Musings on Continuity
Our Own Hero’s Journey
Sometimes, in any fantasy world where you have invested a large amount of your imagination, you start to append your real-world experiences to those of the characters being portrayed. For example, in the Star Wars universe, characters such as Luke are relatable, in that most people understand the story of “the everyman.” He is compelling because of the extraordinary destiny that lies ahead in his life. People generally like to feel that there is a greater purpose for them, and as such, they always cheer for the protagonist that achieves this greatness. As we cheer on we also become invested in the story. No matter how far removed from reality the elements of the story are, there is a humanization that brings us right back in. We love this. We want this to continue. We want to never break the feeling we first received while experiencing that story.
Everyone experiences this in a different way. What we pull from a story will differ depending on our life’s experiences. Continuing with Star Wars, one might feel more attached to Han Solo, the brutish scallywag that really has a heart beneath his crusty façade. Or, maybe it is Leia, the strong-willed and persistent princess, one who can get things done, regardless of the testosterone that flies around. Maybe you even felt a connection with Chewbacca—a big cumbersome brute that protects his friends with furious devotion, but is cuddly and cute once you get underneath the fur. Regardless of how you made the connection, you connected. You became invested in the story, and you want nothing to scramble that experience, even if you’re willing to give little ground.
Continuity of a game world works the same way. Consumers of fantasy become invested in the characters, and they begin to sense the world around them, taking in the descriptions and feel an author has provided. R.A. Salvatore, New York Times best-selling author and creator of the renegade drow Drizzt, is fantastic at bringing in the reader and giving them what is needed to relate to his characters. It is undeniable that Drizzt is popular, and for numerous reasons, people keep coming back to hear what will happen to him next. They want to maintain that feel, and have the protagonist overcome adversity. [Read the rest of this article]
Pain of Publication Review: “Dinocalypse Now”
Previously I’ve talked about my previous novel attempts, difficult revisions and cutting, actually getting work done, reviewed Low Town and Alloy of Law, and finally about writing knowing full well you are going to revise.
Background
Spirit of the Century is a successful and well-regarded gaming line done by Evil Hat Productions. Only being vaguely aware of the original game, I believed it was about airships during the turn of the century time. When given the opportunity to review a complimentary advanced review copy of Spirit of the Century original fiction by Chuck Wendig, I leapt at the opportunity. I was curious how I would perceive it knowing little about the license. Simply put, I was impressed. With Wendig’s mixing of pulpy goodness and a dash of panache, he effortlessly cooks up an exciting story set in the Spirit of the Century universe that stands on its own without knowing the original book. [Read the rest of this article]
The Swag of Yore
These people understand.
I was born in 1975, so I got to spend the entire 80′s fully cognizant of the gigantic vortex of awesome I was daily marinating in. Once the entire Star Wars trilogy, He-Man, the Thundercats, and Ghostbusters came into play, my imagination was pretty much stocked. There are certain part of my childhood that, after knowing some history, I can’t believe existed. For instance, we had a D&D Saturday morning cartoon and we could walk into most toy stores and pick up official AD&D action figures and monsters. In the 80′s. During all the Satanism scare WTF.
Today, we have D&D merchandise, but it’s much more limited in scope. What happened?
Called Shot: Gamers?
Either my parents didn’t know about all the D&D/Satanism hullabaloo in the 80′s, or they rightly dismissed it as stupidity. Either way, my brother and I had lots and lots of D&D stuff to play with. Oddly, though we did have a Red Box set, I don’t think I ever actually played the actual D&D roleplaying game with my brother until my late teens. Had lots of adventures in the Forgotten Realms? Battled evil monsters from the Monster Manual (though we didn’t know it)? Yes, both of those, and lots.
The strange thing about the cartoon, the toys, and a lot of the other random D&D stuff we had was that it really didn’t feel like it pushed you toward playing the tabletop RPG at all. I remember seeing the occasional ad for the games, and the toys shared the same art style and graphic design as the later AD&D books, but they weren’t marketed as supplements or anything directly game-related at all. They were toys, and games, and books with an awesome fantasy flavor.
