Lisa the Legend: Chapter 82 - Last Night on Earth now up! (24th June 2013)

[Gavin Luper]

Mew2: Yep, insane is exactly what I'd call it, too. Actually, this has been running since 2001, which is even more of a milestone. Thanks for your congratulations, although it would probably be an even better job if I steeled myself and wrote the rest of this fic at a reasonable pace. One day I'll get there ...

Cheers!

[mr_pikachu]

Hey, no problem, man. It's what I do! ^_^ I look forward to seeing how this particular angle develops. It's the first shadow we've seen from the otherwise infallible Lance. The question is, was it a mistake or was it sabotage?

As for the sentences that ended in prepositions, since you're asking...


The older man halted abruptly.

This does not end in a preposition, but since I noticed it while looking for them, "abruptly halted" would be a tad more correct. Sometimes it's reasonable to bend that rule for effect - you've done it elsewhere, and I can see why in many of those occasions - but I'm not sure it's a helpful technique here.


He shook himself sternly and returned to the thick wad of printed documents he was meant to be reading through.

"through which he was meant to be reading" is a legitimate fix, but I'd almost prefer just scratching the "through."


He also sported a very raw graze on his left cheek, which he had apparently refused any treatment for.

"for which he had apparently refused any treatment."


Sarah twirled a strand of her wavy brown hair nervously.

Adverb use again. "nervously twirled" doesn't lose any of the effect, methinks.


...Yeah, so I ended up including a bit more in that than just the "prepositions ending sentences" stuff. Sorry. However, I figured that, knowing you, you'd probably want to see those sentences too.

[Gavin Luper]

I'm finally back NaNoWriMo-ing and making some good headway. I'm particularly glad that I rushed ahead at the beginning, or I'd feel something akin to utter despair right now.

I know I can do this.

At the end of Day 17 I'm sitting on 15,524 words.

Thanks for your support and faith and blah blah blah guys! (I do mean it, despite the sarcastic blah blah blah.)

Cheers!!!

EDIT: 4000th POST! FINALLY. Couldn't have made it in a better place, either. ^_^ Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

[Sike Saner]

Holy crap... o_o The argument between Lance and Donovan was amazing, very intense. I doubt I'll be forgetting that scene anytime soon.

And frell, are you ever good with characters. o_o I'm sure I've said something along those lines before, but it bears repeating, damn it! X3 Anyway, that skill definitely worked to great effect in that chapter, shining through the aforementioned scene that took place in '03, as well as through the scene with Lance and his father. ^^

Highlights and et cetera:

“There are things more important than power,” grizzled the older man, clutching his brown leather briefcase tighter to his body as he passed a homeless man slumped on the pavement outside a hostel. “And why did you go over the word limit? You lose marks for that, you know.”

Lol, brevity's not one of my strong suits, either. X3;

“What is it now, Sarah?” he thudded, several hours past being polite.

Nice choice of words. ^^

“You’re losing focus, Jim,” said Lance in the most level voice he could manage. “The Union haven’t won anything. There are still five keys to be found. We still have our other two guardians, Marina and Darius, safe at the Stone’s station. Losing Lisa is damaging to us, yes, and beneficial to our enemy, but that does NOT mean our operations fall apart. The Legend of Ecruteak still stands, and Lisa is not the cornerstone of that Legend, she is only a part of it!”

But Donovan was now beyond cool reason or dialogue – he was looking at Lance as though he had just committed murder.

“I can’t believe I’m hearin’ yer say these things, Lance. ‘She’s just a part of it’, is she?” he demanded hotly. “S’that whatya told ‘er parents?”

“What was said between Ryan, Maria and I is between us!” snarled Lance, quite forgetting to keep his cool; the wound of that morning’s explosive argument was still very raw.

“Ya dog,” spat Donovan, getting to his feet. “Ya won’t even rescue the child of one of yer best mates –”

Lance was on his feet before he knew it; thoughts of having a cool discussion were long forgotten. “YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITE! Five minutes ago, I was the bad guy for apparently sending you into an ambush, and now you’re losing your head at me for trying to prevent the same thing from happening again!”

“That’s –” Donovan spluttered angrily. “That’s – not the same thing –”

“My position is final, Jim. You don’t know how hard it was to decide –”

“Oh, poor you, having to sit in yer big office with yer big window and decide the fate of another human!” Donovan raged. He pointed his finger at Lance’s face once again, his air both threatening and disillusioned. “I – cannot – believe ya.”

Again, their argument was very well done--I could have quoted the whole damned thing here, really, but instead opted to just post my absolute favorite part of it. It's still a pretty big quote, but eh... like I said, brevity's not one of my strong suits. X3;

Congrats on yet another great chapter, and congrats on your most recently-won Silver Pencil awards! ^^

[PancaKe]

You know, rereading this has become a fantastic piece of procrastination.
I hope you are happy, Gavin.
I fail uni, and its all your fault





(I'm up to chapter 15 - and I'd forgotten how wonderful your writing style is!)

[Gavin Luper]

Whoops, somehow I kept putting off replying. Go figure.

Sike: Cheers for the review again! Cool that you liked the argument - it's always hard to keep the balance between realistic dialogue and overblown dramatics, so I hope I achieved that. And yay, I'm glad the flashback worked well to emphasise the characterisation. Thanks for your comments there: as I've said a lot of times before, characters have always seemed like a slightly weaker area for me, so I'm always trying to be less crap in that area.

Thanks for your congrats, and for your continued readership. I always like the quote-filled replies I get from you. Seeya next chapter!

Tara: Hullo... come crawling back to LTL, eh? Haha. I was gonna say "well, yes, I am happy, thanks for that" but then I realised you were being sarcastic. Wench!

Hope you didn't fail uni. I'm glad I could offer up some decent procrastination fodder, I know how competitive the market is for that. Thanks for the comments.

Whee!

Next chapter: I've been working a fair bit on Chapter 65, but it hasn't been ringing true for me yet. I have one final exam on Tuesday and then Uni is over for about four months, so hopefully - HOPEFULLY - I can churn out some chapters. I'm really itching to get going with them. Where the story goes next really excites me, partly because I like the upcoming plot and story arcs, and partly because they've been in my head for such a long time that I'll be ecstatic to see them really spring to life on the page.

Thanks for your eternal patience, everyone.

Cheers!

- Gavin.

[Gavin Luper]

Hi everyone.

I'm still stuck on Chapter 65: the stuff that happens in it ought to make it awesome, and the stuff I've written so far simply isn't awesome, so I've got to keep working on it and make it what I want it to be.

I'm posting because it's been suggested to me that I ought to write a synopsis of the first 64 chapters of Lisa the Legend. It's spanned over seven years now and often there are months between chapters, so it's occurred to me that a lot of readers have probably forgotten a lot of the events that occurred in earlier chapters. As these events are going to be important in the upcoming chapters, I'm thinking that a summary of "the story so far" might indeed be a really worthwhile thing for me to do, especially as I'm stuck on the next chapter anyway.

Plus, I've been told that it would make new readers of the fic feel less daunted if they had a summary to read.

So, what do you guys think? Would you read the synopsis if I posted it here? Would it be a helpful tool for you? And, for all those potential/closet readers, would you be more inclined to read if you knew what on earth the story was about?

Let me know your opinions - I'll try to get working away at it!

Cheers!

- Gavin.