Naturally, without a script you wouldn't have a graphic novel in the first place, so it is important to have a writer put together a good script from which art can be added to complete the story.

    With Tales of Tralodren™: The Beginning (TTTB) a 130 page script was written for what would be a narrative of the whole history of The World of Tralodren™ from the very start of everything to the beginnings of Recorded Time–all said, a time span colossal in scope.

    Since this is a narrative there is no dialogue or even sound effects, so in effect it reads like an illustrated story. However, there is more to a writer's job than just producing a script. They have to also provide the tools and notes needed for the artist to make sense of what they think the whole thing should look like. To this end Chad also had to create a reference bible and visual reference file for the artist and everyone else taking part in the project to use.

    TTTB has a huge cast, all of which needed to be drawn for reference. It was Chad's job to list just how all these races and settings and items looked. A monumental task? Well, in some ways it was, according to Chad. He mentioned in a recent discussion that he had to work on that section far longer than he had wanted because he didn't have all his notes on how things should appear and really didn't have a clear idea of how some creatures and people should look. Further, it was during a time when he was updating and renovating some concepts and looks and so it was, “all a mess”. From what we have been able to see so far it is far from that. In fact, it is turning out to be a really amazing looking book.

    Chad was nice enough to answer a few more questions about the project–see below:

So how do you like writing comic scripts over prose?

    It's fun, really. Prose has some great benefits but also some limitations. The same is true of comic scripting. The trick I had to learn in my drafts is that one is more visual and thus more can happen in a shorter span of time than the other. I've been working on scripts for other projects and I thought the story line was pretty full and long enough to keep the book going to the end but could tell from only the first few pages that it would fall short.

    Graphic Novels are just so greedy that way. They can suck in so much more than with prose because I don't have to describe so much setting and mood as I would in prose. In some ways, it's like writing stage direction. I can just put down: An old man enters into a dark, spooky room. And then let the artist and the notes on the story take it from there. I don't have to explain how it smells, feels, sounds, etc. I let the artist have some leeway and just put in the major details for the most part. There are times I put in more detail and info where needed, but for the most part I can put down in a short paragraph what it might have taken me a page before to explain to the reader.

Do you like comics better than prose?

   

    No. I think they are both good for various reasons, but each has their limitations. Graphic novels are hard pressed in many cases to put the reader into a certain mood or establish a certain feel. It can be done and have a certain effect but because the nature of the product is so rapid it is often a challenge to do successfully.

    A book builds upon layers and the reader is doing the work. You can set the pace by sentence structure, paragraph length, and other things so that the whole story builds at a rate you want-things are revealed in a certain way and timing. With graphic novels the idea is more like television with something is just presented in a fully realized package and you just take it in. You flow from one panel to the next almost at breakneck speed if you wished (if it wasn't for the captions and word balloons); graphic novels are faster than prose novels over all in my opinion; just like a sitcom is faster than a multipart television documentary.

I know we asked you something like this before but would you mind sharing how you came to come up with the idea for Tales of Tralodren™?

    Sure.

    I came up with the idea a while back when I was working on ideas and possible directions for The World of Tralodren® after The Divine Gambit Trilogy had been completed. I didn't want to do epic tales all the time and so wanted to have some fun filling in and fleshing out the world setting. I'm a big fan of things like that where you get new insights and tidbits about a time period and region or something like that and feel like you have a greater understanding of the whole world.

    I guess it was partly brought about by selfishness too, as I had all these ideas about the world that I wanted to get out for people to experience and had to find avenues in which to do it. I was working on this long history, the back story if you will, and thought to myself this would be so cool if people could get this information. Put I knew that just reading a prose version of it was going to be pretty dry and boring and cause a lot of confusion to the reader since it was a bit lengthy and involved a lot of characters.

    That's when the idea of a graphic novel came to me as a great way to reveal all the information in the history but in such a way as to keep the reader engaged and provide more depth to matters by visual cues and set ups. It would actually enrich the text and further develop the story.

    I like the idea so much, as I see the pages coming in each week, that I'm looking for ways to expand the format to flesh out more of Tralodren. So, if this graphic novel goes as well as I think it should, then we'll probably see more such works in the future, these would be more traditional tales, however, and not narratives.

In order to bring this graphic novel alive, however, you needed to work out a reference bible than too. Do you mind sharing some things about that experience?

    That was a learning experience for me on many levels.

    I've always had a guide of sorts with me since the beginning of the idea for The World of Tralodren.® Part of it was in my head and most of it of was written down. However, things evolved over time and as the stories grew and changed so did the concepts.

    The challenge for me came when I realized that I had to put all this down in a permanent fashion. Before I just had notes and some older bibles and concepts and was fine with that for the most part because I could just know about it myself. If I changed something her or there no one would know but me. Artists, though, need some solid foundations to stand upon and that meant I would have to finalize a lot of things. Add to this that TTTB was going to be telling the story of creation to just about where the start of Recorded Time started only added to the need to finalize everything.

    Just to give you an idea of what I did and, in some ways, am still doing with Lee, I had to get all the looks just right for the various races. I had to make sure the gods would appear as I thought they should look along with their realms and things in the modern day and whole host of things. It really was like casting for a movie and getting so detailed as to even wonder about costume and sets for the scenes and so forth.

    I took what I had for notes and worked out a series bible but that changed while Ed Waysek was working on the character design and even a bit more with Lee. We're still even changing some things from time to time as the graphic novels moves to completion. With Lee, however, it is more a collaborative matter of change since we get to talking and then have some fun ideas that come out of it. And Lee has never disappointed in his pages, which keep getting better with each new one I see.

    Now on top of all that I had to provide visual references for clothing, armor, weapons, architecture, you name it. So, in a way, you can say that there are two reference bibles, one for the characters and then one just of pictures that the artist can use for reference in drawing both characters and everything else. Thankfully, that process is now done I and I can focus on other things.

   

    Thanks Chad.

   

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