One challenge in writing I feel few people discuss is working through the not-so-interesting parts of stories. The action, the drama, the sex, it’s all fine and fun to write! Let’s scaffold all the scenes and get to writing the good stuff! But what about everything else? The quiet moments, the mundane dialogue, all the working parts that give weight to the big moments; these are equally as important and often not as much fun to write.

There are lulls in stories, and in great stories, those lulls are vital pieces to the narrative. We read through them because we understand how much power they hold in making the exciting parts far greater than the exciting parts would be without them. But those lulls … they are far from easy to write, and to write well.

Here, Backstage, you get the unrefined, down and dirty drafts. You get to read the original stories as they’re being invented, and you get to see the unpolished moments in between the fun stuff. And if you follow the story all the way through to publishing, you get to see what refinement and polish can do to a piece of work.

But I digress. The main idea is that in these unrefined, rough draft versions, the lulls are on common ground with exciting parts, but they remain infinitely more challenging to write. Challenging to write, and challenging to get right. As you read through the original stories, keep in mind how these are naught but glances at stories that could be, and we are seeing the first iteration of their evolution. These lulls, then, may require a little more grace than usual.

However, it’s not grace for which I am writing this letter to you, dearest guest. Nay, it is simply to expound on a facet of development, and that is, after all, one of the purposes we have opened Backstage to you. However you choose to approach these stories, we welcome you wholeheartedly, and hope you enjoy the lulls as well as the exciting parts. For even though they are unrefined, we’re still putting work into them.

Let’s get into it →

Yes, lots of stories are on the backburner. But not all, as can be deduced from the regular installments of the stories below. And of these, House got a lot of love this week. One thing I’ve been doing lately is creating large collages for the different stories, or different aspects of a story, to help inspire and drive the vibe of the story. These collages will never see the light of day, as they are composed of random images from across the web and I have done zero dilligence to track the origin of those images. Still, they exist, and House got one this week. It’s a big step in the unfolding of the dreamscapes our dear Mr. Solomon Garcia will be traversing, getting lost in, and maybe even becoming consumed by. The only way to know Mr. Garcia’s fate will be to keep up with the story.

On the research front, the context library where stories in the public domain are catalogued and tracked for potential inclusion in the Backstage Pass is being completely reorganized. This is work that was begun at the beginning of the year, and continues due to the development of a support plugin. Upon completion of the plugin, the organizational system for context libraries in general will be ready, which should help push the development of stories such as Body Count, which rely on a good amount of research.