Ever-So-Slight Progress With Cynder
So last night I made slight progress on getting ready to write the Cynder comic. It's interesting working on someone else's project - especially when your first task on it is to come up with your own iteration of the characters and the arc of the first four issues. I was given a general description of the principal cast, and a rough outline of the first issue - and then told to regard or disregard what I want at will and come up with my own interpretation, which may or may not be used in parts or in whole.
Let me tell you why this is hard. These are not my characters. I mean that in the purest sense: I know nothing about them, I've spent zero percent of my life thinking about how to make them more interesting and getting to know them as people. So when I'm given a brief blurb and told to expand, there's a very limited amount of work I can actually accomplish. This goes tenfold for a story arc. I don't know what's planned down the road, I don't know what's already happened, I don't know anything. Imagine if I gave you a list that looked like this:
Greg: mid-thirties male, protagonist. Accomplished marksman, assassin by trade. Has a hardened personality and a caustic wit.
Viktor: mid-thirties male, protagonist. Favors melee weapons, assassin by trade. Antisocial personality, carries guilt around over death of brother.
Shirley: Greg's love interest.
Jack: Early to mid-forties male. Detective. Despondent over death of wife.
And then I asked you to tell me what you see in the characters. If you're me, the most you can do is summon traits that:
A: you can work with
B: fit the characters as logically as you can surmise through limited knowledge
At best, the grade of material is not even going to approach what my vision for the characters are. They won't even seem like the same people. At the worst, the entire piece will lack depth, effectiveness, and a legitimate voice. The entire thing will amount to nothing and be utterly pointless. But then, what if the scenario is that there is no vision, or that the vision is limited to the point that it's flexible to multiple interpretations? This is the challenge we're up against in this moment. Lovalle knows what he doesn't want, but he's not sure what he does. He's got a very general idea that he's straightforward about not being entirely married to. There are themes he is interested in exploring, but he isn't sure to what end.
This process has only just begun and already I've learned a couple things and reaffirmed others about myself. Chief amongst those is that I am in my prime augmenting. I start with an idea of very limited scope, and over time as I experience things, and feel things, and have opinions, the characters start to grow, and the nature of their growth changes the nature of the scenario they face. Greg and Viktor started off as two guys who made sense to me as an 18 year old's fantasy: they took no shit, had no boundaries, and were a threat to everything I found to be wrong or stupid. I'm 24 years old now. What made sense then is childish now, but that has done so much for the characters and the paths they're on. The older I get, the more empathetic I get to the older, wiser Greg. And the more polarizing his younger depiction becomes. These are people you don't know, but I do. I have known them for a long time. We've shared experiences together. They live in a parallel universe, where they still retain the ability to do the things I can't or won't, but the nature is different. It's more articulate, has more depth. The story is rich because the characters are.
While this might for me personally translate into what I hope is gripping material, it's not an efficient system by any means. And what happens when you plug strangers into it? The bigger challenge for this comic will not be how to interpret someone else's characters, to get the train rolling. The real challenge is the passion. How do I get myself to start seeing these tiny paragraph descriptions as living, breathing people? My first hypothesis is rooted in hidden motivations. What are the motivations of these characters that are not explicitly stated. So far, the character from the script I've most connected with is Astrid, the club owner. I know you don't know who she is but hey, neither do I. I started thinking about what kind of person would be able to maintain the type of club that's described on the paper, and what kind of fulfillment can be had out of it. What are her goals outside of the club? What aims does she have planned or envisioned to levy with the resources it provides? The challenge we have with Cynder is two-edged, and the beneficial end is that she doesn't know who she is either. One of the pluses to the identity quest is that the missteps can enhance the prose rather than hinder it. We're finding out together where the path leads, and if we're able to take her down it. If I am. The other challenge is that a three-headed hydra has the propensity to be disagreeable. I don't know where this is all going, I don't know if it works, but for now I'm along for the ride, to see the sights afforded.
Let me tell you why this is hard. These are not my characters. I mean that in the purest sense: I know nothing about them, I've spent zero percent of my life thinking about how to make them more interesting and getting to know them as people. So when I'm given a brief blurb and told to expand, there's a very limited amount of work I can actually accomplish. This goes tenfold for a story arc. I don't know what's planned down the road, I don't know what's already happened, I don't know anything. Imagine if I gave you a list that looked like this:
Greg: mid-thirties male, protagonist. Accomplished marksman, assassin by trade. Has a hardened personality and a caustic wit.
Viktor: mid-thirties male, protagonist. Favors melee weapons, assassin by trade. Antisocial personality, carries guilt around over death of brother.
Shirley: Greg's love interest.
Jack: Early to mid-forties male. Detective. Despondent over death of wife.
And then I asked you to tell me what you see in the characters. If you're me, the most you can do is summon traits that:
A: you can work with
B: fit the characters as logically as you can surmise through limited knowledge
At best, the grade of material is not even going to approach what my vision for the characters are. They won't even seem like the same people. At the worst, the entire piece will lack depth, effectiveness, and a legitimate voice. The entire thing will amount to nothing and be utterly pointless. But then, what if the scenario is that there is no vision, or that the vision is limited to the point that it's flexible to multiple interpretations? This is the challenge we're up against in this moment. Lovalle knows what he doesn't want, but he's not sure what he does. He's got a very general idea that he's straightforward about not being entirely married to. There are themes he is interested in exploring, but he isn't sure to what end.
This process has only just begun and already I've learned a couple things and reaffirmed others about myself. Chief amongst those is that I am in my prime augmenting. I start with an idea of very limited scope, and over time as I experience things, and feel things, and have opinions, the characters start to grow, and the nature of their growth changes the nature of the scenario they face. Greg and Viktor started off as two guys who made sense to me as an 18 year old's fantasy: they took no shit, had no boundaries, and were a threat to everything I found to be wrong or stupid. I'm 24 years old now. What made sense then is childish now, but that has done so much for the characters and the paths they're on. The older I get, the more empathetic I get to the older, wiser Greg. And the more polarizing his younger depiction becomes. These are people you don't know, but I do. I have known them for a long time. We've shared experiences together. They live in a parallel universe, where they still retain the ability to do the things I can't or won't, but the nature is different. It's more articulate, has more depth. The story is rich because the characters are.
While this might for me personally translate into what I hope is gripping material, it's not an efficient system by any means. And what happens when you plug strangers into it? The bigger challenge for this comic will not be how to interpret someone else's characters, to get the train rolling. The real challenge is the passion. How do I get myself to start seeing these tiny paragraph descriptions as living, breathing people? My first hypothesis is rooted in hidden motivations. What are the motivations of these characters that are not explicitly stated. So far, the character from the script I've most connected with is Astrid, the club owner. I know you don't know who she is but hey, neither do I. I started thinking about what kind of person would be able to maintain the type of club that's described on the paper, and what kind of fulfillment can be had out of it. What are her goals outside of the club? What aims does she have planned or envisioned to levy with the resources it provides? The challenge we have with Cynder is two-edged, and the beneficial end is that she doesn't know who she is either. One of the pluses to the identity quest is that the missteps can enhance the prose rather than hinder it. We're finding out together where the path leads, and if we're able to take her down it. If I am. The other challenge is that a three-headed hydra has the propensity to be disagreeable. I don't know where this is all going, I don't know if it works, but for now I'm along for the ride, to see the sights afforded.
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