Community Profile

Thorn Tree In the Garden is an experient in serialized fiction. I have written fiction online before--and in doing so I met my future wife, but that's another story. Anyway, that story was written informally, mixing fairly standard fantasy tropes (mostly mine) with very unique treatments of fairy tale and myth (mostly hers). It was written for friends, was only semi serious (at least at first, though later it became very serious indeed), and was not really meant as more than a cool story we half planned, half improvised over the course of three years. We had a wonderful time writing it, for more than one reason, and since then I've thought on and off about how an online fiction project could be done, in a more serious vein and for a (hopefully) larger audience.

I read a few webcomics of varying quality, and the best of them are able to carry on long and involved stories without losing a)their focus or b)their audience. Probably the best of these are Goats, Sluggy Freelance and, to a lesser degree, MegaTokyo and Something*Positive. All of these comics have told or are in the middle of telling long, plot-and-character-intensive stories. Of them all, the most impressive lately is Jon Rosenberg's comic Goats, which in the last year has begun an ambitious, multi-character, multi-storyline project involving various dimensions, prophecies, destinies, the Mayan calendar, and the fate of the universe itself. Jon estimates the project will take seven years from start to finish.

That is ambition worthy of Chaucer, and the best part is that Jon is not just pulling it off, but doing so admirably. Goats is having an incredible run lately, and every time I think Jon can't top himself, he invariably does. Best of all, Jon has kept his twisted and dark sense of humor intact, and has not sacrificed funny (or fun) for the sake of plot, something Sluggy Freelance and MegaTokyo have had less success at in recent years.

The idea that one could start a seven-year project online, and pull it off, made me realize that yes, a long-term online fiction project could be feasible. But even that didn't get me off my tuchis. In between fitful work on the novel I'm writing, I contemplated ideas for the online serial, but that was all I did: contemplate them. It took a chance meeting--facilitated indirectly by Jon Rosenberg, as a matter of fact--to get my ass in the chair and typing.

As detailed on my other other blog as _xenogenesis, not long ago I met with Jon, Phillip Karlsson, and a few others in the Village for beer and commisseration (Jon's cat had just died). Among those in residence at the pub that night was Meredith, a sometime webcomic artist and animator, currently working for MTV, and in the middle of planning her new website, which will be plugged once it's up and running. Meredith is smart, funny, and talented.

Meredith is 22.

This shook me up a little. Here am I, a 36-year-old, overfed, baldhaired leaping gnome, and I have not had half the success in my chosen art as the young girl sitting a barstool or two away from me, even with the benefit of 14 or so years' experience. Now, I could have been jealous about this, but instead I chose to look at myself and admit that I haven't been half as ambitious as I should be, not for a while now. I have nothing to blame but my own laziness.

This LJ Community idea is part of my way to change that. The story has its genesis in a serial fiction idea I had a few years ago, which had the working title XYZ, and which wound up going nowhere because I didn't have the technical end together or, frankly, a decent plot. Well, riding home the other night on the bus, I had a series of story flashes that took an element or two from the XYZ project, another two or three things from other sources, and came up with the story that will soon appear here. I realized an LJ Community would be an excellent vehicle for the story, for a number of reasons. Chief among them is that the format lends itself naturally to storytelling, moreso than any other website I could come up with on my own. Additionally, I have a decent measure of control over what does and doesn't get posted here--something I wasn't able to achieve on my own without a lot more knowledge than I currently have. For this and other reasons, LiveJournal is where my story has found its home.

So what is Thorn Tree in the Garden about? (Highlight the following for minor spoilertry!) It's a simple story about angels, devils, people with paranormal powers, Heaven, Hell, God, the Devil, morality, ethics, zealotry, faith, and the end of the world. You know, stuff. Oh, and if you don't understand something right away, stick with it--'twill all be explained sooner or later.

So, for what it's worth, that's what's happening here and how it happened. The story has begun and will keep going until LiveJournal begs me to stop. I'll keep people posted on my work blog at jbwhelan. Oh, and thanks for stopping by.

J. B. Whelan,
New York, NY 12/08/06

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