On continuing Sythyry's Journal
Jan. 8th, 2009 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sythyryI haven't managed to do anything with Sythyry's Journal for months now. I've mostly been working on Mating Flight, which I consider to be a Good Thing too, but is a different sort of project. I do want to get back to writing a World Tree serial of some form or other, when I'm done with the first draft of Mating Flight. I want to be able to get more readers, too.
Sythyry's Journal has gotten rather unwieldy, to put it nicely. I have trouble keeping track of half a dozen years' random ideas, interesting characters, odd restaurants, and whatnots. I can't imagine many new readers getting into it: there's about 400,000 words to read, assisted only by some rather outdated glossaries and summaries. And indeed, I've lost a number of readers in the last three years or so, I think, and gained very few.
So one idea, of several, is starting Sythyry's Journal Part II. Same lizard writing, same general style. A sufficiently different situation that makes it a whole new story. Yes, prior readers will have some clues about what's going on that new ones will have to learn. But Part II will be mostly self-contained: new readers will be able to start at the beginning of Part II and not have to catch up with the mountain of words and characters and backstory and stuff. I'd also try to have more of an organized plot, though I daresay the small blue cave lizard will surprise me now and then. (Well, constantly like usual.)
And of course there are various other ideas floating around too.
I promise to read the results of the following poll and do whatever seems best to me.
[Poll #1327492]
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 04:52 pm (UTC)Ahh, democracy at its best: find out what everyone thinks, then ignore the consensus entirely. In all seriousness, I enjoy your writing style enough that I'm likely to carry on reading whatever you make anyway.
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Date: 2009-01-08 04:52 pm (UTC)And I want to encourage it. Even people who are not as mighty as you!
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Date: 2009-01-08 04:55 pm (UTC)But this isn't democracy. You're thinking of
I'm not planning to ignore the concensus exactly. I want to know what it is, and if it's something I can manage to do good things with, so much the better.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:50 pm (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2009-01-08 06:06 pm (UTC)1) Simply abandoning a storyline in full swing is frustrating to readers. People read to find out what happens. When a writer doesn't deliver that, some readers will bail because they don't want to get dumped off a cliff again. Also, abandoning a storyline is a bad habit for a writer to get into. So if the decision is to stop "Sythyry's Journal" in current form, some kind of conclusion is needed. A well-crafted conclusion played out over multiple episodes, tying up major loose ends, would be best.
2) If there is to be a "Sythyry's Journal II," I am most interested in a large time break of 100 or 1000 years, because that would be unique. It's something other stories generally can't do. You have a rare opportunity to describe what it's like for a long-lived character to interact with short-lived characters. That would create whole new opportunities for fresh challenges.
Furthermore, it would allow you to bring back the previous batch of characters as Sythyry reminesces about personal memories that are, for everyone else, ancient history. Since zir friends have mentioned that as an advantage of being friends with a Zi Ri -- their little bit of immortality -- this would work especially well. You could even have one of them show up, reincarnated, with a fragment or two of memory to recognize Sythyry: "Do I know you? You smell familiar..."
3) You are on the list of authors whose work has sufficiently impressed me that I will happily grab whatever you write to see if it appeals to me, because you tend to write things that are consistently engrossing. So look for an intersection between your audience's interests and your own inspiration. Trust your instincts; you have good ones.
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Date: 2009-01-08 06:22 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2009-01-08 07:27 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2009-01-08 08:10 pm (UTC)It'd be nice to 'fast forward' to when Sythyry has something more important to worry about. Such as, graduating and choosing a career, making a relationship work, dealing with Vae becoming adult and no longer as amiable/childlike as she is now.
Longtime lurker here.
Date: 2009-01-08 08:11 pm (UTC)--E.G.
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Date: 2009-01-08 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 12:08 am (UTC)After a bad term and what was promising to be an even worse holiday I was glad to have investigated this weird little sythyry guy on Terrana's friends page. The story was immersive and entertaining to the point where I would happily proclaim it the best book I have read this year, had it been produced in paper format.
