Starting a brand new story is proving more difficult than I thought.
I’ve tried to start Captain Pendragon and the Planet of Doom twice, now, and I’m struggling, likely because there’s a part of me that knows this sort of thing has been done before. I’m trying to shake off the negativity and nay-saying, and focus on getting the thing started with a nice, sharp hook and adequate characterization rather than something resembling an info dump. I may try putting an old-fashioned quick prelude on the first page, like a newsreel or the opening of Star Wars, to get the reader in the mood and cut to the chase almost immediately.
I’ll take a stab at that over the weekend. Today, I’ll be carving out some time to put some finishing touches on Cold Iron. I want to make sure the narrative’s coherent. The characters feel solid, and I think there’s a good flow to it, but the progression of events should be at least somewhat logical. I just need to double-check that.
Not much else to report. Some unfortunate news of the morning leaves me somewhat enervated and a little irked.
If you want a surefire way to kill your story and slay any interest a potential reader will have in it, let the plot drive.
Looking back on some of the books I’ve read in my formative years, a host of franchised novels many of which I’m likely to donate to a library when I move, I realize that only a few are truly driven by character growth and conflict. A good story based around characters, like Brave (here reviewed brilliantly by Julie Summerell), many of the later Dresden novels, or Chuck Wendig’s Bad Blood (the sequel to Double Dead, short version: almost as good as the full-length novel), doesn’t need all that much of a plot. If a character is going through a change, and that change is going to be opposed for some reason, you have plenty of fuel for conflict, drama, interaction – story. The narrative will breathe without assistance. The tale will live.
If, on the other hand, your story is the product of some non-character formula or relies on contrivance, the result will not be as favorable. I’ve seen it happen in lots of stories. Usually, you can see it coming. When technobabble or new powers as the plot demands or deus ex machina moments begin to crop up more and more, it’s sign that the story has a terminal illness. The execution of the plot means the execution of the story, hooded-headsman style, as potential interest and characters put their necks on the block to feed the axe of convenience.
The story may click along without fault or pause, merrily going from one plot point to the next as if nothing’s wrong, but if there’s no characterization beyond the very basics, if the conflict isn’t rooted in our characters and what makes them who they are, the story has no life of its own. A lot of video games have this problem. Lacking character depth, they move the player from one set piece to the next with the certainty of a commuter rail line. A game like Portal can get away with this because of good writing, characterization, and unique gameplay, but something like Space Marine has to work extra hard to overcome this problem.
I guess what I’m saying is this: if you want to tell a story, your characters are your most important allies. Even if you hate some them, even if you know some are going to die horribly, spend time with them and make sure you know them before you approach your plot. Get the balance wrong, or make the characters little more than cogs in the plot’s machine, and the metaphorical headsman will be waiting.
It’s come to my attention that Felicia Day is seriously disliked by some people. Huh.
Personally, I like a lot of the things Ms. Day does behind the scenes in the world of geekdom. Her promotion & contributions to the continuation of the YouTube channel Geek & Sundry mean a lot to people who want to see how a grass-roots production can and should work. I wasn’t the biggest fan of her brief dalliance with EA/BioWare, but part of that was probably jealousy in that I will probably never get a major franchise to promote my self-insert fan-fiction character the way hers was. But I digress. Felicia’s good people, in my book.
I know mine is not the only opinion out there concerning her, though, and to broadcast it as such would be pretty dumb. Just ask Ryan Perez.
Actually, don’t. He’ll probably just talk about how she’s “just a glorified booth babe” between alternating sips of Pabst and Dr. Pepper Ten.
Chuck’s already discussed why this douchebag got the treatment he deserved for what he did, so I won’t go into that. However, it’s interesting to examine the situation and try and figure out why he went off on this little anti-Day tangent of his. I do not have access to the man and so cannot peel back the layers of his skull for the answers, or just to see if he’s got anything rattling around in there at all. Thankfully, I don’t have to, because I’m pretty sure what we have here is a classic case of myopia, and I don’t mean physical nearsightedness.
Myopia is derived from two Greek words: myein, which means “to shut”, and ops (or opos), the word for “eye.” When it comes to writing or stating opinions, if you shut your eyes to all points of view but your own, you are suffering from myopia. Symptoms include spewing hysterical and baseless rhetoric, acting offended whenever someone questions your position or offers another point of view, total confidence in whatever it is you say or do even if it can be shown to be objectively wrong or offensive, and providing endless entertainment for people outside your situation.
Everybody is guilty of it now and again, but significant repeat offenders include our Mr. Perez, many members of America’s Republican party, most of the staff of Fox News, quite a few of my fellow gamers, and talk show host and full time pompous windbag Rush Limbaugh.
