  In your outline, you talk about what was to happen, and I do get a good feeling you have some well-formed scenes or ideas in place.  But I also get the feeling that this story was all setup for "Melancholy of Sasaki"--the reason I say that is, while I looked through your outline for an overriding message or theme for this story and didn't find one (writing fluff for two cool couples isn't a bad thing, but the reason it's fluff is it's only mildly filling, so to speak), "Melancholy of Sasaki" seemed to have a clear driving idea behind it:  to get the two girls to understand each other's perspectives.  With that kind of goal in mind, I feel like that story is on much firmer footing, and I think what you really want (in my opinion) is just a prologue of some sort to establish the inciting action, the reason why Haruhi and Sasaki would swap their positions and get that story started.

Just some thoughts, at any rate.  Good luck!

Well, you guys have given me a lot to think about.


Sorry about the posting delay. I had wanted to step back for a bit and think some more before replying to your advice; I decided to skip the notepad step again and managed to delete over an hour's worth of written reply work. I then went to bed for a while and woke up abnormally late. Anyway, enough excuses; back to trying to reconstruct my reply.

Quote from: HalbaradIf your takeaway from my post was 'stop writing entirely'; I do apologize; that wasn't the intent at all.

My takeaway was really more 'this isn't really a good story,' and 'may be salvageable' seemed to have a 'probably not' connotation. Still, I admit I was giving up a bit early, and I reacted a bit too strongly to your heavy-handedness.

Quote from: HalbaradThe best advice I can offer in reviewing and outlining your concept is a single word: "why?"

Looking at the logic behind this, I agree. The 'why' is the most important part. I'm going to completely redo my outline (using the advice given below, of course), and I'm going to build the question of 'why' into it as the central question. The 'what' I pretty much have and the 'how' I'll make up as I go along.


But basically have the 'why's spawn 'why's until everything is mapped out. Seems like a solid technique. Thanks for the advice. The 'why' is going to be at the top of the list of things to put into the outline. That 'untenable position' you mentioned is pretty much why I almost ended up giving up.


Now on to Brian's and Arakawa's ideas on 'how'. (Hooray for immature-looking transitions!)

Quote from: BrianIf Haruhi's wish is not that Sasaki die (which just feels too extreme), but that Sasaki go away, it could be played off as Sasaki's own powers (and rationality) not accepting any kind of banishment, but finding a truck plausible.  Then Haruhi can be more sympathetic because as she see's what's happening ... she wanted Sasaki to go away, not get hit by a truck.  She could call out to not just Kyon, but also the friend she met once before -- because Haruhi didn't want Sasaki to die (or even be horribly injured).

That sounds like a good way to do things. Having Haruhi want to banish Sasaki rather than kill her...


Now, there is a conflict there with what I had been planning, however. I was planning on having Sasaki's powers reactivate as a result of the truck/bus/train/falling rocks hit Kyon; changing that would unravel the explanation on how power transfer worked I had been planning on using somewhere in the MoS series; however, I'm sure there's a way around it.


Still, this also shifts a lot of the blame off of Haruhi and some of it onto Sasaki; I had wanted the end to basically be Kyon yelling at the two of them for their actions; they both meant well, but the execution was morally off on both ends. Kyon's mad at Haruhi for throwing a truck at someone (which ended up being him, of course) and at Sasaki for, well, rendering him female. He's also mad at both of them for fighting like this, and this leads to his wondering if they'd fight like this if they'd started in each other's positions. Wow, that segue went further off topic than I'd expected.


Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the banishment->truck conversion, but I'm most likely going to use banishment.

Quote from: BrianA pair of shinjin duking it out is kind of neat, but just having the space itself conflicting around them (like at the end of novel 11) could also suffice.  Then the explanation comes down to (from the esper duo) something along the lines of, "They're fighting, because each thinks themselves better able to protect you."  They both make great excuses for exposition that Kyon can't/doesn't observe directly.

The shinjin duel actually does have a reason. The duo provide a box for Shrodinger's reality-cat, if you will. I mean, the space itself conflicting is noted first, but I feel that the image of one shinjin delivering the killing blow to the other, followed by the closed space becoming one reality, actually give a more effective transition.


The protection angle is something I hadn't thought of. It makes a lot more sense on Sasaki's side, but Haruhi's goals aren't that altruistic. Sasaki misinterprets Haruhi and assumes she wants to kill or something like that; she also just generally wants Kyon with her in the new world she makes.


For the record, I do have a reason behind the genderbending, but I'll get to that.

Quote from: BrianIt'd be easier for Sasaki's reality to have Kyon have decided on some whim to just go to the same school as Sasaki.  If you want to avoid unfortunate implications of mind-control, etc., then maybe she just overtly asked him when they were in middle school, and he decided he may as well (in that reality).

