I Planned This Sooner or Later

There’s a peculiar case of Starlight Radio: I have a rule that says extra resources should be used so they’re no longer extra. Otherwise, we’re left with loose ends. This is going to be hard to pull off, but I believe if I can, I’ll have something solid.

Have you ever watched a TV show where it feels like something’s missing? Or have you watched one where there’s a lot going on, so much they forgot the ‘p’ at the beginning of ‘lot’? These are the very things I’m trying to avoid.

I looked at the first chapters of books in my TBR, and while some were intriguing and I would read again, there were others with this gut-punch feeling. They would set up with something that seemed so irrelevant to the overarching plot. As if the first chapter shouldn’t exist as it is, and this subplot should not have been written in the first place.

I grew up watching anime. What a kid understands watching anime on Cartoon Network is the premise of that story. There’s no secondary consideration on the first episode; that comes later. The child and teenage minds cannot be bombarded by two major plot lines at once, and I don’t think mine can, either. That’s bad practice.

Every Monday I have introduced you slowly to every primary and secondary character, then showed you what they do at Minarin Studios. Did you notice a running theme in the first issues? I’m not just going to leave it there. So many published authors (looking at Alex Aster) set up some kind of plot point and promptly forget it existed.

A plot point such as the star stick (I’ll make my own damn star stick, bigger and better) has to be carried throughout the whole novel, or the whole TV show. If you can’t do that, maybe you should rethink the whole outline (or start one).

I didn’t outline these past issues, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and thought carefully about how I should specify the events. If anyone wants to make their own webseries, I suggest outlining in some fashion, or dumping ideas on your page, then, in a state of presence, plan what you want in the series going forward.

Don’t have a star stick and then not use it.