Ithaqa Comic Issue 4 - Roughs Page 21 - The Moment I Understood This Issue
hive-164671·@drwatson·
0.000 HBDIthaqa Comic Issue 4 - Roughs Page 21 - The Moment I Understood This Issue
 Even if you don't write, you know what writer's block is. Sometimes it's the inability to think of a new story, but also a lot of times it's getting stuck at a point within the story that you are writing. Issue 4 was quite the log-jam for me. As I've said before, this issue took over a year to write and was ultimately re-written 23+ times, many times it was completely re-written, so many times that that I entertained the notion of giving up on this story altogether. Stephen King in his book "On Writing" highlights one of the major causes of writer's block - it often comes down to forcing your characters to do things that they wouldn't do. That was at least 50% of why this issue was causing me so much trouble. 3 issues into Ithaqa, and we don't know a whole lot about Harvey Bolton. We know he is a WWI survivor and deserter, we know he cares about Chuck, but that his desire for revenge was GREATER than his love of Chuck. We know this because in Issue 1, Chuck is surprised to find that Harvey is alive, meaning that Harvey has faked his death for at least 2 years and not reached out to Chuck this whole time. I'm sure Harvey partially rationalizes this as some form of protecting Chuck, but the fact remains that Harvey prioritized hunting down cultists over staying in Chuck's life. Essentially, what we know, is that hunting down and killing William Saxton is basically the most important thing in Harvey's life and in Issue 4, Harvey comes face to face with a younger William. I kept writing versions of this script over and over again where for various reasons Harvey keeps it together and sticks to the mission Rosie has laid out, and I kept writing crappy issues. I took for granted that Harvey would just do what I told him to do, and that the story would sort itself out, but I was wrong, and the moment I realized that there was no way Harvey wouldn't attempt to kill William was the exact moment this whole issue clicked. Then, all the best things that happen in Issue 4 flow outwards from that one choice. Harvey blows their cover, alerts Rupert to his presence, starts a fist fight across space and time, and ultimately attracts a Nageeshi. Sometimes writing is a bit like directing a movie, if a scene isn't working it can be really helpful to list in the most basic terms, what are the FACTS? What do we KNOW? What isn't going to change? What choices did this character already make, and what does that say about their priorities and personality? I had been ignoring those questions and trying to force Harvey to be someone he wasn't, and it cost me a year of writing! Buy the comic (Physical and Digital) https://www.ithaqacomic.com/buy-the-comic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ithaqacomic/ Theresa Chiechi's (The Artist @la-fumettista) website is here: http://www.theresachiechi.com/ Lucas Gattoni's (The Letterer/Logo Designer) website is here: http://bit.ly/LG_Lettering FB: https://www.facebook.com/pg/IthaqaComic/about/?ref=page_internal Twitter: @IthaqaComic Our Patreon Exists! https://www.patreon.com/IthaqaComic?fan_landing=true