In Review: A Fool's Goddess - Chapter Three

Welcome to round three of In Review. I fully expect this week’s episode to ramble a bit, though it won’t be due to the content of Chapter Three itself. As I mentioned before, I have a lot to say in regards to Chen and how he caused me to reshape the entire story, so I might go off the rails on that. I’ll try to still go over the chapter’s events, but it goes without saying that I apologize if I fail to do so.

And with that, let’s start the show.

This chapter cuts right to the chase: Lior is leaving and he meets Chen. Back in my first draft, none of their exchange was written out. Originally, I simply described Lior meeting an unnamed freighter, who he later informs us is named Chen shortly before their discussion about being in Dostyn by noon. It was fast, too fast, and it used to be even faster.

In my outline, I had no plans to make Chen into a character. He was supposed to be nameless and faceless, merely a tool to get Lior to his next location. But when I was writing about how the two of them spent four days together, I decided that Lior would at least get the guy’s name (which means “grace” or “charm” in Hebrew, by the way), as it seemed uncharacteristically rude otherwise.

Thus, I failed to make a short story.

As I stated in my previous In Review, I went about making A Fool’s Goddess with the intent of it being only a thirty or so page short story. Back then, it was merely titled “Goddess Story” and had less than half as many characters, arcs, and content in general. The basic premise was the same, but it focused almost entirely on Lior and Tornara and pushed his interactions with the rest of the cast aside.

But that all changed after I gave Chen his name. In a hilarious snowball effect, I then thought, ‘well, I think they’d talk a bit before getting into town’. And after diving into that conversation, I then felt Chen would at least be a little curious about Lior’s painting, especially since Lior had said he was a sculptor. And since I didn’t feel Chen would be the sort to react poorly to the protagonist’s queer behavior, it was only natural that Lior would be touched by the man’s open-mindedness. And being two guys of roughly the same age, it would stand to reason that they could be friends and want to meet again and continue helping each other and-

… Yeah. I kind of fucked up, didn’t I?

Really, I’ve written short stories before and kept (mostly) within those smaller page counts. I’ve got one that’s only eight pages long and several that sit between thirty and seventy. But something about adding all that dialogue with Chen completely changed my plans for this story. I think part of it was the influence of Nisioisin’s Monogatari series' incredibly clever and fun exchanges, and I wanted to emulate the joy those brought me. I don’t have even a fraction of Nisioisin’s wit, but I felt a strong craving to try and imitate what I loved so much about his stories.

Anyways, I would later go back and change Lior and Chen’s meeting to be a full-on introduction. Getting Chen’s character to stand out at all was hard, since he’s fairly similar to Lior, so I ended up relying on Lior’s weirdness to help separate the two. Thus, their conversation focuses a bit on Lior’s fixation near the end, simultaneously cementing their friendship by showing Chen’s accepting nature.

Mostly, I wanted Chen to be an all-around good guy, the sort of fellow who doesn’t have a sadistic bone in his body. The kind of friend you could call at two a.m., saying your car broke down on a freeway four hours away and that you can’t afford a tow, and he’d groan with you before heading over to pick you up. You could probably sum up Chen as “brotherly”, as he’s always got a fun story and an ear to listen with. He’s generous, masculine, and easygoing, making him very fun to write as a backboard to bounce strangeness off of.

I suppose he also creates a sort of dichotomy with Lior, with Chen being a mostly normal fellow. Despite their similarities, they have their glaring differences, namely in how Chen lacks larger ambitions and seeks to live an ordinary, peaceful life. In some ways, it’s sort of like admitting Chen is a dull man, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people who lack dreams or goals in general. Sometimes, the most we can do is live each day as they come, so perhaps Chen is quite exceptional to be happy with his simple life of freighting goods around the country. He’s certainly got his act together more than Lior… but that brings us to his open-mindedness.

One of the reasons I decided to make tolerance a major aspect of Chen’s personality was influence from Hidetaka Suehiro’s The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, mostly in the form of its introductory phrase, “This game was made with the belief that nobody is wrong for being what they are.” I firmly agree with that statement, that no one should discredited for being the person they are, so I rehashed that idea within Chen. I think everyone deserves to have someone at their side who supports them regardless of their hobbies, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc., thus I made someone like that for my little weirdo Lior.

I should also mention that some of their conversation is based on talks I’ve had with my wonderful friend, the eternally awesome Steven Elsey. We’ve often discussed creativity and how it can sometimes cross into the realm of socially-unacceptable eccentricity, so I wanted to inject those feelings I’ve had into a dialogue between friends. I can only hope that even a shred of that honesty made it over to you, the reader.

However, Steven and I have never gotten shitfaced together. Unfortunately, I’m a boring icon of sobriety while he’s more of an occasion drinker. Maybe that’ll change if I ever get into sculpting goddesses. Who knows.

What else is there… oh yeah, it’s probably a good idea to point out that this chapter then set the tone and style for the rest of the novel. Moving forward, I decided to focus on introspection and dialogue, which ended up being my favorite things to write, alongside those awful puns I love to include. I feel I still need to work on my descriptions and action scenes, so I’ve been trying to implement more of those into my current projects, but I still have my obsession for conversation.

Ironic, given how I’m actually laconic. But then again, the amount I write probably proves I’m not truly a man of few words, huh?

… You know, in hindsight, it’s probably good that I had plenty to say on what happened behind the scenes for this chapter. Beyond meeting Chen and being transported to Dostyn, there’s not much else to talk about. The chapter clearly focuses on developing Lior’s newfound friend, as well as progressing the story, but maybe it’s a bit obvious how this and Chapter Two used to be a single entity. Separating them helped keep things concise, but doing reviews on each segment makes me realize how small they are. It seems I got ready for a long, overdone extrapolation on the dangers of indulging your creativity, moving with the fear of ignoring the chapter itself, when Chen is really the subject for both sides, making going over the evolution of his introduction the same as going over the chapter.

Still, I did think I’d have more to say about them going by wagon along the countryside, but I don’t think there’s much I can say that isn’t obvious. I guess it sort of proves the level of technology available in the land, and how Chen offers to pay for Lior’s nights at the inns supports his magnanimous tendencies, but the chapter kind of explains itself really.

I overestimated this chapter, didn’t I?

Oh well, these reviews shouldn’t be that big regularly anyways. Besides, we’re inching ever closer to my favorite parts of the story. Perhaps I’ll look back on this review and laugh at how little I ended up having to say in the end.

Okay, I think that’s enough of my babbling. I’ll plan to talk more about the setting and scenery in the next In Review, since I don’t think I’ve really touched on that much yet. If memory serves, Chapter Four continues building on Chen and Lior’s budding friendship, but as it also introduces Dostyn, I’m probably due to give some more insight on the world.

And here we wrap up In Review #3. As always, I hope you enjoyed it and would love to see you again next time. Until then, I wish you all the best of luck. Adieu.