BFBE Author Notes and Meta
Some notes on the story that didn't seem to want to be written.
"A Bullet For the Body Electric" is the story I owed veleda_k for the livelongnmarry auction, all the way back in July of 2008. He asked for a sequel to "The Third Replicant," where Watari and Hisoka fight crime together. Though I only posted BFBE recently, I sent the story to Vel in chapter installments from September of 2008 to November of 2009, with a five month interval between Parts II and III when I got completely stuck. Seems to be a recurring problem of mine with longer fics like this.
I think my biggest problem was that I never planned for a sequel to "Third Replicant." I had some plot bunnies for side-stories and prequels, but a full-blown sequel is something that never crossed my mind. I had killed both Muraki and Tsuzuki in that universe already, and I really had no idea how to go forward without them. And I had fully told the "Blade Runner" story already, so there wasn't any more of that plot to pattern a new story after. Also, Vel asked specifically for Watari, and he's the "Yami No Matsuei" character that I have the least experience with. I knew how he worked as comic relief, but as a main character I didn't know what to do with him. Right off the bat, my biggest mistake was splitting the narrative semi-equally between Hisoka and Watari. I spent most of Watari's parts trying to keep him from sounding too much like Tsuzuki. But by the end, I think he came out okay. Not great, but okay.
I started writing without a clear map to the plot, which is what ended up making the story run so much longer than I anticipated. I watched a bunch of 30s and 40s noir films, but never found another story that really fit what I wanted, so I went back to the "King of Swords" arc from "Yami no Matsuei." A bunch of the characters did fit noir tropes so I played that up - Camille as the doomed femme fatale ("Tsubaki" is Japanese for camellia, and "Camille" is the name of a Greta Garbo movie about a dying courtesan who falls for a man of ill repute), Tatsumi as the antagonistic badge, and of course Muraki as the evil deviant. The title came from a combination of the noir film "A Bullet for Joey" and a wonderful Ray Bradbury short story, "I Sing the Body Electric!" which is about three children and their robot grandmother (It's also a Walt Whitman poem and the title of a song from "Fame").
I wrote the story completely out of order, from both ends and the middle at the same time. It was a real mess for a long time, and had a lot of leftover and extraneous pieces when it was done. Despite this, the structure is pretty simple - a PI follows the clues from one colorful suspect to the next, getting into worse and worse trouble until he finally finds the last puzzle piece, and doubles back to confront the villain. The hardest part was trying to figure out that convoluted Hideki/Kakyoin background story once I'd decided on an ending - and I still don’t think it came out quite right. A lot of time was spent plugging holes - why Hisoka never went to check out Templar, how Camille's parents could be ignorant of what was going on, and how Izumi-the-replicant didn't recognize Eileen.
All the red herrings are other endings that I considered - that Camille was a replicant, that Camille was a replacement for Eileen, and the original "King of Swords" ending where Eileen was killed to save Camille. I wish I'd had more Muraki/Camille and Hisoka/Camille moments, maybe even playing up a bit more of a love triangle. Izumi Hideki was a later addition, after I decided to use the "Romeo and Juliet" angle as the first possible explanation for Eileen's disappearance that gets debunked. Izumi Hideki, of course, was the pseudonym Hisoka was using during the "King of Swords" arc.
Bringing Muraki back into the story turned out to be pretty simple, since the Muraki from the first story was such a one-note character that got little development, and "Yami no Matsuei" had two canon Murakis - Kazutaka and his grandfather. I was pretty sure everyone would know he was the big bad villain from the beginning, so I didn't try to hide it much. The real twist was that his ultimate target was Tsuzuki, not Camille or Eileen. I also wanted Camille to have more complicity in the plot, to have chosen to let Muraki manipulate her, and become a tragic heroine in her own right. I really liked writing her in this, and I think I fell a little in love with her along with Hisoka.
I really wish I'd done a better job with the minor characters - Izumi Hideki, Yuuta Hideki, and Oriya. Izumi should have echoed Hisoka to much greater degree, Yuuta Hideki was a pretty painful mobster cliché, and Oriya's appearances don't really further his character or relationship with Muraki as much as I'd have liked. Tatsumi would be the fourth, but I think he actually came out about right. I was planning to have him and Hisoka sit down, ready to have that heart-to-heart at the end in the last scene, but that would have left Watari out in the cold, and this was supposed to be his story. Since I've set up another sequel sticking Hisoka and Tatsumi together, it makes more sense to leave it for later.
No, I don't know who Watari killed or why, but he did deserve it. And as far as I know Tatsumi is not a replicant, though he hasn't exactly got a squeaky clean past either.
