Anthony Deaver

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First, let me start off by say­ing I had to write the authors name 4 times. That's because I don't know her by that name but rather by Bliss.

Inner Work­ings is a great intro­duc­tion for those that are aware of, but not famil­iar with steam­punk.  The only draw­back (if you can call it that) is that the scenery might be a tad too descrip­tive.  Not so much one gets dis­tracted by it but enough that a first-​​timer might have a tough time keep­ing track of everything.

That said, the under­ly­ing story itself was fan­tas­tic.  A mil­i­tary con­trac­tor, over­bur­dened with work, designs and builds an mechan­i­cal, steam pow­ered, assistant.

The process by which Freddy (the main char­ac­ter) teaches the assis­tant to do things is very well done.  You can eas­ily imag­ine the same process for teach­ing some­one with a brain injury or amnesia.

What hap­pens how­ever is that the assis­tant learns a lit­tle too well, and the story begins to take the shape of a devel­op­ing romance between (wo)man and machine.

Except it doesn't hap­pen the way you expect. The end­ing caught me com­pletely off guard. Pri­mar­ily because there is a device used in the book that I latched onto and had decided I knew what it meant and there­fore knew how it was going to end. You won't guess it either.

And I was wrong. Oh so very wrong.

And I couldn't be hap­pier for it because I love twists at the end. Espe­cially ones in which the author so plainly set the reader up for the twist and they (the reader) still falls for it.

If I had a rat­ing I'd say ⁴⁄₅ stars and a pint of beer.

Now that the review is out of the way…

I really liked this story.  I like how Bliss (acci­den­tally or on pur­pose) sets things up in one direc­tion and then takes a left turn where you expected a right (not literally)

And it's not an end­ing that doesn't fit.  It's sur­prise but when you stop and think about it, all the signs are there that it would hap­pen this way. They are just hid­den in plain sight.

It's not all sun­shine and uni­corns how­ever.  I did have a cou­ple issues.

First, the time between Freddy want­ing an assis­tant and her hav­ing and assis­tant was far to short for me.  I wanted to see more of her process. Not part for part, but it just felt a tad rushed to me.  Espe­cially the part about design­ing and build­ing the heart or the 'pump' as Freddy called it.

Sec­ondly… well this is a huge spoiler so if you haven't read it go away.  If you have, just high­light the page to see the text :)

The end­ing, while awe­some in the fact I didn't see it com­ing and was a great way to close it out, is phys­i­cally impossible!

There is no way Tin would have been able to open up and sur­gi­cally remove Freddy's heart (no train­ing), then REMOVE HIS OWN.  He would, should have stopped func­tion­ing at the point.  Even if there was some resid­ual 'life' left he would never have been able to put the pump into Freddy and bring her back.

It was jar­ring enough that I had to go back and read it three times to make sure I got it right.  It doesn't com­pletely take away the happy of the twisted end­ing, but it did soften it a bit.  

So Sun­day night has become our game night. I have a bunch of board games and card games and am try­ing to get Beck into it more rather than just play­ing Monolopy and such.

The one we've been play­ing the most is Gubs. Basi­cally it's a game where you try to end up with the most Gub cards on your side when the game ends (which is kind of random).

Let me just say; I truly suck at this game. If we've played 10 times she has beaten me 9. And not by one or two cards, but on aver­age by five or six.

Sev­eral times it has been by ten or more.

Need to con­vince her to play Zom­bie Dice or Fluxx more. I win at those occasionally ;)

Any­one that ever tells you that writ­ing ser­ial sto­ries is the easy way out is either lying, delu­sional, or has never done it.

Look, I'm not an expert. No one is. But I've writ­ten quite a few seri­als over the years. Cur­rently I only have Chron­i­cles active but I'm in the process of bring­ing back Gar­den Wars and (Frog help me) God­Maker as well. Both of which I started in 2012 but had to stop for var­i­ous rea­sons, usu­ally around life get­ting in the way.

This is my view­point of seri­als, noth­ing more. Some peo­ple sim­ply hate writ­ing them and hate read­ing them. I get that. I occa­sion­ally hate them myself because I don't want to wait to read the story. Same goes for what lit­tle TV I do watch and the comics I read. I will often wait months and then read in batch form.

But I love writ­ing them.

