The Hangout: EP is back and running in bullet time!

[Elin]

I liked his voice. It was fitting.

Also, Dmitri Yuriev's voice was solid gold.

Yeah, I don't know what it was. It wasn't exactly bad. There was just something about it that rubbed me up the wrong way.

Agreed. So much agreed. Some of the voice acting was a bit ropey, especially in Episode 2, but certain characters' voices were just so fitting. Albedo~

[Dr Mario]

Oh no, I didn't mean specifically an extension to that story so much as just whatever you come up with. Again, I can't offer much in the way of criticism, but I'm always interested in reading.

It's mostly a matter of me convincing my lazy arse to actually go and put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard, as the case often is). I'm incredibly slack about actually making the transition from idea to finished product.

I'm also way too insecure and jumpy about my skill. I'd say that more than half of what I put down fails the acceptability test and gets backspaced in short order.

I see. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. You should stick to whatever style makes best use of your talents. Having written many short stories with a reasonable degree of success, but left two or three short-ish novel attempts only half-finished, I'm starting to think that perhaps something of that length simply doesn't suit me. I can think up key scenes and plot points very easily, but the thread that runs between them and links them into a cohesive whole tends to elude me.

It's hard to really call it 'filler' since it's rarely drivel, and it tends to make up the whole body of most novels. I guess it's more like a sort of bone structure? The skeleton that is rarely outwardly apparent, but stops the plot itself from becoming nothing but a fleshy mess. It's always been the most problematic part of writing something long for me. Perhaps I simply need more practice. Regardless, for now I find it much easier simply to write what might be a key event in a novel into its own self-contained story. Somehow it suits me better...

You might be able to take advantage of that in writing a longer piece of work. Treat it like a connected set of tales rather than one big story. Link them together using a bit of literary smart-assery (say, by having the narrator actually be the protagonist relaying his stories to a third party long after they all took place). Lets you work in some character development without needing to dive into all the minor scenes.

[Evans]

Since I'm linking, might as well...

^____^

[Jetsetlemming]

Urgh. I'm exhausted, but I have to go to the store before I go to bed....
Or do I... I wonder if I'll wake up before anybody comes home. It is kinda late.

I guess I'll flip a coin.

[Elin]

Since I'm linking, might as well...

Ee, my favourite cutscene in any of the games, I think. The music~

[Evans]

Ee, my favourite cutscene in any of the games, I think. The music~

I dunno about that...

Anal-yze this!

[Panda Man]

[Elin]

It's mostly a matter of me convincing my lazy arse to actually go and put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard, as the case often is). I'm incredibly slack about actually making the transition from idea to finished product.

I'm also way too insecure and jumpy about my skill. I'd say that more than half of what I put down fails the acceptability test and gets backspaced in short order.

Ahaha. You're no worse than me, then. I have to seriously fight the urge to delete a good 90% of what I write. I've taken to forwarding it all to my English teacher from last year, so there's a hard copy out there, and deleting it will accomplish nothing.

I don't know, though. I'm rapidly realising that maybe I'm a bit too hasty to delete at times. And I'm sure you are too... I've gone back to things I hated, and haven't looked at in several months, and found myself wondering how I was even able to write them. As much as I'm not one to preach, I don't think it's ever wise to delete anything, no matter how awful it might seem at the time.

You might be able to take advantage of that in writing a longer piece of work. Treat it like a connected set of tales rather than one big story. Link them together using a bit of literary smart-assery (say, by having the narrator actually be the protagonist relaying his stories to a third party long after they all took place). Lets you work in some character development without needing to dive into all the minor scenes.

Oh, yeah, I thought about trying something like that. It's an interesting idea, trying to write something that bridges the gap between short story collection and novel... One idea I had was to have a series of short stories focusing on tragic love. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, but something goes wrong in every one. In each case, the protagonists would be extremely similar, although perhaps in radically different settings. One could be a fantasy story, one could be Sci-Fi or whatever...

Eventually, as the collection of short stories goes on, the characters become more aware of their circumstances. They remember bits of what has gone before, and realise that they're entirely star-crossed, and have been doomed in every case. Gradually they begin to make contact with the writer of the stories that they're in, and begin to reason with and get the best of him. It turns out he's writing them into a doomed romance every single time out of spite, because they're literary incarnations he has created of his girlfriend, who left him, and the man that she left him for. Eventually, perhaps, they'll talk him into giving them a happy ending in their last story. Or maybe not. I don't really know yet. Something like that, though.

[Evans]

[Elin]

Needs less beret.

[Dr Mario]

Oh, yeah, I thought about trying something like that. It's an interesting idea, trying to write something that bridges the gap between short story collection and novel... One idea I had was to have a series of short stories focusing on tragic love. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, but something goes wrong in every one. In each case, the protagonists would be extremely similar, although perhaps in radically different settings. One could be a fantasy story, one could be Sci-Fi or whatever...

Eventually, as the collection of short stories goes on, the characters become more aware of their circumstances. They remember bits of what has gone before, and realise that they're entirely star-crossed, and have been doomed in every case. Gradually they begin to make contact with the writer of the stories that they're in, and begin to reason with and get the best of him. It turns out he's writing them into a doomed romance every single time out of spite, because they're literary incarnations he has created of his girlfriend, who left him, and the man that she left him for. Eventually, perhaps, they'll talk him into giving them a happy ending in their last story. Or maybe not. I don't really know yet. Something like that, though.

Interesting idea. I wouldn't have gone for the author angle, but it is a workable concept.

A multiverse of different incarnations, a thousand shots at happiness and a thousand chances for each flaw to doom it... it could be brilliant if written right.

[Elin]

Interesting idea. I wouldn't have gone for the author angle, but it is a workable concept.

A multiverse of different incarnations, a thousand shots at happiness and a thousand chances for each flaw to doom it... it could be brilliant if written right.

Yeah, I guess the notion of authors losing themselves in their own work so much that they become almost a piece of it is an interesting concept to me. I used to be that way when I was a kid, more or less unable to tell what I read and wrote from what I lived. Plus I liked the notion of someone petulant and childish enough to write what is essentially the real life equivalent of fanfiction written to slam or spite a certain character. It's a departure from the perfect, overly nice characters I usually write, anyway.

And...I don't know. It was just one idea, really. But yes, I was trying to think of ways I could link up smaller, only somewhat related concepts into something bigger. I do want to learn to work with bigger ideas and narratives, but I still have a lot to learn. Something like this could be a good way to bridge the gap.

...

I'm sure it'd turn out better than any of my half-finished novels, at any rate. *shivers*

[Elin]

I dunno about that...

Also delicious. But I prefer the music separate from the scene, for some reason. It's kind of overshadowed by the dialogue and sound effects for me, and it never really grew on me until I heard it on the soundtrack.

Fan-made, but really cool. Have you seen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyUFPNTUevs

[Dr Mario]

You know, I never really saw Xenosaga as anything more than a second-rate variation of Xenosaga.

Maybe I was wrong.

[Evans]

Oh my.