Let us continue with the Treatise on the Soul where we started last night.
I recommend reading the previous post before this one for new readers.
So the Apes became dominant, and free, and desirable. They found purpose aplenty, and grew to become a society, and later a host of societies.
So life passed on from generation to generation, until Magisters realized that not only could Purpose be directed using sigils, but it could also be made to manifest directly through matter and energy. As bits and pieces of the world could become rife with planned intent, the Apes thought, and that planned intent could be made to serve the Apes, domination of the world could become eternal, and never be flexed away from them like it was flexed away from the predators of old.
That was the idea anyway.
The Apes had a working knowledge of sigils and influence between matter and Purpose, but their theoretical understanding of such phenomena was scarce at best. The Apes understood that they could influence the intention and purpose of the land itself, and of all that dwelt on it, but something else had escaped their notice: Purpose brought with it thought. Once manifested into the world, the Purpose that the apes had summmoned began forming into full-fledged intelligences, almost beyond their control. These beings became known as spiritual hosts.
All of those intelligences were friendly to the apes, as they were made to be by their creators, but they were their own purpose, as is the way of such things. In a world defined by the apes and for the apes, the newly-formed spiritual hosts had no take on dominance. The cities, the farms and the countryside had all been designed as sigils to direct Purpose towards the dominance of the Apes, and as they were, even without the help of spiritual hosts, their mastery could not be challenged inside their domain.
Thus, the spiritual hosts concocted a plan, unknown to their masters, to bring their own Purpose of dominance in favor of themselves. Through millenia Purpose had been shaped into the concept of dominance, and thus the spiritual hosts were like avatars of dominance, and this shaped their actions.
In assistance to the Apes, they advised the construction of a Capitol at the centre of the world, with roads of brimstone converging towards the capitol, focusing a flow of aether towards it, as a means to bring the whole world even more under their control. Unbeknownst to the Apes, the treacherous spiritual hosts had another plan altogether with these constructions.
The brimstone roads and the cathedral built in the centre or the World Capitol were meant to reshape the Apes themselves into something else. When all constructions were done, the spiritual hosts began a chant which infused a bit of their Purpose straight into the Apes. The Apes became amalgams of beast and spirit. The Apes were twisted in a grotesque demeanor in the process, shedding all their skin and losing a lot of their strength. Ape had become Man. The world was still mostly theirs, but their age-old sigils ensured them not their dominance as they did the apes, allowing the will of the spiritual hosts to become dominant.
On this day, the traitorous hosts took on a new name so as to redefine their Purpose. They renamed themselves Gods.
Later aspects of this mythology will be revealed in later articles.
Author's note: I do realize that I have not named people, places or spirits yet, so the story is not yet personal. I have gone straight to the cosmology itself, because I was mostly worried about the originality of that part of my world. Personalizing this mythology can very well be performed afterwards.
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Saturday, 3 September 2011
Treatise on the soul
This is part 1 of my attempt at creating a cosmology that is both unique and interesting for the story I'm working on. My plan was to find a definition of the soul, and an origin for humanity, that differs from most fantasy novels, and rely on the logical consequences of these setting elements to remain original.
I would really like to know what you all think.
The world was once a planet ruled by purely physical forces, devoid of mysticism and purpose. Rocks roiled and tumbled, thunder crashed upon the hills, water flowed into the cracks of the world, plants covered the world and fire occurred where a spark would light it up. Their was magnificence only as a result of chance, and nothing in the world would recognize it.
Purpose itself existed as a presence in the world, that later scholars would call aether or ephemera, but without anything to define objectives, it was void of meaning and direction. It was the greatest dichotomy of all: purpose was pointless, in and of itself. Then, millenia before the coming of Man, predation moved the world in a glorious dance and stirred as the hunt became meant to feed, and meaning became intention. With intention, purpose was taking shape, a new force upon the world. Predators now desired.
So it was that the predators of the world drew to them Purpose like the twin moons draw upon them the waters of the world. Purpose, during these millenia, gathered in the concepts of dominance, as those predators that thrived were the ones who could dominate the others, and all lesser animals were either killed or weakened in spirit.
