Hello all. Today i’d like to have a little talk about the next series, the space opera, which will begin in 2019, and how much lore is too much lore.
Okay, here’s the deal. The next two albums, The Cyberpunk Fairy Tale and Jannissary, the balkan rock opera, factor into the lore in such a way so that a listener who doesn’t know much about the New Albion universe will be able to happily listen to the story without any trouble. I do try to do this. I have a lot of lore, but i try to walk a line between building on the lore and making separate stories accessible for new listeners. Lost Hollow doesn’t require extensive knowledge of the New Albion trilogy, although it makes some bits have more impact if you do. Carnival doesn’t require pre-existing knowledge about Raven, although i’ve used him for years in several works, mostly really early stuff. If you know the lore you get a bigger impact, but if not, one is able to enjoy the story without any problems.
In addition, there’s behind the scenes lore mostly only discussed with fans or in the book. Stuff about other post humans like Jill and Michael and where they’re from (Jill is the girl from Cthulhu The Funksical for instance). Or the post human war fought between Lloyd and company and Sarah and her mutant creations. There’s a lot of lore, but once again, if all you do is listen to a few of the albums, you won’t mind, you won’t miss anything, it’s all good.
I bring this up because i have a lot of ideas for the space opera, but they all require picking up where i left off. Unlike Lost Hollow, where i started again and then tangentially tied everything back into a continuation of New Albion, this direction would require that you know about New Albion and Lost Hollow and are basically up on the major lore. If i put the ideas into play. the space opera would be about between 6 to 8 acts, (20 something minutes an act) released every few months, that would follow a really freaking long story, with a few delightful divergences.
Would this be a mistake? Would i get getting too far up my own butt and too convoluted? Would it be better to just tell new stores from scratch that are more accessible like the two that will be released later this year? Do New Albion fans feel that Lost Hollow isn’t a direction worth continuing? Or are you okay with the story continuing, characters returning and game pieces being put back into play?
Is the lore build up too much? Am i going to end up only making albums for a diminishing number of hard core fans, and others will remember fondly the good old days of New Albion, before it all went downhill and the series devolved into my spinning my wheels in a convoluted sci fi soap opera that you stopped giving a shit about long ago? Do you think i should just relax and keep making whatever stories i want and you’ll keep buying them as long as they don’t suck, which they likely won’t?
Continue the lore or freaking chill out?
I am asking for you opinions.
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I really adore all of the lore and how it all seems connected in one way or another.
I would personally really love it if characters returned. Keep doing what you’re doing. <3
Since you decided on continuing the lore, I am not going to comment on that other than to say I am happy to hear it. When you posed the question, however, it prompted me to take a closer look at your work (and purchase albums) other than New Albion to see what might be upcoming if this specific lore did not continue.
Let me take this opportunity to tell you that you are a master storyteller. Dear Departed Deidre, Jack of Ash, Mad Gertie…truly incredible. I have listened to these songs repeatedly in the past few days. I feel like a little kid who needs to hear the same bedtime stories every night. As a full-fledged adult, that is a very fun way to feel.
There is a certain magic to many of your characters that makes their stories stay with me in unexpected ways. I love Hank’s werewolf girlfriend and their relationship, imagined (within the work) or not. They come to mind whether or not I am listening to your music, almost like old, unusual friends.
Certain lines in your songs should be toasts for the most special occasions.
The work is truly remarkable in endless ways. Thank you for your stories, and characters who are incredibly, beautifully real, regardless of whether they are real or imagined within the story themselves.
On Broadway I love Les Miserables, Wicked and The Great Comet, especially. When I see a lesser production, I find myself wondering why some of your work isn’t there.
A huge thank you for the endless hours of gripping fascination, often combined with heart-wrenching sadness, that your work brings to me. You are more than a rock star in my little part of the world.
First off hi, I’ve been a fan of your work for years and I own a bunch of your albums.
And I’m going to tell you why your last two albums sucked (and how to fix it)
Right I’ve been kinda torn on what to say on this for some time. Ever since I listened to Gabriella gadfly in fact…and I listened to that the day it came out.
And I finally know what rubbed me the wrong way so badly about the carnival and gala.
Do you know about Chekov’s gun?
Because…well I know you’re known for putting in tiny unaddressed pieces of story to “set the stage” inside your Operas which were very effective and fun. The monk and the gambler, the cat-burglar and the red head dwarf were a way to show off the bustling metropolitan nature of New Albion. And it worked like a charm I could envision New Albion just through your words. And they served a purpose.
