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The Plot

If you haven't read the comic yet, do so now, or suffer the consequences.

The plot was something I had been struggling with for a while. I latched on to the idea of a bunch of people accidentally-on-purpose killing the person they're meant to be protecting. I played around with settings and characters. For a long time I was toying with the idea of a hybrid between my first and second novels (you can read about them here); taking characters from both in a setting very much like that of the third novel. But it never worked out.

The idea of placing the plot in Disarea came about two nano-seconds after deciding I wanted to do a comic strip relating to my major project. Set in Disarea, everything fit into place. Dreg and Bogger came from the first novel, though Dreg was greatly modified, and Pendy is loosely taken from the Pendy of my second novel. Also, in a world as chaotic as Disarea, the punchline of having Bogger kill Isabella then ask Dreg for permission afterwards worked (at least I hope so).

I suppose that's probably the problem with the plot; it's centered around the one joke. I hope that there's enough substance though, what with Disarea being a world that's been with me for a long time (the same can be said of Bogger, Pendy and Dreg). Also, I like the fact there is a budding love-hate relationship between Dreg and Isabella, and the traditional outcome would be for the two to end up in each others arms. This makes her casual murder all the more amusing (or maybe not).

Since writing the above, I've completed the comic strip, and it's been interesting to hear what people have to say about the plot. Generally, not very good things. Amusingly, a couple of people think that I killed Isabella off because I was rambling along and didn't know what to do with the story. Considering that her death was the main idea behind the whole story I can't help but chuckle sadly into my drink when I hear this. Another person found it to be too linear, which is fair enough, but I'm not sure what I could have done in 16 pages that involved clever plot threads intertwining and whatnot. Such is the way of things...