014 : Shadows
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Welcome new and old!
Since the 9th, we've...
Did a considerable amount of refinement for Act I.
Drafted the first few iterations for the first few illustrations.
What have we learned?
How will we move forward?
Let's see!
Honing
Sanding away dissatisfaction.
The beginning I described in the previous update is still intact. I like it very much and it's only been improved.
But what about everything after that?
So, the prior versions were going to be a sprawling history about how the world came about. The problem was that I'd have to write with 36 characters.
A nightmare.
So, I managed to reduced it to five! Yay! But those five, collectively, were still smuggling in 31 other characters. Boooo.
I reduced it to three (for real this time) but it would still amount to writing some obscene wall of text that would also be an exercise of stream-of-consciousness writing, too. And, that would be an awful reading experience (because I'd want to go all in on that), so that was a no-go. This is when I said "no more history" and tore a whole ream of paper out of the book and tossed it in the garbage. Metaphorically speaking. Though, if you hate history, maybe that's something you wanted to do at one point, too. Maybe it actually happened, who knows.
Eventually, two characters fell out of the void. Good building blocks. I could tell the most important parts of the world's history from their perspective.
Unfortunately, the story's pacing wouldn't allow for their characterization.
They're not really the focus.
Then it hit me. Duh! I'll just use the main character to write about the most relevant parts of history to themselves (the lives of those two characters), and detail their journey forward into their own world.
The main character!
Wow. Who would've thought?
Iterations
We're very, very, very slowly moving.
I mentioned this in the previous one, but I've had these images in my head for a little while now. Drafted them rather quickly and there's room for improvement, but they'll get there in time! Again, the goal is to make multiple iterations and pick the best ones!
A two-page spread.
And two single-pages.
Almost certainly not the ones I will pick, but expect more of these over time!
I've been sharing all of this in friend groups long before any of it reaches the newsletter. Planning to go back to the beginning of when I started doing that and use them as Twitter posts. This time I'll almost certainly never run out of things to post!
Assuming you haven't already, will you...
It'll be fun.
Twitter is always fun.
Fun things are always happening over there.
(He doesn't know what happens on Twitter.)
That's all I have for you today.
Next update on the 27th, barring emergencies.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Until then,
👋