But I wonder if that was their purpose or if you just wanted to show them off because when I look at your work now…it just seems like you never learned about proper story structure…
You set up the carnival so beautifully, I was blown away when the AI turned up at the end of the weird west cabaret. I theorised about it’s meaning and was waiting with anticipation for the carnival wanting to so badly who the writer was and why the AI was there and…
Well then nothing…
The explanation, the entire plot I was so obsessed with got explained, resolved and made moot in one song, with one of the characters killing themselves and who is, by the by never spoke of again, no grief, no care, nothing…
Oh but look here’s Raven and he’s wacky and horny and edgy and such >.>
Oh…okay.
And this just…well continues.
One of the characters is overpowers as shit, awesome like to see more..
*album ends*
Excuse me? Where’s the finally, where’s the resolution WHAT DID I JUST LISTEN TO?
Oh they set up Tunnel girl as a plot point?
I wonder what’s gonna happen with her…
Nothing.
Literally nothing,
The Gala doesn’t even mention her, no one does, she’s this inconsequential titbit of nothing what didn’t serve the plot in any way.
Also I firmly believe the Gala takes place in the empty vacuum of space because there is no staging set at all.
And well I could go on, but I thin this wikipedia article on Chekov’s gun might be of more help to you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun
Though it can also be summarised with “Don’t use unnecessary filler and follow up on your plot threads” which you’ve neglected big time with this series.
I like New Albion, I liked the Cabaret and I like to know more about this universe you’ve created. I’ve been a fan of your work for long enough to not just up and leave. But do me a solid and put some though in your plot structure. Because throwing characters at your listeners and then killing them for shock value can only get you so far in life (and I know you can do so much better)
Hey Marjolein,
I’ve debated whether to reply to your advice, because I don’t want to devolve into an exchange where I butthurtingly defend my work or try to deflect your comments by being defensive and trying to somehow “change your mind”. Your reaction is honest and I appreciate your taking the time to write out your thoughts and reach out.
I do know Chekov’s Gun.
Lost Hollow is definitely not a concise, focused piece and I do see where your dislike with some of my choices lay. It is an episodic melodrama, where the acts serve more like seasons of a show rather than tightly plotted acts of a single piece. I also wanted to work on intimate character exploration more than the briskly plotted epics I had made in the New Albion Trilogy. I could write my own essay on where I hit and missed on that point, but that’s for another time.
The point being, the things you take issue with were, for the most part, very conscious decisions I made in an attempt to create and explore a different type of story and structure than I had done previously. Whether it worked or not is a matter of opinion and your feedback of where and why it didn’t work for you is valuable, if not pleasant.
(Except for Tunnel Girl. Her arc was perfect, no one will be able to convince me otherwise, and she is just a season 2 character).
I believe the next 2 works will be more to your liking. They are indeed tightly plotted and focused stories with very little filler and clear, by the book, story structure.
I recognize your name so I wanted to respond to you personally. Your comment sucked to read, but I cannot grow as an artist without critical feedback, so sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and consider where you may have missed the mark in others’ eyes. Hopefully you’ll have a better time next time. See you then, and good luck on your endeavors til then.
Hey Paul
First of, thank you so much for replying.
You could’ve easily let this comment slide, just ignore it or let the fans defend you in your place.
But you didn’t, you bit the bullet.
I really respect that.
As an artist you have the right to experiment, it’s how you grow and learn new things.
I’m pro experimentation both in the mad science sense as the artistic sense ^^
Never stop experimenting Paul.
But to me, this experiment missed the mark. We don’t have to go into that again, I’ve said all I wanted to say.
Knowing these decisions you made were conscious instead of unknown faults however, is a sign to me you still know how to handle story. Be it sometimes in strange ways.
And I’m glad your next albums will be more cohesive. And knowing that, I’m looking forward to hearing them.
So yeah, until next time, good luck and once again thank you for replying ^^
Greetings and such,
Marjolein
Ps: Not sure if you recognising my name is a good or bad thing XD but I can’t help but feel a bit flattered.
Since it’s been said so much before, I’ll say I’m not a huge fan of the “story so far” ideas. If the listener needs it, then it’s a spoiler for past musicals and they should just listen to those first. If the listener doesn’t need it, then that’s a lot of song effort that doesn’t go into advancing the plot or making awesome soundscapes. If it makes sense, just sprinkle bits as you go, like with Mary retelling her story.
I would never actually do a Story So Far. I would just tell an engaging story, sprinkle aboslutely necessary background info in where needed and otherwise, if you catch references great, if not, they will be easter eggs should you dwelve further.
I love anything with some nice fan art opportunities. Make some cool cyberpunks pls
I agree with the suggestion near the top. Make a recap song with relevant information.