Myopia is especially dangerous for writers, be they journalists or fabulists or wearing multiple hats. Your audience is your bread and butter, and while it’s impossible to please every single person your work may reach, you can minimize how many people want to take a blunt object to your gonads if you avoid limiting yourself to a single point of view. I’m not talking about rules of perspective, though; it’s perfectly fine to keep an entire story in third person omniscient if that’s what it takes to tell the tale. What I mean is, when it comes to the old writer’s chestnut of “write what you know,” it’ll behoove you to know more than one thing.
Limiting yourself to one viewpoint is dangerous and ignorant. You are under no obligation to change your mind or alter your opinion based on the other points of view you might encounter, but encountering them at all, acknowledging their existence, and trying to understand where they come from before you state your own opinion will go a long way in making sure you don’t come off as a narrow-minded prick. Making loud noises and referencing a single particular text (especially if it’s held sacred by some) may win you some fans, but it will alienate many others, and those who do stick around are likely to be just as ignorant, superficial, and narrow-minded as the position you’ve adopted, and they’re likely to be sycophants as well. How delightful!
By all means, write about what you know and believe, and if you have the intestinal fortitude to stick to your guns when someone calls you to the mat over it, do so. But don’t go about it belligerently. Don’t resort to belittling and ball-kicking just to ‘win’ a discussion. Engage the other parties. Try to find out where they’re coming from. And if you still disagree with them after you do it, say so. Just do it with the understanding that there are 6.4 billion of us trying to get along on one little sphere in the vastness of space, and it’ll go a lot more smoothly if most of those billions, like you and me, tried really hard to not be a dick.
So, the wait is over. I heard back from the fine folks at Angry Robot about my submission for their Open Door. The response is that Cities of Light just isn’t ready for prime time yet.
Upon reflection, I can see why. There’s just something that’s too standard about it. Even changing the names and natures of the races that emerge in the middle of the narrative, it still boils down to a hero’s journey through a fantasy land with elves and dwarves in it. I still think the themes of xenophobia, propaganda, and the potential of the individual to overcome both can be explored quite well in this genre, but a shift in focus and setting may be required. I do have some ideas for a rewrite that could make it more interesting, less generic, and worth the time to read, but I don’t want to keep circling back to the same idea all the time.
So Cities of Light goes on the very back burner. The back back burner if you will. On the back burner ahead of it is Captain Pendragon and the Planet of Doom. I have most of my characters nailed down and the outline has taken shape. I plan on beginning to write this thing within a week, because I still think it’s been a while since a new raygun gothic story and setting have come along to offset all the gritty realism that has seeped into sci-fi. Don’t misunderstand, I love the aesthetic of Blade Runner and Firefly and the new Battlestar Galactica, but I love the look, feel, and energy of Flash Gordon and John Carter just as much. And I think it’s entirely possible to tackle big ideas and themes while having whiz-bang zapping fun.
With those back burners filled, you may be wondering, what’s on the front burner? That would be Cold Iron. I’ve retained the services of a graphic designer for the cover, and feedback on the test read continues to be positive. In the meantime, I want to look into what Amazon, B&N, and other vendors do to their offerings in terms of DRM and other shenanigans. I don’t want to saddle anybody interested in my work with stuff they don’t want. As a consumer, my experience with Amazon has been overwhelmingly positive so far, but what I don’t know could be bad for potential readers.
Endings to stories are every bit as important as their beginnings. I’ve heard, on at least one occasion, someone tell me to write the ending of a story first. I rarely do that, but I can often picture the ending in my head, or at least the climax. It should be an emotionally satisfying experience, even if it isn’t a happy one. The ending of The Dark Knight, for example, is far from happy – many important characters are dead, Batman’s on the run from the law, and the Joker did, in fact, get away, or at least lived. But it’s emotionally satisfying. Our hero did, in fact, triumph, even if it was a Pyrrhic victory, and will keep fighting the best way he knows how. Not happy, but one can set their teeth and nod in agreement with it.
I bring this up because I recently went through two ending experiences in video games. I finished Silent Hill 2 for the first time, and I downloaded the Extended Edition DLC for Mass Effect 3. Both games have multiple endings, determined by player choice, and the experience of reaching those endings says a lot about storytelling in general, and its connection to gameplay in particular.