Where exactly does the mind control implication come in? I just had it almost assumed that in the 'past' of that world Kyonko had gone to whatever school it is with her friends Sasaki and Tachibana, and then wherever possible timeshifting lands them a memory transplant occurs with results similar to Disappearance following Kyonko telling him/herself not to make a scene like December.

Quote from: BrianSo ... my advice is to take a few bracing breaths, gird yourself, and pare your outline down to the bare minimum.  From there, start building it up -- ask yourself a lot of questions about the why and how as you build it.  If you're uncertain, then don't be afraid to offer up a revision and say, "What about this?"  Keep trying; I'm certain you'll get it.

And that is what I shall do.

Quote from: Arakawa SeijioMelancholy of Sasaki has the problem that it's a "let's reset canon with some variables changed", so the idea isn't complete unless you figure out a scope and a logical endpoint for it. Maybe you're feeling more confident about this one (since you were confident enough to mention that 'Warring Realities' is intended to build up to it in your outline), but it's hard to say. How would you make it work?

Well, I have a scope, but not exactly an endpoint. I kind of just wanted to start a divergent AU and let it just keep going. How it would work would be something like this: Kyon believes in aliens, time travelers, espers, (sliders,) etc., as he had had Haruhi encouraging the idea rather than Sasaki debunking it. Haruhi would appear MUCH earlier in the series than Sasaki had in the original, and there would be quite a few plotline differences. There would also be explanation about how transfer of power works, and much more that I don't intend to reveal just yet, as it's not the time nor place.


But back to the topic at hand.

Quote from: Arakawa SeijioIn the 'Warring Realities' outline, one way I could see the conflict developing is if Kyon and Sasaki just see one another as friends, but Haruhi believes they are kidding themselves and that Kyon could easily find himself falling in love with Sasaki. This makes Haruhi understandably miserable, but she doesn't know what to do; the conflict comes to a close, and the reality warpers wind up in separate realities, each with their own copy of Kyon.


Kyonko could be brought in at this point if Sasaki were to become aware that Haruhi was thinking that way, and if she were to become permanently anxious that bystanders in general always judge her and Kyon as a potential couple, or (worse) that Kyon really might fall in love with her, which she would have trouble dealing with. Hence Kyon is a girl in Sasaki's reality, so they can remain friends without having to fear either of those things

That's close my the reasoning behind the genderbend. Actually, there are points from your explanation that reinforce mine. Basically, I was just thinking in terms of how Sasaki uses the male form of 'I' when talking to guys (Kyon); I interpreted it as her not wanting to deal with social rules of conversation between a guy and a girl, and not wanting any possibility of romance or even the mention of it. I decided to exaggerate this a little and have her decide that she wants to be in an all girls environment so that she doesn't have to deal with any of that, with Kyon or anyone else.

Quote from: Arakawa SeijioThat still runs into the problem that Sasaki is (unconsciously) forcing a gender swap on Kyon. Absent a few complex notions in my mind of how one might handle involuntary gender change without an associated horror factor, in that case it makes sense for Kyonko to be the one with the false memories.

The problem of her forcing this on Kyon is actually intended; again, it gives him a reason to be mad at her in the big climactic end scene (that I'm still wondering how to pull off).


Meanwhile, I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to handle the 'horror factor'. I had written it so that it was mixed in with the initial shock of 'the world I know is gone.' However, dropping the shock after the initial probably does belittle the issue. I really don't know how to handle it. I'm tempted to have Sasaki influence Kyonko to be okay with it, but that clashes with my notion that Sasaki would respect Kyon's mind enough to deliberately avoid changing anything about it, as opposed to Haruhi being a little more liberal in not changing his personality but being willing to change a few (months of) memories.

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio(Moreover, Kyon would be reluctant at best to repeat the exact same thing he did in 'Disappearance'.)

Where exactly does this come from? I mean, I can see him not quite enjoying Asakura sticking a knife in his back, but I do remember him saying in his big internal dialogue scene in the movie that he'd press that enter key in a heartbeat. (I haven't read 'Disappearance', so I'm not sure if there's a difference there, but I can't imagine there would be. I plan to read it soon, as I recently got my hands on an English fanlation, but until recently I'd only read 9-11, Wandering Shadow, and Snow Mountain due to the version I read being Google Translate+Spanish fanlation+moderate knowledge of Spanish.)


Anyway, I still plan on Kyonko resolving the reality swap, and for the same reason as Disappearance I can easily see her trying to fix this sans rogue Interface. (Also, she wants to be male again. That part's important.)
Kyon is going to have some memory disagreement, and he may decide to help, but...


On the topic of 'they need to be in the same universe', I think this may be my explanation as to how Kyonko can get across. I had been planning on the worlds somehow being in the same world, just separated by distance. Maybe they gravitate toward each other or something, and eventually fuse together; I'll leave it to Koizumi to BS some explanation after Kyon(ko) fixes everything.

Quote from: Arakawa SeijioEspecially since I have no reason to suppose my view of Sasaki's character is at all accurate.

