Story Behind The Writing: Part 2

I have a hard time writing small stories. I have written a couple of short stories in my day, and it has never satisfied me. I'm a gluttonous writer, I absorb a lot of information before I sit down to write, but that data also provides me with a lot of energy, and I invariably keep building the plot up, cranking up that preverbal dial, pushing the concept itself far beyond what could be considered a short story (for better or worse!). The Overman could have worked well as a short story, by focusing on one of the characters. But no, that wasn't enough for me, I had to throw in several complicated characters, all of whom are driven by unique goals. All of those goals collide in the end, but I won't give away details about that.

The main character, Nathan Fisher, was there from the beginning. I pictured him as a middle-aged thug, a corporate bounty hunter who acknowledges the ruin of his life and exists as little more than a slave. He has no purpose, no goals, and no ambitions. He is sloppy and brutal, but does his job. He is an everyman who is thrust into awesome responsibility. This theme is also present in my current book Champion Of A Lost Universe. That similarity wasn't intentional, but I don't have a problem with re-using themes that interest me.

In The Overman, I wanted to deconstruct Nathan's life even further, pull him down into a desperate existence, and then sit back and see if he can save the day in the end. Again, no spoilers here. Writing can be a frustrating job. But when I've created characters that are fully realized in my mind, it becomes easy work at that stage. The best example of this for me was my first regularly updated web comic, The Last Odyssey. The characters were based loosely around my experiences playing Dungeons & Dragons with a group of like-minded friends during my high school years. The characters were already somewhat developed, in that I relied on some of the character traits that my friends had already introduced into the mix. Years later I re-examined those characters and realized that they could be translated easily into comic form. That book was drawn by the seat of my pants, so to speak. I was learning how to best present a comic book online, so there are several instances where the size and format of the comic changed, and I never relied on a pre-written script. I had a plot outline only, and even that was subject to change. By the time I had my footing, I realized that the sword and sorcery theme had somewhat run its course for me, and there seemed to be an over-abundance of that stuff online anyway. But it was fun, only because the characters seemed to take on a life of their own when I was drawing them.

The Overman, as expected, is a different animal. The characters always seemed to have limited options in what they could do, because right from the beginning they have a pre-destined path. It's like a long march across a battlefield, and the enemy is in clear sight through the entire journey. The characters, deep down, know what is going to happen. The reader can hopefully sense that as well, although it might remain undefined, like a shadow on the horizon. Even though the characters of The Overman are locked, in a way, in a horrifying roller coaster ride, they have surprised me by their actions. They are all strong personalities, and in a way, firmly took over the wheel from me and introduced things I hadn't considered when I was preparing a first draft. Shanes depiction of them has also helped in a great way, he's captured their personalities and contributed to their evolution through the years.

I think the best characters have to surprise their creators at some point, turning down a different path than what was originally planned. When that happens, it's a sure sign that the reader will also be surprised. And surprises can be good.

Notes from the Field: The Chosen Path I

Somehow I manage to sustain despite how long this production has taken me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have those days where I'd wish it'd all go away and I could get back to my own stories and universes. Without being overly melodramatic I think I'm hardwired for the survival of this project, much in the way a prisoner of war may hold one small truth.

That I will someday make it.

When I started out in comics at the tender age of 12 (yeah, I know what you're thinking, how serious can a twelve year old be?) I couldn't believe how taken I was by all things comics. It was like a combination lock snapping that last set of numbers that opened up the possibilities of my future. I realized at that point I could "choose" to do what I "wanted" with my life. I have to laugh however, as most of you know how hard it is to do this "craft" and how much money and time you will spend on it, before you make a single dime. Some might say we're all throwing our lives away. That, akin to Japanese Bunraku puppetry, where a puppeteer along with a 3 person team will spend 15-20 years alone working only the left hand of the puppet, and many successive years learning the other parts until decades later they become head puppeteer.

Somehow, someway the spirit of the art prevails in us and we make our way through all obstacles.