For the record, I now understand why people love Silent Hill 2 so much. The game is steeped in a tense, foreboding atmosphere that draws you into its dark, bleak world and refuses to let go of you. The sound design is excellent and the visuals sufficiently creepifying, even if the capacities of the PlayStation 2 were somewhat limited. The HD Collection doesn’t do a whole lot with the graphics, from what I understand, but the important thing is that James Sunderland is still wonderfully neurotic, incredibly determined, and deeply sympathetic, quickly becoming one of my favorite video game protagonists. I felt invested in seeing his journey through to the end.
Silent Hill 2, like many games, has multiple endings, and the three available to the player at the conclusion of the first run all make sense, based on the choices the player makes. The game examines how you behave, how you treat the NPCs around you, and what you do with the things you find. It makes sense of the seemingly random things you may do as a player, and produces the ending you think you deserve. It’s an impressive feat for a game from the previous generation, and a great example of an ending to a story being emotionally satisfying while not necessarily being happy.
As for Mass Effect, well… I went off on a bit of a rant on the endings of the final game of the trilogy before. I won’t go into detail as to how the new endings made me feel, emotionally, especially since Susan Arendt has already done just that. Swap a couple names in the very last sequence and you have my feelings on it. In light of Silent Hill 2, though, I can tell you why the “Extended” endings work where the originals don’t.
First of all, while some of the dialog still feels a bit stretched, better explanations of the Reapers, the Crucible, and our choices are given. None of it feels too stilted, and Shepard, bless his or her heart, often asks questions in the very same way we do. There’s also the fact that we are given the option to straight-up refuse to be involved in the final decision. If you think the Starchild is a pile of bullshit, you can say so. Granted, it comes off a bit as Shepard being a petulant child, but that’s totally not a reflection on the attitude of entitled gamers, right?
On closer examination and with these better explanations, it becomes more clear to me that the endings of Mass Effect 3 are, in fact, the culmination of our choices rather than the death of them. It was difficult to realize this when the explanation was so truncated previously; now, as there is back-and-forth, there’s more time to think, to reflect, and to choose. As the Starkid explained synthesis and the evolution of life, conveniently leaving out how magically rewriting DNA was supposed to work, it occurred to me that this was what Shepard had been striving for all along. In my play-through, time and again, Shepard chose the way of peace: sparing the Rachni queen, convincing Garrus not to shoot Sidonis, trying to warn the Batarians in Arrival, getting the Geth and Quarians to lay down arms… The final sequence is now a conversation, rather than a glorified menu of choices, in which Shepard reflects on all that’s come before, and when the battered soldier starts to move, it’s for good reason rather than just to end things.
In addition to making the final choices feel like they matter, the Extended Edition also makes the endings more personal, more accessible. To quote Susan, “Saving the universe is great and all, but it’s too huge a concept to really feel particularly connected to.” My favorite moments in Mass Effect 3 were deeply personal ones, from the fates of Mordin and Thane to the back-and-forth between Shepard and Tali on Rannoch. Making the endings grand and sweeping but ambiguous and impersonal was a misstep, one which has now been corrected. From the look on Kaiden’s face when Shepard tells him “I want to be sure someone survives this,” to that last moment at the memorial wall, we feel more invested in what’s happened. We see characters we’ve come to care about dealing with the monumental decision we’ve made. And, perhaps most importantly, we get the chance to say good-bye.
A similar moment comes in Silent Hill 2, as we hear Mary read her letter to James. Be it uplifting or tragic, the end result is an understanding of the choices made and an opportunity to bid the characters farewell. As in Mass Effect, the conclusion should and does feel personal. I hesitate to use the word “logical” when we’re talking about a psychological survival horror piece and a work of space opera that works on what boils down to magic, but the choices made and the endings that result from those choices do have make logical sense, and that goes a long way in giving them weight and making them complete.
A writer should never underestimate an audience. Allowing an audience to speculate on the unknown and draw their own conclusions is all well and good. It’s one thing to leave an ending open to interpretation; it’s quite another to simply cut things short. We can imagine all sorts of endings and fill in blanks any way we like, and while there’s great freedom in that, too many blanks can give the impression that the creators simply didn’t care enough, or didn’t know themselves. Seeing how the creators end things can be interpreted as spoon-feeding information to the audience, but it also allows for permutations we may not have anticipated. While you should never underestimate your audience, you should also never be afraid to definitively end your story where it should logically end. You don’t necessarily have to tie up all your loose ends in neat little bows (I’m looking at you, Legend of Korra) and you don’t have to chop up the ending into quick cuts to make a statement of some kind (*cough* 2001 *cough*). Let the characters make their choices. Let the audience understand those choices. Make that connection between the two, and the ending of your story will be far more satisfying.
You may now deposit your hate mail telling me how horrible I am for daring to compare Mass Effect 3 to Silent Hill 2.
