posted
Those of us who worked on The Dark Lord of The Oval Novella thought it might be fun to go into some of the behind the scenes things that helped form the story.
There were a lot of us involved over the year and a half it took to get the story done. There were all sorts of behind the scenes idea swapping going on. Sometimes between two people...sometimes more.
This is for us to reveal, pull back the curtain on those conversations So, for all of us involved...share away. Also, if anyone out there has any questions about the story, and why certain things happened the way they did, please ask.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Thanks for starting this Dev. I had a great time!
Except for that one time at the writer's retreat when Cobalt Kid tried to throttle me after a disagreement over plot points and later when Lard Lad peed on my pillows ... just for kicks.
I didn't get to jump in from the start and I remember I had to do some writing gymnastics to catch up and bring Peebs into the Fellowship.
From: Ninja Land | Registered: Nov 2004
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A lot of things started well before the Novella was even launched.
During the Civil War and Red Bee Role Plays, I took Furball, an alt id I had created way back on the DC Message Boards, and changed him...pretty drastically. There were several reasons for that, first and foremost being that he was really a one note character. His relationship with Dev Em was never really explained. The friction between him and SharkLad was fun, but there needed to be more to it than just them hating each other (at least for me, not sure how Sharky himself felt about that.) During the beginnings of the Civil War thing, I threw out some ideas to Cobie regarding what I wanted to do with him.
Cobie was great to bounce these ideas off of, as he is a great motivator. Soon, I came up with that Furball was an ally of Cobies in the underside of the LMB universe. Doing things that were behind the scenes (at least up until that point) and he wholeheartedly loved the idea and was throwing in things of his own.
Changing Furball into Timberwolf (Cobie suggested that I just go with that name - which I am greatful for) started opening up a a lot of ideas. Cobie (and I believe Lardy as well - but they can confirm this) had the Oval story brewing for a while. Somehow, the metamorphosis of Furball into Timberwolf kickstarted them into getting that story rolling. Not the sole thing, but it helped...I think
As for Lon Talbot Em, his name came from Lon Chaney, who played The Wolfman (a nice nod to someone that has wolf in his new name. I decided to give him Talbot as a "middle" name in homage to the character that turned into the wolfman.
This was partially in keeping with the fact that Dev had been long established as an old television/movie fan. That and I had the seeds of an idea involving a certain finned team-mate.
Turning him into a Black Ops kind of guy was easy. Always loved that idea, and it made the character a lot more fun to write.
So basically, I got bored with Furball and wanted to do something different without creating a new character.
This ties into the Dark Oval in a lot of ways. His relationship with Hot Chick (aka Kalla) will be explored in a little while...and some things I talk about may even surprise some directly involved.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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This is not a "scene by scene" kind of thing. We need to junp around all over and talk about all kinds of things. I think that even those of us involved from the very beginning will be surprised at some of the revelations.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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The couple times I got to write Kalla I really enjoyed them, some characters seem to write themselves and are easier for me (as a person with my own stuff inside) to find their voice.
From: Ninja Land | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Power Boy: Re: Dev's death ... I remember being actually emotional when I was writing Peebs attempt to rescue Dev. too slow, too late.
I also remember nearly feeling Ameratsu and Juj's fear as Peebs basically commanded them in his attempt to rescue Dev against overwhelming odds.
I got a bit involved at times! HA!
Yeah. Writing those scenes was emotional for me as well. I knew pretty early on in the story that Dev was going to die. The how was in question for a while. Talking with Cobie and Lardy helped me come to some concrete ideas as to where and how that was going to happen.
...and to be clear, he is dead. The story may not be complete, as there are a lot of things to touch on regarding him and his family, but he really died.
It was really good working with someone so closely on that sequence Peebs. You brought things to the scenes that I had not thought of when forming it in my mind.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Man, there is a ton to talk about and I could go on and on...and actually probably will.
But one of the things to talk about first I guess is how it all started. Lardy and I have been throwing the basic idea around for years, with Lardy doing a lot of the heavy lifting in plotting out the Dark Oval itself. But we'd been holding off on it because mainly...we didn't want it to just be the two of us running the whole thing. A lot of past LMB stuff has been enormously Lardy / Cobie heavy (sometime with a +1 or +2 as when Rocky rounded out Omnia with us). So when Dev came back full blast to Legion World...and then dived in both feet first to LMB stuff, it was like the ultimate kick in the pants to both of us.
Bees, Bots and Despots cemented Dev's status as a major LMB plotter right now and it led to he, Lardy and myself doing a ton of behind the scenes planning for what was to come. I remember being in London in the Spring 2011 checking my phone constantly to see their latest thoughts.
Also a major player in getting the enthusiasm flowing was the return of Tempest to LW. Temp's return added another welcome layer to BBD, with a great love triangle between Tempest / Dev / Lardy, and Jonathan had really matured as a writer (and person--opening up in a big way to us). He would eventually become very busy in real life but maintained a steady communication to help ensure we handled Temp appropriately.
Sharky played a big part in BBD but was up front that his role would be sometimes limited. Still, he as always provided majorly awesome posts for BBD and LotO. Likewise, Rocky told us he'd be more limited than he had been in Omnia (where he stepped into the role of major LMB plotter in a if way) but still managed to come through in a big way. Abin & Faraway jumped in early on but real life stepped in and limited their posting unfortunately. Even though Ex proved again he's an awesome writer in BBD, he was in a rare slow posting period when we started (to our disappointment).
Oh, and Quis was awesome enough to let us "borrow" Helena Handbasket for the story which provided a fantastic main character.
