Got it all planned out… sort of… (pt1)

Thursday, December 20, 2007 by Vaal.

We’re now three issues (about 13 chapters) from the the close of Year Two of Descendants and it’s come up once or twice that people wonder how far ahead I plan for stuff and how far back I’ve gone back and laid the ground work from some things (I mean, Issue #19 tapped something form #3, you can see how some people start to wonder how on the ball I am with all this.

Well here’s the truth: I plan as much as a year ahead. I plan and I plot and I play act scenes I think will be awesome and I compile a big ‘ol text file with nothing but plot arcs…

Then the characters walk all over them and push me in directions I never considered. Sometimes, things I’ve planned for months goes of without a hitch, except its happening to another character. Sometimes a new element that came while I was writing dovetails into something I wrote but never fleshed out waaay back. And sometimes, ideas just choke and die.

From time to time, I’ll bring up a few ideas that  were changed or are gone forever in a little segment I like to call ‘got it all planned out’. CAUTION: SPOILERS FOR EVENTS THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN

Juniper, Cyborg Judas
I never wrote it like this when I was devving it, but I wish I had because that would have proven how stupid a concept this was.

Basically, Juniper was originally slated to be a clone cyborg of the ‘real’ Juniper (deceased) created by the Academy via biomapping and planted as a sleeper. ‘Cluniper’ would have been a major rival for Cyn over Warrick’s affection and emerged the victor, only to separate Warrick from the others during Siege. In he end, Warrick would have been forced to destroy her after trying every trick in the book to attempt to appeal to ‘Cluniper’s’ feelings for him.

Obvious parody of part of Civil War? You bet! A worse story than Civil War? Possibly! A horrible, horrible idea! Completely.

To start, it was much too dark for Descendants. Things can get dark sometimes, but the specter of killing a character, even one that was a Judas, and making the light hearted character be the one to do it was way too much, especially after I started working with the relationships of the characters and realizing that ‘Cluniper’ wouldn’t be lightly forgotten.

At the same time, I myself became loath to lose Juniper as I loved her personality. So, by the time Siege rolled around, Jun’s Dark Secret ™ was something completely different.  And you still don’t know what it is

Posted in All Planned Out, Meta, Descendants | 2 Comments »