Writing

March 24, 2015

The Shire is Only Appealing as a Second-Semester Senior

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– Or The Branching Future and the Fear No One Warns You About –

Build me up (don’t look back)/Tear me down (don’t look back)

– Give Up On Ghosts – Computer vs. Banjo

Hello blog. I missed you.

There comes a point, I think, in everyone’s life where living in The Shire becomes something that looks attractive, rather than mind-numbingly boring. That’s how I feel now – like I would like to just sit in the sun, read, garden, eat food and drink tea with friends, and sleep. Nothing much changes, homes are cozy, and you can live, more or less, without responsibility.

It’s not that this is always the ideal place to live – if we’re sticking with Lord of the Rings settings, Gondor or Rohan would be much more exciting, and Mirkwood would have the party-elves, if that’s what you’re into.

(This is getting a bit off track)

My point is that things that feel familiar, feel like home, things that lack responsibility – those things are attractive when you’re standing at the edge of the graduation precipice.

Picture life like a timeline.

When you turn around and look at your past, you can see a few paths you could have taken and wonder, wistfully, at the might-have-beens.  Each nexus, where your life could’ve changed, has two or three branches, and you can imagine, with relative ease, what would have changed. You wouldn’t have met M if you’d never joined swim team; you would have never gone to Tech if you hadn’t decided to visit a second time.

Easy.

Now, you’re less than two months from Graduation. The end of schooling (for now). You’ve met a ton of new people recently, and you’re going to have to leave them soon. You’re going to have to leave all of your friends soon. Leave Blacksburg, maybe. You’ll need to find a job, but which job? what field? Will you go to grad school in one year or two? Maybe never.

You are standing at the edge of your timeline, and a hundred thousand branches stick out before you.

What if you fail this? What if you move home? What if you date him? What if they leave you? What happens if you stop texting? What happens when they stop calling? Can you do this job or that one, or will you fail out of hand?

Each branch has it’s own branch, and each one has enough what if’s to drown you if you let them.

You will break down. You will cry.

The good news is the you have support right now and you don’t need to retreat to The Shire. You can make it to Mordor, Frodo (oh god this metaphor has gone of track).

What I’m trying to say, audience that is really me, is that you weren’t told about this because the people who have gotten through it don’t remember how it is. Because they’ve survived it, gotten through to the other end, and looked back thinking ‘that wasn’t so bad.’ The mistake they make is that then, they want to tell you that it isn’t so bad. But you haven’t survived it yet.

You will, But right now, it’s not the tiniest bit of fun, imaging all of the nice what-if’s and telling yourself that they will never happen, and looking at the bad what-if’s and praying with every ounce of your shady spiritually that those never befall you. You won’t be able to think of neutral paths, paths that will be okay and will make you happy. There will be no in-betweens.

But you will make it.

You will graduate.

And things will work out…eventually.

October 24, 2013

Take the Sky From Me

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– Or Why Firefly is Different from Buffy, and How It’s Air Schedule Crippled It Narratively –

Aside from the obvious, Friefly demonstrates a departure from the narrative structure of Buffy. Starting from the episode Serenity, which is the canonical starting point for the series, viewers are thrown into the end of a war that serves as a backdrop and anchor into the setting that Mal and Zoe are a part of. Over the course of the episode, we are introduced to the well established crew – family – of the Serenity, rather than watching the crew form (as with the Scooby Gang in Buffy). All of this would be super overwhelming were it not for Simon, River, and Book, three passengers on the Serenity who get caught up in the crew’s antics. These three characters provide a relatable and stable (or unstable, in the case of River) anchoring point for views to get used to the banter, relationships, and conflicts common to Mal’s motley crew.

The way Firefly was aired, however, ruins this anchoring point.

Firefly’s first official episode, according to Fox, is The Train Job, which, in order of filming and production was the second episode. In this version, all viewers have in the way of anchoring is a short series of clips from the first episode narrated by Book, and even that doesn’t fully explain what the hell is happening. The bar fight does little to explain Mal all that much (though, he is a rather complex character, so not a whole lot of introductions are adequately going to explain Mal), or Zoe, or Jayne. Or Wash, for that matter. Simon and River are already established parts of this small community (though they are still outsiders) and Book is really…full of questions.

