Identity rewrite notes - Chapter Five: "Promises"

I posted this chapter quite a while ago and meant to write up notes for it. Oops.

Compared to the original version, I trimmed the whole journey to Dōtonbori considerably. Konatsu is no longer present. It’s more focused on just Ukyō and her father. This is important to me; I felt Ukyō didn’t get enough focus in the latter half of book 1 in the original version, and her relationship with her father is something I want to keep touching upon.

Some details are slightly different. Ukyō is on better terms with her father here. She hasn’t ignored his letters. That makes the conflict over why she’s refused to come work with him something they’re both already aware of and can confront.

The scenes taking place in the Amazon camp are expanded. The battle scene in particular, in which Akane is lost, was just a short prelude scene in the original version, where here it’s a big freakin’ battle that goes all the way up the mountain. Expanding on how and why the springs erupt was a big goal of this fleshing out, and I hope it seems more reasonable and logical here.

This also gave me the opportunity to investigate Akane and Ukyō’s relationship. They are generally on good terms, in part because of Ukyō’s promise.

As part of trimming Ranma and Ukyō’s rooftop discussion (which was part of the original version), I had Ukyō visit Ranma after the fight with Shampoo instead, in this flashback. This resulted in moving forward her promise to him compared to the original version (where that took place at her shop). It seemed the most natural time, however.

Another scene in which Ukyō had searched for Akane in the flooded springs that was present in the original was cut.

Unlike the original, Ukyō learns of Ryōga’s curse here. Given the circumstances, I felt it was simply unavoidable that she would learn of it, and while she may consider keeping that to herself, I think the conflict she faces in whether to reveal it immediately and jeopardize Ryōga’s chances with Akane or keep it secret and be complicit in the lie opens up opportunities to develop her character.

Better developing Ukyō’s character in future chapters is a major goal of the rewrite. I hope this will be just the beginning of doing that.

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Identity rewrite notes - Chapter Four: The Matriarch's Burden

Part of the process of streamlining the story in the rewrite was cutting out some of the slower buildup chapters. In the original, Kunō escaped to Japan, and that was how anyone found out about the Sorcerers’ awakening. It gave a good opportunity for Akane to regret her hand in Ranma’s flight to China, but there are plenty of chances to do that in the story already. So that meeting, as well as the subsequent journey to the Amazon village, I cut pretty dramatically. Am I going to be perfect in making the story streamlined and tight? Well, no. I don’t expect so. But I did see an opportunity here.

Another goal I had here was to reveal a bit more about the history, about the story of Ceruse, Bailu, and Yi. I felt I was too cagey about this in the original, giving these details away in too many small chunks. Presenting this much of the story now makes Cologne’s motivations more concrete.

Now, the natural question will be, why Cologne? Why give her this story? In part, because her role as a mentor and observer means that she can see the mistakes Shampoo makes in pursuing Ranma from a more objective position. She is, in this sense, less susceptible to being hated or disliked, when otherwise we might be confined to Shampoo’s perspective, forced to digest her thought processes that may not always conform to the audience’s sentiments. Her limited knowledge of the situation (though a little forced, I admit) also lends itself to discovery in the same time and at the same pace as the audience. I feel that the audience learning things as the characters do is an important and useful technique.

In the short introductory scene, we get a feeling for Bailu’s personality prior to the battle with the Amazons. He’s a nice guy, amiable, dedicated. This is him before the horrors of war claimed him.

Much of this chapter is freshly-written material, even though it largely mirrors the original story in spirit. Some of the subtleties that had to change to fit the plot include the use of the Last Right (here, something Bindi gambits Cologne into using), how Bindi learns that Shampoo isn’t in good standing with Ranma, and how Akane, Ukyō, and the rest enter the picture.

There were actually quite a few drafts regarding how to tell this part of the story. I originally did something much more like the original story, with Akane being approached by Cologne in Japan, and so on. Those ideas were more focused on Akane, in the hopes of going to her first to establish her as a main character, but I just couldn’t find a way to do that that seemed natural, that seemed to fit.

