#this is the second or third draft of the outline (I have. Heavily Edited this document several times hence the 2nd or 3rd)

[loregoddess]

TWO YEARS

TWO YEARS, ALMOST THREE, AND ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SIX PAGES AND A LITTLE OVER 90k WORDS

and I've finally, finally finished the detailed outline for my fancomic

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

When you are writing a new chapter for a fic, how do you decide what to put in, and what to leave out?

I see a lot of advice about killing your darlings - whittling the scene down until it contains only what's necessary to advance the plot.

But I also see advice that says it's okay to include more than this, because you need to advance the characters as well, by giving them quiet moments in between all of the plot advancing parts.

I really struggle to find the balance. I love writing the quiet moments, and fleshing the characters out, but sometimes these moments run away on me, and I end up with a bloated mess that barely advances the plot at all.

Do you have a process or a rule-of-thumb you follow, to help you decide what does or doesn't make the cut?

How easy do you find it to remove stuff later, when you realize the story is better without it? Do you cry and have wine while you bury your dead, or are you a ruthless assassin? :)

Oh man, great question.

I’m going to answer for what for my original fiction. I don’t heavily edit my fanfics in any meaningful capacity, as any of my readers can attest, since that is my hobby and editing is work. Also, since it is my hobby, I am pretty self indulgent with what I include. I meander and wander all over the place with my plots and don’t keep them as tight as they probably need to be.

Exhibit A, the visual representation of the plot of Thus, Always 2.0 (one line being present day and the second being the past):

But for my original fiction, there’s a very long, drawn out process of editing.

For House of No Return, the current book (known as The Venetians in my tags), I wrote out the first draft. In that draft I put all the self indulgent stuff I wanted. Character studies, side plots, random asides, plot cul-de-sacs, and so on.

Then, when done, I rewrote the entire thing. Top to bottom second draft. This is because, by the time I was done with draft one, I knew my characters a lot better than when I started. I knew, more clearly, the story I wanted to tell. I had a better vision of how the plot should work.

Once the second (or third) draft is done, I let it sit. Ideally, you should let it sit for a few months. I don’t have patience and am riddled with a deep need to always be writing, so I can usually only make it a few weeks.

When I take it back out, I print out the manuscript and read it in one or two sittings. This is because I need to remember what the fuck I was doing. As I read, I make margin notes of where I bump or where things drag a bit. My second read through is much more methodical. I sit with a note book and jot out a detailed outline as I read. When I eventually type them up they usually look something like this:

As I read through the outline, that’s where I can see if there are baggy parts that need trimming. When I note them, I decide whether to completely remove, or shorten, or shift to another part of the story, or if I can convey any central information in other areas.

Sometimes colour coding helps – highlighting all the parts that are faster paced in red, the slower bits in green, the pure character study bits in blue (or what have you). The visual representation helps me, at least, see if there’s a part that’s bunched up with only one colour and may need to be broken out a bit.

I make edits to my outline in blue, usually, of what needs to be added or changed when I go to do the next big rewrite.

--

Throughout this whole outline review process, I’m also thinking through what sort of plot pattern/design best serves the story. There are a lot out there and each has a purpose and can strengthen aspects of the story that’s being told.

Good reference: Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison.  

For House of No Return, it’s a pretty classic mountain form: start | rising action | point no return | climax | resolution.

Something a bit like this with the little plateaus representing times when the plot slows for a bit to allow the reader a break and an opportunity to sit with a character or an emotion or some new information.

These breaks can also ratchet up tension and help keep people on the edge of their seat. The horror genre is a great example of this. You know that when we’re having a quiet character moment, or a humourous moment, we’re about to get something horrific on the other side of it and we’re in trepidation until it happens. But the book can’t be all horrific moments or else the audience gets bored.

(Unless the author is Doing Something/There’s a Purpose Being Served in having 85,000-100,000 words of only horrific moments. Which can abosolutely be the case! Again, it’s about what you’re trying to do, how to best tell the story, and fundamentally what that story needs to be.)

Grief and trauma writing also benefit from the breaks. I think about this in fics where it’s all bleak torture and there’s no resting or lighter moments—it’s hard on the audience. Which, again, can be the author’s intent! And that’s fine! But usually if you want to keep people going with you on the journey you need to give them breaks. That is just reality.

So, when writing the classic model I would say write, write, write. Get every thing onto the page. Every little indulgement moment, every little character study etc.

Then think about how you want the story to be paced. Do you want it a heart pounding fast paced piece? Then yeah, trim it down to mostly bare bones with just enough breaks for character study/get the audience invested in who they’re reading about and to give them a bit of a breather. But it should be super tight, over all.

Steep, steep, steep – little moments here and there for a break – then shattering fall and people should be reading going “what the fuuuuck is going to happen next??” (Grady Hendrix is a master of this.)

 Some traditional mountains, though, are slower.

There's a long, langurous start. We’re all along for a gentle ride then it begins to build bit by bit until we realize we’re riding down the Tuscan hillside in a cart with no breaks.

This is the sort of story where you can really relish your character studies and soft moments between people and little side bits. But you do need to keep enough movement to keep the audience interested. This is one that is harder to pull off because the balance can be tricky.

I tend to write like this. Hilary Mantel has books that hit this kind of approach. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic is a good example of a slow burn start but a good ride at the end. Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions is another example.

-

All that said, not all stories need to follow the traditional approach! Some are meant to be tangled meditations. A lot of weaving, a lot of introspection, the story is more about the journey and not the destination. Sometimes the plots look a little like this:

Peak Literary Experimental Fiction shit right here. This can be a lot of character study, a lot of philosophical musings, a lot tangents or backtracking or jumping around a little. Justin Torres’ Blackouts is a great example of a meandering story that is as much about the characters and their conversations as it is about queerness and history.

Other stories are meant to be rolling hills or waves: up and down, up and down.

Jane Austin has a bit of a wave quality to some of her stories, not all, but some. Long, drawn out family epics that span generations tend to have this quality to them. Books like Pillars of the Earth tend to be more wavey than mountain climax.

-----

Anyway. I've done a diversion myself. Back to editing.

When I’m doing my trimming, I don’t have an exact process for determining what makes the cut or what stays. I go with my gut on a lot of it. Sometimes, there are scenes that are hitting the same note but coming at it in different ways.

Cristof’s anxiety over his friend’s gambling addiction, and his guilt around feeling as if he is enabling it, is something I overwrote in the first few drafts because I was trying to understand the psychology of their friendship and Cristof’s own inner demons. Therefore, as I trimmed, I picked three key things that the audience needed to know about Cristof and Jacopo and made sure those were captured. I cut and trimmed accordingly.

However, I do have some babies that get reused in different places once I realize the original scene wasn’t working.

This stupid joke was originally in a completely different scene and was said by different characters but that scene wasn’t working and so I had to cut it. But I was very enamoured with this little interaction, so I found a way to incorporate it.

-

It’s also important to remember that some character studies/the resting pauses can be brief. By all means write out the full seven page version but I bet it’s possible to trim it down to a really powerful short beat that can pack a bit of a punch. Writing out the full seven pages is sometimes necessary to get at the heart of what you’re trying to say. Then cut it back.

I had a full multi-page version of this paragraph:

But it’s a rest-beat in the middle of the apothecary/barbershop scene that is moving the plot along, and therefore this memory/character beat needed to be tight. Still, we get a bit of a glimpse at Cristof and Nicolo through it, and while it might not seem important on the surface, we do need to care about these two idiots and the fact that they’re dumb about each other and in love.  

-

Quiet moments can also be interspersed within action. You can weave them through, so you have:

Active Scene/Plot Moving

Restful introspection or memory

Back to the Active Scene.

If done right it can give a bit of a melodious, wave-like quality to what you’re writing. It’s not for every story, nor every scene, and shouldn’t be overused (I may be guilty of that), but it allows you to still get in those meaningful character moments without stopping the plot too much.

As for the ease with which I kill darlings? Depends on the darling. Some are easier than others. Some I like, but if I can incorporate the important bits in another fashion then I’m fine with it. The more I write, the more I edit, the more ruthless I become.

--

A lot of this is, fundamentally, all about practice and doing it a lot. And also all writing rules aren’t rules so much as broad guidelines and each story has its own needs and requirements to make it work.

Apologies for the long reply. I'm not sure it's what you're after but I hope it helps. There is, unfortunately, no "quick trick" that I have to do it. It's really just a very involved process.

[griseldabanks]

10, 13, and 23 for the fic writer ask, please?

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

My single solitary Dororo fic, Back from the Brink, has the second-highest number of kudos of all my works??? Second only to Make Me Whole, which is my most successful fic on AO3???? I didn't think Dororo was that popular of an anime, and it's just a little oneshot I dashed off for a friend for Christmas one year. There's no AU in it, no pairings, just a little moment that could have been in one of the episodes but doesn't particularly change anything about canon...and yet somehow it's got 119 kudos @_@ And it has the third-most bookmarks of all my works, too!

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

I am an incurable discovery writer who's practically allergic to outlines - how my beta got me to make not one but two outlines for my main WIP, even I don't know ^^' But I do usually need to have an idea of how to begin and how to end before I start writing. I'll jot down ideas of dialogue and major plot points as I go just so I don't forget anything vital, but most of the time I don't really write super complicated stories (current WIP is a huge exception), so I can get away with it. I will be writing the next scene I need to write in my head as I fall asleep for like two months ahead of time, though XD

23. How do you choose where to end a chapter (if you have multi-chapter works)?

Well, hey, this is super relevant, because I was just working on this for my WIP tonight! My friends probably all think I'm super weird for this, but my usual method for a chapterfic (unless it's a collection of oneshots, which admittedly is the majority of my multi-chapter fics) is that I just write the entire thing, putting in scene breaks but not chapter breaks. (I always write the whole thing before I start posting, btw.) Then, once I have the whole story in front of me, I go through and break it up into chapters, putting in the right number of scenes to get more or less the page number I want for each chapter.

Most of my methods for writing chapterfics are heavily informed by the first fic I ever wrote, which was a novelization of Final Fantasy X. Not knowing what I was doing, I posted it as I wrote, which meant I had to decide where to craft chapter boundaries as I went. That whole experience was rather stressful, since I also didn't make any plans or outlines ahead of time, writing everything by the seat of my pants, and in the end I looked back and realized I wanted to redo a lot of parts where I'd been blundering through, not sure what I was doing. To a lot of people, that method seems to work really well, but it's just really stressful to me, so I stopped doing that as soon as my first fic was done. Now I write everything ahead of time, make sure everything is edited at least far enough ahead of my posting schedule to leave me a comfortable buffer, and I don't worry about where chapters go until the editing stage. I usually have a pretty good idea of where chapter breaks will go as I write the first draft, but I like to be able to see each chapter in relation to the one that comes after as well as the one that comes before, to craft the best reading experience.

