Today I received a very pleasant email stating that a story of mine has been accepted for publication.
I’ve been submitting SF stories with a degree of seriousness for over a year, and this email makes one heck of a birthday present. Further updates as event warrant.
From the wiks:
“The first disaster to give credibility to Savonarola’s apocalyptic message was the Medici family’s weakening grip on power owing to the French-Italian wars. The flowering of expensive Renaissance art and culture paid for by wealthy Italian families now seemed to mock the growing misery in Italy, creating a backlash of resentment among the people.”
This what happens when Jess has Wikipedia open as I play Assassin’s Creed II.
I meant Rhymer to be a single episode in a larger sci-fi universe, a world which I’ve toying with for years. Of the opinions I heard, one thread stuck out – I want more. Too vague about the world. Never explained X, Y, and certainly not Z. I liked these people, and I want to hang out with them a bit longer.
Great to hear, right? Not “Sweet Jesus would you stop with this crap”.
So, I embarked on the next book. Same world, same protagonist, same big issues. I studied structure, mapped out a loose outline, and got to work. Setup scenes. Fleshing out the world. Establishing stakes, and making the reader care about the main character. Even a little foreshadowing. New twists. Things I hadn’t thought of until getting the pen on that paper.
And then, at about 17,000 words… let it suffice to say that there was a wall. I can neither confirm nor deny having hit this wall.
What followed was a dark time. I wasn’t writing. I knew I needed to write, to just crank out a few scenes and bust through the doldrums. So I slugged out a few scenes. And the doldrums persisted. For weeks and weeks.
Not much else was getting done outside of writing either. Every time I had a free moment I thought I should be scribbling, but couldn’t bring myself to give a damn about this floundering story. So I got all mopey. If I can’t write, might as well just waste what little time I’ve got. And be angry about stuff.
I didn’t want to be the guy who gave up on something when it became difficult. Some dilettante, unable to follow through. “Only interested in the beginnings of things”. Lazy.
But I didn’t want to go on being a grouse all the time either.
So I allowed myself to table this project. Back away from it. You can’t force creativity, and if I’m not excited about there’s no way the reader will be. I’ve got some pretty good stuff to come back to when I’m ready. Stubbornness is not the same thing as tenacity.
I made it about thirty-six hours before getting stoked about a new project. That silence you hear is me not beating a dead horse any more.
Oh yes. I am not alone in my recent obsession. Adam Nowak has allowed me to guest post on Caffeine Dreams as a part of his month of Lovecraft. Check out the full post here.
A quick sample:
What better place than Antarctica for a story about mankind’s isolation? As our understanding of the universe grows, the perceived importance of our presence in it diminishes. We’re a blip. An oddity. Closer in intellectual advancement to a crow breaking a shell with a rock than to the horrible powers which exist beyond the borders of our knowledge. Indeed, the aliens themselves are so foreign-looking that we can barely understand what they are, be they Lovecraft’s anemone cucumbers or Carpenter’s tentacle-flailing blood beings. And they’re here, hidden in the dark places of the world we thought was ours.
I say again, check it in its entirety here.
Forgive me as a geek the hell out about The Thing for a while.
I watched the flick for the first time in years last night, and was struck by three things:
12 characters are involved in the strange events at Outpost #31, any of whom could be an alien. People whisper paranoid fears about each other in dark corners.”What’s wrong with Blair?” “Go get the keys from Garry.” “I won’t go with Windows.” And yet I had no issue keeping the names straight.
How was this done? A few keys –
It’s ok for people to call each other by name. Writer advice columns everywhere tell us not to do that. “Gee, Bob, I don’t get it.” “Me either, Shan.” They say people don’t really talk like that, and to an extent they are correct. But in a group conversation, it happens much more frequently — and this can be used to our advantage.
One at a time. The witchcraft whisperings addressed one guy at a time. Even if the audience isn’t sure who they mean at first, it’s made clear pretty quickly by referring to other scenes.
No nicknames. Aside from the shortening of MacReady to Mac, the rest of the characters stick to one name. I’m a fan of using the various ways people refer to each other as a device to reveal the character of the speaker, but when faced withe the sheer ice cliff of names in this story, they were right to leave it simple.
