In November, I started writing Samael. I already knew that I wasn’t going to be writing a traditional novel. Instead of having chapters in my outline, I had “issues”. Just from the outline, it was obvious that most of the “issues” would end up being more than 2000 words – some substantially more.

It wasn’t until I actually started writing that I decided what I was going to do: break up each “issue” into parts. I then also decided that I’d add in things like character profiles, locations, information, etc. Back when I drew comics, I always had the last page of a chapter be some kind of informative page. This is essentially the same thing. And Samael was originally envisioned as a comic – I still think it would be great as a comic! – so it feels quite right to do this.

As an example, here’s Issue 6:

• 6.1 – Entr’acte #1
• 6.2 – Entr’acte #2
• 6.3 – Miroslav Radic
• 6.4 – Entr’acte #3
• 6.5 – Entr’acte #4

That’s two “chapters” of writing, followed by a character profile, and then two more “chapters”. Not all issues are this long – Issues 3 and 7 are only have two parts.

So far, I like this. I don’t know how well it would work with other stories, but I think it’s something interesting to experiment with.