Sometimes, liberties got taken from the original source material. For instance, Lolth appears in the D&D cartoon as less of a dark goddess and more of an evil lady who tricks people and turns into a gross spider with the face of an angry Winona Ryder.
Sometimes the material was true to the books but only those familiar with the books knew it. I always thought the Acrobat and Cavalier were strange class choices until I read Unearthed Arcana a few years later. The really bizarre thing is that the D&D cartoon was cancelled the year UA came out — previously, those classes had only appeared in Dragon Magazine and the D&D cartoon. Today, we have D&D Insider for these things. Back then, all we had was a magical teenage pole-vaulter with a fur bikini and an awesome perm. And Ralph Malph.
Marketing Tie-Ins
It seems to me like D&D was being marketed to a much broader audience than gamers back then. Though I’m absolutely certain someone will prove me wrong within nanoseconds of writing this, it doesn’t seem like D&D gets a lot of spotlight time outside of gamer circles. Which, on the surface, is double extra weird because, back then, D&D was owned by TSR (a game company) and now WotC is owned by Hasbro (a much larger toy and game company).
These days, we have tabletop games, board games, and videogames. And belt buckles. Now, don’t get me wrong. I want a D&D belt buckle. But I long for my favorite game not to occupy a niche I have to explain to people. (At least, in the 80′s, all you had to explain was how you weren’t casting real spells using your immortal soul as the currency of the damned. I don’t like explaining things, OK?)
I do not have a marketing degree, nor do I have any idea what WotC could do to put a Dire Chicken In Every Pot™. (P.S. I get royalties if that gets used.) What I do have are desires and silly ideas.
Let me get this out of the way first: I cannot believe that we’ve had 4 blockbuster movies about sparkly vampires and werewolf emotions and the best Dragonlance movie I can get appears to be the product of a compromise between two warring animation houses that couldn’t decide on 2d or 3d. We can shrink Sean Astin to hobbit-size, we for damn sure can shrink Ryan Gosling to kender-size or just hire Snooki or something. (Maybe Gosling’s body but Snooki’s voice? Gotta get the kender-taunt just right.) Technology has finally invented Benedict Cumberbatch, so he can voice Lord Soth too when he’s done with Smaug.
Obviously, I’d grant my son all the D&D swag I had as a child and more. I want my son to be able to buy a Sword +5, Holy Avenger in a toy store, and have it glow unless he steals something or lies to me. I want to buy big, cool plastic monsters right out of the Monster Vault. I want a plush owlbear. I want good quality D&D cartoons (rendered in either 2d or 3d but not both!) and I want him to be able to tell tales of the Forgotten Realms and Eberron and Dark Sun like I tell about Eternia and Thundera and Cybertron. I also hope their plots hold up better than the cartoons of my youth but that is beside the point.
Those of you who’ve attended Gen Con probably know how fun this is: I want D&D themed food, especially at fast food places. I want to eat the McIllithid and drink Sahaugin Shakes. I want Beholder Bites. I want Fries +2. I want themed cups, and I for damned sure want cool Happy Meals with neat monsters and treasure. C’mon, I still have fond memories of the Astrosniks. Give me an Elemental Princes of Evil Happy Meal. I wanna see all the crazed soccer moms who used to hoard Beanie Babies lining up for days trying to get the elusive Cryonax figure.
Tears Shed For Decades Of Swag That Never Were
Eh, who am I kidding? I would have hoarded it just like the other stuff I actually did hoard and the majority would likely have the same honored place in my closet and crawlspace. But it really would have been cool and I do hope we see a few tendrils of our favorite game snake out into the mainstream.
Thinking about how vastly different D&D’s marketing approach has become over the last 30 years has really intrigued me (and may warrant a future article in which I am not full of crap). If you are chock full of this info, please let me know so that I may mine the contents of your brain.
