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 |  A hub for the "Book of Masks" universe. |
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The Interactives "The Book of Masks"  : A high school student discovers a grimoire that can make magical disguises."The Wandering Stars" : Sequel to "The Book of Masks.""Student Bodies" : A high school student is turned into a blue goo that can possess people.For non-WdC Members "The Book of Masks: Archives" : Dodges the "Servers Busy" barrier!"The Book of Masks (Abridged)" : Introductory storylines for new readers.Community "BoM/TWS Message Forum" : Community for readers of the interactives."BoM/TWS/SB Wiki" : Notes and documentation for authors. Spoilers!Current Polls None The Latest 5/7: Interactive: "An Arresting Development" 5/7: Public: "An Arresting Development"
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| "S02E15 "Outside the Box"" When I started writing my adaptation of The Superior Spider-Man storyline for the animated continuity, I began by outlining the entire season, then turned to outlining each episode. The plan was to have treatments for each episode in place before I began the scripting process. That way, everything would be down on paper, and I'd just have to turn the ideas into words on a page. But no plan survives contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy was me. For a start, as I explained in the previous commentary, I am not the kind of writer who can work from treatments and outlines. I went awry in other places as well. For instance, after writing the treatment for {item:} I discovered I had already written a script for it -- something I had completely forgotten about. And that script looked nothing like the treatment I had just written. It felt better to me, and was a lot simpler in its content. I muttered a lot of bad words to myself and did some thinking. And what I came up with was: Screw the treatments. They were going to be too packed with incident, I felt. Also, they were an immense pain to write. So I decided to go straight to the scripts. My overall outline for the 13-episode arc had told me what notes I wanted to hit, and what I wanted each episode to accomplish and where I wanted each one to end. So my new plan became to rely on that crude outline and wing it as I wrote each script. It was hard and it was slow, like feeling my way in bare feet across a dark room, but that's how I wrote this episode. The very first scene is taken from one of the Superior Spider-Man books, but the rest of it is mine. I got stuck for a couple of days in the middle, because I wasn't sure the scenes were coming in the right order, but I finally just bulldozed through. One thing I discovered: I really don't like writing action scenes. Inventing stuff for the characters to do -- That feels like something that an animation director should come up with, and then I should fill in some dialogue. Which, IIRC, is kind of how Jack Kirby and Stan Lee did it in the comics, right? |
| Another day with a lot of chapters getting published. In the Round Robin, each alternative gets a chapter, just to nail down what's been going on out of sight: * Interactive: "Safety First" + "Safety Last" * Public: "Safety First" + "Safety Last" In the poll-driven branch there's a new chapter continuing things: * Interactive: "More Equals Merrier? " * Public: "More Equals Merrier?" And there's a poll to go with it: [Poll completed and deleted.] Whichever choice wins, that's going to be the last chapter in this branch. We're almost done with the Round Robin, and I want to end this branch simultaneously with that. |
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