AQATSA update: OH HAI THERE PLOT HOLE!

[inverarity]

(Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich is much funnier than LOLcats.)


Yeah, I suddenly realized I was staring at one big plot hole and a couple of minor ones. So even though I was trying to just keep writing and deal with problems later, I had to go back and rewrite a bunch of stuff in several chapters. So the last couple of days my word count did not increase much because most of what I wrote was rewriting. And I still haven't worked all the plot holes out yet...

Curse you, Greyhound!

So, at one point, Alexandra is trying to run away leave Chicago using Muggle transportation. Like a good author, I do my research. It turns out Greyhound has all kinds of rules for unaccompanied minors. They apply to children fourteen and under.

Hmm. Okay. Alexandra is almost fifteen, so she can probably fake it...

Exception
In accordance with Illinois state law, NO tickets will be sold to unaccompanied minor children under the age of 17 for interstate or intrastate travel from locations within the state of Illinois.

Argh! Curse you, Greyhound, and curse you, state of Illinois!

Yes, yes, I know -- hardly anyone reading my story is actually going to go look up Greyhound's Unaccompanied Children rules like I did. But it matters, dammit!

(Okay, go ahead and laugh at me because I'm trying to write a believable way for a fourteen-year-old to sneak across state lines in a story where fourteen-year-olds carry magic wands...)

That was just a teeny little plot hole, btw. The big one is, like, rip-up-three-chapters big.

My Poser Skills Are Teh Suck

And I started trying to make a rough draft of the AQATSA cover, and can't get anything that doesn't look... well, bad. I look back at all the illustrations I did for AQATLB and AQATDR and cringe. I mean, some are kind of cool, in a cheesy way, but more and more I do not like the "look" of my characters as Poser figures. I am always telling myself I'm going to put in some more time polishing my graphic arts skillz (I even bought a couple of books on using Photoshop!) but on the list of things for me to spend my time on (in which, unfortunately, neither "reading" nor "writing" takes the #1 spot), becoming a better Poser/Photoshop geek is not rating significant hours out of my day.

I'm almost considering paying some starving college student on deviantART to do some illos for me. (Hey, it's not that strange. Back when I gamed a lot, I actually paid for a few character illustrations.) Problem is, most of the stuff on DA is either heavily manga/anime-style or pneumatic airbrushed babes whose boobs would affect the tides.

So, I am at 157K words, and Chapter 25. No wordle. Maybe I'll give you a Poser illustration next time.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

AQ could, of course, leave with an individual Muggle, perhaps using a slight Confundus Charm (she has seen them used and is apt to look them up). The problem with that is that, if you think like me, the Muggle hiimself will turn out to have a load of bad karma to chuck into the story - he might be a paedophile, a gangster on the run from former friends (this is Chicago we are talking about), a deadbeat husband defaulting on a court judgment - and this would in turn further expand the story.

I could do an ink sketch for you, if you don't mind black and white. I don't have a whole lot of practice with colour.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem is that she has to avoid using her wand (that pesky Trace Office). Anyway, I've figured out a way around that particular plot hole.

As for the sketch, that would be nice, but I want a color cover. :(

The Trace

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of pesky Trace Office - this reminds me of the non-Canon way you do allow wizard born children to do magic in wizard areas. In Canon, on the other hand, the Twins suddenly start Apparating and Disapparating all over Grimauld Place, in book V, while their mother scolds them "just because you are (now) allowed to do magic doesn't mean that ..."

I guess you could chalk it up to the differences between Britain and the New World.

And speaking plot holes, I just reread some of the AQATLB and AQATDR scenes relevant to Martin's romantic interests, and considering that Beatrice couldn't, in the AQATLB dueling scenes, tell Alex anything more disarming than that her family would disapprove of her dating Max, I feel that the sexual preference revelation at the crypt in AQATDR feels very much tacked on, like JKR revealing at a book reading that DD was gay. - I guess this is the kind of stuff that makes you write and rewrite to get it perfect. Meanwhile, we are impatiently waiting for another glimpse of AQATSA. (But we enjoy the fruits of the hard labor -your writing is really a cut way above fan fiction).

--Geneva

Re: The Trace and Max and Authorial Rambling

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

The Trace

I don't think anyone has ever actually spelled it out, though I think it's been referred to often enough to make it implicit, but yes, I deliberately made the rules different in the Confederation. The Trace is only applied to underage witches and wizards living among Muggles. There is actually a bit of dialog between Payton and Alexandra on this subject in the first chapter of AQATSA (which may or may not stay in the final draft).

Teh Gay

Yeah, yeah, I know. I've gotten so much flack over that. Even my betas told me that it didn't really add much to the story.

