Polishing chapters. Teaching new students film techniques. Putting together YouTube videos and podcasts. Participating in a podcast. Coaching a pro wrestling club. Man, I'm busy and I don't think I've ever felt more fulfilled by it. But let's focus on something literary. Let's talk about the fulfillment of your characters.
Talking about a character's goal or motivation seems like it would be synonymous with their fulfillment. But if you really think about it, you can be fulfilled without achieving your dreams. You can be happy. You can be content. So to help think about your characters and flesh them out a bit, today I'm suggesting we look at what would make them feel fulfilled. Maybe you have an epic fantasy and your character is some sort of warrior. Their motivation may be to avenge a fallen lord. That's not necessarily their dream. Their dream could be return of the old kingdom, returning the rightful heir to the crown. But let's take that away from them. If your character couldn't achieve either of those, what kind of things would let them live a fulfilling life? This is where you truly get to know your character. Maybe, had they never taken up the sword, they might have become an artist. So let's say the bad guy won or the last heir of the old house died. There is no way to accomplish those goals now. Could your hypothetical warrior find peace and fulfillment in a simple life? Raising a family? Pursuing art? Yeah, it's a little cheesy, a little cliche, but it's just an example. Think about your character. If they couldn't accomplish their goals, what else would lead to a fulfilling life? You obviously don't have to (and probably shouldn't) follow that route, but it can open you up to more parts of your character you hadn't even thought of. And, hey, the quest has to end someday, right? What would the do after? Don't Forget to be Awesome!
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Man, what do I even say about Strange Brigade. Or more accurately, where do I even start? I. Love. This. Game. I do. And I'm not a fan of the genre, really.
Strange Brigade is a third person shooter with lots of action, puzzle solving, and plenty of mummies and monsters to blast into pieces. Honestly, it could get lost in the shuffle if not for the flavor, the aesthetics, the love that went into this piece. Let's start with the aesthetics. I mean, look at that picture up there. You're part of the Strange Brigade, a group of adventurers who go on expeditions for King and Crown to recover priceless artifacts and occasionally save the world from undead, occult baddies. From the narrator's just-shy-of-annoying jokes (that's a compliment) to the 1930s dime novel settings (like their airship filled with trinkets that Lara Croft would envy) the settings and feel are just fantastic. Immersive. Fun! It's your standard third-person shooter affair, at it's heart, giving you choices of a few different main weapons, side arms, explosives, and gem powers. Along with this you can choose from any of the four members of the Brigade, such as the demon hunter, the factory lass, the professor, or the soldier. They're all enjoyable characters with neat perks, but my favorite is the Lancashire Lass Gracie Braithwaite. She's better at melee combat and her explosives recharge faster, which fits my style. Plus, she has the best dialogue. The game is aimed at multiplayer, but has a rich and fun single player campaign that in no way leaves you feeling left out. There are reminders throughout the game that you could have a friend with you, and certainly some bosses would be all the easier for it, but at no point was I ever made to feel like I was missing out for playing offline. There are tons of collectibles throughout the game, which means you'll be replaying the levels over and over to find them all and earn more cash to upgrade your weapons. Normally, I'd find this annoying, but I actually looked forward to replaying levels with different characters and trying different strategies. At no point does the game ever take itself too seriously. It's like The Mummy (the good Brendan Frasier one) but cheesier. The narrator will question who keeps lighting all the candles in the crypts and pointing out that health potions probably taste bad. Most amusingly, there are cat statues you need to shoot to collect, and the narrator has no end of anti-cat quips ("I had a cat once. ONCE!" "Pity it was just a statue.") The story is engaging and the locations are beautiful. From most locations on the map you'll be able to see spots you'll be exploring later. If you can snipe zombies from there, the game encourages it! Take them out the easy way whenever possible. Use explosive barrels, trap spikes, spinning blades, fire, and other tools at your disposal. This isn't all to say the game is perfect. It has faults. Some of the bosses are a tad overpowered and figuring out what to do to fight them sometimes gets frustrating. Some of the hidden cats only appear if you stand in JUST the right spot, meaning it's easy to miss them if you don't know precisely where they are. Despite that, the game is still charming. More importantly, it's fun! I played it solo, but I think I would have a ball playing it co-op. It almost makes me want to spring for Xbox live. Almost. In the end, I gave it a very high score and you should head over to Geek Night to see the official review I gave it there. Until next time, Brigade. Be excellent to each other. I would like the record to show that since my blog post yesterday I have officially added two new projects to my to-do list: a card game based on pro wrestling and a little audio gift for my friend MeganBob. I don't mind mentioning the latter because I'm 90% sure she doesn't read this blog. So yeah... projects.