This, understandably, leaves the audience confused.

In any good work of fiction – book, television, movie, or otherwise – it is vital that you give the audience what I have been calling ‘anchors.’ These are concrete details about the setting, the main characters, or the plot that the reader can latch onto before they figure out how the universe they are entering works. In Firefly, the passengers Mal picks up are anchor characters – they are just as confused and out of their element as the audience is. When thrown into a show where the anchor characters have already been explained in an unaired pilot, the audience is left groping for a handhold and are let down. This causes them to abandon the story except for a few heroic cases (the original Browncoats).

To avoid turning this into a rant against Fox, I will end on this – Firefly is a weird story. It is a non-conventional mash up of the Sci-fi and Western genres and a mash up like that requires narrative anchors, or the story will never float. Joss seemed to have provided those anchors in Serenity, which where then not provided by the cable network. The situation surrounding this show is, of course, complicated, but some of the blame (I think) on why it failed is because the airing order and dates provided by the network ruined the narrative construction of the series.

September 22, 2013

Mind the Tech

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– Or How To Properly Acknowledge Your Tech –

“Once [technology] becomes ‘woven into the fabric of daily life’ every once-new technology seems natural, and therefore somehow ‘inevitable,’ and it becomes tough to imagine living in the world without it.”

-Jodi Shipka

We’re back, ladies and gents, to talking about technologies and how they impact writing. Specifically, I would like to focus on the fact that we don’t really ‘see’ the technologies we take for granted, and how lecture-like this post is sounding.

Let’s change that.

So, while struggling perusing through Jodi Shipka’s book, Toward a Composition Made Whole, I was struck by the above quote. Do we really not notice the technologies we use once they become common place? Certainly, it does become harder to imagine a world without, say, desktop computers. But how can we not be fully aware of the technology we use and how it limits or improves the way we work?

Shipka provides a compelling example to back this statement up: If you were to call one of your friends, you likely would simply describe the event as “I called up El and screamed about space for an hour” (well, maybe not that dramatic, but, hey). You would not sit down and list out the reasons that call was made possible. For example, you likely would not say, “Thanks to electricity, phone lines, cables, a dial tone, ring tones,a numbered key pad, etc., coupled with the fact that the person I was calling and I are both fluent in the English language…” and both have an appreciation for space and functional knowledge of it’s basic structure, as well as both being invested in space, I was able to call El and scream about space for an hour.

So, quite literally, you would gel over the fact that electricity and technologies that go into phones helped you accomplish a task. In that sense, I do believe that we have a tendency to forget about the role of technology in our day to day lives. I do think it’s important to realize this, and maybe spend some time thinking about how each technology we take for granted affect our ability to function in the world we live in. I also agree with Shipka’s observation that, were we to take the time to think about how we use technology, and how it affects not only our writing, but how our bodies are involved in our writing, it can help us imagine new ways of thinking about ‘texts.’

There is one thing I disagree with, however, and that is the idea that technology completely fades into the background. Now, I am speaking mostly about writing ‘tools’ – pens, paper, word processors, mobile devices – and not the things that power them, so perhaps my idea is a tad limited. But I feel as though I am constantly reminded of how technology influences my writing. When I write with pen and paper, I am always aware that my chosen tool is slower and less precise than my word processor. When working with Microsoft Word (and, therefore, procrastinating on the internet), I feel as if I can’t write anything and am wasting my time. Perhaps I do not notice the tool itself, but I do recognize it’s effects; I think everyone, in some way, recognizes the effects of a tools they use when producing texts. Or, perhaps, I am simply optimistic about the amount I think about the technology in my life in relation to how others think about their own tools.

September 11, 2013

Writing Priorities

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– Or Yet Another Excuse for Procrastination –

I have been thinking recently about how ‘new technologies’ – computers, tablets, cell phones, etc. – have affected my writing. The conclusion I have come to is this; computers and the like have made it so much easier and so much harder to sit down and write, and the difficulty of the task is directly tied to how interested I am in what I am writing.

As an example, over the summer, I wrote a 2000+ word essay on a pair of episodes in the podcast Welcome to Night Vale (if you venture off to read that, be warned; it is long and also has Spoilers). I was not required to write this essay – I just felt like it. ‘Incoherent Babbling’ was composed in about 2 hours, possibly 3 due to locating quotes.