Does anyone? I think that considering her low exposure artistic licensing can be used to a degree.

Quote from: MuphridI originally intended the piece to be one about temptation--about Haruhi embracing the primacy of the extraordinary to the exclusion of all else and feeling betrayed that her friends weren't so gung-ho about it, only to realize at the very end that this pursuit was giving her no real satisfaction either.  It didn't work, and I rightly was eviscerated for it.  It didn't resonate, and it was too much of a step backward for her to be reasonable, so I retooled it into Haruhi seeing that those around her, who'd all been involved in the extraordinary and forced to put aside what they wanted for the good of the world or timeline or whatever.

It would seem that the transition this one is making, at least for Haruhi as a character, is rather similar to yours. Instead of Haruhi feeling betrayed, she is more...not anti-people. They seem more similar in my head. Oh, I know. Instead of condemning others for their actions she's more saddened by their actions.

Quote from: MuphridIn your outline, you talk about what was to happen, and I do get a good feeling you have some well-formed scenes or ideas in place.  But I also get the feeling that this story was all setup for "Melancholy of Sasaki"--the reason I say that is, while I looked through your outline for an overriding message or theme for this story and didn't find one (writing fluff for two cool couples isn't a bad thing, but the reason it's fluff is it's only mildly filling, so to speak), "Melancholy of Sasaki" seemed to have a clear driving idea behind it:  to get the two girls to understand each other's perspectives.

You're right. I really don't have an overriding theme. Now that I think about it, that problem is just another form of the 'why' problem. It's being asked from a different perspective and on a different level, but the concept's the same.
MoS isn't exactly about trying to get the two to understand each other. I think it's really more about how Kyon wanted to understand the interactions better, and wanted to know if they'd come into conflict if they'd been in each other's shoes. The way I'm planning to have it work out, they wouldn't come into conflict.
Still, you're right. I do need to come up with a theme.
And no, it isn't about fluff for two couples. There shall be no SasakixKyon whatsoever. I mean, the HaruhixKyon stuff is fluff, and I admit it's more just to keep time flowing at the same rate between alpha and beta, but there is more to the story then just that. The fluff is also to encase Kyon having a memory crisis which I'm suddenly seeing as being bigger than I had before.


I suppose WR can be seen as a prologue of sorts for MoS, but I also want it to stand as its own story. I mean, it's only going to be one piece of a series, but it's going to be extremely different than the rest of the series. It may set nuances and such up, and there will be sneaky foreshadowing, but it's not exactly going to set up any conflicts, it's just going to explain why the situation is happening in terms of prefacing the MoS series.




I feel like I really haven't done a good job of responding adequately to everything that has been said.
Still, I want to thank you guys for your support and advice, especially the advice. (Not to downplay support, but...) I'll try not to disappoint, and hopefully the results of this foray into fiction will be worth helping me.


And now, to make an outline.

Right, I'm having a bit of a problem with my outline.


I think that, no matter how I handle Kyon's memories, I'm going to have to either normalize the members of the SOS Brigade or just make it so that the Brigade never existed in Alpha. I'd prefer the latter, but Haruhi would never unmake the Brigade, she's too devoted to it for that. Meanwhile, normalizing the members seems much more feasible, but I'm still not quite sure how to justify it with Haruhi's character. I mean, I'm tempted to just go with something along the lines of 'Haruhi is happy enough dating Kyon that she doesn't need to search as hard for the extraordinary, and she's content knowing they're out there but doesn't exactly want to find them and have them get in the way or something, or maybe have something about her blatantly disbelieving 'Hey Haruhi, the rest of the Brigade is extraordinary.'


Any suggestions?

If I understand correctly, you're concerned about how, if Haruhi and Kyon are dating, Haruhi would never disbelieve Kyon about the true nature of the brigade?  If so, then let me ask the stupid question--why is that something to avoid?  I find these are the sorts of questions one runs into from time to time--where you think letting something happen will break what you want to do, but my philosophy is to recognize these apparent holes and jump through them, embrace them, because they usually seem so big because inner reason on the one hand is fighting the creative process on the other.  People are reasonable, though (well...sometimes), so trying to suppress reason for one's vision may not end well.

I may have misinterpreted the dilemma, though.  If so, feel free to disregard what I've said.  Nevertheless, I'm not quite sure what it is you're trying to avoid.

Quote from: Muphrid on March 12, 2012, 08:15:05 PM
If I understand correctly, you're concerned about how, if Haruhi and Kyon are dating, Haruhi would never disbelieve Kyon about the true nature of the brigade?  If so, then let me ask the stupid question--why is that something to avoid?  I find these are the sorts of questions one runs into from time to time--where you think letting something happen will break what you want to do, but my philosophy is to recognize these apparent holes and jump through them, embrace them, because they usually seem so big because inner reason on the one hand is fighting the creative process on the other.  People are reasonable, though (well...sometimes), so trying to suppress reason for one's vision may not end well.

