Open Novella Journal

4/2/2019

I finished all six of the stories which passed the second round and turned them in yesterday.

Winter Tree

I honestly found Winter Tree the most frustrating of the six pieces I wrote for Open Novella this year. This story was one of two stories for ONC taking place after season eight of Voltron: Legendary Defender with the goal of Lance having a redemption arc. The redemption I wanted, however, never came. Much of his redemption relied on the other characters saying just the right thing to him and they never said just the right thing. More importantly, Lance never stopped acting as if he were the victim. He never came to the realization his actions were selfish and hurtful because his own stubbornness kept getting in the way. Instead of letting go of what he needed to let go of by his own choice the choice was effectively forced out of his hands, but he's effectively made things more difficult for himself and everyone around him. I don't think he'll become like DotU Lance like I hoped, yet ironically this is also where he runs into DotU Lance.

Devil's Advocate

Devil's Advocate is the second of the two stories which takes place after season eight. Lance did in fact make things more difficult for everyone, yet unlike the other piece he does in fact have a redemption. He willingly gives up what he needs to give up, yet is very reflective about how he'd been self-centered. The reasons problems exist comes down to the fact Lance did some cruel things and needs to mend relations with everyone. More importantly he's grown into being more like DotU Lance, but it's a drastic difference from Winter Tree.

Taming Destiny

This is the one that didn't get past the first round. This one – I think I may have been too mysterious which is where writing "side A" and "side B" comes in. I may produce them at the same time even though that will give things away.

Child of Destiny

I came in with one plot idea and the characters took it in a slightly different direction, but by this happening I actually have the conflict for the second in the series, but I'm looking forward to getting started on the piece.

Wings of Home

I disagree with the idea we should avoid killing off LGBT characters. Worse, the push to not kill off any LGBT characters started when an LGBT character was killed off in The 100 despite the fact plenty of non-LGBT characters already died and sends the message that LGBT characters should receive preferential treatment.

To quote Riley Silverman from her article, "Immotral LGBT Characters is Not the Solution to 'Bury Your Gays', "but as a queer woman who loves herself some nerdy stuff, I feel more and more like the discussion around this trope has moved far too much towards the insistence that we simply never, ever kill off any queer character—especially queer, female characters—in film or television. While I do think, "Bury Your Gays" is a problem, this solution is impractical at best, unsustainable and reductive at worst."

As such I come to the fact I killed off Adam in the very first chapter of the story. To say his death was meaningless for the overall narrative does a disservice to his character and those he impacts and in turn those who are impacted by these characters. It places Shiro in a position where he and Elena can talk about her fears which arise because she is heavily influenced by the social justice movements around her and sometimes this isn't a good thing. The possibility of her dying, or Syd dying is one of her fears and something she'll need to deal with as a paladin. Adam also had a profound effect on Shiro, but also Shiro's relationship with his own brother. This is because Adam is in effect more than just an LGBT character in the story, but an important mentor.

Of course, I also nixed Pidge and Lance from the team. This came about because I had to ask myself the honestly question – would Lance have been chosen if there was another choice? I didn't think so, but I was also faced by the fact Matt would be favored over Pidge simply because he has more experience.

Freedom!

I normally write stories which have open ended endings and tried breaking away with this one, but failed. The story is a bit rough, yet I really like the OC I created. The story is weird, quirky, yet didn't have the mystery I originally expected. It's kind of hard to explain.

Gemini, Touch the Sky

I think this was the story I had the least idea of where it would go let alone whether I would get the entire story under 40k because it is of the slice-of-life genre. I didn't expect Ryo and Rachel to click so well, yet hadn't thought of that as a major plot element. Despite the fact Ryo never showed up in VLD I still consider him a canon character due to the fact he does exist in one of the universes and we never got to see Shiro's family like we were promised – I've officially have another OTP for Voltron.