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Adapt the Giant | 2/28/2025 - 3/1/2025

When it comes to big stories, it's pretty hard to keep track of everything that's going on from past chapters and such. But the only biggest challenge is something to make new chapters about it, I'd be scrambled and lost of a daring timeline just to reference something from a chapter long ago for a chapter relating to the current chapter to work on it. I recently been reading a web comic and apparent seemed to prematurely dropped the ending because it was way out of scope that drains motivation and such. As for me, I think of some ideas on how to adapt a big project, thought I can talk about these before the first section.

This blog won't be making about a big story, rather it's just about adapting it to its fullest or such. I have about three ideas that I think on how to adapt a story quite big than the initial scope.

This is only just a theory I wrote for this, There are other people who have better ideas than this so take it with a grain of salt and experiment with it.

The three ideas I got as follows:

Usually the names are confusing you say. If I were you, I'd be probably saying the same thing. Let's start with the first one...

The Shift (blue)

First order of business would be "The Shift", the order and timeline goes as follows:

  1. The climax and epilogue of the story, then think of a next thing after that story.
  2. Changing the time and place to which is after the main story finishes (either by real time, or perhaps whatever it goes).
  3. Begin a new story, The Cast are the same but felt different, yet remains their memories and personality.

This one's far-fetch to me, but I'll try my best to explain it.

We wanted to finish the story by the usual epilogues and climax, but when do you do it? Basically having a three-act story structure works best for this, The story would gone stale on further chapters depending on your motivation to work on it. I know there's a ton of potential on doing so, but it will test your endurance unless every act has its own epilogue and climax.

The changing of the time and place, the one I put in emphasis, is unusual to say the least. But in my ideas, it's a really a important bit. It leads to a sort of creative reset or refresh that would've otherwise drain your interest of the story, It gives you new ideas on how the story's next evolution stage directs and pivots the way you write the ending. Jojo's bizarre adventure concludes part 6 stone ocean by sort of resetting the universe itself, thus changing the time and place that changes the narrative on where the manga is going.

Let's not forget on how the characters would've behave if they have their time resting before The Shift, Time and Place are the factors of whether on how they are changed their behavior after what takes from the previous story. It can be anything on how you will change the characters, but you must not forget their core aspects of who they are, doing this wrong and the character becomes a complete stranger to the audience. Whether you like it or not of course.

Shift's Protocol

In this idea's forward works, it can affect the audience that quickly changing the story's time and place could really disorient them, even losing from catching up on where the story's going. I'd say use this idea sparingly, even to the eager who doesn't like to stay in one place, I highly suggest this. Even for the audience's comprehension of your story.

Make sure you retain the character's core identities as well, not only just memories. Their actions as well as their words to take consideration, But for The Shift's demands that some parts of who they are is to be or not to be. Growth of their lives in The Shift is about change.

The Merging

The Merging takes a different approach on dealing with concluding something in the story, Unlike The Shift: They kept the characters intact. So I'll give an outline on how that goes:

  1. Conclude the story arc and take a narrative break
  2. Find inspiration from anything (Mostly other stories, fan ideas, what-ifs and real-life experiences)
  3. Make a small, short story with the gathered inspiration of ideas. (Optional)
  4. Integrate this story/ideas into the main story as a new story arc.

A different approach I say, I'll finish this sentence first so I can explain the four aspects of this.

Concluding the story arc is quite ambiguous, but think of it as finishing it like "Finish the arc from one act whenever you want" type of thing. It could be something similar to how The Shift approaches it, The Merging finishes when a current problem is about to resolve or evolve into something that's unexpected. Taking a break is risky because you'll likely lose some of your audience if you leave them hanging long enough, doing this properly would mean getting some fresh eyes and good resting from the story we are telling. We need to save ourselves from burnout on this part.

Which lead to the inspiration aspect during the recovery. You really want to look through other people's story that can be either similar to your on-going or unrelated, even if its old or poorly received, they fill your mind at least something of an idea that mixes with your thoughts on your story. Interacting with the fans, thinking of some ideas (The classical way of course), and experiencing life itself to see some people and stranger that has their seemingly mundane story that you can take note of it. Tv shows and any series takes this well to consideration, some of it focus on particular aspects like hospitals or a DND session. (Even minecraft story mode team, the ever infamous one story, have actually played minecraft itself for inspiration) It's quite a lot, but the rule of thumb is that inspiration is finding something new.

So, why make the inspiration into a separate story? It's to get a clear vision on how you'll integrate this into the main story. It's about testing your ideas to the fullest that you've gathered from the world by making a small story about it. You however need to make piles of it perhaps, nick-picking ideas that works best for the main story. This is simply optional, but doing that might, and I mean might test on how it works or not.

And finishing things off is integrating it, most preferably the beginning of the new act/story arc. I think of it as the roughest thing to do for your story, simply the final test on how your ideas work. If it's done well, you're on your own to expand the story further and repeat. You gotta keep it mind on what ideas clash on your existing ideas of the story, really hard to get things right on this part.

Merging Mashup

Inspiration is quite ambiguous to any person, to say the least that people favors differently to get ideas for the story. But If you truly want to have a treasure-trove of ideas, then you better hurl yourself into a diverse fields for more inspiration, that is: living life literally. I know it's weird but you just do like other people do, sometimes talk to your friends and watch something on TV like the good old days or something does offer inspiration more than expected. As said on the first sentence of this paragraph: Inspiration is quite ambiguous. So you might sometimes get ideas, depending on your life.

The integration challenges can be many things. To distill this into one word, that would be Inconsistency. It's the established rules and such that exist on the main story clashes with the new ideas from your small story, you better prepare yourself to rewrite and clarify a ton of things. I recommend having writers and world-builders help with ideas on handling this, I'm no expert but they will help with the inevitable Inconsistency iceberg. (:vampire_emoji:)

The Two Types of The Merging

Now you thought we get straight to the third idea, but not yet! I can talk about the two types of The Merging that I recently had up on mind. I'll be brief and quick:

The Beginning and The End

It's similar to The Merging idea but with some few key elements that must be added:

It's not much of an idea itself but it has a different focus than The Merging idea that goes, Might be wrong about it as an idea so again it's a theory.

To clarify about having no structure, It only means on how you will reach the ending by any means necessary. You still however needs structure on every Acts, A small guide is enough to finish an act before the next. Planning absolutely everything could really hit a toll on you, It will never be a perfect story unless prioritize one act at the time.

It's also worth noting when showing the ending. Keep your surprises balance. Just a mindful use of it can excel well depending on what Act is going.

Conclusion

These ideas I had up in mind when it comes to "Adapting the Giant". Big stories that are indeed bigger than the solo or small team creators, they couldn't handle it by themselves which leads to burnout, premature story ending, and even canceling it all together. The ideas can probably help you guys make a big story but not only just that, people have better ideas than me and sometimes can criticize the flaws. You know? I don't really care as long as just talking about it for fun, you can just improve that framework and make it better on how we can make big stories.

For now, that is a blog I can write about. At least I can just-

Oh wait, I'm a comic artist... right! I forgot that I'm not Scott McCloud! Let's just conclude this, See you on the next blog!

[Blog Ends Here]

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