I may have misinterpreted the dilemma, though.  If so, feel free to disregard what I've said.  Nevertheless, I'm not quite sure what it is you're trying to avoid.

I think you are misunderstanding the problem.


It's really more that I want to take away the abilities/abnormalities/etc. of the Brigade members (barring Haruhi) such that they never had powers in this world, possibly via causing the members to never have existed (in the alpha reality).
Problem is, I can't think of a way to justify doing it in light of Haruhi's personality; however, I can't leave them powered up no matter which version of Kyon remembers everything, as there would probably be conflicts either way.


Assuming alpha Kyon remembers everything(but not beta), if the Brigade members retain their powers and such, then the only changes are that he and Haruhi are suddenly dating and that Sasaki is gone, which can be handwaved as 'she moved some time long ago' or 'she never existed'. In this case, Kyon doesn't have as much of a reason to 'fix' reality, as the abnormal shenanigans he enjoys are still there. (My reasoning on this end is actually starting to show holes, but it's also not really the direction I want to go.)


Assuming beta Kyon(ko) remembers everything (but not alpha), the scenario I'd  rather write, (as it makes more sense to me,) then in alpha either the Brigade members have been hiding the truth from Kyon, which wouldn't make sense; or they spontaneously (from alpha Kyon's perspective) gained powers.


Basically, I'm wondering how to justify taking their powers and such away such that it fits with Haruhi's character.

re: Taking away the Brigade members abilities:

Speaking for myself, I don't honestly see how that can be justified and still have her meeting up with Kyon. Just to walk back the reasoning here:

Haruhi has some sort of powers, so the Mysterious Event of Three Years Ago (MEo3YA) that either resulted in the creation of the others' powers or their attention being drawn to Haruhi still has the potential to happen. However, if the others do not have powers and others displaying the same powers do not appear, then one of the most significant events from that period never occurs: there is no John Smith on Tanabata. It's possible that this Tanabata may even -be- the MEo3YA, which may mean that Haruhi never develops her powers in the first place.

Even setting that aside and assuming that Haruhi still gets her powers, she now has no real driving motivation to continue hunting for the supernatural - and arguably has no reason to go to Kitago, either. If she's got her powers, she's most likely still The Ace, and as such should have the academics to get into pretty much any school she chooses - so why not aim for something like Kouyouen, as in the Disappearance-verse, as it's definitely a better school than Kitago and would be a better fit for her academically.

No Kitago means she never meets Kyon, outside of some contrived chance-meeting outside of school, and if you take that setup, keeping any kind of realistic or deep relationship going is going to require a lot of extra effort on both their parts - which there's no establishing factor (such as fuzzy memories of John Smith) to really justify.

Even if she goes to Kitago and meets Kyon, there's less to draw her to him (again, no deja vu via memories of John Smith to pique her interest), but even assuming that she meets Kyon and he again catches her interest, she now has no reason to form the Brigade.

As such, trying to force "no one gets powers" kills the story on plausibility; a better angle might be that the Brigade members actually do get their powers, but are prevented from assembling to actually form the Brigade - and so Haruhi is forced to let the idea of her own personal club go for a lack of membership, which leaves her with much more time to hang out with Kyon, study with him, etc. - things that can be used to justify a deeper relationship. Kyon may still run into the other members, but not as part of an inner circle assembled by Haruhi - more as recurring figures that he's interacted with a few times that have a strange interest in his nominal girlfriend, but he has no idea why.

re: Hal:


That actually does sound like a rather elegant solution. Now that I think about it, justification and credibility aside, your idea probably would work better. I hadn't actually planned out any interactions involving the Brigade members, but it would seem that the interactions here would be easier to pull off.

As a side note, I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning about whether or not Haruhi and Kyon meet up and get together. My explanation behind it is moderately non-canon, and is part of the explanation on how Haruhi's/Sasaki's power works that is presented in Melancholy of Sasaki. It sort of draws from the fanfic 'The Origins of Haruhi', which is basically a collection of 5 chapter stories set in different timelines, where time travel (normally Mikuru) splits the timelines and causes things to happen differently, normally in a way that doesn't reflect the tampering. In each, Haruhi and Kyon are drawn together, as Haruhi invariably 'chooses' Kyon, who then fulfills whatever need Haruhi has for him: lover, friend, Brigade member, etc.

I won't go into the specifics of 'Origins', but the explanation I use is similar. In my continuity, the holder of the power and Kyon are invariably drawn together, given that Kyon exists in some form in that reality. If the power were to transfer, then Kyon would then eventually meet the new holder. I'm actually just now seeing a hole in this, as I believe Kyon didn't become friends with Sasaki until soon after the transfer, but I'm just going to pretend that pre-HS is pre-HS and have Kyon meet Haruhi earlier in MoS. However, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Basically, I'm interpreting/bending the rules to say that the holder of the power invariably meets Kyon, and he fills whatever role he/she needs him to fill.

