Writing Observations

First Drafts are Tough

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You may have heard of Emma Coats from the 22 Rules of Storytelling According to Pixar piece that’s floating around lately. She’s the storyboard artist who posted the 22 rules to her twitter account. She also posted the two I’ve embedded above. This additional rule is incredibly important to all NaNoWriMo/Camp NaNoWriMo participants, so I thought I’d share it as companion to the ones that are getting all the attention. I’ve written about this previously; first drafts are what I consider to be the true writer’s block.

The Avengers Need No Avenging

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Joss Whedon is one of those guys who just makes everything so easy. I got back earlier this evening from seeing The Avengers, and man is it good. It has all the classic Whedonesque elements of action and humor, characters and story that make me such a fan of Buffy and Angel and Firefly.

It’s making me think I should brush up on more of Whedon’s shows and maybe some comics too; I try to keep an eye on my own weaknesses, and one area I’m especially worried about in my work right now is pacing. Whedon is great at pacing.

I kind of want to write a review of this film, but to analyze the story properly would require a whole ton of spoilers. Instead I’ll just leave it at this, a brief discussion of the inspiration it has given me for my writing. Maybe I’ll review the story in a few weeks, when spoilers aren’t such an issue.

A Big Ball of Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey ... Stuff

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I do love time travel stories, but writing them can be mentally exhausting. I have a set of outline notes on this story that’s getting entirely too complex, so I’m writing this today and will be spending a chunk of tomorrow straightening things out. Stay tuned!

Oncoming Displacement

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I think the reason I’ve had so much with Corwin’s latest story is that while I have a good idea of what exactly it is that he wants, that he’s invested in, I’m not nearly as sure about how it comes into play within the story itself. I might need to break from this one for a bit and work it out.

I’m not going to go on another big break from fiction though. I have another story in mind that I think is pretty strong right from the outset.

The cost of living these days sucks, and it’s only getting worse. Imagine how expensive it’s going to be by 2030. Wouldn’t it be great if you could go back in time when rent and food were crazily cheap, but not sacrifice your connection to the present in the process? Sure sounds great. But would it really be great?

Displaced, starting soon…

This Mass is Effecting My Writing

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This new story is really being uncooperative these last few days. Yeesh. Back to games and another blog post I guess. This time I’ll tackle Mass Effect.

I’ve played Mass Effect before, and I got part way through Mass Effect 2. For those who aren’t aware, Mass Effect is a series of science fiction role playing games for the PC and consoles put out by Bioware, the creators of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Mass Effect 3 came out, and so it’s time for me to finish the other two. Or to replay them as the case may be. I lost my original game data for them.

While playing through the original Mass Effect I was reminded of just how good these games are. Of course for me “good” means strong story, and that has caused me to sink large amounts of the last 3 days into playing.

The stories are rich and peppered with minor stories for variety. The characters are fleshed out and convincing, and the amount of thought that’s gone into the themes and background information on the world of Mass Effect is nothing short of remarkable.

There are flaws, of course, but those mostly have to do with the game mechanics and level design. Since I’m writing about story, I’ll ignore those. They’re minor quibbles anyway.

A part of me had hoped that immersing myself in this great story would give me some insight into getting past this part of the story I’m writing. So far that hasn’t happened, but there’s always tomorrow; who knows. I am coming up on a part of the game that I remember only vaguely from my first play through, and it does contain a situation similar to the corner I’ve written myself into. I won’t be able to copy anything from the game—the scenarios are far too different—but maybe it’ll give me an idea.

It is also striking all kinds of chords for stories I could consider later in the series, though I didn’t really need to play Mass Effect for more ideas like that. I’m planning another post some time on how the act of writing will, itself, generate more ideas than you could possibly need.

The takeaway I intended for this piece is one I’ve expressed before; don’t be afraid to look outside of the traditional world of books for examples of fantastic storytelling. Film, theatre, even television and video games can all provide fantastic examples. Mass Effect certainly does.