[Haruhi] The Severance of Haruhi Suzumiya (Old, Completed Fic) [Spoilers]

[Grahf]

• The fact that Haruhi is that quick to leap to distrust of Kyon is kind of disturbing, almost like she's looking for excuses to cut him off even further. Somewhat understandable if she's having a hard time coping, but actually playing up that angle from her side would tone her down slightly from 'rampaging bitch out for Kyon's head'. As it is, we see almost none of her motivation for lighting into Kyon like that, and while we're not going to see her internal motivations, it'd still be possible to give some non-verbal cues that can hint at her own conflict (and thus humanize her a bit more).
• Haruhi classifying Mikuru's departure as 'unstoppable' specifically gives the impression that she -wants- to get rid of Mikuru, or that the entire setup is just a subconscious effort on Haruhi's part to actually remove Mikuru - which helps to build that image of Haruhi as selfish and manipulative again. If anything, simply leave it as something that happened that Haruhi hasn't affected one way or the other.

I'm actually a little ashamed to admit that I never even considered that the latter point ended up reflecting so badly on Haruhi. I know I could write it off as a poor choice of wording, but with everything that's been pointed out so far I cannot dismiss it as such.

I'm honestly thinking at this point that my biggest flaw here might just be a lack of cohesive and consistent narrative for the sake of drama. Unfortunately I can't even promise that the next chapters will be better.

Lordy, the more I look at this the more and more I'm cringing. I'm beginning to think that a rewrite might not be a good idea, but an absolute necessity. It just seems that in order to do the premise justice it just needs a complete overhaul with some decent if not significant revisions to each chapter and the tone of the overall story.

[Halbarad]

To be honest, the most significant piece of advice I can offer is to act like an annoying five-year-old when looking over your outline and your writing: always ask 'why'. Why is Haruhi doing this, why would Mikuru's bosses take this risk, why is it in the Organization's best interest to threaten Kyon.

Like I said previously, you don't necessarily need to include the answers to all of those 'why's' in the narrative, but simply having the answers will make the entire story more cohesive - you'll find yourself in a position to include details at seemingly unrelated points that tie the story together better. Conversely, if you find yourself unable to come up with a good answer for 'why', it's a good indication that someone's carrying the idiot ball, or that you're wandering OOC or simply trying to force characters into an unrealistic situation to get the result you want - and because the situation was unrealistic, the result is equally so.

This kind of came up in a discussion on IRC earlier today; Brian and I both mentioned that we find some of the best scenes come out when you simply let the characters have their own head and take the story where it's going to go naturally. It may mean that you have to rework your outline or some story elements to allow those things to fit in the overall story, but it'll be a better story for it in the end.

[Brian]

Yeah, I've been ... slow to comment because Hal tends to hit most of the points I'd go for first.

Beyond that, I also know that your pre-reader of choice, erm.  She thinks 'Haruhi rewriting the world and taking away all of Kyon's friends/family, so she's the only familiar thing he knows' is 'romance.'  so....  >_>;;

The key is to try and get a balance in all things and not favor one character to the point that the other characters are just prizes/obstacles for the favored character to deal with.  Dreams of the Earthbound is an example of the author failing this spectacularly -- while we can forgive a lot for a ship....

*shrugs*

Anyway--  I owe commentary on this, so will get some out tonight.

[Muphrid]

Don't be concerned about apologizing for what's there, Grahf.  We're all interested in writing, and we all know that it's a process of learning.  Certainly there's no need to be ashamed of past work; simply recognize what could be improved in the future or, if you do decide to revise this piece, how you would go about those parts now.

And that's all we're here to do, really.

I must echo Hal's sentiment as well.  I know I've been guilty of trying to force what I see happening on characters in the past, but it is a wonderful surprise when you get into the heads of your characters and try to reason out their responses to situations and realize that the natural course is something different from what you envisioned.  I firmly believe every character has a motivation behind what they're doing.  It can be anything from a clear, rational goal to an unspecific feeling or something in-between.  On the morality scale of things, I feel that characters almost always do what they feel is just and good--their sense of morality can be defined in terms of the greater universe or be as narrow as what's good for themselves, but I feel every character had a moral code in this way.  It just might be immoral or amoral to the reader's point of view.