Fanfic Writer Asks

[darthnell]

11, 19, 28, 30, 42

Hi anon ! Ty for the ask ! :D

11. Link your three favorite fics right now.

Oh god three of mine or three in general..??? Um. A..? I guess I’ll do both !!

Three of mine: True Vengeance, THE REPARATION CLAUSE, The Bridges We Burn

Three of others: The Illusion of Life, A Great Leap in the Dark, Mors Vincit Omnia

19. What is the most-used tag on your ao3?

Oh I bet for sure it’s gonna be “graphic depictions of violence” LMAO. Aside from like. The thg fandom tags. Also “original characters” and “alternate universe”. The “canon-typical violence” tag is also my best friend and i love when I surpass that one. Canon atypical violence. I think ive used that one before but only once so it doesn’t count here, but it is funny. OH- the “careers have issues” tag. Also my best friend<3 really fucking excellent tag

28. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

Pshhhhh uhhhh…. I’m actually just coming off of an event where i wrote like 35k in the span of 5 weeks which is. Not typical ! This past week-ish I have written exactly Zero words (: …at like. Normal times, I probably can do a solid 1k or in that ballpark. I have been known to bang out like 3k in a day if I’m rly in the zone (i was Unwell last july LMFAO) but also I rly don’t typically write every day. Would like to! Need to build a new schedule though. Hard for me to write on the days when I work but I only work part time atm. I am also. Kind of a slow writer usually. I’ve only written as much as I have bc I write frequently ! ((Or I try to))

30. Do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished?

Good god I think I’d perish if I shared rough drafts. Like, on ao3… is that a thing..? So like. My shit isn’t perfect. There’s definitely typos I’ve missed and all that jazz, but I usually heavily edit my chapters before posting. The event I did recently was also like my first time having a beta which was neat but. This is rly silly, bear with me - so I had two separate docs for that, one I wrote the fic in and another that I shared w the betas, because the idea of someone having access to all my rough outlines and watching me on the doc as I write makes me Viscerally uncomfortable, I can’t rly explain it better than that. Anyways, the funny part is, said beta would point out a grammar mistake or typo, and I’d go “nice” and fix it, but forget to fix it on the other doc. So when I. When I posted the fic from the original doc… you can see where this is going maybe. Actual clown idiot moment LMFAO. Tl;dr - I attempt to polish. Doesn’t always turn out shiny jdjddjdk

42. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

Ooh ! Last one I read was In The Clear by District11-Olive on FFN. So this one is technically thg but very au; it’s set in modern day Canada where a show called The Cut forced teenaged criminals to fight to the death in order to regain their freedom or get a “second chance”. It’s Really well written and also an excellent commentary on what it means to be a criminal and prison systems in general. This one’s actually the third and final installment of the series, wooh! It’s not complete yet; the story just reached the start of the death match part and its so 👁️👄👁️ It’s also a SYOC fic (Submit Your Own Character). Not open for submissions now, but u might see some of my characters if you check it out c:

Gotta also rec The Furthest Star by geologyisms on FFN since I’m in the middle of (re) reading it.. again 🥺 This is the fic I received from the exchange I took part in recently ! So the main pov char Solan Gardener (D9 tribute in the male slot but uses they/them) was created by me but the story was written by erik/geologyisms ! Ve did such a lovely job with my kiddo u should definitely check it out!! 10/10 new comfort fic fr ;—;

Ty again anon for the question, I had fun !!! <3

[idrellegames]

Hi! I'm so curious about your writing process! I was wondering, do you have like, drafts of random scenes that will come up later, or do you keep everything entirely in your mind until its time to put it in the game? I personally always write drafts for the scenes i like even before its time for them in the plot but then i get so distracted by these 😅 Anyway, you are incredible and I hope you're having a nice day!

Hiya! 💗

My writing process for Wayfarer is pretty different from how I usually write. I typically prefer writing in chronological order, but on small(er?), contained projects I sometimes jump around depending on what I want to write on a given day. I have a two-act play where I wrote the first act and then the third act and left the second act for last because it was the hardest. 😅

But because Wayfarer is as much a game as it is a web novel, the scope makes it impossible for me to skip around. The number of variations and the way they compound to create unique results and outcomes makes it necessary for me to write in chronological order. I can't start working on scenes from later chapters because I'm not sure where exactly the emotional throughline of the characters is going to land before I've written the material that precedes a specific scene, and I'm also not exactly sure which variables I need to track because I haven't created them yet.

For a project as large as this one, I rely heavily on a rigorous outlining process. I have a master beat chart that gives the rough overview of the major events in each chapter and the most important plot points of each act. I don't go into the nitty-gritty details here, the master chart is specifically for the overall plot of the game.

I have smaller beat charts that go into greater detail for each Act so I can have a clear sense of the pacing (plans for romance/friendship scenes and main character side quests go here). And then when I start working on a chapter, I create a full chapter outline and smaller separate, detailed outlines for each major section and the branches within that section. These are usually done in a way so as I'm writing each branch, I can quickly check off all the things I need to account for as I complete them.

When I'm actually writing new material for the game, I work in sections leading up to a bottleneck (a bottleneck is when all relevant paths/choices lead back to the same scene).

So, for example, right now I'm working on a large endgame sequence in Route B where Aeran and the MC have to return to the Count (returning to the Count is a bottleneck, it's a plot event that will always happen). This sequence is divided into three sections, depending on the player's previous choices. Each of those three sections are further subdivided into branches that split again depending on skill checks before they bottleneck back onto the same path.

The game's mechanics often mean I'm dealing with 4 outcomes per choice. Even though the player only sees 2 choices (like a Strength choice and an Agility choice), the passage actually leads to 4 possible outcomes (i.e. 1 for passing Strength, 1 for failing Strength, 1 for passing Agility and 1 for failing Agility) or more if there are alternative, non-skill based choices.

It becomes a lot to keep track of, so I colour-code everything in my Word document. I also make a list at the start of each major section or branch that covers all of the possible results so I don't miss anything. It basically turns into a game of "Did I do all the orange choices? OK, yes, we can move on now." 😂

Once I've finished all the material for a branch, I'll put an X next to it so I know I've written it and move on to the next branch. I also include notes about any approval changes or variables I need to flag here so I don't forget them when I start coding. I don't like coding directly in Word, it just makes things more difficult to read and keep track of when I start putting new game content into Twine.

I keep an Excel file that tracks all the variables (their names and whether they're a boolean, a string, an array or an integer), what choice they track, what sequence/area they first appeared in, and whether or not they will continue to be used after the end of the chapter. I unset variables when I'm done with them to help keep the game's memory size down (Wayfarer is going to be huge, so any excess stuff in the background needs to be trimmed).

When I'm writing a scene, I try my best to stay in that scene and not worry about anything outside of it. Otherwise, I would get easily overwhelmed by the amount of content I have to create to stay true to the game's vision.

When I have really specific ideas for a scene that occurs much later in the game, I usually jot them down alongside some rough dialogue for later reference (I have a few Mel, Ren and Calla romance scenes that currently exist in this form). I also keep a journal or a stack of paper next to me while I'm writing so I can write down any ideas that may spring up for later incorporation. Writing them down right away and moving on helps me keep my focus where it needs to be.

I also keep a separate sheet for any edits/changes to code/lore changes for existing material I may think of as I write. When I work on a patch for the game, I always tackle the things on that list first before I move on to bug reports.

And that's about it. 😅

[biromantic-nerd]

tag game!

tagged by @romanticism-is-maudlinism thanks! 💙

Rules: tell us the titles of all the WIPs you are currently working on right now and a little about them. Then tag five other writers.

1. You Don't Dare (You Say Love Is A Hell You Cannot Bear)

Merlin BBC. This is my Febuwhump fic. I'm basically done with it, so it's not super a wip, but I'm still going through and editing and might write more for it. Chapter 1 will be posted on uhh this Sunday, I believe.

It's Arthur pov. Set in early season 1. Sleeping Beauty themed events, minus any romance and more focused on Arthur's insecurity.

2. box

another Merlin BBC febuwhump fic, however I don't think I'll be finishing it in time. Merlin pov.

Basically Merlin hits his head and gets a teensy weensy bit held hostage.

3. somehow a SVSSS amnesia fic??

SVSSS. Okay I started writing it as a personal joke! But you know what, I might end up going for it.

So it's a canon divergence - a what if Shen Yuan really did have amnesia from the start type of plot when he wakes up. It's third person narrator, however it's heavily focused of the disciples (Ming Fan especially) losing their minds over this

4. Damian training?

DC. Damian pov. Set before he arrives at Gotham. (Maybe will add a chapter for after too??) A slight compare and contrast of what Damian's learned to be true and what is true, but mostly just a small outtake of a possible training scene.

5. The fabrication of the story is where divergent truths emerge

The Untamed. So this one is probably never going to see the light of day bc it's a massive project and I'm terrible at keeping track of timelines! especially in alternate canons where changing the timeline can have a huge ripple effect.

It's basically a canon divergence (set in the short span of post Core Transfer but pre Yiling Laozu) where Jiang Cheng politically, platonically marries Wei Wuxian to save him. No, really.

Political shenanigans ensue. Jiang Cheng, Wei Ying, and Jiang Yanli protect each other through it.

Somehow I think Lan Zhan suffers the most in this; but somehow incredulously Jin Zixuan is a close second.

(Yes this is Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji endgame.)

No clue who the main pov (bc all I have is the title and a very bad outline) but I suspect it'd be Jiang Cheng with the occasional WWX scene and one Jin Zixuan scene.

But I really do love the title for this actually. I think it sums up the future "misunderstandings" tag very well.

6. Clark Kent pov of Brucie Wayne and his new ward Dick Grayson

DC. So this one is mostly a practice run to see if I liked writing Clark's pov. So far, I'm not impressed with my characterization of him; which makes me delay working on it bc it doesn't vibe right yet to me.

Characterization is something I try hard to get how I want. It's usually not canon characterization, exactly, but I like to try and make characters feel like a real version of themself. So far, this Clark is very... imitation feeling.

