Wapsi Square Forum

As part of my adjunct work on the Omnibus, I decided to undertake another task.

As I've written some "fan fiction" in the past, I thought it would be a neat thing to take a real, tangible storyline and turn it into a novella.

In short, take what Pablo has written and drawn and turn it into the written word.

The most obvious option, of course, was the storyline in the title, where we meet Atsali. I used the basics of the Storyline Arc description from the Omnibus as the "framework", and have made a good dent in the writing.

The hardest part was writing a prologue, essentially "introducing" the rest of Wapsi Square and condensing 10-11 years of storyline into a few pages. Believe me, it wasn't easy.

When I have it completed, I will be more than willing to post a copy here in PDF format. I decided that I was going to put it in what I call "eBook" format; each page, if it was printed actual size, would be the equivalent of a single page in a paperback book.

[Spock, eyebrow cocked; "Fascinating..."]

[Mr Burns, hands steepled; "Yessssssss..."]

[Eartha Kitt, Catwoman be-suited; "Puhrrrr-fect..."]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Paul ever told us anything more about the dolls once Katherine set out to look for them. Unless they are the same dolls that Bia (as Shelly's mom) gave to Shelly.

The guy who accidentally found them supposedly put them all back. The dolls were actually a prophecy: six special women (Katherine, Atsali, Lily, Suzie, Bud and Brandi) would come together to defeat the Nu Gui that had entombed the Etetheitians in the crystal chamber.

jwhouk wrote:When I have it completed, I will be more than willing to post a copy here in PDF format. I decided that I was going to put it in what I call "eBook" format; each page, if it was printed actual size, would be the equivalent of a single page in a paperback book.

PDF is a page-layout format, not an ebook format.

If you want to produce an ebook, produce it in EPUB format. And maybe also MOBI format. Calibre can read a Word or OpenOffice document (along with many other things) and produce both (along with many other things). Its manual also contains a brief section on why PDF is a lousy format for ebooks.

PDF is okay if pretty much every member of your audience will be reading the result on the same-size device in the same font size - which is true if, for example, someone is going to print a hundred copies of your document on paper and hand them out as flyers. However if that is not the case, it doesn't work very well. PDF format has a lot of information about the *physical* relationships between various parts of your document, when printed in the expected fonts on the expected-size page. But it lacks information on *content* relationships that is needed for reformatting to a different page size and/or font size. And reconstructing that information from the physical relationships and other clues is tricky at best.

This is the best news i have had since my first wife told me she was moving back to the Dakotas.

Warrl: one of the reasons why I put it in PDF format is the basic ubiquity of PDF between various OS'es. For example, my old iPod Touch (running iOS 6.x) can read PDF files just fine. I do write the things in Word format, but It just doesn't feel the same when you have the stuff laid out like it's a Word document on a Letter-sized page.

Anyways - here it is, the first attempt at a "novelization" of a major Wapsi Square storyline - complete with some backstory, too:

Katherine Gilchrist and the Lost Dolls of the Anasazi

jwhouk wrote:Anyways - here it is, the first attempt at a "novelization" of a major Wapsi Square storyline - complete with some backstory, too:

Katherine Gilchrist and the Lost Dolls of the Anasazi

I just started reading it briefly, and it looks like it will be interesting to read completely, when I have time. Nice work.

jwhouk wrote:The hardest part was writing a prologue, essentially "introducing" the rest of Wapsi Square and condensing 10-11 years of storyline into a few pages. Believe me, it wasn't easy.

Unfortunately, you may need to revise that section: the whole section containing background details surrounding the creation of the chimera, the calendar machine, the time loops and the destruction of the calendar machine is inaccurate. Many of the details in your prologue are not matching up with what is found in the Wapsi Square Wiki's Chronology page, or the Time Loop Chronology page. (Length of the time loop, purpose of the calendar machine, Jin's illness and its source/reason, etc.)

But what I've glimpsed of the rest looks good so far. A faithful retelling, with descriptive narration to take the place of images from the strip. You obviously care a great deal about this project. I look forward to having time to read the rest...