Until then, I will wait for the day I can buy an Otiluke brand refrigerator.
Photo Credit
O The Tangled Webs We Weep, When Breathe We Don’t When Go To Sleep
Ever since I was a wee lad, I’ve always had really vivid dreams. On occasion, this translates into really vivid nightmares, which sucks mightily. Usually, though, it just means I’m going to have a good story to tell come the dawn. Well, that is, until I found out I had sleep apnea. Turns out, one of the side effects of stopping to take a break during sleep to not breathe every few minutes is that you never really leave REM sleep — causing incredibly vivid dreams. Getting a machine to help with that provides me with a lot more energy during the day, but I only get a tiny fraction of the WTF I used to reap each night. This week, however, my sinuses have decided to clog up everything, making it really hard for my machine to blow air down my throat to keep me breathing normally. And that meant it was SHOWTIME.
It all started off fairly innocuously. I was at my parents’ house, waiting to go to a weekly board game night at the local community college with my dad. I really wish this existed. It was like a little mini-convention, but everyone there was really laid back and the lights were low and it was really mellow and it made me feel like how adults looked to me when I was a kid. I say this never having gone there in the dream, just remembering it, because my dad was taking forever. I was getting impatient enough to wander around the house, which apparently had become the Christmas village in a department store since I’d moved out. After pacing a few times around a few snowy gumdrops, my dad decided it was finally time to go.
When I was very young, probably 5 or 6, I read an article in Parade magazine called “You Can Control Your Dreams”. I didn’t really understand what it was trying to tell me to do at the time, but the concept that I could take a bad dream and decide to take it in a much better direction was extremely appealing to a little boy who would sometimes wake up terrified in his parents’ bed not knowing how he got there. I tried to control the nightmare I had that very night — Darth Vader had taken over the playground at my school, and several Imperial Stormtroopers had their blaster rifles pointed at me. I made it so their blasters could only fire Finger Pops. I was ecstatic. However, that was about as far as I could take it, and I soon woke up all freaked out as Vader and his men were about to get me.
So it was from then on. I’d get a little nudge, but not full control. I’ve managed to erase tornadoes from nightmares, only to have the storm continue or find another threat emerging. I’ve managed to summon the Sword of Omens to smite my nemesis, only to find it’s made of plastic. Having a useless power is almost worse than being completely helpless.
So it was that my dad was finally ready to go, but instead of going to the Community College Weekly Mellow Game Con, we went to K-Mart. I think we were going to go buy a swingset, and we were in a really bizarre truck that had the engine in the back, no windshield or doors, and pretty much exposed you to all the elements. I think it had seatbelts. I remember being very keen on making sure of that. It was wintertime in the dream, so I wasn’t real happy about riding in this truck to begin with. Fortunately, we somehow found ourselves having the argument about riding to K-Mart in front of said K-Mart, so we just sort of went in. (Arguments as an alternative source of clean transportation energy?)
I can’t tell you what shifted in the dream just then, but I noticed something odd in the dream. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Whatever it was, it shifted everything toward the worse. I became aware of the fact that the FBI was coming for me, because I’d mistakenly hacked into a server somehow and looked at a secret file that I didn’t understand. I remember my conscience being clean, it all being just a big misunderstanding, but knew they wouldn’t see it that way. They were coming for me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I saw my son happily running around the lumber section of the K-Mart, and I cried knowing I wouldn’t get to see him grow up.
I heard someone pull up outside. For a moment, my heart rose, thinking it was my mom come to pick me up and whisk me away. It was the police, and they had replaced my dad with an agent meant to act in his stead wearing a weird leisure suit. Weird Leisure-Dad explained what was about to happen to me, disingenuously pausing to call me “son” every few seconds, and then a Clearly Evil person in charge showed up. I apologized and cried. He laughed and had me stand on a large couch cushion. “For science”, he said. I didn’t understand. Shaking his head, he declared the experiment a failure, and told me to go sit on a nearby porch swing. I noticed it was rusting and ready to fall apart. ”For science,” he gestured toward the contraption, leering cruelly.
