Merc said:>>Have you guys given any
>>thought to possibly re-naming Symphony 5? (...)
>>it really seems like at this point,
>>structurally speaking, you might want to re-brand it, end it either
>>with Taken by Storm or soon after (what's already there functions at
>>least as well as a cohesive whole as Symphonies 3 and 4 do) and then
>>push the Black Rose stuff into a hypothetical Symphony 6.
And then Phil said:
>Well, on my part, the whole of "Taken By Storm" was going to be one
>movement, period -- or one movement broken up into 3 parts. Which
>means we'd have 3 more to go, if we kept with the 7 movement thing...
>
>... make of that what you will.
I actually toyed with the idea of labeling it this way - so that the entirety of Taken by Storm was the Fifth Movement, broken into three parts - but was persuaded not to do so in order to maintain consistency with Knights of the Tenth World. (Conversely, if I went and relabeled Knights so that it was all Symphony No. 2's Fourth Movement, that Symphony would only be five movements long; but then again, if everything in Symphony No. 1 was called a movement that really should be, it'd be eight or nine, so... it's not an exact science, is all I'm saying.)
Anyway, Symphonies 1, 2, and 4 all having seven movements was actually a coincidence, which is why I'm not too broken up about the idea that Symphony No. 5 may extend to nine or ten. On the other hand, if we did break No. 5 off after Taken by Storm is finished, based on the amount of plotline that's left in the notes after that point, we'd be looking at a theoretical No. 6 that was all of three movements long. Then again, there was a time not very long ago when I rather comically thought that everything planned (and not-planned; some of my favorite scenes are not in the original notes but appeared organically during construction) for TbS would fit into one. So who really knows?
I think mainly I resist the idea of declaring Symphony 5 over because I'm concerned that what's planned for the rest of it, and which would then become the kernel of Symphony 6, would expand to fill the suddenly enlarged headspace. Given that it's taken me eight years to get as far into 5 as we have so far reached, that scares me a bit on several levels. As it is, S5 has been holding up stuff I wanted to do further along the FI curve (looking at you, Infamy revision) for ages. Permitting what's left in the planning notes to move into its own house might push that so far we'll never see it again.
What am I getting at with this? Nothing concrete; I'm just sort of thinking out loud. I had a flu vaccination today, and it's affecting me very similarly to my weekly interferon dose. One of the interesting side effects of a high-speed immune response is that it becomes very easy to start thoughts but commensurately harder to finish them. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up, reread this, and think, You know what, that's actually a great idea. We could rename No. 5 something like Surely Some Revelation Is at Hand and really go to town with it. One can never tell.
--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
... I somehow thought I'd replied to this days ago, but that might have been a dream.Thanks for taking the time. I love process notes to death.
Anyway, this makes total sense. I'd like to note that my suggestion you consider re-branding Symphony 5 has less to do with it becoming longer than comparable Symphonies (I mentioned length mainly to note that it's already a decent size as opposed to being 'short') but that the tale seems to have changed in the telling; so far the Order of the Black Rose have been decidedly bit players (and had an abortive plotline where time was taken to establish a bunch of their members who turned out to not be relevant at all) whereas the theme of the Symphony has mostly revolved around Corwin and Utena finally nailing down their relationship and the travails surrounding that, their wedding, and their honeymoon.
Which is great, but doesn't really go with the title. I suppose it's possible this one will balloon all the way out to, like, fourteen movement-equivalents or something, so that you have a front half light/back half dark symmetry metaphor thing going on with the plot structure, but as it is now even if the Black Rose stuffs blasts into high gear for the downslope it will probably end up looking weirdly backloaded.
-Merc
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