Original Cin

I wrote another 500+ words for the second “People Have Value.” I know how I want to end the series, and I knew how I wanted to start the story, but until today, I was having a lot of trouble with the setting in this particular part. I basically had a serious problem with believability. Rob — the oldest son in the family — has disappeared. I need his family to go looking for him in order to write the ending I want. I originally just had them follow him in right away, but the dialog I wrote to justify this decision seemed… well, boneheaded:

Brian scanned his surroundings and straightened his mustache, lost in thought. “It doesn’t look like a military base. That’s good as far as it goes. If we get in there and explain what’s happened…”

Erm, no. That’s just stupid. When confronted with a giant, mysterious pyramid of unknown origin, how many people would say “not a military base, must be safe?” I have, fortunately, figured a way to get the family inside the pyramid without turning them into brain-dead idiots.

I did a little bit of work on Apochswords tonight, the massive space opera trilogy that I’ve been working on since… 2003? 2004? A very long time indeed. Maybe even 2002, since I remember that I discussed StorySage.com with my roommates in college my freshman year.

Tonight’s work consisted of some chapter outlines for the third book in the trilogy. Apochswords has dynamic characters, lots of them. Some of them have a broken moral compass, or a moral compass that breaks in response to the drama of the conflict around them. One such character is, well, evil at the point I’m writing about. But how to show that this character is evil?

In the release order, what’s the very first thing Darth Vader does in Star Wars? He steps over the bodies of those that oppose him. And, for that matter, some of the people that were helping him.

So, of course, my character is going to kill someone, without any chance for surrender or mercy, and in the goriest, most over-the-top way possible. [Evil smile]

Eliezer Yudkowsky writes “If You Demand Magic, Magic Won’t Help” on Overcoming Bias:

Born into a world of science, they [fantasy fiction readers] did not become scientists. What makes them think that, in a world of magic, they would act any differently?

If they don’t have the scientific attitude, that nothing is “mere” - the capacity to be interested in merely real things - how will magic help them? If they actually had magic, it would be merely real, and lose the charm of unattainability. They might be excited at first, but (like the lottery winners who, six months later, aren’t nearly as happy as they expected to be), the excitement would soon wear off. Probably as soon as they had to actually study spells.

This is not exactly the same as my “the world is strange” principle, but it is very similar. Alas, I can’t remember where I read that a sense of wonder about the world makes someone more likely to be successful.

I’ve been running a game of Exalted online for two of my friends, and the last session turned out very, very badly (e.g. boring). I already have lots of ideas on how to make the next one better, but I thought it’d be worthwhile to reflect on some things regarding my writing and storytelling.

Things are valuable when they’re scarce. I think this gives me a clue for why my own prose tends to sound overwrought and verbose when I read it. I have a confession to make: My name is Nic, and I am an adjective addict. I have difficulty disregarding irrelevant details, eschewing oddball colors, scents, and sounds, and eliminating background noise. Oops. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that “show, don’t tell” means to use verbs.

Moving on, what’s scarce in an RPG? Experience points are scarce, but they don’t have value outside of their fictional world. Character to beat up are a bit scarce, but the PCs could become marauding pirates and beat up lots of NPCs every session and I don’t feel that it would inherently make the campaign more or less interesting (it would give it a radically different flavor and plot).

I was told it needed some challenge, and I agree. But here’s where I really think I failed — the situation I created in the last session was very pedestrian - students talked to some people on campus, met a someone new at a nearby event. <sarscasm>Well, it’s not like people do that all the time!</sarcasm> Novel situations are scarce, perhaps not in RPGs, but definitely in real life. Throwing exotic characters in mundane situations sometimes creates an exotic situation, but you can’t depend on that to happen.

So, from now on, I’m going to try to create a new, unusual situation as the foundation for each session. I don’t know if I’ll succeed, but that’s my goal.