MWWT: Spaceman #1 pg20
barking_frog on Nov. 24, 2007
The MWWT prose short story I mentioned on the 17th is complete. I have one last proofreader taking a look at it, and then I'll link it from page 21 when that goes up in four days. It runs about 4,450 words. Its title is MWWT: Five Pawns, One Knight, Two Kings. It takes us approx. 18 or 19 years into the future in Clark's world (to roughly the present day in our world) to give us a glimpse of where events in MWWT: Executive Matters will be headed.
Back to my regularly scheduled author's note:
Now that the first issue of the story's all set down, I'm left with the feeling that I did too much consecutive dialog for many readers to want to follow. If I were doing it all over I'd look for a way to divide it up into two pieces so the reader could have a break.
In any case, issue #2 should compensate for it!
If you look for it, you'll find a mini-story evolving in the background of this issue. It involves the clusters of people standing off to one side of Clark and Ethel, and began back on pgs 9 and 12 when the kids came from the little woods.
I'm not certain it works, but if you put that together with pieces on pgs 13, 16, and 20-23, you should be able to glean a lot about the relationship of the background characters.
DAJB: Thanks – my concern is actually that the first 24 pages would probably be published as a single issue, and in this first half of the story (the total will run around 50 pages I'm guessing, though the second half isn't illustrated yet) we have nothing but dialog. I imagine that if both halves were published together in one volume it wouldn't be so noticeable, but a single issue of pure dialog seems too much. Or maybe I'm just worrying too much!
TheMidge28 at 5:00PM, Nov. 25, 2007
need to review this side story to gleen what is what. I am really enjoying the implications of Ethel's and "Slo-mos" conversation. Great writing.
DAJB at 3:19AM, Nov. 25, 2007
Terrific page as always. Assuming you have plans to get this into print, I wouldn't worry about there being too much dialogue. These scenes always seem to last longer when released in instalments like this than they do when read through in one go. I have the same issues with certain sequences in [i]Shades[/i]. The last fight scene seemed to last for weeks. The following conversation/wrap up did the same. The important thing (I keep telling myself!) is to focus on how you want it to read when it's finished.
Rutger at 2:48AM, Nov. 25, 2007
Nice establishing shot there