h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Writing fiction is so much easier now that I'm not a newspaper reporter.

On the other hand, though, I'm no longer a newspaper reporter. Win some/Lose some.

Still, this means that Three Verellium Coins is closer than ever to seeing the light of day. I've just gotta decide the proper medium for publishing it. (Tumblr or wordpress maybe? Hard to say. Something cheap, naturally.)

CreateSpace, perhaps?

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I've considered CreateSpace, but that doesn't quite fit the format for what I want Three Virellium Coins (I spelled it wrong the first time) to be. CreateSpace works really well for finished products, not work-in-progress products. Considering that Three Virellium Coins is effectively a serial adventure, I need something where people are in the regular habit of checking, and of spreading things through word-of-mouth advertising since I have no actual advertising budget to speak of.

Tumblr is an almost ideal platform for that kind of thing. People scroll through their posts, and when they find one they like they repost it. Tumblr also has easy search functionality (I could label each post VCoins to make it easily searchable). More to the point, Tumblr allows for the creation of great amounts of material in small doses, and can make something easy to find even if you can't spell Virellium (I mean, I can't even spell Virellium, how'm I going to expect someone else to?)

There are other problems with Tumblr and blogging websites like it, to be sure. There are also a few good bonuses to other things I'm not leaning toward, and I'll cross those bridges when I come to them. For the meantime, though, I'm still thinking Tumblr.

So, Affy, you intend to handle it like a serialized story, doling out bits and pieces as you have them written? That means you'll have to have some copious notes on continuity, as well as how your story and character arcs will finally come to some conclusion. Or, you could simply let the characters "be themselves" in the environment and see where the story goes...

Have you also considered having Guest Writers add content, kind of like a collaborative work? Or perhaps, marketing your presence by challenging your 'literati' to point traffic your way? You could generate a character (name and personality)--as detailed by the person who sends you the most referrals--and incorporate it into the story as a tribute to their assistance.

Let me know how it progresses. And...if you need a bit of copy editing, don't be shy to ask.

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I don't think there's room for extra characters, but maybe.

The story has three major parts, each potentially novella length (or book length if I go crazy). If I think the story isn't sufficient after however-long the first installment has a decent point for wrapping everything up. I already have the first month's-worth of updates mostly ready, but I'm going to have two months ready before I even begin releasing them, though my readers and editors seem to like the first two weeks that they've been reading through.

The copious notes on continuity already exist in the form of written outlines and, after I started going crazy with just five updates written, an arc-chart to help me keep track of the story lines (I'm so glad I read that book on comic book writing. This isn't a comic book, but the arc-chart that they suggested there seems to work really nicely here for keeping track of all the stories.)

Honestly, the biggest thing I'm struggling with right now isn't about the technical details, but with how ludicrous I'm expecting elements of the science in the story to be. Do I want "Kirk can build a functional phaser out of things in the prison cell he's in" level, or do I want something a bit more grounded where most items have a single function and the characters don't know how to MacGyver their way out of anything? (I think based on my original design notes, I want something in the middle... effectively, MacGyver could MacGyver his way out of situations, but Kirk couldn't, each being a hero of their own genre-type and only heroic in those particular genres. The Lord of the Ninth Dimension may have greater mental powers than the telekinetic Asteroid Racer, but the Asteroid Racer is still probably the only one who should use said mind powers for asteroid racing.)

Do me a small favor, Affy. Let me know where (and how) I can get my hands on the comic book writing arc-chart. It would surely help me with a couple of projects I have in the works, too.

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YOU CAN GET ANYTHING YOU LIKE AT ALICE'S RESTAURANT

EVEN PIE!

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It's not this book, is it?

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

I've heard that one is really good, but haven't read it myself.

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And it's *circles* and arrows on the back of each one (not pointers and arrows).

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No, it's not Scott McCloud's book, though pretty much everyone who's done things with comics in the last few decades has said that you need to read that one as well. The arc chart comes from a book called "The DC Comics Guide To Writing Comics" by Dennis O'Neil (and if you don't like DC, it's worth noting that the introduction is written by Stan Lee who gives it his stamp of approval). The arc chart was described as something that was used early on in the development of the Legion Of Superheroes franchise. While what I'm using isn't exactly the chart they describe, it's definitely inspired by it.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.writersstore.com/system/0000/0912/dc-comics-guide-to-writing-comics-dennis-oneil_medium.jpg