The Comic Book

To me the continued narrative is an essential aspect of storytelling. We begin with some sort of encounter or conflict and observe a character or several as they strive to reach a goal. This series of events that leads to an outcome fills the air around us with suspense, and of course we love it. We love drama! The exaggeration of dramatic storytelling creates a larger-than-life scenario that we can immerse ourselves in and satisfy that craving for that over the top experience.

Where the comic strip typically lives in the amber of the moment, a continuous narrative surrounds a character with a sense of purpose and gives them some long term objective that may give us hope to one day overcome some adversity in our lives.

With this in mind, I have been writing, in longhand, a manuscript for the last twelve years. I wouldn't even consider it 1% complete. Not finished, but complete. Fully established as a universe of its own. This, however, isn't what I want to talk about. What I really want to talk about is the idea of continuous narrative and how I came to realize its importance to me.

My universe began with a very simple concept, as ideas often do. A few close friends and I frequently played Ghost Recon Island Thunder over Xbox Live for some time and had exhausted the game's potential for entertainment. Eventually we came up with something to rejuvenate our excitement. The three or four of us decided to continue the story ourselves, making up our own enemies and environments. Engineering our own characters and sending them off into the depths of hell to return grizzled bitter bastards who'd seen it all!

Over the last twelve years these men and women have reached new understanding, interacted with countless other characters, fought in almost every conceivable type of battle, and had honed their trades to the utmost efficiency as they struggle to survive the ruthlessness and lethality of their dark and gritty reality. These characters are how we see ourselves if this really were our reality. Whenever I refer to my character in conversation, I speak of him in the first person sense, referring to him as "me" not "he." While this sometimes compromises the momentum of conversation, I have to qualms about doing it. This is how I envisioned myself in my universe. Why create a fictional reality if you won't excercise the unique advantage of participating in it?

I am about 600 years of age and am now on a campaign to help one of the friends I began this endless journey with discover the secrets of his past. Together we will face the odds of this hostile universe and learn what we must. But what will happen after then, if we succeed? Who knows! Though I doubt we'll be content to ignore it!