The world was dominated by prides of lions and packs of wolves, while the seas were the domain of sharks and orca, relentless predators all. The prey animals reigned supreme in a world seemingly made for them, and while they lacked fine object manipulation, they could use paw and claw to trace sigils and glyphs throughout the world that called upon the aether, protecting their havens from rivals and draining the will of prey and foe alike. Their preys became will-less animals bred only for slaughter.
A mistake of the jungle snakes turned around their world. The snakes were the dominant species in the jungles, and the apes were enthralled beneath them. Their dead skins would be left in the forms of the sigils which made the land theirs, and all that walked upon their jungles along with it. The snakes had discovered, however, that apes had the hands to use rocks and branches when needed, and left them enough freedom to use them in service to their reptilian masters.
Slowly, apes rebelled. No snake realized it, but very slowly, the apes started using those branches to move around the shed serpent skins just enough to disrupt their enthralling effect. As the sigils were disrupted, more and more apes became able to act under their own will, and the more autonomous they became.
When the First Revolt thundered throughout the jungles, the apes were already using sharp rocks tied to sticks, and the snakes could do nothing but hide or die. The desire for freedom sent a shock-wave through Purpose, severing its long-standing uniformity towards domination and breaking into a myriad of possible desires. This failure of the serpents ever branded them as traitors to the animal kingdom, a sobriquet even contemporary men remember.
Unable to react appropriately, the wolves and lions and crocodiles clung to the old ways of the hunt, but nothing could compare to the infinite desires of the apes, nor with their tools which became ever more sophisticated. Purpose grew into the complex web of possibilities that only men can fathom, taking myriad forms outside of the physical world's reach, mirroring, being, and feeding upon the intentions of the apes.
Those myriad intended purposes sometimes grew into larger currents of Purpose, but every ape also drew alongside it a mirrored set of desires in the aether. This set of desires is commonly referenced as a soul.
Just as sigils could control flows of Purpose in the old times, or animate forms of matter could turn pointless Purpose into a directed flow of desire that became souls, so did the apes manage to use patterns to direct the flows of aether in the other world. The drawing of a breeding pen or a city follows the same principles, an occult and oft-forgotten manner of controlling the flows of Purpose, and thus the very desires of people and animals, were penned according to the directions set in the stones and water channels. Apes made the land theirs in this way, every hamlet and every farm the mystical binding force turning the Purpose of the land into the service of the Ape.
So lived the land and Ape within it, for generations and centuries, ever expanding into the territory of the dominant predators of old.
Ape grew in abundance and power unabated, unchallenged and unsurprising, until Magisters learned that Purpose and Desire could be summoned into this world to inhabit, were a Magister skilled enough to bring him forth. But that is a story for another time.
Here it is folks, part 1 of the cosmology for the world I am creating.
What do you all think?
I would really like to know what you all think.
The world was once a planet ruled by purely physical forces, devoid of mysticism and purpose. Rocks roiled and tumbled, thunder crashed upon the hills, water flowed into the cracks of the world, plants covered the world and fire occurred where a spark would light it up. Their was magnificence only as a result of chance, and nothing in the world would recognize it.
Purpose itself existed as a presence in the world, that later scholars would call aether or ephemera, but without anything to define objectives, it was void of meaning and direction. It was the greatest dichotomy of all: purpose was pointless, in and of itself. Then, millenia before the coming of Man, predation moved the world in a glorious dance and stirred as the hunt became meant to feed, and meaning became intention. With intention, purpose was taking shape, a new force upon the world. Predators now desired.
So it was that the predators of the world drew to them Purpose like the twin moons draw upon them the waters of the world. Purpose, during these millenia, gathered in the concepts of dominance, as those predators that thrived were the ones who could dominate the others, and all lesser animals were either killed or weakened in spirit.
The world was dominated by prides of lions and packs of wolves, while the seas were the domain of sharks and orca, relentless predators all. The prey animals reigned supreme in a world seemingly made for them, and while they lacked fine object manipulation, they could use paw and claw to trace sigils and glyphs throughout the world that called upon the aether, protecting their havens from rivals and draining the will of prey and foe alike. Their preys became will-less animals bred only for slaughter.
