Inktober 2023: Looking Back

 Hello all,

Nearly two weeks ago, I finished my story for Inktober 2023, and I want to look back and review my process in writing the story, illustrating it, planning the project, etc. It was an ambitious thing to imagine I would write a near 20,000-word short story and do an illustration for (almost) every day of the month of October, but here we are. As Jake Parker says, "Finished, not perfect," and I am so proud to have finished this story. Or rather, the first draft of this story.

We all know that the key to writing well is re-writing, and because of the pace of this particular project, I rewrote very little. It was more a feat of endurance than anything else and looking back, there are many many things I would change. But the great thing about storytelling is that you never have to be done. You can continue to improve upon your stories and your writing forever. The catch is that you do have to release it eventually. If you do not, you will be on your death bed with a pile of works in progress that no one but you has ever seen.

The way that I wrote Magda's story was by starting with the prompts. Every year the official Inktober brand releases a set of 31 prompts on September 1, giving artists the chance to take the month to prepare for Inktober. When I got the list, I started outlining the story based on these prompts. The only things that were created before this were the two main characters and the general setting. Everything else about the plot and secondary characters came as a direct result of the prompt list for Inktober.

Writing a story this way is fun because you are forced to be creative within the boundaries you're given. It is challenging though because sometimes you simply can't make the current prompt fit the next part of your story (or at least you think you can't.) When this happened, sometimes I would have to go back to previous chapters to make what I was writing make sense. This was probably the part I enjoyed the most - going back to something I'd already written and revising it to match what was currently happening in the story. I always knew writing a story wasn't a linear process, but this was the first time I had experienced that.

All this writing, brainstorming, and researching made the month of September a blast. Around a week before Inktober started, though, I hit a dead end a few prompts short of the end. I decided I had time to finish the story during the October and began sketching out compositions for the first few days. As the challenge began, I always had it in the back of my mind to finish the story, but the task of finishing the actual images everyday took up so much time and energy that I put off finishing the story. This wouldn't have been a big deal, except at about the halfway mark, I decided to completely switch up what was going to happen in the story and introduced the character Kandra.

It was never my intention to include a secondary antagonist, but as I was preparing the "spicey" chapter, I felt my initial idea was no good. I had intended for Magda and Wendell to go to an inn, enjoy some food, and hear tell of the strange goings on of the land. However, The fact that inns are not only cliche, but also a rather unlikely thing they would have found in a small town, I decided it made much more sense for them to stay at a private residence. Then I got the grand idea for them to fall into a dangerous situation whilst doing this. Thus, the character Kandra was born, and I am so glad that she was. It is always more interesting when one of your antagonists are up close and personal with the main characters and Kandra gave me the opportunity to write scenes where Magda and Wendell are confronted face-to-face with the evil that threatens the land.

Although it was a good change, it made it much more difficult to finish the story and as a result, the last two weeks of Inktober were a hectic time. That being said, I think this pivot provided even more opportunity for learning. After all, it is one thing to be able to make a good plan, but it is another thing to be able to adapt to changing circumstances. This project put me in position to make strides in both areas.

In closing, I am very proud of this story, and although it was tiring and sometimes frustrating, it makes me excited to do it again. After all, if I can write and illustrate a short story in two months, what's to stop me from taking five months and really doing the thing justice?

Thank you to everyone who read this post and especially to those who read Magda's story. Stay tunes for more to come.

Sarah