The metaphorical (of course!) death of Mrs Hattigan

When I started this project in 2008, I never really knew how much planning had to go into it. Of course I should have realised it, but I didn't. And three and a quarter volumes later I've found myself realising that perhaps there are things that need to be changed.

The whole point about this came about when I said to Kathryn I needed to cut it down the other day. We then spent the next hour (and would have spent a lot longer if we weren't seen a film :P) planning and drafting out the important parts of the story and changing it.

I suddenly realised that it took three volumes to get to some answers. Which really did consist of three hundred pages of "why are we doing this?" "what are the shadows?" (more to come about those! :P) and just general questions.

There are of course webcomics who manage to get away with slower moving storylines. The Pheonix Requiem for example, that's fairly slow moving (yet incredibly gripping all the time, as you may have seen it's my favourite webcomic) and I really admire Sarah Ellerton for managing to tell the story like that. But for Heartstones I don't think the slower paced kind of storyline would work. We're new at this, we don't know how to do it so we need to make the story a bit shorter and faster paced and also one that makes more sense for the readers (and to Kathryn and I!)

For example there are a lot of questions raised within the first chapter and some of these questions don't really answered until the beginning of VOlume three and I just thought it took too long to get to them. Although someone could argue that it was good like that becuase it set up tension within the storyline but then I realised that there's also several different kinds of tensions. Some of you may have seen that there's a character called Mr Stanter, obviously I can't say too much without giving away spoilers but he's one of the villains in the story. At least he was until the other come (remaining un named! :P) came along and then he sort of fisseled out a bit.

So he doesn't play as bigger role in the third volume as he did in the first, so therefore I want to go back and change it so that all the villains are slightly more connected and it makes more sense.

Mrs Hattigan is also another character that fisseled out as the story developed. At one point she was a main character and was there constantly within the story but then it developed we changed it and she didn't really have a purpose to the storyline anymore so we decided to change it, and cut her character out completely.

I think the fact that the story is getting changed (in terms of getting out the bits we don't need and changing it so it makes more sense :p) then the characters will slightly too. So I think I'm going to find it quite interesting to see how they've changed. :)

It may seem like I'm being quite radical or harsh (maybe even shocking) about this. I don't think anyone I spoke to this week about Heartstones quite saw this coming. But it's a nessisary change and I hope that we'll have a better, more structured story when I've finished it.

We want Heartstone Odyssey to be the best it can be. So we're aiming to get the story exactly right so when it comes to Kathryn drawing it, it'll be fantastic.

Pictures! :D

There's been a lot of squeeing over certain pictures (which Kathryn has then adapted for Heartstones) for Kathryn and I. I think it's safe to say that we're both obsessed with this little universe we've created together. So we wind up with pictures a bit like this:




In case you didn't already know this, Kathryn and I are Whovians. Which means that I obsessively buy myself Doctor Who magazine every month and in the January issue (I think!) there's a picture of the Master and the Doctor. Looking just like that above, and I decided that I loved it so much Kathryn had to draw Kandower and Jack like that.

So she did.

Oh and, since we're on the topic of Doctor Who. The Doctor gets quite battered in one of the episodes (I won't say which one in case there's someone who hasn't seen it!) and well... because I seem to squee when the heroes get hurt...Kathryn did this (and she squees too! :P) Oh and the bottom left hand picture is also Jacks new profile picture. :)



Like I stated above, Jacks profile picture is from that one above. That's another thing we did this week (although granted those pictures were done a few weeks ago, we just uploaded them yesterday...I think) get the character profile pages sorted out. So I'm hoping (because as I write this I haven't uploaded Jacks yet!) that the characters page will look a bit more orderly!

Writing wise there hasn't been a lot happening. But then that's what happens when you read a book and get so into it you can't think of anything else (or write anything else but something related to sky ships!) but I did come up with a way of planning the last volume. One that actually seemed to work for me so when I do open up the document again I'll know just what to write and where it's going. :)

Plus I've just thought of a massive twist... which again is influenced by a picture that Kathryn did yesterday (and I loved so much I made her scan it and print it off for me haha. :P)

Enjoy the art! I love it. :)

More next friday!