By contrast, in freshman year I had to write a 500 – 750 word essay on the Scientific Revolution. That particular essay took me 4 hours to write.

I’m not proud of that, but it’s a good example of how inspiration or drive affects my ability to procrastinate. In the first example, I utilized the internet in order to locate quotes and discuss the topic with a few friends of mine. By contrast, in the latter example, I spent much of those 4 hours on Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube, doing anything I could to avoid writing an essay that, frankly, bored me.

The problem lies when I am uninspired, but still need to write, like when I am working on a novel or a short story, and get distracted by videos of cats for three hours. New technologies have made it so much easier to do research for more creative pursuits, but they have also created the perfect procrastination tool. “One more Reddit post” or “Just one more video” are phrases I frequently tell myself when procrastinating, until I run out of time and have to do a rush job on whatever I am working on.

It’s a habit, and a bad one. But I am working on it.

July 18, 2013

Incoherent Babbling

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– Or HOLY LONG POST, BATMAN –

I’m going to be incoherently babbling about Night Vale and Desert Bluffs, as described in The Sandstorm (19A and 19B). If you haven’t gotten to this part in the podcast yet, not to worry! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS AND COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF BULLSH*T. IT PROBABLY MAKES NO SENSE. IT HAS NOT BEEN EDITED. You have been warned.

Hello, and welcome to the first ever edition of Incoherent Babbling About Welcome to Night Vale. Please, have a seat. Or stand, that’s cool, too.

Onwards.

So, I’ve seen it referenced that Night Vale and Desert Bluffs are parallels of each other, or, rather, are the alternate universes of each other. This seems to make sense, re: the Intern Vanessa/Dana bit in both parts, so that is the theory I am going to be rolling with.

Now, let me begin with Night Vale. Night Vale is a town in the middle of the desert (plot wise), and a mode of satire for America and American politics (meta wise). Sure, it’s a town where strange things happen on the regular and the citizenry are pretty blase about said strange things, but, on the whole, Night Vale is very recognizable as Small Town, USA.

They have everything you would expect in a small town – Town Council (albeit a ancient, and sort of creepy Council) which dictates the ‘laws’ of the town, a Mayor, a sheriff and a (secret) police force, small town celebrities (I’m looking at you, Carlos), and a radio show just this side of creepy. Sure, everything is blown out of proportion (it is satirical, after all), but, aside from the Eldritch Horrors, Angels, and Hooded Figures, it’s sort of….Normal.

Well, as normal as Night Vale can possibly be. Which makes Desert Bluffs a perfect foil for Night Vale.

What we know about both towns is what we are told – we know a lot about Night Vale because we are listening to Cecil tell us about the events, hazards, and even things that we are not supposed to talk or even know about. He also tells us things about Desert Bluffs because they are, apparently, Night Vale’s sports rivals. [“Desert Bluffs is always trying to show us up through fancier uniforms, better pre-game snacks, and possibly, by transporting a commercial jet into our gymnasium, delaying practice for several minutes, at least. For shame, Desert Bluffs. For shame.”]

But, other than a few mentions of Desert Bluffs in regards to sports, we don’t know much about Night Vale’s relationship to Desert Bluffs.

Let’s talk about Desert Bluffs, for a moment, though. Desert Bluffs, on the surface, seems much more like the real world than expected. If you were like me, listening to Desert Bluffs Public Radio was a bit surreal. Thing is, it tells us a lot about the town. Kevin doesn’t seemed bothered by the events in The Sandstorm – everything seems like a perfectly normal parallel to Cecil’s broadcast.  Except for one thing; the doubles. Now, it was certainly easy enough to believe that a desert town that was not Night Vale would not really be concerned with a sandstorm out side of work delays and such (though the way they talk about work, it seem like that’s all anyone does ever); however, the initial encounter with the doubles, out on route 800 near exit 66, Kevin reports it exactly as Cecil reports it: “I am getting one report that there are several stalled cars on the north bound lanes…police are on the scene dealing with fist fights in the middle of the road! Now, I can’t imagine why, in a beautiful town with so many kinds of yogurt stores and pony petting stations anyone would want to fight his neighbor!”