See, that was what I was having issues with. I could not for the life of me remember if the Chimera came before or after the calendar machine.

jwhouk wrote:I do write the things in Word format, but It just doesn't feel the same when you have the stuff laid out like it's a Word document on a Letter-sized page.

So, while writing, tell Word to use a different size page. Or to display in Draft mode - the "page" you'll see is the width of your window and infinitely long.

But it also doesn't feel the same when the stuff is laid out for a paperback book with 7"-diagonal pages and you're reading it on a phone with a 4"-diagonal screen. Or even if you have the right size display area, if the author set it up with a 12-point font and you're accommodating your poor eyesight with a 16-point font. Or maybe someone actually likes to read novels on letter-size pages on their computer screen.

A genuine ebook format allows a reader program to handle all that cleanly and easily, because it has the needed information about content. PDF doesn't because it lacks that information. The reader program can try to fake it... and may do well, or may not.

But hey, I'll be happy to produce the real ebook formats if you like... except I can't promise to produce anything usable from PDF. I'll try, but not particularly hard. (Also, regardless of what format I input, I may or may not get a working table of contents. I haven't tried that in Calibre yet.)

How do I put this politely... thanks, but I'm fine?

I have the book formatted two ways: as a regular Word document, and as a "half-sheet" (5.5x8.5) book-style document. The latter is the format I use when I want to convert the Word doc - like, say, the Omnibus - to a "reader" format, like you would for Books on iOS. That happens to be done easiest by converting the document to a PDF file.

Anyway - I updated the prologue, made a few formatting changes, and did some editing/spelcheking for the latest version.

Katherine Gilchrist and the Lost Dolls of the Anasazi

Enjoy!

After talking with LakeWrangler and doing a few more once-overs, I've updated the final edition - including that argument, "What color is Castela's hair supposed to be, exactly?"

Katherine Gilchrist and the Lost Dolls of the Anasazi

Being on vacation, this week, and not having much in the way of plans, I had time to read the whole thing today. I did so while also following along on the Wapsi website, to better appreciate how the images were translated to narrative prose. I have to admit, I was impressed! jwhouk did a fantastic job. He not only followed the story arc faithfully, but also went and pulled elements from previous story arcs to fill in character background info, here and there, in a seamless manner. The whole thing reads smoothly from start to finish.

And it turns out that Castela's hair is apparently called "Rosy Brown," according to WhatColor... Who knew?

Needless to say, I strongly recommend taking the time to read this story.

And, as Pablo put it, show this to people who don't like "graphic novels" or "web comics".

Grats for making it to Wapsi Square's front page, JWhouk! I'm only about a third through, but so far so good.

Paul caught what I quoted after he called me a "superfan".

Wow, been a while since I've posted.

To begin with, it took me a while to figure out how to download the pdf file - basically I had to click on the link so it opened in a browser, then click on "Open With" and select a pdf viewer and then save it as a pdf. There may be a simpler way of doing it, but then I'm using Windows 8...

Anyway, I've read the Prologue and Chapter 1 so far, and it's looking pretty good. I could just make a couple of points, though. First of all, the Prologue throws a heck of a lot of stuff at the reader in one go, and effectively says, "Here you go, here's all this weird stuff that you need to accept at face value". Now I'm not saying there aren't lots of genre stories that do the same thing, but just maybe some of the Prologue material could be integrated into the main story instead?

The other point is that occasionally the narrative lapses into the present tense before returning to past tense. You should really stick to past tense throughout - switching between past and present is just inconsistent, and present tense narration can look a bit pretentious unless it's used for deliberate effect (e.g. "What can possibly go wrong?" I say, a split second before the bus hits me. The end).

Anyway, that's my two bob's worth.

Oh, ouch ouch ouch. I did a re-read of the whole thing, and OMG, I didn't even SEE some of the tense changes :O

Here's the latest edition - hopefully with the tenses correct!

A "full size" version (Word-format size, PDF file) is here.

I really need a proofreader.

I caught the other tense change (back when Atsali and Kath first met), and fixed it in the latest edition.

Ebook edition here.
Full-size edition here.

All right all right all right... GRRR.. Finally got all the tense stuff fixed.

eBook