Plot in Video Games

In following my theme from yesterday, I'm going to address my audience. You may wonder why I haven't been writing towards one specific audience and the answer is

This question comes to us from Madeupburg Oregon. “Dear David, what are your opinions on video games? I think your book is awesome and if it were up to me I'd give you a million billion dollars. Sincerely S.B. Conscious.”

Well S.B. all flattery aside, it is an excellent question.

Plot in video games is something I've thought a lot about. If we go back to the beginning of the video game era, we notice that a lot of plot was implied through the gameplay, or non-existent. After all, what plot can we attribute to Pong excepting that time Jim smashed Elroy's head through the television after the great Pong debacle of 1984. But if we look at games like Missle Command (whose designer had nightmares about the implied plot of the game, the slow annihilation of all life), Space Invaders (an ever increasing invasion which cannot be stemmed) or even the original Super Mario Bros. (A plumber always one step behind his foe as he tries to rescue a princess) the plots here are all implied. We rarely see them acted out on screen, allowing us to develop the narrative for ourselves.

It is interesting to note there though that these older games weredesigned to be tests of skill. They required you to memorize level designs, judge distances and speeds, and pushed you to the limits to pass levels. They weren't designed with plot in mind, they were designed to be challenging, and for many of them, to consume quarter after precious quarter.

As games drifted away from an arcade format, we begin to see larger plots unfurl within games, though in many of these games the plots still aren't directly narrated and spelled out. Looking at a game like Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (just to use as an example) there is no dialogue to clarify any of the events unfolding, and beyond the connection of one boss leading the heroes through a series of challenges as they try to defeat him, there is no larger narrative.

During this time we begin to see RPG's that truly work with plot as opposed to challenges which utilize a simplistic plot to justify themselves. RPG's, with their repetitive gameplay (and I don't mean that in a bad way, just as a statement) require something more than the increasing difficulty of monsters and aquiring of goods to make them fun. They need something worth fighting for. The Legend of Zelda, Phantasy Star, and Final Fantasy all stand as examples of games which began pushing plot forward in video games and changing them from increasingly challenging tests of skill, into a slow progression through a story.

Fast forward for the sake of time, and we can begin discussing games today.

The big budget games of our time has abandoned the older style of being a series of challenges in favor of either multiplayer or story. I'll discuss Indie games in a moment, and there are exceptions to this rule such as Dark Souls but the majority fall into these two catagories. There will be challenging game play, but what set the old tests of skill games apart was that there was a game over screen if you failed and we are seeing the disappearance of the game over screen. So then, what do modern games have to offer us.

Games which exist as platforms for multiplayer generally have plots which don't do anything new. Call of Duty, Halo, Modern Warfare, etc. do have single player story lines, but they usually advance as an escalation towards a final goal to cripple or destroy an enemy. Or they just...fail (I'm looking at you Halo 2.) But these games have acknowledged something that the games of old also lived by. The plot wasn't important. The gameplay was.

On the opposite spectrum, we have the big name single players games (Bioshock, Dishonored, Skyrim, etc.) These games generally feature rich stories, which serve to draw players through them, as opposed to being something to be accomplished for accomplishments sake. This is also the case for modern RPG's which sometimes feature plots that span years, the rise and fall of civilizations, or take you through time itself. These are the games which draw intense emotions from their players and which you can't help but talk about around the proverbial water cooler.

These aspects of game plot should come as no surprise, but it's the indie games in particular which I want to end my discussion on game plot. A surprising twist to modern indie games is their combination of plot atop gameplay which used to exist within the challenge game design of old. The games I'm particularly thinking of here are games like Braid, the modern Mario games, or BattleBlock theater. These are games which use cutscenes to advance plot despite having gameplay which one would not think would contribute to plot. Essentially you have a story being told between checkpoints.

Now this isn't too surprising a development. The big plot games from above also use cutscenes (whether they are literal cut scenes or simply dialogue which plays out) to advance the plot, but they are designed with story in mind. The use of cutscenes in games which once did not utilize plot is an acknowledgement of the power of plot to advance a game! Not only that but we are seeing experimentation in story telling itself!

Let me show you an example from  That is all of the cut scenes, none of the game play. But this introduction and the ensuing cut scenes are, let's be honest, hilarious. It creates a story of witty proportions and what's interesting is that it wasn't necessary. It would have been enough to design a game with interesting game play and release but they went the extra yard and it pays off.

I could go on about plot but I feel like I've gotten my point across. Plot or story in games is no longer an anomoly which serves specific genres, it is a tool being utilized by games big and small for specific purposes. Sometimes the story is complimentary, a necessary inclusion before launching players into a larger multiplayer experience. Other times it is the predominant driving force of a game. But whether it is the first thought or the last, a good plot can add another dimension to games and raise them above the old mindset of time sinks. They become works of art.

So what are some of your favorite plots? Any games which you felt tried to hard or just missed the mark? As always, feel free to start a discussion. Or not. The choice is yours.

Chapter 6

You may have noticed my absence last week, or perhaps you just assumed me to be one of those untrustworthy writer types who posts when he chooses. Well that second part would be true, but rather than posting last week I decided to do some living. And by living I mean gaming, which can be one and the same. I did have a blog post for Friday, but I won't up missing it so it will be up tomorrow. As an apology, however, here is chapter 6, as well as a warning.

