Pacing

One of the things that I struggle with in my writing is pacing. Specifically how fast the story should go, etc., etc. In my head, I guess I have this equation where I figure a comic strip 'chapter' should take place over the course of 6 days. This would allow daily comic strip readers to read an entire 'chapter' starting with Monday and ending with Saturday. It's the formula I kind of went with for I DIG DUG, however, with LOST ON EARTH, this formula is a little trickier.

For one, you have to write so that anyone who just happens to stumble upon the comic understands what is going on. This strip for example explains that Allen and Fishtarr are trying to get into an Earth market. It doesn't spell out their main objective of stealing Twinkies...but at least you get the gist. You also get a few sight gags in that the costumes really aren't that concealing. Allen simply has a "Matt from I DIG DUG" shirt on, and Fishtarr has some Groucho Marx glasses along with a blue cap.

A daily strip also has be somewhat funny. Or at the least deliver some sort of message that moves the plot forward. Here, for example, costumes are on and the characters are ready to rock. So...tomorrow...what comes next??? It's a hook...or a cliffhanger style of writing.

Where this type of 6-day 'chapter' writing becomes challenging...for LOE...is that LOE is a very long story with no real clear ending. So the old IDD formula has very little effect here. Well...in essence. And that's where my struggle with pacing comes into effect. Originally I just had this very large story I wanted to tell. And so I slowly just began moving my characters from point A to point B to point C, etc. Only recently have I looked at my very large story and tried to break it down into chapters so that I can use that 6-day chapter writing style. And I think (if you were to read all 27 of the current LOE strips) you can see my writing slowly going back to that original IDD pacing. Which...may be a good thing. We shall see how the story goes... :)

Thanks for checking in. More blogging to come...

-dug!