Day Dreaming

The other day I had a really neat moment. As I was driving to school I was thinking of my stories. Now, you may think this would be a bit dangerous but I assure you that, being the experienced day dreamer that I am, I was quite capable of paying attention to what was going on in my head and on the road. Anyway, as I was driving I had a really neat moment where the world in my head and the real world seemed to mesh together. I was driving around a bend and there were leaves falling towards me. They seemed to slow as I was getting closer to them and, almost, I could see them falling in the field that my characters were sitting in. I'm not sure what else to say about the moment other than that it was really neat haha...

Games that are Narrative Based

A while back I played a game called "Indigo Prophecy." The main story line gets a bit convoluted towards the middle, but the way in which the story line drives the game play is truly an interesting experience. The game begins with your character, Lucas, committing a murder. Lucas wasn't in control of his body at the time though, and when he is back in control he has a corpse at his knees and evidence to his involvement all around the scene. As Lucas, you must hide the evidence and then escape the scene. Then, after you've escapes as Lucas, you take control of the two cops who arrive at the scene and with them you must find all of the evidence that you hid as you were playing Lucas. The game progresses in this way until the end, making you play a game of cat and mouse with yourself while trying to uncover the truth of the murder.

Dialogue Trees in Video Games

In the last decade one of the greatest developments I've seen in video game writing is the use of dialogue trees. A dialogue tree allows the player to respond to a NPC (non-player character) in nearly any way they would want. For example, your character approaches an NPC who seems angry. Your character will have a number of ways to respond to said NPC, from politeness to violence, or in between. These dialogue trees are most commonly seen in American RPGs, role playing games, such as Fallout 3 and Knights of the Old Republic. What really makes these dialogue trees interesting is when the way your character acts actually influences how other NPCs react to you. This not only makes dialogue trees fun, but it also allows customization into your character's personality.   

Cast in Silence

     Back in 2006 I picked up a book called Cast in Silence by Michelle Sagara. Thinking back four years ago I can't remember what originally drew me to the book, other than the neat name itself, but it certainly wasn't the bland cover. ( It's bad, I know, but usually a book's cover determines whether I'll bother to read the synopsis on the back). One of the things I do recall from back then is that I wasn't very impressed when reading the book. I didn't dislike it, but I think I felt a bit lost in all the information that had been thrown at me. Nevertheless, I became fond of the very colorful characters and picked up the second book of the series when it was published. Then the third. Then the fourth. And again with each passing year. ( The yearly publication schedule is one of the many things that makes me love the series and the author). I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line I really fell in love with Kaylin, the main character, and the city of Elantra.
     The sixth book of the series, Cast in Chaos was published this September and I devoured the book in a few days. It was brilliant, as expected, but I also found something else. I COULDN'T REMEMBER WHAT THE HELL SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WERE REFERENCED WERE. Naturally, I was bugged.  So I decided to go back and re-read the series again starting with Cast in Silence. I finished it today and- to put it simply- I was astounded. Knowing the characters and events from the later novels, I watched as Ms. Sagara placed the framework for them. A seemingly inconsequential phrase here, a brief character introduction there, all point to hints at important story arcs and developments in the later novels. It was also amazing to see Kaylin for the first time again, and to know just how much her character (and the others, for that matter) will grow.
     All in all, seeing just how carefully Ms. Sagara planned out her novels, it makes me realize just how much I have to grow as a writer. Lesson learned: Don't just sit at my laptop and write! Make a gosh darned framework first! If I get confused with my own character motivations how the heck are my readers going to feel? So it's back to the beginning for my book until I have a proper set up for it.

CNWC (current novel word count): 1,073

Introduction and First Thoughts

     Hello there! Just thought I'd start out with a general introduction of who I am and why my ramblings would be interesting to you (if at all!). Currently I am a freshman college student. My life pretty much revolves around reading, writing, and playing video games ( and family, friends, work etc.,). I've been trying for as long as I can remember to write a novel. It's the one thing in life that I know I have to do. Through all the ideas, all the random scraps of writing, so far the furthest I've gotten to my goal is 52,000 words of my most developed idea. And I've come to the realization that it needs to be scrapped. Well, not completely. The characters need more dimension, the writing needs to be more fluid, and, to be frank, I've just gotta pull my crap together.
    With that said, I'll be writing about the books I read (which are mostly in the Fantasy/ Scifi genre), the writing in the games I play, and my love/hate relationship with my novel. Enjoy!