Told ya.
Finished with Action Situations. But before proceeding properly to Name Page, I’ll try to organize the mind map into a more coherent and helpful entity than it is right now. Evidently, the ultimate goal is to have all pieces correlated and organized into a single narrative infrastructure, but arranging loose parts into “lists” by relevance and preference will suffice for now.
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2013/02/arm-0-1-final-revision-update-8/
Alpha Risk mind map, as of today. Looks terrible, I know. And it will only get worse.
As expected, running down Situations added a lot of pieces (i.e. scenes) to the puzzle. However, it has helped me bring clarity to the flow of chapters, the order and relationship with one another, and even the story and intentions of some characters. That is not to say there’s still a LOT of assembly and clarity to go.
Still half-way through Action Situations, the pieces will keep piling on, no surprise there. It would be silly to believe that I will be using absolutely all of the scenes–action or otherwise–but they’re all considered at one point or another.
I plan to reach Name Page by the end of the week. If that’s the case I will nail down a deadline for finishing the document.
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2013/02/arm-0-1-final-revision-update-7/
Long overdue update, evidently. Holidays maelstrom finally over. CHAPTER rundown finished. Longer than expected, and also straining. I wish the plot had ended up more organized and clear after finishing than this. At least it’s clearer. All I know is that the Situations rundown will bring more tiny bits of chaos into the mix.
Also: negligence. For which I have no excuse, so why hide it. The guilt is there though, as it should.
And I once talked about setting a deadline. That deadline would have been the end of January. Clearly that is not applicable anymore.
I remember mentioning that I would either see this through, or go insane. I’m starting to think those two situations are not mutually exclusive anymore.
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2013/01/arm-0-1-final-revision-update-6/
I know that there has been little progress since the last post, as you can see from the progress bars. However, something important has happened that merits its own post and I’ll explain why.
I have finally been compelled to change one of the names I was most fond of in all of Alpha Risk.
I was so fond of this name, in fact, that I have been using it as my username in a myriad places on the Net. Back when I came up with it, I was very proud of it, especially since was an anagram for another word and whatnot. (“Ain’t I clever!” I must have said to myself). So I decided to use it not only for myself; oh no, it would also be the name of not only one character, but two, and simultaneously the name of an entire faction, to boot.
But since then, certain things happened.
I discovered too late that this name was painfully close to the name of a character of one of the most popular book series of all time. They are so similar, that more than once while using that username, people started discussing those books with me as if I had undoubtedly named myself after that character—despite the spelling difference. I assume they thought there was no phonetic difference, and they would have been unfortunately correct. (It’s not that I don’t like those books, I really do, actually; it’s just that I wasn’t naming myself after that character!)
That was quite long ago. But just this year I discovered that the name, in the exact spelling that I thought was so “original” and “unique”, was taken by a professional musician with a recording contract and whatnot. Now, you may be thinking that doesn’t sound like that big of a deal (it’s not like this artist is super-popular already or anything); but either way, it should be the final nail in the “dropping-this-name” coffin. (I’m sure this name suits this artist well, however way he came up with it himself; “good luck to ya” is all I have left to say about him.)
Yet even with all that, I still was in denial about this name. And only recently have I convinced myself: the name just doesn’t work for my purposes. Even with the anagram element, and the fact that I tried to make this convoluted backstory involving leetspeak and the Russian language to justify it, it was just not worth it.
The final push I needed to scrap the name for a new one was simply to find a name that works.
And found it I did. It was already a possibility for the name of one of the members of this very faction, in fact. Turns out this name is not only more deeply related to hacking than I realized, but it even comes with its own logo! That is definitely a deal sealer for me.
So I’m glad to introduce for the very first time, the Xors.
(In the end, I guess that “renaming your darlings” is less traumatic than murdering them.)
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2012/12/arm-0-1-final-revision-update-5/
There has been a slight change of plans.
The idea of going down the Situations section (and the Action Situations section) is to establish how the scenes fit into the story, and where. I realized the only way to do this properly is to first go down the Chapter section, in order to see the bigger picture, and understand the spaces where the scenes would fit, before trying to fit them. Therefore, I’m revising the Chapter section before proceeding as normal.
