I missed Caturday! So, I thought I’d share with you this really cool video of a cat playing with a dolphin from YouTube! Fascinating stuff. As an animal lover, it’s interesting to me to see how different species interact with each other.
Well, that and perhaps I may want to become a guardian for another non-cat pet some day. Hoping to get a dog at one point. Dogs and cats! Living together!
🙂
Creating characters can be a lot of fun, provided you avoid developing a Mary Sue character you’re overly attached to. Heavily-idealized and pet characters are hard to kill when they need to be and can be burdensome on the reader. The side effect to creating a Mary Sue character is your reaction to the situation when someone doesn’t like your work. I’ve seen many writers get more defensive because that character means something to them that goes above and beyond the call of: “Well, I love my work.”
Gaming has helped me create well-rounded characters; there are some games, like Spirit of the Century, that focus on themed characters. (In this case, pulp.) Even within gaming, though, the character you design is rarely at the end of their journey. They always–relationships, career, aptitude, skills, etc.–have room to flourish.
Backgrounds can be even more difficult because, on the surface, it may be hard to design one that isn’t blah and boring. In the U.S., we base a lot of opinions on what someone does for a living. So career is often a big factor in determining a character background. Not so everywhere else in the world. While the “job” is a bucket that people can relate to, it’s not everything. Once the job is determined, I’ve seen some authors immediately default to childhood background as a way of fleshing out character motivation. Even then, many stereotypes are often derived from a troubled teen, an abused child, a runaway.
To get around the stereotypes, some authors develop characters using tarot cards. Corrine Kenner has an online Tarot for Writers workshop. On the surface, the structure is what I’d expect from such a course. Others, like myself, take a page from astrology in a different way.
The book I’ve listed in this post is called, The Element Encyclopedia of Birthdays. When I’m stuck developing a character, I turn to this resource and sift through the pages.
Because this book is based on a calendar year, there are three hundred and sixty five different characters to choose from as opposed to a book of archetypes, which traditionally has between six to forty-eight. Within each entry, there are additional opportunities to drill down and add depth. A typical entry isn’t just a list of attributes, it tells a story about the person born on that particular day. Take August 19th, for example. This is the “Day of the Editor.” Let’s call this guy “Bob.” Bob’s greatest challenge is revealing the real you. Positive and negative attributes are listed, along with a prompt for self-improvement. Image is important to those who share his birthday. Although Bob’s detail-oriented, in part because he’s deeply insecure, if he’s able to move past looking at everything as an opportunity for his own self-interest, he can find courage and free himself from his troubles.
As an author I say: “Wow, this is great inspiration!” So, a character who’s heavily focused on image might believe that even the smallest secrets can hurt her reputation — even though that might not be the case. There’s a certain amount of self-delusion that can come across to the reader in good dialog, romantic relationships, etc. In Bob’s character background, I’d develop trends of behavior based on common misunderstandings. No one else feels Bob is this terrible awful guy, but he’s pretty sensitive about innocuous comments. Maybe he’s switched careers a lot. Maybe he’s had trouble in relationships. Maybe he’s only had one job and works in the basement. Maybe he’s in a crappy relationship and is jealous of anyone who’s happy.
The other really nice thing about the entries in The Element Encyclopedia of Birthdays, is that there’s a lot of other information that supports the idea of being on a journey or a life path. Regardless of what day Bob was born on, when I write about him on a subconscious level I know that he’s come from somewhere and he’s also got some place to go. Bob is not a static automaton who is a certain way, all of a sudden. After all, characters are not photographs — they’re plants. While you bring them to life in your stories, a good character will always have room to grow.
That, my dear readers, is the trick to adding depth to your character backgrounds. Instead of assigning what you’re comfortable with, look at Bob’s psychology or mindset to figure out character motivations on a spectrum. From there, you can look at multiple options for what Bob might do and free your character from the tried-and-true.
Hey, I think that rhymed! Hrmm, I wonder if I could write a story about a character who couldn’t do anything but rhyme…
Hey folks,
Just wanted to pop in and say that I wrote something fun for April Fool’s. Author Lilith Saintcrow, besieged by squirrel terror in her backyard, was the inspiration behind “The Squirrel.”