Anyway, onto another subject, and that's finishing the projects you have. I will admit, my life is filled with a lot of half-completed stories. The Paladin may be the first story of any decent size that I've finished. Not to say I haven't written a bunch of smaller stuff, but my current novel is around 136,000 words and nothing I've typed "The End" after before has ever come close. I felt no small amount of pride and satisfaction when I first typed those words, too. It was like proving to myself that I could indeed finish a story. Since then I've knocked out the two short stories you can find here on this website, Wolves and Wild Roses and Val's Blog. And you know what? I'm proud of those, too! But if we're looking at sheer statistics, I really don't have a great track record. I really wanted to get a podcast off the ground a year or so ago, mostly inspired by the great work my friends at Smash Fiction do. I recorded three episodes, but time constraints and getting guest hosts killed that (though I did publish two episodes!) While I guess I did get my pro wrestling group off the ground, I never got some of the bigger aspirations completed with it, like doing Halloween shows or hooking up with another promotion. So I worry, now, when I look at my to-do list. I'm splitting myself about ten different ways, but I honestly think I can do them all. I'm sure I'll be proven wrong, but it feels like I can do them. So what do you do? Well, to give myself some Alice advice, I suppose I'd start prioritizing. Writing everything down. Measure it out and tackle it chunk by chunk while being careful not to add to the pile. Yeah... that sounds plausible. But like Alice, I give myself very good advice, though I seldom ever follow it. Be Excellent to each Other. Man, you have to love when technology leaves you high and dry. I have been attempting to update the blog since about 6 PM. Between my terrible Internet and my computer just not liking my website editor, I had no choice but to try this on my phone. My phone, I might add, that is having issues.
So even though I’m feeling better, I’m still going to have to make this a shorter blog post. It’s getting late and I’m frankly too frustrated to come up with anything amazing after spending, oh I don’t know, three hours trying to post. For today, I want to talk about projects. How many is too many? I mean, I really like to keep myself busy. Even today, I came across something mentioned in passing by a friend and now I feel a strong inclination to try to make it happen. It’s not as though I don’t have enough on my plate already, it’s just that I love engaging in new things. I love creating new things. I think the thing I like most is the challenge of a new project. Sometimes when you start something new, there is this moment of wonder where you ponder all the possibilities. You try to fix in your mind all the ways that you can make something come to fruition. I think that’s part of the fun for me, especially since I don’t have particularly amazing equipment for filming, writing, art, or anything else, really. It’s almost a challenge to see if I can use my limited resources and make something that is still impressive. Or at the very least satisfactory. But how do I know when I’ve got too much on my plate? Honestly, are usually have to wait for someone to point it out. Usually it’s my lovely wife. She puts up with a lot of my dreaming and drifting. When I offer a new project, are usually run it past her first just to see if she thinks it’s doable and if it’s worth my time. I know that I should probably set aside when she gives me the “Look”. so what then? Do I simply let it fade into the ether? Well, as long as you don’t tell anyone, I’m pretty much like everyone else. I just put it on the shelf, make a few notes to myself, and when time opens up, and my wife forget so I brought it up the first time, I pitch it anew. And you know, it’s not just a matter of deception or anything like that, read discovering something you are passionate about but couldn’t do at the time is invigorating. I should know. I rediscovered my old projects all the time. Don’t forget to be awesome. Oh ah ah ah ah. What does that mean? Well, if you read yesterday's post you'd know that I'm... ahem... down with the sickness.
Bad jokes aside, I'm feeling... better? Different. I have a traveling illness, I think. You see, when I was a little boy back in my home town, I got an ear infection from our crappy city pool. Since then, that ear is always tender, always a hair's width away from going stupid on me. Sometimes all it takes is being a little dehydrated and sleeping too close to a fan. Bam! Ear infection. Then the tonsils swell. Then the good ear starts swelling. Then it all drips into my throat and Bob's your uncle, I'm coughing up grosser stuff than my final fight scene with the demons of Hell. I mean, right now both ears are fine. Ish. No dryness, no irritation, no pain. But my freakin' lungs have decided that it's time for a vacation. Or maybe they just hate these working conditions and have gone on strike. Either way, I've never been more aware of my manual breathing. It's awful. And it stifles productivity. I was supposed to be training new students today at the University, but there was no way. I spent 15 of the last twenty-four hours sleeping. I kinda hate it. I don't want to get anyone else sick, so I'm confined to my room. You'd think it'd be a perfect time to get some writing done, but my brain is so fried, I can't think of what I'm supposed to write. It's worse than writer's block. It's like I know what I need to write, but I can't seem to connect from my brain to my fingers. Gah! That's all.. you're free. And take some vitamin C. It probably won't do much, but you'll feel better and that's all that matters. DFTBA Being sick may have stopped me from walking more than thirty feet today, but it won't stop me from posting! So much on the horizon and now on top of everything I've mentioned before, my friends at Smash are interested in my advocating again. So... full schedule.
