No, seriously. What would you do with your life if you knew your healthcare was covered? Would finally put the desk job behind you and live off ramen until your creative and intellectual endeavors started paying enough to live, safe in the knowledge that if you got a cavity you wouldn’t have to go into ludicrous amounts of debt?
All around the US, people unshackled from the workaday world will dedicate themselves to the furtherment of humanity! The starving artist will have enough time and security to become the successful one! Works of staggering beauty and intellect which would never have been realized will be added to the sum total of Mankind’s Work! It will be as it was in Atlantis!
Sounds very romantic, and I don’t mean that in a snide way. I have zero information on whether the arts have burgeoned in Massachusetts. But we can hope, right?
I’ve reached the half-half-way point in the first draft of my latest novel project. The hook has hooked, the world has been built, the stakes have been made clear, and the protagonist has been made interesting. The first major plot-point just went down, changing the protag’s world forever and presenting a new set of risks and stakes (“I’ll come with you to Alderaan. There’s nothing more for me here.”)
OK, none of that has happened. That’s what’s supposed to happen, though, and the framework is there. Feel the power of Revision!
It’s just such a massive task. Write out several tens of thousands of words, knowing that they’re crap and hoping you’ll tear them all apart later to make them good. Especially with my habit of catching an hour of writing when I can, this is going to take forever. Spirit flags.
I’m finding that if I think about this project as fan fiction, it’s easier for me keep my spirits up. I have limitless energy for piecing together the bits of other people’s work — would the child of a firebender and a sandbender be a glassbender? — and applying that same level of nerd intensity to my own little built world makes climbing that mountain seem a little easier.
What have I been doing for the last few weeks, you ask? Why, re-playing the DS remake of FF3.
Now, I don’t know how much of it comes from the fact that this is a remake, but it seems that by the time 3 came around, the developers were hitting their stride. A nice, big world full of fun stuff to kill do, actual named characters, and a wildly replayable job system.
Once again, we have the old-school several hour final dungeon where if you die on the last boss, you lose several hours of gameplay. Lame.
From a plot standpoint, we’re looking at the same old “save the four crystals” thing, but it’s early yet. Considering how most games if this era had plots which consisted of simply getting higher numbers, we can’t complain.
Oh, and there’s a Scholar job. Know stuff, and KILL BADDIES WITH BOOKS. I am, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fan.
Sure, we’re introduced to such FF staples as Cid, chocobos, and dragoons, but where’s the confusing plot? Where’s the XP system? A very different feel from the first.
And then there’s the trick ending. Last night I spent altogether too much time running the the final double-dungeon only to find that defeating the undead emperor is impossible. I’m doing 200 damage a turn and he’s healing in the thousands with a move that both heals him and one-shots one of my guys.
Over to gamefaqs for some guidance, only to find that a sword which is otherwise completely useless is pretty much the only thing that can kill him. No indication given in-game that you’re supposed to hold on to this thing. Jeepers.
I whomped every baddie on my way to the boss, so grinding wasn’t the problem. So, what were the devs going for here? Keep every weapon, then try them one at a time as you die over and over again without being able to save. Or switch weapons midfight. Is that really the experience they wanted the player to have?
So, yeah, I watched the end on youtube. Screw that nonsense.
This game is grinder’s delight. Any character can learn anything you want — just keep ’em using axes, for example, and they’ll get good at axes. Since I was going for a plot play-through, this forced me to focus my guys on specific skills early on so they could keep doing damage at higher levels. But, if you like a lot of flexibility to customize your guys, you could make some fun combos.
Ya gotta grab ’em. That’s what everybody says. Hook that reader right away. Make her care what happens. But how?
Hello. My name is Naomi Novik, and I just kicked Alex Livingston in the brain.
If you want a good example, go check out the opening of His Majesty’s Dragon. Novik was generous enough to include much of the first chapter as an excerpt on her site — I’m going to go ahead and give her credit for knowing it’s because she frickin’ nailed the hook.
Firstly, dragons in the Napoleonic Wars? Did the author write this for me? Enter my dreamspace and say “you know what Alex wants? This.” So maybe I’m a little partial already.
Secondly, by the time I reached “The end came abruptly”, I was fully invested. I wanted things for the characters and was nervousfor what would happen at the end of that paragraph. All that by word number 4,500. Awesome. If I can get that reaction by word number 45,000, I’ll be happy.
Now, part of the success here comes from using a world that we already know about. The reader is familiar in general at least with concepts of duty and honor in the western military tradition, and certainly with the archetype of the noble British seacaptain. And we know what dragons are. So, we’re not thrown into watching a Atreides child face the Bene Gesserit gom jabbar (for example). We’ve got some footing already.
But still. How the hell did she make me care about this plot in under 5,000 words?
She presented good, capable people, and then added something which would change someone’s life irreparably. Instant stakes. These are fine folks who act admirably, the sort of people one respects if not outright aspires towards being like. And someone’s going to have all their life’s plans thrown out the window.
Or maybe a dragon’s gonna eat somebody. Something like that.