I’ve seldom been happier to wake up.
Even today, I haven’t mastered lucid dreaming. On the rare occasion that I realize I’m dreaming, I’ve usually got about 15 seconds before I wake. I’ve had people suggest looking upward and spinning, scrambling the dream somehow and putting you in control. That makes me dizzy and in a dark, dangerous place. I used to try pushing my temples in to wake up. That was a nice thought, and it got me dream-killed a couple times.
The other fun part of sleep apnea? Sometimes it comes with sleep paralysis. That’s when you wake up (or think you do), and you can’t move, and you can’t breathe. Sometimes, your brain is still in dream-mode, and the stuff my subconscious makes when I’m scared ain’t nice. I’ve dreamt or hallucinated so many ghosts, serial killers, monsters, and packs of ravenous wolves coming to claim my paralyzed body that I feel like I’ve really stimulated the supernatural economy over the years.
I had a really mild bout of sleep paralysis that night, as well:
I felt like the bed was at a 45 degree angle, and I was slowly sliding off, only it never stopped. I figured out I was dreaming and calmed down a little when the aliens from They Live were holding a potpourri party.
Shortly thereafter, I drifted back to sleep to find myself in a world under attack by aliens. Or tornadoes. Or energy trees. This part was extremely chaotic. It was like watching a sci-fi movie where I really had no control over what was going on, and I wasn’t entirely sure if I was there or watching it. What I do remember is a bunch of guys dressed like the Ghostbusters giving each other high fives like they’d saved everyone and a bunch of government types sneering at them and calling them losers.
Then, I felt it again. The same shift I’d felt before, only less subtle. More deliberate. I saw something gold skitter past the corner of my vision, but then it was gone.
The shift wasn’t quite as traumatic this time out. Well, for me anyway. Suddenly the tone of the dream is pretty mellow and most everything is rebuilt. I’m driving around my small town making sure every building and structure has a colorful kite or enormous hair tie stuck to it. Apparently, this was how the aliens were defeated. The scene cuts to a ruined house, where one of the Ghostbuster-type guys is milling about when he finds one of the female scientists featured prominently in the earlier movie-action part. Then he says “so when did you find out you were pregnant?” and then her belly suddenly goes from zero to “we better go shopping at Target right now“. This didn’t seem particularly unusual to either of them, but as a father I wondered where they would find a duffel bag to hurriedly pack with a bunch of things they will be completely wrong about needing at the hospital later.
Then, I feel that weird shift again. Then, I see a gnome in full plate mail, gold and glittering, drop from the sky to land right in front of me. He hands me something purple. Then I wake up.
I woke up knowing full well what the gnome had given me.
He was an agent of the GM running my dream. He gave me a plot point. Apparently, my subconscious runs Cortex+.
I’d like to think this was all an elaborate night-long multi-dream joke my subconscious played on me, but more likely it just sort of progressively interpreted some earlier stuff into the golden plot-gnome. Either way, my son looked very strangely at me when I woke up laughing.
Photo Credit
Pain of Publication: Writing to Revise
Previously I’ve talked about my previous novel attempts, difficult revisions and cutting, actually getting work done, reviewed Low Town and Alloy of Law.
Having written three novels to completion, and having none of them published, provides ample opportunity for self-reflection. One thing that consistently impresses me is how bad my first drafts are. There is a startling lack of crispness and terrible sagging portions of the book that really don’t tie together. Even though revisions are a pain in the ass, there’s a feeling of wizardry when you combine two throwaway characters into one quirky minor character or change a few proper nouns around to create foreshadowing. It almost feels like cheating. Knowing that revisions will be made should inform how you write a draft. I have learned to prioritize certain aspects of writing in my first draft and give other considerations lower priority.