Still, if Kyon is separate from the other members of the Brigade then that rule doesn't necessarily need to be called. Then again, that assumes Haruhi goes to North High in the first place. Considering that Kyon needs Mikuru to bring him back...

Wait a minute. Seeing as Haruhi's goal in recreating the world is to be with Kyon, I don't think she'd start changing details that place them apart. Plus, Haruhi doesn't know who John is, where he's from, or how he got there. She just knows that he was there, and would probably just keep the fact that he helped her a given, as well as any resemblance to Kyon. Therefore, regardless of the other Brigade members, Haruhi would probably still place herself in North High.

Still, I do like the angle of 'leave the powers in but separate them from Kyon,' and the implications that follow. I'll probably end up using that. Thanks.

I ... have to point out that I don't think Rai-Shu is a very good author to emulate.  More than just I have noticed that there's a peculiar void of emotional factors in his stories, to say nothing of the fact that he poorly explains things in almost all of his stories.  I enjoy what he writes, but I appreciate it for puzzling out what he meant, not any impression that he's very good at characterization or storytelling (in fact, he's pretty awful at both of those things).  And usually the tampering is reflected in the next timeline; there's a small bit of overlap/continuity there.  Interesting, yes, creative, sure, but....  That all aside.

Let's pretend that's not a factor, since it's me being irritable and biased (and not directed at you).  Instead, let's move on to the critical element.

You want to say that 'Kyon interacts with whoever holds the power.'  Okay, that's actually a fine point to work with, and I'm going to disagree with Halbarad a bit (and play Youkai's Advocate) -- you don't need to perfectly respect the canon if Haruhi's throwing it away, anyway.  The trick here is just to lampshade it properly.  Haruhi wants to rewrite the world so she goes to Kitago, meets Kyon, and the other factions aren't concerns--  There's a number of ways to accomplish this.

If Haruhi's recreating the world subconsciously, she doesn't actually need to be aware of a lot of factors.  It's subconscious.  There doesn't need to be a three-years ago event at all; she's just slightly more energetic than usual.  In fact, I think I've seen the same fanfic idea done a few times before -- if she's worried about Kyon and changes herself to (she thinks) suit him better, she could be a mellower person with Kyon in a stable relationship with him from (from his PoV), the moment he arrives in the new world.  Then you also don't have to worry about tampering with his memories; she just created what she thought was the ideal world and in typical Haruhi-manner kicked all obstacles to the curb.

Then the conflict is that Kyon wants to go back home, and doesn't enjoy Haruhi turning herself into a dere-dere copy of herself with none of her original fire -- Kyon has to show Haruhi that while she needs to respect and show concern for others, she still needs to hang onto her original fire.  Naturally, it would be great if she wouldn't throw a temper-tantrum and try and send Sasaki away (and by 'banishing' I meant 'out of the scene and probably home' not 'to another dimension' in the original suggestion), but crushing her independence and becoming subservient isn't the answer either.

In this setup, the others may be around, but they see Haruhi as stable.  They'd actually be potential antagonists, if they see Kyon as trying to upset the status quo.  The John Smith card may not even work in this universe; Haruhi might not have left that 'back door' in for Kyon; maybe he has to find some other way to convince Haruhi to be herself and not the spineless copy that just gives up on her desire to find the amazing.

Everything that's 'wrong' with this explanation and doesn't fit canon isn't something to cover up and justify -- it's now a tool for Kyon to point out how crazy things are.  Maybe Haruhi is trying not to remember things, and Kyon can remind her just by figuring out the right questions (Why did she choose Kitago?  What actually three years ago?  When did she just give up on finding amazing things?).

I may not have the right impression of the story you're trying to tell, here, so this may not be useful....  But maybe it'll prompt an idea that suits you better.

Right. Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth and whatnot, I'm getting busy with school and such. Let's just say this isn't going to be the last time I don't show up for a few weeks.


@Brian:


I agree, Rai isn't the best writer. Even in a storyline setup where characterizations are deliberately off, phrases were used that didn't exactly belong, not that it's relevant or anything...


Still, I think you do have a wrong impression. Haruhi was one of the few people who I didn't want to have either a huge personality change, loss of ability/change of usage thereof, or memory conflict. I wanted her to soften up more to Kyon a bit, but that's really more situational (they are dating, after all...). Think LWtS Haruhi; I'm probably going to drive for something close to that. Of course, that also depends how the past gets set up. If I end up keeping the Brigade around (albeit changing the others' goals and methods) that's what I'll use. If it's just her and Kyon, she'll probably be more outward in her dependence on him.


Meanwhile, I still want to have beta Kyon be the one putting everything back together. I mean, if Kyon knows about everything and still has the Brigade around... I mean, if the members were trying to take advantage of Haruhi's powers or something then yeah, but again, Haruhi's recreating the world. Why would she make them want to control the power she doesn't know she has? If they're trying to get her to keep creating and not grow complacent... I'm not sure. I feel like I'm just arrogantly pushing back against you guys on this point despite your experience, but I really think Kyonko fixing things would work better. Also, even if Kyon remembers everything, he'll assume there is no beta world, so why would he try to put the two back together?


