Category Archives: The Writing Life

If you’ve played video games at all since 2007, you’ve likely encountered a storytelling innovation introduced by the original Bioshock (note: I don’t know for certain that they are the ones that introduced this technique, but it was the first time I encountered it and the first time I saw it widely discussed).

Bioshock is set in the ruined underwater city of Rapture, once a paradise of pure, unregulated innovation. While it appears abandoned as your character approaches in his submersible, it is anything but. The inhabitants have all gone violently insane, the end result of too much tampering with their own genomes. Your character has been summoned by a mysterious note, and you arrive knowing nothing about the city or its history. But explore around a little, and you’ll find something that binds all the residents of Rapture together beyond their damaged minds. They all just loved recording audio diaries and leaving them lying around where anyone (read: you) can find and listen.

This is cleverly done for a few reasons. First is that Rapture has quite a fascinating and convoluted history from its idealistic founding to its inevitable decline. But there’s *almost* no one left who can tell you straight up what happened, and you might not trust them if they did. By scattering critical bits of information in areas where the player must pass to progress, the player is gradually filled in on the backstory in a drip-feed of exposition and character revelation. Plus, for those who absolutely must find all of Rapture’s dark little secrets, there are plenty of nonessential audio diaries to find if you poke into every nook and cranny the city has to offer.

To say this storytelling innovation was popular among game developers would be a massive understatement. Scarcely any game with meaningful effort put into story doesn’t have them these days. But while playing the recent downloadable content expansion for Horizon: Zero Dawn, navigating the ruins of past human civilization (the game is set in a post-apocalyptic far future), I encountered a little short story in audio log form. Over the course of several logs you discover while exploring the derelict dam, this story concerned two coworkers who became friends in the face of the layoff of all their peers and their replacement by robots (the rise of automation and robotics in humanity’s distant past is a major theme of the game, but seldom is it expressed so succinctly and so effectively as in this sequence of short audio logs). As the logs progress, the two friends are forced to train the robots that will eventually replace them. They form a (terrible) two-woman band, recording songs while pranking their robotic coworkers, all the while knowing they are working on borrowed time. With impressive poignancy, their last days on the job wind down, and after one last night on the town, they both go their separate ways into an uncertain (only the player knows how uncertain) future.

There are several lessons for the writer wrapped up in this. What can I say? I apparently love lists.

Stripped-down, short side stories nested within larger stories can be effective ways at distilling the theme you are trying to convey.
Sweat the details. The details matter. Look how much effort the writers put into this game. All this takes place in a downloadable expansion (read: optional) side-quest (also optional) in which the player can (optionally) hunt down and listen to these audio logs. And guess what? Horizon: Zero Dawn is a phenomenal game top to bottom. As my favorite football coach likes to say: “Take care of the little things and the big things take care of themselves.”
And, in keeping with the month’s theme, think outside the box when crafting your stories.

About the Author: Gregory D. Little

Rocket scientist by day, fantasy and science fiction author by night, Gregory D. Little began his writing career in high school when he and his friend wrote Star Wars fanfic before it was cool, passing a notebook around between (all right, during) classes. His novels Unwilling Souls and Ungrateful God are available now from ebook retailers and trade paperback through Amazon.com. His short fiction can be found in The Colored Lens, A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology, Dragon Writers: An Anthology, and the upcoming Undercurrents: An Anthology of What Lies Beneath. He lives with his wife and their yellow lab.

You can reach him at his website (www.gregorydlittle.com), his Twitter handle (@litgreg) or at his Author Page on Facebook.

Three-D Writing: Part 2 – Taking Risks with a Cauliflower

February 26, 2018

fictorians

Guest Posts Our Favorite Fiction 1 Comment

A guest blog by Karen Traviss

On Friday we looked at ways to boost your storytelling by reworking your manuscript as a comic or a movie. This week, we move on to cauliflowers. Talking cauliflowers.

