There’s quite a bit going on over at Machine Age Productions you might want to know about. They have a shiny new website and, if you like unique and fun tabletop games with original concepts, you can get in on the ground floor of Maschine Zeit.
They’ve begun a kickstarter, a cool little way to make sure the game gets a print run. Any contribution you can make will help them get real, tangible copies into the hands of potential players and Directors, not to mention ensuring the game’s mastermind, David A Hill, show up at a convention in a cocktail dress. It’s just as awesome as it sounds.
If you’re still not sold on the idea, or are as yet unsure as to the game’s premise, look no further than this little promotional poster I put together:
The stations were meant to save us. Millions of us went there.
Millions of us died there.
Now the stations hold secrets; both miraculous and terrible. Intrepid explorers from all over the world are going up there to look for answers, or profit, or loved ones.
What they are finding, some say, are that dead men do, in fact, tell tales.
It’s time to tell yours.
A role-playing game of ghost stories on space stations.
Coming in May 2010 from Machine Age Productions
http://www.machineageproductions.com/
I wasn’t planning on starting a Tarantino series. Really, I wasn’t! However, there was a snafu at my local Netflix distribution center, and Crash ended up arriving at the same time as Pulp Fiction. Having just watched Reservoir Dogs last week, and waiting to get final confirmation of everything related to the special request for Crash (for which I’m extremely grateful), the thing that tipped the scales for me picking Pulp Fiction this week was that my wife hadn’t seen it end to end yet. Well, that and the quick Twitter poll I did, because as I’ve said, this isn’t about me, folks, it’s about you. So gird your loins, we’re wading back into the profanity-strewn pop-culture-reference-littered world of Quentin Tarantino.
Pulp Fiction is one of those cases of a film being exactly what it says on the tin. There was time when you could wander into a corner store or through an airport kiosk and find little novels with thick, cheap paper that chronicled the adventures of hard-boiled detectives, leggy dames, ruthless gangsters and dirty cops. Pulp fiction is considered by some to be a ‘low’ form of storytelling, just like horror, gangster and kung fu movies are very rarely mentioned in the same breath as big-budget blockbusters or arty Oscar bait films. Still, in the course of this film, Tarantino lays out three different stories about the lives of various people caught up in the underworld of Los Angeles, and while he certainly hasn’t set out to deliver a compelling message about the power of friendship or the heartbreak of losing a loved one or anything like that, he continues to demonstrate the versatility of film as a forum for storytelling.
I really can’t say much more about the stories themselves, since I to try not to be terribly spoilerific for the benefit of those who haven’t gotten around to seeing or reading something. So let’s talk about something more general about the movie. There’s a big difference between this film and Reservoir Dogs that didn’t occur to me until watching them again, one very soon after the other. Pulp Fiction‘s cast is much more diverse than that of Tarantino’s first film. In Reservoir Dogs race relations are touched upon and women only mentioned sparingly. Not so in Pulp Fiction – two black men take on powerhouse roles and the ladies step up to be just as memorable, funny, poignant and immersed in their parts. It’s another ensemble work that doesn’t suffer from having the size of the cast from the modest eight of Reservoir Dogs to the dozen characters whose lives weave into, out of and around one another over the course of Pulp Fiction.
“What does Marcellus Wallace look like?”
Despite this being an ensemble work, two of the actors really stand out in the film. One is Samuel L. Jackson. Hey, other filmmakers? Take a note, here: Mister Jackson needs to portray some emotion when he’s acting. As much as you might want to appeal to the hip crowd by casting him as a Jedi Master or a driven hunter of teleporting twentysomething arrogant dickbags, they aren’t the right roles for him. He delivers intense, well-paced dialog and is at his finest when he’s doing so in a role meant to intimidate or perhaps preach. There’s a world of difference between Jules in Pulp Fiction and his roles in A Time to Kill or Black Snake Moan, but those other films work due in no small part to Jackson’s performances because this talent of his is utilized to its fullest despite the differences in the roles. Jumper and the Star Wars prequels, on the other hand, fall utterly flat. While I don’t think Mister Jackson could have saved those flicks, it just provides more evidence that stoic and bland ain’t his style. Look no further than Pulp Fiction if you’re thinking of putting him in your movie. Having Mister Jackson take a role in your film is like buying a gun: if you don’t learn how to use it properly and know when to take the safety off, either nothing’s going to happen when you need it to, or you’re going to make one hell of a mess.
