Thread "How (now) to stay the course" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 3:03AM, Mar. 6, 2022

Hi, guys!

This is gonna be another thread with me sharing stuff about the writing progress I've made for my webcomics. This I hope to be the last one since I'm trying to talk less about my webcomics so that they may speak for themselves and all, resuming updating once I'm through with SweSAT (Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test)next week.

The ongoing hiatus have been an opportunity to straighten things out about my writing and come to a final decision on where to take the setting itself. My problem has always been that I tend to take things in every possible direction, never being quite able to stay on one course.

In my last thread Alternate history timeline vs Pure fictional timeline I said that I was going to place the whole setting that my Webcomics takes place in on another planet entirely away from Earth. Well that I now figured was ultimately unecessary, though it did enable me to explore some new ideas for some new stories, so it wasn't an entirely fruitless little detour.

In fact it helped me figure out how to make it all work out, placing it all back on Earth. Helix is no longer a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, it is an island nation outside the coast of Northwest Africa, called the Isles of Helix.

Molly Lusc's home island, Baei Noire, and her hometown Port Hommerond is located there along with Altar (no abbreviation, its just Altar now), the nuclear power plant, that blew up and turned the region radioactive, mutating the local citizenship. The town of St. Ionah where the bug exterminators are having their adventure in the webcomic Idfestation is there. Everything going on in Imsies: The Imthology is going on there or is connected to this part of the world in some way.

The search for the lost compass in Endtide is happening in the Sea of Helix which is the sea territory within the archipelago of the Isles of Helix.

I feel like putting it all back on earth this way helps simplify matters and keep me within my limitations and enable me to finally stay course. It diminishes the world apocalyptic theme in terms of scale, but that brings me to what Tantz said on the last Quackcast.

A regional apocalypse is no less an apocalypse for those directly involved in it, and shrinking down the whole spread of mutation problem in Molly Lusc, from a world problem to a regional problem, I think opens up for some interesting new situations and angles.

Imagine having foreign tourists coming into Port Hommerond having a good time, staying clear from mutation just following basic hygienical procedures, while the native citizens, who are the only ones severely affected by the local radiation due to being the inheritors of highly radiated, maluble DNA, have to keep living in a domestic apocalypse, one that has happened and keeps happening to them.

It's not entirely unlike the grim, double standard sort of situations of some tourist locations in the real world. Not that I'm necessarily am trying to bring that to light with any of this, I just think it's an interesting, little angle that I think would work well with the neo-noir theme of Molly Lusc. There are more stories to come, some of them will take place outside of the Isles of Helix with other things going on in another part of the world, which I think will expand things in a cool way when they come around.

But my point is, I believe keeping it simplified, regional-sized and on earth will help me stay the course from now on and put my endless tinkering with the setting to an end.

So, how do you guys stay the course with your creative works? Do you like me need to put on certain limitations to do it or do you just do that naturally? I wouldn't mind hearing it.

Posted at 9:03AM, Mar. 8, 2022

World making is never a straight line. The process is full of stops and starts and detours.

Posted at 3:03AM, Mar. 9, 2022

Absolutely. It is always a wild, wiggly thing going on with world building. I tell ya', whenever I look back at the whole world building process of the past my head goes spinning. I find myself asking myself "where the hell have I even been these past 7-8 years". But at the same time, had I not taken all those stops, starts and detours back then I'd probably still be fumbling around, 7-8 years from now, with nowhere to go.

I know I said in that other forum thread that it was all perfect at the stage I was currently in back then. But really, in the end, one just gotta accept in their heart of hearts that it will never be perfect, because nothing ever gets to be perfect. The artist's dilemma. You simply gotta choose a spot to drop your tinkering gear and settle down.

And this is where I choose to drop my tinkering gear. Allowing me finally to worry less about my own little universe and pay a bit more attention to other's. Which reminds me, gotta pay the rest of your comics a visit and get to know your universe a little bit better, Bravo;)

Posted at 6:04PM, Apr. 14, 2022

I usually work within broad strokes of culture and history for a setting and really only commit to anything where it is relevant to the story being told.

That being said, however, a lot has become relevant, and I have had to keep track of everything. One of the ways I do that is through a private wiki.

Really though, my trick for my interconnected setting like Cosmic Dash and the successive shorts, comics, and the novella, is to be flexible and referential without establishing anything 100% locked in until necessary.

Posted at 12:04AM, Apr. 18, 2022

Sounds like a good way to go about it👍 I'll pay your universe a visit as well in due time👍