A mistake of the jungle snakes turned around their world. The snakes were the dominant species in the jungles, and the apes were enthralled beneath them. Their dead skins would be left in the forms of the sigils which made the land theirs, and all that walked upon their jungles along with it. The snakes had discovered, however, that apes had the hands to use rocks and branches when needed, and left them enough freedom to use them in service to their reptilian masters.
Slowly, apes rebelled. No snake realized it, but very slowly, the apes started using those branches to move around the shed serpent skins just enough to disrupt their enthralling effect. As the sigils were disrupted, more and more apes became able to act under their own will, and the more autonomous they became.
When the First Revolt thundered throughout the jungles, the apes were already using sharp rocks tied to sticks, and the snakes could do nothing but hide or die. The desire for freedom sent a shock-wave through Purpose, severing its long-standing uniformity towards domination and breaking into a myriad of possible desires. This failure of the serpents ever branded them as traitors to the animal kingdom, a sobriquet even contemporary men remember.
Unable to react appropriately, the wolves and lions and crocodiles clung to the old ways of the hunt, but nothing could compare to the infinite desires of the apes, nor with their tools which became ever more sophisticated. Purpose grew into the complex web of possibilities that only men can fathom, taking myriad forms outside of the physical world's reach, mirroring, being, and feeding upon the intentions of the apes.
Those myriad intended purposes sometimes grew into larger currents of Purpose, but every ape also drew alongside it a mirrored set of desires in the aether. This set of desires is commonly referenced as a soul.
Just as sigils could control flows of Purpose in the old times, or animate forms of matter could turn pointless Purpose into a directed flow of desire that became souls, so did the apes manage to use patterns to direct the flows of aether in the other world. The drawing of a breeding pen or a city follows the same principles, an occult and oft-forgotten manner of controlling the flows of Purpose, and thus the very desires of people and animals, were penned according to the directions set in the stones and water channels. Apes made the land theirs in this way, every hamlet and every farm the mystical binding force turning the Purpose of the land into the service of the Ape.
So lived the land and Ape within it, for generations and centuries, ever expanding into the territory of the dominant predators of old.
Ape grew in abundance and power unabated, unchallenged and unsurprising, until Magisters learned that Purpose and Desire could be summoned into this world to inhabit, were a Magister skilled enough to bring him forth. But that is a story for another time.
Here it is folks, part 1 of the cosmology for the world I am creating.
What do you all think?
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Uniqueness in mythology
Here comes a phrase too often heard in a host of works dubbed "medieval fantasy":
"This is inspired by Tolkien".
Here then comes the most common answer to demands of originality, from people fed up by Tolkien's mythology:
"This isn't Tolkien. We are copying Howard instead."
In the same way, every horror writer is inspired by either Wes Craven nowadays, with some Lovecraft thrown in the mix. Similarly, every vampire story takes its roots in Bram Stoker or Anne Rice's works, save perhaps Josh Whedon's series.
Why in the world are we unable to create new and compelling mythologies? Why can't we break from those molds? What is the process required to break away from those molds? Are there not myriads of possible mythologies that could inspire breakthroughs in storytelling? I'm stuck myself in this conundrum, for although the core of the story I'm writing is very promising, and the behind-the-scenes aspects of my mythology is somewhat rarely found in stories, the visual impact of my mythology reeks of "I've played too much WoW/D&D".
I want the world-beyond-the-world in my writings to be unique. I have to stare at Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for hours just to convince myself that it is possible.
The difficult part in this is that recipes, by definition, cannot create something wholly new.
So I ask all my readers: how do you manage to create newness and uniqueness in a mythology? Do you even attempt it? And as readers, do you care?
I will attempt originality in a new cosmology, which works within the world I am crafting for my stories. But before I write out my attempts here, I would love it if one of you could answer the questions above, for yourselves, without any bias interfering through my exposed attempts.
"This is inspired by Tolkien".
Here then comes the most common answer to demands of originality, from people fed up by Tolkien's mythology:
"This isn't Tolkien. We are copying Howard instead."
In the same way, every horror writer is inspired by either Wes Craven nowadays, with some Lovecraft thrown in the mix. Similarly, every vampire story takes its roots in Bram Stoker or Anne Rice's works, save perhaps Josh Whedon's series.