Okay, so it’s not exactly the same a Cecil, but there is something all too nice and flowery about this report. Kevin is trying really hard to make everything seem fine. He seems to be trying to earn our trust, or, at least, he is written so that we, the listener, will immediately trust him. Sure, Desert Bluffs sounds a bit off, and Strex Corp’s ad – “Look inside you. Strex. Go to sleep. Strex. Believe in a Smiling God. Strex Corp is everything” – is a bit more menacing than things we have heard in Night Vale, but Kevin seems normal! Surely we can trust him, right?

It seems that way, but here’s the thing – we’ve been with Cecil for 19 episodes, and he generally tells the truth. Yes, he is an unreliable narrator, so ‘truth’ is relative, but he tries. He never hides things from citizens unless the report is, you know, about something we’re not supposed to know about (like the Shape in Grove Park). Corrections are given frequently, and Cecil generally acknowledges the oddities of his “little human town,” and seems concerned for those who live in Night Vale, with the exception of Steve Carlsberg and the Apache Tracker. In fact, with how terrifying the Council and the Secret Police are, they are at least acknowledged (“That’s the Sherriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids, and hardly ever take one.”).

But I am willing to bet you wouldn’t hear anything like that about the Strex Corp black helicopters; reason being is the huge disparity between what Cecil reports and acknowledges, and what Kevin reports. Let’s return to The Sandstorm, shall we? After the initial report of fist fights, the fighting of doppelgängers continues in Night Vale, and the Council has declared that, should you meet your double, you should “kill your double.” Cecil, of course, says that he does not think that violence is the answer, and will not kill his double if he meets him.

Then, he is interrupted by a rustling noise. Intern Dana is fighting with her double (“Dana, who are you fighting in there?”) Cecil leaves to break it up. In Desert Bluffs, Kevin, too, is interrupted from discussing the productive joys of having a double, by rustling. Intern Vanessa is, apparently, conversing with her double. (“Vanessa, who are you talking too?”).  Kevin then says that Vanessa and her double are building a shelving unit; minutes later, he find Vanessa standing over Vanessa with a ‘cold compress’ and a staple gun. (Dana, or Dana’s Double, is also standing over her double, holding an email and a broken stapler.)

This is where I lost faith in Desert Bluffs. Initially, I simply thought they saw things differently in Desert Bluffs, like, the sandstorm had a different effect on this town, but I believe something far more sinister is going on. I read somewhere that violence could be Desert Bluff’s official language, and so they just can’t ‘see’ the violence between themselves and their Night Vale doubles (which is what I, and TV Tropes, believes is going on; Desert Bluffs is the AU of Night Vale), and so don’t understand that they are killing the Night Valians. And that could be true, but I think it’s more than that.

I think this because Kevin’s station terrifies Cecil, and, at most, Cecil’s station just kind of confuses Kevin a bit. Let me explain. The only thing we have heard on Welcome to Night Vale that has caused Cecil’s voice to become strained, weak, and terrified, was Station Management. I mean, granted, the way he describes the DBPR station – “There is blood on the walls. Instead of buttons on the sound board there is just…animal viscera. There is so much blood it is seeping through my shoes” – is fucking terrifying. But this is the Voice of Night Vale we’re talking about, a person who has gown up with the strange and vaguely terrifying, and this scares him.

Mean while, Kevin, is just like “The equipment is much older, certainly much dryer than it should be.” He says that the walls are “darker” and that the desk doesn’t have blood on it. At first, in episode 19A, this sounds kind of innocuous; but after Cecil’s description, I think Kevin is literally just ignoring the fact that there is blood and viscera in his studio. Ignorance is Bliss. “Go To Sleep.”

There is another thing (and this lends credibility to the ‘lack of a common language’ theory) that Kevin finds odd – Cecil’s smile. He says: “Maybe it is the smile. Is that a smile? I can’t say.” I brushed this off initially, but then there is the proverb at the end of 19B – “Step 1: Separate your lips. Step 2: Use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth. Step 3: Widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.” This is Desert Bluffs, where one cannot tell the smile on another if it is not some sort of weird, forced facsimile of a smile. (Yes, Cecil could, in fact, not be smiling. But that would break the parallelism of these twin episodes.) Cecil, in the Desert Bluffs station, also comments on Kevin’s (or, we assume it is Kevin’s) smile: “His smile…noooooo, it is not a smile. He must be wicked, this man.”

