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» Chapter 72 «
There might be a lewd story coming to Re:Library in future
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» Chapter 70 «
So we all know the reputation wuxias have for repetitive plots.
Been thinking about it a bit recently, and I think I’ve located the problem in their writing that causes this – a failed attempt at a chiastic structure. For those of you who don’t know chiastic (or “ring”) structure is an ancient and somewhat cyclical structure reminiscent of poetry used everywhere from the texts of the Abrahamic faiths, the Odyssey, the Illiad, and even the Hobbit (to name a few). It follows a pattern of callbacks, or even repeated events to draw the reader into the story. It is easy to see the attempt at this wuxia authors make, but issues arise with how frequently the inner cycles are executed without real progress being made for the main character – that is, the inner cycles that are being repeated serve no or limited narrative purpose that is never rewarded to the audience.
Imagine and MC that constantly goes to a new place, offends some young master, gets challenged by that young master, then kills the young master, then repeat (who am I kidding, you’ve probably read that plot so just remember, don’t imagine 😊). This structure doesn’t inherently make for a bad story, but it’s missing a few things that make it easy to tire of. The MC does not make any progress from this encounter – no treasure gained, no enemy made (as would be the case in a truer chiastic), no lesson learned. The MC has not gone anywhere for his troubles, he is exactly where he started – just with new paint. He doesn’t even remember the encounter. This is by far the biggest issue with the writing – a betrayal of the reader, a broken promise.
Adding some meaning to each of the encounters would allow readers to be drawn into the story. Well, there’s some other issues and fixes that could be done – but there’s a chap for you to read, so bye!
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» Chapter 2-28 «
Insert message from the last post but with punctuation this time
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» Chapter 2-27 «
This was part of a bulk upload, so I’m really running out of things to say
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» Chapter 2-26 «
So recently someone came into the Discord asking if they could translate a series into Spanish.
Some talking happened, and that got me thinking about editing and whatnot.
You see, a lot of choices are made when translating, and while editing (which is the main difference between it and proofreading).
Every westernization, TL note, etc. is a choice made by someone who is not the original author.
These choices can add up to something very different from what was originally intended. The easiest more modern example would be Dragon Ball’s Goku, I suppose. See, in the Japanese version, he’s more of a country bumpkin who likes fighting, while in the dub he’s more akin to Superman, fighting for justice.
Editorial choice is also why there are so many different versions of Shakespeare’s plays. We don’t actually know what he wrote, we just have many different recordings of the plays, made by different people (including some knockoff street performances made for the masses). Some of the recordings don’t even come from people who saw the play, but were in the background of it. It doesn’t help that Shakespeare probably also edited his own plays over the years too.
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» Chapter 2-24 «
Was it DP where I said I’d write something about editing?
I forget, well you might get it here.
Maybe.
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» Chapter 2-23 «
In today’s news, Silva hasn’t given me the info I need to do the thing he needs.
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» Chapter 2-22 «
Chatter Dex, Chatter Dex,
Does whatever a chatter dex does.
Which is nothing, as a chattering dex is an oxymoron.
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» Chapter 2-21 «
I was going to write something about editing here, but two things have prevented me from doing so: 1) not sure anyone wants to read it, and 2) I don’t have time to write it.
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» Chapter 2-20 «