BoM/TWS Message Forum

"Party of Five, Chapter 1"  --> "Party of Five, Chapter 18" 

As I noted on the Homepage when I launched it, this story-within-the-story was designed simply to take up space on the publication schedule, and it did that job well enough. Did it do anything else well enough?

If it did, credit must go to chronicstuss, whose webcomic "The Five" was the source material for this prose adaptation.

Notes on the creative process, fwiw:

I really liked the original webcomic, which is probably my favorite of chronicstuss's things. I like the plot, I like the characters, I like its very quick and economical way of getting character, action, motivation, and setting across. Best of all, the story is very simple without being obvious.

Most "body snatcher" stories (and my own are no exception) become enmeshed in plot complications, because they try to pull off a very tricky balancing act. On the one hand, they try to create mystery and suspense (because of course such stories rely greatly on the idea that "things are not what they seem"); but often they also try to be ironical, by showing that "things are not what they seem." As a result, many such stories trip over themselves with trick reveals and complicated unmaskings.

But "The Five" works because even though you are unsure what is going, you know that something is going on; moreover, once you are sure that people are being replaced, it is not hard to guess who is being replaced, and the fun comes in seeing how they are going to be lured to their doom. And there is no twist ending to spoil it.

In adapting it, I figured I should take as much advantage as I could from the wider, more discursive possibilities of prose. So, half the prose version takes place before the webcomic even starts, and it dives deeper into the characters and their personalities. I also opened with the convicts, their situation and their plan. This was to prevent an exposition dump at the very end (where it would be too late to do much good, while also clogging up the climax) and also to let people know at the top what kind of story it was going to be. Yes, the prose version has less mystery than the webcomic (where until the midpoint it's not even clear that there is a threat, let alone what kind of a threat it is), but I thought it would make up for it with more irony once the replacements started.