When I made the first post on my blog about it, I had no idea. I was just thinking about writing up a little story about a town from a bird’s eye view and that was going to be it. But then I started thinking about it and my thoughts turned on the idea of Springfield.
The Simpsons having been around for decades at this point, has arrived at a place where their named characters at this point could be the population of a small town. Let me just head over to the Simpsons wiki and see how many characters they have on there. Nearly six thousand! That’s more people in my old hometown currently.
But that got me thinking about how they got that accidentally. They just kept building and building their world. So, I thought what if I do that purposefully. Could it work? To build a town of people that felt real and vibrant and had lives. That they could mesh and feel alive.
The other part of my plan was to start making up a map as I introduced things to further the feeling of being alive. I would make it in pixel art because I need to practice that art and I think the firm clean lines would work for it. When I had that idea, I immediately thought about what Terry Pratchett said about fantasy maps:
“You can’t map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs. ”
Maybe there are dragons outside Ravenwood. I don’t know yet. I don’t write many stories where there are no science fiction, fantasy or horror elements. I’m going to keep it cozy and modern for as long as possible.
My other thought was that I was worried that I could run out of ideas for other stories if I’m using them all up in Ravenwood. I dismissed that idea after some thought because unless it’s a really good idea, I shouldn’t be hoarding them. Also, let’s face facts as writers there are only so many ideas out there. We’re all just redoing Shakespeare continuously. My hope is also that as I develop and think of new characters, their personalities and interactions will help spawn new storylines. Matt Arnold from Dungeons and Daddies said that an industry professional once told them that if you have an idea where you keep coming up with new storylines based on different character combinations and it feels endless then you have a TV show. If you start sputtering out, then you sell that idea to Netflix because you’re probably only getting one season out of it.
If I had to say what this was exactly, I would consider it a literary webcomic. Instead of five comics a week, you get one sizable story each week.
With the first chapter out, the Newcomer, I’d like to think we’re off to a good start. I have the second story already thought up. Let’s see where it goes.