These chapters I'm posting are not the end all beat all chapters. They are drafts, which is why there is the occasional typo, inconsistency, or otherwise obvious mistake. This is not intentional, but it's also not unintentional. Part of this journey is in seeing how this book goes from start to finish. There will be days I'm just going to show you bits of old drafts (I found the very first draft the other day which will be a treat sometime soon.) But if you see a typo and think "That lazy bastard, he'll never work in this town again," I'd just like to remind you that A. It's a draft, and B. I'm not getting paid to work in this town in the first place.

So enjoy Chapterella 6. I certainly do.

Knowing Thine Audience

Earlier I posted about how an author had a responsibility to their audience, but I failed to clarify something when I wrote that article. Mainly, who is the audience?

Well today, audience, I'm here to answer that very question.

An audience is an interesting thing. It is not only the people you mean to write for, but it is also the people you accidentally do. Sometimes the audience you please is the first, and sometimes it is the second. Or sometimes it's neither. But who should we be worried about when we're creating something for an audience? The bigger crowd or the small?

Before I answer that question, I'll ask one of my own. Should I write differently for one audience or another?

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

This is why it is so important to identify the audience that you are creating for. Because who you are creating your content for will dictate what you create!` Some of the art purists will disagree and claim that an artist should create art, but I'm going to be completely upfront and call bullshit on that. But note, as per usual, there is a catch. An artist should not let the will of the larger audience dictate what they've created for a select audience. I'll get more into that towards the end.

If I know I'm writing for a different audience I will absolutely want to write for them, and that's not just placating. Unless your goal is to placate in which case...it is. But you can write to an audience without selling yourself out. You can speak to a specific group without only trying to speak to them. And this will help your audience enjoy what you're doing more than if you just trap them into seeing your work which was meant for someone else!

Writing for a specific audience is like talking to a friend. You talk to each of your friends differently because you know different things about them and you want to convey different things to them. To use my own writing as an example, the audience for Hypothetically Speaking is different in my mind than the audience for my poetry. Which is not to say that I don't want them to be appreciated by the other audience, but if I lose some people between one or the other, that's to be expected. They're not the same.

But then how do I write to a different audience without losing myself? Even if my novel is for a different audience than my poetry, they don't sound so different that they're not still me, right?

Language. Language is key. How you say things is one of the best ways to show what type of an audience you want to address. When I'm serious in my novel, I still do it in a joking voice, because I'm addressing an audience that wants a joke. When I want to make light of something in my poetry, however, I don't crack a joke, I just make a point and if the audience decides it's funny that's up to them. But I'm not addressing them in a manner to draw a laugh from them.

And there's your second key. What are you trying to get from your audience? This is another way I can use my comedic stylings as an example. It's oft been said that the the best comedy is such that if you weren't laughing you'd be crying. And that is a perfect example of catering to an audience. If your work caters to an audience that wants comedy don't tell your jokes such that they cry. If your audience wants to cry, don't make the pain of a character funny.

Is that making sense? Since I assume my audience is the intelligent type I'm going to assume yes. So one last point to make up for not posting yesterday.

Is it all right to offend your not audience? Back to comedy here, you often get an interesting phenomenon with comedy, which is that someone doesn't get the joke. Not only do they not get the joke, they get offended by the joke. Do they have the right to? Do you as an author have to work to not offend people who are not your audience?

If you know me well you should know my answer is hell no. If someone is not the target audience, who are they to get offended by it. But this gets into a problem with art that I have no addressed yet, which is that society as a whole often seeks to set itself up to trump the smaller audience. To quickly bring back the point I mentioned earlier, not selling yourself to the larger societal audience, doing so is bad because it leads to the sort of bland art that populates our movie theaters and the eight p.m. slots of the television. Let alone books... But I'll discuss more about these things tomorrow. For today, I think I've said enough.

Five Side Effects of Walking

Humans are a walking species. It's unavoidable. Unless we have lost the ability to walk form point A. to point B. we're going to have to walk to get there. But walking is about more than just closing the shortest difference. Here's some of my favorite side effects of walking.

1: Thinking

Walking may have contributed the most to my development as a thinker. For me it began in high school and has continued ever since. But what is it about walking that makes it so great for focusing your thoughts? Why not just sit and think?

When the limbs are moving the brain is working. It's coordinating to ensure we don't fall, it's breathing to ensure we don't get tired, and it's observing to ensure we don't run into things. But all of this work doesn't take a lot of physical effort and it doesn't take a lot of mental effort to keep it going. So this affords a walker a lot of time to just zone, so to speak. And when we zone, it's hard not to think.

This is sort of the opposite of meditation where the goal is to clear the brain. Here, the movement gets the brain working and is especially effective if done without music. You just find yourself going from topic to topic and if something sticks, well, you've got plenty of time to sort it out. But maybe you'd prefer not to think. Well in that case, walking is also great for...

2: Meditation

One of the principle techniques of meditation is the focusing on your breath. Walking provides the opportunity to focus on more than just breathing to clear ones minds of thoughts. There is also the movement of the arms, the lifting of feet from the ground, and the course one follows. All of these combined together offer an all encompassing physical movement to put our focus into in order to clear the mind.

It can sound odd to suggest meditation when there are so many distractions around when walking, but keep in mind what I said above. The brain is able to do a lot of the minute calculations which keep us from running into things and falling over without our focusing on them. Walking meditation is not only surprisingly effective, but also a great workout which leads me to my next point.

3: Health

Need to read a book? Why not do it while walking? Need to pick something up from the corner store? Why not take a quick walk there? Need some exercise but don't feel like doing strenuous work? Why not...well you get the idea.

