DISPATCHES FROM THE END AFTER END
ISSUE #4: HONOR FOR THE DEAD
DB: Okay, there is a LOT to talk about in this issue.
TD: There is--because The End After End Issue #4 is an unexpected character study amid several issues focused on war and relic gathering.
DB: Readers have been wondering “Who is Walt?”
TD: And after this issue you could say, he’s a little bit me and little bit you and a whole lot of any creatively talented person in pursuit of their dream.
DB: “Where did he come from?”
TD: His parents DB…I know you were raised Catholic (as was I), and it’s hard to shake. But do we really need to have “The Talk?”
DB: “What’s his story?!”
TD: Reviewers have wondered that from Issue 1…
DB: Well, here it is. I find revealing things about a character an interesting balance. As a writer, you’ll always know more about the character than you could possibly put down on a page, and this is not a biography, so that much information is probably not needed (and boring to read). But you want to give enough about the character that their decisions make sense, and the reader connects with the character.
TD: You’re talking about the internal Walt Willem. What makes him tick. What external forces and internal struggles led him to the BART station platform, and immediately into the End After End. We’ve seen how he’s handled his stay thus far in the war (rather poorly) but now we’re seeing that Walt fell short of many of his life goals, that he never fulfilled his grandest artistic aspirations and what he did accomplish left him feeling empty. I don’t know a soul that has not experienced such a struggle (artistically or otherwise) and I personally identify with Walt for that very reason.
DB: If the reader doesn’t care about the character, it doesn’t matter what happens in the story, it won’t impact the reader.
TD: It might entertain in the short term, but not necessarily endure.
DB: Up to this point, we’ve been pulling the reader along with Walt, putting them in the same position as Walt, learning about the world of the End After End as he goes. Hopefully, we’ve made Walt a sympathetic character to grab the reader, but here is where we really try to give the reader insight into Walt and get that connection that we need for a stronger emotional impact for the rest of the story.
TD: Walt is far more nuanced than when you and I first met him, that is when we talked about what shaped him prior to the events in the book. On the one hand, I find him sullen, and a bit rounded off by life. There’s even a melancholy, a kind of resignation to him but at the same time—he’s still somehow determined, still marching, still painting the windows, still expressing himself creatively. He has not surrendered. And I dig that shit! But he wasn’t always this person.
DB: Now’s a good time to talk about editors and what they do. My experience with editors is limited but seems like some focus on mechanics and ‘correctness’, making sure the storytelling is clear, there aren’t misspellings or grammatical errors (other than the ones you stick in for effect, like Grink-speak).
TD: Line editors. Copy editors. I love those editors so much. Because those are not my strengths. I tend to script visually, and the language is all over the place – so are the mechanics. I couldn’t care less about the grammatical structure of a sentence. I’m much more concerned that the artist can feel the script—can see it. So, yeah, we love you copy editors!
DB: Then there are ones like Vault EIC Adrian Wassel. Who are there from the beginning, helping to build a great story. I’ve spoken about this before, but in Resonant, Adrian really wanted to push the pace of the story, while my first take on it was more of a slow burn. With his help, I compressed the first 7 issues of Resonant into 5. And it turned out that was one of the things people enjoyed the most about the series, the relentless momentum of the plot.
TD: Resonant’s concept is so cool, but it’s the story of Paxton and his children that make it endure and also the reason it captured Hollywood’s attention!
DB: In End After End, he also made a suggestion that changed the whole series.
TD: And it crystalized Walt for us both.
DB: Before our discussion with him, Issue 4 was TOTALLY different. It showed Walt as an adult, basically a day in the life (even though it was over several days), leading right up to his ‘death’ in the real world. While this gave insight into Walt, Adrian felt, and correctly so, it was too cliche. Too standard. Too EASY.
TD: Editors are (typically) the first readers, right? Well, a story deemed “easy” also means boring. Nothing scares me more as a writer than having a reader shrug at it.
DB: That’s something to watch out for when writing, if it’s too easy, it might be lacking emotional impact. You must do the work to get to the emotional core of the character to hit the reader in the feelings.
TD: I’ll spill the beans on the cutting room floor. The entire issue was Walt throwing away shot after shot, or having it snatched right out of his hands. In the original final draft of Issue 4, he was working in tech (c’mon people, it’s the SF Bay Area). And he did battle with an office ogre that bullied and demeaned him. He emasculated Walt, even stole his chance at having a relationship with one of his co-workers. It worked. There are story parallels we’ve set up in the End After End that show how Walt has changed. We believed in the decisions we’d made with Walt’s backstory, but then the “easy” note came back…
DB: With that note, we threw the whole issue out and started from scratch.
TD: We deleted the entire thing.
DB: We mined moments from our own lives, things that could shape Walter in the character we imagined in our minds. This also led to having more flashbacks throughout the series, to start the reveal of Walt earlier to improve the reader’s connection to him. And man, it worked! Issue 4 became one of my favorites and really shaped the entire series.
TD: Guess you could say that Issue 4 and our experience in writing it, perfectly parallels Walt’s journey. Like him, we had creative aspirations that fell short of expectation. But we were determined to find him, and we marched forward in search of his character and did not surrender ourselves to that initial disappointment. We fought until we’d realized the goal.
If you’re wondering what that means for Walt…you’ll find out in the very next (very brutal) blood-shedding issue!
SPECIAL THANK YOU: This dispatch concludes with a very special thank you to colorist, Kurt Michael Russell whose artwork is depicted throughout Issue 4. Aside from his typically stunning colors, Kurt supplied all of Walt Willem’s art which readers can see in the gallery and on the windows of the shops of San Francisco’s Union Square.
