Michelle's corner

Hard going is all I can say.

GENIE is now in three stages. Graphic Novel Script, First stage book and second stage book.

I had built in a number of tension points, to run from one comic to the next. One of those points was a strong cliff hanger. I chose that point to split the script in two, so the second half still contains 8,400 words of GN script.

The first half was tranlsated in to 1st stage book, which means that it gets the story out but has little depth. This is kind of how I wrote, "Check Mate." It did its job, entertained, all the characters were rounded and everything logically flowed, so that all the major points were justified and believable. The first half still contains 13,800 words that are in this format.

The beginning of the book is now being given more depth. There is a chapter explaining the post apocalyptic rules and how the planet now hangs together both politically and technically. Two of the main characters have now also been given their back story. This runs now in to 4,600 words and this is fairly much now in finished draft format.

The whole lot together comes to 26,800 words so far.

There are three other main characters that have to be given their back story, and two other characters that will accompany these three, with minimal back story. Then that will be set. I estimate that the whole back-story will take me to 10,000 words of polished draft, before the action starts to happen.

The back stories are not easy to write, but the key is that I know where they are at the start of the action; I know what jobs they do and I know what their personalities are like because I've written the story and dialogue, so I just work backwards from there. Work out where on the planet they were born, what happened in life to see them do what they are doing now, and tie in some other people and a little bit of roller coaster, which is where they get their personality from.

It also allows me to write in some more dialogue which gently eases in from hard back-story (which is effectively a telling of events) and translates to present-day action where all these characters start interacting with each other, and the game play begins.

Among my decisions, I am trying to be inclusive, so that people come from various parts of the world, and I'm also trying not to tie down race or skin colour. These characters could be anyone, in a readers mind. This much, is a concious decision.