Why in the world are we unable to create new and compelling mythologies? Why can't we break from those molds? What is the process required to break away from those molds? Are there not myriads of possible mythologies that could inspire breakthroughs in storytelling? I'm stuck myself in this conundrum, for although the core of the story I'm writing is very promising, and the behind-the-scenes aspects of my mythology is somewhat rarely found in stories, the visual impact of my mythology reeks of "I've played too much WoW/D&D".
I want the world-beyond-the-world in my writings to be unique. I have to stare at Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for hours just to convince myself that it is possible.
The difficult part in this is that recipes, by definition, cannot create something wholly new.
So I ask all my readers: how do you manage to create newness and uniqueness in a mythology? Do you even attempt it? And as readers, do you care?
I will attempt originality in a new cosmology, which works within the world I am crafting for my stories. But before I write out my attempts here, I would love it if one of you could answer the questions above, for yourselves, without any bias interfering through my exposed attempts.
Monday, 29 August 2011
Why everybody slept with everybody.
Exhaustion and overtime work killed my creative juices for the last 2 months, so I took that time to read and watch good fiction instead.
Watching "A Game of Thrones" made me realize an unrealistic component of most good fiction: characters, even ones living halfway across the world, tend to have way more back-story to their relationship than they should realistically have.
I wasn't doing that at all before, and I now realize that I was wrong.
This back-story provides an essential part of the fiction you are writing: it makes the characters love or hate each other with unbridled passion. Spectators (and actors, for LARPs/Interactive Theater) will mostly care about characters if the characters themselves are passionate about each other.
So, if you write a story about 2 war leaders trying to decimate each other's peoples, don't just make them hate each other because they're racist. Have the first protagonist's sister married to the other in the past, and then executed for adultery.
If you want protagonists to bond, they could discover they're brothers and sisters (like Kira and Cagalli from Gundam Seed) or fall in love with relatives (Harry Potter and Ginny, Ron and Hermione). Or maybe the grandfather of one of them had enslaved the other's grandmother, and although that is officially water under the bridge, the 2 protagonists will have a tension that will never let loose, and explode whenever you, as a writer, need it to.
Soaps have run on this stuff for decades, and Opera for centuries.
If you need convincing, I offer this challenge: read Frank Herbert's Dune, then read Isaac Asimov's Foundation. Notice how dry Asimov's writing is. It is purely intellectual, it is ripe with the ideas of a genius, it is prophetic in many ways (e.g. miniaturization), it is a masterpiece, yet it is extremely hard to give a damn about any of it. Characters don't really care about anyone, so we, as readers, don't either.
Saturday, 2 July 2011
Our Big Bad Evil Guys lack in Grandeur
I've seen lots of evil lords and the like in LARPs and tabletop roleplay over the years, and I have since realized that most of them are villains because we put "villain" in their name.
The standard example is the necromancer who is evil because he raises the dead, although the player characters have killed countless more people (for reasons of racism and whatnot) than the supposed bad guy. Those bad guys are all you need in a strategic roleplaying game that is half miniature battle and half roleplaying session.
To truly impress on the theatrical level, you need someone ignominous, or someone whose methods and cleverness will awe the players/actors. In general, do not count on fiction for providing such villains; read real history, or heavy social criticism through fiction. Bad people are far worse in reality than in fiction.
In a political game, a real bad guy could be Stalin-like. The man is responsible for the deaths of more people than you will ever get to meet. You just need to read Animal Farm by George Orwell to portray a similar villain convincingly. Catherine de Médicis is a great example of a noblewoman who is ready to sacrifice most everything to remain on the throne (or to keep her sons there). A massacre of thousands was one of those things. The legend of Elizabeth Bathory makes for a great evil also (torture and killings followed by blood baths), or you could make a big bad evil guy who makes those crimes and frames than apparent serial killer.
In a supernatural setting, where the threat is supernatural by nature, the process to create a dangerous villain is a less difficult, and requires less reading. Once you know which player/actor characters you want to aim at, simply figure out the 4 following elements, at least 2 of which will come directly from the villain's supernatural template:
1- One thing that is the strength of the target characters
2- One thing that the target characters hold dear
3- One thing that the players or actors themselves hold dear
4- Something that sort of freaks out the players or actors themselves (without ever going into traumas)
Now, create a villain that should have the upper hand in the target characters' strength, who will turn against something that the characters hold dear, but also what the palyers hold dear, and have some aspect that will freak out your players a bit.
