Posts
(Sorry for the lack of posts, Compy still broke)
UPDATE: Fixed spelling and other errors.
UPDATE 2: Removed, because this story and world has changed so much from when I wrote this.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Seed of of a Story
I love finding things that start me on a story, but it can be incredibly hard to train yourself to think that way, to actually ask the question “what is the story behind this?”.
For example, A few times when I was walking I passed a few times a bed frame lying at the curb. The first time I didn’t really think about it, though I noticed it. Yesterday though, I thought about it, and actually thought “what is this story?” Did it belong to a child who recently died? Did the child grow up and move out; going to college or married and the parents were finally getting rid of it? Could there be an interesting story there? I think so, though both those scenarios are somewhat mundane, a lot of times a good story can come from something mundane.
The trick is to be ready, and ask about something “is there a story there?” not just about things, but people you see. It's like any habit (well good ones), you learn to do it more by simply doing it.
A few years ago I read a poem by a poet who I had never heard of before. The poem was about an elderly gentleman who turned wayward girls such as “actresses” into birds and kept them. The tone was eerie and yet strikingly beautiful to me, and those elements of tone and transformation inspired a story that I’m working on that is now part of a story collection in progress. (This was before I was aware of the movie Ladyhawke (1985) with Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer, an acquaintance told me about this movie when I was talking about my story idea.)
Another recently inspiration for me is art. When looking for story starters I found a deviant art collection (warning: some nudity) for art specifically for generating ideas for stories. One picture of a mermaid I found fascinating and started another story I’m writing (which I think will be part of a collection with the bird story).
I hope this has been helpful, and I’d love to hear if you have other interesting ideas for generating ideas. Now I need to actually finish projects!
For example, A few times when I was walking I passed a few times a bed frame lying at the curb. The first time I didn’t really think about it, though I noticed it. Yesterday though, I thought about it, and actually thought “what is this story?” Did it belong to a child who recently died? Did the child grow up and move out; going to college or married and the parents were finally getting rid of it? Could there be an interesting story there? I think so, though both those scenarios are somewhat mundane, a lot of times a good story can come from something mundane.
The trick is to be ready, and ask about something “is there a story there?” not just about things, but people you see. It's like any habit (well good ones), you learn to do it more by simply doing it.
A few years ago I read a poem by a poet who I had never heard of before. The poem was about an elderly gentleman who turned wayward girls such as “actresses” into birds and kept them. The tone was eerie and yet strikingly beautiful to me, and those elements of tone and transformation inspired a story that I’m working on that is now part of a story collection in progress. (This was before I was aware of the movie Ladyhawke (1985) with Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer, an acquaintance told me about this movie when I was talking about my story idea.)
Another recently inspiration for me is art. When looking for story starters I found a deviant art collection (warning: some nudity) for art specifically for generating ideas for stories. One picture of a mermaid I found fascinating and started another story I’m writing (which I think will be part of a collection with the bird story).
I hope this has been helpful, and I’d love to hear if you have other interesting ideas for generating ideas. Now I need to actually finish projects!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Artist Wanted
As I mentioned I am working on a few projects that I plan to release commercially, and since I lack artistic talent I am looking for artist(s) to contribute to the projects.
One project is a role playing game supplement book that focuses on a theme of knowledge. I am looking for a full page map (full color, black and white or maybe "lithograph" style), full color cover art and full color or black-and-white art of various sizes from small "gap filler" to full page art. Besides the basic ideas I am very open to ideas and artist interpretation, and would to have an artist who would also be willing to give mechanical feedback (though that is not a requirement) I plan to release this first as a PDF for a $10-20 first and possibly a softcover book if it looks like it would be feasible to do so.
The other project is a simple miniatures games in 30mm scale with color or high quality black-and-white art.
For both projects, they would be paid by ownership in the project as partners (50-50 split). If you're interested please send your portfolio examples of your art to Foolster(at)J-fan.com
Thank you.
One project is a role playing game supplement book that focuses on a theme of knowledge. I am looking for a full page map (full color, black and white or maybe "lithograph" style), full color cover art and full color or black-and-white art of various sizes from small "gap filler" to full page art. Besides the basic ideas I am very open to ideas and artist interpretation, and would to have an artist who would also be willing to give mechanical feedback (though that is not a requirement) I plan to release this first as a PDF for a $10-20 first and possibly a softcover book if it looks like it would be feasible to do so.
The other project is a simple miniatures games in 30mm scale with color or high quality black-and-white art.
For both projects, they would be paid by ownership in the project as partners (50-50 split). If you're interested please send your portfolio examples of your art to Foolster(at)J-fan.com
Thank you.
Myst and the connection of worlds and games
I thought I’d start out talking about more of my philosophy of this blog. To me, the thing I’m most interested in is not just writing, but about immersion.
I suppose this seems really obvious, but sometimes when I read a story, I don’t feel immersed, and I wonder if that’s maybe because the author wasn’t himself immersed enough to experience the world, and think about the details of daily life in that world. If an author isn't interested enough to immerse himself in his own world, how can I as a reader be immersed?