Walking is a truly effective form of exercise because it's low impact and easy to sustain over a long term. Now note that I'm not claiming walking is the way to lose forty pounds in forty days. It's not an end all exercise and it can't replace the benefits of a good diet. But walking does contribute to overall health. After all, we did evolve to do it, so why should it surprise us that it might just be good for us to walk?

It's at this point I should clarify, when I start throwing in suggestions to do more than one thing at once, that all of these walking tips should not be put into play when there is a lot of busy traffic around. Sometimes you need to pay attention. But if you are in a safe location then walking also is a great way to...

4: Enjoy Your Music

If you don't have a song that makes you uncontrollably bob your head then you might just need some new music. But if you do, then would you be surprised to learn that there is also music out there that it is almost impossible to avoid moving your body to?

Walking is movement with rhythm. If you're the type who enjoys a good head bobbing than it can be truly enjoyable to listen to music that you find yourself throwing some dancing into. Getting into a song while walking connects you to the music in a way that just laying and listening can't do. It can make your music more enjoyable and you might just notice some aspects of a song you had never noticed. Which leads to my last point...

5: Discovering New Places

Lastly, walking is a great way to discover places around where you live. And not just because you'll find yourself going to more places the more you walk. When we're driving we can sometimes be more focused on the goal than getting there. We learn a way and then we follow it until the world interferes and forces us to find an alternative. Or we get horribly lost...

But with walking, you can find shortcuts you would never try with driving. And with these shortcuts come new places. Fields you never knew existed, shops you never would have thought of visiting but which you duck in to see because you're on foot. You might even find alternative routes which shorten your normal travels.

So that's my brief discussion on walking, which as you can see is not just for travelling anymore. It is my recommendation that you test them immediately if you doubt the power of walking, and if you're not completely satisfied your money will be returned in full.

An update

Rather than an update you get Chapterella 5. Which I feel is better anyways. Enjoy.

Work Ethic

This is a topic that some people who know me probably won't believe I would choose to write about. And as much as I'm going to try to not turn this into a "do as I say, not as I do" discussion, that is part of being a teacher. Trying to prevent the mistakes you made. So enough explanations. Let's get started.

If I have not mentioned before, Hypothetically Speaking has been a work in progress for over five years. As of writing, I am editing through for the third time and I don't think it will be the last edit because each edit not only sees corrections but it sees additions or replacements. And those require further editing later to see if they fit with the previous material.

But that's not five years of continuous work. I don't want to mislead you. In fact, there have been long stints where the story has sat. I've rewritten it at least three times, and by rewrite I mean completely changed everything. The only thing that has remained consistent has been that I've worked on it. No matter how bad it failed in the past, I didn't let it fail.

And now it's 'finished.' In a sense. But that means the work has just begun.

I'm not just writing this to discuss my own writing process, I want to get into something deeper. While I was letting Hypothetically Speaking stew, I didn't sit and do nothing. I was writing other things. Poetry, most of which sits in a folder on my computer because I hesitate to send it places. Short stories which went through first drafts and stalled. Though I've written a lot since I started writing, most of it is unfinished and unseen.

What's the purpose behind telling you all of this besides just trying to state that I work hard as a writer?

It's the ethic of it

Now that I'm in an editing phase I haven't stopped writing new things. I've begun writing a second novel, a YA fantasy adventure series partly because of a challenge, and partly because the idea has been in my head and it needs to get out. Yes it's based on the Britannians that I have posted, but it's different. And more importantly I'm working on it.

Which is the ultimate message I want to get across. In a roundabout fashion.

I worked on Hypothetically Speaking for five years, but I wrote the first of the editing drafts in the month of January. I'm halfway through my third edit by mid April and expect to be in a state to publish by May unless something pushes me to act faster. And the thing that's changed since January that wasn't present in the previous five years was just sitting down and doing it. All of it. Not false starts and half ways and second guessing. I just did it.

Because here's the thing with work. Working hard doesn't mean a thing if you don't finish. Just as working hard doesn't mean a thing if you don't get a quality product. I've gotten through the first and I'm working on the second, but I hope you've seen what I meant to get through this writing. I'm a little distracted by the world this week, as I discussed earlier.

All I'm trying to say is that talent without effort is worthless. And that's a modification of a Charles Bukowski quote so don't go attributing that to me.

The apparent schedule

If it has not become obvious, Monday through Wednesday are easy to get blog posts for, but Thursday and Friday are up in the air. I think this element of randomness combined with a consistency makes for a fun schedule.

Oh, but today is totally an off today. We'll talk more tomorrow.

Why We Need Young Teachers

In an op ed I recently read, the author warns young people against taking the time to become teachers in a country that is growing increasingly hostile towards its educational system and by proxy it's teachers. And I can't argue the validity of his points. They're accurate. But I do argue his message.

The author of the article, to summarize, directly tells young people not to become teachers. He raises some good points, like how policy is dictated by people who would never send their children to the schools and that their isn't a support system in place which offers clear punishment for problem students. But this isn't necessarily a modern problem. This has always been a problem. For the latter, a quality teacher learns how to deal with problems internally, and modern educational theory encourages this approach anyways because often students are acting out to get themselves kicked out of class!

As for the former, that people dictating policy would never send their children to those schools, when has that not been an issue? This is just the same as saying that people who dictate economic policy don't work within the policies they put in place. People who dictate war policy would never send their children to war. The problem, to summarize, is that there exists a rift between the upper and lower classes.

