I did some more writing on Ex Inferis, just jotting down bits of dialog that came to me. The structure of the overall story remains very vague at this point. Some other projects are occupying my time as well, but hopefully all that will be resolved in the next couple days. What’s next? Stay tuned.

I pretty well finished up Ionathas’ epilogue and made good progress on Gamaliel’s Chapter 2. I even jotted down some dialog for Ex Inferis after stumbling on the original premise in my notes. Not half bad for a day’s work, I’d say. I don’t know where I’ll go after this. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

I’ve been doing more preproduction work on those stories I mentioned last time, especially Candidate 03.

I’ve also embarked on a fun little exercise. You see, playing Dragon Force, I’ve found that I’ve been inventing narratives to fill in the substantial gaps in the game’s rather sparse story and characterization. Well, I decided to take it a step further. Starting up a new campaign, I’ve been writing my own little story as I go. Yes, it’s basically just Dragon Force with the serial numbers filed off, so I don’t plan on ever publishing it to the site, but the main thing for me is the element of unpredictability. I’m very much a control freak as a writer, as evidenced by my abundant peripheral materials. I do try to leave the door open to serendipity, but that only goes so far.

I saw a documentary about Philip K Dick and how he would create branching options for his stories and let the luck of the draw (as it were) decide. Closer to what I’m doing here, I think of the narrative LP for X-COM by GuavaMoment and how the highly unpredictable battle scenes would have a major influence on the story. Like I said, this is just a way to play with my means of storycrafting. If I like it, I may try similar techniques in the future.