Friday, June 15, 2012

Spanner R4 Update: The Final Edit of Chapter 1

As good as Spanner Chapter 1 has turned out so far, I just realized it actually needs one more set of tweaks. So I'm doing these final edits before I declare Chapter 1 complete and concentrate on the cover:
  1. Establish a particular quirk of all the radical factions except one, including the ruling Conservative Revolutionary Party but not the left-wing Socialist Revolutionary Organization: hysterical homophobia. They are Heteronormative Crusaders. Whether the CRP, the KKK, Minuteman, Al-Qaeda in America, if they're right-wing radicals, they're the "God Hates Fags" Cult with bombs. Their assumption: if you're not a Blood Knight, you're not a man at all but a girl and a homosexual and probably a liberal as well. And the factions all throw accusations of unmanliness at each other, which are required to be avenged through honor killing — accompanied by accusations of unmanliness. And so the cycle continues. The SRO are the exception because this left-wing faction made up entirely of dissident soldiers has a large gay contingent. So I need to establish this in the first chapter.
  2. The next-to-last flashback ends in not a dialogue but a vow spoken by the seven Wrecking Krewe members most deeply involved in the Spanner Incident. I've already changed most of it, with just one character left without a line.
  3. The five heroes directly involved with the Spanner Incident are all left-handed. Originally it was just Shira, then Karen, but now it's all five. I've made the first edit in the scene mentioned above, but I need to edit it into the entire chapter.
  4. The last addition is the sparkle effect that is the sign of the reality distortion field produced by an especially powerful Charmer. There are three Charmers this powerful in Chapter 1: Shira, Spanner, and (the ghost of) Steve Jobs. Jobs may be three years dead when he appears, but his televised image still projects a potent RDF! Shira uses her Charmer power when fending off fanatical old ladies and fighting assassins Oliver and Johnny-Johnny in her first appearance in the flesh. Since Oliver's Charm-proof (as demonstrated in R4 Chapter 5), Shira's full-strength Charm only serves to enrage him — which is exactly what she wants. So edit Shira's Charmer power into her first sequence, and edit the sparkle effect into the reality distortion fields.
And once I make these edits, Chapter 1 will be complete at last!

I'm also editing my new Interlude 3 to strengthen the characterization of its two "Intellectual Property Defender" MIBs to give Leggett a much stronger motive for revenge against Shira. I'm also introducing the actual chairman of the Media Industry Association of America, the "Culture Fuhrer". He gives the IP Defenders their orders.

Once I'm done with both of these tonight, I'll be making another return to the drawing table. My focus this time: the geometrics of figure construction.

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