new chapter; interesting review

[owlmoose]

Seventeen is up. I've been wanting to get to this one for awhile, ever since we started plotting bits of it behind the scenes. So I'm glad to have it out there.

Over dinner tonight, a friend who has never played the games and knows literally nothing about them told me that she'd read OMC and enjoyed it. She didn't understand much of what was going on, especially in terms of backstory, but she still liked it. I suppose that's a compliment! She also read bits of the other pieces of the Quartet, mostly for context; she said that helped a lot. I guess that partially answers the question of whether OMC stands alone, something I've often wondered. Obviously it's much richer if one reads the rest of the Quartet as well, but could someone just read it and still feel that they've seen a complete story? Hmm.

Comments

I

[kunstarniki.livejournal.com]

Interesting, indeed. I have begun to wonder the same thing about mine. Although there is one reader who has never reviewed any of the others and reviews every chapter of mine, so I guess it's holding its own. Have you ever heard of any other story written like this? I am aware of those projects which pass around one manuscript and various persons add a chapter but I do not know of any other case in which four have come together to write the same story from varying points of view. Have we invented a new genre of sorts?

I do believe our sub rosa plotting paid off. Paine responded as I so hoped she would. Now they have two more close encounters of the nth kind before the end. ;)

Re: I

[kjswritinglog.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm really glad we worked bits of this one out in advance. I wrote parts of it right after you shared that draft, so it really has been in the works for awhile. Thanks for the review! I hadn't thought of writing Paine's backstory, but now that you've put the idea in my head... This chapter was a joy to write, really. I had fun with the riff on Nooj's curses at the beginning, and it was a real relief to cut the drama loose and make them happy, even for a little while.

I think your part is the most likely to stand on its own because it was written first. But I expect reading it as a solo piece is a very different experience.

I imagine this style of storytelling has been done before (one event told from the point of view of different characters as written by different authors), but I don't think I've ever come across anything quite like it. More than anything, it seems the literary version of a role-playing game, with you as GM, running Nooj as an NPC, while the three of us play the other characters. Weird analogy?

I

[kunstarniki.livejournal.com]

Not at all weird. I have never played a role on line although the first entries in the Confessional sprang directly from a failed attempt to do so.

I had intended to make another comment to you and it escaped before I could put it down. Your reference to Paine learning to compound the analgesic is particularly poignant in view of what I had written yesterday toward the end of Part Twenty. If you like, look over in my journal where I shall post them for your eyes only.

Incidentally, do you want me to post Nineteen privately for the Quartet as well as Twenty? I will abide by majority rule in this.

Re: I

[kjswritinglog.livejournal.com]

An advance peek at Nineteen might be useful, especially if you want us these chapters posted at all about the same time as well. You should probably check with the others, though.

my review

[slsmallets.livejournal.com]

Since I'm assuming that I'm the reviewer in question, I thought I'd clarify what I meant - it wasn't so much that reading a confessional written from a different perspective helped because it was a confessional written from a different perspective, it was just that each additional story that I read in the Final Fantasy universe taught me a little more about the "canon," if that's the right word, which was helpful. While I can't say for sure, both because I don't know the Final Fantasy universe at all and because I've read only a subset of the confessionals (a couple of the more recent ones from Paine's perspective, the first four from Paine's perspective, and the first two or three from Nooj's perspective, in that order), my sense is that the confessionals probably work just fine as stories without the context of the other confessionals, particularly for those who are already familiar with the Final Fantasy universe. (That is not to say that the confessionals don't add to each other - I went to read the Nooj's confessionals (do I have his name right?) after reading the Paine confessional that ended with them having sex by the pond, because I really wanted to know what Nooj thought about that.) For me, it is the lack of knowledge of the Final Fantasy universe that is the real barrier to understanding the stories. Speaking of which, is there somewhere I can go to read a summary of the basic elements of that universe? And I did like your stories, even with my limited understanding of the Final Fantasy universe - I think they do a really good job of establishing an emotional connection between the reader and Paine.

Re: my review

[kjswritinglog.livejournal.com]

I was referring to your comments, yes. Thanks for the clarification -- interesting.

You do have the names right.

I'll see if I can dig up a good link to give you some context for Spira (the world where this particular game takes place; each Final Fantasy is set in a different universe).

Re: my review

[kjswritinglog.livejournal.com]

Okay, this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spira) might be useful, although it's probably more information than you need. If you have questions about anything specific, it might be easier to ask me.