So as we got started we used Lardy's larger Dark Oval set up he'd been crafting, the recent story lines from BBD and I plotted out the loose structure of LotO. But we weren't sure who else would be joining. So it was such an awesome surprise for Peebs to step up in a MAJOR way! Peebs of course has been posting in LMB storylines since 2005's "The Good, the Dark and the Dead", and was a really welcome addition in BBD; but in LotO he reached new heights!
And an even more surprising turn of events was after years of inactivity, IB came back to LW and jumped right in! And coincidently, I had plotted a major role for IB in the story so it was as if we'd planned it all along. IB and Peebs involvement was the same thing as Dev's in BBD--it just took things to a whole new level.
So with Lardy, Dev, Peebs, IB and myself we had the five major plotters with Rocky & Sharky having a steady, smaller yet critical role too. Eryk provided some additional editorial support too as some of the LotO plot points are almost 10 years old that he helped formulate years ago. Temp stayed involved peripherly. We also tried to tie up all of Abin and Dardens plots as best we could to what I believed would be to their liking (telling my co-authors I believed I could advocate their storylines on their behalf).
And you know what? It was the single most rewarding and best experience yet for me writing wise EVER in LMB history. I'm so pumped for what is next that I can't wait to get into it. I'm also thrilled Ex is involved in a major way, I'm hopeful Abin will continue to have a steady presence and I'm anxious to get Emily Sivana heavily involved in the plotting too.
But while what is coming has got me really excited, I can't wait for us to get into more detail on LotO itself in this thread!
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I honestly thought you had planned the IB thing. Wonderful timing there for you.
IB and Peebs were wonderful additions to what was going on. They took the ball and ran with it when I know I was feeling creatively stunted towards the midway point.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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What I loved is how we all took the approach of "let's have ___ interact with ____ and how would that go?" It led to so many surprising developments. And we never forced the tension but also never skirted around it. The personal interactions just felt so real!
Case in point: Lon and just about everyone. Lolita and Kalla. Lolita and Bat-Fem. Cobie and Peebs. IB and Temp.
Also, a willingness to resolve plots / character points and move on to the next phase. I saw Lardy doing this in a big way and decided it was time for me to finally do that with Cobie.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I really appreciate how everyone pretty much let everyone use their characters, and everyone really tried to write those characters in the character's voices.
When other people wrote Peebs I was so astonished by what they brought to the table. Even wrote him better than I did.
It was really educational from a writer's perspective ... and also really nice how generous everyone was.
........
I think we all had to push each other along at some point. There was some days ... where I just *had* nothing ... and was like ... "this is what I'm thinking but it seems not very good ... anyone else?"
and other times it was easy. or the story evolved on the page by itself almost.
From: Ninja Land | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:...I'm anxious to get Emily Sivana heavily involved in the plotting too...[/QB]
Yes, I have so many ideas for different plots regarding Legion World. You guys focus a lot on big picture plots, and I've been responding with plots that deal with the small picture. I also enjoy creating worlds with different cultures and systems of government. I am kind of hoping to push the romantic rivalry between Sebastian and Kristoff as far as it can go. I look forward to what will happen next.
-------------------- Go with the good and you'll be like them; go with the evil and you'll be worse than them.- Portuguese Proverb
From: Illinois | Registered: Jun 2010
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I guess starting with Lardy's loooooong story arc and how it became married to the Dark Oval is as good a place as any. This is gonna be a bit long, so I'll break it down into parts for separate posts:
LARDY PHASE ONE (Part One)
Basically, from pretty much the beginning, I've written Lard Lad as a tremendously flawed character. Though most LMBers drink, I made it clear that Lardy was an alcoholic and a womanizer and that maybe there was something terribly flawed about him that made him that way.
And early on, I foreshadowed that Lardy would actually turn evil someday. In fact, that was my ultimate plan for his destiny. In a series of stories I wrote that grew out of an early tagteam thread set in the LMB's darker future (our 5YL, if you will), I set out to tell that story. I very nearly completed the trilogy with the final chapter "Reign of the Dark Lard", which never got written because the old DCMBs started cracking down on fanfic.
The opening chapters of "Reign" got deleted by the DC moderator, and I never got around to rewriting it. When Legion World got solidified as our home, Cobie and I exchanged a series of PMs in which we started brainstorming "Reign" and were actually gonna do it as a Twovision. This never happened because, more and more, Cobie and I were excited about the LMB's present too much to worry about its far future too much.
But for a long time, "Reign" was gonna happen, and me and Cobie considered it and all the 5YG stuff IN-continuity. And we worked toward that stuff for a long time. Cobie was first shown to have healing powers and to be the last survivor of Grrgg in the 5YG continuity, for example. And there were some other status quo changes that were revealed in those stories that we had and have made happen in present-day stories, including some stuff that happened in LotO! (More on those later...)
But eventually, while we still love those ideas, we decided that, like the Adult Legion stories were eventually dealt with, we wouldn't be handcuffed by all those things unfolding exactly as they were shown in those 5YL stories. We would pay homage to them occasionally, but they were no longer THE future of the LMB.
But all this provides the broad context to Lardy's larger story arc. And next time, we'll get down to the nitty-gritty of what I now consider "Phase One" of Lard Lad's story, of which "Lord of the Oval" is the climax....
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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I think people being "all in" with their characters really made a huge difference in the story ... thinking of Lard Lad and Cobalt Kid's stories.
Dev Em killed his character!
and Peebs grew up, becoming less of a wish fulfillment character and an actor in the story. I always imagined him as a back burner, big watch dog type of supporting character.
and IB really brought the entire LMB into the story. So glad he came back for the LOTO!
I get the feeling that his story his coming still.
From: Ninja Land | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
When the whole thing first started to come together...I figured Kalla was using Lon and was going to betray the LMB by the end. This was at the very beginning.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
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