It is, in fact, very tricky to edit romance-plot foreshadowing into a story when your POV character would not recognize romance and sexual attraction if they danced naked in front of him -- partly because he's just dense that way but mostly because he is resolutely focusing on other things.
...
In fairness, Sasuke also spends most of the story failing to recognize that he's undergoing an existential shift of motivation and loyalty, but still. Frustrating!
Anyway, I have about two thirds of the story edited. Sasuke has just finished his first day teaching at the academy and he and Naruto are about to get into a fistfight. Besides inserting foreshadowing, I have also removed a buttload of commas, smoothed a lot of slightly awkward phrasing, killed many useless conjunctions, fleshed out the bit where Sasuke talks Team 4 into sticking explosive notes in Naruto's jacket, clarified the passage of time between scenes, added a bit more sensory description (sound, scent, texture, temperature, spatial orientation, etc.) where appropriate, brought references to the council and the decision to give Sasuke parole more in-line with my two prequel pieces, and named the Anbu guard who leads Sasuke out of his holding cell.
(Related to that last part: the Anbu guard's name is Yui. I have decided that she is, in fact, Ayakawa Yui, a very minor and mostly off-page side character from "The Way of the Apartment Manager" and "The Guardian in Spite of Herself." You see, in this more canon-compliant world, Ayakawa Yukiko did decide to actively join the fight against the Kyuubi -- and duly died in the battle -- which had the knock-on effect of inspiring her youngest cousin to become a ninja instead of planning to take over Yutaro's grocery store. That has no bearing whatsoever on the plot, but it amuses me enough that I felt like sharing.)
...
In fairness, Sasuke also spends most of the story failing to recognize that he's undergoing an existential shift of motivation and loyalty, but still. Frustrating!
Anyway, I have about two thirds of the story edited. Sasuke has just finished his first day teaching at the academy and he and Naruto are about to get into a fistfight. Besides inserting foreshadowing, I have also removed a buttload of commas, smoothed a lot of slightly awkward phrasing, killed many useless conjunctions, fleshed out the bit where Sasuke talks Team 4 into sticking explosive notes in Naruto's jacket, clarified the passage of time between scenes, added a bit more sensory description (sound, scent, texture, temperature, spatial orientation, etc.) where appropriate, brought references to the council and the decision to give Sasuke parole more in-line with my two prequel pieces, and named the Anbu guard who leads Sasuke out of his holding cell.
(Related to that last part: the Anbu guard's name is Yui. I have decided that she is, in fact, Ayakawa Yui, a very minor and mostly off-page side character from "The Way of the Apartment Manager" and "The Guardian in Spite of Herself." You see, in this more canon-compliant world, Ayakawa Yukiko did decide to actively join the fight against the Kyuubi -- and duly died in the battle -- which had the knock-on effect of inspiring her youngest cousin to become a ninja instead of planning to take over Yutaro's grocery store. That has no bearing whatsoever on the plot, but it amuses me enough that I felt like sharing.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-27 11:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-28 12:58 am (UTC)