Week... whatever.

I'm losing track of what the week is so I'm just gonna give up calling it that! :P

This week, well I've been reading a book. It's called Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding and if anything it's gotten me into such a retro-future state of mind that if I'm not careful Jack and Eliza may well find themselves in my notebook on a sky ship. 0_o

I finished volume 3 a few weeks ago and I'm attempting to begin volume 4. :) Like I've mentioned before it's the last one in the series so this is going to feel a bit weird I think. I've been working on this project for over a year and I've finally learnt a good way of writing it.

Although I may know a format that works for me I actually haven't got the foggiest what to do next. So, my next plan in experimentation! is to write out a plan, scene by scene and see what happens. I'm hoping that if I start planning it I may be able to write it more quickly.

I have a deadline (well personal I know!) of next year, which works well because it gives Kathryn a lot of time to experiment and work out the way she wants to draw it. But I suspect the actual writing of it will be finished this summer, then I can edit it all for a few months.

That's my plan anyway. It'll probably change all over again once life starts getting busy again! But I'm happy with it for now!

I'm hoping we'll get a few more little comics done as well, they're very fun to produce!

My personal fav graphic novels:

I won't lie, I haven't read many. And some part of me finds this very shocking considering I'm writing one. So I haven't looked at the big ones like Watchmen or Bat Man or Spider man or any of those other comic series.

But I've read the following webcomics/graphic novels:

Tamara Drewe and Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds. Both of them are different from the usual graphic novel format because they're written for a newspaper. At least Tamara Drewe was anyway, they both have written narratives along the page and comics. It's a different way to tell stories and I loved them both. They're not science fiction or fantasy or super hero comics like most of the ones I've encountered are, they're just plain and simple day to day dramas about people and life.

I love them.

Y The Last Man series:

I do love this series. Kathryn was the one who introduced these to me and I've been addicted ever since. I haven't read them all, but I've read some and it's certainly one of the best. The art is brilliant the story is just really gripping and dramamtic and well very sad.

Much as sometimes men can be pains, I'd hate for them all to die! I love them far too much for that.

2000 AD:

I've only seen a couple of issues of this. But I like it. The little stories inside it were really interesting, funny and gripping all in one go. :) I liked it, and want to see more! No doubt I'll hear all about 2000 AD once I get to uni! :P

Biston:

This is a strange one! :P I was reading it last week and wondered what on earth it was part of, that being said, I did like it. :) The story was interesting and flowed well, set in the future where people can live in an alternate reality. :

Very sci fi. And if it's sci fi, I'll enjoy it. :)

I just don't think it'd be something I'd write myself... not really into guns. :P

Webcomics:

The Pheonix Requiem by Sarah Ellerton.

This has got to be my absolute favourite out of the whole lot of them. It's the first ever webcomic I read (so maybe there I'm also slightly biased. :P) and I do literally go back every week to see the updates.

*loves the story, loves the art and most of all I love Jonas*

I've also read Inverloch, which is just as brilliant. :D I do blame these two for my lack of makign Heartstones a short webcomic. I think I say PR and thought "ahh...it has to be over 100 pages each!!!!!!*

Course, it goes with the flow of the story, it's just a very tense kind of webcomic.

Oh yeah possible readers who are looking at this, you're in for a tense and dramatic ride. :P

And the little random blog is over, I feel a bit more chirpy. I was a bit emotional when I left college today, but I won't bore you all of that! :P Nothing important, but in case some of you who are possibly reading this did actually notice that (I was very paranoid! :P) I'm fine now. :)

Can't wait to see Kathryns heartstones fanfiction either, I think that might just put me in a good mood again.

Odd and unusual extra ramble over!