I’m not immune to the ruts and barriers of writing even at this stage of my career. If you’ve followed my blog, you’ll know that the ability to spontaneously create sentient vegetables in a story, without apology and actually making it work, was a gift I envied, so I set about trying to acquire it. That was easier said than done. It wasn’t that I wanted to write fantasy per se, but that I watched how effortlessly manga and anime just went for it and made the utterly bonkers somehow seem perfectly reasonable.

For some of you, that’ll be how you write anyway, you lucky people. My natural habitat, though, is realism. That’s inevitable after careers in news journalism and related school-of-hard-knocks trades, and I’ve built a business on it. My readers like authenticity and I’m known for doing nose-bleeding amounts of research for the smallest detail or even for the background awareness that never makes it into the book. But the other side of rigorous realism is an inner censor: the disapproving mental voice that speaks up when it encounters a wild thought, and says, “Don’t be so bloody daft, that would never happen.”

We don’t need self-censorship. We already have too many external censors trying to tell fiction writers what they’re allowed to do and trying to prevent them from publishing what they don’t approve of. Censorship kills fiction: it makes for cookie-cutter stories built from tick-lists, and – perhaps worse – it removes an important safety valve for society. Fiction is where we can say the unsayable and make sense of what we see without enacting it in the real world. “What if?” Those are the most important words in fiction, and we don’t need a zampolit to give us permission to answer the question.

What some of us need, though, is a way to be equally defiant of the inner censor. For me, that meant risking falling out of love with anime and manga by analysing it. (Later I extended that to live action drama.) Usually, I have to choose between creating or consuming, because once I pick a side I can never switch back to the other again. But for some reason, this time I managed it. The Japanese – and the Koreans, I later found – take risks in fiction that we often shy away from in the West. Maybe I don’t see their taboos in the gaps because I don’t understand enough about their societies, but what I do see is a healthy sense of abandon to uncertainty. They really go for What If.

Genre lines seem not to exist. Random and incongruous is the order of the day, and they dip in and out of other cultures and mix nationalities without apology or apparent fear of “appropriation.” There are some consistent character archetypes, but nobody’s guaranteed to survive, win the love of their life, or even succeed in their quest. Happy ever after seems quite rare: but there’s plenty of suck it up and make the best of it. There’s often a massive reveal at the halfway point that changes everything you thought about the first half. And then there are the techniques like timeline loops and flashback reveals which can look odd to western writers who’ve been taught that you can’t hide things from the audience. (Okay, that’s still a big challenge if you write very tight third POV.) Somehow, the Japanese and Koreans make it all work magnificently.

So, having watched more Japanese and Korean TV and movies than I thought was physically possible, I felt I had a good grasp of what they were doing and how they did it. (And boy, did I enjoy it.) But recognising what they’re doing isn’t the same as being able to do it yourself. If I sat down and tried to force something wackier or more random onto the page, I just ended up doing what I always did: extrapolating, based on reality. That’s how I tell a story. I take the environment, work out the type of characters most likely to be there, shove them together, and let them run like a computer model.

Characters need to behave like real humans, but nothing else needs to be real. I still struggled with creating the unrealistic and the un-sensible. Eventually, the first glimmer of a turning point for me was when someone pointed out that I was often surreal and off the wall on Twitter, so why couldn’t I do it in a novel?

Because Twitter is a series of throwaways, the equivalent of a casual chat in the pub. That’s why.

My inner censor – even if I do apply common sense and a healthy wariness of getting sued – is off duty on Twitter. I don’t expect to have to do anything long-form or smart with a random observation, or have my career hinge on it, so I let it loose.

That realisation taught me that I have to be prepared to grab the loony thought and hold on to it, write it down, and ignore the voice that tells me to be sensible.

Over a lifetime I’d learned not to listen to the free association that was my brain doing what brains are made to do – trying to create patterns, even when those patterns are misleading and don’t exist.

