The afterthoughts for “Yuen”, found at this link.

 

Afterthoughts
This used to be a flashback sequence from the main story of Yuen, but I now relegate it to a side-story because the story is so simple there’s no need to actually relate it in the main story. Also, the art has changed a far bit.

When I first finished this story, I didn’t like it all that much because the message is rather overt. I don’t particularly like it when the “point” of the story has to be told to the audiences via anything written, be it dialogue or narrative voice (as Nezha does near the end). I prefer my messages subtle; to prompt the readers to think about whatever themes I bring up in my stories – but unfortunately I’m beginning to wonder about the merits of such subtlety. Sure, no one gets preached at, but disguising a story with a message as typical genre fare may mean people won’t bother looking beneath the surface because they feel they won’t find anything. I have the feeling the other short story I’m doing now, Blood of Snow, would fall into that category.

And then, there are other points of subtlety that may not make it across to the reader. For example, on page 13, the story tells you Nezha was once a human. What the story doesn’t tell you, is that if Nezha was once mortal, then he would most certainly have had a human mother too. When Nezha considers Lu-wha’s request, he was actually remembering his own mortal mother – and his decision to help Lu-wha was strongly influenced by that. But because I didn’t spell it out in a story when lots of things are spelled out, I wonder if that point just flew over people’s heads.

All in all, I’ll probably keep the same tone of voice when I write the main story of Yuen. Yuen is a rather philosophical story and it will be difficult to help people understand its points if I be too subtle about it.