This is not an Episode. (Boo!)
Instead, what this is is an announcement that the site actually works. (Yay!)
Instead, what this is is an announcement that the site actually works. (Yay!)
I've spent a lot of my writing time over the past week going into the guts of this site and making sure that it actually functions, that all links work, and so on and so forth. Given the idiocy that is my lack of a buffer, that means that, since this work had to be done and was in fact long overdue, there is no actual Warbler this week. (Writing and overhauling the site take second fiddle to not failing Chemistry, after all.)
However, I also understand that unexpectedly missing an update for no good reason (or what seems like that to the reader) is really, really frustrating. So I dug through my notes and found some really awesome stuff that I honestly should have dug up and posted a looong time ago. (As they say, one man's trash is still trash, no matter who you dupe into buying it.)
The first and arguably strangest thing I'd like to show off is this:
However, I also understand that unexpectedly missing an update for no good reason (or what seems like that to the reader) is really, really frustrating. So I dug through my notes and found some really awesome stuff that I honestly should have dug up and posted a looong time ago. (As they say, one man's trash is still trash, no matter who you dupe into buying it.)
The first and arguably strangest thing I'd like to show off is this:
That is my original outline for the first half of Season One, about half of which should make sense. There's really two big takeaways that I got from seeing this after so long:
1) I am not an Architect. In writing parlance, 'Architect' refers to someone like Brandon Sanderson who has every detail of a story planned out before they even begin. As you can see, I have about two steps planned out ahead of myself before stuff starts to fall apart, which is actually pretty accurate. Dance of War and Species D are where they need to be, as is Damage Control, but two more Episodes sort of grew out of where Damage Control and Hoatzin meet--the original outline, apparently, did not include Leave Her Johnny (Space Version). A travesty, really.
2) I am not a Pantser. In writer-lingo, a 'Pantser' is the opposite of an Architect--think like how JRR Tolkien largely had no outline, and just let the words flow onto the paper. While my original design here obviously changed quite a bit, the bones of the rest of Season One are there--what's listed as 'Contagion' became Kynak and For the Good of the Governed, and 'Blackacre' was originally a lead-in to Fata Morgana. (Blackacre is, I believe, referenced in VT Day.)
Just to give credit where credit is due, you can find the tool used to make this graph here: http://ogievetsky.com/PlotWeaver/
The other thing I'd like to post here is a snapshot of an alternative universe, ripped through the rift in spacetime known as 'The time I tried to do this in Google Sites'.
This is what Warbler almost wound up looking like:
1) I am not an Architect. In writing parlance, 'Architect' refers to someone like Brandon Sanderson who has every detail of a story planned out before they even begin. As you can see, I have about two steps planned out ahead of myself before stuff starts to fall apart, which is actually pretty accurate. Dance of War and Species D are where they need to be, as is Damage Control, but two more Episodes sort of grew out of where Damage Control and Hoatzin meet--the original outline, apparently, did not include Leave Her Johnny (Space Version). A travesty, really.
2) I am not a Pantser. In writer-lingo, a 'Pantser' is the opposite of an Architect--think like how JRR Tolkien largely had no outline, and just let the words flow onto the paper. While my original design here obviously changed quite a bit, the bones of the rest of Season One are there--what's listed as 'Contagion' became Kynak and For the Good of the Governed, and 'Blackacre' was originally a lead-in to Fata Morgana. (Blackacre is, I believe, referenced in VT Day.)
Just to give credit where credit is due, you can find the tool used to make this graph here: http://ogievetsky.com/PlotWeaver/
The other thing I'd like to post here is a snapshot of an alternative universe, ripped through the rift in spacetime known as 'The time I tried to do this in Google Sites'.
This is what Warbler almost wound up looking like:
Horrible, isn't it?
What was I thinking? IDK. It was dumb. This was also considered, and is a) Far better, and b) Far closer to what we have now:
What was I thinking? IDK. It was dumb. This was also considered, and is a) Far better, and b) Far closer to what we have now:
History is funny. It has a way of embarrassing us.
Just like missed posts.
Warbler will be back as normal next week, as the site is actually navigable now. In case anyone was wondering, a lot of the links between Episodes were broken, which was a major issue for obvious reasons. If you're still interested in reading some Warbler this week, I'd just like to remind everyone that if you highlight the 'Episodes' tab there is a 'Side Stories' one that pops up--in there you can find tens of thousands of words of the other assorted adventures of these characters, which my site stats say that most of you have not read.
Thank you for reading.
Just like missed posts.
Warbler will be back as normal next week, as the site is actually navigable now. In case anyone was wondering, a lot of the links between Episodes were broken, which was a major issue for obvious reasons. If you're still interested in reading some Warbler this week, I'd just like to remind everyone that if you highlight the 'Episodes' tab there is a 'Side Stories' one that pops up--in there you can find tens of thousands of words of the other assorted adventures of these characters, which my site stats say that most of you have not read.
Thank you for reading.