So: I expected to have more written by now.
I should have had at least 6,000 more words written; instead I’ve been struggling to hit 2,000 all month. Since I’m pretty unlikely to make it at this point—as I start this, I’m in a (loud) coffee shop failing to even get through the notes that I’d like to, well, get through. So this se...
2020-01-27 19:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post…or lack thereof. Sorry; it's been a less productive month for a variety of reasons than I'd expected (or wished).
I'm still going to try to have something posted from Kani's story this month, though, of a reasonable length. If this doesn't happen I'll stop the charge at the end of the month—I'll make another post about that either way...
2020-01-21 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostIn the introduction to the still-untitled Kani story, the last bullet point in my list of “things I still don’t know” was “whether this is even going somewhere at all.” This is still sort of true, but I have some idea where it might go now, and thought it might be interesting to get into the story construction process, without...
2019-12-30 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe clouds had started to break during the time Kani was in the coffee shop, drizzle replaced by sunbeams, the air strong with pavement-after-rain scent. The coyote took a circuitous route to the burger place the barista had mentioned, following a wider avenue with a light rail line running down the median for a few blocks. It all looked new, al...
2019-12-26 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostNote: I originally planned to put two scenes together for the first post, but each one is pretty big, so I'm going to follow this post up in a few days with the next scene.
The nicest thing about Mensura, in the whole three hours Kani had been there so far, was the way no one gave the coyote a strange surreptitio...
2019-12-22 19:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostSo. Tomorrow I plan to do something I haven’t done in a long time, at least intentionally: publish part of a story that’s still in unfinished first draft state. First, though, a little story about the story.
Kani is a coyote character I started roleplaying years ago, one of my few male characters. I never quite inhabited him, though, t...
2019-12-22 03:52:23 +0000 UTC View PostThis is not the story I planned to write. It’s a silly image that leapt into my head and wouldn’t let go until I wrote it to get it out. (I’m not sure it worked.) This is a companion piece to “The Sea Monster of Dorgissey Harbou...
2019-11-30 21:56:53 +0000 UTC View PostHappy Thanksgiving to those celebrating it (or, if you already have, I hope yours was happy)!
If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you know I’ve been having a bit of writer’s block this November. Or you may have just guessed from the lack of updates. I am writing now, working on a new Mensura story with some old faces and some new...
2019-11-28 18:53:58 +0000 UTC View PostSo: no updates at the moment, I'm afraid, but I have many ideas that I'm hoping I can move on. If I don't get anything out this month I'll cancel the payment processing for November, though. I may post something about the ideas I'm working through, too, at least if I can make the post interesting.
And: thank you all for your support throug...
2019-11-20 02:41:05 +0000 UTC View PostFirst, I’m sorry I didn’t get this post out earlier in the week; I intended to, but my “real” job had me working at a trade show and leaving me unusually wiped.
While there wasn’t unanimous support for sticking with the per-month patronage, there seemed to be a clear preference for that among those of you who voted, so—at least...
2019-11-01 15:30:54 +0000 UTC View PostAs the screenplay wraps up this week, here’s some thoughts on what’s ahead.
First off, since last July, when Saida & Autumn started, I’ve managed…
Co...
2019-10-21 15:38:57 +0000 UTC View PostGabrielle has some sharp questions for Harry, but is interrupted by a crisis. While she finds herself confronting the police, Harry searches through Mirasol's lab notebooks.
Note: this is likely the last section that's going to be published as "early access": if you want to keep reading, you'll have to a patron at at least the $3/month...
2019-08-07 18:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostHarry convinces a reluctant Gabrielle to take Mirasol in as a temporary boarder. As the two women try to learn about one another, the vixen begins to wonder just what game her nephew is playing.
As before, this post will unlock for everyone on Saturday. The serial will go patron-only (at the $3+ level) some time in August!
2019-07-31 17:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostHarry urges Mirasol to make nice with the Underwoods. When she reluctantly visits, she finds them in a literal fight—and no one expects what happens next.
Since screenplays don't have chapters, this picks up on page 9, after the end of the previous scene. What you've (hopefully!) already read is grayed out.
2019-07-24 18:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe opening scene of Red Savina, where we meet most of the main players. It's a grand party at the Underwood Estate, but not everyone is enjoying themselves…
After some deliberation, I've decided to upload the screenplay "sequences" as PDFs, and not attempt to muck about with a plain text version for now. Sequences will often bo...