Characterization
Don’t expect every character to be fully defined from the moment they walk into your story, but as you go forward, develop a feel for each character. Get comfortable stepping into their skin, internalizing their values, and understanding their point of view. Ideally, as the plot moves forward, you want to be able to look through each character’s lens and judge events. The plot is not monolithic and you may find the the character you have crafted does not fit as neatly into the story as you had expected. If you recognize this as you are writing, adjust the character’s role in the plot accordingly, but more importantly, by the time you have a draft you should have mastered the character. Pay attention to make sure that each character behaves appropriately throughout the story. Ultimately, if you throw tough situations and drama at well-developed characters you will gain an understanding on how they would react. Well-developed protagonists will begin to move the plot along seemingly of their own volition as you intuitively know what they would do given the trouble you have cooked up for them. It’s this internal sense when cultivated in a draft which shine through on later revisions. [Read the rest of this article]
10 Epic-Level Problems Nobody Thinks About
Everybody thinks being powerful enough to slap-fight the gods themselves would be completely awesome. There’s a reason epic-level D&D breaks down. Actually, there are ten. And NONE OF YOU have thought of ANY of them. Unless you’re future epic-level me. In which case, you probably have.
1. Hygiene
I don’t care if you can move mountains with your epic elbows or travel effortlessly through time and space with your god-butt. You need to wash both, or you’re going to be epic-level disgusting. Since opponents typically scale with the PCs, these will be no ordinary corynebacterium or staphylococcus epidermidis. Epic-level heroes have to face down bacteria that resist all mortal soaps and could eat a Shetland pony within seconds. Most epic heroes have a special combat waterfall for these purposes, and have to quest monthly to find cleaning agents mighty enough to remove the beastly micro-organisms but gentle enough on skin to leave that epic glow.
Clipping epic nails is also a problem, and any instruments used to do so must be +3 or greater. There are epic emery boards available, but, as they are made of the hide of the World Serpent, Jörmungandr, they are in somewhat short supply. Especially on planes of existence without Norse gods.
2. Awkward Thanksgivings
Woe betide the fool who ascends to godhood at a family reunion. Does your family worship you now?
“Please pass the green beans, Sun Lord.”
Awkwarrrd.
Plus, your uncle Jorgen, half-blind with mead and the other half with politics, is inevitably going to try to push your buttons like he always does. Is it OK to smite him? What about your filthy heretic cousins?
What do you do if your mom worships you but still kicks you out of the house for smiting people? [Read the rest of this article]
Review: “Alloy of Law”
Previously I’ve talked about my previous novel attempts, difficult revisions and cutting, actually getting work done, and reviewed Low Town.
Background
After his excellent Mistborn trilogy and being tapped to finish The Wheel of Time. Brandon Sanderson has risen swiftly through the ranks of fantasy authors. Personally, Mistborn is my favorite series of all time. When I found out that a new novel set in the same universe was coming out, I was excited. The magic in the world revolves around using metals to have significant, but limited, magical effects. Whereas the first novel took place in a fantasy dystopia with apocalyptic rumblings, this novels problems are decidedly more limited in scope.
Setting
With the same magic system firmly in place, Sanderson moves out of medieval stasis into a Wild West/ Industrial Revolution era in a novel that smartly extrapolates a world’s progression even if it fails to capture the grand scope of the original. Alloy of Law starts in the Wild West (called the Roughs), but spends most of the time in a bustling metropolis. Although Sanderson’s new characters lack the variety of powers found in the first trilogy, he uses his magic system adroitly to come up with formidable (and interesting) twists on what existed in his original Mistborn trilogy. Coupled with very cool newsprint/dime store inserts between some chapters, the setting is one that easy to enjoy. [Read the rest of this article]
Pain of Publication: Book Review of “Low Town”
Previously I’ve talked about my previous novel attempts, difficult revisions and cutting, and actually getting work done. Whereas I normally review books in a vacuum, this time I am reviewing a book and weaving some lessons learned into my own Pain of Publication series.