Anyway, some thoughts of my own on chapter three:

"So then, Kyon. You better have a damn good explanation! Koizumi has been an upstanding member of this brigade, whereas you've never risen above the lowest rank!"

This seems a bit harsh considering they were in a relationship.  This scene in general feels that way.  What's going through Haruhi's mind right now?  Can she sincerely believe Kyon was trying to do something to break up the brigade?  If so, her response is to confront him aggressively--which isn't atypical for her, but the situation is atypical.  If anything's going to make Haruhi pause and ponder how best to approach the situation, I have to think this is it.  She could, for example, assume Kyon has taken things worse than she expected and try to give him an out to admit that's why he would be harsh with Koizumi... with Kyon still clueless as to why she'd saying such things.

This may be a matter of taste, though.  And Kyon taking heart that Haruhi is able to smile genuinely is good.


The scene with Tsuruya is a good breath of fresh air and hope, something to raise Kyon's spirits.  I think this is functionally good, too.

"It was her 'last request'. A request I see fit to honour." With that, the pressure on my shoulder was released. Realizing that it was far too late now, I slumped back into the seat beneath me.

It seems strange for Nagato to justify following Asahina's request by resorting to honor.  It seems more fitting if she too doesn't want to see Kyon pained by running after Asahina only to watch her disappear in the blink of an eye.

On the whole, the ending of this chapter emphasizes Kyon's helplessness.  For this reason, it's passive.  I can't help but think what if it emphasized Kyon's determination to cut the knot instead?  He knows Asahina (big) must be up to something, that it involves Haruhi's breakup with him and taking her younger self back to the future.  There's something they gain by doing this, by setting these events into motion, and Kyon's only path--the only path back to Haruhi and to getting Asahina (small) back--is by finding out, whatever it takes.  Determination, despite his weariness, his sense of loss.  And it makes the ending feel more active, I think.

It's an alternative to consider, at any rate, if you do choose to revisit this piece.  Or, of course, I may find that you've put that thought process in the start of the next chapter, and all that is moot.


For the most part, there are still threads in play, so I have to reserve judgment on them until they come to fruition.

[Brian]

Chapter one--  Going to try and focus a bit more on technical aspects:

Asahina-san was in her maid outfit, brewing tea as usual; Koizumi was losing yet another strange game that he brought in to specifically challenge me; and Nagato was sitting on her chair, reading the latest in what must have surely been the most impressive literature collection accumulated in the history of mankind.

Semicolons to separate list items should be reserved for list items that contain commas.  For example:

New York, New York; Wilmington, Ohio; Houston, Texas; and San Francisco, California.

The usage you have almost qualifies, but the entries don't feel consistent enough to be connected with semicolons because Koizumi's entry lacks a comma, and Nagato's entry is half of the length of the sentence.  Moreover, the preceding sentence isn't used as a beginning of the 'comma-containing entries separated by semi-colon' -- it's just a separate sentence.  This usage of punctuation may be a bit overkill; generally, the idea of using semicolons as a supercomma is rare enough that most readers will find that punctuation a bit jarring.

...though, no one else commented on it, so it may just be me....

One might have attributed it to the lack of our ever over-energetic leader Haruhi being nowhere to be seen, but she had told me she'd be running late so that wasn't the cause of this mood.

Double-negative--  Watch for those.  As written, 'lack' of 'being nowhere to be seen' means Haruhi's everywhere in the room.

Kyon: "Never should have let her commission the creation of her own figurine line." -_-

Hmm.  Kyon's criticisms of Haruhi feel off; 'at times dangerously socially inept' isn't very true by the later books--  And additional months beyond that, he still feels that's the right label for her?

"It's true that you and Suzumiya-san have gotten very close over the last few months, and that things have been going quite well." Koizumi said behind that fox-like grin of his.

Technically, this second sentence is incomplete; you should link the dialog into the narration like so:

well," Koizumi

Conversely:

He shook his head and gave a shrug, "No, no, you needn't worry about that.

This first sentence is complete, and lacks a speech-indicator (shrug doesn't suggest speaking), so should not be linked:

shrug.  "No

Never liked, "And the entire brigade sans Haruhi tells Kyon he's screwing up; unifies to give him grief," aspects that are unintentionally evoked in this scene.  Also, Yuki feels too mechanical--  Really, too wordy for her.  The 'way too detailed time' gag isn't something she ever pulls; to try and capture her voice, think about how to relate something in as few words as possible.  Moroever, she's _not_ given to specifics when vagaries suffice--  Just look at her answer to Kyon when he asks how many interfaces there are out there in Melancholy.  (Which is, BTW, "Many.")