As a result, the overall construction of the chapter has spaced out details about what happened to make Ranma come to China. We get a glimpse of that in one flashback scene here, told from Shampoo’s perspective instead of Ranma’s or Akane’s as the original scenes were. This does lead to the somewhat convoluted backflips I had to do to make it so Cologne didn’t know what Shampoo had done.

Some of the speeches before the Council are lifted from the original, but the differing circumstances demanded that some of that scene be written from scratch. With the change to Marula’s character, she’s already been captured, and we can skip an elaborate return of Amazon scouts to the village to announce that their people (or Ranma) have been taken. Indeed, I spent a good bit of time with this chapter just playing with the timing of it relative to the previous chapter. At one point, the Amazons didn’t get word from Ranma and Kumkum until Shampoo had already been censured. The current timing is much more logical and easier to follow.

I also opted for a private confrontation between Bindi and Cologne, which seemed a better fit with the sensitive nature of that encounter.

In the end, though, this chapter is very similar in spirit to the original content. Cologne’s regret over what happened to Ceruse, and her fears that Shampoo is walking down the same path of putting duty ahead of self-fulfillment, is still present.

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Identity rewrite notes - Chapter Three: "Pride"

“Pride” is a big rewrite and expansion of the original chapter 3, act 5: “Occupation.” Just for a bit of sense of size and scope, the last scene in this chapter is as long as “Occupation” is in total.

This chapter is called “Pride,” and for good reason. I wrote the bulk of this chapter almost a year ago, but part of putting publication of the piece on hold was to figure out the role of Wuya. Now that I’ve done that, I was able to look at this chapter with fresh eyes. I realized that the chapter didn’t have much going on thematically. Ranma struggled with “making a connection to the outside world” and some vagaries about being in touch with feelings. I was able to improve this somewhat by making his struggle more about his overwhelming desire to escape and overcome captivity, to the point that it masked his fear of failure. This point is not overwhelming—sometimes, I fear there’s a tendency to make such thematic elements too much like a hammer that hits the reader at every opportunity—but it’s definitely there. Every time Ranma tries to use powers, the thought of winning is close behind. This theme also plays well with how Ranma manipulates Henna into giving him information: by appealing to her pride.

I redesigned the character of Henna here to be more distinctive from Sindoor. She’s shorter, less imposing, and has that characteristic baldness. I felt it was important to introduce her now, rather than later on in the plot as was done in the original story, because it helped hint at her motives and the motives of the priesthood.

One of the major errors of the original, as well as even in this chapter as first outlined, was the existence of the Guide’s house, which is actually destroyed in volume 38. I missed this despite reading the volume repeatedly because we only see the house destroyed while Ranma and company are inside it, so it’s not even clear that was the place except by exclusion and comparison of exterior shots. This necessitated a major rewrite of the action in the last third of the chapter.

By introducing the Amazon angle earlier, I hoped to set up the fates of Marula and Kumkum (who wasn’t named in the original) a little bit more. The character of Marula still eludes me somewhat, but here I’m able to give her more of a defined role. I like how Kumkum turned out. He’s enjoyable and competent, and that’s a big relief to Ranma.

There are some obstacles toward presenting Ranma’s struggles with learning magic because of the background we don’t yet have, background that will soon come in chapter four and will complete the connection with the original work. The overall process of Ranma learning magic is fleshed out a bit more here, and I like that I ultimately made it so Ranma struggled and struggled until he found the breakthrough, the way of thinking about it that allowed him to do something more sophisticated than merely throwing ki bolts around.

I feel overall this chapter is a little more modest, more focused on action-reaction than the previous two, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s good to settle in a bit and read with a bag of popcorn, so to speak, every once in a while.

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Identity rewrite notes - Chapter Two: "The Village"

I originally had this chapter written several months ago, but between other projects, I had little time to review it for publication. I’m trying to get several projects back on track here, so here we go.

I’ve made several major changes to this chapter compared to the pre-rewrite version. Most notably, the chaaracter of Kohl, and his position as the Advisor, has been cut. Those who you who know of the original version will probably understand when I say that Kohl and his position really served no purpose from the standpoint of the plot. What was interesting was the character development he went through, but that can be handled in other ways.

