Road 2 "Smash n' Crash": Author's Notes #1
I have two young nephews, named Miles and Mason. Years ago, while talking to my brother-in-law, over the phone, he called them "Smash and Crash", in a moment of comedic genius... As you can imagine, hyperactive kids at play can be an insurance claim, waiting to happen. Anyway, I got a real kick out of that, and those words stayed with me.
One of my greatest strengths as an author, is my overactive imagination. What my brain does most often, is process names, facts, personalities and other info, to create character concepts. Over the years, I've thought up dozens of these concepts, what I call 'character skeletons', and "Smash n' Crash" is one of them. I have general ideas, regarding how the characters look and behave, but I haven't, up to this point, ironed out any fine details.
Briefly, I want to go over what I initially came up with. I decided that the names referred to two boys, that were best friends. One of them, named Christopher "Crash" Riley, was going to be Caucasian. The other, Samuel "Smash" Davis, was the black kid. One of the many things they have in common, is that both of them hate barbers; so that means, that Sam's clean-and-cut dreadlocks are matched somewhat, by Chris's long, light brown hair.
Originally, "Smash & Crash" was going to be a cartoon strip. Along with the expected humor, was the idea that the boys were daredevils. So, not only were they likely to break things, they were also wanna-be stuntmen, and that made the nicknames perfect. I ran into one problem, however; I didn't have much interest in writing that type of comedy.
As it stood, it was just too thin. A concept like that'd be amusing for a few strips, or maybe even half of a book, but it's a one-trick pony, that'd get stale quickly. For a while, I couldn't think of a way to make it more interesting. Then I remembered, that I was also working on concepts, for a superhero universe. So, I briefly considered, joining the two ideas together.
And that was it. I found it... Instead of super powers, the boys were going to be able to drive custom buggys, and motorbikes with weapons, against the bad guys. This adds 'stunt drivers', to their list of titles, and it adds action to the humor, which is closer to my interests. Plus, kids wanna drive; if you're eleven or twelve, a concept like this is the ultimate fantasy.
This blog, is going to feature the process involved, in turning the "Smash n' Crash" character concepts, into an 'Intellectual Property'. Not all of the 'nuts and bolts' work, is going to be dumped here. However, you will see art, you will see pieces of background writing and world-building, and I'll be able to tell smaller stories, that will fit together like puzzle pieces. At the end of it, you'll not only have a full understanding of the property, you'll have the knowledge required to repeat the process, in order to fully develop stories of your own.
"Smash n' Crash" is being designed, as a fully-planned webcomic. For an example of unplanned fiction, please read my free ebook/blog, at nohonorfiction.blogspot.com (mature audiences only). Even more work from me, as an author, can be enjoyed at baseals.blogspot.com. That blog is a list of essays, called "Classic Movie Trailers"; they use YouTube links to theatrical trailers, and old movies as a springboard, so that I can write opinions regarding a wide range of topics.
If you enjoy my content, please follow me on Blogger and Twitter (I'm @ChannelSeals). With Twitter, you'll be up to date immediately, whenever I produce something. Also, please share my links with a friend! Remember: the bigger my audience is, the more time I can devote to entertaining you; and that's what I love doing.
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