Low Town is the debut novel of fellow Dickinson alumni, Daniel Polansky. Mr. Polansky knew many of the same people I did in college, but even in a small liberal arts school like Dickinson our paths never crossed. It’s a damn shame because Low Town is a rollicking mash up of two great genres: noir and fantasy. The author skillfully weaves a first person narrative in a way that vibrantly develops the setting into a living, breathing, festering, and foul supporting character unto itself.
Setting
The book is named after the impoverished underbelly of the Imperial Capital and the vast majority of the action takes place in this fetid urban sprawl. The book follows a man simply known as The Warden: an independent drug dealer with a wonderfully checkered past. He ends up caught in a tangled web of child murders where his own conscience and the machinations of others forces him into solving one last mystery. Although we only see things through the eyes of The Warden, we get a good feel for the supporting cast and an incredible appreciation for the misery that is Low Town. The author pulls no punches depicting graphic violence and frequent drug use. There is a sense of history to the world, but the author walks the tight rope of unfurling the past slowly and only inasmuch as it bears an impact on the story of The Warden. Proper nouns and slang give Low Town its own feel without impairing the readability of the novel. However, only three or four characters besides The Warden manage to stick out. This did not bother me though, as the same word count that often goes into character development was instead packaged as setting development. Low Town was great, but if you like your fantasy noble then stay out of Low Town. [Read the rest of this article]
The Pain of Publication III: Making the Most of your Work Sessions
Previously I’ve talked about my previous novel attempts and about difficult revisions and cutting. Today I’d like to talk about actually getting to work.
The reality for most aspiring authors is that their writing has to give way to the realities of a full life outside of it. Most of the time, that means squeezing in time in between your job that pays you and other life activities. However, sometimes you can get lucky and have the opportunity to spend a large dedicated chunk of time writing without work getting in the way. Having neglected to use my vacation time much over the past few years, I found myself with time off to spare and resolved to take a work week off and write. And so, between Christmas and New Years I had nothing to do but write… and do family things for the holidays, of course.
This column is about getting the most out of your time during those brief times you ought to be able to dedicate to writing and coping with the inevitable interferences that will crop up. [Read the rest of this article]
The Pain of Publication: Revising and Cutting
My first installment detailed my past attempt to get published. This article is going to detail the last steps I am taking prior to preparing another deluge of query letters. First, here is an explanation of where my current project: it’s called Roland’s Legion and it could be described succinctly as Red Dawn meets Harry Potter. I could go into more detail, but this column is less about the plot of my novel and more about how you go about dealing with a novel. My novel is in the midst of revisions by third parties (friends that I begged to read it and they took pity on me). Two of my friends read, reviewed, revised, and critiqued the novel once. Then I did rewrites and revisions. At this point, 5-7 more people are going through that process again with version 2.0. I should have their notes in by the Christmas. At that point, I won’t have any more excuses for why I haven’t worked on my latest draft.
So now, with all the self-important preamble out of the way, its time to cut to the heart of this column: killing what you love. It’s easy, academically, to understand you need to tweak and change sentences to make a novel more readable. Over the course of thousands and thousands of words you are almost certain to put down some downright incomprehensible sentences. Maybe you fall in love with a few, but diction is not the issue I’m covering here today. No, instead we’re talking plot. Some readers questioned the purpose and execution of what I will call The Religion Subplot. At first, I rejected the notion it needed to be changed. I could fix it, tweak it, and make it better. I would show my friends what it was that I meant in my brilliant manuscript even if they were too stubborn to see it. In fact, my first revision did see me overhaul and improve the The Religion Subplot.
However, my friend Andy, who was insane enough to read my draft a second time, still had some rather well-reasoned criticism of the The Religion Subplot. I had thought that I had fixed it, but his renewed complaints planted the seeds of doubt. After overcoming my own wounded pride, I decided to look at The Religion Subplot with as much objectivity as I could muster and judge it based on the following criteria: [Read the rest of this article]
