Scripting

Took a little break from blog posts last night. Might not have been the wisest thing, but honestly I was itching to do some scripting for Fox & Willow and I don’t like fighting the muse when she decides to kick in. And since Aimo and I check in a weekly basis to discuss the overall progress, I like to actually have something to show her. 🙂

I’m trying a slightly different mechanism for this chapter. First chapter is called “Came a Harper” and has a lot of setup going on, but because I was still getting my brain wrapped around the idea of scripting (and it’s nothing I’ve ever done before), I started out writing it more like a short story and then going back and highlighting the bits that would go into the comic portion.  (And a lot of that is at Aimo’s discretion anyway – we discuss the individual storylines quite a bit. I usually only suggest what I think might work for a given panel – but it’s completely up to her as to how she wants to implement it.)

But truthfully, from a time perspective the short story concept isn’t going to work out long term. About part way through the first chapter I began to shorten things – focusing on dialogue and basic description, and even backstory about certain characters – things that won’t necessarily make it directly into the strip, but it’s still important for us to know.  There are a lot of little details that can be drawn into a scene that may not be obvious, but they’re there and they will mean something down the line.  (And sometimes it’s just about fleshing characters out.)

This second chapter is going faster. (“To the Sea”) I’ve got a better idea of what I want to say, for one -but I’m also more comfortable with *how* I want to say it. I’m also lucky that Aimo has such a brilliant and natural instinct for being able to figure out what it is I’m trying to do. It’s been a fun learning experience so far – so I’m really happy with it.

So now that I’m done gushing on a Friday, just wanted to thank everyone again for a fabulous release week for  A Sliver of Shadow. (And if you’re interested, the pre-order links for A Trace of Moonlight are already up on Amazon, so things are moving right along. Looks like October 30 is the date to watch out for.)

In the meantime, there’s a promo/giveaway going on over at Ramblings of a Chaotic Mind. 🙂 Review here.