Author Archives: fictorians

Sam Sykes and Japanese Role Playing Games

Final Fantasy 7A guest post by Sam Sykes

You know, for the longest time I was uber sensitive about being accused of writing D&D fiction. I mean, yes, I write about adventurers going into dark places, stabbing monsters and swiping loot, but god damn it I was serious about it god damn it (yes, I was so incensed, I used the same curse twice).

As I get on in years, I’m much more all right with the idea of that. It’s not true (seriously, I was so unpopular I couldn’t even get anyone to play D&D with me), but that’s fine if people reminisce through me. And it’s definitely no secret I take a lot of inspiration from video games. JRPGs were one of my very most fundamental understandings of a story. I grew out of it, as you can tell by the distinct lack of doe-eyed, spiky-haired men with colossal swords fighting sweaty women with oni masks for breasts for the affections of a magical maid who can turn into a cat, but I think it’s fair to say that a lot of the younger writers out there probably got one of their earlier understandings of how stories work from video games.

I think the first time I realized games could have stories was when I played FF7 for the first time. I literally had no idea what it was about except that there was a dude with a huge sword and let’s not dwell on what that might mean. But I scrimped and saved everything I had so I could buy a Playstation to play it on. Then I scrimped and saved a little more to buy it. Then I played it.

And holy shit.

Within the first few minutes, my mind was blown. What was this guy doing here? Fuck, we’re rebels? Awesome! Yeah, let’s fight some robots! Now guys with swords! Bringin’ down the man! We’re freedom fighters, busting a corrupt corporation that’s killing a planet. I’m wearing a purple turtleneck sweater, but that’s okay! I’ve got backstory! And angst! And swords ‘n shit! Fuck yeah! FUCK YES!

And so on.

I suppose you could cry that the world has failed us when our youth learn storytelling from video games, rather than books. And in truth, video games can only take you so far. But they can teach you how to think visually, how to paint things in prose, how to establish something vividly in the reader’s mind. And they can teach you how to think mechanically, how to display on the page how movement works, how to keep an idea of where everyone is and make it clear to the reader. And, most importantly, they can teach you to understand when someone’s bored and how to prevent it.

The trickier stuff (character depth, plot, motivation, etc.) comes from mostly reading books, but you absorb it anywhere. Creatives of all ages, but especially kids, are gluttons for creative input. And like any diet, diversity is healthy.

I guess it’s kind of gauche to suggest that one of your influences might have been Squaresoft (it wasn’t Square-Enix in my day!) instead of, say, Tolkien or another dead guy, but I’d be earnestly surprised if there weren’t more authors who had some of their earliest storytelling wonders come from video games.

A surefire way to tell? Ask them if they were interested in the love triangle between Cloud, Tifa and Aerith (Aeris, if you’re nasty). If they say no, they are definitely an FF7 fan because they are fucking lying.

author-pic[1]Guest Writer Bio: Sam Sykes currently lives in the United States with his two hounds and, at any given time, is probably yelling at something inanimate. Tome of the Undergates is his first book, but far from his last. At 25, Sam Sykes is in an excellent position to provide entertainment while other authors are dying from various infections and stress-related illnesses. Sam Sykes looks forward to being one of the sole providers of fantasy entertainment, assuming no other authors are actually discovered in the next forty years. You can find out more from his website.

Myke Cole – The Gaming Influence

A guest post by Myke Cole

I’ve written a lot about the influence of gaming in my writing. I don’t have anything to say that you couldn’t guess (and that hasn’t already been said a hundred times at least): that gaming taught me to write a story on the fly with my audience trying to sabotage it. That it helped me to freely imagine, that it helped me understand a story inside the confines of a set of rules.

Not to mention connecting me to amazing people and equally amazing ideas, all of which are critical to the building the bedrock where a storyteller sets their roots.

But gaming had an unusually direct effect on my writing more recently. Back in February of this year, there was a minor blowup on the Internets when Games Workshop, the proprietors of the insanely popular Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes claimed copyright over the term “Space Marine.” When the smoke cleared from that particular dustup, they were determined to be no richer for their efforts, serious in their attempts and greatly diminished in the eyes of the fan community.

Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised.

About a year earlier, I had finally developed contacts inside Black Library, the fiction wing of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and was in the middle of what turned out to be a year long process of hammering out ideas to start writing fiction for the franchise.

I was over the moon. I LOVE the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It is one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed speculative fiction concepts I’ve ever come across, and richly deserves the success it has earned. I loved it so much that I wrote an essay about why I felt it was an important addition to the pantheon (you can read it here – Myke Cole on Warhammer 40K and Apocalypse Literature).

We were talking about giving me my own Space Marine chapter, with a supporting Imperial Guard unit, that hadn’t been written about before. I could develop them as my own, crafting their stories and heroes, fixing them firmly in the universe I loved so much. This is why I was willing to put my nose to the grindstone, working through idea after idea and draft after draft to get to something, anything, that would be acceptable to the editors.

And, after roughly a year, I finally got one across the plate. The editor I was working with made an offer on a short piece of fiction for their inventory, something to maybe be put in as supporting text for a forthcoming manual. It was just a finger in the crack of the closet door, but it was a start. I eagerly awaited the contract.

