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Advice for my fanfiction?

ClearDragon

Troubadour
So after reading/playing the Echo visual novel and being dissatisfied with the ending of the character Leo's route.
I decided to write my own. Thang is I'm not sure where to start it and just how to diverge the plot.
I was thinking of starting off with the scene immediately before the major event that causes the ending. Does that sound good? Then the divergence itself. At that moment in the story, the player has two choices, one leads to a bloody and tragic ending, the other gives a bittersweet ending where nobody dies, but a once great friendship is broken and Leo has depression for the rest of his life! I want to make an actual happy ending!
So anyone have ideas or advice?
 

Chasejxyz

Inkling
There's also going to be things that happened in canon that lead to the ending you didn't like. Example: Say you wanted to write a Star War where Darth Vader didn't die and he got to hang out with his kids and be reformed. You could start the story right at the fight with the Emperor and then make your happy ending, sure! There's nothing wrong with making something super self-indulgent and ignoring canon (I've done it plenty of times), but is that all you want to do? If you want to make a longer story to make the divergence make sense and fit within the logic and tone of the story, then you should go back a bit more. Darth Vader sure did kill a lot of kids, was he in his right mind when he did that? Did he feel bad about it the entire time? How did he feel fighting Luke or trying to capture Leia? Is he getting his suit set up so it won't get fried from force lightning because he's been planning to betray the Emperor for a really long time now? Was his offer to have Luke join him actually to join the dark side or to help him kill the Emperor and be good?

What exactly do you want to do with your fanfic? And how can your writing support that?
 

ClearDragon

Troubadour
There's also going to be things that happened in canon that lead to the ending you didn't like. Example: Say you wanted to write a Star War where Darth Vader didn't die and he got to hang out with his kids and be reformed. You could start the story right at the fight with the Emperor and then make your happy ending, sure! There's nothing wrong with making something super self-indulgent and ignoring canon (I've done it plenty of times), but is that all you want to do? If you want to make a longer story to make the divergence make sense and fit within the logic and tone of the story, then you should go back a bit more. Darth Vader sure did kill a lot of kids, was he in his right mind when he did that? Did he feel bad about it the entire time? How did he feel fighting Luke or trying to capture Leia? Is he getting his suit set up so it won't get fried from force lightning because he's been planning to betray the Emperor for a really long time now? Was his offer to have Luke join him actually to join the dark side or to help him kill the Emperor and be good?

What exactly do you want to do with your fanfic? And how can your writing support that?

Thanks for your reply. You have some good points there! So here I go!
Reading through the story, it looks to me like it's not too complex. First the friends in question didn't get a chance to talk and work out their problems. They started to, but got interrupted and after that they had to constantly keep moving! Second Leo really didn't do anything that bad! He didn't kill or hurt any of his friends, he lied to them and yelled at them. But considering the backstory about how he always stood up for them and protected them from bullies when they where kids, surly he could be forgiven for one bad night? Finally when the main character sees Leo get left behind, he immediately regrets getting aboard the train (note they jumped onto it and almost killed themselves) and wishes he had stayed behind instead. Also they had no way to contact him and going back would have been very out of the question as they where fleeing a demonic force that may have recognized them as the only ones to escape. The problem I have with the cannon ending is that all the characters where aware that the evil force seemed to be winding down. The riot was over, the people who attacked them where all beaten up and disarmed but Leo still had a weapon. It's even acknowledged in the epilogue that they didn't need to have gone on the train after all, they would have been safe in Leos house and had the time to talk about their problems with him!
My idea is to simply add the third option of staying and take the story from there.
 
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