Is Chapter Four Too Painful To Read?
January 24th, 2007I’m still gonna finish off this chapter with Navy, but I’m getting the sense that it’s not a very popular chapter. At least, according to some of the people I talk to regularly about it. I don’t think there’s anything particularlly wrong with it, but I’m the writer and I can’t see things the way you readers do.
Anyways, do you think this chapter is annoying to read? Yes, Navy is supposed to be unlikable; the intention being for you readers to feel confused as to why any of the main characters would support her. She’s supposed to be a jibberjabber who won’t shut up… but in doing do, did I over do things?
I want this chapter to be readable and I don’t want to scrap it outright either. The programmer in me says “just go back to the last stable version and start back up from there”… I personally think that the story was stable up until the last few pages. I’ll admit those were really really wordy and really fuck up the eyes. Maybe I should just start from there?
That aside, I could use as much advice on this chapter as possible. What do you guys think??
January 25th, 2007 at 20:52
It is boring, to be perfectly honest. I hold no stock in her character and would never bother hanging out with her – I don’t want to read about people hanging out with her either. She doesn’t have a single redeeming quality. This last piece, sitting and smoking in some strangers apartment, reminds me of a lot of dull and worthless afternoons wasted back in high school. I never smoked pot so I was even more bored than everyone else.
..the thing that picked up those nights-of-dullness were the times the fruit bat would attack our (gay) friend. It made for a lot of jokes. I wish a car would drive through the wall and kill Navy and then watch everyone try to think of not-lies to say at her funeral service. Or maybe her parents won’t have one. That’d be even LESS normal!
January 25th, 2007 at 23:04
Like I once said before, this comic has a lot of realism in it. Sometimes that can be very dull, and taken overboard. Navy sounds just like my brother does. “Oh, I’m quitting that shit till I get my shit together.”
I hate giving negative comments, but I’ll be honest in saying I’m not too fond of reading Navy’s rants, either. I’ve seen one comic writer shorten long bullshitty rants like that by chopping it off at a suitable point and putting “blah blah blah blah blah…” Though, what works for one comic writer/artist may not work for another. :/
Sticking by MooseRiver. You’ve got something here, I think. Cheers!
January 26th, 2007 at 01:41
Yeah, the Navy chapter is proving itself to be slightly not what I intended. I still desire to complete it, but I have something else in mind. For example, if you’ll notice, I dropped the last two pages. I’m gonna fix them up a bit, as well as clean up a bit of dialogue on some prior pages as well.
Again, the intention is not to make Navy likeable, but just to show off one of the aspects of Anne, Shea and Emo’s lives.
January 26th, 2007 at 08:21
I like the way the chapter was going until the last few pages (which you already took down).
I think for a good way to swing the chapter would be for Navy to become what Anne was gossiping to Avery about in the early part of MooseRiver. Meaning, making Navy a train wreck.. She’s already tumbling down that path. For her to hit rock bottom and not realize it, while everyone else sitting there and biting their tongues would be another way to take this chapter…
January 27th, 2007 at 01:37
Jamie: Yeah, that’s kinda what I have in planned. Well, maybe. It could swing the other way. I won’t say. 😉 Still, I’m hoping to not end this chapter with more and more unreadable bullshit like I did with the last two, now-removed, pages.
I appreciate all the input you guys are giving me about my comics though! I’m glad people appreciate my work enough to give me some feed back like this. (^_^)