I think I'm just going to establish that as fact unless I decide to change it.
Kyonko remembers, while Kyon has small but growing memory issues.
Kyon/ko isn't fixing Haruhi, s/he's fixing the world.


On a different note, the question of whether to keep or unmake the name John Smith is a good question. I had originally planned to have Kyonko use it in the stiching things back together scene, but...
Actually, maybe it could be used to 'remind' Kyon of the past. I'm not entirely sure how far I'm going to take the memory issues, but if it becomes prevalent enough that'll be the final step, and it will probably be accompanied by Haruhi wondering who it is (either having heard the name but not knowing where or being flat out unfamiliar.)


Right. I mean no disrespect in not using ideas, it's really more what I feel does or does not work. I'll try to use something from every post, even if it is just to prompt me to clarify/come up with a reason for something that isn't defined or something.


I'll be around as circumstance allows.
~Gotonis

Quote from: Gotonis on March 21, 2012, 09:43:38 PM
Right. I mean no disrespect in not using ideas, it's really more what I feel does or does not work. I'll try to use something from every post, even if it is just to prompt me to clarify/come up with a reason for something that isn't defined or something.

Just a friendly note: there's absolutely no need to worry like that. While it's always flattering to have someone take your ideas and actually do the hard work of making them viable, I'm pretty sure everyone who gave feedback / suggestions did it to help you develop your own reasons and vision for what happens. I personally don't mind being ignored, and would be far more flattered by someone who listens to my idea, and figures out good reasons for why my suggestions are crap and why they should do exactly the opposite (incidentally, I would then have an alternative to consider to my probably-shaky views of the canon); rather than if someone were to take one of my ideas that they didn't actually understand or agree with, just to be polite.

Of course, if anything anyone said actually does make sense, feel free to use as much or as little as... happens to make sense.

@ Arakawa- Maybe I'm just worrying too much about being on people's good sides.


Anyway, I've been thinking a bit about how I want to do this. I stumbled across the concept of the power never leaving Sasaki in the first place. She'd have tried to get rid of it or something somehow three years ago, wanting someone else to have it. Haruhi gets the power (probably either on Tanabata, at the baseball game, or over some gradual period or something), but it doesn't leave Sasaki. It's pushed down a bit. She still gravitates toward Kyon, possibly giving him whatever aspect draws him and Haruhi together.
This doesn't seem to differ much from how things worked before, but it's subtly different. The view I'm looking into is having the power actually semi-actively working on a lower level in Sasaki's subconscious; beneath the top layer of calm Closed Spaces is a 'perfect' world forming.
Where it starts to stretch is the next step of this: Sasaki's power is actually manipulating things to get to the point where it can be fully active and usher in this new world. This is even to the point of actually messing with Haruhi's emotions, raising the moderately small amount of jealousy she feels to astronomical levels. The power knew Kyon would take the truck, and knew it would be a perfect catalyst. Sasaki goes into RAGE mode, and the 'perfect' world is brought into being. I'm actually not sure yet in which viewpoint the world is perfect, Sasaki's or the power's.


This is still a bit of a stretch, but it also works in a few ways. For one thing, the manipulative nature of Sasaki's power can easily be  projected onto Yasumi. In fact, I'm actually wondering if, in the case that I take this route, the powers would be the same being or separate entities with separate agendas. I'm actually thinking storyline-wise that it would make more sense to split them; Sasaki's power is okay with having Kyon die (of course, it knows he's going to be resurrected into the new world...), while Kyon seems (in canon) to be almost immune to Haruhi's power (examples may be given). Also, the way I want to run the ending, Kyon through some thought process I have yet to figure out is the one to decide to reset things to make way for TMoS. Actually, I could just go with something along the lines of trusting Yasumi to create a good god-power-entity as opposed to Sasaki's (effectively replacing it) and be the dominant of the pair. Invoking 'Kyon is god' isn't really doable, considering he 'dies', although handwaving can probably take care of that if that ends up working better.


/braindump


Alright, I'm still not sure about how I want this to work, but I think I have this more fleshed out than when I started writing this. Any advice would be rather appreciated. This does seem like it has gaping holes. I feel I filled a few, but there are probably more that I can't see from this angle.


Oh yeah, sidenote: the personalities of the powers do not necessarily intersect the personalities of the users; I'm not trying to cast Sasaki as this manipulative type of person, as that doesn't exactly fit with, well, anything.


Oh hey, I should probably include some flashback or something to show a conflict b/w Sasaki and her power; basically, Sasaki's in control to some degree (hence Yasumi isn't an outright antagonist), but can't actually exorcise the power from herself.


Thoughts?

This probably deserves a more detailed examination later.

