Cursed Diversions
I've barely thought about my HP story at all these last few days. It's amazing how much the combination of writer's block, Christmas, and another good book can pull you away from another story.
I'm still trying to think of a decent way to get the story rolling again. A way for my characters to get an announcement of a gathering out with limited resources & limited mobility. Half of the characters are easy, taking a note from OotP, but the other half that I want around, two in particular, are proving to be pretty damn difficult. There are ways, of course, but I'm trying really hard to not just hand-of-god the thing.
I might have to work Hedwig and/or Pigwidgeon back into the story. That might help a bit.
The biggest two diversions are currently Kingdom Hearts on my DS and Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.
KH, at least, is looking like it has a chance to be a quick game. As far as I can tell I'm halfway through it already after only three days. That appears to be one of the major limits for GB Advance games is the memory size involved. Plus I'm currently stuck on one boss, which might help in getting me away from it.
I'm also almost halfway through BR. Like I stated in a previous entry, it's a translation of a popular Japanese novel. It's intense, it's violent, it may be politically incorrect to a lot of people, but it's also gotten me hook, line, and sinker.
Part Lord of the Flies, part Running Man, part Long Walk, the basic plot revolves around a fascist society in 1997 Japan (although I haven't figured out the publication of the original Japanese novel, the pop culture references place it as a 1980's release). One aspect of the regime's control is, for no reason anyone in the story can figure out so far, is to take a group of 15-year-old students and throw them into an isolated area. There they are forced into a "battle royale", forced to kill each other until only one survives.
Again, like I said, the subject matter is politically incorrect, to say the least. It was an incredibly controversial novel in Japan, made into an equally controversial movie. But the way it's written, the way the story is laid out, has drawn me in more than I thought it would.
The main thing that gets me about it is the spreading of narration. Shuya Nanahara is the main character, for sure, but so far only about half of the chapters have focused on him. Koushun makes a strong effort to give many characters a voice in the story, where we can see their backgrounds, their motivations, and their relationships with each other.
The first few times he did this, it seemed like he was just going to different characters to show their death scenes, but this is far from reality as I get deeper into the novel. He's put us into the heads of at least a dozen different characters so far, allowing us to make an emotional attachment to many of them. I know I was upset to see many of the characters die, even ones who only had a chapter to themselves, and am rooting for the downfall of others. To have a feel for secondary characters like that is the mark of a good book.
If you can handle a little blood and gore, this is a damn good book.
I'm still trying to think of a decent way to get the story rolling again. A way for my characters to get an announcement of a gathering out with limited resources & limited mobility. Half of the characters are easy, taking a note from OotP, but the other half that I want around, two in particular, are proving to be pretty damn difficult. There are ways, of course, but I'm trying really hard to not just hand-of-god the thing.
I might have to work Hedwig and/or Pigwidgeon back into the story. That might help a bit.
The biggest two diversions are currently Kingdom Hearts on my DS and Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.
KH, at least, is looking like it has a chance to be a quick game. As far as I can tell I'm halfway through it already after only three days. That appears to be one of the major limits for GB Advance games is the memory size involved. Plus I'm currently stuck on one boss, which might help in getting me away from it.
I'm also almost halfway through BR. Like I stated in a previous entry, it's a translation of a popular Japanese novel. It's intense, it's violent, it may be politically incorrect to a lot of people, but it's also gotten me hook, line, and sinker.
Part Lord of the Flies, part Running Man, part Long Walk, the basic plot revolves around a fascist society in 1997 Japan (although I haven't figured out the publication of the original Japanese novel, the pop culture references place it as a 1980's release). One aspect of the regime's control is, for no reason anyone in the story can figure out so far, is to take a group of 15-year-old students and throw them into an isolated area. There they are forced into a "battle royale", forced to kill each other until only one survives.
Again, like I said, the subject matter is politically incorrect, to say the least. It was an incredibly controversial novel in Japan, made into an equally controversial movie. But the way it's written, the way the story is laid out, has drawn me in more than I thought it would.
The main thing that gets me about it is the spreading of narration. Shuya Nanahara is the main character, for sure, but so far only about half of the chapters have focused on him. Koushun makes a strong effort to give many characters a voice in the story, where we can see their backgrounds, their motivations, and their relationships with each other.
The first few times he did this, it seemed like he was just going to different characters to show their death scenes, but this is far from reality as I get deeper into the novel. He's put us into the heads of at least a dozen different characters so far, allowing us to make an emotional attachment to many of them. I know I was upset to see many of the characters die, even ones who only had a chapter to themselves, and am rooting for the downfall of others. To have a feel for secondary characters like that is the mark of a good book.
If you can handle a little blood and gore, this is a damn good book.
posted by Bill at 1:51 PM
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