Anyways, it's basically just a bunch of reporters at a press conference about Dick and Clark idly musing over it as he does his job.

7. chronic pain + chronic illness Eddie Brock

Venom. This one has been a long time coming. I had originally wanted to do this idea for Big Spoon, You Have So Much To Do but in order to make that one manageable to write, I didn't touch upon the idea of chronic pain+illness Eddie and focused more on figuring out boundaries involved when sharing a body.

So the original concept was far more serious in tone than the one scene I've now got drafted out so far. But it's basically at the core the same premise. Just... funnier and more light-hearted. We'll see how it goes! Who knows, maybe as I write it, it'll get heavier again. Either way is fine with me.

8. They'll speak of me (oh in whispered tones) and say my name like it shakes their bones

Merlin BBC again. Been shaking out the old cobwebs lately of fic ideas I used to have. Morgana pov. It's more of a character study warm up, like the Clark Kent wip. I have written Morgana before, but I've fallen out of practice in her vocal tics and characterization, and I wanted to spend a fic trying to to recapture that feeling of writing her again.

Plus, I really, really wanted to write a fic with these lyrics as a title. And Morgana suits them well.

Feel like I'm forgetting a bunch since I always just have a wide ongoing shuffle of wips I bounce around from.

tags: @daringyounggrayson and anyone who wants to. (yes I know this isn't five but)

[aritany]

how do you finish projects to completion so quickly? do you edit as you write? even when i am invested in a project heavily it still takes me several drafts to get it to how i want it to be

hmm, good question. the easiest answer is that i write a LOT. i log about 50-70k a month on average. every first draft is cleaner than the last one was, which helps, and i don’t hold myself to the same standard for drafts that i know i’m going to revisit. (i.e. the books that are going to be traditionally published)

for sound carries and the gloaming girls, which are both being posted online, i spent a LOT of time outlining, and this time i have beta readers who read to catch the little grammar/spelling errors before i post. i don’t want to be agonizing over second and third drafts with these sorts of projects, so i talk through structural stuff with a few trusted friends to get more brains on the book, which makes the end result a lot tighter and more cohesive.

with my hopefully traditionally published books, i take my time. first drafts come fast, because i’m a bit of an obsessive personality, and then subsequent drafts are quite a bit more methodical and i like to take my time with those. (i wish you wouldn’t draft 1 took 2 months, draft 2 will take at least 3, likely)

the simplest answer is that the more times you do something, the easier it gets. and while no first draft of mine is ever perfect, sometimes ‘good enough’ is... good enough.

[klcthebookworm]

2020 My Year In Fic

2020 Fiction Word Count:

86691 / 126531 words. 69% done!

Insights To Not Forget:

So I had a beautiful plan that I was going to reset and hit the ground running for 2021. See Year Zero is Reset Year.

Covid-19 was officially found in my state March 9, 2020, and life found unforeseen territory.

March 24th, I had to adjust to working at home. June 1st, back to working in the office and commuting daily. November 30th, we're back on a modified work from home/office plan (day at home, next day commuting in). I haven't gotten sick and I haven't passed on covid-19 to anyone else. For 2020, that is the biggest win anyone can have. 1.83 million people (to date) didn't get that win.

Would I have forgotten about my buckle down and reset plans without a global pandemic distracting me? Quite likely, I tend to forget all my plans every year. In fact, the writing business plan that I made to cover the year (I use it below for all the goals of the year), the printed version is on my filing cabinet and covered with so many other notes, I can't read the plan. (Removed the notes). This is for 2019. I never printed out 2020's?

And you can see by the total words written, I came under what I wanted to write. Let's see what I accomplished this year.

Stories I Posted:

Star Wars: Sororal Lineality: Aftermath: Word count = 3309. The Fic Whining Circle was getting stories ready for May the Fourth. I decided that this story would be perfectly short to get it up and started writing on May 2nd. I didn't get it finished for May the Fourth, but put it up on Revenge of the Fifth. And then it turned out to be the only story I posted in 2020.

Stories I Finished:

Star Wars: Unexpected Consequences: Word count = 126,607 (31,008 written previously + 49,572 written in 2019 + 46,027). The first draft was finished on July 28th, and it took the rest of the year to get my first edits polished to a second draft for my beta to go over. Now I need to go prod her so I can start posting in 2021.

Star Wars: Sororal Lineality: MJ-0002: Word count = 5664 (387 written in 2019 + 5277). I finished this short story as planned after I finished Unexpected Consequences and before I picked up the next novel. I hope to post it after Unexpected Consequences, but I may need to use it for a May the Fourth story.

Stories I Didn't Finish:

Strix: Forget the Sun: Word count = 31,146 (26,588 written previously + 4279 written in 2019 + 279 written in January) I took a very tiny stab at this novel in January and promptly lost it to work on other things.

Star Wars: Looking For Home Future Timeline: Word count = 7598. So at the end of February, I got stuck on giving the Sequel Trilogy Trio better movie(s) and started writing detailed notes on a future story that will probably never been written. I had already put Rey and Poe Dameron in the sketchy future of the Looking For Home so I needed to figure out how to add Finn. I got stuck with the Third Act, and probably need to declare it has to be a trilogy to get the resolutions I want. Maybe I need a Death Star.

Star Wars: Everybody Lives But Maul: Another plot bunny developed during the year. Mara Jade was given to Darth Vader to annoy him so he would eventually murder her, but he bonds with her instead. So Palpatine orchestrates that Lady Vader's path crosses Maul's on Tatooine. Only Luke Skywalker and Biggs Darklighter ruin the planned outcomes, and Mara remains on Tatooine for her safety. I really don't know if it will be a novel or something else yet.

Star Wars: Everybody Lives But Maul: Prologue: Word count = 1385. So far all I have written in this AU is the scene of the adoption of Lady Vader. I don't know where this scene will end up in the finished work.

Star Wars: Rescue the Farmboy: Mission on Mimban: Word count = 22,882 (8093 written in 2019 + 14,789). After writing "MJ-0002," I came back to Mission on Mimban from the beginning. Still working on it.

What I Think About My Stories:

My favorite story this year: Star Wars: Unexpected Consequence. I can't wait to turn this one lose on the readers.

Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Star Wars: Looking For Home: Future Timeline. I really need to spend some more brain time on this one if just to find a conclusion that makes me happy.

Most fun story: Everybody Lives But Maul. I really wasn't expecting to write it accept the idea would not leave the muse alone and then this happened:

KLCtheBookWorm: I really don't know what to do with Vader and Leia... unless he goes into her cell deactivates the IO droid and "Now Princess can we discuss waging war against Palpatine? Because he orchestrated my first family's death, has tried to kill my daughter, and your rebellion has made her flee her safe haven so he will potential see her again. He will not have her or my grandson." Sithspit, why does the muse want to rewrite OT constantly? JediMordsith: lolol Hmmm.... that could be interesting. Or he could go to Bail. "I will give you your daughter back if you help me get mine back." KLCtheBookWorm: YOU GAVE ME MORE PEOPLE TO HELP LIVE! JediMordsith: Bail convinces the rest of the Rebel leaders to work with Vader to take down the Emperor because he knows what a father's love is. KLCtheBookWorm: I always consider Alderaan's destruction a fixed point in time But the conversation between Bail and Mon Mothma. "You wanna do what now?"

Yeah, at that point I will write it.

Stories I wrote that I never thought I'd write: Star Wars: Everybody Lives But Maul. Technically I haven't really started the narrative, but really, Muse, was not expecting yet another rewrite of the OT. This one is the third, after Rescue the Farmboy and Sororal Lineality.

Hardest story to write: Star Wars: Looking For Home Future Timeline. I have never gotten stuck in which I couldn't finish off an outline. And this is so stuck.

Biggest disappointment: Strix: Forget the Sun. I did not even try for NaNo during the pandemic. (Huge props to everyone who did). I'm considering to do NaNo in April instead in 2021 to finish this novel.

Biggest surprise: I only posted ONE THING! I'm not beating myself up for any of the results of 2020 because it was garbage year, but I honestly didn't plan to leave my readers hanging so hard. On the plus side, they will have at least 30 weeks of new content to read in 2021.

What's your favorite piece of dialogue you wrote this year? From Star Wars: Sororal Lineality: Aftermath.

Luke opened his eyes to Leia’s suspicious face. “She was arguing with Threepio. I went the other way.” “So she couldn’t put you back in the medbunk.” Leia bounced to her feet and helped leverage him out of his seat. “You are going right back to it and staying in it until we reach the Fleet, Commander.” “Aye, aye, Colonel,” Luke replied with less than the banter he normally did. He leaned heavily on Leia, more than he should. Lando finished locking down the controls and followed behind them. “Colonel? Not a General?” “Not a General yet,” Luke responded with a wheezy laugh.

It took a while to figure out what Leia's military actual rank is based of costumes and plot actions in Empire Strikes Back. Major Bren Derlin didn't get a yes from Leia because she loves the two men out in the cold, but because she out ranks him.

What's your favorite piece of description or narration you wrote this year? From Star Wars: Soroal Lineality: MJ-0002.

The last one she dared to open was a recording. Her memory replayed on the screen: a child’s best dress colored green as the recorder tilted down, followed by looking back at the sad adults in the shadows of the shuttle’s lights. She heard the woman’s quavering voice, “Please, don’t take my baby.” Then the gnarled hand extended from the sleeve of the black robe and a tiny hand took it, and the recorder turned to the lit hatch at the top of the ramp. Mara's surroundings registered in waves after that. Her glutes were tingling as she shifted from sitting in a collapsed position on the floor. The floor was cold stone. The recording was playing on a loop above her head. She hadn’t fainted because she wasn’t flat on her back. She climbed up to her feet and shut off the playback. Now the title of the file burned into her retinas, Primary Memory Imprint for Murdering Judges Clone Line.

I can't wait to share this story with readers.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would, less, or about what you predicted? Oh I came in under what I had aimed for, only writing to 69% of my goal that I set from what I wrote in 2019. But 2020 was a garbage year so I'm not beating myself up over word count results. As I went through the year though, I noticed that August and September were totally spent on just editing and no new words. That means I need to watch the schedule in 2021.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I have officially started the write a series of short stories and keep them under 7500 words. I need more practice writing short, which is why I plotted Sororal Lineality this way.

Did you meet last year's goals?

That's a no, and boy, how is it a no. 2021 Goal is to not have Leeloo laugh at me.