Off the top of my head, though, this feels like you're putting a lot of effort into trying to force the story.  That's to say, it's not coming organically.  My suggestion is to take a step back and look at it from a slightly more abstract viewpoint.  Try to come up with a concise, simple explanation that can be fit into a few lines (a single paragraph) that can encapsulate what you're hoping to achieve.

So ... what do you want your story to do?  You're putting a lot of work into trying to make something work, and I can see that  ... but the fact that you yourself say 'starts to stretch' suggest that even you doubt the plausibility of what you're looking at.  So.  In simple terms, what do you want your story to accomplish?

My Ph. D. advisor has said many times that in computational physics problems, there is often "conservation of misery."  Even if you can rearrange the problem in some way, inevitably some brute work must be done, and you're just shuffling around things with bookkeeping.

I think the general sentiment applies here, too.  Remember that Sasaki's closed spaces are generally static--why does she want to change anything in the first place?  Such a thing isn't implausible, but it requires development and setup.

If Haruhi's emotions are being manipulated by Sasaki, it reflects poorly on Sasaki for manipulating her.

Beyond that, the only thing I can say is that for a project of this size, you have a big focus on what you want to have happen, but I'm still concerned that the why is missing.  I'm not speaking of setting up a sequel project, but rather, why would Kyon choose to have the world remade so that Sasaki goes to high school with him?  What is it about this experience that makes him come to this conclusion?

In other words, as much as is reasonable I caution you against having things happen that are due to a character's "subconscious" desires, due to powers having ramifications beyond any reasonable person's ability to predict or control.  An outside, cosmic force is responsible for events---instead of characters---events often times lose meaning.  That can be great if you're writing something Lovecraftian, but in the normal course of writing, it robs you have an opportunity to have characters learn and grow.  I dare say the entire setup of two AUs running side-by-side costs a great deal of opportunity, for Sasaki and Haruhi can learn nothing in their respective universes.


At any rate, there is another half to my advisor's wisdom, I think---ultimately, we can do much more today than we used to be able to because scientists and programmers developed new techniques to attack problems.  You can't be married to an idea to the exclusion of all others.  I encourage you to step back, to think of some way to make this entire premise simpler and less complicated rather than adding on layers and hoping that it will all stitch itself together.  Often times, I find that there's an angle on an idea I had that would totally unravel what I thought I wanted to do.  Usually, this is exactly what you should do; if you're so afraid that something simple might undo your intentions, it's because that's the logical course, and what you're trying to do has a deficiency that can't be covered up.

Food for thought.  I hope this is helpful in some way.

Honestly, I've actually been going back and forth a bit about this. I think that complex and bullet-torn idea I threw out was just a desperate attempt to find some rational way of getting what I wanted to happen to actually happen.

Quote from: BrianOff the top of my head, though, this feels like you're putting a lot of effort into trying to force the story.  That's to say, it's not coming organically.  My suggestion is to take a step back and look at it from a slightly more abstract viewpoint.  Try to come up with a concise, simple explanation that can be fit into a few lines (a single paragraph) that can encapsulate what you're hoping to achieve.

As previously stated, I agree that I'm forcing it pretty hard. I'm not sure there's actually a good way to construct the situation I want to portray. I can explain quite concisely what I want to achieve (here with specifics removed):


Haruhi and Sasaki are fighting with each other and end up forming two separate realities, each with its own Kyon. These two realities are fighting for dominance, one of which is to take over as the dominant world, while the other is to fade. One (or both) of the Kyons remembers the original world and tries to fix everything. At the climax, one Kyon somehow crosses over an overlap in the worlds and brings the two goddesses together, admonishing them. He for whatever reason (by 'whatever reason', I have absolutely no idea what I mean, as there doesn't seem to be a logical reason for doing this) decides he wants to see the world with their roles reversed, and his wish is somehow granted.

Quote from: MuphridBeyond that, the only thing I can say is that for a project of this size, you have a big focus on what you want to have happen, but I'm still concerned that the why is missing.  I'm not speaking of setting up a sequel project, but rather, why would Kyon choose to have the world remade so that Sasaki goes to high school with him?  What is it about this experience that makes him come to this conclusion?

That's the problem.


Again, there's no logical reason to set up a 'reverse Haruhi and Sasaki' storyline. It seems that Poe's method of building from the climax backward doesn't work well for prose,  especially when the characters' personalities are defined.

Quote from: MuphridAn outside, cosmic force is responsible for events---instead of characters---events often times lose meaning.

I've actually been thinking along similar lines, namely that this almost feels like making a DBZ fanfic about Goku pulling SSJ 47 out of nowhere.
Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's basically the sentiment of 'I want to see this happen because it's awesome.' I'm writing based on the plot rather than the characters, something I now see as a terrible way to write stories of this genre, and something I should've seen long ago.


