Callidus

Welcome back friends!

Well, this year and all the struggle that it represents for nearly every one of us is almost over. As the last days of 2020 tick away, I’ve been keeping busy with a few things and I thought I’d share my progress with you this evening.

Decisive Results Sequel

This past week or two I’ve been working on the treatment for the follow up to Decisive Results. At this point, Tabico and I have talked through the story as an outline and we have all the major beats figured out. The treatment is a second pass that goes into more detail for what’s happening in each scene moment to moment.

Once that’s finished and we make tweaks, we’ll be ready to move on to the actual script. Once that’s done, we’re officially making a sequel!

Right now, the main thing I’m focused on is pacing and trying to make sure that the story flows smoothly and the twists and turns land with the audience. I’m feeling good about where we are and excited to work on this more next year.

Compliance and Acquisition Follow Up

As I’ve said in email correspondence, I’m thinking about another outing with Lily and Samantha. The reaction to Compliance and Acquisition was very gratifying and the fact that people have asked about seeing more adventures with these characters even more so.

I’ve done quite a bit of brainstorming the past couple weeks. I’ve cooked up a few outlines and done loads and loads of plotting; just thinking about where things can go and what will happen with these two fun characters.

At this point, I’m trying to make a decision on where to take things. I’ve got two pretty solid outlines that are very different from one another. One is very complex and full of intrigue and twists. The other is more simple and the twists and turns have to do with the characters more so than the things happening to them.

One has very high stakes that affect a lot of lives and the other affects just Lily and Samantha. One is all about picking up with the events that happen after C&A and the other doesn’t rely too much on C&A for its setup.

And… I’m having trouble deciding which one I want to work on.

I’m of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, I’m very keen to tell an exciting story with a lot of plot threads and twists. On the other, there’s something in me that really wants to write something a little bit more simple for the next tale.

I feel like I can do the simple story before the complex one but not the other way round. If that doesn’t quite make sense let me explain…

If I do the complex story next, that establishes a pattern that stories with Lily and Samantha are always high stakes, big intrigue thrillers. But, if I do a more character driven, suspenseful drama then I feel like I’m establishing a pattern that Lily and Samantha stories can be anything.

Maybe that’s overthinking it but I know that I, as a reader, develop those expectations sometimes.

So, I’ve not made a decision yet. Although as I write this I find myself thinking that what I really want to do is write both. And, more specifically, I want to write both in a way that both stories are really effective. And, perhaps, that suggests which one needs to happen first.

So, we’ll see. I’m actually itching to finish writing this and get back to plotting so I’m gonna speed through the rest of this update!

Helping Hand: New Animation!

Yes, as the intrepid among you already know, I’ve got a new animation in the gallery! A very fun little piece based on a superb photo that I came across on either tumblr or bdsmlr months ago.

Already built into the source image is this fascinating contrast: Two women, bound and gagged sitting in chairs back to back. One struggles with her bonds, the other looks placidly off-camera. It was such a delicious bit of drama that I knew I had to do something with it.

The animation was very quick. The source photo was so good I didn’t really have to do much with it. I spent a bit of time writing the story that goes along with it. Trying to find something fun that seems to setup the big moment and payoff this terrific source image.

If you haven’t already, I hope you enjoy Helping Hand!

Thanks for reading and, as always, your comments questions and suggestions are welcome!