The goals from my unprinted 2020 one-page business plan are:

Use Ali Luke's Two Year Novel Plan to finish the Strix series

January - May 2020: Finish Strix: Forget the Sun's first draft = Nope, not done yet.

June - October 2020: Finish Strix: Forget the Sun's second draft = Nope.

Writing Star Wars AU fanfics

Finish Unexpected Consequences' first draft = Done

Start writing Sororal Lineality = Two stories done out of 28

Finish Rescue the Farmboy: Mission on Mimban's first draft = Nope, but I am currently writing it.

Send Unexpected Consequences to beta reader = Done

Send Sororal Lineality stories to beta reader = Done

Edit Unexpected Consequences = In Progress

Edit Sororal Lineality stories = Done

Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank, Dreamwidth, Discipline Under Fire, Tumblr Random Thoughts, Pillowfort = Do once a week on Saturdays = I haven't been doing this at all. Tumblr posts happen when I'm home but usually reposting and not anything I have written.

BookWorm's Library website maintenance = Work on once a week on Sundays = Really need to do this

Make sure the software is up to date once a month

Add any files that need adding

Add Media Center to BookWorm's Library = Work on once a week on Sundays = Hasn't happened yet

Create section

Make artwork

Code section

Upload files

Add more fanfics to AO3

Upload Zackverse in story order = Nope, not yet

Upload Star Wars: Unexpected Consequences when edited on Ao3 = In Progress

Upload Sororal Lineality stories when edited = In Progress

Upload Rescue the Farmboy: Liberation to FF.net and the Library when finished = Oops, forgot about this

Upload Rescue the Farmboy: One More Service to FF.net and the Library when finished = Oops, forgot about this

Post Star Wars: Unexpected Consequences to FF.net = In Progress

Post Star Wars: Unexpected Consequences to Library = In Progress

My daily writing plans to help the above list of goals get done:

Write 600 daily words. Can be split among the projects. I'm making the yearly goal to reach whatever number I actually reach on December 31st.

Write and edit every day.

Schedule website updates and fanmix work on the weekends.

Work in meditation time with Brain FM.

Use my Kanban Flow checklist consistently.

Don't let chores pile up now that you have two jobs plus writing to do.

Reward myself when goals are reached throughout my Reset Year.

Do you have any goals for the coming year? The goals from my 2021 one-page business plan are:

Use Ali Luke's Two Year Novel Plan to finish the Strix series

April - August 2021: Finish Strix: Forget the Sun's first draft (I'm going to push myself to get it done in by treating April as NaNo, but more time is available if I need it)

Sept. - Dec. 2021: Finish Strix: Forget the Sun's second draft

Writing Star Wars AU fanfics

Finish Unexpected Consequences' third draft

Finish Rescue the Farmboy: Mission on Mimban's first draft

Edit Rescue the Farm: Mission on Mimban to second draft

Send Rescue the Farm: Mission on Mimban to beta reader

Finish Rescue the Farm: Mission on Mimban third draft/li>

Finish Sororal Lineality: Miha first draft

Edit Sororal Lineality: Miha to second draft

Send Sororal Lineality: Miha to beta reader

Finish Sororal Lineality: Miha third draft

Writing Zackverse

Work on Hyrueliana's overhaul

Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank, Dreamwidth, Discipline Under Fire, and Tumblr Random Thoughts = Do once a week

BookWorm's Library website maintenance = Work on once a week on Sundays

Make sure the software is up to date once a month

Add any files that need adding

Add Media Center to BookWorm's Library = Work on once a week on Sundays

Create section

Make artwork

Code section

Upload files

Add more fanfics to AO3

Upload Zackverse in story order

Upload Star Wars: Unexpected Consequences when edited on Ao3

Upload Sororal Lineality: MJ-0002 on Ao3 on May 4th

Reload Sororal Lineality: Aftermath on Ao3

Upload Soroal Lineality: Miha to Ao3

Upload Rescue the Farmboy: Liberation to the Library

Upload Rescue the Farmboy: One More Service to the Library

Post Star Wars: Unexpected Consequences to Library

Upload Looking For Home: My Home Is You to the Library

Upload Looking For Home: Outcast to Library

Upload Sororal Lineality: MJ-0002 to the Library

Upload Sororal Lineality: Aftermath to the Library

Upload Sororal Lineality: Miha

Update FF.net profile of where newer stories are now

My daily writing plans to help the above list of goals get done:

Write 600 daily words. Can be split among the projects. I'm making the yearly goal to reach whatever number I actually reach on December 31st.

Write and edit every day.

Schedule website updates and fanmix work on the weekends.

Work in meditation time with Brain FM.

Use my Kanban Flow checklist consistently.

Don't let chores pile up now that you have two jobs plus writing to do.

Here's to 2021. We'll get through it together.

[callioope]

Good Things in 2019

@theputterer and @the-strongest-stars tagged me in the awesome annual end-of-year Good Things meme! I’ve done this in 2018 & 2017 and always think it’s a fun exercise of both reflection and looking forward.

Oh boy, though, my first thought was, what even happened in 2019? (Looking at a calendar helped! It reminded me of a few things I forgot)

It’s been a Rough Year, friends. Between OCD and basically travelling almost every weekend in the latter half of 2019, I am very much ready for a new year and hopefully a new slate.

But this is about the positives!

Personal

Played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons! I am now officially in two campaigns. This year, I endeavored to recruit more women to play, including the wonderful @allatariel. I play both my beloved cleric, Maritsa (who I’ve been playing her years now) and my new character, Noara, a ranger elf with a red panda familiar (yeah, my DM let me do that for funsies, so I could get an animal sidekick but also still try out the Horizon Walker subclass). 

Speaking of red pandas, I accomplished my LIFE GOAL of meeting a red panda face-to-face. I got to feed Harriet at the Cincinnati Zoo for 30 minutes. She was adorable. 

Completed all my dental work and had a clean bill of dental health two cleanings in a row! 

Attended DC’s Around the World Embassy Day event, always fun

Attended Star Wars night at a local library, where I got to participate in a short demo/lesson on how to fence with a lightsaber!

Attended 50th Anniversary Celebration of Apollo 11 / landing on the moon (dude they projected the rocket on the Washington Monument and it looked so cool)

Returned to the NY Ren Faire and upgraded my ren faire garb

Celebrated at THREE friends’ weddings and got to catch up with old friends I hadn’t seen in awhile

Ate ice cream at the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Vermont

Went to NYCC for the third year in a row. Got to wear 2 costumes this year: a 1920s flapper interpretation of an occamy and my Endor!Leia costume (repeat of 2017). Learned the True Pain of sewing. Created feather shawl for my occamy costume. Learned the True Pain of crafting.

Celebrated one year anniversary with hubbie down where we got married: visited the museum we got married in and actually got a chance to enjoy the exhibits, went to our favorite brunch place down there, got to check out Fleet Week and tour an aircraft carrier and uh... I think it was a missile cruiser? 

Went up to PSU for a women’s hockey game for sister’s birthday (made embarrassing HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign for the cameras); also it was an absolutely wonderful fall drive on the way up there

Got to see The Rise of Skywalker in IMAX at the Smithsonian Air & Space Center with the awesome @allatariel! (thank goodness we had each other to get through that movie lol) also got to reuse my Endor!Leia costume. I did my own braids for the first time ever! (usually my talented sister does them) They looked like braids done by a n00b, but I didn’t care because they were passable and I did them myself and that was a Big Thing for Perfectionist Me (to not just... say screw it and undo it and just. give up. but to just let them be as is)

Worked hard at therapy and self care

Got a Sleep Number bed and holy shit let me tell you. i can actually sleep now.

OH! I almost forgot!!! Started playing Assassin’s Creed! I’ve only ever really played the LEGO Star Wars and Harry Potter video games so like. This was big for me. 

Writing

Finally finished Learning Curve. TBH I was a bit shocked that this was in fact the only fic I published in 2019. What a travesty.

However! I have been writing

@allatariel & I sat down, overanalyzed You’ve Got Mail, and drafted up the outline for my in-universe AU, something I’ve been dreaming of starting for years. Have about 4300 words so far.

Just under the wire, I did manage to start my NatGeo AU, which I’ve been dreaming of since my honeymoon in Nov 2018

Started editing/revising my original young adult fantasy novel

Poked a little at my epic fantasy pirate travel novel idea

Books

I read exactly one book, Among the Red Stars, which I enjoyed. It’s about women fighter pilots in Russia in WW2. Inspired by real people.

Music

Saw Panic at the Disco! in concert. I went along with my sister. Not like a huge fan, but they put on a pretty fun show!

Saw Waitress on Broadway!! OH MY GOD. And Sara Bareilles was starring in it. Amazing. I freaking love her music (”How does she know / what a heart sounds like?” gahhh). She was so good, and the show was so good. I literally cried all the way through it just because I was so happy to be there, but also because of the content. Man.

Saw Sara Bareilles again, in concert, in Philly. I love her so much.

Television

Finished Critical Role Campaign 1! Oh man, what a ride. Gosh, I love that show. I really need to catch up in C2 now. I’ve started it but I’m only on episode 26 or 27.

I’m not sure whether I finished The Clone Wars in 2018 or 2019. I think it was early 2019. This show was amazing and this was the character development that Anakin Skywalker needed. I love Ahsoka Tano. I cannot wait for the last season.  

Finished Rebels!!! AGAIN, what a ride!!! I still love Ahsoka Tano. I also love Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren. Sabine’s Darksaber arc was fantastic.

The Mandalorian OMG BABY YODA!!! Yes, I have succumbed to the adorableness of Baby Yoda. Most adorable SW character forever. But also just an enjoyable story in general. This, this is how you craft a story. still NOT over the darksaber omg. 

The Good Place is continuing to be good. Not as crazy about season 4, but I’m so glad they decided to limit the seasons.

Got my sister to watch Rebels!! And then even a few episodes of The Clone Wars!!! Mwahaha >) 

Finally got around to watching The Great British Bake Off, what a sweet show!

OMG I ALMOST FORGOT Anne With an E!!! Gosh what a wonderful wholesome delightful show. No I haven’t watched S3 yet because I am Lawful Good to a fault and just patiently waiting for it to come on Netflix

Film

So, I woefully neglected to mention The Aeronauts in this post about my favorite movies in the 2010s and that was a Mistake. Because I really enjoyed this one

But otherwise probably check out that list. Because I don’t go to the movies that often, actually, and anything I really loved from 2019 is most definitely listed there.

