About Collide: On the Subject of Endings · 4:44pm Jun 2nd, 2014
Hey guys, faithful readers, longtime supporters, and newbies alike. I'm back for the summer, since the final grading period of school is now over, and I can stop being so busy with end-of-year projects, finals, and all kinds of other nasty, stress inducing things. I can write again!
Which leaves me with a question. And I want your input. Yes, all of you.
Reading back through Collide, with the full intention of writing another chapter for you wonderful people, I suddenly realized that the story already felt finished. There are some unanswered questions, yes: Octy's father's cancer and whether he survives, how the parents react to the girls' relationship, how the community of their high school student body reacts to it. Yes, I know I haven't answered those questions. But I feel like, going into writing this story, and even reading back through the description, the whole story was meant to be a "will they-won't they" type story, and obviously, we've accomplished that. Octy was predictably indecisive and socially conscious, but they did, the end. I feel like I would be diminishing the story's value by writing further chapters once the point of the story has been met. I don't know how you all feel about it, but I believe, deep in my heart, that Collide is finished.
Now, that doesn't mean that I won't write a sequel in the future, because that is always a possibility. Sequels usually aren't my thing, but I rather like this story, so I may choose to continue it, if I have an astounding idea for it. But I never want to give you guys, my loyal readers, anything less than the best.
So, this is why I'm asking for your input. Feel free to leave a comment below, telling me all your thoughts and feelings, because I really do love hearing from you guys. Trust me, constructive criticism and different viewpoints are a wonderful thing for a teenager to hear, because I'm still just starting out in life, and in the game of literature, and everything helps immensely. I'm not some wise old owl yet, even if I seem like it sometimes.
And thank you all for your time. It's such a wonderful thing to know that people are interested in my work, even though I've always written just for my own enjoyment. You all have been so lovely, and have helped me grow so much as a writer. Anyone can tell you that my stories have improved vastly from the beginning of Blue Eyes, until now. And I have only you guys to thank. Your time and comments have taken me from where I was, and helped me mature and grow as a writer, and as a person. I have made so many wonderful friends in the course of writing on here, and I'm very proud to say that every single one of you readers are amazing people. So please feel free to tell me what you think about this development, and don't be shy. Tell me exactly how you feel, because honesty is always the best policy. I feel that warning you guys is the least I could do, rather than just clicking 'complete', and never explaining why.
I can see from the description and how it was essentially leading up to them getting together, but there are a lot of loose ends. Tavi's dad, yeah, how does the school take it (is it a world where same-sex is fine?), how parents, but there is also what happened to Vinyl in the past (just checked the last chapter to get a quick feel of how it was going). She mentions it and Tavi gets mad at whoever it was but then it's dropped.
I'd like to see it fleshed out more, to find more details and whatnot, but I do prefer the slice of life stories anyways. If this one was merely to get it to whether or not they got together, I guess that's fine. I would want to have a sequel then to show how they now have to adjust to this new relationship. Most high school relationships don't last supposedly anyways (just what I've heard for a long time) and it would be interesting to see if they forge a strong enough bond to last beyond it.
So that's my input.
2168439 Thank you so much. And I don't think I'm done with this one quite yet, especially if you like it so much. I just think I need a break to work on something else, and I'll likely write a sequel at a later date. I do realize there are a lot of loose ends that need tied up, and I hate not covering all my bases, so you can keep a watch out for a sequel sometime later this year, probably.
2168464 Thank you for your input. Thank you so much. I'm glad that you feel that way, because I do, too. There so many details I dropped out there, and never got around to explaining. So of course, I've got to write a sequel, right? I just think this arc of the story is complete. I think I'll have to write a sequel to cover the details I didn't quite flesh out. So look out for it sometime this year, because I'm just ramping up a new story right now, and I'm hoping it'll be my best yet. I'll likely be closing both Collide, and Blue Eyes soon, to focus on the new story.
2169693 I'm glad you're so enthusiastic. Of course, the new story is still OctaScratch, neer fear. It's what I'm best at. But the premise of the new story is that Vinyl works as a stage hand for the theater company that Octavia works for as the star actress. And so, in parallel to the production of Romeo and Juliet onstage, Vinyl will be attempting to woo Octavia. Hopefully without all the tragedy of the original.
2169790 Trust me, it's not my favorite play, either. But I can't do Othello, because I'm no good at writing Zecora, and Shakespeare really doesn't have any other romantic tragedies that strike my fancy. So I chose to parallel R&J, which is really cliché, but whatever. And the twist about Romeo is probably not going to be something you see coming. Out of all the characters, he'll probably be the most surprising.
2169853 ...Okay, you got one quarter of that right. Scary. Anyway, I'm hoping to have the story up sometime tomorrow, after I find a decent cover art and finish editing. It'll be called, "The Language of Love." I know, clever, right? Came up with that all on my own.
2171996 You'll find out in roughly 2 chapters, if my pacing is correct. I dunno, I kinda just write what I feel like, so my current outline may be pointless.