The ball starts to roll at last...

[altivo]

Starting to catch up, I'm only about a day behind now.

New chapter is here.

6075 / 50,000 (12.2%)

Comments

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Curious... I find it hard to concentrate on the story, but it's my mind's fault- I can't help wondering how much of this comes directly from your experiences and how much is just made up... and the connotation of the phrase "very good friend" :P (sorry, I'll try to read your writing more earnestly in the future)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

How much comes directly from experiences?

Well, I assure you honestly that I've never been a wolf or a fox, nor a skunk or a bobcat. I've never been mayor of a small village, or assistant to one. I do weave, so you can take any references to weaving as experiential.

I've never been abducted, nor had a loved one abducted, nor had to solve a case of abduction.

And frankly, I don't have the patience to deal with fools like Longears, Blackpaws, and Cupro either (though eventually we'll learn that Cupro isn't such a fool after all. He is, you'll remember, a fox.)

Most of the "experience" brought to bear here is experience with reading and writing. The rest is out of my head, I guess you would say.

As for "very good friend", don't try to read too much into it. If you continue to follow the story, you'll get an idea of just how good and solid the friendship is, and why it is so. But this is also a PG-13 story, so... No, not that kind of friends, or at least not so it shows.

>>

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Heh, fair enough. Now for another question; if it doesn't spoil the story by telling me, why did you choose this particular type of material- I don't mean PG, I mean why a... "furry mystery"? I'm just curious- I rarely get a chance to ask an author their motivations for writing myself, so I figured since you always seem so obliging *shrugs* why not?

Re: Furry mysteries

[altivo.livejournal.com]

As I think I said a few days ago, I wanted something completely different from last year's NaNo effort.

I've only read one furry novel ever that was essentially a mystery, and that's Kyell Gold's Pendant of Fortune (a darned good read by the way.) Kyell writes for a mature audience and he makes no apologies for that. I wanted to separate that element from the mystery/puzzle aspect and see how well it could go. So far I'm having fun doing it, and judging by the statistics, there are people reading it too.

I have two specific goals here for myself, other than just plain finishing the NaNo on time and finishing a readable novel. First, I want to present credible furry characters, who seem believable and natural and retain their non-human elements as much as they can, rather than just being animals dressed up as humans and acting like that was perfectly ordinary. Second, I want to present a suspenseful mystery that keeps the reader curious and trying to figure out all the pieces before the principals in the story have done so. This second goal is actually the more difficult of the two I think, at least for me, and others will have to tell me how well I did at it.

Re: Furry mysteries

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

"First, I want to present credible furry characters, who seem believable and natural and retain their non-human elements as much as they can, rather than just being animals dressed up as humans and acting like that was perfectly ordinary."

I hear that one a whole lot... well, from furries, I mean :P

Re: Furry mysteries

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. Well I think that should be the goal of a furry author who writes for a fandom audience, rather than someone who just writes children's stories. I should point out here as well that the editors at Sofawolf Press and Bad Dog Books seem to agree.

Re: Furry mysteries

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

In hindsight, I think you're doing a terrific job.

Re: Furry mysteries

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Practice makes perfect.

Re: Furry mysteries

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*snickers* I say that too ;) I'm going through more of your audio tales right now :) I vaguely remeber my mother telling me something about the Wind in the Willows... I think she even read me a few of their stories- curiously, at the time I was rathered isolated like the author had been :P Funny how I'd forgotten it- it's like someone of your mindset reawakening my older memories. Thanks :)

Re: Furry mysteries

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Grahame's The Wind in the Willows is for me one of those primeval works that seem to have shaped my entire life. Though my earliest memory of it is the Disney animated version (which is pretty awful in retrospect,) I know my mother read the original to us when I was three or four years old. I rediscovered the printed book (without any Disney illustrations, thank goodness) when I was in junior high and it has been an archetypal imagery for me ever since.

Re: Furry mysteries

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* I'm no fan of Disney adaptations to any classic of literature- too hokey and stereotypical- well, maybe Alice in Wonderland was okay... but geez, they mostly stink of ripoff *holds nose as I try to get the Little Mermaid out of my head*. I was always more partial to Don Bluth animations, myself.

Re: Furry mysteries

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's not the art that bothers me so much... After all, Don Bluth was once a Disney animator himself. But the things they do to the storyline are often just ghastly. They do all right if they are working from scratch as in The Lion King or Brother Bear, or going really far afield from the original as in Treasure Planet or Oliver and Company, and honestly, how can any furry complain about that Disney version of Robin Hood? But yeah, sometimes, like when they wrecked The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it's pretty offensive.

In recent decades, Bluth and later Dreamworks have been doing a better job than Disney, no question about that. I'd much rather watch Balto than Home on the Range for instance. ;p

Re: Furry mysteries

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

You, know, now that you mention it, Robin Hood wasn't half bad- the rest I could take or leave. Beauty & the Beast and Hunchback come to mind as the two biggest offenders :P