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The Demon King... Saga?
Sep. 29th, 2020 04:40 pmWhat if the novel were an octology of novellas?
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In addition to the Plot A relating to the overarching narrative, each installment will also have its own Plot B involving fantasy bureaucracy and office politics. This will take the form of a series of short and (hopefully) humorous conversations that will help to pace (and serve as a counterpoint to) the main action. Besides being a good way to the highlight the charm of the characters, the purpose of these episodes is to help convince the reader that Balthazar is in fact misguided in his determination to destroy the world.
All of this will be interspersed with excerpts from Balthazar’s field notes, with the conceit that he is a Very Serious Writer™ who gradually gets better as he learns to stop being so pretentious.
I hate how it feels to put this in writing, but my main inspiration for the tone of the story is Homestuck, which starts off being ridiculous and goofy but gradually turns into something much larger and more serious. What I mean to say is that it’s entirely possible to balance the character comedy and worldbuilding marginalia with a sweeping epic romance in an interesting and appealing way that makes sense to the reader, and I think releasing the novel in a series of eight novellas would serve this tone much better than trying to fit everything into a giant 250k-word behemoth.
( Read more... )
In addition to the Plot A relating to the overarching narrative, each installment will also have its own Plot B involving fantasy bureaucracy and office politics. This will take the form of a series of short and (hopefully) humorous conversations that will help to pace (and serve as a counterpoint to) the main action. Besides being a good way to the highlight the charm of the characters, the purpose of these episodes is to help convince the reader that Balthazar is in fact misguided in his determination to destroy the world.
All of this will be interspersed with excerpts from Balthazar’s field notes, with the conceit that he is a Very Serious Writer™ who gradually gets better as he learns to stop being so pretentious.
I hate how it feels to put this in writing, but my main inspiration for the tone of the story is Homestuck, which starts off being ridiculous and goofy but gradually turns into something much larger and more serious. What I mean to say is that it’s entirely possible to balance the character comedy and worldbuilding marginalia with a sweeping epic romance in an interesting and appealing way that makes sense to the reader, and I think releasing the novel in a series of eight novellas would serve this tone much better than trying to fit everything into a giant 250k-word behemoth.
