Quote:How can I ignore the only substantial non-prereader criticism I've gotten on the structure and direction of the story? Believe me, even when I don't agree with you, I want to see what you say.
As for telling a good story, you've accomplished that from my point of view, despite the many nagging nitpicks i've posted here and which you should probably ignore.
Quote:Nah, that'll just kick in higher levels of the Law of Conservation of Victims, and the Sabers'll start dropping.
Yeah, you're right there. Sylia should make a new rule: "Do not make friends outside of the Knight Sabers. They will die in as ironic a way possible.
Quote:Yes, under most circumstances Nene would make a good conscience for the Sabers. However, in DW2, Nene's caught in her own crisis of conscience, having discovered that it's possible her idealism has taken her somewhere she doesn't want to be, and can't believe she'd be. Linna is enough of a realist that she can look at the Sabers and their mission from an objective point of view, and Nene can't. Nene's caught up in being The Heroine, who by defnition Always Does Good -- that's the trap of her idealism, and when Doug points out that from another point of view she could easily be a murderer -- a Villain -- she goes into a mental tailspin. She can't be the conscience, then, because she's lacking and looking for the kind of moral and ethical compass that Linna, being more worldly and more objective, can provide.
But as for being the conscience . . . wouldn't you kind of want it to *have* a sort of ...well, if not innocent, at least determined idealism? like nene?
Quote:Yes -- see above.
or does it go counter to her arc?
Quote:I see no evidence of her being unethical or criminal in her dealings, although the amount of time we see her at her job in Crash! is miniscule.
But is she above a little insider trading?
Quote:Believe me, I'm as gratified as you, especially considering she was never anywhere near the original plot of the story! She only entered the tale around the second or third revision. I had always intended to keep Doug at one remove or further from the Sabers -- part of the anti-SI thing -- but I realized I needed someone who could move back and forth between him and them. I didn't want to create another new character, so after some browsing about, I picked Lisa, who had the added bonus that she was able and believably willing to do all kinds of wild things, as long as she could justify it as being for her journalistic efforts. And she just sorta grew from there. As I've said before, the "Sailor Loon" thing was originally a gag I wrote for my early prereaders, but then it got folded into the story for real, and that required changes and additions to Lisa that I had to back-propagate through the plot. (Her gymnastics background, for instance -- and we'll see a little bit more of that in Chapter 13, btw.)
Groovy. Lisa has definately been the break out character of this piece.
Oh, and if Lisa had never been in the plot, Madigan's subplot with her own crisis of conscience would never have come about. That was never part of the original story; it wasn't even part of the story as late as chapter 4 or so! It grew out of another silly thought -- "what if Madigan were a Sailor Moon fan, too? How would she react to seeing Lisa in action?" But instead of coming out silly, it snowballed into something serious. (The silly got transplanted into all the unlikely Sailor Moon fans elsewhere in the story -- not originally intended as a running gag, but that's what it turned into.)
Quote:Well, I have to apologize there. I had hoped that Chapter 13 would be done by now.
Okay, I'm taking the long view.
Quote:We're not thugs. "Thug" is such an ugly word. We're... talented muscle.
Warriors: jackbooted thugs of the new world order . . . but with a sense of humor.
Quote:Okay, a spoiler. Yes. If the chapter structure doesn't change, before the end of chapter 14.
So, any chance of a redemptive Madigan scene, soon?
Quote:I guess I'll have to go find my copy of TP3 and look, now.
Really? I thought for sure there were nukes.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.