2019-07-17 18:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post(Because this seems like a good post before I begin serializing one.)
The title makes this sound either more complicated or more pretentious (why not both!) than it truly is. It’s not difficult to read a screenplay; it’s just that there are quirks and conventions of the format it’s worth knowing.
Screenplays sit in an ...
2019-07-16 18:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostI’ve finished the outline! The screenplay itself is underway, although just five pages in. I’m still working out how big each weekly posting is going to be; I’ll probably have a better sense of that when I’m farther along. I’d like to be able to stretch it out a bit, but I also don’t want the bits to be so short they don’t feel lik...
2019-07-06 00:34:47 +0000 UTC View PostOne of the many quirks of screenplay writing is one I obliquely referred to in the last update: they have a specific formatting style that goes back many, many decades. As the world moved from typewriters to computers, most publications looking for manuscript submissions—stories, nonfiction articles, whatever—gave up insisting that ...
2019-06-29 19:32:54 +0000 UTC View PostWhile I’m generally not a “pantser” (that is, someone who tends to write stories “by the seat of their pants,” I’m not generally an outliner. With few exceptions, I do my story planning as freeform notes in a separate document. I start this brainstorming document before I start the first story draft; it has...
2019-06-22 18:48:13 +0000 UTC View PostIn “The mad science of story structure,” I talked about—yes—story structure. I got into character arc vs. plot arc, and gave a high-level overview of Dramatica’s “theory of story” and how it takes those two major arcs and organizes them as four “throug...
2019-06-13 18:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostSo, confession time: while I “knew” the story in the way it feels like everybody knows the story, I hadn’t read Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde until a few months ago. And, yes, in broad strokes, what I knew about the story turned out to be true: a mild-mannered doctor working with chemicals ...
2019-05-31 18:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostIn my introductory post, I talked about the three-act formula for screenplays. Countless books about it have appeared over the years, and more recently “story development” software has popped up based on various competing theories of the One True Way. At a 50,000-foot level, they’re all describing the same thing, but some of them take diff...
2019-05-20 18:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostSo if I’m going to write a screenplay, what’s it going to be about?
I mean, it’s going to be about a giantess, because hi, hello, have we met? Okay, beyond that. As I put it on my web site, giants range the gamut from gentle to apocalyptic. But I’ve just finished one of my longest-ever pieces about mostly gentle giants and...
2019-05-12 19:07:15 +0000 UTC View Post…I’m going to pull a screenplay out of a hat.
(“That trick never works!”)
Screenplays are interesting beasts: unless you’re doing a weird experimental art house film, a movie script follows a tight structure.
Act One introduces you to the protagonist’s life, sets up their thematic situation, and propels them into th...
2019-05-01 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe final word count for Mensura College: Saida & Autumn as posted is 78,375, which makes it far and away the longest macrophile story that I've written. (Only one non-macrophile work of mine beats it.) Other than the week between Christmas and New Year's, I believe I posted something every Wednesday since the serial started: usuall...
2019-04-19 15:38:01 +0000 UTC View PostAs Saida & Autumn wraps up, I’ve been thinking about what to do next—and about what worked and didn’t work for me this time.
This was my first try at a long “slice of life” story. As it turns out, S&A didn’t fit the minimalist-plot definition of true slice of life; while I didn’t know where things were going ...
2019-04-05 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostI'm still thinking about how (or if) to restructure the rewards at various levels; this is mostly about doing something other than the monthly chat for $9+ patrons, as that doesn't seem to be something people are using much. (Between Twitter, 2019-01-28 16:17:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy New Year! I'm taking this week off to work on the next chapter or two of the serial and to think about what's coming next. I'd really like to hear from patrons abut what else you might want to see—and ideas for what I might do for a different reward structure, since I don't think the current higher levels are quite working the w...
2019-01-01 19:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostHi, everyone! As you know, the holidays are fast approaching, like a rampaging kaiju in a Santa hat. I usually travel to be with family for the last couple of weeks of the year, and this year is no exception. This potentially complicates my serial posting, in that it my be difficult for me to be able to secret myself away long enough to write and e...
2018-12-10 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostIt was only sheer luck—at least, so he thought at the time—that Tyler overheard the security guards trying to throw the trick-or-treaters off the mansion grounds.
The fox just happened to be walking past the entrance hall, returning from a brief tryst in one of the downstairs bedrooms. He’d caught a tipsy, lost-looking squirrel girl—someo...
2018-10-31 18:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post