Is that you in your ava?
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Is that you in your ava?
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Weren't you reading?! It's not about the author! It's all about the story! 
Seriously though, the OP has some good advice.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
What's an "ava"? Really. Never seen it before. I hate not knowing things. It's bugging me.
Luerim
I think he left the "TAR" off the end of 'avatar' ....
"I think you're confused. This is /b, not /b/."
Oh. Avatar. Gads. Really, does it really hurt hitting three more keys?
Yeah, the irony was my wife clicking the picture without having a clue about the "shoulder kitty" costume choice. She thought it was just adorably cute with the kitten on my shoulder. It was about a week after we got her. Her name is "Zala". And she's proven a hand full. That picture was taken about 16 months ago.
Yeah. It's not about me. It's about the Zala.
Luerim
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Oh. Avatar. Gads. Really, does it really hurt hitting three more keys?
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He's just trying to threadjack. Don't let his low post count fool you, he's an expert in these matters.
Regarding the OP: Nicely done. Honestly I think you should turn this into a guide - all it needs is some more formatting (to guide the eye) and maybe some references to online fiction writing resources (of which there are many). If everyone followed your advice the quality improvement would be dramatic**.
** Edit: pun intended
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oh. Avatar. Gads. Really, does it really hurt hitting three more keys?
[/ QUOTE ]
He's just trying to threadjack. Don't let his low post count fool you, he's an expert in these matters.
Regarding the OP: Nicely done. Honestly I think you should turn this into a guide - all it needs is some more formatting (to guide the eye) and maybe some references to online fiction writing resources (of which there are many). If everyone followed your advice the quality improvement would be dramatic**.
** Edit: pun intended
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, if you could point me towards the nature of those resources, I'd appreciate it, as I pulled 90% of what I wrote out of my posterior. I'm a B to A- writer, and I'm ok with that. I strive for constancy and volume over quality. I can point the onion analogy to the Vampire: The Masquerade Storyteller's handbook (circa 1995), and the rest was experience with writing. It's the sort of stuff I wish I had somebody telling me when I was first starting out on this path.
It's easy to tell a person how to use the MA system, a user manual if you will, but it's extremely difficult to explain how to write a story. In my experience with the latter, it's a matter of throwing things at the wall, and hoping something sticks.
It's similar to trying to explain how theoretical temporal physics works. You have to throw seven different sort of close approximations at the student and hope 2 or 3 stick to the wall. The discontinuity of the student vs. the wall is exactly the nature of the difficulty in describing theoretical physics to the lay person.
And I work in a little booth, hoping people don't blow themselves up pumping gas, and enjoying the fact I get to spend my free moments reading or writing. Not a dream job, but I'm content.
Luerim
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Actually, if you could point me towards the nature of those resources, I'd appreciate it, as I pulled 90% of what I wrote out of my posterior.
[/ QUOTE ]
There's lots of general resources for writers, but of course now that I look many of them talk about the process of getting writing published in addition to (or sometimes rather than) the process of writing something good in the first place.
I learned most of what I know starting with a great book called "The Art and Craft of Novel Writing", whose principles IMHO apply equally well to any kind of fiction. (It has mediocre ratings on Amazon I think primarily because it doesn't talk about the publishing process at all.) Here's a good summary of the guidelines for fiction writing: http://www.writersdigest.com/article...vel-blueprint/ - the whole writer's digest site has lots of good information.
I'm sure there's more out there, particularly if you want to focus on genre writing like detective/thriller plots.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
[ QUOTE ]
There's lots of general resources for writers, but of course now that I look many of them talk about the process of getting writing published in addition to (or sometimes rather than) the process of writing something good in the first place.
I learned most of what I know starting with a great book called "The Art and Craft of Novel Writing", whose principles IMHO apply equally well to any kind of fiction. (It has mediocre ratings on Amazon I think primarily because it doesn't talk about the publishing process at all.) Here's a good summary of the guidelines for fiction writing: http://www.writersdigest.com/article...vel-blueprint/ - the whole writer's digest site has lots of good information.
I'm sure there's more out there, particularly if you want to focus on genre writing like detective/thriller plots.