I'm a fan of the world of the adventure game series (and later novel series) of Myst. The world, I think paints such a wonderful picture of writing and world building.
For those maybe not familiar with Myst, it was a graphical adventure game on CD (one of the very first) in the early 90s. The story of the world centers on special books called “linking books”. A person writes a book and can create a world [1] and then “link” to that world and walk around and explore it. This is fairly obvious as a metaphor for world-creation so it was probably meant to be (after all, it was itself a world that was designed).
In my writing I don't merely want to describe the places, people, things and events but I want to explore it, see what it is like to actually live in those worlds, experience it for myself. Of course, we can’t really build worlds, but there are other ways.
One way I do this is through simply the way I write. I love writing in a first person”in character” point of view from inside the world. It helps me think about how the characters see themselves and others inside their world.
Another way is through games and online tools we can break some of the barriers to experience to open the world. I sometimes role-play (more like play-acting since there are no stats or dice) as a character from one of my worlds on a 3D chart room program called Second Life. I’ve also built things on the same program from the world, such as a house. It’s pretty cool to see a “object” represented in 3D space that I can move through, and even though I still can’t actually touch, I can interact with it as my “avatar” proxy and it is at least one more step towards real.
Another way writers can connect with other people, and experience their own world is through games. It seems now a days creating games is easier than before with simple programs and good documentation. You don’t really need a big budget to make a game. Some games don’t even need graphics at all, and but the world can be described by text. [2]
Immersion is proof that there is something that is "clicking together" in your world and that people will connect with the world you created, and there are a lot of great tools out there for you to connect to your own world, and allow others to connect with your world. Also it's a lot of fun!
[1] Or, linking to one of an infinite number of worlds that also happen to exist already that are exactly as described by the books. Both theories are argued (hotly) by the characters in the novels, and no one way is shown to be right, though I think I would favor the world-creation theorem myself.
[2] If you're interested in doing this, you might want to check out MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) which are basically multilayer text adventures. If you want to see what one is like, Midevia is a fairly large one with I beleive 10,000 players.
Also there is BYOND (build your own net dream) which is a graphical program for designing online games. It has a good online framework, and pretty good support and documentation. It has a coding-based system (based on the language C) which while maybe a little harder to use than a cookie-cutter script system like in programs like Construct (another pretty good game design program I use), I think it can do much more as is worth learning. (I don't think learning a program language is as hard as it seems).
I suppose this seems really obvious, but sometimes when I read a story, I don’t feel immersed, and I wonder if that’s maybe because the author wasn’t himself immersed enough to experience the world, and think about the details of daily life in that world. If an author isn't interested enough to immerse himself in his own world, how can I as a reader be immersed?
I'm a fan of the world of the adventure game series (and later novel series) of Myst. The world, I think paints such a wonderful picture of writing and world building.
For those maybe not familiar with Myst, it was a graphical adventure game on CD (one of the very first) in the early 90s. The story of the world centers on special books called “linking books”. A person writes a book and can create a world [1] and then “link” to that world and walk around and explore it. This is fairly obvious as a metaphor for world-creation so it was probably meant to be (after all, it was itself a world that was designed).
In my writing I don't merely want to describe the places, people, things and events but I want to explore it, see what it is like to actually live in those worlds, experience it for myself. Of course, we can’t really build worlds, but there are other ways.
One way I do this is through simply the way I write. I love writing in a first person”in character” point of view from inside the world. It helps me think about how the characters see themselves and others inside their world.
Another way is through games and online tools we can break some of the barriers to experience to open the world. I sometimes role-play (more like play-acting since there are no stats or dice) as a character from one of my worlds on a 3D chart room program called Second Life. I’ve also built things on the same program from the world, such as a house. It’s pretty cool to see a “object” represented in 3D space that I can move through, and even though I still can’t actually touch, I can interact with it as my “avatar” proxy and it is at least one more step towards real.
Another way writers can connect with other people, and experience their own world is through games. It seems now a days creating games is easier than before with simple programs and good documentation. You don’t really need a big budget to make a game. Some games don’t even need graphics at all, and but the world can be described by text. [2]
Immersion is proof that there is something that is "clicking together" in your world and that people will connect with the world you created, and there are a lot of great tools out there for you to connect to your own world, and allow others to connect with your world. Also it's a lot of fun!
[1] Or, linking to one of an infinite number of worlds that also happen to exist already that are exactly as described by the books. Both theories are argued (hotly) by the characters in the novels, and no one way is shown to be right, though I think I would favor the world-creation theorem myself.
[2] If you're interested in doing this, you might want to check out MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) which are basically multilayer text adventures. If you want to see what one is like, Midevia is a fairly large one with I beleive 10,000 players.
Also there is BYOND (build your own net dream) which is a graphical program for designing online games. It has a good online framework, and pretty good support and documentation. It has a coding-based system (based on the language C) which while maybe a little harder to use than a cookie-cutter script system like in programs like Construct (another pretty good game design program I use), I think it can do much more as is worth learning. (I don't think learning a program language is as hard as it seems).
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