Fall of an Empire (rebooted) (1 Viewer)

[ZakoLover]

Hello guys, long time no see! ^^

As you already know, I was writing my zako fiction in this thread: Fall of an Empire - A zako story
It is in hiatus at the moment, as I am now more interested in drawing than writing.
But I still want to use this setting for my zako works, so I've decided to reboot this series.
I also posted it in my pixiv account: ZK-LV [pixiv]

Spoiler: Pictures

Okay, now I will explain why I stopped writing my fiction and what I am going to do from now.

I have found out that writing about zako would get repetitive very fast. After all, there are only so many ways you can describe how the girls die. It all comes down to crying, begging, screaming, groaning, pissing, bleeding, ... It has become very boring to write about it. There is a reason why while you can make a movie full of action from the beginning to the end but stories written in novels tend to have very few fighting scenes. That's why in the later chapters I wrote so much about stuff no related to killing. But I ended up making the story much more complicated and serious than it should be. It has become very hard to write. So basically a zako novel is doomed from the start. It can't be a proper novel, and it can't be a mindless killing fest either.

So I started drawing instead. But then I find out that drawing has limits of its own. While it's great to depict the demise of the girls, it's hard to tell a story with it. Sure, I can make it a manga/comic. But it's too time consuming and boring. Seriously, there is nothing more boring than drawing two characters sitting down and having a conversation.

Perhaps the best way is to mix both of the two media. I will draw the more important scenes, and use text to explain how we move from one scene to another. I will also keep it simple. This rebooted series will only be a casual and lighthearted stories about girls getting brutally murdered ;)

 

[Deleted member 687]

Very nice! Any plan to have more masked girls in your images?

 

[gamefanatic]

about girls getting brutally murdered

Nooooo, I want my the rare survivor... like Rika :(

 

[wj1905]

These are some nice skimpy outfits, and undressing the bodies is a nice touch!
Why did the first two got posed naked while making airquotes with their fingers, though?

 

[dinomoneyman]

There's certainly truth to this, but I wouldn't completely agree. There are indeed many pitfalls to writing about zako, but with some trial and error, and some skill, those pitfalls are avoidable. Fall of an Empire I would say became disinteresting, not because there was necessarily too much plot, but because the pacing was off and there was too much exposition. See, often times characters would just sit around talking about somewhat mundane and boring military and political things that wouldn't be relevant at all until several chapters later, in which several readers barely remembered what it was all about anyway, which lead to confusion. There were also times when it felt like nothing was happening for a long time to make much difference and a major development would have been helpful, whether it be an action scene, character development, etc. That last part isn't even a flaw with zako storytelling, but just storytelling in general, as I know I've read many books that have the flaw of meandering for too many chapters without much excitement.

Overall, the choice to reboot the series makes sense, but might I suggest a soft reboot or pseudo-continuation type of thing where the previous thing still happened? After all, those of us who've been following along would probably like the things that happened to still sort of matter to the world involved, even if in a small way.

Also, I'd say, even in a more image-focused reboot, signs of plot would still be nice to have. A bit of dialogue from the zako, a sense of progression in who's getting killed with more major characters like the cat-girls generals and officials still being targets, some continuity, stuff like that. Even in a more drawing-centric Fall of an Empire, the story, even if it's less of a focus, can certainly enhance the art and make things much more enjoyable and such.

Anyway, that's my critique and two cents.