[/ QUOTE ]
When it comes to genre writing detective/thriller plots, there's nothing that beats the old radio plays. They're solid. Their plots are still used in today's good detective/thrillers. "Castle" is an excellent contemporary example. "Murder She Wrote" is an older example.
The old radio plays are keen in that they're also free. Gotta love expired copyright laws. "The Shadow" copyright is shaky (due to the early 1990s movie), but listening to it isn't illegal.
Candy Matson is probably my personal favorite, possibly because only 14 episodes survive. Barry Craig is a close second.
"The Shadow" laps at their heels, but only because of Orson Welles and its length, and the number of surviving episodes. And bringing it up as the best "Superhero" example available. Recursively feeds into Superheroes since Batman was loosely based on "The Shadow" and my favorite episode of Batman the Animated series was "The Grey Ghost", a directly serious satirical stab at both The Shadow and the 1960s Batman TV series.
Throw in Ellory Queen's one minute mysteries... And what survives of Nero Wolfe's contributions...
This isn't a genre I discuss without solid background. 
Luerim
First thing's first, Luerim, lets discuss the most important issue here. Our cats look too much alike, your Zala (although probably much younger) is a copy of my semi-feral Zorro. Their face-mask is the same and I'm willing to bet Zala grows up to be quite the Opera Singer, especially when hungry (for either food or snuggles).
Secondly, I can't thank you enough for your post about the art of Peeling Onions! This is also how I feel about writing stories, and I hope my arcs reflect that.
So... in summation: *meow*... and good job, thanks for posting!
I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
As someone that professionally publishes RPGs and Adventures for a living (okay, it doesn't support a living, the RPG industry), the OP's advice is good.
It's a key factor I always keep in mind when creating, MA included. The player-characters are the main stars. The story is about them being in the spotlight. And the players, themselves, should be entertained.
This also means balanced missions (not a room of Bosses on load-in just so the villains can win and the players can be pissed off), non-aggrevating objectives (a clear-all on a large, maze-like map was not fun even when Cryptic/NCSoft did it), and a good story that makes them feel like they made a difference, stopped the villains, and did some good at the end.
After trying out some Missions in MA, I ran into a whole lot of ego-centric missions. "{My big bad-[censored] guy kicks [censored] all over Paragon City, Rawrz!}" Not a direct quote, but you get the idea. Quite simply, this isn't about YOU. It's about US. This is a community, and a community effort. As such, I put this together to help people who might never have really given much thought to this sort of thing, or haven't ever tried to develop a story beyond, "Dude, my dog, like, puked when he ate my Cheetos (TM). It was funny." I'm not going to get into how to use the MA editor, there's a lot of other people out there better than me at that mess (wonderfully elegant and dynamically useful mess). But telling stories... Sit right back, I've got a great bunch of suggestions (great referring, in colloquial southern, to a large number, not to quality). Keep in mind I'm seeding ideas, and this isn't a class on creative writing. But free's good, right?
I've seen some interesting takes on what to do with the Mission Editor, some really interesting stuff. A large number of people have interest in working in it, but don't quite know what to do with it. How do they create a story that is engaging, or even remotely interesting? Personally, I'm approaching this from a short story writer's perspective. While there's a lot of room for creativity, there's a lot of basic foundations and limitations in the Mission Architect system that are going to lead some of the best stories into a fairly basic formula. Hopefully, I'll manage to introduce some ideas that will enable people who want to write mission arcs to be able to produce things that won't fall apart before they're finished.
First of all, we have to understand that virtually the whole mission system revolves around the investigatory detective thriller plot.
1) Someone introduces a problem
2) The "detective" investigates that problem
3) Complications develop
4) Problem is a facade, or leads to other evidence that introduces new problem
Repeat this 5 times and you have a 5 mission story arc.
This has been described before as "peeling the onion". Each layer uncovers something more, until you get to the heart of the onion, and find the "Big Bad". It's a simple formula, but virtually every story arc mission already written into the game by the Devs follows this formula. We can argue particulars for days, but that's just people who want to argue. The Seer Marino arc, one of the best, in my opinion, in the game, definitely follows this pattern.