I expected something more granular, I suppose. More chronology than history. My surprise, then, was of the pleasant variety.
When Jess finished Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth, the thin volume which serves at the introduction to the Canongate Myths series, she told me I’d like it. When she re-read it, she found it trite — but then realized that the assertions made therein were so accessible and evident that they had become part of her thought process about the topic. It seemed trite on the second reading because it had been so simply true the first time.
As I slog through the zero draft of the next novel, mythology and myth-making are very much on my mind. Diuran, the protagonist in Rhymer and in this new piece, tries to change his world by telling stories. He builds the future over drinks and campfires. Sure sounded like I needed to give A Short History of Myth a look-see.
As you no doubt have guessed, I found the book to be brilliant. The argument that contemporary life is miserable since we don’t have myths to guide us is depressingly well-made. But what killed me was the end:
If professional religious leaders cannot instruct us in mythical lore, our artists and creative writers can perhaps step into this priestly role and bring fresh insight to our lost and damaged world.
In the final pages, Armstrong states that a good novel can serve the same function as a myth, and is the only thing in our modern world which does so. So, we’re all screwed because we live without myth, and the only people who can save us are novelists. No pressure!
Take a stance against baiting nerd rage and stereotypes of geeks.Post about how much you love your geeky hobbies or vocation from Monday, September 12th, 2011 to Friday, September 16th.Let’s show the world why we’re awesome and why there is nothing wrong with being a geek.
As a teenager in the 1990’s, I grew up in the era of who could care less. A strange time, surely. Cynicism and disinterest were the only appropriate ways to view our nihilistic world. We were slackers and losers by design.
Except the geeks. Geekism is unreserved love, active joy. Never mind the fact I couldn’t throw a spiral and loved computers — I actually cared about things. Geeky things. And I didn’t care who knew.
Now, I had the good fortune to grow in a little town in southern New Hampshire. In the 1970’s, a couple tech giants set up shop in that rural region, causing an influx of engineers and software developers. You know: geeks. Original geeks. I made friends with the geek kids of other geek parents. I managed to avoid much of the alienation and abuse that plagues young geeks in most places. When it did happen, which was often enough, I had a group of friends to fall back on. And for this, I am fortunate.
On to the topic at hand. My geeky hobby of choice: retro-gaming. I wrote this post a while back, and can’t help but share it again.
“Retro-gaming” is a highly-mutable term. Pulling out the tangle of cords that is your old Atari 2600? Retro-gaming, certainly. Blistering your fingers on that old NES controller? Sure. But how about the PS one? The Gamecube, even?
Semantics aside, there can be no doubt that logging some time with Super Star Trek counts as retro-gaming.
Yes, that’s an actual screenshot. A far cry from this, yes?
I first heard about SST when I was a young kid and my dad would tell tales of playing it on some massive old rig at work. (“During breaks”, of course.) Various incarnations of this game could be found on various boxes and home computers throughout the seventies. It was distributed for home use the old-fashioned way – by publishing the complete BASIC code in a magazine. A few hours of careful transcription and you were ready for… what exactly?
What on earth would motivate a modern gamer to keep playing this thing after a few curious moments? Sure, download a new version, tool around a bit, have a laugh. But to actually play? What could this code-snippet possibly have to offer?
It comes down to three aspects, few of which remain in today’s games.:
#1 – Turn-based play. Sure, it’s still out there, even on consoles, but there’s not much of it around. Spending some time with a game that allows you to leave it alone for a few hours while you consider whether or not you want to use your last photon torpedo on that distant klingon warbird (represented by a capital “K”) has a completely different feel. SST combines tactical turn-based play with the map size and freedom of a larger-scale strategy game.
#2 – Randomness. As you direct the Enterprise (that’s the “E”) around the charted galaxy, just about everything can go wrong. You are quite often yanked across the board by a “tractor beam” and placed in the middle of a firefight – not good if you’re on your way to a starbase (“B”) to reload. Sometimes the transporter will just flat out fail without warning, and the last sound your away team will hear is Scotty wailing that he’s losing them. A star (“*”) in your sector can go nova and toss you across the map like an empty can of Tab. Etc. And when I say “etc”, I mean it; much of the strategy in this game is focused on how to prepare for the worst that merciless random-number-generation can deal out.
