05/27/2019: Commentary: chapter 55
Chapter 55: Unprepared (commentary)In this chapter, everything is awkward, Alan reaches his breaking point, Chaletwo tries to comment on Mark's drawing skills, they search for some dragons in caves (not to be confused with the other time they search for some dragons in caves), Mark re-extends trust to Gyarados and debates death with Chaletwo, there is an uninspired battle where I forget about Dragoreen's terrible ability, and May introduces us to the Waterberg principle.
COMMENTARY DONE
Comments
Altissimo (05/27/2019 08:43:27)
Re: Gyarados and his lack of screen time: I actually was thinking about this last night because I went to go see Detective Pikachu and there was a Gyarados on land in that. Part of the problem with Gyarados seems to be that he requires a nearby source of water to exist and that's not always easy to place into a setting; would you consider going the Detective Pikachu route and making him able to exist on land in the future?
(also lol my verification Pokemon is Ninetales)
Chibi (05/27/2019 12:27:55)
You know, going through all the chapters in a row like this has highlighted the fact that I basically never had any clue what the timing of anything was, and almost always imagined additional nights where there weren't any because otherwise the days just felt so long. Especially that bit with Mew back in chapter 9, I always imagined that scene at night, so learning that the following chapter was not the next morning was upsetting, lol.
I think the revision should actually lean harder into the whole super-long days thing! After all, it obviously comes second nature to you, so dropping reminders to the reader that it's intentional, mentioning the sunset times (maybe even canonizing Ouen as being far north/south) would make the timing feel more real. (Of course, not counting the fact that Mark's journey really was just too fast in the early chapters.)
Granted, the inverse would also come up in this upcoming arc, but that could also highlight the rather dreary tone.
Butterfree (05/27/2019 16:05:58)
Yeah, I might just ditch the water requirement for Gyarados. It was suuuuch a headache for the whole fic! It's actually the reason I ultimately ditched his bit in chapter 75 - I moved the setting, and then I was like "Ugh, to keep this in here I'm going to have to put a random lake here, aren't I. Screw it, it's not that important."
To some extent the days are pretty long because I'm used to long days in Iceland. :P But for the most part it's a lot of me not thinking about the timing much at all in the early parts. Here it's mostly the second dinner thing that's kind of bugging me.
Chibi (05/27/2019 16:36:13)
Even without the second dinner thing, the sunset is happening at like 9pm in August. :P That's why I figured it'd be cool to go all-out and Make it Official as opposed to like, reversing it to something you're not used to (unlike some people *cough*).
Butterfree (05/27/2019 19:39:22)
It's the beginning of September by now, but yeah, sunset at 9PM is normal at that time of year for me.