Perhaps all of Desert Bluffs is forced into happiness, or must pretend at all times to be happy, and is not allowed to talk of anything that might be considered ‘abnormal’ for the sake of appearances. I am unsure; what I am sure of is that Kevin is either a liar, or profoundly naïve. One would think that the lack of “so much blood [it seeps] into [your] shoes,” would be something to mention when you get stuck in someone else’s studio. But no, aside for the odd likeness between Kevin and Cecil, and the dry equipment/desk, Kevin does not really acknowledge the differences between the two studios, where as Cecil launches into great, and terrifying, detail. Kevin blithely transitions into the weather; Cecil only puts it on because he is a professional.

On the journey back, Cecil and Kevin reportedly meet. According to Kevin, he hugs Cecil and all is well. According to Cecil, he was attacked, and Cecil tried to “choke the life” out of Kevin, before remembering that he promised not to kill his double. Cecil let Kevin live, and walks away, though he is sure Kevin “has his bruises.” Kevin and Cecil then both remark that they are “glad [their] other is alive” in some fashion, and I think that scares me the most. They are clearly parallels of each other – one is dark and sinister in tone, but is generally nice, and the other is simply dark and sinister, but has a cheery voice – but they are glad the other is alive.

That could mean anything.

And then, in episode 26, Cecil says: “As my mother used to tell me, ‘Someone’s going to kill you one day, Cecil, and it will involve a mirror…’” This, of course, may be a coincidence, but when is anything a coincidence in Night Vale? Someone will kill Cecil, and it will involve a mirror. Perhaps this is literal, or perhaps it refers to Kevin, being someone and a literal mirror of Cecil (sort of; apparently the eyes are up for debate). Who knows; this is the conjecture part of this crazy essay.

Desert Bluffs and Night Vale reflect each other – Night Vale is an outlandish town where the police will kidnap your children and No One Is Allowed In The Dog Park. Desert Bluffs tries, so very hard, to be normal and becomes a macabre terror in the desert. Things in Night Vale are weird, outlandish, and terrifying, but Cecil talks about those things (even, sometimes, talking about things which should not be talked about) and, though everyone is used to the weird, it is looked at as reality. The weird is not talked about in Desert Bluffs, though the radio station floor bleeds and has teeth, though the Voice of Desert Bluffs has obsidian eyes and a not-smile, none of it will ever be talked about because that sort of talk could probably kill you.

Go to sleep.

March 19, 2013

Dialogue and Characterization

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– or In Which Emily Links You To Many Videos, Part 2 –

BACK TO VIDEO GAMES. Or, at least, back to Extra Credits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO-HhDrN2_g&hl=en_US&version=3

This is an excellent video in the context of video games, but it also an incredible resource for writers in general. There is…not much I can say by way of improving this argument, nor do I really have an opinion on it besides the fact that it’s excellent.

I guess the only thing I have to say is that dialogue should sound like someone is talking. That sounds obvious, but really, your characters should feel like real people. In this video, the presenter talk about acting out your dialogue. This makes sense for video games, but I would also argue that it’s vital to any writing process.

If you write a really elaborate and vital piece of dialogue, and just leave it, you have no idea if the dialogue sounds natural (especially if it’s expository). I frequently have trouble with this, so, I read my passages out loud. This helps, but I really think acting out what your characters are saying, even doing, can help you determine what is natural, and what seems a bit off. It will also allow you to see how others interpret things. For example, say you wrote the following piece of dialogue:

“I can’t believe you,” Amanda said angrily. “What, did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

If you have someone else read through this, you can hear what tone their voice takes on for ‘angry.’ What expressions do they make? Are they gesturing? How? You can describe this character and her dialogue so much better if you have an idea of the gestures and expressions that convey anger. So, you revise:

“I can’t believe you,” Amanda growled, throwing her hands up in the air. Her mouth was set in a harsh frown, her eyebrows furrowed, and her teeth looked on edge. “What, did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

This conveys so much more emotion than just the word angry. Of course, this requires you to have super enthusiastic friends, who get into acting things out, and you shouldn’t over describe, but it can be such a useful tool to have in your tool belt.

