Wednesday, June 10, 2009

... working it all out

I am stil trying to work COT out of my system as I ease into other projects.

The new poll is a double one so I did a strange multiple-choice answer system, since it's asking a pair of yes or no questions.

First question - should I name each of the six books? I believe no, because I do not want to give the illusion that they are in any way stand-alone novels to be picked up and read in any order. That's why I am calling each one "Book # of 6" and not just "Book #".

Second question - should I number each section? I can see this being useful during the editing process, so that someone need merely say "section 76" rather than the chapter number and the name of the section, but as I reader I think I would find it a little obnoxious to be reminded that I am reading section 124.

Any counter-arguments?

I've narrowed down basic ideas for each cover scene, but I still need to nail down the particulars before I contact the artists. I limited the options to scenes that are actually pertinent to the volume they adorn, while still tyring to choose moments that are both pivotal to the principal character they illustrate, and does not give any big spoilers away! In some cases I should maybe discuss it with the artists to see where their particular strengths want to pull the direction of the designs. Before I do any of that though, it would be really good if I gave the artists a template to work with, so that they'll know the exact proportions of the image, where the spine will be, where certain text is going, and so forth.

I made another decision regarding COT2 that I can probably talk about. (Be advised, actual writing work on COT2 will not begin for a long time, but it's fun to think about it right now!) I completely avoided the Keepers for COT-R, partially because I felt like they were never really adequately illustrated in Thief 1 & 2 for adaptation, and partially because I felt that they were summarily ruined in Thief 3 which presented the supposed all knowing keepers of the balance as confused naive clods. For COT2 I will bring them in, but if I do so, it will be with heavy modifications to who they are and what, exactly, they do. I may even redesign them from the ground up, with only the tiny peeks we got in Thief 1 (which I still consider the definative look at The Keepers) as guidelines. This would represent a signifigant break from the norm, where I tried very hard to keep things in line with what was seen in the games (though I did do a fairly large overhaul to the pagans, I did so without directly contradicting anything!)

6 comments:

ehcmier said...

Keepers: Gamall making her move--including influencing Orland--an unbalanced Orland advancing in Xavier's place, making it all cringe-worthy. But those who would form the splinter group are still bad-ass, but going by the books to a fault. Agreed on redesign, and recapture of balanced Keepers at their best, hindered only by the blindness that comes from Gamall's hiding of critical books.

Poll: I like the non-titling idea, or something like "Being Book # of Correspondence of Thieves." And I think you should number the sections to help yourself out during the editing, but then remove them for "publication".

ehcmier said...

Keepers: I forgot to say this approximates what was happening behind-the-scenes of the trilogy, leading to the embarrassing TDS Keepers, not that you should write about these things. :)

Lhexa said...

Regarding section numbers: it's a very good idea for editing. In particular, I've been keeping notes by page number, but I'm worried that Open Office counts the pages differently than Microsoft Office.

Dan said...

I can assure you that going by page numbers is probably going to cause trouble! :(

Lhexa said...

Okay, I'll start going by section instead: Chapter 1 Jyre 2 and so on.

Dan said...

It looks like 3 people so far think the books should be named. As much as I think that would be fun, I can't really think of anything, not even a tiny idea, of what they would be named.