I think this top-down methodology I’ve decided upon is intuitive and more productive when you have big pieces (chapters/acts) and small pieces (scenes) to begin with. I can see how some writers could still use a bottom-up approach in this situation and still do well, but I’m sticking to my plan as of right now. I suppose I’ll be indeed approaching the story from the bottom up by the time of writing proper, but I suspect that by then this will only be a quarrel of semantics.
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2012/12/arm-0-1-final-revision-update-4/
Finished “The Talk About…” already. Situations is next. Some interesting items here and there, but nothing worth mentioning in a post. —Cesar
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2012/11/status-update-1/
Having finished NOTES, I’ve gone through so many things, that I can’t talk about all of them here. From overviews of the major factions, to the entire history of ALPHA (starting from UNICOT and the ZPE, and all the many things that follow), to the major themes, and so much in between… it’s a lot to take in.
And yet, it’s not the proper story itself.
But, it’s a major part of the aether that the story will thrive in. So conceptually, these are the most important elements of the story. And insofar as of today, they are all practically finalized.
I will say this: the Umbral mission outline made my brain hurt, like usual. However, after a few corrections, I feel it’s pretty much ready. And this at least is a proper part of the story, so there’s that iota of joy.
Like I said, “The Talk About…” is perhaps the flimsiest section. Hopefully, something tangibly useful is buried within. Let’s see then…
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2012/11/arm-01-final-revision-update-3/
As I make progress down Notes, I should say this: the fact that I’m currently in a section doesn’t imply that working in other sections is off-limits. In fact, I’ve already modified other sections during my work on Quotes and Notes. Obviously, all sections are connected to each other through the elements they contain, and this is how the tapestry of AR slowly unravels for me.
Case in point, I’ve considered changing the names of two major characters and [The game] after reading some notes regarding them. I have yet to decide the final replacement names for these. And that modification belongs on Name Page, rather than Notes. Once I’ve settled on a final name, I will properly reflect the change on all other sections.
I’m particularly ticked off about changing the name of [The game] because I loved the name it had, but it was based on what I just found out was a major mistake on my part, regarding a misspelled Japanese verb. I haven’t fully discarded its original name yet though, and it is still one of the options over at Name Page. But it’s unlikely I will end up using it now that I know it’s error-borne.
The good news is that I’ve finished polishing other major aspects such as the class hierarchies, insignia icons, and Metag ID code structure. In fact, I finished with the ALPHA subsection almost without realizing it. But there’s still more Notes to go…
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2012/11/arm-0-1-final-revision-update-2/
Done with the Quotes section. I’ve realized that among the characters who will best benefit from the most prominent quotes, are Poincaré and 1H. This is because I’ve only recently understood each of their roles as communicators of “the truth” (from each one’s unique point of view). But, there’s some great stuff there to say for just about everyone else, as well.
Nothing else specific to report, really, except maybe that it took me shorter than expected. However, I don’t think other sections will take me as little as this. Especially Notes, which is up next.
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2012/11/arm-0-1-final-revision-update-1/
I wanted to say something that I consider merits a post of its own.
This is the first time I’ve ever written (or talked, etc.) about Alpha Risk and ARM so candidly. That’s why I got the weirdest feeling while I was describing the sections of ARM on the blog.
First of all, I’m not all that concerned about things like spoilers or revealing ideas about Alpha Risk before the novel even exists. What I do find a bit unsettling is that I will be mentioning things like “[Xors]” and “Nephilim” that at best mean nothing as of right now, and at worst sound dumb when I say them outright. Of course, these issues will be moot once Alpha Risk is done, and someone understands what the hell it is I’m saying here. But until then I will simply write whatever I feel I should write here, whether it makes sense in the present time or retroactively. I trust that the novel will speak for itself in due time, and then somebody will be interested in the ramblings I’m posting here. Otherwise writing this would be outright pointless.
Even forgetting all of that, this blog, as I’ve said, makes me accountable for making Alpha Risk a reality, and at least that makes writing the blog worthwhile. Neglecting this blog would be betraying both Alpha Risk and myself. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen now.
Well that’s enough of that. Down to work it is.
Permanent link to this article: http://alpha-risk.net/2012/11/addendum/
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