...suicide?  That kind of hammers home how much Kyon's friends are unsettling him without giving him useful information.  I admit, I'd forgotten this part.

"How long have we been going out?" Is that what she wanted to ask me? Her tone was so... neutral—none of the energy, none of the passion; hell, I would have even taken anger. But even her next statement, ("Answer, or it'll be a punishment.") fell flat.

Haruhi's response dialog should not be in parenthesis.  That parenthetical can be set off with emdashes instead of parenthesis.  Actual dialog shouldn't really ever be double-nested like that outside of instances where the parenthetical dialog is something being referred to in narration that happened at a different point chronologically, or isn't said:

Alice glared at Bob, grumbling, "Why the hell can't you cancel your dinner plans with Carol, anyway?"

The answer ("Carol's mother Diane passed away last week!") would have shocked her into silence, if Bob could have found his voice; in that moment he had nothing to say, and so hung his head in shame.

Noting that it sounds from the way things are written, Haruhi and Kyon didn't realize that their relationship was failing until Nagato fell ill -- which is exactly the opposite of what I recall happening.

I have no idea why Kyon thinks something so illogical and confusing should have been obvious.

A contradiction here; Haruhi states outright she knows she's breaking Kyon's heart, while previously he says, neither of them understood what was going on until afterwards.


I have to apologize; I overestimated my ability to deal with that one aspect I complained most bitterly about.  Looking back at this with the hindsight that Haruhi knows Kyon is John Smith, I am completely unable to sympathize with her; I can only feel she's being cruel for reasons I can't understand and don't care to learn.

I know that's not the case--  My biases blind me to your intent.  Ironically, this is the same exact issue that prevented me from being able to handle the Coin -- destroying the trump card and saying that Kyon, really, was an idiot to think that Haruhi would accept it and trust him when he opened up about it. -_-

...also, keep in mind my feedback has been biased, so may require judiciously ignoring some or all of it.

[Grahf]

I have to apologize; I overestimated my ability to deal with that one aspect I complained most bitterly about.  Looking back at this with the hindsight that Haruhi knows Kyon is John Smith, I am completely unable to sympathize with her; I can only feel she's being cruel for reasons I can't understand and don't care to learn.

Frankly if I don't have to apologize for the errors I've made I don't think you should have to apologize for having foreknowledge from having read it before. Again, I think that it really comes across that I didn't have a cohesive plan going from chapter to chapter.

Certainly I had a vague idea in some cases, but I mostly bungled around and I readily admit that I didn't even come up with the point that sours you on it until I was almost done -- admittedly I'd been wracking my brain trying to figure out something, anything that could have been material for an ending. I'd even considered leaving it open ended, but the way I had it planned would have been something that I despite: a completely ambiguous "and you decide what happens next" ending.

[Halbarad]

At this point, the question I'm going to ask is: Do you want/need myself or others to continue through the entire length of the fic? If you're planning a rewrite at this point, I suspect it's going to be one from the ground up - not just an edit of the existing story. As such, I think you've got enough feedback for the lead-off in the story, and some general advice to help you rework the plot from there; most of what would probably come out of later chapters (at least for my part) will be pointing out and reiterating some of the points I've already hit.

If you'd like to discuss further, you're also welcome to hit me up on IM or IRC (the latter is a more reliable way to reach me, as I tend to skip using IM services while I'm at home. IRC details are irc.lunarnet.org:#kitago (just set up today for this and other reasons!), you'll find me there as Yukari-sama.) The board is fine, it just tends to be slow if you want someone to bounce things like outline details around.

[Brian]

Wow, I was such a jerk here I had a bad dream about it.  Hooray first dream I can recall enough to record in detail. :\

Grahf, I forgot to mention this; I found the way you handled the ending to be very good.  Even though (in my opinion -- not reality, just the way I see things) I was irked by the fact that Haruhi knew, I found the ending to be well done.  The theme of Haruhi rejecting her powers because they made things 'too easy' felt in-keeping with her character, to me.  (Okay, she didn't entirely willingly reject them--  But thematically....)