I think of it this way: I knew nothing about the city of New Albion when I started listening to Dolls of New Albion. However, that intro song gave me a good background of the city, as well as a chance to fall in love with the setting. I didn’t know everything I WANTED to know about the city (which lead me to look for more lore), but I knew all I needed to know. I feel you can do that with the New Albion lore as well, with similar vague-ness so you make the listener want to hear the other plays.
As long as it isn’t a true sequel (where there are no new plotlines, just resolving old ones. Like those awful “Part 2” movies), I have no complaints. In fact, I love to see reoccurring characters! It is always fun to see how the new characters interact with old lore. It also gives an opportunity to explain the old lore through new characters.
Also, if you are planning two plays, and only one of them is lore heavy, that is a pretty good ratio. That is one play for the hardcore fans, and one for beginners.
yea i think the space opera picking up where you left off would be cool. i agree with the others about the “our story so far” comment. i *really* want to see lost hollow characters come back as they were some of my favorites. as long as you don’t rely on having read the book you wrote, im in. (the book you wrote is probably great, i just have reading problems lmao.) and people dont have trouble following things as long as you make it slightly clear what’s happening. (homestuck, for example. another example is ghost quartet.)
Hi Paul!
New fan and purchaser of music here. I loooooove lore, and I think you’ve done a great job in making things bold enough for old listeners to connect an older album to as well as making them subtle enough for newer listeners to not feel confused. I think Lost Hollow is definitely worth continuing. I can’t get enough of Raven. XD
I’ve listened to the Lost Hollow and New Albion stuff that I’ve become desperate to audition, myself.
All in all, I think you should continue with the lore. Can never have too much. And it adds more depth, meaning, substance etc to a production which in the end will absolutely have more impact for those who search for it. c:
Continue the lore and the universe because it is Rich and immersive. You could release a short companion ebook that explains the lore and background or YouTube videos explaining the lore.
Continue the lore! Your work is kind of like reading comic books. Each one gives a little bit more history to the world and a little bit more depth, while connecting characters that you never thought would possibly be connected. And I know the comparison is kind of lame, but your Space Opera sounds like Infinity War. It puts a lot of pieces together, that need to be understood separately to greater understand the larger whole. But because of your writing it’ll drive people to view the rest of the Shaperaverse to have that greater understanding of this Space Opera.
Your lore has been what attracted me to your works, and what’s kept me hook since day one.
So I agree with everyone, continue the lore, because that’s what keeps us hooked! We all know you’ll pull it off with flying colors.
I would say continue the lore, even if it’s just this once. This could be the crazy, lore-heavy album for die-hards.
Plus, it would be great to see Henry complete a character arch.
You already know where I stand on this, Paul. But I really do think you’re overthinking it. Those of us who are here, in this space, on this blog, we’re here for whatever you give us. We love your stories, and we love those “aha!” moments of connecting dots. This is why you also see us desperately trying to fit pieces together (“Is this character the same as that one!?”)
But I love the idea a few people have mentioned so far. An “Our Story So Far” number would be GREAT. Heck, I think even liner notes for Bamdcamp downloads would be a nice touch (they really added something special to Slenderman, for instance).
You’re one of those writers who’s extremely good at juggling a lot of convoluted bits and having it come across as more interesting, exciting, and revelatory than just… pointless. There’s a reason there’s an audience for things like, say… Homestuck. Or Kingdom Hearts. Or heck, even A Series of Unfortunate Events. People (especially nerds, who make up 99.9% of your audience) love to feel like they’re solving a mystery, and can feel more drawn into a story that promises a huge world with a lot of moving, interconnected, consistent pieces. Not every writer can do this effectively. But you’ve done a damn good job so far, which is why you’re seeing overwhelming support and trust for this concept.
tl; dr: JUST DO IT!
I think it is a good idea to countinue the story, to add new people and places.
I like the ideas that have been stated about doing a recap. (song or summary, doesn’t matter) I think that some of the best parts about my experience with New Albion and Lost Hollow have been where the story ties together. I think that as long as there’s some sort of recap, the new people will be fine and the longtime listeners can still geek out over 5 notes/words that go back 3 albums. I agree that what was done with Mary the AI is a good example, the old listeners saw the connection, but new listeners weren’t lost.
