- Jun 25, 2017
- 2,480
- 6,970
Again, much of that, had it been included, would have been set up in the first few chapters, which were written by JohnCBB. So much of the early "what's in and what's out" with respect to Melissa and Bill were his choices. (The design of the Parker/Becky arc was mine, although he did much of the final writing in order to keep the "tone" consistent between the two arcs.) Had JohnCBB remained as the author, it's possible that aspects of the Bill-Melissa arc would have played out differently. I'm pretty much following much of the general arc we had discussed early on, but the devil is always in the details, and there may have been things that JohnCBB was planning for later that I've omitted. (Although I do hear from him occasionally, and he's not unhappy with where I've gone with it, which is heartening.)
But, just as one example, by having the reader not hear Becky's thoughts, they're left in much the same position as Parker in terms of trying to figure out what's going on in her head and why she's acting the way she is. It seemed like having the reader be in an omniscient position would have weakened that aspect of the story - it'd be kind of like having a play where, before or after every conversation between characters, the characters turned to the audience and monologued about their thoughts. That was the effect we were going for - sort of a semi-first-person story.
But, of course, if this was being written by someone who was actually talented, they'd manage to convey much more of what was going on in the characters' heads in a way that would allow the studio audience to pick it up without the story characters necessarily doing so...
