Prep Work

Hey all,

A few bits of news before the curtain falls on this year. I'm not going to do one of those year-in-review things.
Why?
Because you can go and read our previous posts, which I recommend you do. I'll just say that in 2013, we took a major step forward, but we have many other steps to take yet. I am glad I'm a patient man.

In November, Dave and I attempted to have a contest of sorts to drive some more traffic to our Facebook page. We were going to give away a free print, but we had zero takers.
Zero. So, lesson learned.
Facebook isn't always the best way to engage people since its utility value can, at times, be somewhat minimal.

Instead, we will be engaging people in a few weeks at KW Tricon.
We have a table.
We have business cards.
We are currently doing prep work to get our prints ready. Getting our information to people in tactile form will hopefully pay greater dividends in terms of promoting our long-struggling Work In Progress.

I had also mentioned in an earlier post that I would be doing a book review of Wool by Hugh Howey. It's still coming.
First, though, a recent experience has prompted me to pose a question to you - at what point do you quit reading a book?
A family member recently recommended a trilogy to me after noting my interest in the Knights Templar. I started The Road To Jerusalem by Jan Guillou. I made it through the first seventy pages before calling it quits due to a mixture of frustration and boredom.

The main issue, aside from the main character being almost entirely absent, was that nothing was happening. The author was describing, in exhaustive detail, the homestead where the main character would presumably be born. But the detail went on and on - the living arrangements of the servants, the layout of the farmhouses, the income from agricultural developments... I was getting the impression that the author did a ton of research and couldn't help but put that fact on display.

Don't get me wrong, attention to detail is great, but it can get in the way of the story. Starting off a novel about the Crusades with the minutia of Medieval Swedish farm life isn't all that interesting. I decided that if the start of the book was setting the tone for the trilogy, I was wasting my time. For me, the author didn't need to prove what he knew since such detail was, in all likelihood, not even central to the story. And if it was, then it's not the sort of book I want to read.
I wonder how many other potentially great stories have been sullied this way.


You may point out that historical fiction isn't genre fiction and therefore isn't as flashy. I might concede this point, but there are still right and wrong ways of storytelling. James Clavell's epic Shogun was bursting with detail about culture and custom.
But it started with a naval battle.

Decembeard

First of, I’m going to rattle through what we’ve been up to for the past few months.

Editing.
Constantly. Sometimes it’s joyful, sometimes sorrowful. Lately, it’s been more of the former.
When I first began writing The Seven Stars, it had been years since I had written anything of substance. The first draft took a year to complete, and while I was happy with parts of it, there was a lot that needed to change. I was unused to the economy of language that is demanded in comic scripts. In fact, I was not a reader of comics in the slightest. But, I’m happy to say, things do change, and each revision further refines what did indeed start out as a literary lump of coal.
The War of All, the lead-in story to The Seven Stars, has been our focus of late. It, too, is being refined; while we’re keeping the main plot thrusts, we’re trimming down the fringes. A one hundred page comic isn’t the best medium for an overly convoluted plot, as Dave so often reminds me.


Executive Decisions

It has been nearly a full year since we have had the Wacom Cintiq, and it has allowed us to make more progress than I think Dave and I even realize at this point. Dave had completed about ten pages done in full colour (page one, below) when he decided to alter and simplify and visual style, and started over.

It’s worth mentioning that we both quite liked the way that the colour images looked, but as the sole artist, it would be difficult to balance that level of colour and detail with being able to make decent progress.
Recently, he has honed a new shading technique that lends the images a surprising amount of depth. Hopefully I can twist his arm enough to get him to post one of the more recent pages, but at this point we’re going to continue in black and white only. This means (fingers crossed) we’ll have a finished product that much sooner.

Sidenotes

Dave has done some colouring for fellow artist, supreme nice guy and bearded champion Mike Rooth. I highly recommend checking out Mike’s Facebook page to see Dave’s handiwork as well as Mike’s own amazing artwork. I have been working on my own novel’s first draft (82,000 words, still not done) as well as a multi-part superhero story for my overseas friends at Artifice Comics. Part one of "Horizon" can be found here among worthier tales. It’s totally free, as are all the other editions of Bento.

NEWS!
KW Tri-Con is on January 18/19. We are hoping to have our own table where we’ll be selling prints for The Seven Stars as well as Dave’s own fantasy/abstract artwork. More on that to come! Also, I've been catching up on my reading lately and wanted to start posting some semi-regular critiques. First up: Wool, by Hugh Howey.

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