It starts with…
Once upon an evening dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
How to script an ensuing volume for my readers galore,
While I nodded, nearly dozing, suddenly there came a scraping,
As of some one gently chafing, up against my screen porch door.
`’Tis my fuzzy feline,’ I muttered, ‘chafing at my screen porch door –
Only this, and nothing more. –From THE SQUIRREL by yours truly
…and gets crazier from there.
After you read Fish April and Squirrel Ballad in all its glory on Lilith Saintcrow’s website, be sure to catch up on Lili’s squirrel shenanigans in related posts. They are high-larious.
Oh, and don’t forget to check out one of Lilith Saintcrow’s many books or stories. Just sayin’. Shameless plug for another author! Hooray!
When you write in the realm of horror, dark fantasy and science fiction, you’re often required to read and research different topics for reference. Like many other authors, I’ve poured through copies of ancient texts to get behind the myths and legends, to view them with a critical eye.
Working on Argentum, for example, required a deep dive into researching Alchemy. That field is interesting because there’s a lot of symbolism and allegory there. Formulas were coded into paintings, and there was often a dual-edged meaning embedded in the rituals. Alchemy wasn’t just about transforming one physical medium into another, it was about transforming the self. In many paintings, some of which you can see in this awesome art book from Taschen entitled Alchemy and Mysticism, there are parallels between the birth-death-resurrection cycle prevalent in Christianity and other religions. Indeed, this book correlates a premise using art. Really fine work, here.
As interesting as that may be, it’s important to understand these works in context. What was happening during those time periods? Why would these ancient texts need to be secret? Well, if you think about it, organized religion back then in many parts of the world isn’t like it is now. You could be killed or thrown in prison for your beliefs. Although Alchemy was practiced as a scientific art for hundreds of years, for many it also required varying amounts of secrecy. Remember, the history of Christianity is a turbulent one that affected every corner of social, scientific, religious and political development in certain parts of the world for many, many years. The references to Christianity in the Art and its formulas weren’t always obvious; there were often many artistic and visual references to other things that acted as symbols for the process.
In other words: these texts are important for more than the words written on their pages. I feel they can’t be read with stars in your eyes, though that is what some people tend to do. It’s always been that way, though. The words “ancient” and “magical” have always inspired people, for a promise of power. Just recently, there was a book called The Secret which sold millions of copies worldwide. What was this tome about? The Law of Attraction. Nothing new to see here. Brilliant marketing, though.
When I was reading up on other texts, I stumbled across the Voynich Manuscript a couple of years ago. Immediately, when I hear about some mysterious and ancient text it raises an alarm for me. I’m pretty grounded, even though I went through a short phase in my late teens where I wasn’t. Reading further, I understand that there’s a lot of theories about this unusual manuscript from the mid-to-late 1400s which many believe originate from Central Europe.
First, it hasn’t been deciphered yet and there are strange illustrations in it. Just as one example of my thought process, there’s discussion about why plumbing (e.g. pipes and whatnot) was used to depict the biology. Some Alchemists used to boil their bodies in hot water and scrub all the hair off to purify themselves. Bathing as a ritual was an important one for many years; people didn’t take daily showers and baths back then like they do today. Bathing is also relevant to a baptism, too. So, the paintings may not be direct representations, but allegorical illustrations drawn to represent something else.
Now, after having looked at the illustrations and having read the theories, I have a few of my own. Let me be very clear on this: my thoughts are purely speculative since I haven’t put the time in nor have I poured over every word. Seeing a book like this makes me wonder not what the book is saying, but why someone would write it in the first place. Since it isn’t a modern hoax, there’s a theory that it was created for the Holy Roman Emperor at the time, who enjoyed rare and unusual books. If this were true, e.g. created for someone’s enjoyment, what would the creator of the book get out of it? Crafting something like this is a time-consuming process, so there would have to be some larger gain behind this or other story.
Instead, I feel this book might have been coded so no one would understand it, perhaps not even the person (or persons) who wrote it. In other words, there is no cipher because it was never written with one in mind. I don’t believe this manuscript is gibberish, either. It could simply have been written to document rituals in order to solidify their meaning in the writer’s mind. What the Voynich Manuscript could be, then, are the ashes of a life-long pursuit of rituals that cannot be replicated by anyone else.
