Unsatisfied
24 September 2022 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeHaving typed up Chapter 26 of Arctic Raoul in a spasm of almost unprecedented activity, I find myself unfortunately very much less happy about it than I was when I originally wrote it over a couple of weeks in August 2019 :-(
Scenes completed
Second half-chapter
I remember enjoying writing this immensely, especially in comparison with my months-long struggle with the voyage of the Résurgence immediately preceding. But looking back at it now, I'm not sure I even managed to convey all the Raoul/Lancard 'feels' that I thought I had in the course of that Paris half-scene, let alone the central plot point... and then my 'second half-chapter' is pretty much entirely a self-indulgent rehash of canon.
A bit more explanation of Perros-Guirec probably doesn't hurt (although this might be both a little too much, given the duplication of earlier references, and yet not enough to clarify what actually happened). However, all the business about Raoul's being ill afterwards doesn't really have *anything* to do with the plot of this story (other, I suppose, than the fact that Raoul does mention it briefly in the context of trying to nurse Lancard...), and I suspect that introducing references to it at this late point is simply confusing. It's a clever-clever fandom explanation for why Christine might have 'dried up' on seeing Raoul in the opera box, which is a very minor detail in Leroux, but -- given that Leroux himself apparently forgets all about Raoul's illness immediately after that chapter and has the Vicomte rushing round making enquiries after Christine's disappearance -- so far as I can see it is only going to puzzle people as to the subsequent outcome of this apparently life-threatening episode in his backstory :-(
Also, can I deprecatingly refer to Christine in her own thoughts as "a little Swedish singer" when she has pretty much resolved that she isn't going to sing any more?
Scenes completed
Second half-chapter
I remember enjoying writing this immensely, especially in comparison with my months-long struggle with the voyage of the Résurgence immediately preceding. But looking back at it now, I'm not sure I even managed to convey all the Raoul/Lancard 'feels' that I thought I had in the course of that Paris half-scene, let alone the central plot point... and then my 'second half-chapter' is pretty much entirely a self-indulgent rehash of canon.
A bit more explanation of Perros-Guirec probably doesn't hurt (although this might be both a little too much, given the duplication of earlier references, and yet not enough to clarify what actually happened). However, all the business about Raoul's being ill afterwards doesn't really have *anything* to do with the plot of this story (other, I suppose, than the fact that Raoul does mention it briefly in the context of trying to nurse Lancard...), and I suspect that introducing references to it at this late point is simply confusing. It's a clever-clever fandom explanation for why Christine might have 'dried up' on seeing Raoul in the opera box, which is a very minor detail in Leroux, but -- given that Leroux himself apparently forgets all about Raoul's illness immediately after that chapter and has the Vicomte rushing round making enquiries after Christine's disappearance -- so far as I can see it is only going to puzzle people as to the subsequent outcome of this apparently life-threatening episode in his backstory :-(
Also, can I deprecatingly refer to Christine in her own thoughts as "a little Swedish singer" when she has pretty much resolved that she isn't going to sing any more?