Eliza does a double take

Because I don't have photoshop and are pretty bad at putting comic images together (good job Kathryns the artist eh?) and for some reason the image size is far too big to fit on smackjeeves. If I had photoshop I'd probably be able to fix it, but as I don't, here's the comic I promised earlier:



AN: I wondered whether it should be a follow up from the last little comic we did. But how on earth Jack would have gotten his shirt off I have no idea. 0_o Well I know why he does when Kathryn drew the scene, but with what's happening in the scene I can't quite think of anything. Hence why Eliza does a double take! :P

I may make Kathryn draw more of this comedic scene! :)

As ever, these pages aren't official and don't fit into the story as such. They're just stand alone little pieces of work we do. :)

Drawings by Kathryn *loves them* words/story by me. *is still wondering whether I do or don't like it*

Week Seven

This week I haven't written much again, much to my dismay. But that's what happens when you wind up doing work for a college course. Heartstones has to take a side step for a few days, which is quite unfortunate cos I do love it.

I sent a part of the script off to a university the other day, it had to be marked (well according to the uni! :P) which was quite odd. But the feedback I got was really useful so when I do go back and write again I think there's going to be a few changes to the script! :P I was just sitting there nervously awaiting to see what they'd say. :P It always puts you on the spot those kind of things because if something bad is said, well it shatters you a little bit doesn't it?

I don't know what I'll be like in uni....

I've given myself the personal deadline (now this is going to seem a long way away!) of having the script finished and edited by this time next year. Of course it might not take that long, or it could take that long. I'm just seeing how things go. When I first started this project I didn't actually think it'd take me a year to get to this point, I naively just assumed it'd be done in a matter of months.

of course it wasn't. :P And the development carried on, and on and on and well Heartstones is how it is now. But the problem is all of you who may be reading this (unless your Kathryn! :P) won't have any idea just how developed the story and world actually is. Because when I say developed, I mean developed. It has places and gods, religions, traditions... just everything that a world should have I suppose.

It's just hard trying to not give away a massive plot element, which is why there's various parts of the website that's not finished yet. I haven't filled in all of the story world because I want it wait until the story is actually up and going.

Where's the fun in reading it to find things out if there's a massive spoiler on the website?

I think it'd just ruin the whole thing, so I'm going to refrain from adding any "spoilers" until the actual story is up and going and only adding them when its appropriate. :D

There's no proper rules to doing a webcomic (I may have said this last week! I don't remember! :P) not that I've found anyway, so until those rules actually throw them onto to me, I'll just carry on like I'm doing and add the special features.

More Stories anyone?

We have a lot! :P

Week six

Last weekend marked the beginning (of the writing stage anyway) of the final and forth volume of Heartstone Odyssey. I can't say how utterly unbelieveable that feeling was, I found myself sitting in front of my computer and typing the first scenes of the last volume.

It was a very odd feeling, so when it's all finished I don't know how I'm going to feel.

I suppose I'll move onto another writing project, but the thing is, although I know the ending of the writing on this comic is nearing it's end (probably within the next six months or so depending on how busy I get with college) the actual comic and drawing of it all isn't, and although I may have finished it, it means that Kathryns work is going to begin.

And that is very exciting for me.

I love this comic, I love it's characters and storylines. I love Kathryn for drawing it so well and in a way I love my brain for nagging me constantly with these little stories.

It's a great project. :)

I wouldn't want it any other way.

The other thing that I think needs to said is that this comic isn't going to be like the other webcomics just yet. If you're reading this and thinking "Oh well this is a waste of time! They're not even putting anything up!" then fine, you can go away. But do return if you're curious, because I have every confidence in Kathryn and I know she'll bring to life a fantastic story.

It'll be worth the wait believe me!

It's only meant to be for fun after all! :) Which is exactly why we're doing it this way, by uploading the stories and pictures and character profiles and little random comics. :)

We've put a year of work into this, I think it deserves a home.

So we made one for it. :)