At the Opera House

My overall thoughts and background on this story

Helllooooo! Thank you everyone for making it through this story! I really hoped you enjoyed it, and if you didn't, I can see why. (I'm a critical person, not always intentionally but I tend to veer towards that, I'm very critical of my own work.)

This book has gone through so many drafts. It's crazy. I wrote and rewrote the plot, the characters, the setting. My knowledge really expanded, that changed things a lot. 

Things that got cut

-The book used to take place over ten years which ended up being like, REALLY hard to write and I kept on getting stuck. Plus, it was just unnecessary.

-Christine originally got placed with six specific ballet girls that she taught. I found out more about how the Opera House worked, and with the new information, it didn't make sense. (The Opera House only took trained dancers, most often from conservatories.) Plus, they added a lot of complications and things... that just.... really didn't need to be there. 

Emily pretty much replaced all of them, and I might even scrap her in the next draft because honestly, her role was pretty irrelevant, and the places where she did add to the story can be filled by Meg.

-Christine got sick and almost died in one version, only to be saved by ERiK! (Ooooooh...) Scrapped.

I don't think these changes were bad thing. If I had gone with my original plot, I would have gotten stuck and given up. Instead, I worked at the plot until I was mostly happy with it and wrote it. A lot of things got added along the way, and I'm really happy with how it developed and I KNOW that it's the better plot now.

The writing needs work.

I'm not saying it's terrible, there are a lot of scenes I'm really happy with. (Especially chapter 11 sue me, that thing went through almost as many drafts as the first chapter.) But overall, I felt that it was a little laggy in most places and my dialogue needs work. Also, a ton of info that needed to be added in never got added in. (Like, a lot.) Somehow that's going to happen in the next draft.

But writing this book all the way through helped me identify that! It was an enormously helpful project, the second time I've written a book all the way though, and it's really helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses in writing. It was a really enlightening process.

I learned that I need to wrestle with a plot and come out with something complete before writing a book, otherwise I get stuck.  I've learned that I need to give each scene a point as I'm writing it, (What do I want to accomplish here? How will this scene add to the story?) otherwise I meander and get stuck. 

My grammar has improved SO MUCH! At one point I was writing almost a thousand words a day, or every other day, and almost instinctively I learned to be a better grammar user. My your and you're's came much more naturally, as did my its and it's's. My comma's improved along with my sentence structure.

I learned that I love writing about character's I'm passionate about. I learned that in fanfiction I really love to wander and add things into the story line to the point where the original work is barely recognizable and really I should just change the names of the characters and call it fiction but whatever.

I want to rewrite this book. I will rewrite this book, AFTER my next one. I know that I'll be a better writer then, thus making better improvements in this book.

If you want to stick around for that, follow me. FOR my next book, I'm debating on whether to do a continuation of this one, or a completely unrelated book also about The Phantom of the Opera.

Both books will be from Erik's perspective, and the sequel to this one will be a series of marriage life one shotish super fluffy and light thing, whereas the other will follow Erik going through Persia. No happy endings there. Nevertheless, I really want to write it, and I think it has a cool idea that I haven't seen before.

Let me know which one you want to see, OR whether I should both, which I'm leaning towards at the moment. (The unrelated book being my main focus, but doing the sequel on the side.)

And finally...... some facts that you probably need to know that never really made it into this book-

-The necklace has this stupid long backstory that I won't tell you here. Suffice to say, it contains magic metal, an gift of a locket made of said metal, Christine's grandparents and lots of death. Hooray!

-The Locket places a sort of magical shield that keeps you looking the same as when you left, (So it won't appear that you aged rapidly when you return to your time.) it also keeps you healthy. This makes Christine pretty much immortal, as she has been under the locket's influence since she was seven, so it will keep her healthy and young forever.

-Erik's parents had a similar necklace, but decided to stay in the past. Erik's mother was pregnant at the time of the transportation, thus the shield thing that Christine's dad mentioned got confused and preserved his looks, but in the wrong way. He will also likely live as long as Christine does. (That "till death do us part" is going to be very ironic.)

-In case you didn't catch it, people decided to start doing Opera at The Paris Opera House again in the future, (It's mainly used for ballets at the moment.) and Christine was invited to sing. Before the final performance, Christine's father gave her the necklace, set to activate around the end, and send her to the past. He was needed backstage and so he couldn't be with her.

-The performance was invaded by a terrorist that actually managed to set off a bomb that he had stored in the halls. Christine's father was killed in the blast, and Christine crawled around for a bit in the dust until the necklace transported her to the past.

-Madame Giry was like the nicest person ever and took in the weirdest lady she'd ever seen that appeared out of nowhere and needed a place to stay. Then again, she was also a stupidly good dancer and was good at teaching so....

-Christine's parents were accidentally transported to the past and couldn't figure out to make it back to the future until almost ten years later. There was an argument, and Christine's mother returned to the future with Christine.

-Christine used to be an incredibly famous singer. (Think Michael Jackson and Julie Andrews and Beethoven all at once.) She was known for her stupidly large signing range, her versatile voice, and her and her father's compositions. She sang Pop, Opera and Disneyish style music and pretty much any style of music really. (Except for country. PLEASE don't make her sing country, though she once sang "Jolene" on a talk show just for the heck of it.)

-The reason why Christine's father wasn't panicked when his daughter was "kidnapped" onstage by a masked man was because he was supposed to be from later in younger Christine's timeline. Originally, he went with Christine's mother and then went back in time again for old time's sake and found Christine. He knew about Erik because Christine and Erik had lived together into the twenty first century and they talked sometimes secretly.

-This was changed so that Christine's father just stayed behind, and decided see what the Opera House was preforming. There was a reason for this, there were too many plot holes. There are still too many plot holes and my head hurts but we're gonna leave it here until I get that rewrite done. (Which shall be posted here, eventually.)

Thanks for reading this monster author note. Everyone have a sweet and lovely day. :)