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I posted ch. 15 of "Guardian" to ff.net tonight. That brings the story to 63,500 words, give or take a couple hundred. (Do not believe ff.net's claim of 71,000+ words; their counter is weird.)
That's only about 10,000 words shy of "Apartment Manager" -- and I think I am still less than halfway done. My current outline file estimates 26 chapters, but since I started with an 18-chapter estimate, and some of the future chapter outlines are vague like an extremely vague thing, you can see why I am fairly sure I will run to at least 30 chapters. (For the record? Ch. 15 is the middle of three chapters that grew out of what was planned as ch. 7. *headdesk*)
Anyway, while I was at it I rejiggered my timeline and outline files and did a preliminary scene-by-scene breakdown of ch. 16. If all goes well, it will have two Naga POV scenes since that's where the action just went, alternating with a Yukiko POV scene and an Eiji POV scene. (Sasuke is just not very interesting right now, sorry. He has some big emotional stuff coming up in either ch. 17 or 18, though, depending on the pacing of the other plot threads.)
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In other news, I am rereading Homestuck from the beginning, partly just because and partly because one read-through is not enough to get the kind of solid, thorough grasp of canon that I like to have before writing fic. (That is one reason I have yet to really write any of the trolls, btw. I was skimming pretty hard through parts of Act 5.)
It's interesting to look back on Act 1 with the perspective of several thousand pages of story and character development. I mean, Homestuck continues to be a deeply silly story in many ways -- comedy is definitely one of the main genre streams from which it draws -- but Act 1 is much more gag-driven vs. plot-driven, and it doesn't even dream of being character-driven. Probably that is because a bunch of its action was driven by reader input via the suggestion box, which Hussie shut down somewhere along the line.
There is a lot of Early Installment Weirdness with regard to John's implausible ignorance of the mechanics of his world -- for example, the only reason for him not to know about fetch modi and so on is so Hussie can explain things to the audience -- but also with regard to characterization. Rose is pretty much Rose from her introduction onward, and (bar the must-explain-sylladexes stuff) John is pretty much John, but Dave starts out not quite Dave. Some of that is probably for the same reason as John's weird amnesia -- he is being forced to explain things he shouldn't have to explain, particularly not to John -- but I also think Hussie hadn't settled on Dave's speech patterns, so his typing is a little off-model (he uses question marks almost the way Jade would; it's weird) and his phrasing and word choices lack their distinctive Dave-ness.
I have not gotten to Jade -- I'd forgotten how long it took to reach her introduction, or even to reach a significant Pesterchum conversation with her -- so I can't say much about how her characterization has or hasn't changed.
That's only about 10,000 words shy of "Apartment Manager" -- and I think I am still less than halfway done. My current outline file estimates 26 chapters, but since I started with an 18-chapter estimate, and some of the future chapter outlines are vague like an extremely vague thing, you can see why I am fairly sure I will run to at least 30 chapters. (For the record? Ch. 15 is the middle of three chapters that grew out of what was planned as ch. 7. *headdesk*)
Anyway, while I was at it I rejiggered my timeline and outline files and did a preliminary scene-by-scene breakdown of ch. 16. If all goes well, it will have two Naga POV scenes since that's where the action just went, alternating with a Yukiko POV scene and an Eiji POV scene. (Sasuke is just not very interesting right now, sorry. He has some big emotional stuff coming up in either ch. 17 or 18, though, depending on the pacing of the other plot threads.)
---------------
In other news, I am rereading Homestuck from the beginning, partly just because and partly because one read-through is not enough to get the kind of solid, thorough grasp of canon that I like to have before writing fic. (That is one reason I have yet to really write any of the trolls, btw. I was skimming pretty hard through parts of Act 5.)
It's interesting to look back on Act 1 with the perspective of several thousand pages of story and character development. I mean, Homestuck continues to be a deeply silly story in many ways -- comedy is definitely one of the main genre streams from which it draws -- but Act 1 is much more gag-driven vs. plot-driven, and it doesn't even dream of being character-driven. Probably that is because a bunch of its action was driven by reader input via the suggestion box, which Hussie shut down somewhere along the line.
There is a lot of Early Installment Weirdness with regard to John's implausible ignorance of the mechanics of his world -- for example, the only reason for him not to know about fetch modi and so on is so Hussie can explain things to the audience -- but also with regard to characterization. Rose is pretty much Rose from her introduction onward, and (bar the must-explain-sylladexes stuff) John is pretty much John, but Dave starts out not quite Dave. Some of that is probably for the same reason as John's weird amnesia -- he is being forced to explain things he shouldn't have to explain, particularly not to John -- but I also think Hussie hadn't settled on Dave's speech patterns, so his typing is a little off-model (he uses question marks almost the way Jade would; it's weird) and his phrasing and word choices lack their distinctive Dave-ness.
I have not gotten to Jade -- I'd forgotten how long it took to reach her introduction, or even to reach a significant Pesterchum conversation with her -- so I can't say much about how her characterization has or hasn't changed.