Make that villain of a level of competence that will seriously challenge the players, but that the players will probably going to be able to beat in the end after a few serious setbacks.
Voilà, you have your villain.
Lex Luthor gave the best description of a great villain in the movei Superman Returns. He said "Billions [will die]! Once again the media fails to see the bigger picture!"
Don't make your villains insignificant. Make them so that the actors will squirm at the first mention of his name!
The standard example is the necromancer who is evil because he raises the dead, although the player characters have killed countless more people (for reasons of racism and whatnot) than the supposed bad guy. Those bad guys are all you need in a strategic roleplaying game that is half miniature battle and half roleplaying session.
To truly impress on the theatrical level, you need someone ignominous, or someone whose methods and cleverness will awe the players/actors. In general, do not count on fiction for providing such villains; read real history, or heavy social criticism through fiction. Bad people are far worse in reality than in fiction.
In a political game, a real bad guy could be Stalin-like. The man is responsible for the deaths of more people than you will ever get to meet. You just need to read Animal Farm by George Orwell to portray a similar villain convincingly. Catherine de Médicis is a great example of a noblewoman who is ready to sacrifice most everything to remain on the throne (or to keep her sons there). A massacre of thousands was one of those things. The legend of Elizabeth Bathory makes for a great evil also (torture and killings followed by blood baths), or you could make a big bad evil guy who makes those crimes and frames than apparent serial killer.
In a supernatural setting, where the threat is supernatural by nature, the process to create a dangerous villain is a less difficult, and requires less reading. Once you know which player/actor characters you want to aim at, simply figure out the 4 following elements, at least 2 of which will come directly from the villain's supernatural template:
1- One thing that is the strength of the target characters
2- One thing that the target characters hold dear
3- One thing that the players or actors themselves hold dear
4- Something that sort of freaks out the players or actors themselves (without ever going into traumas)
Now, create a villain that should have the upper hand in the target characters' strength, who will turn against something that the characters hold dear, but also what the palyers hold dear, and have some aspect that will freak out your players a bit.
Make that villain of a level of competence that will seriously challenge the players, but that the players will probably going to be able to beat in the end after a few serious setbacks.
Voilà, you have your villain.
Lex Luthor gave the best description of a great villain in the movei Superman Returns. He said "Billions [will die]! Once again the media fails to see the bigger picture!"
Don't make your villains insignificant. Make them so that the actors will squirm at the first mention of his name!
Friday, 17 June 2011
Structure in writing LARPS and Interactive Theatre
One of the major faults of most, if not all, LARP organizers I have ever met is the lack of technique in the writing. I am guilty of this as well. I think it can be remedied with limited effort, if the proper resources are produced and distributed. The reasons for this is that we are not professionals, for the most part, and we have very few professionals to show us the way in the industry.
Technique comes in a variety of flavours. Character creation, meta-arc design, background designs, scene writing, prop creation, prop use...
Before I continue, let me make one point clear: technique feels formulaic, and many of you will hate it at first. Don't avoid it for that reason. Once you've mastered it enough, you can grow out of technique when necessary. I know the example is overused, but Picasso mastered realism and basic techniques long before his masterworks in Cubism were realized.
In this post, I will address technique in scene preparation.
Inner and outer turning points
The authoring of any scene must begin with its outer or inner turning points. The outer turning point is the major change that the scene throws on the character. It must either propel the characters further in their goal, or move them back a step, and it must be significant for the scene to be meaningful.
Examples: If the play is a street war against a megacorporation in a dystopia, finding out that the director's wife has been cheating on him in secret, or that the Head of Security has embezzled money from his boss and created a separate security force working only for him, would be outer turning points moving the characters forward. Receiving a phonecall from a character's wife in tears because the megacorporation has announced that they will cut the funding to redirect the money on "defense against terrorism" sets them back.
The inner turning point is the effect that the outer turning point will have in the characters' heads (and the mind of their actor/players). This is mostly out of your control, but usually pretty easy to foresee. Thus, it is your job to try and predict how the scene will affect your players, and to predict their possible reactions as a result.