#3 – The promotion system. Every lasting game needs a rewards system, and in SST it comes as a notification that you have been promoted to the next difficulty level. Sure, you could start at the hardest setting or keep on riddling away at the easiest, but getting the word that you have saved the Federation and are ready for harder trials makes the challenge all the more fun. When the player reaches the Expert level and scores well enough, the program will print a plaque. That’s right – something you can hang on your cube wall to show the world how awesome you are at Super Star Trek. Smitty over in networking will never live it down.
A large part of my personal enjoyment of this game comes from the hard-core, early-days-of-computing, Soul of a New Machine feel. After few rounds of typing in your commands (“pho 3 2 1 5 4 8 7”, for example) and squinting at the box of numbers and periods that serves as the starchart, you’ll feel your sideburns growing and your shirt sleeves shortening. There’s a romance to that green-texted era, the first time in history that true geekiness could be used for something other than HAM radio and Monty Python references. This is the time of legends, when Our People began. Which is why I can’t help but feel a flush of embarrassed pride over this:
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A while back, I mused on whether or not being DM helps you become a better writer. Crazytown Chuck Wendig posted about this topic as a part of Speak Out With Your Geek Out. I encourage you to check out his post, a few of my favorite points from which I will summarize below.
“Writer’s block does not live at the game table”.
Very, very true. When your PCs want to know just exactly who sent those golems to harass the spooky old tree-beast, you’ve got about two sips of beer to come up with an answer. And answer you will. Maybe when I’m stuck while writing, I’ll imagine some players asking me a question.
“Your story is the story of the moment, and it reminds you just how important it is to keep the audience in mind — not just your intent as storyteller but their interests, their needs, their attention.”
As soon as the eyes flick over to the iPads, I know I’ve lost them. My temptation is to have a slavering goblin horde burst in on the scene whenever that happens — and maybe I should. Chandler this thing up a bit. What I need is an iPad-eye-flick measuring device for when people read my fiction. Hmmm….
I’ve been studying plot structure for a while. Recently, I found myself wanting to play Final Fantasy XII again. Your chocolate is in my peanut butter.
FFXII features highly-memorable characters and settings, and one of the most difficult and complex plots of any game I’ve played. After reading the plot structure defined by Larry Brooks in his book Story Engineering, I decided to see how well this epic matched with it. A game doesn’t need story structure, right? The only thing that matters is the interactivity, the bad-assed battles, the crazy magic explosions?
After a few hours of replaying this masterpiece, I found myself picking out plot points. A structure does indeed exist in this byzantine plot, and it is worth examining for people interested in how sweeping, history-altering stories are constructed.
Prologue: The game starts with the fall of a small country to an expanding empire. We see the prince die in battle and witness the murder the king by one of his trusted captains. We hear of the death of the princess, leaving the ruling family extinct.
At this point, the stage is set and we’re already hooked. We’re invested in this small country’s plight, and want to see the king’s murderer brought to justice.
Opening section: In the occupied country, we meet an orphan boy named Vaan who is making his way on the city streets with wit and bravery. We learn that Vaan’s older brother was present – and murdered – at the death of the king, and that Vaan detests the empire and those involved in the treason. Various adventures put Vaan in possession of an important artifact (the magicite stone) and involve him with the characters who will make up the party throughout the game, each of which have their own motivations and stakes. We learn that the princess is still alive, and working with a resistance force.
This is all set-up. There are plenty of fights and exciting scenes and all, but each of these sets up the first plot point, which comes in roughly one quarter of the way through the story.
First Plot Point: Captured by the empire, the princess allows the magicite stone, the only existing proof of her identity and royalty, to be given to the enemy in order to save the lives of the party. The baddies try to use the stone, and end up destroying themselves in a gigantic explosion, revealing that magicite is the ultimate weapon.
This event kicks off the rest of the story. The princess Ashe is on the run with little hope of reclaiming her throne without her magic stone, but armed with the knowledge that it can be used as a weapon.
There is an oddity in the structure here. Vaan, the scrappy teenage blond who serves as the archetypal lead in Final Fantasy stories, has been the story’s protagonist until this point, but from here on out it is Ashe who drives the plot. Vaan serves as comic relief, or at best a roguish friend to Ashe, who must battle with her personal desire for revenge and the responsibilities as a leader.