But what is going to happen if all of the idealistic and hard working future teachers give up and quit?

Well one of two things could happen. The first is that the system recognizes the error in its ways and drastically moves to change to appease all of the potential teachers who decided not to enter the profession. Teacher pay will rise, curriculum will be the responsibility of teachers, and the day will begin with coffee and cupcakes.

Clearly I don't think this is going to happen.

The opposite, and what might be lending itself to an accurate observation in the increase in bad teachers, is that as higher qualified individuals leave the field, schools will settle for less capable educators. If you're not aware, their used to be a shortage of teachers but as of writing this there is a surplus! Removing the future generations of teachers is not going to clear away the bad teachers, it's just going to encourage even more bad teachers to enter the field.

Many of the policies which inhibit teachers are in place because of said surplus of less qualified individuals. Teacher's have to be given a curriculum because some teachers don't know enough to teach theirs. Teacher's have less ability to punish student's because some teachers punish too many. Teacher's can't fail students because no child can be left behind which, as horrific a policy as it is addresses a very real problem that there were problems even before our current ones!

Encouraging people to quit just because something has become difficult is never sound advice. In fact, it's directly contradictory to the very nature of teaching. If every student quit when things got hard no one would ever learn anything. If every worker quit when things got hard, nothing would ever get done. But it raises a more important question.

If no one teaches people that things are wrong how will anything ever change? I'm not encouraging teachers to stand in front of their students and rant about how being a teacher sucks and we should all riot against the man, but when students ask me about teaching I tell them the truth. It's a lot of work. It was before things got rough and even if we see pay increase and better support systems, more curriculum control and better training methods, it will continue to be hard!

Without stepping up onto my own soap box for too long, teaching might be one of the hardest jobs I can think of. Teachers are tasked with instructing a non-receptive audience often in the most tumultuous time of their lives, balancing caring enough about students to help them grow without caring too much or too little, dealing with parents who question your every move, people who question your authority, and a world which changes what it wants of you almost as rapidly as you learn what it wanted before it changed its mind.

But everything I listed there has nothing to do with the issues raised in the article. It's what teaching is all about. And it's why we do it. I knew about many of the issues (excepting that there is a surplus of teacher's) before I set out on my mission of becoming a teacher and I did it anyways. Because the world needs great teachers. If you're going to be discouraged by some hardship than you shouldn't be a teacher anyways, it's not for you. But the only way that things change is with great teachers who can do their jobs no matter how much society tries to stop them.

From my perspective there is no better time to become a teacher, because there's so much to be overcome and incorporated as lessons for students who need to see when the system isn't in your favor you fight even harder to change it from within.

And Now for Something Different

I've been pretty consistent in getting four posts (at least) a week onto this sucker and today is going to be no different. But rather than sling a bunch of words at you, I'm just going to go for the ole, ask you to consider some things.

Today I would like to ask you to listen to the following song, which I love, but also I would like you to consider a few pieces of the lyrics.

"In this life you can be oh so smart or oh so pleasant,
For years I was smart, I recommend pleasant,
Being smart can make you rich and bring respect and reverence,
But the rewards of being pleasant are far more incandescent."

"I'm probably the youngest person you'll get advice from today,
And you may think that a guy my age wouldn't have anything to say,
But it's said that observation, not old age, brings wisdom,
And I observe every single life lesson I'm given"

"How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood,
And then just be.. in.. a good mood?"

'If you can't forgive and forget,
How's this,
Forget forgivin' and just accept that that's it',
See that's how it's gotta be.
Then you can fall in love, get on with your life and be free."

That's all for today. If you have any thoughts feel free to post them/ask them, but otherwise it's an easy reading from yours truly.

Chapterellas 3 and 4

Well folks, the new chapters are up. This makes a significant push and represents somewhere close to 1/10th of the book. Seems like a good time to do some talking about the book.

The reason I posted chapters 3 and 4 together is that, after careful consideration, I actually shifted their order. It might not seem like a huge shift but in terms of flow it does. So when you read 3 and 4, give a bit of consideration to how you would respond if 4 came before three.

Of course this is one of the joys of literature after the fact. You can do that and no one can stop you. But deciding to do it myself took more than two years of writing to finally do. Chapter 4 had always been chapter 3. And then I thought...what if?

Going forward in this story, it is important to remember that the title of the novel itself is not just clever word play. This is a story of what if. And I hope you've been enjoying the what if. So what's coming in the future?

Well for one, of course, more chapters. I'm going to keep publishing more of the book online in slow segments because I'm also in the process of editing and I can't go further than I myself have decided is set to go. And until it's published published, there's still more opportunities to edit.

As for publishing the book, people keep asking me about it and believe me, it is my goal to get the book published. There are a few ways to go about it, and I'm in the idea stage for a way to do so, but worst comes to worst, I'm going to push to get the whole book online and once it's up, I'll start looking into working kickstarter or something like that. But for now I just want everyone to enjoy reading it and hopefully experience a little bit of suspense.

So enjoy chapters 3 and 4. We'll talk soon about the book. Or something completely different.

Six Mostly Thought Out Love Archetypes

Good Afternoon everyone. How are you? I'm going to assume well because why shouldn't you be? Let's break away from the unanswerable questions and dive into our topic for the day.

Using a new found respect for shorter (though not quite five letter short) words, I'm going to continue the talk we had on Monday. Archetypes. Let's define some shall we? I'm going to focus on the modern Archetypes found in love stories because I don't hear enough about them and I find the topic fascinating. I'll go into the archetype itself, pros to the archetype and cons.