What made that arc good, though? I'd argue (rhetorically) it was the characters. They made you want to find out more about them because they were well described, in their own way. You got an idea of how they would respond to certain stimuli, and the climax was sort of based around that. You were wrong, of course, but even that was because the characters were fleshed out just enough that you didn't feel like you'd just gotten bamboozled.
What makes a good character, then? Even in a world of superpowers, as Stan Lee and Frank Miller realized ages ago, just because you can blow up the corner grocery mart, does not exclude wanting to get Sally Jenkins from homeroom to kiss you at the school dance. You're still human, with human emotions. Androids and Aliens are not exceptions to this observation. Since we don't have Androids or Aliens in our real life, you have to realize they're analogues for foreigners in new cultures and technological environments, or mirrors to show humanity's better or worse aspects. These are the sort of things English majors write papers on, so we'll give it a wide berth and move on to practical aspects of characterization.
First, Motivations. What motivates that villain or hero? Why are they breaking into the bank? Why are they rescuing that damsel in distress? Just being bad, or just because it's the right thing avoids a lot of potential. What if the reason the villain is breaking into the bank because he needs the money to create the next Discombobulator chip for his evil superweapon? Or the damsel being rescued by the hero is actually his ex-girlfriend? Right there you have the seeds of a second mission.
There are more motivations than can described in this missive. What really excites me are the hidden motives. Why is that villain creating that Discombobulator chip? Is it to take over the world, or is it revenge against the corporation that leaked toxic chemicals into the sewer where he worked, giving him radioactive powers, but making everyone he touches begin to die? Is the hero rescuing his ex-girlfriend because he still has feelings for her, or because she has knowledge of Crey's attempts to create a "Buy more NOW!" ray?
Both can exist in parallel, the obvious and the hidden. With well made characters, even simple sketching of ideas, they can suddenly leap out and start living. When they start living their own lives, overriding what you're trying to make them do, then you know you've got something.
With that out of the way, we get to plots. Non-experimental plots develop because people do stuff. I remember a story about an old guy catching a fish in the sea and talking about baseball that was stretched into a novel. It was written by a guy named Hemingway. We'll berth very, very wide around that story, because there's nothing in it that actually warrants it being more than a short story other than Hemingway's need to pay his bar tab. What it does speak to is that plots can be pretty pedestrian and still be considered good. It's all in the execution.
I'm going to keep it simple though. Remember the peeling onion. The MA system makes the most sense when used to reflect a detective story, with clues and developing plot threads, and unearthing new information leading to the heart or climax of your story.
We're lucky, our setting is fairly well defined, as a setting, but there's a lot of empty places to write our stories. It's a fanfic writer's wonderland. Additionally, since the Mission Architect is NOT CANON, being a Virtual Reality experience, you can break a few odd "rules". You're not allowed to go via the canon (or via the cannon) back in time beyond around 3721 BCE. Screw that. Have a Coralax vs. Snakes beat down in the "Old days", and you're caught in the middle. Just remember, you've got to connect it to /now/. Include characters, like in Planet of the Apes, where an ape scientist was led to try and understand the human, and became his friend, to connect your audience.
Additionally, with a well developed setting, you have a lot of baddies to use that have lots of motivations already described for you. Some of those holes I mentioned earlier include a lack of any sort of AV battle with King Midas, leader of the Goldbrickers. All it takes is some time with the main site, under the "Game Info>Know Your Adversary" section to unearth loads of little goodies. Even beyond that, look at permutations: What happens to the Outcasts after the arrest of Frostfire? What if "The Weaver" who controlled Arachnos before Lord Recluse came to power is not truly dead? The Mission Architect can let us explore these things, and we don't have to wait for someone else to do it for us.
I cannot urge you enough to strongly consider writing out some kind outline, no matter how rough it is, before you log in. Arguably, the rougher the better. That way, you won't have to rewrite a whole introduction just because your ideal situation doesn't work out. If you log in to see whether a vital aspect of an idea is even possible, that's encouraged, but remember: be flexible.
Luerim