So instead I decided to focus on just Ranma, Wuya, and Sindoor. I felt this simplified and tightened things up considerably. We actually learn quite a bit about Wuya and her sense of honor, of debt. She is less overtly hostile to Ranma in this version than in the pre-rewrite. I originally had her written as a prideful person, and a little of that sneaks in when she boasts about her skills, but I felt it better here to conceive of her more consistently with how she will come off later: sympathetic and reasonable, a counterpoint to Sindoor, who is colder and very driven. Wuya is doing what she must, not because she likes it but for, in her opinion, the greater good of her people. There is a disregard for Ranma’s wellbeing that she acknowledges, but she hopes that this ends up being little more than an inconvenience for him. His help can save the village, after all.

That’s not to say Ranma and Wuya get along. Wuya is a serious person; Ranma is, at times, anything but. Ranma has this perpetual knack for getting on people’s nerves and irritating them. It’s not wholly intentional—he surely mustn’t want to insult Akane at some times that he ends up doing so—but I think he lets himself speak a little more freely around Wuya knowing that he will grate on her and keep her off balance. Ranma’s displeased with the situation, and he’s going to let Wuya know it even when it would be unwise to throw a punch. That said, I think Ranma can sense there’s a core of honesty within her, of nobility. Even when Wuya lies, it’s not out of an inherently sinsiter nature or maliciousness. The same cannot be said for Sindoor.

One of the major goals of the rewrite is to streamline things, and that’s accomplished here by cutting out two big sequences: Ranma’s walk around the village (which is condensed into his single foray to the market after speaking with Sindoor) and the ritual at the spring. The latter in particular had set up the revelation of another way the Sorcerers tried to combat their uncontrolled magic, but I wanted to keep this chapter from getting too complicated. To be honest, I contemplated cutting out that plot point altogether—the story would be much different then! But I couldn’t do that. One of Wuya’s main character conflicts is exactly that. It’s what makes her more like Ranma and more of a foil for him. Even though the Sieve ended up being much more of an important aspect of Sorcerer life than what the ritual at the spring does, what the “bodies they were born with” signify, it’s something I just couldn’t bring myself to remove.

I spent a lot of time struggling over the problem of Ranma’s logical thought process in this chapter. It was always something that bothered me in the pre-rewrite version. I tried to pin down his logic as best as I could. He tries to escape; that’s fair. Wuya catches him and he reasons he can’t escape, so he might as well try to hear them out. That’s fair. He listens to Sindoor’s story and tells them Saffron is wounded, but he doesn’t tell them he killed Saffron. Why? As written now, it’s because he senses the importance of the question, and also because he doesn’t really want to admit that he killed Saffron at all, not even to himself. It represents the unbridled rage in him that came out that day, a rage he’s not totally comfortable with. But I really gloss over that point; it’s not the time to focus on it. I really, really had to tweak everything to get Ranma’s logic here to be believable. Even then, is there a good reason for him to visit Tilaka? To see what the Sieve is, perhaps. This might be when Ranma’s sense of morality, which he tends to downplay even to himself, comes out. Ranma doesn’t tend to go around talking like a self-righteous person. He doesn’t usually get in other people’s business. But if you thrust something in his face and he has to deal with it, he’s not going to let it go if he doesn’t like it. That, to me, is Ranma here: the idea of the human Sieve creeps him the hell out. He doesn’t like it, and he wants to see what it really means before he makes his move.

Without the revelation of “bodies they were born with” in this chapter, I let the big reveal be that Wuya is the one Tilaka was talking about. I like this moment a lot; it makes Wuya’s sense of personal responsibility and honor really shine, even as she stands for something so obviously immoral and repugnant. It is what will make her a worthy foe for Ranma in the chapters to come.