So why six? Three male and three female, in alternating order. And I'll start with...

The Pixie

An apt definition of the pixie would be a large percentage of the characters that Zooey Deschanel plays. Whether it's because she herself is a pixie, or just typecasting, Deschenal often finds herself playing the following character. An independent girl who isn't afraid to make the first move. Fun and unpredictable but not wild, more quirky. She doesn't want the stereotypical love she wants something real. The pixie is what she sounds like, fun, flirty, energetic.

Pros-The pixie is a more recently developed archetype, which shows a shift in romantic expectations. The fact that they're willing to make the first move is great for love stories, as is the fact that they go against the old stereotypes. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like Pixies but...

Cons-Pixies are often found in movies where the male lead is shy, boring, and potentially recovering from serious issues. Pixies generally bring characters out of their shell, but the pixie much like a different archetype, hinders personal character growth. In addition, they can often become unrealistic, little more than a bundle of quirks not necessarily a real human being.

The Nice Guy

There have always been nice guys, but in an attempt to draw men as well as women into watching romantic comedies the nice guy has taken a shift. In the past, the nice guy was just that, nice, but nice guys were still generally the stars of life. That is to say, they were the rich, the athletic, the complete package so to speak. The problem with that old way is that nice guys almost always come about due to having to make up for a lack in other traits, which is why we now have the new nice guy.

We see the new nice guy in shows like the Big Bang, movies which give geek actors the opportunity to woo hot actresses in romantic comedies more comedy than romance. A lot of the better nice guy movies feature older romances such as in Cyrus, 40 Year Old Virgin, etc. But what I'm getting at is that the new nice guys are nice to overcompensate for traits they lack. They are often understanding in the face of irrational emotion, willing to go to great lengths to please their woman, have some sort of well paying job but often aren't exorbitantly wealthy, and often see in a person what they themselves can't.

Pros-The obvious, nice guys don't treat their women like crap, and often woo a girl who is being treated like crap. They view their love interest as a real person and understand that real people have real problems.

Cons-Their is a limit to how much crap a person can take and while the nice guys in the movies take a lot, real nice guys are more wont to find someone nice as well . Nice guys also tend to be delegated to the role of waiting while their woman figures out what she wants, where as a smart nice guy knows waiting almost never pays off.

Smart Girls

Smart girls aren't often the pursued in Romance but they are increasing in number as the pursuers. Emma Stone plays a lot of them, and they tend to be similar to, but not quite the same, as pixies. Smart girls are firstly smart, both book smart and character smart. They have a protective edge of snark around them which keeps dumb guys away and tend to use a lot of sarcasm.

Smart girls still follow a lot of the rules of classic romance, they still want a guy who will make the first move but they want someone who sees them for who they are and isn't afraid of their intelligence. Smart girls often are trying to find Mr. Right while also pursuing some dream career. They don't necessarily have wild and crazy quirks, but will often let loose at least once in a movie often with the aid of alcohol. Once they are being pursued they make it difficult for the man but that's part of the point. Smart girls aren't easy.

Pros-Firstly they're smart. Any smart female character is to be celebrated and smart girls tend to be comfortable being alone and won't tolerate a bad relationship. They are driven, have personality, and are the most realistic of the types I'll list.

Cons-None. I love smart girls. Ok, there have to be some cons. Smart girls tend to be leads, we only see their perspective. There's not much from the other side which serves as a problem. Also smart girls, for all of their intelligence, somehow always wind up with the old nice guy. So essentially, Smart girls, while awesome, still exist in an older romantic context.

The Dark Brooding Guy

We'll go straight to Twilight on this one. Edward and Jacob fulfill this role, as do a lot of the love interests you see in supernatural, fiction. The Dark brooding guy isn't going to tell you what he feels, and even if you want him to stay away, he's going to be around. They say everything you want to be told but could never admit, and do everything you want someone to do but would never tell. They get you because they're obsessed with you.

Pros-Who doesn't want to be someone's obsession? Dark brooding guys often see through the flaws of a character to their core, and understand a person fully. Plus dark brooding guys have secrets, often powerful secrets. And they're masters of the bed room.

Cons-I've never seen a dark brooding guy character who didn't read like a stalker. Being mysterious often isn't due to a person having secrets, it's due to a person not having anything worth saying. And dark brooding guys often are emotional train wrecks, transferring through emotions at the drop of a dime.

The Bad Girl

This is again a shift, because the bad girl has always existed. Currently the bad girl is seen in movies like Fight Club, xXx, Bad Teacher, etc. Modern bad girls don't give a fuck and they don't care if you know it. Bad girls will tell a character what's what which will often be infuriating but also what they need to hear. They will often have their own style and odd hobbies/behaviors, but in the end a bad girl learns something and sticks with the person who can tame them.

Pros-Much like the Pixie bad girls aren't afraid to make the first move but unlike the pixie the guy has to already be in a state to handle the bad girl or else nothing gets initiated. Bad curls push characters to their limits, they reveal truths to characters, and they are more interesting than more normal girls ever could be.

Cons-bad girls are often crazy. If you encountered one in real life most instincts would scream run and they'd be right. Bad girls generally have serious issues which need resolving, and often drugs are involved.

The Geek

Obviously shows like the Big Bang theory employ the geek archetype, but we also see them popping up more frequently now. The geek isn't so much a new as it is evolving. Now they get to go on romantic adventures as well.

