endings, and carly (the non-hypertext story)

1) I’ve written about endings before. I like them. I lost interest in the Marvel movies after Endgame (though I did like Moon Knight). I lost interest in Star Wars at some point (though I really liked Rogue One). I loved the three Lord of the Rings movies, and then I stopped. Beginning, middle, and that wonderful end — what more did I need?

It turns out that’s happened with the Sandman show, too. I liked the first season a lot. The show was supposed to go on for at least several more seasons, but then it was announced that the second season would be the last (long story — you could look it up). The seasons each had series of episodes (ten or eleven), then an extra, self-contained episode which came out later.

I watched the second season, and it was good (not as good as the first, I thought), but it had a very satisfying ending. Then the bonus episode came out, and, even though it’s based on a story I enjoyed in the original comic books, I don’t have any desire to see it right away. I’m sure I’ll watch it eventually, but for now I’d rather just enjoy the ending of the overall story.

 
2) I’ve written about hypertext writing, including my own, here and here, and in other places.

As I said recently, talking about my current project, “In one scene, Character One warns Character Two about getting involved with Character Three, based on personal experience, and I had no idea that Character One and Character Three had ever even met.”

Well, that was fun, but it also bugged me a little, and it made be realize how long it’s been since I read Carly, and so I went back to it, and I found it somewhat tiring to read. I think that hypertext is kind of fun, at least in theory, but ultimately it’s not for me (which is probably one reason I never did it again). But, working on the part of the story I’m working on now, it turned out to be a good idea to go back and refresh myself on what happens immediately before, since, as I said, I’d had no idea that Carly Stein and Nicky Porter had ever met.

Not that I’m rewriting the plot — mostly just polishing the story, and slicing off the fat — but it still seemed to be a good idea to remind myself of the recent history.

But that led to the idea of “flattening” the story Carly — straightening it out into a non-hypertext story, and now that’s done (and I’m pretty happy with it): “Carly (four years earlier)”