And I'm not talk­ing about seri­al­iz­ing nov­els either. Of course you can do that and if that's what you're look­ing for I highly sug­gest you check out Writ­ing a Ser­ial by RJ Blain. That's her shtick and she does a good job talk­ing about it.

There isn't what I do how­ever. There are two types of (non novel) seri­als typ­i­cally (there are more, but these are the dom­i­nate). 'Ongo­ing' and 'Episodic'. The dif­fer­ence is sub­tle but sig­nif­i­cant. Episodic seri­als are basi­cally self-​​contained sto­ries each week. Much like tv shows like CSI or Iron Chef. Each week is a dif­fer­ent story with the same cast of char­ac­ters. There may be char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and ref­er­ences to events in the past but in gen­eral each story is a small slice-​​of-​​life.

Whereas Ongo­ing seri­als are just that, sto­ries that are ongo­ing. They may last 5 episodes or 20 or 300. But each story con­tin­ues where the pre­vi­ous one left off and is part of an ongo­ing story that, for all intents and pur­poses, has no end. It's like a comic book or a tele­vi­sion show like Lost.

I tend to veer toward Ongo­ing as both Chron­i­cles and Gar­den Wars (as well as God­Maker) are Ongo­ing, though I'm toy­ing with a cou­ple of Episodic like stories.

Will I even­tu­ally pack­age them up into book form? Prob­a­bly. But it's not the intended goal. The goal is sim­ply to tell a story.

I could go on about this for­ever but instead I wanted to address at a few 'prob­lems' that I've had brought up to me about writ­ing seri­als. Keep in mind, the answers are my view­points and opin­ions on writ­ing seri­als. As with every­thing else in life, not every­one will see things my way.

"Seri­als are easy!"

Easy is so.… sub­jec­tive. What I find easy might be very dif­fi­cult for you. And what you find easy I might find impos­si­ble. Let's leave com­ments like this where they belong, in the the trash.

"The first few episodes are bor­ing! Wake me when you get to the good stuff."

There is a pre­vail­ing though out there that the first 3−4−5 install­ments all have to be char­ac­ter build­ing install­ments. That they have to be the episodes that grab people's atten­tion so there is a lot of char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and very lit­tle actual story. Again, this is com­pletely sub­jec­tive. There is no set for­mat for a ser­ial, the writer/​author can do what­ever they want. Start out with a death then reveal the char­ac­ters, do char­ac­ter dev, start with a inno­cent game of Marco Polo and see where things go… it's com­pletely up to the writer of the story. Gar­den Wars starts with a war. Chron­i­cles starts with a proph­esy. God­Maker starts with a funeral and back story. There are no rules.

"You can't be a pantser and writer seri­als, Every­thing has to be planned out."

Bull hockey. I mean yes, you have to have some idea what is hap­pen­ing and where the story needs to go, but in gen­eral pantsers tend to rule the ser­ial world. Gar­den Wars is pure pants­ing. At the begin­ning, and through the orig­i­nal 12 episodes I had no idea what was going on. I had to fig­ure out the story and plot as I went. It was hard. It was chal­leng­ing. It was fun!

"You can't be a plot­ter and writer seri­als, Every­thing has to be spur of the moment!"

Seri­ously? Make up your mind (I actu­ally heard both argu­ments from the same per­son sep­a­rated by sev­eral days). Chron­i­cles is plot­ted. In fact it's plot­ted for 6 'sea­sons'. That doesn't mean I can change things up. nor does it mean that it will always fol­low the path I have set for it. What it does mean is that I have cer­tain things I know need/​have to hap­pen and in a cer­tain order and in a cer­tain time frame. How I get to those points is open to change.

"A ser­ial is just a chopped-​​up novel!"

No. Just, no. Well, it can be if you intend it that way, but not every story lends itself to a novel. Some aren't big enough and some are sim­ply too big. Take Wool for exam­ple. It was orig­i­nally intended as a sin­gle story and never meant to be seri­al­ized. But it got pop­u­lar and there were more sto­ries to be told. It's the per­fect for­mat for that. Small­ish self-​​contained sto­ries that belong to a whole (see, told you there were more than two types). Not to men­tion the Episodic seri­als. They def­i­nitely don't lend them­selves to novel form. In a novel each 'chap­ter' would be a com­pletely dif­fer­ent story, a la Sin City. All set in the same world but indi­vid­ual and may or may not cross-​​over each other and link up.