On the other hand, this is also the first film I remember seeing that included Uma Thurman. Other than hooking her up artistically when Tarantino, we see Uma in turns being both masterful and vulnerable, dignified and all but ruined, verbose and speechless. None of it feels contrived or affected, but rather natural and spontaneous. The same could be said for just about every line spoken in the film, since this is Quentin Tarantino we’re talking about and the man knows how to write and shoot good conversations. However, Uma in particular inhabits Mrs. Mia Wallace with personality that is at once very real and quite memorable. Uma’s roles after this tend to be on the more esoteric side of things, and I don’t think she’s been miscast quite as often as Mister Jackson. Then again, I could be wrong. I could go into more laborious detail about any member of the cast. They’re all excellent. But I think this is starting to run a little long and fan-wanky as it is.
A face only a mother could love. And critics. And movie-goers. And Uma Thurman.
A question I’ve been asked, other than the ever-present “What the hell were you THINKING??” is related to Tarantino’s ‘message’. “What is he trying to say about film?” you might ask. I would reply that Quentin Tarantino, from the very start, has been a defender of film as an art form and a medium of story telling. He came into film-making after working several years as a video store clerk, and from that vocation he brings a deep love of cinema in all its forms. High art pieces, big budget blockbusters, mainstream novel adaptations – those bases are covered. But the little, “low” films, like gangster flicks, kung-fu movies and horror films tended to get marginalized. Tarantino was and is resolved to make sure that audiences and critics understand that film is a vibrant and potent way of telling stories, regardless of the subject matter of a particular film. We’ve seen jewel heist movies before and after Reservoir Dogs, but how many of them have characters that talk and act like real human beings, with believable reactions that range from deeply human fear and doubt to the coldly psychopathic? Pulp Fiction shows us that hitmen, young wives, washed-up boxers and petty crooks are all just people and are a lot more interesting when they’re written as people, not just cardboard cut-outs to spout one-liners or look shocked in front of a green screen.
Pulp Fiction is a rarity. It’s a film that fires on all cylinders at all times without diminishing any of the power, humor or pace of its stories. It’s composed of scary good writing spoken by perfectly cast actors in real situations on real sets. It holds up to repeated viewings because, on top of all of the technical and artistic aspects that make it so singular, it’s just a damn good movie. Now, I know there are some people who might get turned off by some of the things in Pulp Fiction, given its roots in the sort of schlock dime novels I mentioned before. To be certain, the gratuity of the film sometimes verges on the ridiculous, which to my mind just makes it all the more fun to watch. Anyway, just so you know, there’s copious drug use, a couple truckloads of violence, a torrent of swearing that puts the Niagra Falls to shame and even a little sodomy. If you can get past all of that, I think you’ll find that Pulp Fiction, as a film, an exercise in pulp storytelling and a showcase of the sort of writing and acting that all films to should aspire to, is one of the best ever made.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
March Mayhem over at the Escapist is in its final round. For most of the competition I’ve been rooting for BioWare. However, last round Valve was up against Zynga, and after a tense period of back and forth, Valve emerged the victor. Now, it’s up against BioWare. It’s a very close competition, and since I’ve talked at length about BioWare in the past, let’s discuss the guy in the other corner.
Back in the late ’90s, Half-Life showed us that the protagonist of a first-person shooter didn’t have to be a hyper-masculine roided-out Space Marine. Instead, Valve slipped players into the hazardous environment suit of Dr. Gordon Freeman, theoretical physicist. The hero of this story is pretty much a bookworm, and only becomes legendary due to circumstance and the fact that his HEV suit can absorb bullets just as well as it does radiation. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about Gordon, though, is that he’s a mute protagonist through and through, and Valve doesn’t do any pre-rendered cut scene cinematics. Everything happens within the game engine and, for the most part, we are in control of Gordon the entire time things are happening. This allows the player to experience the action, terror and humor of Half-Life and its sequels without any sort of forced dialog or moral choices.
Just as notable, however, is the way Valve provides for the modding community. Both the engine of the original Half-Life and the Source engine used in its sequels are geared in such a way that anybody with the time, passion and knack for coding or rendering to approach a game based in them can bring their dreams to life. For example, there was a mod for Quake called Team Fortress that some enthusiasts ported over into Half-Life‘s engine, a project that became known as Team Fortress Classic. Emphasizing specialists working together instead of one lone gun-toting badass rushing in to claim all the glory, Team Fortress was one of the most played mods of the original Half-Life. So, when Half-Life 2 was re-released in a bundle called The Orange Box, fans were delighted to see the bundle included Team Fortress 2.
