Home » Creative Works » Fan Series » [KELLY'S JOURNEY | RAMBLES | UPDATES] Episode 2 Rewrite Update!!!
[KELLY'S JOURNEY | RAMBLES | UPDATES] Episode 2 Rewrite Update!!!
Posted on 22 April, 2014 by trainerkelly in Fan Series, Kelly's Journey, Rambles, Uncategorized, Updates // 0 Comments
If you read this previous post of mine, you probably know I was struggling with rewriting Kelly's Journey episode 2. The biggest struggle was that the original version (for this particular version of Kelly's Journey) is actually pretty good. I didn't find it cringe worthy when I read it, which might have been due to it already being a second version of the episode (which I kind of want to explain a bit more in detail in a minute, since I think it seems confusing). The only thing I really felt could even be remotely improved was descriptions and certain character lines, but that's about it. Which is what I decided to do.
I think in that previous post, I did mention I was just going to edit episode 2, which is exactly what I started doing. I made a copy of the episode 2 (version 2) document and edited it from there, removing the episode titles and the author's notes. I then took the rewrite (episode 2, version 3) I was working on and copy & pasted the parts I wanted to keep into the copy of episode 2 (version 2) and reworked other parts from episode 2 (version 2) I felt were weak. I'm hoping people who read it again will find something refreshing about the update and that people who are reading it for the first time think it's interesting, perhaps a bit more than the original Pokémon episode (haha, yeah right).
I'm currently up to the part where Misty JUST entered. I was actually going to edit that, but my mind's kind of going a bit "blah" right now from working on it for about two hours or so, so I decided to just stop there. I feel like I could flesh out the descriptions a bit more, but my brain isn't functioning 100% right now. It looks like I'm closer to being done with that episode, which means I will be able to move onto episode 21 and episode 3's rewrite soon enough!
I'm actually really excited for both of those episodes. Episode 21 finishes up the S.S. Anne 3-parter and episode 3 is the episode that made me want to do the rewrite/edits in the first place! I cringed SO badly during that episode, I knew I wanted to rewrite it. Not necessarily to change the entire story, but to flesh it out more and make everything more clear. I hope everyone else who reads about Kelly's journey is excited too!
I'm still hoping to, somehow, get to episode 30 (if not past that) this year. Once I hit 30 episodes or the year is completed (whichever comes first), I plan on going back and editing every episode for grammar mistakes, missing words, misspelled words, etc. I'm currently not doing that since I 1.) want to get to later episodes faster and 2.) not reading something for a while makes one look at it with fresh eyes. It will be a lot easier to catch mistakes if I write an episode now and edit it in December. I know right away I want to fix all hyphens into em or en dashes (whichever is more appropriate), ever since I learned about them. I think for now though, I'm just going to put hyphens in as a placeholder for the editing process. Sure, it's more work for me, but I'm going to be too lazy to hit "alt" on my keyboard to get the em or en dash. Plus, I'm going to have to look up their grammar usage every two seconds until they sink in and I'm way too lazy to do that now, harharhar.
Now, going back to "episode 2 is already a rewrite of a rewrite" thing I was talking about in the opening paragraph. For anybody who even remotely cares about behind-the-scenes sort of things, including for Kelly's Journey, I have had TWO versions of episode 2 for this current version of Kelly's Journey.
The original version of this current version of Kelly's Journey (which, I believe, started in 2006, but I could be wrong) episode 2 was written without watching the episode. I can't really remember why, but I was trying to do the episode from memory. While this worked in my favour for the first episode of the series — it allowed me to focus on Kelly much easier and work both Kelly & Daisy into scenes well — it failed for the second episode. It became glaringly obvious that if I wanted Kelly's Journey to succeed in the way I envisioned it, I needed to sit down and watch the episode while I was writing it.
For some reason, I'm remembering a version of the episode where Kelly calls out a Dragonite (not her's — someone else's, but that's a bit of a long story), but I can't seem to find out where I wrote that in the first version. Maybe that was an even older version of Kelly's Journey? Maybe it was something I had originally wrote in, but then deleted? I have a lot of versions of the series, so it wouldn't surprise me if either one was the case.
Anyway, the biggest flaw of the first version of the episode was that I didn't write it while watching the episode, which resulted in a weak retelling of it. All the dialogue was terribly written and stale, lacking of personality. Everything was written to blunt and without feeling. Worse of all, it was SHORT. I know that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when you're retelling a 25 minute episode in word form, it should probably be between 10,000 to 20,000 words. The first version clearly was not. It honestly came off more like a brainstorming document than anything.
I suppose the writing would be fine if I was targeting Kelly's Journey towards the same group (6 to 12 year old kids) as the actual Pokémon TV series, but I'm not. I am targeting those who grew up with Pokémon. Part of the inspiration for how I write the series IS the fandom's criticisms on this imperfect show we love. Part of it is my own thoughts (some of it too is contradicting my own thoughts and hopes for the show, such as in Kelly's Journey, the characters age, but I do NOT want that to happen in the actual TV show — I will happily keep on watching a 10 year old boy on a never-ending journey to become a master trainer of monsters, 'k thnks). Part of it is the crazy things the fandom comes up with, like what if there WERE half people/half Pokémon? Some awesome, crazy ideas, right there. I feel for an older audience like this, the writing needs to be better. If a lot of my reactions can be "this was better than the original episode" (referring to the TV series, not the previously written version of the episode), I'm hitting my goals.
I actually really enjoy Kelly's Journey when I sit down and just spend time writing it. It's a fun series and I'm glad other people are enjoying it too. I hope to keep writing it for a long time. I hope the readers will keep with me, even if I take stupidly long to write it.
Kelly's Journey