A Glimpse Beneath the Hood
Channing: So anyway, I kind of thought it would be fun while I remain in charge of the strip to show you all just a little peek of what goes on behind the scenes here at Skin Horse. In addition to a maddening and nigh-infinite series of weekly scripts, I will occasionally shoot Shaenon a design document outlining some of my long-term goals for an upcoming storyline. These documents are full of useless information, half-discarded plot points and other mundane stuff that y’all haven’t had a chance to look at…
…until now.
Anyway, if you think that seems cool, take a gander at a sample plot outline for the storyline “Once and Future.” Clicky clicky. (Mild language use.)[1]
Of course, you know and I know that the real draw here is analyzing my desktop, so, y’know, have at it.
[1] Of course it’s language use. It’s a text document. You know what I mean.
This is fascinating! I’ve always wondered how you two worked, and given that this was primarily your storyline, it’s a good example to use. Personally, I’m less interested in analyzing your desktop then I am in exploring the convoluted wonderland that is your brain.
“Than,” I meant to type “than,” dagnabbit!
Well, I’ll give you convoluted. Not sure about “wonderland.” I would accept “worryland.” I am basically Sweetheart except not a girl or a dog.
I know a few mad scientists who could correct that for you if you like, nyao! (Notice I didn’t say “fix”? Guess what f-word is really obscene to us housecat-human hybrids, nyao…)
Perhaps a touch of reality blindness 🙂
Is that Luna I see on your background?
It is, in fact, a stylized Luna!
I take it we are currently experiencing the plans contained within the document “Blessed Event Hiatus”.
Yes indeedy. It certainly fits the description.
Oh hello there, Homestuck. I see you.
I’m waiting for a really hardcore Homestuck fan to tell me the exact day that is.
Let’s see, it appears to be of of the WV scenes that took place in the first few Acts, so I would say Act 2 or early Act 3 at the latest, I don’t know if I can narrow it down to the exact day. Hmm…I have not been able to locate a page that matches both the arrow in the page title and the positioning of the capsule before the Intermission so I must revise my hypothesis to say that this page is from the Exile storyline in Act 5-Act 2. And I think that’s as much as I can narrow it down without wasting my entire day going through the logs.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember where it was myself. It’s all I can do to keep track of its serpentine plot tendrils as I read ongoingly, much less try and retrace my steps.
005036, the page immediately after WV: Examine Treasure, shortly before Jade’s alchemizing spree.
I just used the ‘Find’ tool on the archive page, then clicked each until I found a match (10 out of 101, otherwise I might have been there a while).
The window isn’t full size, so the capsule is actually in the middle of the screen.
I knew someone would come through!
You write in longform prose, and Shaenon’s able to translate that to comics with a meaningful rhythm and beat? Wow, I’m impressed.
Nope! These are *in addition to* the scripts. It’s sort of a navigation chart to keep us both on track of where the storyline is eventually going.
This is fascinating stuff, especially the bits where we see how your original plans changed after thinking them over more or talking them over with Shaenon. It would be nice to see more of these documents as part of the Director’s Cut, whenever the story is finished.
Do these story outlines get turned into some intermediate form more like a conventional comics script, or does Shaenon go directly from this to the thumbnail strips we’ve seen examples of on various Sundays?
Yep, there’s more than this, in the form of traditional-looking scripts. This is a big-picture design document only.
I NEED THAT LUNA WALLPAPER.
Please share the link?
Here ya be:
Oooh! Many many thanks! *hoofbump*
(\
To echo everyone else, this is really neat!
Thanks! Hoping to do more of this sort of thing. What form it will take is something of a secret yet.
I take it you couldn’t afford to go past Office ’97, Jeff. It was a vintage year for Office.
I think it’s ’02, actually. I don’t generally try and fix things that aren’t broken yet, and I have never once pined after any more features than the ones I currently have. 😀
MS Office hasn’t added any useful features since ’95 anyway.
It’s mostly just new file formats that become default formats without any announcement forcing you to upgrade simply so you can read the new documents since then.
I like the use of “UPDATE”s instead of trying to re-write the original outline, which I suspect is where I tend to go wrong with plotting.
Yes, always keep your old content intact somehow.
Do I spy ‘My Little Investigations’?
Indeed you do! 😀
Nice!
Now I’m going to go back through the comic looking for Homestuck references