derideal
patreon
a blog about Ivory and Derideal
🕑 Added 2023-04-21 16:00:07 +0000 UTCThis time I want to talk about planning stories.
in general, there are two ways of making a story:
- Planning everything, and use structures.
- Going with the flow (use intuition)
Derideal is the second type of story, mostly because when I came up with the story I had 17 years old or something. I've learned everything along the way, how to make better looking pages, drawing, how to tell a story...
It's easy to THINK you know exactly the story you want to tell, but a story is also flexible, you can change the entire meaning of a scene or an episode, by just changing a panel, or changing a dialog... or just changing the order.
Ivory came to be because I removed Laura from the story, but Alpha in part 2 is a character with little agency, I mean... he's pretty much depressed and crushed compared to Aden... I thought I needed another character to balance things out.
funny enough, Ivory was made as a female version of Alpha, because I wanted to include some fanservice shots, or just have a seductive girl in the story... and that's why she's often seen being flirty and easy going, she moves carefully, and always seems to know exactly what she wants.
She was made to be very different from Laura, almost her opposite...
Laura is innocent and fragile. Ivory is strong and independent.
she was also designed with the FOE color and uniform in mind... originally, I wanted her to tag along the FOE during missions... but then I scrapped that idea, but outfit remained.
thing is, she became a strong presence as I was writing, she was just supposed to go along sometimes... but her desire to be with Alpha make her reckless in the story, she's always more present, because, she wanted to be... and it was inevitable to feature her more and more.
I guess this is why they say some characters tend to "take over" your story, because after a while there are just certain ways they would act...
she also became a little more complex, she's really more of a young girl in love, and she's completely into those feelings (unlike Laura, who's always much more reserved). I think that the end of part 2 and during part 3 it will become more apparent how transparent she is, innocent even. She's not much into thinking things for long.
Also, she's made to be a female version of Alpha... because I thought it would be nice, and would make some sense too, considering the Consortium wouldn't have re-written Alpha's DNA entirely to create her.
but at first, I wanted her to be younger and more of a cold killer... huh.
During the writing of PART 3 she became sort of a driving force, which almost led me to entirely focus the story on her (would have been a mistake I think).
anyway, she wasn't originally included in my original idea, but she came to it. make a mess of that original idea, made it almost impossible to continue the same way... but it ended up making a new, different story that I liked more at the end.
Stories also change depending how much you grow, or how different are your interests.
Anyway, I want to try to write another blog about "STORY IDEAS" vs actual stories, and how much having "many ideas" make you lose focus and the less experience you have, the more you underestimate the scope of a project.
this for now!
Comments
Kit Foxboy
True, I'm trying to make games and that's less structured in some ways (at least in relation to the story) because you depend on player engagement and a little bit of choice and agency. I still think allowing your characters to grow as you develop them and really get a feel has major benefits though that a rigid approach might miss out on a bit.
Andrés Barra
In terms of roleplaying is always easier to build a story for me. Because it doesn't matter much if you're doing something original or something that's really setup with a proper story structure. Since you're playing , that alone is enough immersion for people playing, there are other elements that are involved... That's why if you play a rpg table campaign, you can't exactly translate that into a comic or a story without giving it a proper story structure, and it's part of the reason why it's difficult to adapt videogames too, most tend to have too little story to make a movie... And the gameplay involvement is what makes them engaging and the story seems to be much more effective.
Kit Foxboy
I'm so glad whenever you do these. This approach to storytelling very relatable to me, I'm not super organized. I've found if you really know your characters super well than it's like D&D almost sometimes. You can try to structure everything but they tend to behave in ways you didn't set out with to start. I struggle with overarching narratives so I tend to create big concrete moments in a story and then link the events in a more ad hoc way as I go.
Andrés Barra
Well, I think the best way for me now is to start organically, but just in notes and such... Then try to analyze whatever mess I end up with and incorporate some order and planning to it. Being purely intuitive comes with many dangers
TheNat'LaGuy
I love the second way to write stories because it feels like you're watching a movie inside your head, or seeing a story happen in real time, and you don't know what will happen next. And then you try to picture it for your audience, which makes it even more existing, for not even you are sure how it will end.