Geeks embody a lot of the nice guy, though unlike the nice guy don't have the confidence to employ it. They have lucrative careers, busy lives, and generally exist within their own geek worlds. Geeks are mostly seen in more heavily comedic roles because they make way more mistakes than the other archetypes, but they also tend to have the biggest rewards.

Pros-Geeks have their stuff together. They offer much of the rewards of the nice guy but they also have better senses of humor. They'll often encourage characters to break away from their constrained worlds and experience some of the strangeness in life.

Cons-Delegated to comedic roles, geeks don't get a lot of opportunity to break from the stereotypes of geekdom. Since they share most of their traits with the nice guy, they can often be confused, though there are plenty of the new nice guys who are not geeks. They also tend to not go for geek girls much like how the smart girls go for the not as smart guys.

So there we have it, some new archetypes to consider. Of course I might have gotten it wrong but lacking other reading on the subject I felt I'd add my analysis to the game.

The Five Task

Today is going to be a bit odd. My mom bet that I could not write a post using only small words. But there is a post topic in this game.

What do the words we use mean?

I'm not going to talk about what each word means, I'm going to talk about the group of words we use. The level of words we use. Why we use big words and when to use small words. So let us begin.

When I teach, in those rare times, I often find that young girls or boys tend to put a lot of big words in their work so that they sound smart. I too used to do this when I was young. But big words for big word's sake gets thick. It can weigh a paper down. And if you use a big word wrong, you just sound dumb.

Big words can also limit who reads your work. Some types find big words scary, or too hard to read. Light reads have been a part of our world for a long while. They don't take a lot of time, work, or will. And often they can be quite good.

So why use big words?

For one, often small words don't say what you want them to say. Big does not have a lot of oomph if you want to talk about a giant. Small does not mean a thing when you talk atoms. At times, you just need more.

They also do, at times, make you sound smart if you use them right. I can't show you some right now, but it is clear to me that this post will not sound like my other posts nor like other texts. If the type you want to read your work wants a smart voice, you need the words. If you don't have them, you can't fake it. But that can't be all, can it?

To end and be frank, big words are just plain fun to use. We learn so many in our lives, and to just let them fade in our minds seems sad, and a waste. I love big words which is why I use them so much. But maybe my mom is right. Maybe a shift in tone is in order.

Just a little one.

Now I pass the task on to you. Try to write some idea using only words under five...you know what I mean.

An Archetypical Post...or is it Stereotypical?

Archetypes versus stereotypes. Quick, define. Your answers will be graded at the end of this post.

We all embody aspects of stereotypes within us. It's nearly impossible not to. The very act of trying not to be stereotypical might in fact make us fall into different stereotypes. However, I've never met a walking stereotype before, or if I have I've blocked the knowledge from my memory. And I might be a geek, and I might embody some stereotypically geeky behavior, but I'm certainly not a stereotypical geek.

The same holds true for archetypes. Archetypes are like stereotypes except they are more broad in nature. A stereotypical jock might be hardworking, but a jerk, where as an archetypical hard worker might be a jock. If this doesn't make sense, I'll clarify further.

There is, in fact, a lot of theory on archetypes in storytelling. I'm going to use a great example, Star Wars, because it's what I grew up learning about in high school. Star Wars episode one does a great job of showing off a multitude of archetypes, many of whom do not fall into typical stereotypical behavior. Let's list and describe some of them, shall we?

Luke: Luke is the young hero archetype. He stands out from his peers, generally through hard work, but his origins are humble and his knowledge limited.

Ben/Obi Wan: The knowledgeable mentor, Ben does the job of training the hero and expanding his understanding of the situation he has found himself in. Ben, as a mentor, deals primarily with the mental and is physically frailer than other characters.

Han: Han is the rogue. He skirts the law, making his own rules and code of conduct, though he is honorable in that he sticks to this code. He is a risk taker, but has a different perspective on the world which shows the seedier elements.

And so on. I don't want to devote this whole blog talking about one franchise, but you're seeing what I'm getting at. We see these archetypes and many others in a plethora of other characters. The hero is Harry Potter, he is Neo, he is Stephen Daedelus. Ben is also Yoda, he is Dumbledore, he is Morpheus. Han is Jack Sparrow, he is...

Notice that all of these characters I listed are each unique characters. They may all fill the same shoes, but unlike stereotypes which manifest in specific ways, archetypes manifest in vastly different ones. We often see characters grow within the archetype and sometimes go on to break the mold for it. Just as stereotypes exist for a reason and are constantly under scrutiny, so too are archetypes.

So what was the point in this sudden break from love and the like to discuss Archetypes? Tomorrow I'm going to set out to define my own discovered archetypes from love stories, or stories which deal with love. By doing so, perhaps I can show where we get some of our conflicts with love stories and real life, and that maybe some of the elements of hopeless romance aren't so hopeless.

Love, Or Something Not Like It

What is there for a near perpetual single man to say on love? A lot more than you'd think.

Let's begin with what it's not. We'll return to Gordon-Levitt for this one.

The rising expectation, whether it be perpetrated from Twilight or Romeo/Juliet, Sixteen Candles or the Notebook. The expectation that seems to have been perpetrated by a lot of this media, is a hopeless devotion, a dependence, a need for another person. I'm no expert on what media influences our understanding of love, but I do know that a lot of this is a very dangerous thing.

Full disclosure though I have absolutely bought into it in my lifetime.

