Lianne Sentar
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@runedrum – Yeah, we’re hoping to make the podcasts a semi-regular thing, and we’re planning to get creators on board. That will probably include you. <3
After running audio serials for a few years, we’ve found that “people who want to listen to something while doing the dishes” is a big percentage of our audience. *lol* If you want more awesome podcasts, I recommend /report, which will soon expand into a Female Gaze podcast as well. Those ladies are HILARIOUS and super smart.
We recorded Chapters 8-9 last week, which include the answer to the mystery. Not all of the actors knew what was coming, so we got a lot of them showing up to their sessions screaming, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” as they waved the script around.
Almost to the big reveal, guys. I guess it’s hard to predict. :)
I’m happy to say this book is a long one, and is scheduled to run for pretty much all of 2014. :D Isn’t it awesome? And Toivo and Demyan haven’t even bumped into each other yet! XD
I can’t get over Demyan. He’s SO FUNNY to me. He’s one of those dark, mysterious figures, yet he’s constantly stamping his feet and whining, “I wanna find the aaaaaangel!” I love how he figures out that Vesa is part of his prophecy, so he essentially yells “Mine!” and throws Vesa in the backseat of his car.
Never change, you saucy dark angel.
@khooliha – Sorry for the late reply!
The Cherry Bomb stuff will be on an irregular schedule, but we’re hoping for a new product every other month or so. It depends on the creators and where they are in their series, really. Collections will be released when we have, like 3-6 products to bundle together at once.
I’m glad you like them! I think our creators all did a great job, and managed to stay insightful while being hot. We have a Gauntlet pin-up set coming soon (from T2A herself) with some queer and/or kinky interpretations of a few of the book’s relationships, which will be fun. <3
This thread is amazing. I love wonder1440 expressing herself so much. <3
@five-pm – What a beautiful message. And where did you get that adorable picture of Colin for your icon?! O.O
Happy to see you here, Jen. :) It goes without saying, but GREAT JOB. You pretty much killed us with feelings.
@tacto – Actually, it’s a two-part short story! So next month you’ll get another chapter (the conclusion).
I think I literally giggled and clapped my hands when I saw the name “Lottie Dottie” for the first time. Adorbs~! XD
@animatorwannabe – Sorry for the late reply! To answer your questions:
1) Off*Beat going audio was a stretch goal we didn’t make in the Book 1-2 Kickstarter, so we had to shelf that idea. It’s a possibility in the future, but we’ll have to see.
2) For possible Off*Beat extra stories and smut, you’ll have to see how Vol 3 ends first. :)
3) Steady Beat was written/drawn by Rivkah, and I think she’s been working on other stuff since then. (Not for us, but still worth checking out. <3) And we've already been working/will work with lots of other ex-TOKYOPOP alumns: Christy (Dire Hearts) did RE:Play, Irene (illustrator on Dead Endings) was the artist for Mark of the Succubus, and we have another comic series starting soon by a pair of creators who have done manga for a number of publishers, including TOKYOPOP.
@tacto – You daring Ellery to write this (back in the early Gauntlet chapters) is half the reason it exists, Tacto. *lol* Although as the book’s been serialized, more and more people have been coming out of the woodwork as Clio x Black Jack shippers, so this kind of Cherry Bomb extra made sense. Plus, as you mentioned, the ending is great/spooky and fills out some stuff in the novel.
As for Red Jack being Lila’s prowler – I’m not sure if that’s ever going to be confirmed in the book or not, since this short story weaves reality with Clio’s subconscious. (So it could be true, or it could just be her assumption.) We’ll see! Ellery likes to play with things like that. Gauntlet was always supposed to be a mishmash of reality and the surreal…when Ellery first pitched it, she labeled it as the genre slipstream.
@phoenixfirev – That exposition solution sounds good to me!
Regarding your other question – I think that can be done in prose, but it’ll be tough. I suggest the following:
1.) Keep it as brief as you can. That can get awkward quickly, and just in general, paragraphs and paragraphs of narrative/description without any dialogue to break it up can be boring to read. (You can use the narrative character’s thought dialogue in place of regular dialogue, though.)
2.) Use lots of body language, descriptions of clothes/interactions with objects, and “tells” (like character-based tics or gestures), so you don’t have to rely too heavily on unrealistic insight (“She could tell from his eyes, even though she had just met him, that he came from a big family with lots of pets.”)
3.) Don’t have either character overexplain the signals they’re getting. Directly explaining the connection between body language/”tells” to actual characterizations (ala Sherlock) can work, but don’t overdo it. Include some body language/tells that the reader will understand without the narrative character tiredly explaining it – like “she nodded,” “she hesitated,” “she had rough hands,” “she had streaks of white in her hair despite seeming young.”
@Najela – Right now, all of Cherry Bomb is canon. Some are fantasies, some are backstories; they’re all written or planned by the creator and fit into the canon universe. (Fantasies and dream sequences are part of the character’s canon development, for example.)
It’s usually $3 for everyone, but you’re a VIP, right? That comes with perks! Email me at editorial@chromaticpress.com and I’ll send you the full Cherry Bomb collection. <3
@sgl – Those are all excellent pieces of advice re: world-building in fantasy! I agree with them 100%. Thank you. <3
In the timeline of writing a novel, several months isn’t that long, so don’t be scared to scrap what you have, if you think a restructure will make the book better. (It would suck to lose written scenes and an outline, but it’s good to be willing to do that! And what you have is probably at least somewhat salvageable.)
There’s a difference between creative paralysis and being willing to toss something if you can do better. If you’ve written eighteen versions of the same scene, or you’ve been stumbling through your outline for a year without writing a word, you’re probably in creative paralysis. If you’re partway through your first draft and think of a way to make everything cooler, and there’s no deadline on the project…I see no problem with scrapping what you have.
But first, I’d suggest getting the opinion of a friend, editor, or beta reader. They can give you an outside opinion on whether or not your “restart” will be worth the trouble, or if they think what you have now is just as good and you should stick to your original plan.
Opening with a drowning-rescue sounds awesome, but be very careful if you’re trying to hide some character feature during it. If dancing around that is going to make the dynamic of the scene unclear, then scrap that idea. Your opening scene should be very, very clear, especially if it’s going to be explosive like that.
It can be really, really challenging to comfortably reveal the rules of a world. One option I didn’t go into: having some sort of very direct write-up that falls outside of your story (say, a one-page write-up at the beginning of the book, or a paragraph describing an element of that world in italics at the beginning of every chapter). Separating your world rules out like that isn’t always elegant, but it’s more elegant than narrative tangents!
I’ve seen this done in a lot of ways, such as presenting these “expository write-ups” as an excerpt from a guide book to that world, or from a historical document within that world…Watchmen did something similar, with things like newspaper clippings between chapters.