Examples: If the director's wife mentioned above has been cheating on him, she can be blackmailed. This is a unique opportunity to get access to high-level information, and can be the ray of hope the characters have been praying for since the beginning of the chronicle. When the character gets a call from his wife, he realizes that it is a push from MegaCorps for him to stop his activities, and a reminder that they can get to his wife, too, and not just to him. A panicked wife will make for a panicked character, and that is inner conflict you want to create.
Introduction and Conclusion
Once you have defined the scene's outer and inner turning points, it is time to set up the introduction of the scene, and the most probable conclusions on paper.
The introduction of a scene is very important. In many scenes, it is ideal to be a little melodramatic about scene introductions, to show the participants that something is happening. The introduction for some scenes is very obvious, like for the call from the panicked wife above. Some others are much more difficult to pin down.
Making the players stumble on the scene works in a number of occasions, as it can throw them completely off-guard. Say your characters are raiding a hotel for some reason and one of them is performing camera surveillance downstairs or in a truck. Gunshots begin, and most people in this dystopia have the well-established reflex to lock their doors and stay inside their room. One woman, however, runs out with only a bedsheet around her body and runs away from a room just one floor above the shooting, running for the stairs.
The surveillance man looks at the woman for a moment, and suddenly realize that this is MegaCorps' director's wife running mostly naked through the hotel. She is definitely not supposed to be there. She escapes using a helicopter. One way or another, the characters will go find out who rented the room, and find her illegitimate lover's name. He is middle management of MegaCorps' Human Nutrience Division.
See how dramatic that was, compared to the age-old call from a contact who gives a player this information in exchange for a "future service"? The introduction sends the actors/players a shockwave, and the scene just got very juicy.
Another note about the introduction is that the characters must have a good reason to be there and get into the scene. They must have a goal, and not follow through simply because the actors portraying them realize that the play's organizer obviously wants them there.
Once you've written your introduction, and planned the most probable outcomes of the scene, you are ready to write the whole thing.
In conclusion
Remember, when you write, that everything in the scene has only 2 purposes: your inner and outer turning points. Everything in the scene must push those two turning points forward, from the introduction to the conclusions. This includes dialogues, props, non-player character actions, music...
Great scenes that deviate from this technique exist, obviously, but most often, the deviations from the technique that will enhance a scene will be visible on a case-by-case basis, when you will have mastered the technique enough. Using a technique does not tie you to it, and your brain's higher functions are developpped enough to enhance a scene beyond this when you have to.
Technique comes in a variety of flavours. Character creation, meta-arc design, background designs, scene writing, prop creation, prop use...
Before I continue, let me make one point clear: technique feels formulaic, and many of you will hate it at first. Don't avoid it for that reason. Once you've mastered it enough, you can grow out of technique when necessary. I know the example is overused, but Picasso mastered realism and basic techniques long before his masterworks in Cubism were realized.
In this post, I will address technique in scene preparation.
Inner and outer turning points
The authoring of any scene must begin with its outer or inner turning points. The outer turning point is the major change that the scene throws on the character. It must either propel the characters further in their goal, or move them back a step, and it must be significant for the scene to be meaningful.
Examples: If the play is a street war against a megacorporation in a dystopia, finding out that the director's wife has been cheating on him in secret, or that the Head of Security has embezzled money from his boss and created a separate security force working only for him, would be outer turning points moving the characters forward. Receiving a phonecall from a character's wife in tears because the megacorporation has announced that they will cut the funding to redirect the money on "defense against terrorism" sets them back.
The inner turning point is the effect that the outer turning point will have in the characters' heads (and the mind of their actor/players). This is mostly out of your control, but usually pretty easy to foresee. Thus, it is your job to try and predict how the scene will affect your players, and to predict their possible reactions as a result.
Examples: If the director's wife mentioned above has been cheating on him, she can be blackmailed. This is a unique opportunity to get access to high-level information, and can be the ray of hope the characters have been praying for since the beginning of the chronicle. When the character gets a call from his wife, he realizes that it is a push from MegaCorps for him to stop his activities, and a reminder that they can get to his wife, too, and not just to him. A panicked wife will make for a panicked character, and that is inner conflict you want to create.
Introduction and Conclusion
Once you have defined the scene's outer and inner turning points, it is time to set up the introduction of the scene, and the most probable conclusions on paper.
