[snippages where appropriate]

At 06:05 PM 1/30/2004 -0500, Bob Schroeck wrote:
[snip]

<shakes head>  You kids these days and your instant gratification...

I'm going to have to remember that line, Bob. :p

[snip]

Scott, let me guess -- you prefer short stories to novels, right?
"Relatively Absent" looks to be a fair-sized epic;

Yup. My original outline called for three major story arcs, each arc slated 
to occupy approximately 8 to 10 chapters for a total of 28 to 32 chapters 
overall. I'm still working towards that goal. :)

[snip]

What Mark is doing is setting up development, change and growth.  And
if my guess is correct, it's going to come at the cost of time, pain
and loss.  You want all that in the first 100K?  You're not going to
get it.  At least not in the way that Mark wants to tell it.  And it's
*his* story.  He gets to choose the pacing.  You want a faster read
with a quicker payoff?  Stick to shorter stories.

Exactly correct.

[snip]

I will admit, though, that I am also having a little trouble keeping
all the members of the Legion of Ninja-Cousins straight.  I'm not
sure what to advise here; I mean, in thinking about it, I find that I
can call up all manner of good character detail about them -- but I
can't hang specific names on the characters who emerge in my memory.
I can't recall if Harukichi is the redhead is the bookworm is the
lesbian is the one who wants the nice earrings...  If I could offer
some kind of subtle mnemonic device that could help the reader make
associations, I would.  But I have none.

Maybe it's because we almost always see them as a group that I tend
to think of them as a collective entity.  Maybe a couple more
individual scenes with solitary character establishment will help
the reader keep them distinct in their minds.

A valid point and complaint, since up to this point in the story the four 
girls *have* traveled almost exclusively as a pack. I had planned on having 
commissioned artwork of the girls up on the site well before this time, but 
my artist got slapped in the face by Real Life - she got married.

I'll try and get some character profiles of the girls put up on the web 
site shortly.  It's a little late in the story to be doing "existing 
character intros", so I'll just have to file the error away as a Learning 
Experience for future stories.

Also, the middle story arc should provide sufficient opportunity for me to 
differentiate the girls a bit more.

In any case, whatever you do, I'm sure it's going to turn out quite
well.  I'm greatly looking forward to seeing what happens.

-- Bob

Thanks for the kind words! Here's hoping you won't throw *too* many brick 
in my direction when some of the subplots start to resolve in the twisted 
manner I have planned. :)

============================================================
Mark Shurtleff
   email: gaijin@sfcmd.com
   irc alias: Gaijin -or- togashi_gaijin
   fanfiction homepage: http://www.sfcmd.com/fanfic
============================================================


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