"If you think of some­thing in the nth episode that changes or makes a character/​story/​event bet­ter you can't change it. You're screwed!"

Okay, this is true, and a valid crit­i­cism. How­ever, that doesn't mean I'm screwed. If I come up with a trait for a char­ac­ter that con­tra­dicts some­thing they said or did ear­lier I just need to find a way to slip it in with­out dam­ag­ing the story. If it is so big as to change the char­ac­ter, I cre­ate a new char­ac­ter (In Chron­i­cles, Cap­tain Remark­able came about this way). If it's an event or a char­ac­ter men­tions or ref­er­ences some­thing that should of hap­pened in a pre­vi­ous episode, the eas­i­est solu­tion is to have it occurred off stage. Not every minute of a char­ac­ters life is chron­i­cled so you just need to work out how they would have a con­ver­sa­tion in which that ref­er­ence would have came up.

it sounds easy but can be tricky to keep con­ti­nu­ity, just ask my edi­tor. I get a nasty email from her just about once a month where I missed some­thing or changed some­thing or said or did some­thing that is in direct con­flict with some­thing done/​said/​shown/​told ear­lier. Frog love her for putting up my me and keep­ing my stuff on track.

When writ­ing a novel, or even a novella you hide every­thing away from the world until it's ready and if you think of some­thing that should've hap­pened in Chap­ter 2 you can go back and change it. With seri­als, you put a lit­tle bit out there every so often. That means that you are con­stantly get­ting feed­back (good and bad) from read­ers. If you release a new install­ment say every Fri­day, then every Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, and usu­ally Sun­day you will get some kind of feed­back. And while that sounds great when it's all pos­i­tive, hav­ing the neg­a­tive be repeated each and every week takes a toll.

Writ­ing seri­als, for me, is much eas­ier because that's the way I think. Blame it on tele­vi­sion or what­ever but it is what it is. I like small sto­ries that are part of an ongo­ing arc. I love comics and shows that do this. I hate wait­ing for the next install­ment how­ever, just like every­one else.

End the end I'm just a sto­ry­teller and I tell those sto­ries in what­ever for­mat they want to be told in. Lex­ing­ton is going to be a video series, Pro­fes­sor Green is a novella and who knows what the next thing will be born as.

Write. Share. Tell sto­ries. And ignore the peo­ple that tell you you're doing wrong.

it's only wrong if you try to force it to be some­thing it isn't.

TTFN!

Green leaves unfold­ing The out­doors are invit­ing Now more so than in

Over on G+ Bliss Mor­gan put up a chal­lenge where peo­ple had to make a story from the phrase And if by noon I'm blub­ber­ing like a baby, I'll be scream­ing your name and beg­ging you to save me

This is my take :)

"What the hell is that idiot doing now?"

Michaels chuck­led to him­self as the Com­man­der walked into the obser­va­tion deck. "He's cel­e­brat­ing, or com­mis­er­at­ing, or com­muning… I for­get what word he actu­ally used, it started with a 'c' however."

"Okay," said the Com­man­der as he stopped in front of the floor to ceil­ing win­dow to watch the float­ing fig­ure, "did he say why?"

Michaels took a seat in the lounge couch, sink­ing into the overly soft cush­ions and feel­ing deca­dent as he did so, "He's explained it to me sev­eral times, but to be fair, I don't under­stand it. It's the anniver­sary of the death of his wife and son."

The Com­man­der turned to glare at Michaels. "And what exactly does that have to do with him float­ing away from the sta­tion with no tether! He's going to get him­self killed and us sued!"

"On this day every year he makes arrange­ments so that he is in space, on a sta­tion or dock or some­thing like that. Never a ship. Once he did a cruise liner but it was docked so I'm not sure it counts."

"Once? That crazy Russ­ian has done this before?"

"Every year on this date for the past fif­teen years. Ever since the base he was sta­tioned on was attacked and they were all vented into space." Michaels crossed his legs and smiled. "He puts on a suit and stands in an air­lock. At pre­cisely 12:24 in the morn­ing he opens the lock doors and just floats out. He then drifts there for four hours before moving."

Com­man­der Reynolds leaned back against the thick view­port glass and ran a hand through his hair as he watched sev­eral crew mem­bers walk across the view­ing area.

"I'm going to regret ask­ing, but then what?"

Michaels stood up, regret­ful to leave behind the com­fort­able couch and walked over to stand beside the Com­man­der. He put his hand on the glass , "Then he does what­ever he can, short of call­ing for help, to get back to safety."