And then it came.

It was . . . well, it was a lot like the Space Marine thing. The demands were . . . not what my agent and I considered reasonable.

I wrote my editor with a long list of requested changes, begging him to budge on this. I loved the Warhammer 40,000 universe, was desperate to work in it, had already put in many, many hours toward that end.

The answer came back as expected. The contract was the contract. Sign it or walk.

So, I walked.

I spent a lot a downtime after that, bummed to have come so close to achieving a dream, only to miss it on a technicality. That feeling was quickly replaced by frustration over all the time I’d wasted. I had pages and pages of notes of what I thought were really good story ideas, all written to the Warhammer 40,000 standard. All useless now.

I bitched and moaned to my friend and fellow author Peter V. Brett about it and he shrugged. “They’re good stories, aren’t they? And they’re yours. Strip out the IP and look at the bones. Might be something you can use.”

Seems simple, eh? Intuitive? I was in such a bad spot over the experience that I hadn’t thought of it.

So, I sat down and took a hard look at my work. I took the story carcasses and boiled them until anything remotely resembling the Warhammer 40,000 universe came off the bones, until I was left with only the shining white armature of plot and character.

And I was right. Good stories.

Stories I am even now reshaping into work I can sell.

So, gaming influence my writing? Damn straight it does. Thematically, indirectly, and even specifically. There may be disappointments in my life, but the discipline has never let me down, so long as I kept faith with it.

Excited to see where it takes me next.

Guest Writer Bio: As a secu­rity con­tractor, gov­ern­ment civilian and mil­i­tary officer, Myke Cole’s career has run the gamut from Coun­tert­er­rorism to Cyber War­fare to Fed­eral Law Enforce­ment. He’s done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deep­water Horizon oil spill. All that con­flict can wear a guy out. Thank good­ness for fan­tasy novels, comic books, late night games of Dun­geons and Dragons and lots of angst fueled writing. Myke is the author of the Shadow Ops Series: Shadow Ops #1: Control Point, Shadow Ops #2: Fortress Fron­tier, and Shadow Ops #3: Breach Zone. (Author gets credit for all referral links.)

You can find Myke online at www.mykecole.com, or on Facebook, or Twitter.

Killing Your Muse with No Saving Throws Left

A guest post by David Boop

I have a writer friend, James, who in his early days used RPG character sheets to list out all the traits of his protagonist, antagonist, and major supporting characters. That way, when he went to write his novel, he’d have a resource to look back on for continuity’s sake. This, in theory is a sound idea. I’ve known other authors who’ve used similar mapping techniques for their characters, settings, equipment, and so forth. You’d think an ADD+ positive author like myself would prescribe to such a theory. After all, I have to look up the names of my characters in my own stories.

Repeat. My own stories.

Kind of sad, eh? Once I’m done with a piece, I move on. Sort of like gaming scenarios.

In my time as a GameMaster, I rarely ran the same mission more than once. Why bother? It won’t come out the same and that first time can be magic. The players, in their desire to outthink me as GM, rise to the challenge and present me with ideas they think I won’t predict. Sometimes they have, but most times they are puppets dancing to my invisible strings. The few times I have been ill-prepared for their creativity are some of the best games I’ve run. It’s at those points where the story becomes cooperative.

Characters in novels can be that way, too. Once, I had a supporting character (a squirrel, if you must know) jump up off the page and tell me he needed to die. Mind you, I loved this red-haired, bossy curmudgeon and had the intention of letting him die. He insisted, and so I wrote the death scene just to please him. The little rodent bastard was right. He needed to die. The story was so much better for it. Now, before you call the white coats to take me away, I’m not crazy. I’m an author. I’m paid to do what the voices in my head tell me to do. If you’re not, if you’re trapping your creativity in charts, character sheets, and drawings of your mecha, you may be locking your muse behind a wooden door no lockpicking skill is going to help, no matter how many skill points you’ve put into it.

Maybe because I’m ultimately a pantser (i.e. seat-of-my-pants writer), I prefer to see where the story takes me. That means occasionally, after I get an idea in the third act, I’ll have to go back and rewrite acts one and two to make the cool, new idea fit. And yes, that can take extra time, throw off work schedules, cancel events, and generally cause a dip in the Dow Jones for the day, but it’s fine. Writing is a collaborative process between my mind, body, and soul. The best stories come when one tries to outthink the other, pushing me forward toward the shared goal of an exceptional piece of fiction (if only in my own humble opinion.) I’ve been preparing for this challenge my whole life, thanks to ornery players who refuse to see the clues I so carefully lay out for them and choose to kill the kindly king trying to help them instead of just listening to him. Arg! Six hours of prep time wasted! Same with writing. I’ve changed the killer, the victim, and the motive of a crime from what I started with in some stories. And again, it’s costly, but I’ve always been happier with the results in the end.