Here's the thing: I really did know, all the way back when I was writing that scene with Beatrice in AQATLB, that Max and Martin were lovers. I tried to put some very subtle hints in book two, but they were probably too subtle. (Beatrice did know, btw. But she was not about to "out" Max to his little sister. There's a bit of extra-book "canon" for you. ;) )

And I wanted to make it explicit in book three (so that if it somehow came up later, or worse, I mentioned it outside of the books, people wouldn't claim I just made it up after the fact, as fpb still insists Rowling did). In fact, I wrote and rewrote several different scenes in which Alexandra learns the truth. (In the original version, Martin let it slip after the memorial service at BMI, in front of an outraged Beatrice.) None of them worked. The scene I settled on, in the crypt, still left something to be desired, obviously. But I wanted it to be there in the text, so there you go.

Re: The Trace and Max and Authorial Rambling

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As a matter of fact, I don't "insist" on it, but if she did not, then she explained it in a thoroughly incredible way. She wanted us to believe, if you remember, that she had no idea that a gay major character would be welcomed by the fandom; this, if you please, after a decade of slash. More important is that, whether or not she had meant it from the start, she did a lousy job of it, showing her usual clumsiness with male characters in love.

Re: The Trace and Max and Authorial Rambling

[(Anonymous)]

I sort of agree that going back, you can find examples of more than platonic feelings coming from Martin, IF (big if) you read it a little liberally into the story. But it's difficult because people jump on any sort of subtlety right away when they're reading, so it can be very hard to surprise an audience with that information without just "making it up at the end" (for lack of a better phrase). It doesn't really bother me at all, so I don't put much into it.

~DarkSov

Re: The Trace and Max and Authorial Rambling

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I have no issue at all with inverarity's presentation of the Martin+Max affair, except that I don't like the "dead gay boy" trope in general, and I think it's a way to dodge the demands of writing stories for an adult gay person. Same as once upon a time (and still today, largely) heroes did not marry or have children - and if they did, like Spider-Man, they had some creepy later writer retcon the whole thing - or as, in earlier days, heroes did not have children but nephews or wards.

On the other hand, I insist that JKR's treatment of Dumbledore's sexuality, whatever it is, is downright bad.

Re: The Trace and Max and Authorial Rambling

[(Anonymous)]

i like your poser pix. artistically they seem a bit odd - the color and lighting and such are sometimes a bit off, but they often illustrate the content of a chapter well. if a pic is a thousand words, then each pic adds ~15% to each chapter. or something. nevermind.

i'm no artist, and i can't speak for any, but i would guess that many hp fan artists would be thrilled to illustrate your stories.

and teh gay may not add much to the story, but at least it explains why 2 handsome and single boys did not have a bunch of girlfriends. it is easier to picture 2 hot studs like max and martin engaging in a manly, wizard-sausage duel than it is to picture ancient dumbledore and grindlewald lemonpartying it up.

moar wordles! moar aq!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suddenly realized I was staring at one big plot hole --

Something to do with House Elves, right? :-)

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Nope, has to do with magic and also certain family dynamics.

[adissonlee.livejournal.com]

This is why I love your writing.

[anyareine.livejournal.com]

I am a really active watcher over on dA, especially with HP related fan art. I could scrunge up a few potential artists that might be intersted in doing AQ art. Though you would have to ask them yourself, and everything.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Well, if you can give me links to the pages of some artists you think would be appropriate, I'll check them out. (I'd seriously consider paying someone for a whole series of chapter illustrations, if it won't be too outrageously expensive.)

[anyareine.livejournal.com]

http://mionebookworm.deviantart.com/

http://burdge-bug.deviantart.com/

http://viria13.deviantart.com/

http://hannah-dora.deviantart.com/

http://hillary-cw.deviantart.com/

I have no idea if any of them would be receptive to drawing for you though, sorry.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

Curse you, Greyhound, and curse you, state of Illinois!
Isn't there a train? She could get on a train behind some adult that would be assumed to be her parent, if anyone were paying attention to minors boarding.

My Poser Skills Are Teh Suck
As far as I'm concerned having the illustrations is a nice bonus, but I come here to read the words, not look at pictures, so I'm perfectly fine with the pictures not being perfect.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

She may take the train (though a train doesn't get her exactly where she's going). However, she has to buy the ticket and that's where they check ID.