I could talk about the balanced gameplay, the fun aesthetic touches or the fact that the visual style reminds me a great deal of The Incredibles, but the important thing about TF2 is that there’s something for everybody. Still looking to be the rocket-shooting glory-hog? Play a Soldier. Interested in playing a healing class? Look no further than the Medic. Love setting things on fire? The Pyro’s for you. While the similar mechanics of all nine classes mean that anybody with even periphery knowledge of how to play an FPS can pick them up, truly mastering the nuances of a class can really enhance the experience for both the player and their team.
And then there’s Portal.
If Half-Life broke the mold when it came to first-person shooters, Portal pretty much disintegrated it when it comes to first-person gameplay, period. With a series of testing chambers and the omnipresent passive-aggressive presence of GLaDOS, Valve demonstrated that it wasn’t just violence that drives their games. Even more so than the physics or jumping puzzles in either Half-Life game, Portal is driven more by cleverness and outside-the-box thinking than straightforward shoot-em-up gameplay.
I’m not going to go into the politics or long delays or differences between console & PC versions at the moment, but rather I want to stay focused on Valve as game developers. They’ve really changed things over the years, and I look forward to what’s coming next.
Thank you for your attention, cake will be served immediately.
“The Enrichment Center promises to always provide safe testing environments. In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Center promises to always provide useful advice. For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it.”
This is GLaDOS’ way of providing feedback & encouragement. Needless to say, there are some moments in Portal at which this sort of thing is less than helpful. But feedback and encouragement are both important in the creative process, despite being very different animals. With GLaDOS’ help, I’d like to show you what I mean.
Feedback
“As part of a required test protocol, our previous statement suggesting that we would not monitor this chamber was an outright fabrication. Good job. As part of a required test protocol, we will stop enhancing the truth in three, two, o*BZZZT*”
Changes are, if you’re engaged in a creative process, the ultimate goal of that process is to create something to be experienced and hopefully enjoyed by other people. Unless you happen to be telepathic, it can be very difficult to gauge how people are going to react to what you consider to be clever, funny, touching or dramatic. Individual taste needs to be factored into most entertainment or artistic decisions, because the more broad the appeal of a given work, the greater the danger that it will be too bland, generic or safe. On the other hand, going right for a niche risks alienating a great deal of potential audience members.
The most tempting time to seek feedback, in my mind, is while the work is being created. You just hammered out element X or smoothed over passage Y or touched up that corner with color Z, and to you it looks banging. However, there’s that niggling little doubt in the back of your mind. You know somebody – let’s face it, everybody knows somebody – who thinks vampires are over-rated or believes there’s no such thing as too much sex and violence or just blatantly hates the color blue. And you’re worried that they represent the majority rather than just being a kook. So, if you’re anything like me, you begin poking around looking for someone to give you feedback to make sure what you’ve just done doesn’t suck.
Stop.
Especially if it’s a first draft. Just stop right now. You’re writing a first draft. Some of it is bound to be crap. You know it, I know it, anybody who knows what writing is really about knows it. I’m as guilty of this as the next struggling artist, especially when it comes to writing female characters that aren’t shallow stereotypes. I worry like mad over that shit. But sometimes I just have to trust the handful of people who’ve told me I know what I’m doing when I use my fingers to make words come out of my brain, and put my head down to move forward. Once the draft is done, then I can ask people how badly it sucks.
Maybe.
If I don’t go back and edit it myself first.
Encouragement
“Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance.”
On the other hand, there’s never a bad time to seek encouragement.
Let me tell you a little secret. C’mere, I won’t bite. Unless you ask. Wink, wink.
Artists, by and large, suffer from pretty massive insecurity issues. We worry that we’re wasting our time. We worry that our end result will not be enjoyable by people who aren’t our immediate family. We worry that our immediate family is going to have us sectioned. We worry about word choice, color balance, character arcs, plot structure, time constraints, deadlines, unpaid bills, collection calls, getting too fat, annoying our significant others and worrying too much.
We can tell ourselves we’re worrying too much, but sometimes it’s not as effective as hearing it from another person. Feelings of true accomplishment are few and far between. Don’t believe me? Take it from a guy who’s actually published something more than a little article on the Escapist and a short story in a horror PDF:
[Writing] is a game of inches.
You are ascending a mountain. It is slow. It is arduous.
Writing is not a romantic career. Nor is it particularly easy. Every gain is a small one. Yes, some writers take off like a rocket, but most don’t. Most eke it out. Most crawl. Most ascend very slowly toward the light.
So between those peaks that we manage to reach, we look for encouragement to keep going. We set milestones for ourselves. Finish this many chapters. Write this many words. Get to the end of this scene. They’re little touchpoints in the course of a larger work, but to us it can feel like a big deal when we reach them.