Did I meet my 2019 Goals?

Writing: Fandom

Finish Learning Curve YES

...and How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days Uh, no, not so much

Begin and complete the in-canon universe You’ve Got Mail AU YES, it is begun but no it is not complete

Try to knock out a few other projects on my 30+ SW ideas Umm, I did start / poke at a few things in addition to the YGM and NatGeo AUs, but nothing really “knocked out”

Try my hand at creating more visual fan works (like moodboards/photosets, step 1, learn proper terminology) ahahahah, no. 

Writing: Original

Query more agents for my completed original novel YIKES, No. But I wasn’t anticipating that I’d decide to heavily edit/revise my manuscript.

Actually get around to deciding which idea I want to work on next and work on it Yeah, sure, I decided. How nice of past!Liz to make this goal so reachable as “deciding” lol

Reading

Be more supportive in helping my friend run Book Club so that it can actually meet more regularly HA, oops. Book Club died, but kind of in favor of being able to start a second D&D campaign. At least that’s the trade off I’m looking at. I had some OCD-related glasses issues this year that inhibited reading a lot.

Try to read at least one book for myself outside of Book Club lol WELL the one book I read this year was not part of Book Club sooo

Goals for 2020

Writing

I’m not going to make this a completion goal, but instead...

...I’d like to just focus on creating a regular writing schedule/habit. Whatever the project, I just want to make sure I carve out significant time each week just to write. I don’t want to set a specific goal like “x hours a week” for now, but I want to make sure that I am writing each week.

To achieve that (because what are goals without maps):

If the words don’t immediately jump onto the page, then I’m going to try outlining or summarizing. I’m going to let go of overthinking how sentences are phrased, and just pretend I’m describing the story idea to a friend.

That blank page is staring at me and I’m just going to fill it with words no matter what I might think of them!

And I’m going to let everything else expand from there. And see how that works.

Edit my original manuscript

Query more agents re: original manuscript

Look into the idea of perhaps forming or joining a writer’s group for original writing oh gosh that is so scary

Other

Get back into reading

Develop a routine for working out

Eat healthier

Continue focusing on therapy goals

Get around to watching: Black Sails, Mad Max: Fury Road, Arrival

Get better at responding to things in general

Tagging: @allatariel, @magalis, @mythologicalmango, @skitzofreak, @threadsketchier, @brynnmclean, @ruby-red-inky-blue, @siachti and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it!

Happy New Year y’all!

[shareaus]

Hiya! What are you working on? Where are you at in the process?

Hello! Right, I´m doing a terrible job introducing whatever it is I´m writing at the moment... So here we go:

First, there��s what´s supposed to be my main WIP. It´s titled Swindler Zero. There´s an introduction post on it under the title´s tag, but basically, it´s a science fiction novel (most likely going to be two novels in the end) and it´s really focused more on the exploration side and the inner war of three major organizations looking for what the actual fuck has happened with the obviously ancient civilization that just... isn´t there? When it´s so painfully obvious that it should?? Anyway, this one is in a first draft/plotting stage/worldbuilding - if I were one for outlines I´d most likely be doing an outline.

Second, there´s my Harry Potter fanfiction, currently titled Children of the House of Potter. Previous name was 3 prophecies and there are some things posted under both title´s tags, but it´s never been officially introduced. It´s literally just my take on the whole “Potter twins” thing, because I was fed up with how every single one of those stories had Potters being evil or obnoxious or whatever and the other twin spoilt and mean. It also has traces of the “founders´ heirs” and it most definitely has the whole Lord this and Lady that cliche. It´s pretty far into the writing and editing process, especially since I don´t do the several drafts thing for my fanfictions.

Third, one I haven´t opened in ages, is the Price of Peace. It´s a fantasy novel focused heavily on light/dark conflict and politics. When I say fantasy I really mean some sort of an industrial fantasy where any “industry” is a direct result of magic being a thing. Also, it has magic mushrooms and stoners smoking them in generator rooms. This one has the worldbuilding mostly done, it´s in the first draft stage as far as I remember.

And last, I may or may not have a... more like universe I suppose. It´s urban fantasy, it doesn´t have a name or anything and there isn´t a novel, but I do have a short story written for it (Hope smells of cinnamon, coffee and frozen beans) and another one planned thanks to certain someone ( @corav1a ). I have a pretty good idea of the characters and the pseudo-storyline. I don´t plan on making a novel or a WIP out of it, but I will probably be writing a bunch of short stories about it.

[joeys-piano]

Writing Update - #1

WIP Formally Began: July 18th, 2019 Date of Update: August 31st, 2019 WIP Intro: Here

Current WIP Status: Outline/WIP Bible Current Status W/C: 65,340 W/C Added: ~5,000 words (this week)

Summary Report: My current project, Survive Said The Prophet, has grown significantly in a variety of ways throughout this week. Not only has the outline grown, but the official summary and title were also finalized and the story has been formally introduced to the Tumblr sphere.

                                                   ~~~~~~~~~

On August 25th (Sunday), my outline for my conspiracy + sci-fi fic, Survive Said The Prophet, surpassed 60,000 words. The last time I had written this much for any story was either last year or two years ago, when I jumped the gun and tried my hand at writing about organized crime for the first time. Since that endeavour and learning from my experience, I’ve found that approaching stories with an extensive outline beforehand gives me a clearer idea of the arc/character progressions threaded throughout the plot. Although the 60k+ words to that organized crime story will not be picked up again, the experience and the sheer endurance that it took to write it has definitely prepared and laid down a foundation of weaknesses and strengths that I can refer to as I continue outlining Survive Said The Prophet. The formatting of the outline may’ve been an important part as to why I’ve written so much, why I still have the drive and energy to come back to this story, and why the story still intrigues me after putting so much of my time into developing it. Perhaps it’s the nature of the mysteries or how I’ve interwoven worldbuilding between canon hallmarks; whichever the case, coming back to this outline and just writing it makes me feel at ease. It’s been a few years since I’ve felt this way about writing, since I’ve felt this comfortable and sure of myself. Curious to know if it’s experience, if it’s a change in my mindset, a combination of both, or the influence of something else. On this same Sunday — mind you, I was writing as much as I could before the first day of the academic semester — I edited and finalized the summary for Survive Said The Prophet. For the past month or so, I’ve been rewriting and editing different summaries that I felt were decent previews to what’s to come. In my original drafts, I wanted to incorporate quotes that were from the story or quotes from the referenced authors in Bungou Stray Dogs. Before Survive Said The Prophet, many of the summaries I’ve written depended and leaned heavily onto quotes to convey whatever premise I was writing about. However, for this story, I couldn’t do that. I wanted my writing to stand on its own, rather than relying on the words of someone else or from a throwaway line that I’ve jotted somewhere in my outline. The most difficult part about this entire process was having to build a summary from scratch. During the past month, I referred back to previous summaries I’ve written and wondered if I could rework those for Survive Said The Prophet. What I quickly realized was that it wasn’t going to work. The summaries I’ve written beforehand, while they featured worldbuilding elements, weren’t for complex or heavily-involved stories. For the first time in months, I had to completely start from scratch. Unused to the experience, I knew I had to start somewhere. From July 28th to August 25th, I wrote close to a dozen new summaries with different directions, starting points, and different vibes on how to convey the premise of Survive Said The Prophet was to be presented. Keep in mind that for the most part, I didn’t know what the premise of the story was. Although I had jotted it down, it was a very pale reflection to what the actual premise was. Stumped at every corner and unsure what to do, I looked to resources on how to tackle this summary. From Goodreads to YouTube and to eventually IMDb, I found a muse of a summary that gave me an inspirational pause. While searching up thriller movies, I encountered Shutter Island. Reading the summary to that movie cleared the jumbled thoughts in my head, and it helped me realize what I wanted my summary to convey. Shutter Island’s summary began by noting the time and the incident that triggers the start of the plot. Out of all the summaries I’ve searched and read, this was the first one that began in this way. If I had only read the first sentence and nothing else from the movie’s blurb, I would still feel intrigued and would want to watch the movie to see what would happen. To me, the hallmark of a brilliant summary is when the first sentence has that kind of effect on the reader. Amazed and inspired, I began to draft what would eventually become the official summary for Survive Said The Prophet. On August 25th at 3:08 p.m., after editing and revising it so that it could within the character limits of AO3’s summary box, I had accomplished one of the most difficult parts of the outline so far. Now when people ask me what Survive Said The Prophet is about, I no longer have to give an abridged telltale version of what I think the premise is. Now, I have a summary that I can show to them and from what I heard from interested peeps and from my lovely brainstorming partner + muse, the official summary captures the essence of what Survive Said The Prophet is and raises more than enough intrigue to prompt a reader to discover for themselves what the story will be.

Between August 26th to August 28th, not very much happened. With this being the beginning of the academic semester, I didn’t have time to work on my main outline. With this in consideration, I decided to update and work on other aspects of Survive Said The Prophet that have nothing to do with writing. Namely, I wanted to create a wip introduction so I could formally show and talk about what I’ve been working on for more than a month now. I already had the summary completed and I had a few ideas in mind on what the story edits would be. I knew I was going to use a combination of Unsplash, Fotor, and Canva to help me make those edits into a reality, but I didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be and how nitpicky I would become as the wip introduction moved onto its later stages. Initially, the wip introduction was going to list the main characters that were in Survive Said The Prophet. However, after gauging how long the introduction was becoming and wanting to keep things concise and easy, I decided to omit the main characters from the final draft. For several reasons: I wanted to those character introductions in a post solely meant for them, I didn’t like how I was initially going to present them, and this main character segment was a real thorn to my backside so omitting cleared away some stress that was on my mind.

On the night of August 29th (Thursday), I completed my wip introduction and formally introduced Survive Said The Prophet to the public. As nerve-wracking as it was to finally do that, it doesn’t trump the stress that overtook my body a few hours prior as I was editing and formatting the images I used from Unsplash for my story edits. Easily, the most difficult part was finding a book cover template from Canva that I could use. Finding one that didn’t obscure the cover image was as easy as finding a blade of grass, half a centimeter shorter than all the rest. Eventually, I gave up on my search for a template and made the cover page on my own. I probably spent two hours, running the story title through dozens of different fonts and positionings until I was satisfied with the end result. Fortunately, I had late classes on the following day so I was able to stay up and work a little longer than I should’ve. But in the end, I finished what I wanted to do and had the introduction ready to be posted.