And I really have to stop beating up on Hisoka and setting things on fire. :P
Questions anyone?
"A Bullet For the Body Electric" is the story I owed veleda_k for the livelongnmarry auction, all the way back in July of 2008. He asked for a sequel to "The Third Replicant," where Watari and Hisoka fight crime together. Though I only posted BFBE recently, I sent the story to Vel in chapter installments from September of 2008 to November of 2009, with a five month interval between Parts II and III when I got completely stuck. Seems to be a recurring problem of mine with longer fics like this.
I think my biggest problem was that I never planned for a sequel to "Third Replicant." I had some plot bunnies for side-stories and prequels, but a full-blown sequel is something that never crossed my mind. I had killed both Muraki and Tsuzuki in that universe already, and I really had no idea how to go forward without them. And I had fully told the "Blade Runner" story already, so there wasn't any more of that plot to pattern a new story after. Also, Vel asked specifically for Watari, and he's the "Yami No Matsuei" character that I have the least experience with. I knew how he worked as comic relief, but as a main character I didn't know what to do with him. Right off the bat, my biggest mistake was splitting the narrative semi-equally between Hisoka and Watari. I spent most of Watari's parts trying to keep him from sounding too much like Tsuzuki. But by the end, I think he came out okay. Not great, but okay.
I started writing without a clear map to the plot, which is what ended up making the story run so much longer than I anticipated. I watched a bunch of 30s and 40s noir films, but never found another story that really fit what I wanted, so I went back to the "King of Swords" arc from "Yami no Matsuei." A bunch of the characters did fit noir tropes so I played that up - Camille as the doomed femme fatale ("Tsubaki" is Japanese for camellia, and "Camille" is the name of a Greta Garbo movie about a dying courtesan who falls for a man of ill repute), Tatsumi as the antagonistic badge, and of course Muraki as the evil deviant. The title came from a combination of the noir film "A Bullet for Joey" and a wonderful Ray Bradbury short story, "I Sing the Body Electric!" which is about three children and their robot grandmother (It's also a Walt Whitman poem and the title of a song from "Fame").
I wrote the story completely out of order, from both ends and the middle at the same time. It was a real mess for a long time, and had a lot of leftover and extraneous pieces when it was done. Despite this, the structure is pretty simple - a PI follows the clues from one colorful suspect to the next, getting into worse and worse trouble until he finally finds the last puzzle piece, and doubles back to confront the villain. The hardest part was trying to figure out that convoluted Hideki/Kakyoin background story once I'd decided on an ending - and I still don’t think it came out quite right. A lot of time was spent plugging holes - why Hisoka never went to check out Templar, how Camille's parents could be ignorant of what was going on, and how Izumi-the-replicant didn't recognize Eileen.
All the red herrings are other endings that I considered - that Camille was a replicant, that Camille was a replacement for Eileen, and the original "King of Swords" ending where Eileen was killed to save Camille. I wish I'd had more Muraki/Camille and Hisoka/Camille moments, maybe even playing up a bit more of a love triangle. Izumi Hideki was a later addition, after I decided to use the "Romeo and Juliet" angle as the first possible explanation for Eileen's disappearance that gets debunked. Izumi Hideki, of course, was the pseudonym Hisoka was using during the "King of Swords" arc.
Bringing Muraki back into the story turned out to be pretty simple, since the Muraki from the first story was such a one-note character that got little development, and "Yami no Matsuei" had two canon Murakis - Kazutaka and his grandfather. I was pretty sure everyone would know he was the big bad villain from the beginning, so I didn't try to hide it much. The real twist was that his ultimate target was Tsuzuki, not Camille or Eileen. I also wanted Camille to have more complicity in the plot, to have chosen to let Muraki manipulate her, and become a tragic heroine in her own right. I really liked writing her in this, and I think I fell a little in love with her along with Hisoka.
I really wish I'd done a better job with the minor characters - Izumi Hideki, Yuuta Hideki, and Oriya. Izumi should have echoed Hisoka to much greater degree, Yuuta Hideki was a pretty painful mobster cliché, and Oriya's appearances don't really further his character or relationship with Muraki as much as I'd have liked. Tatsumi would be the fourth, but I think he actually came out about right. I was planning to have him and Hisoka sit down, ready to have that heart-to-heart at the end in the last scene, but that would have left Watari out in the cold, and this was supposed to be his story. Since I've set up another sequel sticking Hisoka and Tatsumi together, it makes more sense to leave it for later.
No, I don't know who Watari killed or why, but he did deserve it. And as far as I know Tatsumi is not a replicant, though he hasn't exactly got a squeaky clean past either.
And I really have to stop beating up on Hisoka and setting things on fire. :P
Questions anyone?