Progress Report 23-23
How do I feel after the Ep2 release? Most of any feedback I've been given seems to be positive. Some of it was overwhelmingly positive. I feel like I hit the mark on a lot of things I wanted to achieve with it, and I know expressed at one point that this would likely be the hardest episode to write.
In Ep1, the MC's attention was focused on himself and how shitty he felt his life had become. In Ep2, that focus was shifted away from himself and towards everyone else around him. This was an important direction to move not only for MC's personal growth and relationship building, but I also think it's required for us to
feel something towards the characters as well.
I think being able to present characters in ways that are emotional engaging is the hardest thing to do in writing. I don't remember many lessons about writing, but one phrase that has stuck with me is "Show, don't tell."
We can take Stacy, for example. You could say "she is shy" and that sounds very bland. Instead you show that it's hard for her to make eye contact, she blushes excessively, she fumbles her words, insecure about her appearance, etc. These things paint a broader picture and we can recognize these behaviors in people we know.
This sort of writing can be difficult when everything is character dialogue. I don't use a narrator's voice to help describe scenes and situations that you normally have in books; instead I have to use images, expressions, and sound. After that I try to fill some gaps within the dialogue. There's a lot of subtle things I've included that I'm sure the average reader may miss, and that's okay. I won't pretend I catch everything I read or play either.
My biggest worry was not being successful with that part of my storytelling. The nature of it being my creation means I'll never be able to correctly judge for myself if I did it right.
Now, enough of my rant. What's next?
After Thursday's release I wanted to spend a couple days to rest a little and take care of some housekeeping stuff that I've neglected. And in a few days I'll be away from home for over a week, but I will be able to bring my PC along to work on some things.
Right now I have about 20+ pages of notes for Ep3. The first thing I will do is construct an updated high-level plot timeline of everything that needs to happen and then begin filling in all the medium-importance plotlines. This is where I spend a lot of time sitting back with my eyes closed and letting my imagination work.
I might even try putting partial versions together for Ep4 and Ep5 at the same time. We'll see how creative I feel then.
Then it's about sitting myself down with a well-rested and clear head to write the first draft. I can't judge yet what I think the size of Ep3 will be, but if there's one thing I learned... Once I do have an idea: It'll be twice that size.
Whenever I need a break from imagination/writing, I'll work on creating some of the new characters that will appear, as well as some of the locations that will be used. I'll also create a personal list of specific things I want to improve, and I'll need to figure out some way to promote TaH a little more (I really have no clue on this one).
That's the rough idea of the road ahead. If you sat through all of this, thank you for loving this project as much as you do. While I'm passionate about making it, I probably wouldn't have made a full commitment if there wasn't anyone else who loved it.
ckr
