Christmas Carol: A Short Story - Part IX

Entry posted by DZ-Jay September 24, 2018

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Progress!

This past week-end my Christmas Carol short story reached a milestone: Carol met the Ghost of Christmas Presents. I mean really met him, as in she introduced herself to him. She did:

Carol hesitated a little, then looked straight into the Ghost’s big black eyes, and with a friendly smile said in a calm and soothing tone, “Hi, there. I’m Carol.” The Ghost face twisted in panic as he frantically looked all around him, then back at the elf—and with a loud swooshing sound bolted so fast that Carol could barely see where he went.

It's Carol's turn to scare the Ghost.

Why is this a milestone? Well, apart from being the point in the story in which we finally get a glimpse at the titular character, the narrative has now completed the full arc of the Ghost's persona as it relates to Carol's point of view: He is a mysterious, ostensibly unhappy and malicious creature of legend who terrorizes Carol; then her fright turns to grave annoyance and a bit of anger as he just proves himself a nuisance, pestering her and stealing her presents; and finally, she learns that he is not a threat at all, not even an unhappy soul, just a mischievous little guy who loves presents and enjoys candy, but has no friends to play with.

Carol's feelings towards the Ghost of Christmas Presents go from terror, to annoyance, to sympathy sprinkled with a bit of pity.

For those who played the game, this arc is reflected in the cut-scenes as you advance throughout the 8 stages, culminating in their mutual friendship when Carol saves the Ghost at the end of the last stage. Or at least, that was my intention. It's hard to convey character dispositions and emotions in 8-bit sprites -- especially when you are also programming their movements and gestures by hand in Assembly Language (or instructing them using a home-grown scripting engine with many limitations). That said, and considering the limitations, I don't think I did a bad job at all.

Anyway, it's a milestone in the story. I'd like to say it'll all be easy from here on, but I know that would just be a lie. I have no idea what's going to happen now. Well, that's also not entirely true. I do have some idea: I know what the next narrative beats are supposed to be and how it ends. I just have no idea how they will end up on the page. The end could be five pages away from this point, as likely as it could be 5 more 10-page chapters. I don't know.

In any case, it does not matter: Carol's story will be as long as it needs to be. We're now at 30 pages in (after the last Great Font Re-Sizing Shuffle), so that's way more than the originally presumed 10 pages. Yet, I don't think it's too long -- not at all. I also do not think it's too short. It seems to me that it has the right number of words to describe Carol's adventure so far, and that's what counts.

That's it for now. I need to go back to the story and finish up this chapter. See ya'!

-dZ.