Life is But a Dream | Commentary (Patreon)

Last week, I had a dream page for Open Trade. Here is the secret. I had no plan on ever making it.

I know a dream sequence had been mentioned in the comments for a while. A desire to see what Steph is thinking more intimately. Chance for her to confront or experience some things that may not be available otherwise. I do honestly read all the comments and kind of assess with people say they want to see something.

Largely the criteria with comments are:

Is this something that fits in the story?

Is it something I should have done? Or a mistake I made?

Does this add to the story?

Is it something I want to do?

In this case, when Steph went to sleep, we had several comments assuming this was the direction I was going in. I saw the comments and I reviewed the pages that were coming up. I did feel that in upcoming pages that I wasn't going to hit how Steph is doing coming back to the US with her cultural knowledge being out of sync with her environment. At least I wasn't hitting it as hard as I wanted to do.

It made a lot of sense to do the dream sequence to hit expectations and hit character/plot markers that I really wanted to address.

As I said in an earlier commentary, things are pretty much always in-flux until they go live on the website. I appreciate people's feedback and want to give you all a fun and interesting story.

Page 297

Adding to the commentary after finishing 297 and the story continues to evolve. I'll stop talking about how things change after this, at least until the end of the arc. But adding the dream changes this page as well.

The intent of the page is still the same. Sending Steph home to talk with her mom. Before it was a bit more chaotic. Lexi and Steph kind of teasing Victory about the endowments she gained since Steph saw her in person. But largely 297 is there to set up what is next in the story, and remind people of what is going on. Also it was two pages that easily got cut down to one. I do try to cut down anytime pacing feels a bit drawn out. (I've done this in every story).

Steph's motivation shifted a bit from the previous draft. I originally wrote that she was needing to get her trades back. But it's more in line and what Steph's real goal is in this arc : control of her own life.