I feel that the story ends more strongly than it started; like you got a real vision for the ending in the last few chapters and executed it well.

[Arakawa]

Looking back at this with the hindsight that Haruhi knows Kyon is John Smith, I am completely unable to sympathize with her; I can only feel she's being cruel for reasons I can't understand and don't care to learn.

Sorry, the below is a bit confused and meant to inspire independent thought, not so much present a coherent thought on its own. (I tend to give stupid / irrelevant / generally bad advice on occasion, so please take the below as anything other than straight-up advice.)

I think it's worth pointing out that at least some of the whiplash is due to the fact that this is a Wham Reveal most of the way through the fic, requiring the reader to rethink the motivations of Haruhi's behaviour throughout the entire fic as well as the entirety of prior canon, so that any points at which Haruhi was even slightly cruel or incongruent (assuming her additional knowledge) jump out all at once and produce something on the spectrum of vague disappointment through all-out fic-dropping squick, depending on the reader.

If this kind of reveal occurred, say, in Chapter 1, the premise would still clash conceptually with some of the canon, but arguably there would be some leeway in terms of (carefully) indicating that the details and emphasis of the backstory diverge from canon enough to make it plausible -- something you don't have the chance to do at all with respect to details of the fic itself. (EDIT: Well, besides writing the fic to be self-consistent in the first place. The fic can contradict canon, but not itself.)

So, a "Haruhi knew Kyon was John Smith all along" would work better as a more obviously indicated AU, rather than a divergence. And it might also work better as an initial premise rather than a final reveal. Not sure.

_{(Aside: given the level of detail in all of the commentary, I'd suggest -- especially given that this is a fairly prominent already-published fic we're discussing -- someone edit the thread subject to add a [Spoilers] tag.)}

[Anastasia]

_{(Aside: given the level of detail in all of the commentary, I'd suggest -- especially given that this is a fairly prominent already-published fic we're discussing -- someone edit the thread subject to add a [Spoilers] tag.)}

Done. Couldn't hurt.

[Grahf]

At this point, the question I'm going to ask is: Do you want/need myself or others to continue through the entire length of the fic? If you're planning a rewrite at this point, I suspect it's going to be one from the ground up - not just an edit of the existing story. As such, I think you've got enough feedback for the lead-off in the story, and some general advice to help you rework the plot from there; most of what would probably come out of later chapters (at least for my part) will be pointing out and reiterating some of the points I've already hit.

I think at this point that I'm ready to commit to a rewrite. I just have to sort some stuff out first. I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea to rewrite this before or after committing to a new project. Likewise if I do start to rewrite should I just do it in this thread or create a completely new one; I'm not sure what the correct stance would be in this situation. I do know that I'll start out with an outline of what I want to change as well as asking for some thoughts on the more drastic changes I plan to implement.

Grahf, I forgot to mention this; I found the way you handled the ending to be very good.  Even though (in my opinion -- not reality, just the way I see things) I was irked by the fact that Haruhi knew, I found the ending to be well done.  The theme of Haruhi rejecting her powers because they made things 'too easy' felt in-keeping with her character, to me.  (Okay, she didn't entirely willingly reject them--  But thematically....)

Thank you, I'm glad you thought it worked. I truly think that if Haruhi found out about her powers in canon that this might be one of the ways she reacts. She's always struck me as a person who cares as much about the journey as the destination.

[Arakawa]

I think at this point that I'm ready to commit to a rewrite. I just have to sort some stuff out first. I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea to rewrite this before or after committing to a new project. Likewise if I do start to rewrite should I just do it in this thread or create a completely new one; I'm not sure what the correct stance would be in this situation.

From my observations, it should be fine if you start a new thread and tag the subject with [Rewrite] (or [Rewrite of 'Severance of Haruhi Suzumiya'] if you decide to give the rewrite a different title.)

One of the old-timers correct me if I'm wrong.

[Anastasia]

By all means, start a new thread. If it's a rewrite it's probably best to start afresh anyway.

[Grahf]

I have no idea when I'm going to be starting anything. Hopefully soon, but for now I guess it would be best to consider this entire thing on hold. I'll just make a new thread, so should this one be locked?

[Anastasia]

Sure. If you want it unlocked, just shoot me or another mod/admin a PM.