With that said, please, please watch the video in this post (it may bleed out of the margins again, for which I apologize) and go check out Extra Credits. If I haven’t said it enough, those guys are awesome.

March 17, 2013

On Transhumanism

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– Or The Individual Dystopia –

I am just going to make this disclaimer now: I am probably full of bulls*** regarding this topic. I’ll be making references to materials that explain Transhumanism and the like, so it’s best to go there for more accurate information. Most of this is just referencial knowledge and brainstorming that I am using to write a story. Thank you for indugling me. 

Today, in my creative writing class, we had a discussion on what it meant to be human, and…sort of, what it meant to be a woman, because of a short story I rewrote a couple of weeks ago. The story that I put up and took down almost immediately. It evolved into this fairly philosophical debate about the world I was creating and the social situations I had put my character in (much to my dispair – I actually wanted feed back on how I wrote the piece, more so than my content). So, I thought of a question – had I displayed the dystopia I was attempting to adequately enough?

“No” was the definitive answer (from my own inner critic) so I went back to the drawing board. What was so ‘bad’ about transhumanism, at least in this character’s case, and why does it isolate her?

So I started with transhumanism – or H+ – which is the idea that, at some point, humanity will have the technology to enhance our strength, senses, minds, to previously unheard of heights. [For more info go here, here, here, and here.] That affects my character in this way – she didn’t choose to augment herself, and so she is having trouble adjusting. She has a tendency to blame most of her psychological problems on the tech that’s keeping her alive, which causes the people around her much frustration. She also is now faced with prejudices she previously didn’t think much of.

This is why the universe around my character isolates her. She is judged harshly almost every time she leaves her apartment. It’s difficult for her to do rudimentary tasks with out breaking things or taking too long to execute them. This forces her into a corner she had never previously been in, and sort of distils her natural sarcastic personality into this sort of cynical one.

I want to show this, and the story in its current form does not do an adequate job of really defining the world and my character’s problems with it. So, it will require another round of rewrite-your-story-from-scratch, but it will be worth it.

February 27, 2013

Taking The Criticism

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– Or Emily and the Criticism Sandwich –

I have problems with criticism, but not in the way that you might immediately think. I fear it because I imagine every worst case scenario, every terrible comment, everything bad about my story, and I beat myself up with it.

I am extremely insecure about my writing, especially when I take risks with it. For example, I have to workshop a piece that I spent an agonizingly long time rewriting (for more info, see my last blog post). I wrote it in third person, something I don’t frequently do, because I felt like I needed to give the reader (and myself) some distance from what my character was going through. I made this decision, mostly because I became disturbed by what I was having to write about.

This was a terrible idea.

I didn’t get specific enough. I didn’t outline relationships enough. It wasn’t good enough. Better than the first draft, but not good enough. So, naturally, I began beating myself up about it. I started geting defensive about the first two forum posts about my story. I was becoming a rage monster over critiques, which is a things I hate in myself and dislike in other writers.

So, I prepared myself by saying “I tried something new. It didn’t work. My peers will suggest ways to fix it.” And I started reading the critiques – most of which started of very nicely. I read through four or five poorly disguised ‘critiques sandwiches.’

Critique sandwiches are what I call peer critiques, because I frequently sandwich the critique between two strong compliments. Like, I found something truly interesting and uniques about your piece; here’s something you could work on; but, over all, I thought it was pretty good here. That is the basic structure of the critique sandwich.

Unfortunately, you have to use this structure, even if the story is not so good. And I can tell when people bulls*** because I do all the time, though I try to be sincere in my compliments as much as possible. I realize that I did not write my story as well as I could have, and that disappoints me. So, when I read critique sandwiches that sound forced, I sort of lose resolve to work on anything ever again.

This story, however, matters too much to me. I have ideas of how to fix it, and I hope that maybe, just maybe, critiques on my piece will lean in the direction of ‘here’s how you can salvage this’ rather than ‘here’s how you can duct-tape this garbage heap and pretend it looks good.’ And I hope that these critique sandwiches are sincere, and not just there because my peers are trying to say nice things about the crap that I feel I handed them.