The introduction of a scene is very important. In many scenes, it is ideal to be a little melodramatic about scene introductions, to show the participants that something is happening. The introduction for some scenes is very obvious, like for the call from the panicked wife above. Some others are much more difficult to pin down.
Making the players stumble on the scene works in a number of occasions, as it can throw them completely off-guard. Say your characters are raiding a hotel for some reason and one of them is performing camera surveillance downstairs or in a truck. Gunshots begin, and most people in this dystopia have the well-established reflex to lock their doors and stay inside their room. One woman, however, runs out with only a bedsheet around her body and runs away from a room just one floor above the shooting, running for the stairs.
The surveillance man looks at the woman for a moment, and suddenly realize that this is MegaCorps' director's wife running mostly naked through the hotel. She is definitely not supposed to be there. She escapes using a helicopter. One way or another, the characters will go find out who rented the room, and find her illegitimate lover's name. He is middle management of MegaCorps' Human Nutrience Division.
See how dramatic that was, compared to the age-old call from a contact who gives a player this information in exchange for a "future service"? The introduction sends the actors/players a shockwave, and the scene just got very juicy.
Another note about the introduction is that the characters must have a good reason to be there and get into the scene. They must have a goal, and not follow through simply because the actors portraying them realize that the play's organizer obviously wants them there.
Once you've written your introduction, and planned the most probable outcomes of the scene, you are ready to write the whole thing.
In conclusion
Remember, when you write, that everything in the scene has only 2 purposes: your inner and outer turning points. Everything in the scene must push those two turning points forward, from the introduction to the conclusions. This includes dialogues, props, non-player character actions, music...
Great scenes that deviate from this technique exist, obviously, but most often, the deviations from the technique that will enhance a scene will be visible on a case-by-case basis, when you will have mastered the technique enough. Using a technique does not tie you to it, and your brain's higher functions are developpped enough to enhance a scene beyond this when you have to.
Monday, 6 June 2011
Literature and Gaming
I'm finally finished setting into my new apartment. Back with the posts!
I have taken an interest in writing prose (short stories and maybe a novel) in the past few months, and for the first time in my life, my interest is not waning. One thing I figured was that, since I was competent in creating very involved and interesting game worlds, I ought to be ready to write literature with limited adaptation, right?
I've rarely been that wrong in my life.
For players to really be involved in either Interactive Theatre or Roleplaying Games, the setting is the basis for everything you will design, since the oh-so-interesting characters that your actors/players care about will be created by your players themselves, for the most part. If you create a sufficiently entertaining playground, you can give your actors/players thrills for months and years.
In literature, your audience won't create a character tailor-suited to their own interest. The author's job, then, is to create a single character that a large audience will feel for, and make his viewpoint the viewpoint that will be the most enjoyable for the widest of audiences. Your reader is mostly trapped within your choices.
I had read 18 pages of "The Fire in Fiction" before I threw out 80% of the material I had written beforehand to begin anew. I know now how long and hard the road will be to dedicated authorship.
Still, I decided to write, and am happy I did. My girlfriend gives me full support, which I know to be crucial in my situation.
I have taken an interest in writing prose (short stories and maybe a novel) in the past few months, and for the first time in my life, my interest is not waning. One thing I figured was that, since I was competent in creating very involved and interesting game worlds, I ought to be ready to write literature with limited adaptation, right?
I've rarely been that wrong in my life.
For players to really be involved in either Interactive Theatre or Roleplaying Games, the setting is the basis for everything you will design, since the oh-so-interesting characters that your actors/players care about will be created by your players themselves, for the most part. If you create a sufficiently entertaining playground, you can give your actors/players thrills for months and years.
In literature, your audience won't create a character tailor-suited to their own interest. The author's job, then, is to create a single character that a large audience will feel for, and make his viewpoint the viewpoint that will be the most enjoyable for the widest of audiences. Your reader is mostly trapped within your choices.
I had read 18 pages of "The Fire in Fiction" before I threw out 80% of the material I had written beforehand to begin anew. I know now how long and hard the road will be to dedicated authorship.
Still, I decided to write, and am happy I did. My girlfriend gives me full support, which I know to be crucial in my situation.
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