I know probably no one else cares much about the illustrations.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

Hm ... If she hides in the bathroom during ticket checks, she might be able to take the train without a ticket and once she's over the border, she only needs to pretend to be 15 for the bus.

re:

[(Anonymous)]

Or if it's possible, maybe one of her step-sisters could help her out??? Or she could get martin to get it for her and mail it to her? I know it's a stretch, but hey anything can happen in fiction...or even better...Maybe martin could be there...wherever she is and help her make a break for it?! Well there's my 2 cents.
--wodcdre

[(Anonymous)]

Aren't there any ticket vending machines? In my neck of the woods these are commonplace, even for trips lasting several hundred miles.

--Geneva

ticket machines

[(Anonymous)]

You need a credit card for them though, at least the Amtrak ones.

so this is real life

Re: ticket machines

[(Anonymous)]

I just bought a ticket with cash (but that was in Germany). Don't stores sell gift cards that use the debit card system, so that she could theoretically buy one in a store and use it to buy the ticket with the vending machine?

--Geneva

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

Well, here (Austria) nobody would think anything of an unaccompanied 14 year old - or in fact 10 year old - on a bus or train either. They go to school that way.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

When I was 8, I would walk several blocks to school by myself. Nowadays, parents who let an 8-year-old do that would almost risk being charged with child neglect. (Not really, but you'd get an almost universal horrified reaction.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

Here 8 year olds still do. I said 10 above, because that's the age at which we start secondary school, and primary school is usually in walking distance, so no public transport would be involved.

I have met a mother who was afraid of trusting a public bus with her tiny little boy (of 14) and preferred to drive him herself, though. (She trusted the boy to know how to use the bus just fine, but not the driver to know how to drive ...)

Re: ticket machines

[(Anonymous)]

Local rail systems you can sometimes use cash with the machines (varies by system, I don't know anything about the Chicago area), but if you want to pay cash with Amtrak you have to go up to the window. Buying a debit card then using that could work though as long as it runs on one of the main credit card companies' systems, I use my visa debit card from my bank in them semi-frequently.

So this is real life

Buying the tickets

[(Anonymous)]

I don't suppose she could try an aging potion like the Weasley twins did in Goblet of Fire?

[(Anonymous)]

I've always been a fan of Reallycorking's HP art - http://community.livejournal.com/corkart/ - and I know she does commissions. You should contact her!

- QueenHal (who yes, still faithfully watches your LJ and reads your work)

Rhemus said

[(Anonymous)]

I know probably no one else cares much about the illustrations.

I care. I like the South Park illustrations and hate the 3D: book!Alex and South-Park!Alex are ordinary; 3D!Alex is ugly. I told you so.

Teh Gay did not add to the Story, but it WAS part of the Story. So you are better than Jo. It was irrelevant, the Reveal could have come any time. Fair enough, the Aesop is that it is no big deal.

[kerneyhead.livejournal.com]

Take Metra train (commuter train)to Gary, get bus there. Do same to Wisconsin or get Greyhound there. North Chicago (separate city is 5-10 miles from the border).

Amtrack, 1 hr from Chicago to Milwalkee. According to Roommate both Metra and Amtrack don't ask questions.

Cabs rides and yes, there are some long cab rides. Longest ride I know of was from Denver International Airport to Sturgis, SD ($600 negiotiated at 2AM, got room in Sturgis and rested up before driving back). 50-75 mile cab rides are not unheard of.

Alexandra could use one her rhyme charms to get a an ATM to spit out money without using her wand.

PS-- Close friend is a former Chicagoan who I'm talking to as I write this. Any other questions just ask. Cab knowledge goes back to what I did in college for money.

[shootangaems.livejournal.com]

To be fair, part of the problem may lie in Poser itself. From what I've seen, things in Poser range from merely unsettling to downright horrifying (Ever seen porn done in Poser? The stuff of nightmares...) It's like Uncanny Valley: The Program.

Maybe source(do?) some hand-drawn art?

[acrosstheglobe1.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see more Alexandra Quick art! Maybe not from Poser though :P. I think hand-drawn is the best way to go. I would draw these characters myself and have drawn Harry Potter ones in the past, but my drawings are very cartoony and I don't think they are all that great.

It would be neat to one day see realistic drawings of your characters, Inverarity :).

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, as someone who has lived and worked in and around Chicago for all 24 years of his life, I can unequivocally state that you are correct in your assessment of the transportation laws and how strictly they're enforced. Hell, I don't know how you could get away with that, aside from using magic--but you want to avoid the machinas, so wisely you'll probably avoid that.

You may be able to get her on a smaller plane, you know. Airports like Palwaukee, while the work very hard to be as strictly managed and regulated as those of Ohare and Midway, don't have the same resources to ensure that. There's no reason she couldn't try and hitch a ride on a smaller plane out of one of the many smaller airports in the area.

~DarkSov