I agree with what’s already been said, especially Quinn’s point that many people will, upon realizing there’s more information and understanding to be had go back and find it because that’s exactly what I’ve done in an oddly corcuitous route (came in with the Radio Hour then went back for Dolls and continued on with Analog Conscience and forward) and despite following and digging in over the past 5 years I haven’t found everything, as this post and comments exemplify for me, and I love that as much as I love the ever-expanding lore of new stories. And there will be a lot of listeners who feel the same. And I think as long as you keep the music as wonderful as it is, it will pull people in and start them on the spiral (or they may buy just that album because they enjoy the sound even though they don’t know what’s going on, which a friend of mine did). I think there’s a delicate balancing act though because the more works you add, the more people will start to feel like its too much and they’ll never be able to catch up, so if you continue expanding, you may want to also consider doing more albums like A Pirate’s Tale which is lovely and fun and self-contained (and not connected to New Albion, at least as far as I can tell).
I love having all the pieces be interconnected! However, yeah, it can present some problems for new listeners. I showed the Lost Hollow trilogy to some friends of mine who only have a passing familiarity with New Albion, and felt I had to explain to them ahead of time about the existence of the AIs and such; the ending of the Cabaret and then the Carnival (“we all know who’s coming”) make some assumptions that the listener already knows what “Dialogue Denied” is indicitive of, but for a brand-new listener or someone who only follows the series casually, this doesn’t necessarily make much sense and it isn’t until “Hello AI” that any explanation at all is given.
I do wonder if it would be possible to just fill in the backstory a little bit more in these instances. I don’t think it’s necessary for the more tightly coupled albums (the separate parts of Lost Hollow don’t need a recap between them, for instance), but maybe it’s just adding a little more explanation or, in the case of a long project like the Space Opera, maybe start it off with a little “Prologue” track (perhaps sung, perhaps spoken word… perhaps even from Lloyd) that fills in the essentials for people who haven’t internalized the whole rest of the series. Or, barring that, maybe you could write up some summaries of the critical plot points from past albums and have a link to those so that listeners starting later in the series can read the relevant ones before starting off later on in the series.
This sort of thing might be nice to have otherwise as well… for instance, I try to introduce as many people as I can to your work, but I feel like The Dolls of New Albion isn’t really the best starting point (I’ll admit, it’s not one of my favorite albums of yours), but it feels right now like it *has* to be the starting point since otherwise the VPs chants in the DO and AO don’t make any sense (new listeners would wonder “Why are they singing about dolleys?”, though admittedly I somewhat wonder about that for those timeframes as well). For now, I’ve actually settled on using The Slenderman Musical to introduce people to your style… haven’t gotten a chance to try it on any new listener yet, but I’m hoping to do so someday.
Also… OMG, the Funksical is part of the canon too now? Just another bubble of reality, I presume? I love it. Though, I get the feeling that the bonus tracks are set in the same world as New Albion.
Anyway… TL;DR: I love the connections, recurring characters, etc. Meeting Mary in depth after her brief mention in “Postcards” was massively rewarding as a longtime listener. Raven’s return was something I’d been hoping for since I first heard “The Fallen”. These are all wonderful, but doing something to help out new listeners may be worthwhile.
I definatly think you should have the long story filled with lore! Any i know that wants to get into new albion, and that ive gotten to listen are always more appericaitive of being able to listen a full story through and loose ends and open points get brought back together, so theres no “what ifs” that leave us going insane at never being found out.
I absolutely love the lore and don’t mind if the story draws on that previous knowledge. That said, I do wonder if it could restrict the flow of new listeners, but unless you plan to only make lore reliant pieces from that point on, it shouldn’t be a problem, it just means that those lore heavy works may have a smaller following. If people really like your works, they would probably be compelled to go into the archives and pick up the other albums just so they can ride the lore train along with us.This post alone has me pondering buying the funksical, for example! 🙂
I personally enjoy a lot a piece with deep connection to New Albion lore. However, if the best entry point to your work continues to be Dolls, then you cap yourself at the success of that album. You rob yourself of the ability to create a better first impression to new listeners using skills you’ve honed over time.
That said, your passion for your work tends to show through. If you focus too much on what’s marketable, you risk losing that. So I would err on the side of “just relax and keep making whatever stories [you] want”. You’ll probably be happier that way anyway.
Parhaps this could be solved by making a “the story so far”-song that starts the album that explaines a bit of the backstory of all characters. Or you can have it more dynamicly spread out, bringing it up when needed. it’s like the line ” my name was marry, I had 2 children, …” in lost hollows. It doesn’t have to be long.
You do a really good balance of making stories their own entity while having tied to the universe you’ve created.
Frankly, i think you should write the story you want to write. If it’s knee deep in lore, awesome. If it is its own thing, awesome. I’ll listen and buy either way. If it happens to be the album people start with, it gives incentive to dig into your library to understand parts better.
That’s my thought anyway.