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Post by Hermes on Aug 12, 2014 9:55:11 GMT -5
Well, Dante, by having Lemony work out so much so soon, you seem to have eliminated the last two books in the series; but I can't deny that this is a very effective conclusion to the mystery, and makes a splendid locked-room case. After my last comment, I did look back at the description of the windows, and wonder - so the answer was, as in all the best cases, hiding in plain sight. And I knew the fire escape would prove significant.
The intervention of Olaf was interesting, and the part he plays in the story very plausible, though I fear that, for this and other reasons, it will not remain compatible with canon for very long. Should we suppose that L has never met Ike's mother? I also liked the references to Jacques.
The whole story was splendidly Lemony, in the new style, and brought out the atmosphere of the series very effectively. I think this is probably the first major work of fanfic in ATWQ style; let us hope there will be many more.
So, what does the S stand for?
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Post by Dante on Aug 12, 2014 13:30:30 GMT -5
Well, Dante, by having Lemony work out so much so soon, you seem to have eliminated the last two books in the series; but I can't deny that this is a very effective conclusion to the mystery, and makes a splendid locked-room case. After my last comment, I did look back at the description of the windows, and wonder - so the answer was, as in all the best cases, hiding in plain sight. And I knew the fire escape would prove significant. Thank you for your comments. I regarded the way I was writing in respect to the wider mysteries of the series to be more a matter of filling in the gaps. I'm not so sure it'll play out the same way in canon. But I will tell you my plan, which all along has been to see how ?3 goes, and then if I can still even tenuously fit ?a between it and ?2, then any subsequent fiction I write in the same continuity will acknowledge both ?a and ?3. Though in some respects I was not just trying to fit in the gaps but to actually anticipate certain events so that I could point to this fic as proof of having "called it," and I'm sure I can't have my cake and eat it too, but it seemed like the best place for such ideas. We'll see how ?3 goes. ?a may yet prove not to anticipate it too far - and for my part, I think there's plenty of ground left for the last two books to cover, even if ?a is included. I will unashamedly admit that the Olaf sequence is me absolutely trying to predict how it will play out if he shows his face in ?3. I was willing to take that risk as far as canonicity is concerned because I felt that the reward of having an unofficial anticipation to compare against the official version would be worth it. Actually, to a certain extent, the whole fic was written to justify that scene... Oh, as for Ike's mother, it seems to me that the Anwhistles must already have been adults at the time of ATWQ, and so Ike's mother must have been well before Lemony's time. Well, that's the plan. And that was also the intention. I'm disappointed by the absence of ATWQ fanfiction, and indeed of fanfiction more widely that attempts to imitate the official style, and I did everything I could to compensate in this story. And I will continue to do so, just as soon as I can take ?3 into account. If we don't find out what it is in ?3, then I'll probably field my own guess.
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Post by Hermes on Aug 12, 2014 14:17:42 GMT -5
I do feel that the ATWQ style is harder to write than the ASOUE style, which is hard enough - I would not attempt it in a work of any length.
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Post by Dante on Aug 12, 2014 14:48:30 GMT -5
Yes, I'm definitely conscious of being a bit deficient in style in various areas, but I think for a first effort it's not bad. I'll try and do better in future.
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Post by Hermes on Aug 12, 2014 14:51:54 GMT -5
Oh, gosh, no, I didn't mean that. I was just responding to your saying you were sad more people weren't doing it.
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Post by Dante on Aug 12, 2014 15:35:11 GMT -5
Well, I take that point as well. It's a difficult job, but someone's got to do it, and as is so often the case, the only person that's going to be is me. As I can now demonstrate, since my scanner now has achieved limited functionality, I even try to surpass my deficiencies as a distinctly amateur artist to produce cover art that conforms to the form. I would expect future installments to have one of these right off the bat.
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Post by gliquey on Sept 2, 2014 9:35:21 GMT -5
I hate to bump the thread after more than two weeks, but I've read five chapters of this and it is brilliant. You've certainly captured the style of ATWQ, Dante, and it is more intriguing (IMO) than ?1 or ?2. The first two chapters in particular are as good as any of Handler's. The "sub-librarian" explanation certainly seems like it could be the real reason, if Handler intended one (it's reminiscent of Dewey, and mimics Nero's Vice Principal status). I've not been reading ATWQ in as much detail as ASOUE so I might have missed something obvious somewhere, but when Qwerty says "I believe I have alluded to the situation before", are you referencing something from one of the books?
I have noted a small grammatical blip: in the first paragraph of chapter 5, Lemony says, "It made the walk into town a lot tiring". I think you meant "It made the walk into town a lot more tiring" or possibly "It made the walk into town very tiring", but the sentence doesn't read well as it currently is. Other than that, it's very well written.
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Post by Dante on Sept 2, 2014 10:47:48 GMT -5
Thanks for pointing out the grammatical error, gliquey; a few things like that do slip through when I'm typing long passages. Qwerty alludes to the situation of his being a sub-librarian only in ?1, in the first full sentence he speaks, but it is kind of easy to miss. I'm glad you're enjoying the story, and I hope you will continue to do so. Once I've read ?3, I have every intention of writing a further installment - though that won't be for a while, as I'll be writing and tweaking the full story in its entirety before I post any of it (which is also how I handled this one, incidentally).