After some point it becomes a mission and then later an addiction. Then the lines blur and years past and progress is made. More to the point, The Overman is almost more about my growth as a human being than as an artist. What seemed unattainable at one time is coming into focus. There's been many attempts at Everest, where people will turn back a very short span away from the peak because it was the right thing to do. And despite the journey, I really hope I don't have to make that kind of decision. At least as long as I live and breathe I will always come back to what it is I want to conquer in my mind.

Now, despite all those deep thoughts. It's hard work. I constantly find obstacles getting in the way such as other projects, freelance and life. Like anything I do the best I can with what I have, and I spend the real quality time on the work. If I'm not doing good work, or I'm not into it, I really give it a good push, sometimes that's enough to get through. But if I'm destroying more than creating, then I move on to something else entirely. That's where writing and drawing other projects come into play. That's where it's nice to focus on what drives my economic engine, the freelance! Because no matter what I'll always come back to what I love to do.

From my experience I know there are three phases to any project. The START, the MIDDLE and the FINISH.

Some people are really good at one of these three. Sometime they're pretty good at two of them. Rarely is anyone excellent at all three. What part of a project speaks to you most? Stay tuned, I'll talk more about these three phases and what I've learned about myself and about overcoming many of the foibles that I have during a project.

=s=

Story Behind The Writing: Part 1

Because I already maintain a daily updated blog (Monday-Friday) over at websbestcomics.com, I've decided to drop in here on the weekend, and will do my best to make sure I write something here each Sunday. Web junkies, surfers, whatever you call them, are creatures of habit. I include myself as one of these kind of personalities, the people who visit the same dozen web sites every day.

I don't expect that to happen with this site just yet, but it should, once the true marketing wheel begins rolling. When that happens, I hope to make you completely dependant upon a steady diet of The Overman. In fact, my goal here is to get you familiar enough with the story so you'll not think twice about purchasing the book when it hits shelves in December 2007. I won't pretend that my blog posts aren't a thinly veiled marketing scheme. I won't lie to you, either. I'm here to sell this story to you, and I'm here to candidly explain exactly how The Overman came to be, it's evolution through the years, and it's current incarnation, which I am certain is now fully developed, mature and capable of stunning you into wanting more of it. I won't be writing about the story itself. What you'll get is the 'story behind the writing'. It's sort of like describing in intricate detail the components of some vast, purposeless machine, it's cryptic instructions and warnings written in psuedonyms from an alien language.

The Overman was a concept without any motivation. I had nothing to go on when I first started writing it, other than I wanted to convey the notion that the computers we all took for granted could be primitive lifeforms, struggling to become self-aware, struggling to let humans know that they had souls.

In fact, I think it possible that computer consciousness, while extremely primitive, would already be far too complex and alien for us to recognize. Take a look at the human brain and let me know where the soul is located. It'll be big news, trust me.

If computers were given the kind of spark that also mysteriously empowered early Man with self-awareness, how would we react to it? And would we even notice? How many centuries would pass before humans recognized that life had somehow sprung up within these machines, or that these machines have redefined what it means to be alive? Certainly there is no tangible proof of the soul, and we must rely on the unknowable to resolve that question. Could computers secretly embark on the same kind of spiritual mission, reaching beyond the sum of their parts, much in the same way we humans do every time a decision is based on the available data around us?

Computers today are still incredibly stupid. They rarely seem to understand even the most simple questions we put to it, and have a knack of giving us the wrong answers. We still have to deliver every single shred of information to them in a series of zero's and one's. For all the bells and whistles of today's computer technology, they are still crude in comparison to the workings of the human mind. Even so, there are robots all around us, performing many of the tasks we no longer have time to do ourselves. They may not look like the robots of Star Wars, but they do exist. I'll prove it to you. Call any large company and you'll be on the line with an actual robot for at least five minutes. Of all of the science fiction concepts that have involved robots and androids, who would have thought to predict they would not be evil or suffering from a superiority complex. No, in the real world, robots are just...annoying.

If all of the great science fiction ideas are taken, it's simply a matter of re-introducing those questions in a new way, with the expectation that the answers will not be forth-coming.