Reflection (written Fall 2018)

I appreciated the experience of remixing... for what I was able to get done with it, anyway. It was nice to have the groundwork of an idea I’d already established through working with Twine; it meant I was already accustomed to mapping the idea onto the Twine format, and knew it was suited for the medium. I don’t think this story would work in any other format.

My draft version of this wasn’t much different than my project 2 submission, so I’m going to mostly address the changes made between projects. For the draft specifically, I’d added two new scenes into the theater (the tae kwon do and the improv group); however, I didn’t know how to flesh them out fully, so I disconnected the links for the final submission. That left me with two scenes to use, both drawn heavily from my own memories. During our workshop, Heather requested I elaborate on what caused the fight with my friend in the first place. Edit: see amended statement, page bottom. I also wanted to see how I’d implement some of the changes we discussed to go back in and “fix” memories. Hence, that scene saw a LOT of expansion, and slowly consumed the left side of my story map. It became an excellent exercise in narrative futility, and spawned one new ending for the story. I had considered putting the Clockwinder in the theater’s audience, but ended up deleting his appearance for lack of context.

I expanded the lore somewhat, adding to the Clockwinder’s history. The other two gods are both mentioned, now; their connections to the Clockwinder are things you’ll be able to ask him about in later versions of the present path. Unfortunately, I was not able to add much of that dialogue now, so I closed it that branch off on the invitation. I felt that would be the best way to avoid leaving the reader on a cliffhanger. As for what I did get on the present path, I drew on the trials and tribulations of my own attempts at meditation, and the fear of never getting through those trials.

Largely for worldbuilding purposes, I added certain details about the church that worships the three gods. I could not think of a name for it, but may end up going with “Horologism”, Its structure is vaguely Christian, while some elements of its practices are Buddhist. And I tried to explain the pilgrimmage. I’m using the word in a very modernized sense; it’s less a personal odyssey than a meditation exercise done at a holy site.

I can’t say I met my initial goals for the piece. I did not get to explore the multiple facets of the past or present, though I got through the planning stages of a nostalgia path. And having the Clockwinder engage in a dialogue was most of my purpose for writing this story to begin with, which I have yet to see realized properly. My goal in doing the remix ultimately became getting it done, given how crunched I’ve been for time. I made the mistake of starting with my expansions of the past instead of going right into the present, which would have yielded a much longer piece and been a far less tedious process. Perfectionism also works to my detriment.Note to self: if you're crunched for time, you have no time to waste on the perfect wording, the perfect anything. If I want any chance at a career in writing, I’ll have to find my way around that.

I’ve tended to go for more traditional storytelling formats in the past; technology was a tool of creation at best, but not a part of the final product. As much of a pain as technology has been for me this semester, I don’t plan to give this story format up, because I like the way Twine makes me think about my writing. Twine is a very expansive format, so you basically have to see the possibilities realized. It also makes it easier to know where I’ve woven in the threads I’ve planted.

EDIT as of February, 2021:

The version presently posted of this story is NOT the one submitted for my Digital Creative Writing final. I disconnected all of the "past" scenes from the theater. Upon rereading them, I felt too embarassed by the quality of writing in those sections to leave them up. This comes with the caveat that now the game itself has no completed endings... in fact, it really serves more as the outline of a Twine experience than a full-fledged, finished game. It also provides some character lore and worldbuilding. That part is worth reading: I am still proud of this piece insofar as it concerns the clock and the Clockwinder. For now, it simply doesn't lead anywhere (except other school projects). I have redownloaded the Twine file, so in the future I might make a version of this game that's just you having a conversation with Time.