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Post by gliquey on Sept 2, 2014 12:21:31 GMT -5
as I'll be writing and tweaking the full story in its entirety before I post any of it (which is also how I handled this one, incidentally). I was wondering whether you did that: it seemed like a well-polished and fully complete story from the start. I've never quite grasped how authors go about writing their novels - and writing whole series would complicate it even further (did Handler know from TEE he was going to introduce a sugar bowl of sorts?) With ATWQ, you certainly have to have some sort of a clue as to the plot when you're writing the first two tantalizing sentences. But fanfiction often seems to be written one chapter at a time, and posted immediately, which could create some problems if you want to change something in chapter 1 when the plot drifts slightly.
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Post by Dante on Sept 2, 2014 15:38:51 GMT -5
I take my fanfiction pretty seriously, so I write with a lot more forward planning and a lot more leeway for subsequent changes that seem necessary - and I did go back and tweak a few things in early chapters after writing the later ones, so it's a good thing I held off on posting it. I'd imagine Handler has a pretty thorough plan of the plot of the entire series and roughly what should happen in each book, and fills in a further more detailed plan while writing each individual book. I'm in a more precarious position, as I'm attempting to write canonical fanfiction for a series which is only half-complete, but that's actually part of the fun - trying to predict things and take account for them. So this story was all planned out in some detail in advance, and I have a pretty strong idea of where I want to take any future installments, but at this point I have to wait for ?3 to come along and see if it requires me to change my overall plans. At that point I'll be able to lock more details in.
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Post by gliquey on Sept 3, 2014 1:17:07 GMT -5
I take my fanfiction pretty seriously I can tell. After a communist Harry Potter fanfiction, I'm quite apprehensive when it comes to fanfiction, but when done well - like this one - it can be very nice. I've read some of your other stuff (most notably Realtors in a Cave), and they can compliment little details (Gorgon/Quisling) nicely. But fully fledged stories are much longer and harder things to write, and unless the ?a ending is a let-down (Lemony's already said "it was a dream" is out of the question), this will quite easily be the best fanfic I've ever read. I never really appreciated the "Kind Editor" letters in ASOUE fully, probably because the next book was already out at the time, but they are quite interesting to look back on. It must be hard as an author, because while all we spot are inconsistencies (Hal's lamp, the message/timing issue in TSS, Jerome's history of injustice being written in 2 weeks), he's put a lot of effort into coming up with all these ideas and does have, in general, a pretty good grasp on where the series is heading. It's certainly an odd way to be making predictions about the series, but also a very fun one. What I've seen so far all seems logical and it's certainly possible (if not likely) for it to hold true with ?3 and ?4. I suppose in that respect (and several others), it's easier to write ASOUE fanfic, but "easiest" and "most interesting" don't often go together.
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Sept 3, 2014 13:33:44 GMT -5
Oh my, watching the Book of Circus arc of Black Butler before reading this fic was a terrible idea. No, I'm not kidding. Now I get reminded of the next Book, (which is basically a bit like the Clue game really. Most of the murders are locked room ones like the one in this fic.)
It was very exciting and thrilling! It kept me reading and reading. Good job, Dante!
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Post by Dante on Sept 3, 2014 15:16:28 GMT -5
Thank you, Tryina; I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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Post by gliquey on Sept 3, 2014 16:35:23 GMT -5
I've finished the story, and noticed what I think is a stray typo in chapter 13: I’d figured that the window must have been how the shame Beast escaped the room... - I assume you mean "sham Beast" not "shame Beast".
The rest of the story was very good - I would have expected you to anticipate a Lemony/Olaf meeting, and it certainly worked very well. I'm happy with the conclusion of the story, although not happy with how I failed to work out the answer to the escape from jail, when there were two perfectly plausible answers right in front of me.
Olaf being one of Theodora Markson's apprentices - the one we've heard about - seems like an obvious theory in hindsight, despite the fact that I wouldn't have given it a second thought if you hadn't brought it up. And of course Olaf knows what the S stands for. Although if we do ever discover it, it'll be at a cheesy ending of ?4, when Theodora finally appreciates (or at least begrudgingly accepts) Lemony's talents.
The worst kind of enemy to have is one who is always right and always knows the right thing to say to make you feel all wrong. This really is Olaf, or at least, the human Olaf that develops once we see beyond his dumb theatrics. Stupid enemies - the car dealership Olaf we see at the start of TE, for instance - are easy to deal with, by simply ignoring them, but clever enemies, or enemies with information you don't possess, are terrible. The Baudelaires experience this in TE: no matter how much or how little he actually knew or was actually willing to reveal about their parents, he certainly did like having all the answers.
Maybe some scenes aren't going to be possible to both fit here and have revealed in the rest of the series - it wouldn't make sense, for instance, for Qwerty to explain why he's a sub-librarian in ?3 if you were considering his explanation here canon. But it's certainly clever and well worth including here. Regardless of any problems you might face when ?3 comes out, it's a brilliant piece of fanfiction and one I've loved reading.
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Post by Dante on Sept 4, 2014 2:53:57 GMT -5
Thanks very much, gliquey (and for the typo correction, which I've also fixed). Your thoughts on the story are pretty much what I was hoping people would come away with, so I must be doing something right. As for ?3, I have a number of possibilities in mind for how to react to it, which might include ?3 itself not being canon to my fanseries, but I would still definitely like to take account of anything it reveals.
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