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Overviews & Outlines

#ramblings #immortal-freedom #graphic-novel #writing

I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to talk about when it came to the graphic novel. At first, I wanted to write about the characters, the process of making layouts or worldbuilding in general. However, I don’t feel comfortable discussing these topics without illustrations to support them. I will eventually discuss them, but I’ve decided to wait until after I’ve got my new tablet so I can produce rendered illustrations, and my current 4 GB RAM computer simply can’t handle that.

The good news is I should be getting my new computer this week. The bad news is that I had already got it last week, but it blue-screened immediately due to bad memory. The whole thing hit me pretty hard, so I needed the week to recoup and replace the computer.

All this to say that I decided to finally write out a more complete outline of the graphic novel’s narrative. And once I was finished the outline, I started thinking a lot about the themes that had naturally developed throughout.

I don’t want to get into specifics just yet—partly because of spoilers—mostly because the story is very malleable right now, especially when it comes to the later story arcs.

I realized that the dominant theme had inadvertently become psychological egoism—the concept that everyone works in their self-interest, even when performing some form of altruism. For a specific example: if someone decides to help someone else cross a busy street, psychological egoism proposes they are not doing it out of a sense of self-sacrifice, but instead because it benefits them in some way. The person doing the good deed is not necessarily aware that they are performing this action selfishly, and may believe the action is actively harming them in some way, though the altruistic return makes it worth their self-sacrifice.

To be clear, working in one’s own self-interest is not inherently bad. The common belief in society is that if one is acting in one’s own self-interest, then we are a horrible person, worthy of derision. But we’ve also seen in recent years that self-care is important to one’s well-being, and self-care can be defined as “working towards one’s self-interests”. The concept of self-care proposes that one must first think of one’s own needs before those of others, or else become overwhelmed by one’s perceived responsibilities.

I believe the natural conclusion of psychological egoism is essentially the same. If someone is not properly self-interested, they risk bringing misery and harm on themselves and those around them. In other words, if one doesn’t accept and acknowledge that their actions are inherently selfish, they’re more likely to be miserable if they believe that their actions are for the good of others and so warrant additional sacrifice.

However, I don’t think the concept that being selfish causes harm comes out of nowhere. Making decisions to further one’s interest in the short term can cause real damage, especially if the long-term effects are not considered. Short-term gains are often transitory and fleeting, but offer the clearest rewards to those seeking them. For a specific example: an employer may bend their ethics in order to squeeze more money out of their employees, and then wonder why the public no longer trusts them or why they can’t retain employees. They are acting selfishly, but don’t consider the long-term effects and so reap the consequences of their decisions.

So to be truly aware of psychological egoism is to understand that our actions are made in our own self-interests, and we should be much more mindful of how our decisions impact not only our own well-being, but also the people and systems that support our well-being, or:

Take care of yourself, but don’t be a dick about it.

If it wasn’t clear, I believe that psychological egoism is an accurate assessment of human behaviour, and I do my best to live my life within the parameters it sets. It’s no wonder, then, that learning to be selfish the right way ended up being the core theme for my graphic novel, as well as being at the centre of the primary protagonist’s character growth.

At first, I thought Morigan (the aforementioned protagonist) didn’t have a character arc. I see things differently now, though I still think her development doesn’t fit the traditional hero’s journey mould. She ends up being the same, ruthless, foul-mouthed person that she started as, except that she comes to realize that her selfish decisions are negatively affecting herself and those she cares about, and decides to be more mindful of how her decisions rippled beyond the immediate.

In short, she learns to take care of herself, but not to be a too much of a dick about it.

I also cover some other minor themes throughout the narrative, in no specific order:

The above list is most likely not comprehensive, as it’s just what I could think of at the time of writing this.

These themes are issues I personally care about, and so my primary concern while writing is really to treat these topics with the respect they deserve. Because without proper attention, the inclusion of something like systemic racism can trivialize the real-life struggles people deal with every day, especially in speculative fiction.

I’m sure we’ve all seen it before. Aliens and fantasy races are most often stand-ins for people of colour, and they are almost always aggressors. Even in cases where the comparison is intentional—like the orcs in Bright—writers fail to take into account why systemic oppression would exist in the first place. In cases where it’s unintentional—like the goblins in Harry Potter—it becomes a debate among the audience whether the author should be held responsible for reinforcing destructive prejudice.

The lesson seems to be that worldbuilding and theming should be deliberate, with mindful application of real world issues so that those that struggle with them find themselves being represented or empowered instead of ridiculed.

If you are an artist or an editor and have interest in being a part of this project, feel free to contact me.

© 2026 Allen Christianson licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0