"And what if he isn't able to make it back? We just let him die?"

"He said not to retrieve him unless and until he speaks the safe phrase."

Com­man­der Reynolds sighed, "And what might that phrase be?"

"And I quote 'And if by noon I'm blub­ber­ing like a baby, I'll be scream­ing your name and beg­ging you to save me'. Hon­estly, I have no idea what it means," Michaels said throw­ing up his arms in a defen­sive pos­ture, "but appar­ently those were the first words he said when the res­cue team found him."

"And he does this every year? Recre­ates the event and cir­cum­stances of that event."

Michaels turned around and leaned against the win­dow as well, fold­ing his arms across his chest as he did, "Every sin­gle year."

The Com­man­der stepped away, shov­ing his hands in his pock­ets. "Why? What's the point? What point does it serve to put him­self in dan­ger every year?"

"Maybe he's just remind­ing him­self of how close he came to dying. Or maybe he's angling for a Sec­tion 8. Who knows."

"Well, at least he comes by that 'Mad Russ­ian' nick­name honestly."

Michaels sim­ply nod­ded and smiled.

Proph­e­sies are tricky things.

Just ask Mac­beth. There are count­less dis­cus­sion, argu­ments, and treaties about whether or not the mur­ders and ter­ror that Mac­beth started would have hap­pened at all had he not heard the dec­la­ra­tion from the witches that he would 'be King hereafter'.

Which begs the ques­tion, would he have become King has he not met the witches and taken it upon him­self (with the wifes help).

Same holds true for the story of Oedi­pus, the inva­sion of Per­sia by Croe­sus, even Star Wars and Vader and the movie Twelve Monkeys.

They also have some­thing else in com­mon; they all are ful­filled in ways no one expected or pre­dicted. Vader did bring bal­ance in end and Mac­beth did become king.

A proph­esy is the heart of Chron­i­cles. It is said that a child of Dawge­ria will 'restore the lost land', and Harley, being a Dawger­ian is a good fit. As such, many are mov­ing the pieces to use him for their own want's and desires.

The board is set. The play­ers have all gath­ered and the game has begun. The pieces… well, they don't even know they are playing.

And Harley has no idea he's going to change the world.

But in order to find out how every­thing unfolds, you're going to have to read the series and fol­low the story.

So it's been pointed out to me that per­haps I could word or phrase this bet­ter, and that I should give details on any pos­si­ble or poten­tial compensations.

So here goes.

First things first, go read the first cou­ple of episodes, I'll wait.

Gar­den Wars

Done, good. Now tell me that wouldn't make a freak­ing AWESOME web comic.

The prob­lem is I can't draw for beans, and I can't seem to find an artist. I mean I can draw but I think Quer­cus and Rud­beckia will look much bet­ter as some­thing other than stick figures.

Now the comp side of the story. I need this to be 100% clear, this is not a one shot or short-​​term thing. It is also not a paid gig. Yet. Read on.

I have enough story writ­ten and mapped out for a long, long run. The plan would be to do the comic while I edit and assem­ble the prose sto­ries. Those will be pub­lished and sold on… well, to be hon­est any­where I can stick them :)

In addi­tion I plan to put the comic pages together into a graphic novel type thing and pub­lish those. As well as var­i­ous mer­chan­dise (oh trust me, there is a huge list. Shirts, bags, card games, teas…)

Whomever signs on as the artist would become a part­ner in the ven­ture. And by part­ner I mean a per­cent­age of the prof­its would be theirs. A decent per­cent (near half).

So to reit­er­ate, I'm look­ing for an artist to sign onto an indie ven­ture to cre­ate a web comic. The story is there, I have done comic scripts in the past so I have a decent idea what I'm doing (exam­ple: exam­ple script) and I'm will­ing to share any future profits.

I'm not look­ing for some­one to come on board and give away any­thing with­out some­thing in return. But I am ask­ing them to take the same risk I am. I'm not mak­ing any­thing from this yet and I work­ing my ass off to try and get it going.

Sound inter­est­ing? Know some­one who might be up for it? I have a total of 12 episodes (the link is just the first 3) presently writ­ten and under­go­ing revamp and edit­ing. There are many, many more in my head and plot­ted on paper.

So come on, what do you say! Let's get Gar­den Wars artified!

Who's with me!!