Another fine mess...

Time to write. I'm learning that one of the challenges of writing is changing my brain from my work mode, heavy right brain (calculations and speed estimates and climb rates and angles) to writing mode (heavy left brain, creative and free flowing). Music helps. So does, apparently, drawing, though it has been years since I've drawn freely. One idea is to work on the map of the world.

Tonight, it's music. I'm listening to a web-radio station, Whisperings, at Solopianoradio.com. It all solo piano, all the time. no lyrics to muck up my train of thought, no jarring commercials, and relaxing. There are times when I want something more energetic, but tonight, this is perfect.

So what will I be writing? Grinding through Imperfect hope, trying to get the protagonist characterizations right in their introductory scene. Finding a balance of description and dialogue will be my challenge tonight. I'll let you know.....

Oh, the tip of the day: Recognize the talent within me, and don't listen to that inner critic, at least not during the first draft. There'll be time enough to self-criticism during the revision phase.

Clear skies,
Jim

Tips of the iceberg

Just for fun, type in writing tips at your favorite search engine. Bet you come up with seventeen gazillion hits. All these writing tips, you'd think there would be innumerable successful authors, assuming those tips came from published writers. But.....

I suspect a good majority of "writing tips" come from novices like me. I collect them in my head, often just reading bits and pieces from various writers web sites. Some of them are probably even good.

However. Many are junk, or just don't apply to how I write. Trying to shoehorn a creative activity into easy to define steps indexed by happy, happy tips is like trying to eat jello with chopsticks.

Anyway. I guess the tip of the day would come from Orson Scott Card, in an interview he did recently for a gaming magazine, he noted that, with all the time he wasted playing civilization a few years back, he probably could have put out 20 books. That's a lot of money that the game cost him, in his estimation... So he suggested... Time limits. Preferable in the form of a switch controlled by his wife. Two hours gaming, and you're cut off, mister. Back to work.....

I can see how it would help, but I'm probably less stressed about my time usage right now. I often "unwind" with some solitare before I write. If I play something more substantial, like Sid Meiers Rail Tycoon, I set myself a time limit, and make sure it isn't overlapping the period I've defined as my writing time. Most of the time.

I do define my writing time with a little ritual. When I break out the Owl Mug, it's writing time. I might let myself get into the mood for 10-15 minutes, but eventually, I'm going to fire up the word processor, and get to it.

At least, that's my plan. And I'm sticking to it.....
TTFN,
Jim

ugh.

Didn't get much done over the last few days, seems like everytime I sat down to write something came up that needed my attention. I did, however, reread and revise what I'd done.

Specifically, I didn't like the bloodthirstyness the protagonists displayed in the first scene, it gave the wrong impression entirely of who they are supposed to be. So I stepped back from the hard-bitten mercenary image, who found it all to easy to kill what in all reality is just a pair of poachers, and instead began setting up a capture/release situation. This also gives me the opportunity to describe characters and setting more thouroughly. Hopefully I'll get out of my mental funk shortly and continue.....

TTFN,
Jim

And He's off!

First draft began yesterday for Imperfect hope. (after 2 false starts that were identified as false when I realized I was underprepared with background and setup.) I have to admit, I stared at the blank page for 20+ minutes before I started writing, and the manner in which it started wasn't quite what I expected. But that has happened before. My rough outline is only a guideline, As I write, I self-edit. In this case, I found motivations for the characters in the first scene that I hadn't thought of, and those motivations altered the characters actions. It makes a lot more sense when you read it, but... First drafts aren't for reading... Yet.

Anyway. I feel like I'm off to a good start. Now to keep the enthusiasm.

How bad do bad guys have to be?

So here's the question. Lets say I'm starting a story with a bad guy, doing a bad thing. And I want the hero to stop him, in this case, by killing him (a variant on the throwaway victim used so often in horror flicks to set up the villain). But I don't want to tarnish the hero too much at the start. I know with a lot of exposition, I can create the characters demeanor, but exposition at the start of a tale leads to an editor tossing the manuscript onto the reject pile very quickly. So.....

