One of the positives of rewriting was that I could take the conception of Jack as a hurting young man and work it in subtly a lot sooner. I only really came up with it halfway through the book, the first time, so I get to play with it more the second time around. And, yeah, streamlining out the other characters makes the heroes pop a bit more.
I think the thing that strikes people about Jack is that he's so happy, too. He genuinely seems unaware of just how hurt he is. There's a great phrase from a White Collar fanfic I have bookmarked somewhere, "barely aware of his own loneliness", that I think is the perfect description for Jack. He is genuinely convinced his life is great and the world is full of amazing things, and he's barely aware of how much grief he's stuffing down under that thin layer of joy.
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Date: 2012-04-29 03:17 pm (UTC)One of the positives of rewriting was that I could take the conception of Jack as a hurting young man and work it in subtly a lot sooner. I only really came up with it halfway through the book, the first time, so I get to play with it more the second time around. And, yeah, streamlining out the other characters makes the heroes pop a bit more.
I think the thing that strikes people about Jack is that he's so happy, too. He genuinely seems unaware of just how hurt he is. There's a great phrase from a White Collar fanfic I have bookmarked somewhere, "barely aware of his own loneliness", that I think is the perfect description for Jack. He is genuinely convinced his life is great and the world is full of amazing things, and he's barely aware of how much grief he's stuffing down under that thin layer of joy.