The ramblings of a designer turned writer turned computer geek turned writer turned designer with way too much time on his hands.
FFC #11 - What happened to the fourth book of Dan's tale
Posted March 17th, 2018 at 01:44 AM by TGRF
TGRF's Fan Fiction Chronicles - Entry 11
For those of you avidly watching my signature, you might have noticed that I've recently had a bout of difficulties with HiS, forcing me to pause development twice. I've worked out solutions to those problems, but they did involve a few changes, so I decided to let you know what was happening.
I had assumed from the start that HiS would contain four (albeit short) books: the opening on Isadora, a retelling of the Quest on Valhalla, a retelling of LBV on Valhalla, and then the conclusion, where I assumed Dan returned to Isadora. I've already told you this in other entries.
I knew the general sequence of events for the first three books when I started. The middle two had already been written, and the first got fleshed out quickly. The final book has remained a mystery until very recently. I finally know what I need to do with it:
Delete it entirely.
Well, almost entirely. It's still there, but it's been condensed down to an epilogue. There's a lot of stuff which could technically be shown, but while sounding good on paper, would in reality be pretty boring to read through.
There was also the problem that everything was pointing towards a climax in the third book instead of the fourth. I was having to change a lot of stuff in the third book, and at one point had a rather unsatisfactory deus ex machina changing things just to get to a climax in the fourth book which ultimately changed nothing whatsoever.
I eventually had to face the fact that the climax belonged in the third book, and that the majority of the fourth book could be related in an epilogue, and the rest easily left to speculation.
So that's what I did. The third book is way stronger, the climax is far more epic than it would be otherwise, but there is no fourth book. That being said, keep in mind that all of these books are pretty short, so you're only missing 20-40 pages of not much happening. In all likelihood I will just release HiS as one large fan fiction - it's starting to not make much sense to break it up into separate fan fictions.
I feel bad about scrapping the fourth book, especially since it was the whole reason for telling Dan's tale in the first place. I never expounded on how Dan's journeys end, and now that I have the fan fiction which was supposed to answer all of your questions... well it answers some, but it leaves a lot to speculation just like LBV. So I feel bad about that, but I think it's what needed to happen.
As always, watch my signature for progress.
~TGRF.
P.S. The entire last half of Dan's tale has changed quite a bit. Several key things have changed, and the third and final act, while bearing resemblances to what happens in the Quest and LBV, has changed quite a bit. So don't worry, you won't be rereading the Quest or anything. There will be plenty of twists waiting for you.
For those of you avidly watching my signature, you might have noticed that I've recently had a bout of difficulties with HiS, forcing me to pause development twice. I've worked out solutions to those problems, but they did involve a few changes, so I decided to let you know what was happening.
I had assumed from the start that HiS would contain four (albeit short) books: the opening on Isadora, a retelling of the Quest on Valhalla, a retelling of LBV on Valhalla, and then the conclusion, where I assumed Dan returned to Isadora. I've already told you this in other entries.
I knew the general sequence of events for the first three books when I started. The middle two had already been written, and the first got fleshed out quickly. The final book has remained a mystery until very recently. I finally know what I need to do with it:
Delete it entirely.
Well, almost entirely. It's still there, but it's been condensed down to an epilogue. There's a lot of stuff which could technically be shown, but while sounding good on paper, would in reality be pretty boring to read through.
There was also the problem that everything was pointing towards a climax in the third book instead of the fourth. I was having to change a lot of stuff in the third book, and at one point had a rather unsatisfactory deus ex machina changing things just to get to a climax in the fourth book which ultimately changed nothing whatsoever.
I eventually had to face the fact that the climax belonged in the third book, and that the majority of the fourth book could be related in an epilogue, and the rest easily left to speculation.
So that's what I did. The third book is way stronger, the climax is far more epic than it would be otherwise, but there is no fourth book. That being said, keep in mind that all of these books are pretty short, so you're only missing 20-40 pages of not much happening. In all likelihood I will just release HiS as one large fan fiction - it's starting to not make much sense to break it up into separate fan fictions.
I feel bad about scrapping the fourth book, especially since it was the whole reason for telling Dan's tale in the first place. I never expounded on how Dan's journeys end, and now that I have the fan fiction which was supposed to answer all of your questions... well it answers some, but it leaves a lot to speculation just like LBV. So I feel bad about that, but I think it's what needed to happen.
As always, watch my signature for progress.
~TGRF.
P.S. The entire last half of Dan's tale has changed quite a bit. Several key things have changed, and the third and final act, while bearing resemblances to what happens in the Quest and LBV, has changed quite a bit. So don't worry, you won't be rereading the Quest or anything. There will be plenty of twists waiting for you.
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