So yes, I'm new to it as of last week and have since finished it. I am now contemplating different methods of chaining you to a desk until you write more :P
I think I would be sad to see an end to Sythyry's journal, but would very much like to see more, even if it isn't from sythyry's point of view, or even from anywhere near his own part of the world tree.
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Date: 2009-01-09 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 12:57 am (UTC)But Sythyry's Journal is pretty inert -- I haven't updated the story since October, and barely since early summer -- and I am trying to find ways to reincarnate it. Floooosh's player and I have some good ideas...
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Date: 2009-01-09 01:22 am (UTC)And yes, I do occasionally shout "The Doom!" in actual conversation. Your fault.
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Date: 2009-01-09 01:25 am (UTC)Anyways, this whole conversation is about what I'm going to write when I chain myself to my desk.
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Date: 2009-01-09 01:51 am (UTC)I would say that I would genuinely miss Part the First (and actually have been genuinely missing Part the First the last few weeks), but if there were a Part the Second I'd probably prefer it to be more adventury and/or more focused on a goal of some sort, even if ephemeral or seemingly inconsequential. (Thus I choose you, Airship! Go!)
As for characters... I have to admit I'm only specifically attached to Sythyry... and only wanting to specifically see less of Vae. (Although I vote for more Orren. Lots more Orren.)
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2009-01-09 01:54 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2009-01-09 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 02:07 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2009-01-09 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 04:02 am (UTC)I still enjoy reading Sythyry's misadventures, but I think that it does have an unweildy number of characters that I feel like I'm kind of expected to know and, honestly, the archives and glossary pages need to be better-organized. It seems like last time you put in a callback link, it went to the single gigantic archive page with all untold megs of entries on it on your webspace, which was shared with the glossary and (out-of-date) dramatis personae... Maybe that would all work better in a Wiki format?
I really do enjoy reading Sythyry still (I was just thinking about the dentist roomate whose name I forget the other day for some reason, as a matter of fact), and I'd love to see it continued in some format, be it from where it left off or with Sythyry as a new character. I would kind of like to see it continue from Sythyry's point of view after a time-skip; it'd be interesting to see how all these characters turn out.
- HC
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 04:20 am (UTC)I have grown attached to some of the characters, but it wouldn't be all that bad if you went on to another group of characters. (After all, the World Tree IS HUGE! and has been around for a long time!) If you do massive change in location/time/characters, some type of wrap up for current time Sythyry would be nice. (Though, I did like one of the earlier suggestions. Keep Sythyry as main character, and jump 500 years or so.)
Personally, I would like to see more Sleeth, but that's just me. (as a participant in Sythyry's day of many Sleeth.)
I have been missing Sythyry.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 06:32 am (UTC)The setting is great, but it's daunting in its complexity, and after being away from it for a while I feel like I'm probably missing something important. It's also annoying to know that you've not been paid for all this work! Some of us furry writers have been thinking about whether there's any paying market at all for anthro-related fiction, what with the demise of Anthrolations and now Renard's Menagerie. Have you considered trying to write and market non-furry SF/fantasy? You've got writing talent and (between you and Ms. Bloom) apply some unique anthropological skill to it.
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Date: 2009-01-09 08:27 am (UTC)The second time I looked at it was when Flutterz was excited about 'A Marriage of Insects' being published. That time it did work for me. I'm not really able to account for the difference. I read it through from the beginning, and then bought the sourcebook and 'A Marriage of Insects'.
That's not terribly helpful information, I know. To me, it didn't seem so much daunting as just not especially aimed at any group I was part of. The second time it really clicked for me. The detail seems more immersive that offputting.
*****
Pazi Pazi: I really like the name Pazi Pazi. It sounds like a cat purring. Somewhere in the Heaven of Future Kittens, there's one who's going to be named Pazi Pazi :)
*****
Plots: I like the quiet slice of life stories about Sythery and her friends. You're one of the very few authors I've ever seen who writes character development stories in an interesting world. I'd actually gotten away from reading modern fiction* for the part ten or so years, since most fantasy and SF, while strong on plot and background, generally have rather static, cardboard characters; and most 'serious' literature tends toward the other fault, with developed characters in the service of tedious tales.
