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Email the author at
qwanderer7+lgc@gmail.com
The Elves of LleuGarnock is Copyright
Irene Pitcairn<2008-2009. The Elves of
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December 28, '08
Excuse me while I speak in the abstract about specific things I don't want to give away.
This is a big snarl I have gotten myself into. It took me this long sorting out the different elements to realize how bad it is. When I started rewriting the book for comic form, I did a lot more defining about how magic works. I knew it would affect a lot of the plot elements. Since then I've done a lot more refining in order to make an interesting, consistent system for the use and transfer of magical energy.
Some of my favorite elements in the original book, I had no idea how they worked. In a way, I guess that was part of their charm. Each elf's magic was mysterious, unique, and prone to change unpredictably. All of that is still true, and the laws of thaumadynamics that I've put into place make it possible to tell a complex story about that magic.
All these things are good. The laws are loose enough that I can leave most elements of the story the way they were originally, without explicitly breaking those laws. The conflict is primarily in the feel of the story and the style of storytelling, at least in some ways.
The laws have changed so that a certain element of the story no longer feels right. In the original book, it was a very large element; in fact I would say it was one of the two most important concepts in the book. It still is, but I've been ignoring the implications of some of its more whimsical and charming aspects as I've been working to expand the rest of the story. Those aspects now seem out of place. In a way, because the story has grown, this large element now seems too small and simplistic for the rest of the story.
It's a powerful image, but I can't seem to make the transition to the image without a huge hiccup in style. It's too cute, and too specific, especially since the audience has much more background on the nature of the magic than a reader at this point in the book. It's harder to say the same thing without making it sound contrived.
There's also the problem of the twist in the story that the element leads up to. When I introduced the element into the book, I had no idea the twist would happen. Since I based a lot of the ideas I've been using to structure the story around on that twist, when I read through that introduction now, the twist seems obvious.
This is partly an illusion based on the fact that I have been thinking so much about those rules and later events. The reader doesn't know nearly enough to make it obvious. But this brings up another set of problems I've been pondering.
I know a lot of people don't like it when there's a key piece of information that ties everything together, and the reader doesn't know it, especially if the main character does know it. The way the story has been shaping up, it seems likely that I'll be guilty of something similar. Not in the worst way possible, but to an extent that makes me uncomfortable.
I'm constantly thinking about when information should be introduced, and how. I have to balance it so that people have enough information to make sense of the events in the comic, but not enough to give away some of the twists that take place. At the same time, I like to include confusing events that give hints and imply a mystery.
One of the twists is not so bad, since only a secondary character has the relevant information. I don't feel so bad about that one, I'm just having trouble balancing the information properly. The other twist is more interesting. Gemini has a piece of information that Syblai doesn't, and it becomes relevant later. I did feel bad about that, but I don't so much anymore. There are a couple of reasons.
One is that I've got a beautiful pattern for the introduction of all the relevant pieces of information. It makes sense. The other is that Gemini is no longer so dominant in the story. Syblai was important in the original book, but it wasn't his story. This part of the comic is his story, so it makes sense to come at it from his point of view.
I'm really having to reevaluate the story as a whole to balance all these elements, and until I can do it better I can't move forward in the comic. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm really stuck. Really really stuck. I don't know when I'm going to get unstuck, but when I do I have a bunch of scripts ready to go that aren't influenced by these problems. So I hope I'll be able to recover my buffer pretty fast.
In the meantime, I'm going to work on craft projects. I'm currently fascinated by Steampunk aesthetics, and I'm exploring them, and their commercial possibilities through Etsy. I want to make rivet and bolt-head embellishments out of clay, so people can glue them to their steampunk projects. I'm thinking Sculpey I, in both plain white and painted metallic varieties. If I can make them quickly and people like them, I should be able to sell them for a reasonable profit.
I originally wanted to make gear-shaped beads, but clay just doesn't seem like the right material. Complex shapes with sharp, precise edges are hard to make out of Sculpey. It would be more efficient to just find real metal gears. However, I'm also considering the possibilities of shrinky-dink.
I have to go to sleep soon. All the strange germs from all the strange family members have finally caught up with us, and we are ill. Good night!