February 19, 2013

Writing in Video Games

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– Or Emily Links You to Many Videos, Part One –

I am going to talk about bad writing in video games. And by me, I actually mean the awesome people at Extra Credits. And by talk, I actually mean respond to.

I direct your attention to the video below:

 

The argument in this video, (in case you didn’t watch it, in which case you are missing out on some quality stuff. Please watch it. I’ll wait. Done? Good) is that writing in video games is considered separate from the entire process. I think of this as something akin to writing a script for a movie – you write this script, and then the game gets made and everything is great. Right? Well, not exactly.

For the sake of this blog post (and, let’s be honest, the rest of this series), I will be talking about two games and how they convey their stories: Deus Ex and Journey. Both of these games, in my opinion, have excellent stories. The narrative is handled differently, of course (duh, Emily, jeeze) but over all, they have excellent writing.

“But Journey doesn’t have dialogue!!!” Yes, intelligent reader in the back, but I guarantee a writer was involved. “BUT WRITING NEEDS WORDS.”  Okay, Caps-lock Guy, calm down. Writing does not need words in the world of video games.

Video games are interactive, which means that the story is told through cut scenes, dialogue options, music, codexes, and game mechanics. Journey is a story told entirely through silent, pre-rendered cut scenes and the mechanics of your little clothite’s journey, which are incredibly simple. Yet, there is undoubtably an incredibly moving story in those mechanics.

Let’s look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though, because that game does have dialogue. The story in this game is delivered through dialogue options and cutscenes, and less through the mechanics at first glance. Except you have so many valid ways of game play, and so many options that also affect the story – you can read every single email and ebook, for instance. But Deus Ex does something else that really makes its story interesting- it plays really heavily on your emotions. Seriously, there is a section at then end that feels terrifying and dangerous simply because of the music (also, the twist that come out of left field).

The point I’m trying to make here (and really, the point is made much better in the video, so watch it) is that writing for video games involves all of the dialogue and codex entries, but also all of the game mechanics and play options as well. Writers are considered late in development, or considered complet individuals who don’t need to work with the dev team, and I think that’s where writing goes wrong. The writer needs to account for all of the factors that go into something – like camera directions in movie scripts, or the mechanics of a game. And the writer needs to work with the dev team, because they’ll know how everything works.

Essentially, work together, writers/dev teams, and you’ll tell a better story.

tl;dr: Emilly rambles about video games and you should really watch Extra Credits. 

 

February 17, 2013

Rewriting

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– Or Why Writing Is Hard, Part One Billion –

If you pay attention to my blog at all, you will notice that I deleted a story called ‘The Precession’ that I wrote about two-ish weeks ago. This is because I re-read it and really, really, really hated it. And that’s fine. It was a first draft, and first drafts are allowed to suck. Not everything I write can be awesome (though, it does mean I am now down a blog post).

Thing is, I’m now rewriting this story, and it’s hard. I have to put myself in this terrible, awful mental state to get anything close to what this character is feeling and it’s difficult. One, I’m not missing any limbs, so the closest I can get to the pain of having those replaced is imagining what I would do in the event of an amputation. How would I react? But I’m me, and this character is Cedar, and Cedar is more stoic than I am. She is less willing to cry or admit frustration. How do I portray that? How in the bloody *@$^ am I supposed to convey what she’s going through?

So, I’m writing it in blurbs, in small paragraphs and short sentences, and right now my story is the most disjointed thing I have ever seen. I’m terrified that I’m not going to get it done in time or that it will be just as bad or worse than my first draft. I sit down, look at my word document, and cringe.

So far, I seem to be doing alright. I have an idea, I have a focus, and I only have two full scenes that I have to work on. Really, it shouldn’t be this hard. But it is. It always is. Writing takes everything out of me (unless it’s ‘fun’ writing. Like fluffy, sappy, sunshine-and-rainbows writing) and it is hard on my emotions. I have to pt myself in the situations my characters are in and it takes every ounce of sanity you have just to get the words on paper.

That, I think, makes stories real. I can only hope this one is as real for others as it is for me.

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