You've managed to have the best of both writing traditions. The stories about Sythery and her friends are great in that regard. The world itself is fascinating (enough so that I'd like to play the game) and the characters are emotionally real. They make a lot of their own problems. I can see a lot of my own failings in your characters, and it makes them come alive for me. I suspect it's that way for a lot of your readers.
* well-written Victorian fiction takes place in a world strange enough to be interesting.
*****
So far as a Part II, I'd really hope to see the current loose ends tied up a bit. I'd like to see more of Mynthe. She seems a sweet person. Dustweed always interested me as well, in large part because I have so many friends who obsess over not being the gender that they want to be.
It might be nice to see Sythery go on a trip with some of her friends. Airships are cool. Again, though, from my perspective there really doesn't need to be a great deal happening plotwise. What stuck with me from 'A Marriage of Insects' wasn't really so much the political intrigue as it was the love story.
If you want to skip ahead to a future time, the time will come in Sythery's life when zir first crop of friends and lovers are growing old and feeble, and sie's still the same as always. That might be a Zi-Ri's last rite of passage into full adulthood, when you finally know of your own experience that everyone but you and your kin will fade away with time. I'm sure sie's aware those days will come, but knowing and experiencing are two different things. That would make an interesting, if somewhat melancholy setting, I think.
*****
I do really wish the 'groups' section on the website would be updated once in a while. It looks kind of abandoned. I hope now and again (prolly in vain) to find a group to play with.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 10:50 am (UTC)Sythyry's journal seems to have quelled these fears and I will be trying to find a copy once I get back to the UK.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 11:46 am (UTC)The time range of Sythyry's Journal Part II could affect my ability to interact as Zhalèskra, because I haven't been thinking very far ahead in zir future. Doesn't mean I wouldn't read it if it were set in the far future, though.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2009-01-09 05:32 pm (UTC)I particularly like Shatterstripes's suggestion of "have Sythyry lose the journal and then get it back again much later". That solves the "tying up loose ends" problem without requiring Bard to tie them up before switching to the future narrative. Bard could switch to the new narrative now, and have Sythyry go back back at zir (and Bard's) leisure to write about how this or that thread eventually resolved. Maybe zie could even use Mentador (if zie has grown less hyper-adverse to it now) to sharpen the old memories so zie could write them down as if they were still fresh, and in detail (which is generally more interesting than a 'and this is what happened to Vae').
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Date: 2009-01-09 05:38 pm (UTC)I like Sythyry's journal as a journal; I think it works very well in the format of "this is what happened to me lately", and doesn't need the standard narrative structure of a book. If Bard wants to do a plot for its own sake (because it's satisfying to have end points), fine, but it's not necessary. And it's not without disadvantages -- it feels less authentic.
I particularly like your idea because it feels authentic, and would still allow Bard to do wrap-ups of old events, if it so chose.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-09 06:32 pm (UTC)And it's easy to do a quick "well, um, I'm really not sure what happened to everyone in the 200 years since I last wrote in this, we really just went our separate ways... I ran into CHARACTER a decade ago and xe had been blah blah blah" kind of entry to tie up the loose ends that feel like they need tying off. Someone's favorite will be missed out one way or another, but it's better than throwing the Sythyry out with the bathwater entirely, if the character is still interesting but the location is a chore.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-11 09:09 pm (UTC)Mating Flight is nearly finished. It's also not very furry.
I dunno about paying markets. We'll see.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-14 07:11 am (UTC)I do NOT find the dramatis to be daunting, because there really is generally only a few of them that are relevant at one time. I do find that directing people to storysofar makes them cower in terror at the size of the page, please chop it down into smaller segments. =) This would also help the 'unwieldy dramatis' issues.
Maybe Sythyry can let someone else write for awhile in zir book for some reason or other, but I would prefer to stay in the same place and setting so that I don't have to start reorienting myself!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-18 05:45 am (UTC)And while some interests have come and others gone, Zi Ri remain in my 144, the tail of the list.