- Read A Day of Faces for free here.
- Read this specific chapter here.
- Read all the writing notes here.
There’s a lot going on here. This is the tension-building chapter prior to the action finale, and there’s a fair amount of world building thrown in for good measure. Exploring a future-Hong Kong has been great fun.
However, what I want to talk about is a large mistake I made when first publishing this chapter.
The first version published to Wattpad, did not include the section at the start about Marv’s new arm. Now, he was always supposed to get a new arm – hence Simons mentioning it as a possibility back in the ‘Contagion’ chapter. However, I forgot to explicitly state it here, as intended.
Therefore when the line arrives halfway through about Marv clapping, it didn’t make much sense. As Wattpad reader JudahDragon courteously pointed out to me with the comment:
How can he clap… I thought he got his arm chopped off… Just a thought…
On the plus side, I discovered I had another reader who was paying attention!
Truth be told, I’ve had numerous occasions when I’ve slipped up with Marv’s injury and disability, but have always corrected it prior to publishing. This time round it was a weird one, because it wasn’t exactly a plot hole – his new arm was part of the plan – but it was definitely an omission of clarity.
Anyway, the solution was to add the second paragraph, as well as a wry nod later on to the initial mess-up when Marv claps.
Such is the life of serialised pantsing. I’m really surprised I haven’t fallen down much bigger plot holes.
Soundtrack: Blade Runner. Because they’re in future Hong Kong.
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