The Otherwalls wants to LIVE!
Hi Collective Noun! What am I up to? The same thing I’m up to every day! Projecty projects! Jemprojects that I’d love some collective noun help with!
So! I’ve had this idea for a webcomic/story thing for a very long time, and I keep putting off. Some of you might know about it, The Otherwalls. At the moment
The Otherwalls is a world made up of abandoned stories. All stories that have been never told have ended up here. Characters become lost and have to find their own way in this new world.
I’ve written it as a bit of an epic, but I’m not sure whether that will work too well with the way I’m updating (not at all). I’ve got 12+ characters, all of whom have pretty involved story lines. I’ve got around 60,000 words (thanks, Nanowrimo!), but most of it I think I’ll end up abandoning, since it’s started drifting away from my original concept.
I want to do something a bit different with it than standard comic fare. I’ve been reading Spera, and I like the way it’s quite a different kind of storytelling with lots of different artists contributing. Eventually I’d like to get other artists and writers to contribute – especially folks from among you fine bunch!
Pretty much I want to work on an establishing chapter, that sets up the world and a few key characters, and then begin pulling the threads that people find interesting, or that I do. I think this works better in smaller, easily producible chunks. I talk about telling stories with one picture, so perhaps I should be looking to be much briefer in this than I’ve originally thought. I love the simplicity of the story in Spera, and how it’s the beauty and individuality of each artists interpretation of the characters and environment that really give it life. I’d like to apply similar practices to Otherwalls.
I also want to have most of the process quite open. I’d like to be getting feedback on it every step of the way. I’d not be revealing plot points until the published pages, but releasing thumbnail and development sketches while I’m working on it.
So! That’s a beginning of discussing my project. I think that if I start discussing it it’ll be more likely I’ll start working on it again, too!
Any thoughts/comments appreciated. I’ll try and clear it up some more when I’m thinking more straight-headed about it.
Hadyn 1:44 am on April 29, 2010 Permalink |
So my first attempt was eaten. I discovered this was because I had neglected to log in. And after hitting “reply” I couldn’t get to my text to save it.
So, my 2c:
Print or be damned. You’ve done the writing part extremely well and normally the advice is “just write!”, so I think we’ll take that as read.
(Is that a pun? I’m not sure. Though I feel I should point out that the original reply, the one that I assume is digesting in the belly of the WordPress comment-eater, was quite effusive of your effort. Instead we shall just assume that I think your work is awesome and continue.)
I read a few webcomics as I imagine you do. The ones I most love are ones like XKCD and Hark a Vagrant. They have enclosed stories (usually) and only show up once or twice a week at most. Other ones like Order of the Stick are less frequent but have a longer and continuing story line. And of course there are the daily yucks like Garfield Minus Garfield and Cyanide & Happiness (we can ignore these ones for your purposes).
I read all of them differently. Order of the stick I save up until I have a bit of time in a weekend and I’ll read four or five. Hark a Vagrant and XKCD I will read as soon as I see a new one come in. Partially because there is no reason to read a whole batch and partially because the self-enclosed story means I don’t mind missing out on one here and there.
At this point I should mention that by “print” I meant “publish” and by “publish” I mean RSS feeds. Full ones. There’s nothing worse than a webcomic that I can’t just view in my Google Reader.
Now the story. 60,000 words is a heck of an achievement, so congrats. I’m not sure how many pages that is, but assuming it’s in a “story” format (as opposed to discrete episodes) then try this old screen writing tip. Go to page 11 and rip it out. Did it seriously alter the story? (and you have to be fairly harsh on yourself here) If not, you didn’t need it.
Eleven is, of course, arbitrary, but at the moment you’re looking at a hefty tome and that might be stopping your progress in creating the art. Perhaps, if you have multiple plots, concentrate on one then, when your two thirds of the way through start weaving in a second one. (A recent TV show that did it very well was the first season of True Blood.)
By chunking it up, you also make it simpler for your reader. Because let’s face it, people on the internet = short attention sp… Hey! Kittens!
Hope this helps
Hadyn 2:58 am on April 29, 2010 Permalink |
Oh and the bit I forgot was that if you get it up and running soon (like in the next two weeks) I will include it in a post about webcomics for Public Address, which will send you hundreds of hits.
google.com/profiles/je… 3:09 am on April 29, 2010 Permalink |
Thanks Hadyn, that’s some good advice. And thanks even more! That’s some real incentive to get it moving!