I'm thinking once again that this idea isn't actually workable. I can't see any logical reason to have Kyon suggest switching their places as opposed to, say, removing the power completely or using temporal reversal to keep things from happening or some such cliche.
Suspending disbelief on this action, why are the two fighting in the first place? I can see Haruhi wanting to remove Sasaki for seeing some form of romantic development, but that doesn't fit Sasaki's character (as I interpret it, and as I'm sure many readers would agree). Reversing it, Sasaki wouldn't instigate conflict with Haruhi for any reason short of Kyon's death, if that, and Haruhi would be even less likely to kill Kyon than Sasaki would be to start romantic development. There isn't much of a reason for those two to be fighting.

Quote from: MuphridRemember that Sasaki's closed spaces are generally static--why does she want to change anything in the first place?  Such a thing isn't implausible, but it requires development and setup.

Well, portraying that as a top layer, under which there is a desire for change, seems like it could potentially work, reflecting a mask of acceptance but an inner desire to change things, but...
I mean, I guess inventing a desire for change that may or may not actually be there may actually be plausible. Sasaki for whatever reason having her facade shatter and trying to change things may spark a conflict, as Haruhi may not like where things may be headed...
Actually, I could just portray Sasaki as wishing for her role to be reversed with Haruhi's, allowing her to be closer to Kyon. Then, I could just cut out the middle man and jump directly into Melancholy of Sasaki, potentially avoiding the conflict of realities. Of course, then Sasaki seems a bit self-centered, switching roles with Haruhi specifically to get the 'better' role. Then again, I want to have Haruhi appear early in that, so she could probably set it up so that they can 'share' Kyon a bit easier.
Thing is, I was envisioning Kyon having a different personality on the surface due to early exposure to Haruhi rather than Sasaki. Of course, deep down he'd be the same person, the only real difference being a belief in the extraordinary and a will to put in effort.


Well, now I'm just trying to force a setup onto MoS. I'm really liking the idea of just skipping directly to MoS, disregarding any jokes involving passing Go and collecting 200$. It seems it would be much easier to write; I have a beginning point and I have characters. I don't have an endpoint I'm bending over backwards to reach, I can do whatever I want. Or, rather, the characters can go wherever they want. However, it would be able to flow.


I think I've made my point. I have a story that has an endpoint defined but can't figure out how to reach it, and I have a story that can go anywhere it wants and an interesting starting point to explore from (no handwaving required). I think the choice is clear.


I mean, unless anyone would actually rather see WR and has some epic idea or system thereof that makes everything work perfectly...

If you can't get WR to click, setting it aside may be just fine.  My advice on that front, then, is that if you want to jump into tMoS, don't bother with a justification for the setup.  Just go ahead and jump straight into an AU; it sounds like you can do this without much trouble, and you'll probably have an easier time of it if you're not burdened by the baggage of the WR idea that you can't quite get to fit.

There's always time to come back to WR later, and maybe you can connect the ideas, and maybe they'll be separate.  Either way should be fine, really.  :)

Quote from: Brian on April 30, 2012, 02:19:52 PM
If you can't get WR to click, setting it aside may be just fine.  My advice on that front, then, is that if you want to jump into tMoS, don't bother with a justification for the setup.  Just go ahead and jump straight into an AU; it sounds like you can do this without much trouble, and you'll probably have an easier time of it if you're not burdened by the baggage of the WR idea that you can't quite get to fit.

There's always time to come back to WR later, and maybe you can connect the ideas, and maybe they'll be separate.  Either way should be fine, really.  :)

That's what I was planning on. All I was hoping was that I wouldn't be guilt-tripped into not quitting.

Right. I have a lot of schoolwork to do over the next couple of weeks, but when I get a chance I'll start banging out outlines. I'm thinking I'm going to borrow a bit from a fanfic I read once: Sympathy, by... Durandall.


I'm not going to borrow much, but I'm thinking Kyon and Sasaki are going to be similar to that story's Haruhi and Kyon, respectively.



I love how ideas form as I'm trying to explain previous ones, especially when they reinforce the old.


Yup, I have a feeling this'll almost write itself.

That sounds like a fairly solid idea.  But one point in particular,



Just a thought; I feel like this basic premise has a lot of potential, and certainly in borrowing from "Sympathy" I'm sure you can ask Brian about any finer points that he had to deal with in writing that piece and how they might relate to what you have planned.

Glad to see you're still plugging away here.

@Muphrid


Actually,



However, what I'm more concerned with is Kunikida and Taniguchi, or at least in terms of nonmajor characters. I'm actually thinking of placing Kunikida and Sasaki moderately close together, but I'm not entirely sure how I want to handle that. Meanwhile, I'm not entirely sure I'm going to give Taniguchi much of a part at all.


On another note, I'm actually starting to wonder if I should even let Haruhi in on the plot. I mean, it's not dangerous for her to know, and she may be more likely to believe Kyon about it in this setting, but putting her in the dark makes it easier to use what's mentioned in the spoiler area (which I'm not entirely sure of the reasoning behind apart from not rendering yours pointless).