On August 30th (Friday), having had minimal contact with my main outline for almost the entire week, I spent a few hours of my morning before lunch rereading where I left off and revised/clarified a few things that I had jotted down beforehand. Notably, I revised an entire scene that involved a private exchange between two characters from conflicting organizations. I had noted along the margins that an anonymous tip had alerted law enforcement of what was going on for one of the members of the private exchange was a wanted criminal. Confused on why I added the anonymous tip and with no apparent lead/backstory on who sent it and why was it sent, it made the latter half of the scene play out as a matter of convenience, luck, and the third-cousin almost removed from Chekhov's family of things writers forget to include. Bothered that I included an anonymous tip so haphazardly into the scene, when it’s that anonymous tip that initiates the midpoint turn in the story, I knew I needed to clean things up. Fortunately, I had already begun that beforehand when I reread where I had left off, adding notes of clarification and fleshing out vague details that I had left behind. Now with a better understanding of how this arc progresses, I knew who the anonymous tip came from, why they sent it, and what the anonymous tipper wanted in exchange. Information is power, especially in a wip with psychological thriller vibes, so now I knew the motive and how events prior to this scene made sense and led up to this moment where law enforcement got involved. Afterwards, while still keeping the essence of the original scene’s intent and what happens, I revised how the second-half would follow and have a much clearer idea who and what triggers the midpoint turn in the story. The confrontation with the protagonist and antagonist — I would argue that there is no protagonist or antagonist in this story but for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to these two characters as such — is much stronger and more pivotal now that clarification has been addressed. Makes me really glad I’m taking my time outlining this story because these are the things that wouldn’t cross my mind if I began writing from the get-go.

[solrosan]

There are notes and a more readable version of the wiki page under the cut.

Notes

I imagine Merlin created this wikipage for the shop when he was bored one time

Later, Eggsy took over keeping it up-to-date

He’s the one who’s written the Swedish one too

This article exists in the same verse as Prince Gary’s wikipage

It’s heavily influenced by the Huntsman wikipage

I have written source [9] and [10]

Any errors and inconsistencies can be blamed on Wikipedia’s open editable model and not at all the fact that I can’t see straight anymore when I try to double check things

This article is written after 2022

Other Kingsman wiki pages can be found here

Kingsman Tailor Shop

Kingsman Tailor Shop (commonly known as Kingsman)[source?] is a high-end fashion house and tailor located at No. 11 Savile Row, London.[1] It is known for its English bespoke tailoring, cashmere ready-to-wear collections, and leather accessories.

Kingsman was founded in 1849 by Mark Millar.[2] Kingsman has been granted several royal warrants bestowed by British and European monarchs, including The Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), and Queen Victoria.[3] Kingsman is also one of the founders of the Savile Row Bespoke Association,[2] the trade body responsible for protecting and promoting the working practices of Savile Row.

History

In 1849, when Mr Mark Millar[2] founded Kingsman the tailor shop was located at No. 126 New Bond Street.[2] Millar’s tailoring house quickly gained a reputation for dressing the hunting and riding aristocracy of Europe and did so for much of the nineteenth century.[3] Kingsman still makes equestrian and sporting tailoring, but during the twentieth century the focus shifted more to formalwear.[2] The house's relationship with British royalty extends as far back as Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who both patronised the house from its opening in 1849.[3] 

During World War I, Kingsman was a tailor to the military, producing dress uniforms for British officers throughout the war. Some of the ledger books remains, listing the names of each officer and their commissions, often with a note revealing their fate in the margins,[3] though most were destroyed by the gas explosion in 2017.[4]

By the end of the war, and with the third generation of the Millar family taking over, Kingsman moved to No. 11 Savile Row in 1919[2] just in time for the onset of the Roaring 20s. The Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) was a customer during the 1920s[5] which prompted many to follow. It was during this time that Kingsman came to acquire the two stags' heads which were displayed in the shop for many years after they had been left by a customer who went out to lunch in 1921 and then never returned.[6]

In 1933, the Millar family passed on the firm to Mr Allard de Vere Drummond.[2] de Vere Drummond worked together with Head Cutter James Goldman until the mid-70’s, is said to have transformed "Kingsman's reputation from that of merely a reliable garment maker to a glamorous bespoke fashion house".[7] The two worked together at the shop until the 1970’s, ensuring Kingsman’s reputation as the most expensive Savile Row tailor.[6]

After World War II Kingsman Tailor Shop started apprenticeship programs for tailors and cutters.[8] They went on to become two of the most prominent apprenticeship programs in the United Kingdom; for cutters it’s even said to be the best in Europe.[7] Many of the tailors working on Savile Row today did their apprenticeship at Kingsman Tailor Shop.[8] One of the most notable apprentices is Prince Gary of Sweden who started the apprenticeship as a part of Kingsman’s social outreach program before marrying the Swedish heir apparent, Crown Princess Tilde.[9] Prince Gary came back to finish his apprenticeship four years into his marriage. Crown princess Tilde and Prince Gary met at Kingsman Tailor Shop in 2014.[10]

Even though Kingsman has been making womenswear since the very start, it took until 1972 before they employed their first female tailor. She had been part of the apprenticeship program as well. The first female cutter started 2014.[11]

Gas explosion

In September 2017 a gas explosion took out Kingsman Tailor Shop. Luckily, it was after business hours and no one was injured, but the entire building was destroyed. At first, the explosion was thought to be linked to the other ten other explosions around London that same day, but was upon further investigation it was determined to have been due to a gas explosion.[12]

The explosions, besides ruining the shop, also destroyed most of Kingsman’s records and archives, containing, for example, Mr Mark Millar’s own patterns and advertisements from when he first opened the store. Lost were also portraits and photographs of many of the shop’s patrons and tailors. A spokesperson for Savile Row Bespoke Association said that the explosion erased a huge part of the guild’s history.[4]

Recent developments

Following the gas explosions in September 2017, Kingsman Tailor Shop once again operated out of a location on New Bond Street while work was being done to rebuild the store on Savile Row. The temporary shop was lend to them by Gieves & Hawkes. Gieves & Hawkes stated in a press release that Savile Row would not be the same without Kingsman and that it was an honour to be able to help out colleagues in need.[13]

In July 2018 Kingsman Tailor Shop reopened No. 11 Savile Row. Present at the opening was, among others, the Swedish Crown Princess couple.[14]

Kingsman Whisky

 In 2017, Kingsman bought the Ochiltree distillery in Scotland, where they have started to produce Kingsman Whisky, which is a single malt Scotch.[15]

Clients

In 1886, the company earned its first royal warrant as Leather Breeches Maker to HRH the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). This was followed by that of HRH Prince Albert, Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha and Queen Victoria in 1888.[3] Other royal warrants include King Edward VIII, King George VI, and Queen Elisabeth II.[7]

Other customers are Winston Churchill, Rudolph Valentino, Lord Mountbatten, Gregory Peck, Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Laurence Olivier, Ronald Reagan, Marc Jacobs, Lapo Elkann, Gianni Agnelli, Richmond Valentine, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Crown Princess Tilde of Sweden.[7] Prince Gary of Sweden is also a frequent patron of Kingsman Tailor Shop and since 2022 he is the head tailor on all the Kingsman suits he wears. Prince Gary was also the head tailor for the Duke of Cambridge’s suit.[16]

Bespoke process

Although Kingsman’s suits retain what has been referred to as “their famous structured silhouette”[17] Kingsman's website notes that “our talented team can work to almost any brief”.[18]

As outlined on the Kingsman website, the process of placing an order begins with a consultation, during which the customer meets with their Bespoke Clients Manager, who discusses the customer's requirements for their suit, helping to finalise any stylistic decisions and their choice of fabric. A cutter will then measure-up the client (Kingsman takes an average of 30 different measures for a first suit) before this is drafted into the traditional paper pattern. This pattern is then chalked onto the customer's chosen cloth, which is in turn cut out. This will then be sewn together into the suit's raw three-dimensional form by a dedicated coat maker, ready for fitting. Kingsman produces all of its clothes in house, so every suit is produced by the same team.[17]

After the first fitting, the basted garment is then returned to its two-dimensional form and re-cut according to the refined pattern, after which a second fitting will take place to re-assess the garment's fit. More structure will be added to the garment at this stage, jacket sleeves will be set-in by hand and the suit's lining felled into the garment accordingly. Other hand-sewn elements will include all buttonholes, the trouser fly and any topstitching applied to the jacket and/or waistcoat lapels and pocket flaps - conforming to Savile Row Bespoke Association working standards.[18] Further alterations are carried out if required and a final fitting will take place. Each individual suit takes over eighty man-hours to produce.[17]

References

Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

About Kingsman, Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

James  Sherwood, Savile Row: The Master Tailors of British Bespoke, (Thames &  Hudson, 2010), p.62-67

Statement regarding the explosion on Savile Row (Press release)  Savile Row Bespoke Association

'Edward VIII  Portfolio', Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

Richard  Anderson, Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed, (Simon & Schuster,  2009) p.106

Our Clients, Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

Apprenticeship, Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

“PRINCE GARY – ONE YEAR IN”, solrosan.tumblr.com

“A Tailor Made Life”, solrosan.tumblr.com

Simona  Roberts, Needlewoman, Seamstress, Tailor (Roberts, 2019) p. 92

“Suspect terrorist attack was gas leak”, The Sun

“Gieves & Hawkes helps competitor in time of need”, dailymail.co.uk.

"The Crown Princess Couple to attend reopening of Kingsman Tailor  Shop". (Press release) (in Swedish).Royal  Court of Sweden.

Kingsman Whisky, Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

“A Royal Suit”, The  Guardian

Bespoke Suits, Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

Bespoke Heritage, Kingsman Tailor Shop Website

[tabithasomeday]

My writing

(I usually write about being trans, but my writing itself is just as big a part of my life, so I wanted to write about it tonight. There will be some trans stuff, though, since they’re all wrapped up together)

I'm taking an evening off from working on my novel. It's going well, but I need a break. I've past the point where I would have  quit on so many projects in the past, so I'm not (very) worried about losing momentum and letting it go.

I'm approaching this novel a little differently than I have projects in the past. In the past, I have written as if I'm writing the finished novel. I would realize I needed to change something I'd written earlier due to something I just wrote, so I'd go back and do it right then. I would agonize over a turn of phrase in dialog. Try to get a description just right.

