C. W. March

Dark Path development

Added 2024-07-18 16:08:59 +0000 UTC

I'm doing some more work developing the overall story and setting of Dark Path.

Ultimately, Dark Path is intended to be the story of a man who is put in a situation, tries to take advantage of it, but things escalate until he is a full-on Supervillain.

I'm working off of a couple of basic principles when drafting the plot:

Every time Alex solves a problem, the solution causes a different problem
Even when Alex has the chance to de-escalate the situation or back down, he won't if it means giving something up

So, the story is going to be a cycle of Problem A Introduces itself > Alex Pursues Solution A > Solution A Solves Problem A, but Introduces Problem B. Each step along the way escalates things, and not all of the problems or solutions happen sequentially (So Problem B might still be around when Problem C is introduced, for example).

The idea is basically to showcase someone who isn't a good person to begin with, but who spirals out of control as he consistently takes the selfish option (i.e. as he follows the titular Dark Path.)

All that said, at this point the overall plot is starting to shape up, but there are still several questions about order and direction that I need to work out to make sure events happen in an order and at a pace that makes sense. The pace is the reason I paused in writing to take time to organize everything - I want the story to show someone who becomes a (super) villain, not someone who starts as one.