Shedyra Project: week Two Update

Another week has flown by, and another meeting with Garry, which means another blog entry to let you all know what has been going on. Well, some huge advances in storyline and scripting. I won't reveal it yet, but with the too-often overlooked brilliance of my wife and some fundamental ideas that we both had, we arrived at some amazing developments for the storytelling narrative style of SHEDYRA and paved the way for many more issues to come!

In regards to scripting, I would like to mention some fun and important elements of scripting and more about the process I went through. First, I produced a narrative, train of consciousness piece based on Jakayla's journal entry, as if she was telling the whole story how it happened, including her thoughts and feelings. I then wrote out a list of all the major scenes and what elements of story and visual identity had to appear in the script. Then, my talented wife took these and began developing dialogue and scene setting in terms of a stage play, since I am not sure what each panel and page is going to be yet. Then, I took these materials and am writing the script, as a stage play, with descriptions of characters, behavior, and dialogue. It sounds like a lot but it goes quickly. The Stage play works because it, like comics, is a visual narrative. The story relies mostly on dialogue and context for character development. We're cheating a little with Jakayla's Journal, but more on that later.

Now, the fun that I mentioned earlier. To make a script sound natural seems easy, but when your story takes place in Shedyra, things have to be different at every level. To help my script and art be original and authentic, I have come up with some phrases from the ancient languages that exist in Shedyra as a way to add cultural context to otherwise merely visual differences between races. If you think about it, the slang and phrases you grow up with that are part of your culture tell a lot about who you are and where you come from. So the people of Shedyra now have phrases like our "Mama mia!" and "Oy vey!"

Another fun thing has been inventing what type of foods and drinks you would see in a Shedyran Inn, since that is precisely where the first big scene takes place. Inventing has always been the fun part for me, whether its history, creatures, or delicious beverages.

I also talked with Garry about style, and how we are going to break the comics plane in terms of panel layout. More on that later. I am really excited with the progress that has been made, and the best is yet to come!