In the meantime I figured I'd talk about something I'm really excited about. The sequel to The Paladin. Oh yeah, I've been working on it. I have two or three scenes already mapped out in my head. I'm loving the new characters and I'm having a blast throwing them at a lot of different scenarios to see what they're made of. Even more, I think the best part is that all of the scenes I couldn't fit into The Paladin have another chance at life in this story. Ah! Should be so good! But I can't jump on it just yet. The Paladin is in Pitch Wars and I need to focus there, plus my short story (which is fast becoming a novella) is still needing some TLC. So many creative commitments. But I suppose this is a good problem to have. So what's a writer to do when they have to finish little things before they can jump on the next big project? I guess set 'em all up and knock 'em all down. Those projects aren't going to write themselves. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go make a list of everything I need to get done. And cough my left lung out. Maybe not in that order. DFTBA Man, I am not making it easy on myself to attribute the songs I really like. In this instance its the title track to an anime I was really into in high school. The song is called Half Pain, and I'm trying my best to find the singer. Unfortunately, all I can attribute it to is the Witch Hunter Robin Sound Track. So... since it's already so weird, I decided to pick a version with English lyrics translated into the video. The song is painfully beautiful. Even before I knew the words, I loved it. It's tragic, somber, and yet still so gorgeous. It really helps with certain feelings of helplessness, of desolation, of inner turmoil that crop up along my story. I'm sure, with or without the English lyrics, you'll find it a lovely addition to your own playlist. So, from the Witch Hunter Robin OST, please enjoy Half Pain. Be Excellent to Each Other Well, the semester has begun again, meaning my job at the university is resuming. Add to this my two review gigs, my work with C+ Plus, a minor project with Smash Fiction, a few personal projects, and starting a new scholastically inclined adventure myself, it's leaving me little time for writing. And writing is big right now.
I won't know how I did in the Pitch Wars competition until October, meaning that while The Paladin is ready to go, I could still review it a couple more times in the next month to makes sure it's extra polished. All they needed was the first chapter (which is actually not what I have on the front page anymore. Guess I need to update that...) so that leaves me with the entire 40-some-odd other chapters to peruse and refine. And that's something I'm definitely going to take advantage of. This Pitch Wars thing could potentially be my big break. It could lead to a book deal. It could also fizzle out and mean nothing at all. It's kinda stressful like that. But at the same time, I have other responsibilities. Those newbies at the University aren't going to teach themselves how to film and edit. And my friends at C+ Studios have been expressing how invaluable I've become to them lately, so... yeah. Gotta make sure they're taking care of. Those are two paying gigs, after all. But the future... it holds some mystery and a special adventure I'm not ready to share the details of quite yet. That adventure is going to be taking up a lot of my time now, too. Still, I will find a way to fit it all in. I have to. If I want to achieve my dreams, if I want to change my lot in life, if I want to be everything my parents believed I could be, I have to make this work. The time is now. This is it! Also I think I came up with an idea for a pro wrestling card game. Don't Forget to be Awesome! This one took a while. First, I was traveling home. Second, the internet is terrible and my site didn't want to load. Third, I had company visit and want to socialize. And lastly... it's another song where I couldn't find the person to attribute them. Or rather, I couldn't find anything active of theirs. I know who it is. It's Claire Littley. And the song is her rendition Fly Me to the Moon. But... usually I like to tag them or give them a link on YouTube. Sadly, I can't do that. Firstly, let's look at the song. It's a beautiful song no matter which version you go with, but I like Claire's take and, frankly, the bossa nova feel is just... lovely. I shared Girl from Ipanema a long time ago, and the reason I liked it is the same with this song. It's a great cleanser. When you're writing dark, disturbing scenes, when people are dying and everything seems to falling to parts, this is a good song to cleanse your mind. Not everything has to be dreary in a dark novel, and this song lets me enjoy a little little feel when I need it. Since I couldn't find any signs of her being active since MySpace, enjoy this random YouTube channel featuring her song and my favorite version of Fly Me to the Moon. Thank you, Claire. DFTBA Okay, Saboten Con was really fun, but it’s time to get back to work. Well, once I get back home. I’m still on the road visiting friends, but I have WiFi and an imagination, so I’ll come up with something.
Today I thought I’d talk about flavor elements in world building. These are the little things. Stuff that’s small and interchangeable, but still important for making your world feel alive. These aren’t compulsory, by any means, but the can really help immerse reader. Let me start with a series that flat out abuses their flavor elements: Star Trek. I’ve been rewatching Deep Space Nine for a couple months now and, my god, they can’t go an episode without it. No one says “tea,” they say “Argonian Reed tea.” Its never “he’s as big as a bull,” it’s “he’s as big as a Tavinian rage bull.” It’s awkward that they’re so specific about everything. You think just once they’d say just “ale.” With some exceptions, I think Star Wars does it better. Remember that blue milk from A New Hope? It’s just there. No name, no explanation. There’s no reason the characters should acknowledge it. It lets you see the world is different without bashing you over the head with it. So, my humble advice is to go a little nuts with your flavor. Add unique features, but remember not to bash the reader/viewer over the head with them. Let them wonder what those things might be, so long as they’re not plot critical. Leave a little to the imagination. Just enough spice to flavor the plot, not drown it. Be excellent to each other. |
Matias TautimezKeep your eyes open for my debut novel, The Paladin. Archives
January 2023
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