We like to share these achievements. We know in our minds that they’re just little things and they’re about as significant as nailing that “Two Points” achievement in Half-Life 2 (but man, is it fun playing hoops with D0G), but they still make us feel good. When we do share them, we’re not necessarily looking for a cookie or a pat on the head or even much more than a cursory acknowledgement that we’ve communicated. Saying we’ve hit one of those tiny milestones isn’t a bid for overflowing praise or an attempt to impress. It’s a personal announcement. It’s a tiny celebratory verbal ejaculation. It’s a yawp.
All I’m saying, folks, is to let artists yawp. Feel free to yawp back. Just don’t smack them with a metaphorical rolled-up newspaper and tell them to keep the noise down. It’s what my mom likes to call “a happy noise.” Happy noises are good.
That’s my two cents on it, anyway.
Other Opinions
“In the event that the Weighted Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice.”
I don’t know what the Weighted Companion Cube would say about feedback & encouragement, considering it’s pretty much just a box with hearts painted on it, but I’m curious as to what you all think out there in the wilds of the Internets.
So lay it on me. When are good and bad times to get feedback? How do you view encouragement? What do you do to encourage yourself, and why is it a good idea to encourage others, even if it’s just when they say “Hey, I wrote another 50 words today!!” In my view, now’s a good time to ask for feedback, so I’m asking, folks. That’s what the comments section is there for.
“Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment activity. Goodbye.”
I still need a title for the Project. That means I need to talk about The Project. In detail. Seriously, I’ll be talking about when things happen in the plot and possibly even how bits of the story will end. So if you want to avoid even minor spoilers for this EPIC MAGNUM OPUS in progress, or just find yourself unwilling to wade through the following wall o’ text, put your metaphorical fingers in your ears and close your eyes, dreaming about some variation of Trade Wars in your browser courtesy of Yours Truly.
All clear?
Cool.
Chuck over at Terribleminds discusses the ins and outs of titles over yonder. Rather than completely rehash what he wrote, I’m going to tell you to go read it, because that’s the kind of friend I am. And also because he’s brilliant. Not because I fear his beard. Although I kinda do. Seriously, I’m starting to think every manly beard on a friend is concealing another fist or an extra noise-tube full of explatives.
This little exercise is based on his section “Where do I ‘Find’ the title” and deals mostly with the second point he brings up. If any of the half-dozen of you that actually read this drivel want to chime in, it’ll bleed into the first and fourth points as well, like a wordy pool of blood under the corpse of the incredibly generic working title.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Then I’ll begin.
Let’s Talk About Theme, Baby
So this is a fantasy novel.
…
No, that’s the setting.* It’s the where and the how of crap happening. It can’t be the what or why. Theme is less about “what sort of bells & whistles will make people drop $15US on a book with my name on it” and more about “what the hell am I trying to SAY in the next hundred thousand words?” When people ask me what this thing is about, I don’t want to go right into a plot description, I want to actually answer their question. So let’s answer it right now.
This story’s about change. The magocracy** from which our hero hails is about to undergo a pretty big onCONTENT REDACTED The catch is, for hundreds of years the ruling class have suppressed facts about those other societies to better focus their subjects on the development of new and more powerful magical spells. Now, magic here is one of the things that makes this a fantasy novel. I could easily replace magic with mass acceleration technology or rubber band slingshot techniques or guns or taming tigers to serve as mounts in battle. Magic, here, takes the place of technology, and so serves the people in providing mass transit, protection, improvments on quality of life and weaponry.
The way magic is set up in Acradea (that’s the world’s name in case you didn’t know), at least for humans, is that from an early age a given person discovers what school of magic they have a knack for and get trained on that until they’re an adult. Not a lot of dual-classing in the floating Cities of Light, so to speak. Anyway, this means that not everyone can hurl bolts of lightning or turn lead into gold or make you think you’re a dancing pomegranate. However, one of the things that’ll come up over the course of this novel is that several Citizens have collaborated to create a device that allows pretty much anybody to defend themselves at range. The device conjures a small metallic ball at the back of a long metal tube, which is etched with several alchemical sigils called Gravity Wards. They’re what make the flying transit systems work and keep the Cities afloat and they’ve been miniaturized for this. Anyway, each Ward in sequence along the length of the tube makes the ball move, adding a little acceleration each time it passes into the circle of the next Ward. So, by the time the ball leaves the muzzle of the weapon it’s moving faster than the speed of sound.