I wasn't quite as bad about the first of those on the one novel I've finished so far. I did allow myself to just jot a note to myself about changes I'd need to go back and make, instead of going back and editing immediately. Sometimes. But I still did the agonizing bit.

This time I'm being more relaxed about it. It's a first draft. I'm trying to view it as more of an outline in narrative form than anything close to a finished novel. I'm still writing a complete narrative, though. If you were to read it as is, you would think it was a novel (well, the first five chapters of one, so far). Just a bad one.  

I like writing. I have all these stories in me. I have told so many to my kids at bedtime. I have created worlds to run RPG campaigns in.  I've written screenplays. But I get stuck. Sometimes I can't get the first word down. Sometimes I start, but just grind to a halt.

Before I finished my one novel (so far, so far) a couple of years ago, the farthest I'd gotten in a novel was four chapters. They aren't bad chapters, and I would like to go back to that project some day. But I didn't know where to go from the end of that fourth chapter.

When I completed Lucid, I figured out what my problem was. I was heavily influenced by golden age science fiction. Stories where the setting was the main character. Or the cool technology. Or an exploration of some new (or utterly made up) discovery in physics. In most cases, character was secondary.

(Note: If you're still reading, you may be thinking "Doesn't she usually write about trans stuff?" I'm almost there.)

I really enjoyed reading those. But, it turns out, I can't write them. I love coming up with a setting. With a cool and (at least somewhat) original idea. All but one RPG I ran (and I ran quite a few) was set in a world of my own creation, and I think the players enjoyed them quite a bit. And I still think many of my settings and big ideas can make kick ass stories. But I need to write about a character. I need to know my protagonist. The story needs to be driven by their goals, their strengths, their weaknesses. But I didn't, and it wasn't.

Until I started on Lucid.

Before I started writing Lucid, I didn't know I was trans. I wrote a little bit about the book in my dysphoria post, so there will be a little repetition here, but, oh, well.

Lucid happened because I didn't get to play a character I wanted to play. But it's a little more complicated than just that.

I've been playing tabletop RPGs since high school. I started with AD&D. Unlike some trans RPGers, I played mostly characters of my assigned gender. I was too embarrassed to play a female character until a guy in the group went first. I still played mostly male characters after that though.

What I did do, though, was try to put my characters into situation where they might end up getting turned into women. It almost never worked. And when it didn't, it made me sad.

Later I moved from playing D&D to playing Champions (a super hero RPG). It's a point build system, with very open ended effects. Playing that, I tended to build my characters so that they might get turned into (or stuck as, in the case of a shapeshifter or two) women. That worked exactly once out of many tries, and the game ended almost immediately after.

Throug all this, I didn't know I was trans. But I promise, I'm really not stupid. In my defense, I really didn't know much about transgender folks. Just bad media portrayals.

Anyway, a couple of falls ago, a good friend invited me to a game. I did my usual character than might end up stuck as a girl.I sent him the character, and then I thought about it. There was no way this friend would do that. I mean, if I told him I wanted it to happen, I'm sure he would have worked with me. But he wasn't going to make that kind of change to someone's character without their permission, and it wasn't the type of thing he was likely to do even then. And there was no way i was going to bring it up. So I was setting myself up for frustration. I didn't want that. I just wanted to have fun playing in a game.

I could have just played a female character. A quarter or so of my characters had been women, by then. But it wasn't the same. RPGs are, in addition to other things, a sort of wish fulfillment. I wanted to be a woman, but, in my mind, I wasn't. I wanted to identify with a character going through that but actually getting what they wanted. Now by this time, I was more aware of transgender issues. Still not very aware, but I'd done a little bit of reading, and knew the basics. So I wrote up a trans character, Jordan Parker.

I decided that she was a lucid dreamer, and when she got her powers, they manifested as the ability to do the kind of things in the real world that she could do in dreams. Including changing her body to match her true self. I designed the character, wrote up her back story, and, taking a deep breath, sent her off to my friend.

I didn't get to play her. She would have stepped on the toes of one of the other characters that had already been approved for the game. So I ran my other character instead. Still fun, but not what I'd been hoping for.

But Parker wouldn't leave my head. I knew her. She's not me. She's smarter, braver, and probably more neurotypical than me. But she has my sense of humor. My sense of priorities in the world. My desire to be a girl. Of course, since she was trans, she already considered herself to be a girl, unlike me. Because that's what it means to be trans, right?

I was sad that she didn't get to be. I told my eldest a few stories with her (I tell them lots of super hero stories), but it wasn't enough. I needed to write her a book. Coincidentally, I made this decision on November 2nd. The second day of NaNoWriMo. I signed up for the third time, and started writing.

By November 30th, I was at ~62000 words. I finished the first draft on december 13th at ~75000 words.

Somewhere in there I came out to myself as trans. When Parker refused to use her powers to pretend to be a boy again, I almost knew. By the time I wrote the fourth scene where I shared her sheer joy into getting be herself, I knew that I wanted that for myself. Whatever I had thought being trans meant didn't matter. I was trans.

It was having this character that I knew and cared about that allowed me to write the book. Rather than trying to shove her into a plot, I wsa both the GM and the player in a role playing game. I created the world, set events in motion, then reacted to them as Parker. When I was stuck, I'd think like a GM and throw something at her to challenge her. Whether it was a poorly realized imitation of a mythological creature attacking a police car, or a cute girl whose ability to manipulate gravity had nothing to do with how lightheaded she made her feel.

As a result, I think the biggest weakness of Lucid is it's structure. I don't think it's bad. I like my own writing quite a lot. But it doesn't particularly adhere to a standard structure. Some rewrites helped with that, but if my current round of agency submissions doesn't go anywhere, I'll probably tear ti down and rebuild it one more time, with structure in mind. after I finish my current project, of course.

If I don't make any progress toward getting Lucid traditionally published, I'll explore my self publishing alternatives. I won't let Parker gather electronic dust on my hard drive. I'll get her out into the world one way or another. I owe her that. I owe her my life.

And she taught me what I needed to know to actually get my books written. I need a character. I think I've got that with my current project, and the fact that I'm on chapter six in under two weeks, and still going strong, makes me think me I'm right. Time will tell.

[brynwrites]

Ask Compilation!

Ask topics covered:

Titling fantasy books

Character agency

Character arcs ending in failure

Book translations

Also a few happy messages!

Happy things!

@ciel-is-queer said: bryn! i just started writing my story and already in the first chapter, one character has said they dont identify with gender and the other has dropped the b bomb (bisexual). im actually rather proud! 

That’s awesome!! Thanks for sharing <3

Anon said: I read the first chapter of Pearl and I loved it! Can't wait for the whole thing!

Aww, thank you <33 I’m so glad you enjoyed it, and I can’t wait to publish the rest!

Titling fantasy books

Anon asked: Hello! If its all right, can you share how you decide or make names for your fantasy books?

Aha haha ha ha. (It’s totally all right to ask, I just don’t have a good answer I’m so sorry.) My current method for naming my novels is to cry about it for two years and then wake up one day and suddenly realize that I know the perfect title... mysteriously, somehow, like the book gods decided to smile on me for half a second.

The advice that I can give, is don’t worry too much. You don’t need a title during the first draft (a title during the first draft might not even fit the final version anyways), nor the second or third or fourth. By the time you do need one, you’ll either be submitting to a publisher who will just change your title if they feel like it, or you’ll be self publishing and hopefully have a good idea of what your story is about and will have done research on what types of titles draw people in.

Character Agency

@aerodragneel asked: In my current WIP, a zombie apocalypse story, one of the my MC’s is middle school aged and a pacifist. Throughout the story, the men he’s traveling with push him to try and kill an infected, but the MC cannot bring himself to do it and is usually saved, sometimes at the expense of someone else. How do I make sure that this character isn’t a constant damsel in distress.

The key to making a character not feel like a passive piece of the story is to lean into their agency. Make sure that the things that happen to them are their own choice, caused by their own actions. 

You can also consider having the MC take precautions and make the sort of decisions he needs to in order to keep himself alive until someone else can save him, especially as he realizes that other people are being hurt by his inability to kill the infected. 

Character arcs ending in failure

@iamrianneth asked: Hello! So my protag is a questionable character, who, though she comes close, could never actually succeed at her goal. The book ends with her failure and realization that she really couldn't ever do it. I have a full plot (though I'm still editing and outlining) and I wonder if with the ending I have would change the plot structure any. It follows a three act hero structure, but ends at her darkest point. I'm not sure if that's a satisfying ending for the readers or would feel incomplete.

I don’t see any reason you’d have to change the plot structure itself. Any kind of character arc could theoretically fit with any plot structure. Whether this will be a satisfying ending for the reader though, depends heavily on these things:

1. Does the character development (in this case, a towards destruction) feel consistent and properly fleshed out so that every bad choice the character makes feels rational from the character’s perspective?

2. Is it clear prior to the climax that the character’s end will likely be failure? (Think about characters in movies and books who’ve ended their arc in failure and at what point you felt a grudging suspicion that nothing good could happen to them.)

3. Who’s reading the book? Some readers will never feel satisfied by this type of character arc, but others will greatly enjoy it. You want to target those readers who long tragic characters and make it obvious that’s the direction the story is heading.

Book translations

@madseas asked: Hello! I’ve been wondering something, I want to become a translator for YA books but I’m not too sure what languages books are mostly translated too other than Spanish. I’d like to learn an Eastern language like Japanese or Korean but I don’t think those are widely translated to. Do you know any big ones?

I have no idea, I’m sorry. Your best bet would be to do some heavy research and maybe contact people who translate for large publishers.

[orbyssarchives]

A Brief tl;dr

This is probably a lot to say for 20 unfinished webcomic pages and I know I can be fairly long-winded so if you just wanna skip ahead and click through the pictures I’ve put up, I understand.

The TL;DR is

Hello and welcome to Mage Punk Archives! My name is Tables and this is some of the work that I’ve done over the last few years and what I’ve been up to in my little corner of the world. This is the third and last of a series of posts, outlining a number of updates that I completed on the site.

Included are some of my inspirations and a little of what I’ve learned so far about myself as an ever growing artist up to this point.

After this, I want to keep the content more focused on the actual art and story.

  I’ll post to this site as often as I am able.

    Thanks for reading!