I’m working on it. Some days I get a glimpse of what’s possible, but it’s still not how I think naturally, and maybe it never will be. But if I can detach enough from my own self to think like each character that I create, and believe what they believe and see what they see while I’m in their heads, then I should be able to detach a little further from the real world.

In the meantime, I’ll keep gorging on anime and sit glued to the latest Korean supernatural police procedural comedy thriller romance series (yes, all in the same show) and hope some that breath-taking ability to ignore risk rubs off on me. When my inner voice says, “You need a talking cauliflower there… ,” I shall be ready to listen.

About Karen Traviss:

New York Times best-selling author Karen Traviss is a former journalist and has also spent way too much of her life around politicians and police. Going Grey, the first in her new techno-thriller series, and the sequel, Black Run, are available now.

Website and newsletter sign-up: www.karentraviss.com

Twitter: @karentraviss

Three-D Writing: Part One

February 23, 2018

fictorians

Guest Posts Our Favorite Fiction No Comments

A guest blog by Karen Traviss

Some day – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, as the man said – you might find yourself wondering why suddenly nothing you write seems to come alive on the page.

I don’t mean writer’s block. You’re still churning stuff out, knowing where you need to go, but when you read it back to yourself it feels flat and lifeless, regardless of the amount of information that you’ve imparted to the reader. It’s hard to put your finger on it: there’s nothing actually wrong with it. All you know is that it just doesn’t fly.

Sometimes walking away from it for a couple of weeks is all you need to see it with new eyes, but you might not have the luxury of time, or it might be a symptom of a broader problem, that you’ve run out of creative juice. It’s not that you don’t know where to take the story next: it’s just that you can’t see a better way of telling it.

There are always different ways to tell the same story. Only you know whether your current version is “wrong” – trust your judgement the way a painter or musician does instead of assuming an outsider will know better – and one size doesn’t fit all. But one way of finding alternatives is to learn from the techniques of other media. Take your troublesome story, chapter, or scene, and see how it works as a comic, movie, or game.

I’m a visual thinker. I have to “translate” my books from mental movies into descriptions and transcriptions. I write comics and games as well as novels, and when I get an idea for a story, my first question is which medium would suit it best. But I’d take a guess that most novelists never write anything but prose fiction or essays, and many don’t read comics or play games, so they’re not used to applying images to story. My advice probably sounds useless: how can you learn anything by doing what you don’t know how to do and don’t even consume? But if you think of yourself as just a writer and reader, you almost certainly watch TV and movies as well. You can use those instead. You already know more than you think.

Take a scene or a few chapters of your manuscript and jot down a summary of what happens. hen imagine that extract as scenes in a movie or pages of a comic. (Grab a video or find a comic in a similar genre and take a look at it first if you’re not sure where to begin.) Then sketch a storyboard of your novel excerpt – stick figures and lollypop trees will do fine – and see what lends itself to images and what doesn’t. And fill those panels with every object you think will be there, even if you haven’t mentioned it in the manuscript. Your brain will probably rush to fill empty spaces anyway. It’s very good at show-not-tell.

You don’t have to get it right. You’ll have clunky transitions, and panels or shots that you just don’t know how to fill, but those gaps will be equally useful in understanding how you can bring your story alive. When you need images that grab the eye, you’ll realise that maybe you need to start the intro with a guy wandering around a museum and being moved on by the staff because he spends so long in there, and ditch the opening where he’s just sitting in his room while he ponders how much he loves history. Just write in what you’re trying to convey in any gap and go back to it later.

Now take a look at the finished storyboard, gaps and all. Does it turn out to be all talking heads because the characters aren’t anywhere specific or doing anything that adds to the story? Do they move around in interesting and relevant settings? Are there objects in their field of view that add information when examined, a portrait on the wall or a warning sign, like discoverables in games? Does the scene end on a dramatic image with an implied “To be continued” panel like a comic? Find your gaps and visually boring sequences, and from those filled gaps, more ideas will flow.