The novel is less about any potential cool factor of these weapons and more about questions like these: How will these weapons chance the society of the Cities? What was the intention of those designing it, especially considering our hero was instrumental in their implementation? And what happens when an expansionist who controls not only the weapons’ deployment but also the flow of information to the people decides it’s time to get a little payback for the centuries-old incident that drove them into exile from the cradle of their civilization?
That’s the big overarching theme and, I guess, part of the plot as well. There’s also the fact that our hero is dumped in the world outside the Cities’ protective Wall into the big untamed forest/jungle area called the Wilds from the start of the story. So his personal plotline has a fish-out-of-water, coming-of-age theme to it. His brother has something of a quest for vengeance going on, and the girl in the power trio has some prejudices to overcome. Again, I think I’m getting some of my theme & plot elements mixed together, but I hope you can see where I’m going with this yarn.
I’m In The Mood For A Title
Mood ties in with theme pretty importantly as well. And the mood of this is… well, I know the words ‘standard fantasy setting’ have slipped into the common parlance, becoming an indicator of how prevalant escapism has become in modern society (thanks, Yahtzee), but this really is a standard fantasy setting only with more grimdark elements. What elves there are exist either in the Wilds just to avoid getting wiped out entirely (they didn’t begin life communing with the trees or anything) or down in the deepest parts of the world that are habitable. The dwarves live in a police state, ever watchful for signs of Corruption. The dragons are all but unheard of, the giants haven’t been seen in millenia and the humans to the north that exiled the people living in the Cities would rather not have anything to do with anybody south of the mountains.
So everybody’s a little surly towards one another, even moreso than the usual racial tension of the standard fantasy setting. Add to that the mood of the Cities, with a population that is generally happy but a ruling class that is pushing them towards open warfare but couching it in such a way that the people will want a war. It’s totally not a metaphor for modern expansionist thinking, really. It does contribute to the overall mood that this world is a pretty dark place, despite the sunshine and growing green things and sparkly magic and stuff.
Add to that the mostly-serpentine creatures in the Wilds that eat Citizens because magical marrow is tasty and addictive to them, a giant centipede-type thing down under the dwarven mines, necromancy, murder, and just a touch of eldrich abomination from beyond the stars, and I think you can suss out what sort of mood I’m going for.
He’s Gotta Be Strong and He’s Gotta Be Fast…
So this theme and mood are what will propel our hero, Asherian, along the plotlines. He’s an apprentice alchemist, pretty intelligent and willing to get along with people he doesn’t know but somewhat naive and a little too confident in his skills with magic. He was a contributing factor to the Cities’ new weaponry, the son of one of its ruling council members, and pretty much the personification of everything the other socities hate about magic-using humans, at least at first glance. So everybody’s going to be trying to kill him. Part of the drama will come from him just trying to survive, and part will come from the darkening of his otherwise sunny disposition.
The thing that made me want to write more about Ash is that he’s not your generic “Let’s go out and save the world!!1!!” sort of young fantasy hero. For the first third or so of this tale he’s just going to want to find a way home. As things go on and he learns more about what his dad and the other rulers are up to, his goal doesn’t change but his motivations do. It becomes less “I want to go home because it’s dangerous out here and I miss my mom & dad and that’s where all my stuff is” and more “I need to get home because this shit is fucked up and it needs to be fixed.” It’s not that he won’t care about the elves or dwarves or anything, it’s more that he thinks the Cities aren’t living up to what they could really be for the people around them and somebody needs to step up and demonstrate why the rather nasty folk on the ruling council are wrong about wanting to murder anybody who looks at them funny.
And The Title Is…
…Fuck. I still don’t have the foggiest of ideas.
“Cities of Light”? No, the story doesn’t really take place there. It’s sort of about them, but Ash starts out in the Wilds and doesn’t physically get back to the CitiesCONTENT REDACTED.
“Beyond the Wall”? Closer, but it feels so generic fantasy to me. I want this to be about more than just being a fantasy novel, dammit.
“Asherian, His Brother and A Snarky Brunette Travel Across A Continent To Stop The Council of Elders From Being Warmongering Douchebags”?
I think that’s a bit long for most book covers.
Also, ‘douchebags’ might not trend well.
I’m floundering, folks. Send help.
* If you think fantasy is a theme and not a setting, go over here and get that idea out of your brainpan. Seriously. Chuck will chase it out with bullets or flying jets of jism or rabid attack monkeys or something.
** Magocracy is a legitimate word. No, seriously. Gygax coined it first. And you’re not going to question Gygax, are you? ARE YOU?!?