  ***

Long Ago, Before the miracle of handheld internet searches and Instagram

When I was but a young, internet webling, I was heavily into shitty online flash games and looking for anything even remotely related to my interests at the time. From Mario and Sonic to various comics, videos games, anime and things never to be said aloud (pornpornporn). My love of the likes of Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog (big fandoms for me at the time) would later lead me to sprite comics. Today, my feelings for the little hodge podge collage strips of old video game sprite sheets and backgrounds are a little mixed.

(They were beautiful and I’m gonna make one someday)

Then, in Highschool, I took a basic Web Design class. It was a VVoid World Web of Notepad and Internet Explorer where a kindly old crone passed on to those of us there, some knowledge of the ancient runic language which forms the foundations of the World Wide Web: HTML. Tables, frames, css, oh my! This knowledge would eventually prove invaluable.

Throughout our studies we were occasionally allowed to venture out into the Wider World Web. It was during these little adventures and travels across the Web that I happened upon the magical land of Webcomics. It was also during this time that I began break free of the enchantment of sprites. Even though I would probably never return to them, they would always hold a special place in my heart.

  The Internet is for [Comics]

    Webcomics – Synonymous with “Masochism”

At first, I had no idea just how grueling webcomics could be. Most webcomic artists pump out pages one to three times a week. At the time I got into them, MegaTokyo, then still partially a video game webcomic, was just releasing its third printed book; 2-3 updates a week with a loosely set schedule. Evan Dahm was wrapping up his surreal fantasy epic, Rice Boy; with updates consistently going up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The various sprite and drawn webcomics that I was following at the time were updating all the time. Seeing all the great work going up, I felt encouraged to try it myself.

I drew these closer to the end of my junior year of high school.

Desu

Taking major inspiration from a lot of the manga and anime that I was enjoying then, I used pen and ink to make my comic pages. I liked working in black and white because it felt direct and skipping on color made it easier to finish faster. I figured I could work faster if I didn’t have to worry about the extra step. When I did want to use color, as is typical for the early pages of a new manga, I used markers.

At the time, I had no idea that mangakas used assistants. That’s messed up.

Not to say that it was completely unrealistic, but back in the real world I could only average one black and white page a week. If even. The spider webs I was drawing all over were so that I wouldn’t have to use a ruler to draw my panel proper borders. I thought it gave the comic an “old archive”. In the end, I concluded that the spider webs should have their place and not be all over.

This time, I decided to work a little more carefully and deliberately.

  Moving Forward

It was going pretty well but by the time page 7 rolled around, it was time for midterms and I had become too self-conscious and uncomfortable with the way I was drawing my comic pages then. Then, it was time to take finishing high school seriously and before I knew it, I was a freshman at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. I did a lot of growing in the next four years that I attended there. Unfortunately, I never revisited those pages. Instead, near the end of my sophomore year, I took a Sequential Art class where the Final was a full-color, 5-page comic.

These are the ink-wash versions of the 7-page Final that I submitted. I’d originally colored them digitally to meet project requirements but I don’t want to post those just yet..

  In the End

I wasn’t satisfied. The truth was that I waited until the last minute, rushed it, and over-reached on a re-draw that wasn’t much fun for me to work on. During the course of that Sequential Art class my professor turned my attention to artists like Moebius and Mike Mignola. I also came across Katsuya Terada’s stuff around this time.

  And school went on…

    I worked on Mage Punk when I could between assignments.

    Between thinking I could possibly work on a for-print comic…

    …and a webcomic at the same time.

  The End was Near

Most of these were actually made towards the end of my four years at Ai. Those of us graduating were tasked with compiling our work from the years past in accordance with the requirements for obtaining our degrees. I believe that we were given two semesters to gather our pieces and do any revisions to previous works to get them up to date with the rest of the portfolio piece. Illustration Graduates at AiFL were typically required to gather a required selection of their work into an on-demand printed book. The year that I graduated, my department decided to change things around a little. Specifically, we were given the option to collect the requirement work into a plain black binder portfolio and make the printed book more geared towards our pursuits. I opted to make a Mage Punk/Orbyss Archives “Zine” as my main portfolio piece.

  And Then College was Over

I drew a few more pages of the comic until I became employed full-time. These days, there aren’t enough free hours in my days for me to keep up with any typical webcomic’s update schedule so for a long while I stopped working on the comic altogether. I’m squeezing as much work out of every second that I’m not there; with whatever energy I can muster. This includes planning, writing, sketching and drawing. Before I got back to work on the site, I was posting fairly regularly to my Twitter and Instagram; those posts took time to do as well.

  Most of this post was written in separate sessions on my commutes to work.

“Shortcuts”

Even though I always wanted to present Mage Punk as a webcomic, I always worked on it like it would go to print eventually. This created a confusing mindset for me when working on the comic, where I had to work on a whole book, but I have to rush to finish every page. If I wanted to put out pages more frequently I took shortcuts at any point I could to be done with them. Even if I created a good buffer of finished pages, I’d still run into that same pitfall eventually. I wasn’t enjoying my project because of a pressure I applied on myself to finish it in a way I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with. I didn’t even get that much done in the end.

It’s important that I work on it at a pace that lets me show the best of my ability. I would love it if I could be properly finished with the pages before I post them but if I wait before it’s all good and done I’ll just never get around to posting anything, forever floating, aimlessly, throughout creative internet limbo.

Instead, if I have to work on my comic in piecemeal, I’ll just post it up in piecemeal. Mage Punk will still be presented as a webcomic but, until the end of the book is done, certain changes are still a possibility. Editing is an important part of producing any book and I’m going to make its presentation reflect that.

  Cue Rhidiculous shouting “I told you so!” from some nearby bushes.

  A Webcomic in Presentation Only?

Those Two Images are the Same Page

Instead of trying to finish things at breakneck speeds, I’m going to work on the comics at a more reasonable pace. I’ll try to work on it mainly Chapter to chapter instead of page to page like how a webcomic normally is done (buffers aside) This gives me the opportunity to take a step back and get a broader look at the story while still putting out content in enjoyable chunks.

It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around drawing a comic on a start-to-finish, page-by-page basis. While I was working on the later pages in the chapter I kept finding myself jumping around and making changes to previous pages to make some things more consistent with later parts of the story. Instead of working page-by-page, I was editing the chapter as a whole to try to strengthen the narrative I’m trying to tell.

To that end, I still want to present it on this site as a webcomic; if only in name and archive.

The Process

At the VERY longtime behest of my editor, I’ll be presenting the comic as a work in progress at various points in the following production stages.

Writing

I’ll post dialog excerpts here and there. Nothing that can spoil the story too much.

This step will be kept largely behind the scenes.

Thumbnails

I do these on index cards in ballpoint pen to figure out the sequence of events that I most prefer.

This is the step where I’m prone to overloading a page with information.

First Drafts

Full size roughs of the earlier thumbnails. This step helps me get a better sense of how crowded or unbalanced a page might be early on.

This step also helps to prune out any strenuous scenes or dialog that could otherwise have their own pages.

If it isn’t working visually at this point, it’s not going to work in the next step.

Pencils

This is where the real drawing happens. Drawings in this step are made by either digital or traditional means depending on when or where I’m working.

Inking

This step is exactly like the drawing step but in pen and ink. Despite my affinity for real pen and ink, I’ll mainly be working this step digitally.

Color

This step is wrought with indecision but it also one of the faster, more fun steps to do.

Lettering

I’ve removed the dialog from all the pages currently up, opting to keep that out until a chapter is completed; it’s the thing I’m likeliest to change the most frequently until the end.

All lettering is currently done digitally but I’m considering the possibility of hand lettering.

Drawing dialog can be quite fulfilling but it takes a lot of practice.

Editing

This part will be happening all throughout. Page re-orders, panel redraws, changes in dialog.

Until the book is done.

  Here We Are

I’ve already made some revisions to a handful of the pages that are already up; if you browse through the comics you can see the revisions noted in the comic descriptions. I’ll make blog posts for any major revisions or series of revisions that I do. I have a few ideas for some smaller projects that I can work on while I work on Mage Punk. Whether they be illustrations, stories, or even mini-comics like this silly thing down here.

      Moving on

I might have also mentioned before that I have a few other drawings that I wanted to make for the site. In particular I have a neat idea for some social media icon illustrations. I wanna make something that takes advantage of what I’ve learned with using CSS. It’s nothing too fancy.

All that said, future posts will be a bit more brief than these last three were. I’d much rather write and post about the work itself, but I feel like I’ve hit a personal milestone and felt the need to ramble on about it a little.

    Until next time,

  Thanks for reading!

    The Big Site Update (Part 3) A Brief tl;dr This is probably a lot to say for 20 unfinished webcomic pages and 

[faltering-not-fading]

Sketch to lineart to color is the same as a detailed prompt/bullet fic to an outline to a full draft and I would LOVE to see people start doing collab challenges like that.

Best ways I've seen to combat the disjointed feel in other methods tho:

-have ONE beta go over the whole thing and tweak wording and flow enough to fix it. Not the best unless everyone is seriously on board from the get-go, springing it at the end on people who may not want that sort of overhaul on their stuff is a dick move, but it's fun if you're down for it

-depending on what you're writing, pick one person in the group to write either the first scene/section or the most important scene/section, definition of important will vary. This person should be The Best out of the group at writing that genre/trope by agreement of the group. Like if you are the Official Angst person and it's gonna be, say, hurt no comfort, congrats that means you! everyone else in the group treats it like a "match this stylistically" challenge, and if you rotate everyone's specialties everyone also gets a rounded skill boost

-Everyone finishes their bit individually. Do an edit for basic spelling and comprehensibility, get rid of obvious mistakes and sentences that make everyone but the writer say "do what now???" Roll dice or whatever to determine a roster, first person does a full flow/pacing/syntax edit, second person does a full BLIND edit w/o seeing any notation of the first person's edits, third person does a blind edit w/o seeing the first or second person's, etc. Pass it all the way through the roster over & over until everyone agrees it's the final, or if you enjoy your sanity agree on a set number of times to go through the full roster. Everyone's fingerprints on it will overlap after the first two or three go-rounds.

Keep a master log of what everyone edits though (I personally prefer everyone sending me copies w/ their changes in a heavily contrasting font if I'm point on it) because you WILL end up with the same couple of lines doing a direct back and forth otherwise half the time, those lines are best left to a group discussion. It's a lot easier to catch if you can just compare copies

I wish there was a way for writers to collaborate more effectively, like how artists can split the work between sketches and line art and color etc. How do we achieve that ideal Good Omens-level cohesive teamwork to produce a product that doesn’t feel obviously choppy or disjointed....