It’s time for the ARC Worlds monthly thread. As I’ve said previously, one of the goals for ARC Worlds is to create a community of readers so it’s not just me emailing into the void every week.
Feel free to introduce yourself in the comments (hit the aptly-named Leave a Comment button) and tell everyone what you’re reading or watching. I’d love to eventually curate an ARC Worlds recommended reading list based on your input.
Since last month’s thread, I finished watching The Book of Boba Fett. There’s been all kinds of opinions flying around the Internet, but I mostly enjoyed the season and am looking forward to seeing the larger post-Return of the Jedi world Lucasfilm is (hopefully) carefully and deliberately building.
My one hang-up was on Boba Fett’s character arc. In the interest of avoiding spoilers (as Substack has no spoiler tag yet), click here to read my analysis.
Have you watched BoBF? What did you think?
In ARC Worlds news, I released two firsts this month:
First, I debuted my first-ever video, using the new Substack native video feature, where I gave a tour of my bookshelves.
Second, I debuted a new feature, ARC Asks, where I interview creators in a variety of fields. The first interview was with Brant Englestein, TV screenwriter on such shows as Agent Carter,Emergence, and the upcoming The Boys spin-off.
Writing on Guild of Magic continues at a good pace. My normal outlining process is to divide the story into three sections (beginning hook, middle build, ending payoff), then sub-divide that into the five main beats (inciting incident, progressive complication/turning point, crisis, climax, resolution), and then fill in the connective tissue between each beat. This is based on Shawn Coyne’s Story Grid book (and podcast).
I’m currently working toward the progressive complication of act II, after a lot of build-up from the act II inciting incident. Once I hit that point, I think it will be downhill to the end of the middle build, and then the roller coaster that will be the ending payoff.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the outlining/story process, let me know in the comments and I’ll expand into a full post!
That is a nice cover. I have not seen the Book of Boba Fett. I think Disney just killed it for me because they pumped out all this Star Wars stuff, there was nothing really to get excited and wait for. And I feel like the character backstories are recycled over and over again. How many orphans who know nothing about their parents can we have? Other than that, just wanted to tell you I gave you a shout-out in my March update. Just really like reading Guild of Tokens. Great story!
I agree re SW. I think Disney moved too quickly to put out a new trilogy after they bought LucasFilm. They should have taken the slow build route a la Marvel and done some character/foundation movies. Unfortunately there were a lot of constraints with the episodic numbering, the desire to have Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher reprise their roles, and the need to put out something to justify the purchase price. They seem to have come to that realization now and are trying to build a more organic set of stories with The Mandalorian-verse (which itself is building on the animated show cannon/lore that Dave Filoni wrote).
That is a nice cover. I have not seen the Book of Boba Fett. I think Disney just killed it for me because they pumped out all this Star Wars stuff, there was nothing really to get excited and wait for. And I feel like the character backstories are recycled over and over again. How many orphans who know nothing about their parents can we have? Other than that, just wanted to tell you I gave you a shout-out in my March update. Just really like reading Guild of Tokens. Great story!
Thank you so much for the shout-out!
I agree re SW. I think Disney moved too quickly to put out a new trilogy after they bought LucasFilm. They should have taken the slow build route a la Marvel and done some character/foundation movies. Unfortunately there were a lot of constraints with the episodic numbering, the desire to have Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher reprise their roles, and the need to put out something to justify the purchase price. They seem to have come to that realization now and are trying to build a more organic set of stories with The Mandalorian-verse (which itself is building on the animated show cannon/lore that Dave Filoni wrote).
I would be interested in hearing more about the outlining/story process.
Noted!