Quote:This is a problem for some other authors too, such as Perfect Lionheart. While it is definitely not his only problem, he starts stories with one idea, such as the horcrux in Harry's head waking up and warping him, then gets distracted and switches to other ideas entirely, like becoming a champion of the Queen of the Fae, or time travel shenanigans. Any one of these could carry its own story, but they try to cram all these and more into one story, and it falls apart.Oh yeah. The one time I wrote Skysaber -- who is by his own admission Perfect Lionheart -- it was about his story Shampoo's Revenge, where exactly that happened. It was a great idea that he started with -- Shampoo tries again with the memory shampoo, only does it right -- she makes Ranma forget Akane, and in such a way that she can tell him to his face that she's erased his memory of another girl and he doesn't mind. Nabiki and her failing attempts to return to the status quo (for her own profit, of course) are the main plot thread -- until Skysaber came up with another idea entirely and grafted it on, which was that Nabiki, who seems to be on top of everything, is actually so blinded by her own greed and self-centeredness that she doesn't know that Kasumi's an Olympic ice skating champion or that her own mother is not dead (she divorced Soun, who took it badly and treated her as if she died; and no one told Nabiki, who took her father's version as gospel). Trust me, he sold it well enough that I bought it (at least at first). But the later story line started crowding out the first, which I was really more interested in.
So I dropped him an email pointing out that he had two good plot ideas crammed in together there, and he really ought to split them off into their own stories.
And I got back, best as I recall, a classic Skysaber paranoid rant about unwelcome criticism intended to destroy his artistic muse or some such, and shortly afterwards he did one of his disappearing acts from the Net.
Oh well.
(Oh, and if anyone's curious, Shampoo's Revenge can be found here.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.