Sunday, September 23, 2012

Writing a Light Novel

Been a busy summer, not necessarily profitable, but busy.

I've been percolating a concept for a light novel series.  For those not familiar, light novels are popular in Japan.  They're like written novel versions of manga, running 10-20 volumes of about a 100 pages a volume.  I had finished an anime series about a high school pop music club and some friends and I were lamenting that anime almost never moved into college or professional life.

So I started storyboarding a series concept about a 20-something rock band, their adventures, lucky breaks, romances, and roller coaster ride to fame.  The more I messed with it, the more compelled I got to keep going.  I had used Rock Band 3 for character design (my art sucks) and programming their play and watching avatar behavior gave me ideas for their personalities.

Any way, the target audience is young adults - though I think anyone might find it readable.  I've been publishing it in a forum but the material may be edging past the PG-13 point in some moments.  I'm going to start publishing it in parallel.  I may test it here and see whether the blog format handles it or not.

Sometimes, "It Really IS Rocket Science"