Lastly, I improved the scene with Ranma going to stop the channelers by rewriting it mostly from scratch. Again, the significance of the water and what it does to Sorcerer magic is hinted at but not fully explored. That will have to wait for chapter six. When we end this chapter, compared to the pre-rewrite version, there are several subtle differences: Ranma knows exactly what the Sieve does to people and how “soulless” his presence makes the villagers. And while he’s not explicitly opposing the Sorcerers for that reason, for what is right vs. what is wrong, it’s a big part of it. He cannot suppress his distate for what they are doing, and with no other options, he strings them along, hoping for an opportunity to escape and not be a part of their madness anymore.

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Identity rewrite Chapter One - "In the Cold Rain" - notes

So here we are again, starting from the beginning, except the beginning is very different from what came before. In a lot of ways, this first chapter is a microcosm of the whole rewrite project—I’ve found it more natural to be liberal with changes, rather than to be minimal. This rewrite is far more than a tweaking; it’s more like an entirely new writing process. This makes the process a laborious and long, but I feel the end result will be much better for it.

This is the first chapter of the new version, and as such, a lot rides on it being representative of the work as a whole. I felt like the old version didn’t really do that, and so damage was done in causing a misleading expectation. That is a big part of what I wanted to correct with the rewrite. I can comfortably say that this new version sets a tone much more in line with the overall tenor of the piece, and I’m glad for that.

By the same token, it also discards a lot of stuff that was in the original first “chapter,” and so, while I’ve had this chapter written for a while, I was hesitant to push forward with it and publish until I had a comfortable idea of where all that background would come back in. I feel like that’s done now, so I can go ahead with this.

So now, what do we have? A slightly different take on the Sorcerers arriving at Jusenkyō. I always felt it was too coincidental that they arrived just when Ranma did; in a way, I still couldn’t avoid that, even with them coming two days prior. The timing with Ranma having to leave China, go through the wedding disaster, other stuff, and come back still made it really quite convenient. I hoped two days between would just retain enough suspension of disbelief to work, but it still bothers me. Any longer, however, would make things very problematic. How long can the Guide keep quiet? How long can Plum survive on her own?

Note that Ranma’s call comes in just as the Sorcerers are attacking, also. This is more a matter of convenience than the plot hinging on it, as if Ranma hadn’t been cut-off mid-call, he would still come to the same ultimate conclusion. It just gives a little more punch being able to see it happen.

What’s changed in the three years since I started this story is that I’ve largely shed the minimalist approach I had back then, feeling that I had a tendency to try to do very complicated stories without enough scaffolding to keep people anchored. The result is less dialogue heavy and should require a lot less reading into things. On the whole, I feel it’s better to say what I mean early and often, to make sure it’s not missed or overlooked. It’s not going to be perfect, though.

One thing I tried to do this time was start off with the Sorcerers having a much better and more cohesive set of powers. The Captain, for instance, now boasts a much more impressive array of abilities, focusing on abstract ki manipulation as opposed to the more concrete powers of her men. I felt that this would make her more distinctive and unique.

Otherwise, most of this chapter really took shpae on its own. Based on feedback from pre-readers, I toned down some hijinks between Ranma and Kunō that made Ranma come off a bit sociopathic, as well as drawing out the timeline to give Ranma and company adequate time to get back home from China in the first place. I added a scene where Ranma contemplates killing a partridge, which I hoped would serve to better setup his decision to spare the Captain. It’s not that killing her, after she’d done so much damage, would be wrong per se, but Ranma is afraid he’s become too callous, too bloodthirsty, and to err on the side of caution, to show mercy, makes him more sure he’s a good man.

Because a lot of the details of Ranma’s motivations are deferred to later, I think the chapter is well-focused, and the personal story, while it can be understood, does not overwhelm the action. In other words, I’m happy with the balance here. It’s not appropriate to balloon the story too large too fast.

It’s my hope that the first chapter provides a digestible introduction to the story now, one that raises questions. Who are these Sorcerers? What do they want, and what does it have to do with Saffron? How will Ranma escape? What spurred him on to return to China, even though he clearly doesn’t want to be there, and claim his cure? What curse does the Captain bear?

That is the role of an introduction, after all—to raise questions, hopefully intriguing ones.

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