Anyways, I'm trying to continue it. Since reading some George RR martin, I've decided I want to try and convey the story from more than one viewpoint (it also has the added benefit of making it much longer). There were already three perspectives, though I had originally planned on one being the "main", and the other two being kind of "side"-- just used for a couple of chapters, flashbacks, etc.
The first one, well, is the prince/regent in the prologue I posted. The other will be for a villain, and then the main one would be, obviously, the "protagonist". As I've gotten older (this has been a work (the story-verse and the plot itself) long in progress) hopefully I've become a bit better of a writer with more perspective.
The goal right now is to write the antagonist's POV. I think it might end up as sort of "second prologue" to the story, though much longer than the first one I posted (which clocks in around 7K words actually). Originally, he's a good guy. However, due to some perceived wrong, he betrays his fellows and then shit hits the fan. I want to somehow illustrate this-- his growing sense of anger, and then his subsequent descent into madness. Moreover, I want it to be so other people can kind of, if not sympathize, at least understand him.
Moreover, I want to put the plot together more closely. I've got a bunch of chapters, but frankly, I don't really like much of what the two-or-three-year-ago me wrote. So I'm doing a big rewrite. I want to entwine story of the antagonist and protagonist closer together.
Well, that's it for that.
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Here's another short essay, rant, well, I guess blog, that I've been wanting to write for awhile.
At most colleges, the rooms are small. To save space, beds are often lofted-- you know, basically a bunk bed with no lower bed. This puts the bed up and out of the way, and opens up a lot of space below. In my res hall's case, we have our desks under our beds. It seems like a very good idea, yet I feel that this space (read: money) saving method is actually bad to students' health.
First, lofted beds are bad to rest or sleep in. If you want to go to bed, you REALLY have to want to go to bed. You've got to climb a ladder all the way up there, which essentially adds another barrier to going to sleep. And in reverse, its hard to get out of bed. You've already messed up your sleep schedule, which basically runs from when you finally decide to go to bed, to alarm for class. You're in your comfy warm bed, and now you got to get out? And climb down? Given the already rather poor sleeping habits of the average college student, this just exacerbates the problem.
A lack of sleep has been shown by all sorts of studies to cause problems. Physical, mental, emotional, the whole gamut of problems. Bad grades, poorer performance in athletics.
Then when you got to pee, this adds another layer of resistance. You're stuck in that awkward "can I fall back asleep, or is the bladder pressure too persistent?" The choice is usually pretty obvious, go pee and get over with it. But that ladder in the dark is not happening.
I guess this goes on to the next thing. You're sleeping about five or six feet in the air. I had a RA once say that "if you sleep on a bed that big on the ground and you don't fall off, you'll be fine here". It's true I guess, but people do fall occasionally. And then it hurts. Sleepiness+ heights? Anyone would tell you its a bad idea. In my case, there's no barrier, though some people have devised some sort of safety guard. I guess at first its a bit scary, but I've gotten used to it and my subconscious has enough of a sense of self-preservation from rolling off. Still ,when you get that odd sense of falling in your sleep, you freak the fudge out.
The last potpourri of problems may be endemic to my rather dilapidated res hall. The desk is under the bed, but you can't really stand. Plus, the bedsprings are there, and there's a danger of whacking your head on them. Working under a bed is slightly claustrophobic as well because of the close "ceiling" and the darkness.
Geez school, look where your cheapness has cost you!