a history of boot, re-boot, re-boot, re-boot., ..., in story-writing
(or - the Kordinar disaster)
Some ideas just refuse to die. I start on something, then decide it sucks and give it up, but then - Dang, I just love this so much, I'll start it over. And then, it sucks again. And then, starting over..
Drawing comics as a hobby since childhood has given me this sort of experience, a whole lot of times. I guess it's an unavoidable part of improving oneself. What initially seemed good, then all of a sudden sucks, not worth teh attention anymore. But sometimes these things happened more extremely. Like the "Kordinar 25000"-disaster.
I was 15 years old when I got this "I just must draw this story" idea for the first time. In short, the idea was - somebody foresees a soon-to-come threat to the world, something which will "turn the whole world into hell" (or something like that). Now that itself doesn't make any story good, but I had plenty of ideas how to make this good, or at least something which was good in my opinion. Or at least, that was what I thought.
Version 0.1:
This 'epic science fiction adventure' was planned to be ten issues in total, 20 pages each. I managed to finish issue #1 and almost issue #2.
Then I gave up - I noticed the story contained major things which didn't make any sense, and on top of that it was too boring. Events were told in a rushed way, not taking any time for detail, depth or character development. Or, said in other words, this comic was just a heap of ridiculous bones without any meat on them.
Version 0.2:
I didn't have any plan how many issues in total, but 20 at least, maybe even 30 or more, with each issue 31 pages. It should get really 'epic' this time.. I managed to finish almost three issues before I gave up again.
What happened? I decided to give those bones a lot of meat - a large number of characters with their distinct personalities, interests and background. There was also several planets with different cultures and problems. Then, inevitably, like a blob, all these details uncontrollably grew into some huge tumorous something not really getting anywhere. Why should the reader care?
Version 0.3:
Starting over. Each issue should now have entirely 41 pages. Story-line was similar to the last version, but with a lot of the "tumor" ripped away, to focus on the stuff actually relevant for the core story-line. While this version was definitely way better than the two previous ones, I didn't get happy this time either. First, yay for finding the optimum between not enough detail and to omuch detail, it was just - Something.. wasn't satisfying. The story began to bore me. It *might* have been the textbox overload, with their walls of pretensious blah. Also the characters, no matter the detail, they still felt flat. I didn't even complete issue #1.
Version 0.4:
..so next try, somewhat later. I was no longer just 15 years old, but entirely 16 now and a whole lot smarter and experienced, so I felt ready for a re-boot now. Able to tell the story effectively, keeping the relevant detail and letting out irrelevant detail, making the story feel vivid as well as straight-to-the-point. I managed to finish ca halfway into the first issue. I'm not quite sure what went wrong this time, but again it began to bore me. I suspect it was something similar to version 0.1, story got too rushed, characters remained flat, plot wasn't allowed to develop naturally, it felt forced.
Version 0.5:
I didn't even finish the title page. I was 17.
..then it died, I lost interest, didn't see any reason for yet another reboot. Some of the characters lived on in other stories I did though. Which.. never got finished as well.
But then..
25 years later..
I'm now working on version 0.6.
Which may turn out to be version 1.0. Ten issues, each issue - 60-70 pages or so. Wish me best luck, I can need that. :P
Some ideas just refuse to die. I start on something, then decide it sucks and give it up, but then - Dang, I just love this so much, I'll start it over. And then, it sucks again. And then, starting over..
Drawing comics as a hobby since childhood has given me this sort of experience, a whole lot of times. I guess it's an unavoidable part of improving oneself. What initially seemed good, then all of a sudden sucks, not worth teh attention anymore. But sometimes these things happened more extremely. Like the "Kordinar 25000"-disaster.
I was 15 years old when I got this "I just must draw this story" idea for the first time. In short, the idea was - somebody foresees a soon-to-come threat to the world, something which will "turn the whole world into hell" (or something like that). Now that itself doesn't make any story good, but I had plenty of ideas how to make this good, or at least something which was good in my opinion. Or at least, that was what I thought.
Version 0.1:
This 'epic science fiction adventure' was planned to be ten issues in total, 20 pages each. I managed to finish issue #1 and almost issue #2.
Then I gave up - I noticed the story contained major things which didn't make any sense, and on top of that it was too boring. Events were told in a rushed way, not taking any time for detail, depth or character development. Or, said in other words, this comic was just a heap of ridiculous bones without any meat on them.
Version 0.2:
I didn't have any plan how many issues in total, but 20 at least, maybe even 30 or more, with each issue 31 pages. It should get really 'epic' this time.. I managed to finish almost three issues before I gave up again.
What happened? I decided to give those bones a lot of meat - a large number of characters with their distinct personalities, interests and background. There was also several planets with different cultures and problems. Then, inevitably, like a blob, all these details uncontrollably grew into some huge tumorous something not really getting anywhere. Why should the reader care?
Version 0.3:
Starting over. Each issue should now have entirely 41 pages. Story-line was similar to the last version, but with a lot of the "tumor" ripped away, to focus on the stuff actually relevant for the core story-line. While this version was definitely way better than the two previous ones, I didn't get happy this time either. First, yay for finding the optimum between not enough detail and to omuch detail, it was just - Something.. wasn't satisfying. The story began to bore me. It *might* have been the textbox overload, with their walls of pretensious blah. Also the characters, no matter the detail, they still felt flat. I didn't even complete issue #1.
Version 0.4:
..so next try, somewhat later. I was no longer just 15 years old, but entirely 16 now and a whole lot smarter and experienced, so I felt ready for a re-boot now. Able to tell the story effectively, keeping the relevant detail and letting out irrelevant detail, making the story feel vivid as well as straight-to-the-point. I managed to finish ca halfway into the first issue. I'm not quite sure what went wrong this time, but again it began to bore me. I suspect it was something similar to version 0.1, story got too rushed, characters remained flat, plot wasn't allowed to develop naturally, it felt forced.
Version 0.5:
I didn't even finish the title page. I was 17.
..then it died, I lost interest, didn't see any reason for yet another reboot. Some of the characters lived on in other stories I did though. Which.. never got finished as well.
But then..
25 years later..
I'm now working on version 0.6.
Which may turn out to be version 1.0. Ten issues, each issue - 60-70 pages or so. Wish me best luck, I can need that. :P