That being said, I have outlined some of my novels by request. I’m glad I did, as they were complicated, multilayered plots, and outlining helped me in the writing process, even if I veered away from the outline once the writing started. It’s not my natural way to write, but I see the purpose of it, and why some choose to do it. Whether you do or don’t, don’t trap yourself like my aforementioned party did, when trying to flee the castle after killing the king. It usually requires some sort of sacrifice to the writing Gods (or GM in their case; and I just love Twizzlers) to get yourself out. Allow yourself backdoors to escape through, be open to changes in your character’s personalities based on what you’ve put them through, and most importantly, be ready to kill those most clever of ideas you thought were immortal when you first conceived your story.

As I end this, I’ll paraphrase words given by Nero Wolfe to his right-hand man Archie Goodwin (as written by the late, great Rex Stout): “You are to [write] in the light of experience as guided by intelligence.”

In other words, trust your instincts and free your muse.

Guest Writer Bio:
David BoopDavid Boop is a Denver-based single dad, returning college student, step worker and author. He has one novel and over thirty short stories across several genres. His media tie-in work includes Green Hornet and Honey West. David enjoys anime, the Blues and Mayan History.

Find out more at his webpage or at his facbook fan page.

His first novel on Amazon: She Murdered Me with Science

Fable

Fable-01[1]A guest post by Jace Sanders.

I rummaged through the selection of video games at a local store, looking for the perfect escape. The week was long and my mind screamed for relaxation. I had recently reread the Lord of the Rings series and decided to diversify my entertainment fixes by replacing a book with a controller.

I’d struck out several times before. Some games had incredible graphics, but little to no plot, while others had a decent story, but the controller commands were too complicated. A young man suggested I try Fable, and my video gaming days have consequently not been the same since.

Fable begins on a beautiful day in the small village of Oakvale in the realm of Albion. The gameplay is infused with ambiance, making the experience that much more enjoyable. The main character is a young man who spends his first day performing tasks to earn money for his sister’s birthday present.

I was immediately drawn in as a participating creator of the story, as I was able to choose my own adventure in the various scenarios I came across. Without even realizing it, I was actually being taught the dynamics of the game.

Tragedy then strikes and the young man is whisked away onto an adventure of revenge and discovery as he trains to become a famous and powerful hero.

Rather than simply telling a story, Fable empowers me to help in its development. Many games have interfaces where you can design the character’s looks, but Fable was one of the first to tie a character’s features to choices made throughout the game.

The main character, known as Hero (or by other titles you can earn through reputation, like Chicken Chaser), grows from a young boy to an old man. Depending on small choices made throughout the game, the character’s appearance develops. If Hero eats pies and red meat, he will grow fat. If he travels at night rather than sleep, his skin will turn pale. His body scars if he fights without proper protection, though townsfolk wager money for the hero to increase the difficulty of a task by doing it in his underwear or without weapons.

Hero becomes a stronger swordfighter, or archer or mage, as he practices that particular skill. He can level up in an array of categories like strength, speed, and stealth.

Hero can also make moral choices. He can choose to protect someone, or perhaps steal from them. There’s no restriction in killing the innocent and then purchasing their homes and shops at the estate sale. But as the game suggests, “Every choice a consequence.”

My first time playing Fable, I naturally wanted to be a good person, and I made proper choices to ensure that I was seen as a standup hero, complete with a halo and butterflies that followed me wherever I traveled. But my second time through, the temptation proved too great to deny myself the evils of Albion. I gave into greed and gluttony, becoming a revered obese landowner with demonic red eyes and devilish horns sprouting from my head. Townsfolk fled into their homes and secured the doors as I passed by. Children screamed as I approached and commented on my horrific deeds.

The first time I played, I strived to focus on the main objective of avenging my family. Others in Albion asked me to assist them in menial tasks that I mostly ignored. My second time through, I pursued all the tangent stories and sub-adventures. I was able to grow stronger and richer. Some of that money I used to court the love of my life, or loves of my life—at one point, I had a wife in every town. Once I tried to marry two women in the same town, but I think they knew each other because the first divorced me.

I’ve spent hours exploring the corners of Albion. I found a fistfight club that met in the middle of the night. I discovered buried treasure. I went fishing, kicked chickens, dressed like an assassin, grew a beard, and got a tattoo, all while trying to avenge my family.

I returned to the video game store the day Fable 2 hit the shelves. While in line, I learned that the game was only available on Xbox 360, a console I didn’t yet own. It took a little explaining to my (real) wife that I deserved an advance on my birthday present, but that night I played Fable 2 till dawn. I don’t regret it, but honestly the second Fable was a let down. The graphics are better, but the storyline is almost the same. Rather than continue on from where the first left off, the story seems to repeat itself several years later than the first.

I didn’t purchase Fable 3; instead I borrowed it from a friend. I found it was more of the same with an extra dose of boring.

What makes Fable so powerful is its compelling story, which in some ways I help write as I build the character, along with his strengths and weaknesses. While the subsequent games have similar functions as the first in development through choices, they fail to tell a good story.

Guest Writer Bio: Jace Sanders lives in Arizona with his wife and five children. In addition to writing, he enjoys music, photography, and anything outdoors. He holds a Masters in Business Administration from Utah State University and works for a biotech company.