My first relationship, in fact, was driven by the same expectation. We had to spend all of our time together, something we both did without question. We had to ask no questions because they were unneccesary, we were in love and love was special and ours was unique and love love love. Of course my friends weren't fans of her. My parents hated her. We were not healthy for each other, but we were in love. Love is blind. Love is pure.

That love was crazy. And men tend to say that when it's not correct, as in 'we broke up and she cried, she's crazy yo.' No. She had some serious issues. And I did to. Again, full disclosure. We both had a lot to work out that we ignored because love.

Disclosure done. What I'm trying to get at here is that it's hard to ignore those media influences. They seem to promise so much happiness. Someone who gets you completely and who wants to spend all of their time with and who you want to spend all of your time with and how could you ever meet someone like that and not get so attached that when they're gone you mourn their absence and the thought of not being with them is just too agonizing not to bear?

There is a huge difference between loving someone and loving an idea. In those relationships where a person's complete wellbeing is dependent on another, it's not loving someone, it's loving an idea. This, to return to (500) days of summer is how we see Levitt's character. His entire being centers around a relationship and while Summer is an amazing girl, she's not an amazing girl for him. She just fills a place in an idea he's created.

This is the unaddressed issue in a lot of romance. We get a plethora of characters who find 'the one' and then the live happily ever after forever because love is forever and...yeah, sarcasm. But the amount of people who will love one person and only one person for their entire lives is infintesimal. Not only that, it's a bit worrying for the people who do. If you've experienced a break up, think about how much you learned about yourself from it. Especially if it was a bad one. I like to say my break ups have been so bad I had to learn to appreciate being single because I knew how bad it was sometimes to not be.

What obsessive love lacks is the ability to really learn anything about yourself. I told you above, we both had a lot of things to work out in our lives because we were young and foolish. By being obsessed with someone you ignore yourself and what's going on with you. Not only is that unhealthy, but it also freezes you in place. If you're ignoring yourself, you're not growing as a person, and as soon as we stop growing as people well...bad things happen.

Love is not spending all of your time, or money, or emotional energy on. It's not stalking or dependence. It's not obsession. What is love? Maybe I can scratch the surface of it tomorrow. For today, a quick explanation of what love is not seems appropriate. Take care audience. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

P.S. For a witty interpretation of the phenomena of love, here's a Cracked article which does a great job with the subject.

Apologies

Hey everyone. Even in this technological age, sometimes issues arise. I have the post all written up that was supposed to be posted tonight, but I cannot access it. I will give you your discussion tomorrow, and then sometime this weekend will be a second posting to conclude the series. Sorry for the delays, it's been a crazy week.

The Audience Versus George Lucas

All right, I lied yesterday. I'm going to talk about love tomorrow and Friday, but with throwing a whole lot of details about the Author's responsibility to the Audience, and vice versa, I want to go into great detail about a case where both parties failed to live up to their responsibilities. George Lucas, and Star Wars.

I'm not going to pull up any videos of people insulting George Lucas because in my old age of 26 I've taken a step back from my disappointment and actually considered what happened during the production of episodes 1-3. If you want to see some high quality analysis of the problem, I suggest checking out the film The People Vs. George Lucas, which is streaming on Netflix, as well as Red Letter Media, who does some very in depth reviews of the movies. But my goal here isn't to go into whether or not the Star Wars prequels were failures. My goal is to talk about why they were doomed before they were even made.

Star Wars: A New Hope changed everything for Science Fiction, and not just in terms of storytelling. Because storytelling wise most highschoolers these days are going to learn about how the plot of Star Wars is basically the old heroic arch and there's nothing wrong with that. There are no new ideas. But what Star Wars did that had never been done before was that it took the universe out of the movie and brought it into your home.

The amount of action figures, lunch boxes, sheets, buttons, etc. from the first movie alone is daunting. By the time Return of the Jedi hit the market and the ensuing product line followed, there were video games being produced and more actions figures which meant more worlds to imagine. When Lucas began to create The Phantom Menace his universe had been expanded by books to the point where the Galaxy far far away was not a mysterious place filled with an untold promise of worlds, it was a fleshed out and heavily populated mythos which had already told a plethora of stories after and before the happenings of the first three movies.

There's a problem with all of this though.

You cannot create a product line of action figures, scenes, dolls, shirts, videogames, books, all branching out from your created universe and expanding upon it and allowing people to make up their own stories within it and then turn around and try to tell a story about the characters that people themselves have already created stories for. The problem comes not in telling the origins of the characters, the problem comes in the fact that never providing them we, the audience, already made up the origins!

What I'm trying to say here is that by the time Lucas set about creating episodes 1-3, it was too late. The universe was no longer his. This itself could turn into a discussion on fanfiction and the like, but it's not really applicable here. Lucas gave his universe to us. It wasn't in his films that he did this, it was in the excessive at points level of marketing. You cannot give people the tools to create their own stories and then try to insert your own story over it. It just doesn't work. People get upset. And that's what happened.

After almost thirty years of envisioning their own ideas of the hinted at history of Ben Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker in a mysterious period called the Clone Wars, no one needed to hear the story anymore. The Audience had done the work themselves, as they will do with any story that leaves details untold. We fill in the blanks and we're happy to. That is a huge compliment to an artist, in fact, that their work inspires us to create our own details filling in the blanks. If we didn't like it we wouldn't care.

So is the fault all Lucas's? Absolutely not.