Take, for example, the strong repetition of words. If I wanted to perform a secret ritual (or a series of them) for a life-long goal, routine would be crucial to me to ensure success. (Just reviewing the illustrations by themselves, you can see that the creator(s) of the Voynich Manuscript have some scientific leanings.) But what if I got stuck (e.g. couldn’t come up with a code or cipher purported to be rampant in Alchemical and other mystical texts)? For the sake of sticking to routine, which is crucial to those who have performed Alchemy and other arts like it, then I’d use the same word over and over because I needed to write something there. Here, the words may not be important as the writing itself, unless the repeated word is an anagram or cryptogram. In that case, the author might feel the word was a magical one, and should be repeated like a chant to imbue power into his concentration or ritual. (Abracadabra is just one of many examples of purported “power” words best used in repetition.) Perhaps the author read his words out loud as he was writing them down. For an Alchemist, that act would add another layer of symbolism and ritual to it.
My next step would be to research the time period and location before closely analyzing the manuscript, to see if I could narrow down the culture and atmosphere to help bring relevance to the text. What were the religious attitudes of the 1440s and beyond? What political influences were occurring at the time? What was the lifestyle like? Education? Literacy? Etc.
Sure, these are just my thoughts. And yes, there’s no way I could be certain I’m right. But here, I’m not trying to be accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt. Here, I’ve explored a mystery to show you how my author’s mind works. After all, researching or theorizing about the Voynich Manuscript is not all that dissimilar to thinking about how a character might have written that book, and for what reason, all those centuries ago.
You’ve heard me talk about how life inspires me to write short stories like Lady Yellowbird and the Flight of the Sad Panda, but I haven’t discussed how things around me also inspire me to design, write or play games.
The recent events here in Madison have made me wonder if political tactics and issues can be resolved by playing a game of cards. So how do I envision this working? Well, there’s a few different ways I’d explore in game design to see if it was possible. Since political ideology often runs the gamut of extremely simple to extraordinarily complex, I could see a problem where the politics is over-simplified. In short, you’d have to decide up front whether or not the game would be educational or not.
Educational games can be a ton of fun, but let’s say for the sake of playing devil’s advocate you didn’t want to instruct people about the differences between political parties. In that case, the game mechanic I’d use would have an element of customization. So instead of just having a pre-generated political party, you could customize your own according to what you were trying to do.
Enter the point of the game.
For a politically-based card game, I could see that the main focal point of the game would be to either a) win an election or b) pass a huge agenda (or smaller series thereof). Gameplay would consist of smaller tasks to achieve this goal. The opponent configuration could be player vs. player, team vs. team (requiring more cards) or players vs. general public.
Items you’d want to pass might range in difficulty from national healthcare to something smaller like government research on a disease. Each agenda would have the list of requirements on the card. In order to get national healthcare you need to have X, Y and Z. Maybe that X, Y and Z requires negotiating for certain advocates in order to get it to pass. Maybe to pass it for a vote you roll dice and add the number of advocates. Maybe in order to win an election you need to pass through the relevant phases and “win” by accumulating votes.
In this way, games are born. While this is a really rough idea and isn’t sophisticated by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a start. After brainstorming, I’d work with different prototypes of cards to come up with a simple game. My requirements would be: 1) Everything has to be printed on the cards. This reduces cost to create and doesn’t require additional instructional inserts or pieces. 2) The game isn’t inflammatory. Would have to be accurate, nonpartisan (e.g. not skewed unfavorably one way or the other) and family-friendly. 3) The goal would have to be clear.
So, with those requirements, I’d definitely re-think the end goal and lean more toward “winning an election” than “winning an agenda.” Instead of money, you get votes.
This idea isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. Many of the kinks would be worked out during rounds and rounds of playtesting or even moreso when (if) I ever worked out a prototype. In many ways, that’s where I feel the true power of game design comes into play. For once you’re at the table, rules can be adapted, tested and fit within the parameters of who’s playing. Theories and concepts are great and all, but until I see them in a game, they’re not a reality. Much like this concept.