Make the bad guy genuinely dislikeable. In Fact, make him detestable. What the hero does is a service to all mankind, getting rid of this kind of scum. Cheer for the hero, right from the first scene.

Is it overdone? Maybe. Every new writer thinks what he's doing is going to be different. "Me, cliche?. No, I'm writing this for the first time."

Anyway..... This is one of the possible openings I'm working on for Imperfect hope. Show the character of the character/protagonist early on, establish him as a good guy, but one who can be, has to be, brutal in brutal times. I'll let you know if it works.....

TTFN
Jim.

Fear and Characters

I've got to admit, this has been a busy week at work. Last Wednesday, we set a record for traffic levels at Denver Center. I came home with bruises on my bruises from getting my butt kicked. Then, Thursday, we broke that record again. Yaahhhh, somebody stop the ride, I'm scared!!!

Speaking (writing?) of scared brings up the concept of fright for fictional characters. All too often in the IFGS, we play our characters as if nothing frightens them, or if we do admit to a fear, it is something outlandish that we can overact to in order to create "roleplaying". I'm guilty of that, how many remember the earlier days of Brandis when he was "Cave or Tunnel Claustrophobic". Thankfully, I toned that down as I came to create a more believable character, but it is typical of what the average roleplayer adds to create depth.

Writing requires a more realistic view on fears, if the reader is to sympathize with the character. Having a hero who fears nothing evokes images of the muscle bound stereotype Conan. I know I enjoyed that characterization to a small degree early on, but it didn't take long for me to crave characters who show human (or whatever race) sides that I can understand, and who change as their life changes. Cook's Garrett, A hard boiled investigator straight out of the noir detective novels of the 40's and 50's is one example. He starts out pretty single minded, avoid work, wealth matters only so much as it can buy another keg of ale, and dames in distress always mean trouble. Later in the series, his honor and morality come to play as he stops shirking responsibility and comes to the aid of his friends, again and again, despite a deep fear of failure. Stereotypes, they do exist, but they're overshadowed by the realness of his emotions.

In IFGS, Player Characters come to the table with the assumption that they'll win, every time. There is no doubt, facing the typical cash and carry monty-haul type adventure that gets turned out most of the time these days, that they'll succeed, and continue to get wealthier and wealthier than any king of the realm. We should paint an Alfred E. Neumann Face on every typical PC's shield or taberd. "What, ME Worry?". A fictional hero comes to the table with confidance, yes. But nobody but fools assume they'll win no matter what they do. And nobody wants to read about fools.

Clear skies,
Jim

Ideas

It all begins with an idea. A dream, perhaps, or maybe an observation. That idea may have first popped into my head months, or even years ago. Chances are, whatever it is, it has fermented in my imagination since then. Changing, adapting, realigning with other ideas.

Then, maybe the idea forms into an image. From that image, perhaps a scene, a piece of a storyline that, with more time and mental massaging, turns into a story.

That's how my writing is working, how it always has worked. Sha'te Valley, for example, my first (and in my mind, my best, if underproduced) Major IFGS game, started with an idea. A heroic stand against unnumerable foes, a battle in the backwaters that, when it was all over, the only people it mattered to were the survivors, and the few K'tath who were saved by the actions of the heroes. Most of the heroes friends would only shake their heads and mutter, why risk yourself for them. For that. I'd always imagined the heroes of Sha'te answering that question thusly: "I did it because it was right, and because I was there."

Imperfect hope's idea started with one small image, a hero, cursed with darkness, has given up hope. It is the shared hope of friends that rekindle the spark of hope within.

Writing down the world

Here goes. In essence, good readers, I've begun a new career. Yes, I am now a writer. I own the name, in the sense that I'm treating it as a new job, one that I'm going to spend regular hours on, with the goal of getting paid. (Note, for those just visiting, I'm already published, in a sense. But IFGS games aren't paid.)
You can expect to find my ups and downs here, from good days writing to bad days at my other job as an air traffic controller. For now, I'm just starting, so with me luck.
Oh, what writing method am I using? On the basic level, It's the BIC-HOK method of writing. BIC-HOK. Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard.....

TTFN,
Jim