Category Archives: The Writing Life

My love/hate relationship with roleplaying

The Writing Life 2 Comments

 

Roleplaying has been one of my favourite pastimes ever since I went to university and discovered the internet (after growing up in a small town, ignorant of Dungeons and Dragons or World of Darkness).  I was thrilled to discover busy sites dedicated to people getting together and playing pretend, much like the games I’d played at recess in elementary school, only with adult levels of complexity and characterization.  The old World of Darkness sourcebooks describe their game as cooperative storytelling, and looking back, it’s not surprising to me that I resumed story writing-something else I’d done in elementary school and faded away from in high school-around the same time I began roleplaying.

Some people say that roleplaying is a good rehearsal for writing, and to a degree that’s true; a player is creating characters, worldbuilding, practicing description and dialogue, and crafting sentences to convey ideas and emotion.

But roleplaying’s easier than writing.

It’s easier because I have other people contributing to my story, inspiring me, steering the narrative in directions I’d have never imagined on my own.  Dice rolls throw elements of randomness into the tale.  I, through my character, am an active participant in the story, and I don’t know where the game will end up taking me.  This means I don’t have to script too far in advance-if I do, the game’s almost guaranteed to veer in an entirely different direction.

It’s easier because the only people who are likely to read my roleplaying posts are the folks I’m playing with.  They don’t care if I’m tired and making typos, or using the same phrase too often, or being less than precise about semicolons versus dashes versus ellipses.

It’s easier because I don’t care how long, or how short, a story thread will be by the time we reach the end; it doesn’t need to fit into short story/novella/novel format.  It doesn’t matter if the pacing’s off.  It doesn’t matter if the plot meanders about.  It doesn’t matter if the story doesn’t meet a satisfying resolution; there’s always another game in the future.

I have a friend who used to make a fanzine; she included roleplaying logs as well as fan fiction, art, and poetry.  I never found the logs as satisfying to read as the fiction-because pacing and structure and style and resolution matter to a reader.  It’s the difference between the reader as observer of the story, and the gamer as participant.

The biggest challenge, of course, is that the time I spend roleplaying is time not spent writing something I could sell.  I’ve deliberately chosen not to seek out roleplaying groups in my new city, but I do still play on a message-board style game; in the ten or fifteen minutes before work or between wash loads, it’s easy to pop on, contribute a post to a game in progress, and pop out again.  A fair concession, if you don’t count those Saturday mornings when several of my friends are all on at the same time and the next thing I know, it’s Saturday afternoon.

I love roleplaying, and I don’t want to quit completely.  I’ve made a lot of long-term friends via online games, and when writing’s coming hard, it’s good to go somewhere that makes wordcrafting fun again.  But I also need to remind myself that roleplaying is personal entertainment, not professional writing, and budget my time accordingly.

Zombie Fun!

K.D. Alexander The Writing Life 2 Comments

The first appearance of the concept of the “zombi” was in 1916’s The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook.

In the Vault published by HP Lovecraft in 1925 has the first appearance of a character being bitten by a zombie. It was rejected by Weird Tales for being too “gruesome”.

White Zombie, starring Bella Lugosi and directed by Victor Halperin is credited as being the first zombie film. It’s based on the same voodoo cult style zombies that appeared in Seabrook’s novel.

Things to Come by H.G. Wells was made into a movie in 1936. It was the first appearance of the zombie plague, seen later in books like Jonathan Maberry’s Dead of Night and the Resident Evil movie and videogame series.

Night of the Living Dead, written/directed by George Romero is often credited as the creation of the modern zombie.

Thriller, Michael Jackson’s 1983 music video, is one of the most famous depictions of zombies. Seriously. Everyone knows Thriller.

Zombies Ate my Neighbors is the first zombie video-game I ever played.

Happy Halloween!

 

Boo!

K.D. Alexander The Writing Life 3 Comments

So, it’s Halloween. I’m actually kind of excited that I ended up with the Halloween post because it’s right up my alley. And I was looking forward to the leaves changing and the crisp chill in the air as laughter and screams fill the otherwise silent night.

But I’ve got a more important topic to talk about. Specifically, college football.

Actually no. We’ll stick with blood, guts, and gore.

I’m not going to lie, I love horror. But not the crap that’s filling our cineplexes nowadays. My favorite kind of horror doesn’t jump out and say BOO! It’s the sneaking, creeping blackness that twists your insides and makes you feel the fear.

My favorite horror movie of all time isn’t a slasher. It’s a little independent film called Session 9. Check it out, it has that redheaded guy from CSI.