The opening line to this essay is, as I hope most of you know, from the movie Casablanca. Whatever film you use as a crash course in visual grammar to pep up your manuscript, don’t pick that one. The irony is that one of the greatest films of all time is, when you analyse it, almost all talking heads, very few locations, nearly all interiors, and almost no action. But with a great cast, a cracking script, and a solid story, you can get away with it. Just not this time.

Part II: Learning To Take Risks.

About Karen Traviss:

Website and newsletter sign-up: www.karentraviss.com

Twitter: @karentraviss

“No mind.” – Scene Resonance in The Last Samurai

February 22, 2018

Scott Eder

The Writing Life No Comments

When developing characters, scenes, and storylines, writers strive to build a deep, emotional connection with the readers—resonance. The concept seems easy and obvious, right? I mean, we write in a couple emotional tropes, tie them in to a common experience, like going to the Prom or playing spin-the-bottle or shooting a game winning goal, and sprinkle liberally with sensory details to create an everyman’s scene likely to connect, at least at a basic level, to the majority of your readers.

While the above may build a connection, it’s probably not going to be compelling. It might evoke a memory or grunt of acknowledgment, but not generate the richer experience you’re striving for. It’s too heavy handed and obvious. Readers can spot that crap a mile away.

No, what I’m looking to build is that true connection, that bond that forever sears a memorable event into a reader’s psyche through an unexpected sharing of perspective wrapped in details and emotional beats. Different events/scenes hit readers in different ways based on his or her life experience. For me, a writer, bowler, and youth bowling coach, a great illustration of a scene grabbing hold and becoming a part of your life can be found in the movie, The Last Samurai. The Last Samurai [Blu-ray]

After being wounded and captured by the samurai enemy-at-the-time, Tom Cruise’s character, Nathan Algren, an ex-army Captain hired by Japanese politicians to train their army to fight the insurgents (samurai), is taken to their remote mountain village. Trapped through the winter, he’s given some measure of freedom under close supervision to heal and walk among the villagers. During that time, he comes to appreciate the samurai way of life and finds the peace within himself he so desperately needs. Great stuff. Love the movie. There’s one scene, though, above so many other great moments, that truly resonated with my writer/bowler/coach self and has become part of, well, part of me really.

Once he recovers enough from his injuries, Algren begins to train with the samurai to get back into fighting shape. In an early training scene, surrounded by dueling warriors, villagers going about their business, and curious spectators, Algren gets repeatedly trounced. After another quick defeat, Nobutada, the son of the samurai leader, Lord Katsumoto, apologies and introduces the martial arts concept of mushin, or no mind (focus). In basic terms, Nobutada instructs Algren to ignore the other fighters doing their thing, ignore the villagers doing their thing, ignore the spectators, and focus on the task at hand. He’s got his mind on too many things, not focusing on what’s really important at that moment.

Image may contain: one or more people, basketball court and indoor I get chills whenever I watch that scene because it speaks to me on multiple levels. As a competitor, I’ve been in tense situations where it seems like entire world is watching every move I make. As a coach, I’ve seen how surrounding distractions pull a bowler out of the “zone” or out of the moment. The mental aspect of bowling is a critical part of the sport at the higher, competitive levels, and this scene beautifully encapsulates the mushin concept in a simple, accessible, amusing way. I’ve used the scene to explain the concept to my bowlers and hear the dialog in my head every time.

Now my wife, also a bowling coach, watches the scene and appreciates the concept, but it doesn’t resonate with her. It hasn’t become part of her. And that’s fine because no two people come at any given story or scene with the same background, same life experiences. What resonates with me, will not necessarily resonate with her.

To increase the chance to resonate with your reader, imbue your scenes with life–include sensory details and emotional hooks, relatable thoughts/experiences and clear storytelling. I guess that sounds like Writing 101. The skillful use of basic writing tenets can lead to extraordinary results.