Backwood Folk

I’ve never been a standardized test taker. Like at all. I score alright on them, I likely could do better if I really tried. But I can’t. I pick up the study books and quickly discard them in some small damp corner for long enough to develop a small ecosystem.  It’s just one of these things I get super pig headed about. When I think something is wrong I just can’t even get my head around even beginning to pretend to care. Now, recognize it is now one of those take a stand kind of wrongs. I know you can make a huge argument about for and against the usage of standardized testing and their importance (I’d obviously lean heavily on the against here) but that’s not the kind of wrong I’m talking about. It’s the wrong that falls along the same line as someone talking in a movie theater or not following the unspoken law of your own bathroom. That damn code you have in your head that you expect everyone else does. That’s how fundamental and almost core to my instinctual morality the hatred towards standardized tests really is for me. The only thing I can think more wrong in the universe is artist statements (which not coincidentally I have to compose quite soon as well) For a quick aside: Artist statements are the ultimate waste of time and insult to the viewers of a gallery there is. I’ve made a point in my life not to read them, because call me old-fashioned (or a Luddite)  but I think that if your work requires the aid of explanation…well you are doing it wrong. This isn’t some classical/technical skill based art versus modern or post modern, or “Douglas Adams invented tense adjective”-modern art. It’s just for me, it’s like having to watch a film for the first time with the director’s commentary blaring at you. Sure, it’s neat how they made the damn thing and there’s always a cool anecdote. But good god it relegates the process of enjoying the thing to nothing other than an academic exercise at best or a dissection at worst.  (For the sake of journalistic integrity- I don’t have many friends left from my art major days)

Anyways, none of that really has a load of dingo’s kidneys (sorry Douglas Adams on the brain once more) to do with what I actually meant to write about. It’s just that I’m procrastinating those things to actually write this post.

So Po’Dunk has always had a pretty defined history for me. Not so defined that I can’t find exciting new nooks and crannies, but enough so that I have a world I can pretty confidently realize scenarios on a dime for. I know its founders, famous residents, iconic locales and so forth. I almost always tackle a story with building the world first. Environment does a whole lot to inform the characters and thusly the kind of stories I tell. So I always try to make the big picture in a very selfish exercise in playing God. When it comes to actually telling the story I try to do my best in narrowing down the bird’s eye view into the stories of just some of inhabitants. More often than not I end up coming up with about four or five different parallel stories each with their own casts and own tones and so forth. They intersect in cool ways some, but the stories all tend to (at least in theory) stand alone.

Po’Dunk has all of that going, but the problem is that it’s only happening in my notebooks. The history of Po’Dunk is really only known to me, and in part by some unfortunate people forced to read my prose in the bevy of writing classes I had in the last couple years. Remember Sheriff Leeds from Chapter Four? He has a whole family. In fact, his son is Orville, who stars in Goat and the Stone, as well as The Bear Throne. Orville has a sister named Capella. You’ve heard her name in the comic, but you haven’t seen her just yet. Soon enough though.

In fact, the Leeds, Stroms, and Horns are all long lasted members of Po’Dunk, with intersecting histories that go back to its original foundings. However, in reading Backwood Folk you would never know. It’s all about the very narrow look at Ben, Lil, and Bert. Now I intend to fix that.  Not that I think the story to this point has been broken or anything like that. But what good is all of the backstory when it’s hidden away in notebooks hidden away in my various desks.

I didn’t really think about it until I was watching a little show called Parks and Rec. Realizations from the weirdest places huh? Parks and Rec might be one of the only (ok Community falls into this too) sitcoms that has real world-building to it. Pawnee is a very well realized place with a history. That said, it has a very narrow set of characters it follows when the world its created is considered. As a storyteller its amazingly impressive (and fascinating) to watch not only the character’s unfold, but to learn more tidbits of Pawnee’s expansive history.

I realize that Backwood Folk is probably on the opposite spectrum of tone as Parks and Rec, but I think there are a lot of good lessons from that show for me as a writer. And the biggest is never to be too coy with the world I’m making. Naturally I follow paths more based around things like Lost or Twin Peaks. Where the creators are holding their cards to their chests almost too closely.  Almost everything is viewed as a mystery instead of a story. While I find that a fascinating and frankly addictive way to tell a story, it might not apply to every narrative too well.  Now obviously my series requires some mystery. The Pink Eyes, Hieronymus, the Wild Woman. Those things won’t be answered soon. But Po’Dunk? Let’s explore it. Let’s learn about the Stroms, Horns, Leeds, Vaughans, and all of the other inhabitants of the years. Let’s make is a place and no longer an enigma.

That’s my goal for this next year. And my first steps are these little asides for when the comic is on hiatus. So lo and behold, here comes the History of Po’Dunk.