The movie starts with a simple premise: A waste removal team goes into an abandoned mental asylum to clean the asbestos out of the building to render it safe for some government office or something. There’s nothing that jumps out at the characters, there’s no creepy little girl ready to eat your face. No, it’s a pure psychotic meltdown in the best kind of horror. As the team works diligently to meet their deadlines and put supper on their family’s tables, they uncover some of the patient’s files. And what happens after is the best education in true horror.

Are monsters scary? Sure. I still sleep with the covers over my head every night because I’m afraid Freddy’s coming to get me in my dreams. Don’t blame me, blame the babysitter. Who lets a 9 year old watch Nightmare on Elm Street anyway!?

What do Session 9 and Nightmare on Elm Street have in common? And what are they doing on a writing blog?

In Session 9, we have a prime example of horror, the CHARACTER.

In Nightmare on Elm Street, we have a prime example of horror, the ACTOR.

But wait, don’t actors play characters? Yeah. Sorta. Anything more would be an elementary lesson in literature. And I don’t have the patience to teach. 🙂

Freddy Krueger terrorizes children in their dreams, slitting their throats, chasing them around, throwing them in furnaces…It’s gratuitous. Do I have a problem with it? Absolutely not. I’m human. Heck, our whole race’s history is mostly based on sex and violence.

Here, the horror of the story isn’t the character of the fear, it’s the actor of the horror. If that makes sense, then you’ve been eating just as much candy as me.

The Elm Street movies rely on the slash/bang shock and awe of what sort of violence is going to befall the next victim. Movies and books like this are a dime a dozen.

In Session 9, we have the creeping characterization of pure horror as the cleaning crew learns what sort of pseudo-science went on behind closed doors. The influence the asylum has on its new occupants is characterized by the shifting tone as the actors interact and go on their own individual story arcs.

It’s a more satisfying horror that sounds boring on paper. But big on screen.

Which is easier to write? Neither. Which is more satisfying to write? Both.

The issue is everyone that reads your book has a completely different concept of what frightens them. You can’t win every battle. And you can’t save everyone. As long as you don’t trip over the corpse sticking out from under your bed though, you just might be okay.

Providing it doesn’t get you first.

Happy Halloween!

The Balancing Act – Specificity in Action Scenes

Action & Adventure Conflict Craft & Skills Fantasy Horror Ideas & Plotting Leigh Galbreath Science Fiction 2 Comments

Very recently, I took part in a workshop with twenty or so other aspiring novelists in the SF and Fantasy genres, and one of the most common problems I ran across was in writing action scenes. Often the scenes came out jumbled and confusing, or the writer simply skipped it. Writing action can be intimidating. It was for me. My first action scene, I confess, was first written by a friend of mine. He did the draft, and I had to fiddle with it until I figured out how it worked.

For me, action scenes have myriad issues that make it difficult to navigate. Here I’m going to focus on one of those issues – the difficult balancing act of how much detail to include. Too much description is much the same as too little; both will leave the reader confused.

The lack of description, I think, is at least partially based on the fact that we hear, again and again, how too much description slows the pacing down. In most cases this is correct, most description is unnecessary because the reader can assume certain things.

Example: He parked and went into the building.

I don’t put in the step by step detail about navigating the parking lot or getting out of the car- putting his foot on the break, turning off the ignition, unlatching his seat belt, opening the door, getting out, and closing the door behind him. Most people know how to get out of a car, so the detail is unnecessary.

Let’s look at the same idea put into an action scene. Take this example I saw recently: I lunged. He landed on the ground with a heavy thud, and I got back to my feet.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what just happened. What made the other guy fall? When did the narrator end up on the floor and why? The detail is now a true necessity for the reader to experience what they are reading.

That’s the irony. While, in another type of scene, description can be problematic, it’s necessary for action scenes. Quite simply, most people don’t know what it’s like to be in a gun or sword fight, a space battle, a horse charge, or a kung fu brawl. They don’t have the experience to fill in the gaps, and so the writer has to do the heavy lifting.

The problem comes when the writer moves too far in the other direction. As I said above, too much is just as bad as too little. Get too detailed, and the reader might lose the focus of the scene in all the minutia and become confused anyway.

The way out of this is to be specific rather than wordy. Slamming to the ground, for instance, implies something very different from hitting the ground or slipping to the ground. Also, words that mimic what’s going on can help cut down the word count while still keeping the pacing going. Hard consonants can help a reader hear a gun fight in their heads. Short, concise words echo the pace of a fast moving chase.

Another good thing to remember is the use of paragraphing – shorter paragraphs that describe only one character’s actions can keep what’s going on clear to the reader. Get too long, or put more than one character’s actions in a paragraph, and things start getting muddled again.

So, while finding the right balance can be difficult, it’s by no means impossible. There are plenty of ways to counteract the need for the additional description an action scene requires. The key is to keep the action simple and clear.