Second section, the Reaction: Here we see the characters reacting to the first plot point. With the proof of her royalty gone, Ashe decides to go and get another one. More hacking and slashing, but it’s still the same approach. “If I have the right rock, I’ll win.”
In this section we see the protagonist trying to solve problems the same old way. This never works.
Pinch point 1: Brooks highlights pinch points in a novel, places where we see the baddies closing in despite the protagonist’s efforts. We have one about two-thirds of the way through the second section in which we see the leaders of the empire quarreling and cooler heads failing to prevail. Things are gonna get worse before they get better.
FFXII handles exposition and important plot points in an unusual way for games – a paragraph read from an historical text. One of the non-playable characters keeps a journal of the events of the time-period, and quotes from his journal appear at certain points in the plot as milestones. One of these interludes takes place here, at the first pinch point.
Midpoint: Ashe is presented with a new option – ally with another great empire. They will acknowledge her rightful place on the throne, and the baddie empire will have to back off to avoid a very big war. She decides to go for it. Then she gets a sword which can destroy magicite. Because, you know. This is a Final Fantasy game after all.
Enough with the reacting; it’s time to take the reins and make some stuff happen on my (the protagonist’s) own. Ashe wants blood, and the magicite is a way to get it. But she puts her own emotions aside to sue for peace and quite literally takes up the sword to destroy the magicite (a.k.a. ‘the nuclear option’).
Third section: Action Jackson. From this point forward, it can officially be considered on. Ashe has the magic sword which can cleave the magic stone, removing the nuclear option from both sides of the conflict. The baddies, of course, are well on their way to getting their hands on the mother lode. The race, and the requisite thrilling heroics, is now in full swing.
Still, Ashe isn’t quite sure if she can resist using some of the stone to killify large numbers of imperials and take revenge for her father, her husband, and her country. The internal conflict continues.
Pinch point 2: Another journal entry, and then a cut-scene depicting the resistance forces training for battle. This war is coming, people, no matter what the princess and her magic sword have planned. Hide your kids.
Second Plot Point: Oh man. It turns out that the magicite was placed on ‘earth’ by gods. Our heroes meet these gods, who tell Ashe to use the sword not to destroy the mother lode, but rather to scrape off a few shards to use to install herself as Queen. Ashe now has divine authority telling her to choose revenge.
The second plot point is the last place in the narrative where information can be revealed. The secret of the magicite’s power is now known – all that’s left is to do something about it.
Fourth section: Resolution. Ashe decides to ignore the gods and end the age of stones. She and her stalwart band of misfits face the Big Bad and end the war before it starts. Ashe becomes Queen, and all is right with the world.
After the second plot point, there’s nothing left to do but get the thing done. The music rises, demons are faced, and the plot is over.
What this outline does not present is the multiple sub-plots, the intricacies of the political maneuvering behind the scenes, the other important characters, the set-piece fights, etc. This is the story of Ashe, her fight for the freedom of her country, and her personal struggle with grief and revenge. Antagonists, friends, tentative allies, traitors, and all manner of other people weave their ways into and out of the story, but at its core this is the tale of one person and her journey. The overarching structure allows for these interesting and enjoyable sub-plots while keeping the main story moving on its way toward resolution.
Oh man. I finished up Embassytown on audiobook last week, and if I hear the word “language” one more time I’m gonna stab someone. I don’t care how sexy british her voice is.
That’s not true. I do care.
A few tid-bits that stick with me:
A good sci-fi universe envisions the end-results of many technologies, not just one. Aliens from whom speech and consciousness are the same. Aliens whose technology is all biological. Almost-sentient robots. A human diaspora via an adjacent dimension, and what happens when they get to the end of space.
Give the reader some new vocab, and make it awesome. Read: floaking. immer. exot.
Build that world through the eyes of your character. We’ll catch up. And if some aspect of the place’s history doesn’t have anything to do with the characters or the plot, who cares about it anyway?
Embassytown was very satisfying read/listen, and a big influence on my trying out the whole first person thing in my latest.
Also, Simon LeBon likes it!