I hate Gungans. With a fiery passion. But there's nothing Lucas ever presented me that doesn't leave the possibility for them open. After all, if I could tolerate Ewoks, why not Gungans? There's nothing that says he doesn't have the right to work within his universe even despite all of the arguments I made above. It's his universe, he made it! And there's nothing that says he has to tell the story that his fans wanted to hear. If artists did only what their fans wanted J.K. Rowling would still write Harry Potter books, Metallica would only keep recreating their first album (which some might argue is what Death Magnetic is), and every year we would have sequel upon sequel upon...oh wait...that part is partially true.

But what I'm saying is that Lucas had every right to make those movies how he did. And we as fans must do the following. We must accept the vision, or we must approach it from a completely distant perspective, which is what Red Letter Media does a great job of doing in his review. He talks about the movies as movies, not as movies from the perspective of a fan, but just as they are, movies. We have to do some honest critiquing of them and we have to be willing to admit what is good in them.

However this isn't a critique so I'm once again not going to get into that. Go watch those reviews. Go!

What I'm trying to say is that as an audience we can't have our cake and eat it to. We shouldn't be so upset when an artist does something and we don't love it. It's their right. And maybe, if you don't like it, you have to step back and ask if you're the target audience in the first place. There is a great scene in The People vs. George Lucas where an adamant hater of the prequels discusses how his young son LOVES them. And for all we can detract on the films, if they are meant for kids and not us as adults, should we get so upset or maybe wonder if George Lucas cares about the cliché geek who can recite the names of every Rogue Squadron member?

As this post has hopefully shown, rarely is the question of Artist vs. Audience as simple as my example from Monday with the Joseph Gordon-Levitt quote. It's not always clearly laid out what the artist wants nor what the audience wants. Which is why we have reviewers, why we as an audience are free to decide where to spend our money, and why an artist who has no interest in the ultimate fame doesn't have to include sparkly vampires in order to support themselves.

Now then, tomorrow there will be love, because I promised it. So much love you'll possibly hate it. Muah ha ha ha ha. Take care audience, hopefully you got what you wanted today. And if not...

The Author's Responsibility to the Audience

Yesterday I pretty beligerantly told you that you as an audience have a responsibility to the people who make the things you love. Now for the flip side of the argument. The responsibility that the people who make the things you love have to you. A lot of you might assume I'm going to take this time to rant about George Lucas but I won't. The problems I have with Star Wars have been addressed in so many other places that I want to take some time later on in this blog to go into them. But not now. For now I'm going to stick to the point at hand.

What does an artist owe their audience?

When you think about it, a lot. Your audience are the people who actually spend time on what you have created. They are the people who will give life to your characters, who will tell other people about the good time they had with them, and let's just be flat out honest here, they are the people who might even pay you for what you've done. But we'll get to that detail later. What I'm driving at here is that your audience is not a thing that you can piss all over and expect to get away with it.

As an audience we all have expectations. If I pick up a science fiction book, I have different expectations than I would have from a drama. If I watch a movie, I expect different things than from TV. Reading my blog you have different expectations than other blogs. Because I'm witty and more handsome than those other bloggers.

My point is that audiences have expectations and one of the responsibilities an artist has to their audience is to satisfy those expectations unless I have a really really really really good reason to do otherwise. I'll get into those reasons in a moment. First some example rants. I'm going to steer away from movies on this one because there tend to be more hands in the pot than can manage a good product.

First an example of a failure to meet an expectation.

Have you ever given up reading a book because you just lost interest? Ever walked out of a movie (ok, I can't avoid the movies). Quit a video game halfway through? When you did, was it because you had initially set out to experience something bad, or was it because the product was no longer satisfying you?

I'm willing to bet the second.

Whatever it is we give up on, it is because the product has generally forgotten its responsibility to the audience. To entertain us. I will eventually have a huge rant on how post-modern art in general has done this to its audience. There are long debates which can be held on whether the artist needs to entertain their audience and to those who oppose I say start an argument in the comments section otherwise I win.

Any media/art I consume must entertain me in some way. And let me clarify something here. I am entertained by thinking. I am entertained by asking questions. I am entertained by emotional responses to things and I am entertained by things which simply entertain me. Sometimes I demand knowledge of what I'm getting into up front, and sometimes I enjoy being surprised by what I've gotten. But something has to be delivered to me.

Media for medias sake sucks. It is simply words, or sounds, or vision swhich enters and exits a brain without delivering anything. And this almost always happens when the thing is created without an audience in mind. Creating something without a target audience is as useless as creating food with no flavor. It occupies a space, but it doesn't do anything.

Now, let's look at a different example of failing the audience. I'd like to talk about the videogame Braid.

First off, I love this game. It has a beautiful atmosphere, it's challenging, it has an interesting mechanic, and it is deeper than most other video games I've ever encountered. I'm going to provide a clip from a fantastic movie that I recommend you check out, which is free to download. In the movie, Braid creator Jonathan Blow is discussed, including his habit of going onto the blogs of people who reviewed his games and correcting him.

If you didn't watch the movie, what the creator is essentially doing is complaining that his audience did not understand his vision. That they got something different out of the experience then he intended. This seems like a perfect example of what I discussed yesterday right? That the audience has a responsibility to the artist to understand his intent?

Not to the point that you can go around trying to explain to people what you didn't make obvious in your work.

There is a trend in media now to make things unclear for the sake of being unclear. This happened in Lost most predominantly, but is a large tool in media of all types today. And it's fun to not know things but you also have to understand that the audience will then insert its own meaning. Braid never explains the plot beyond the fact that you are pursuing the princess of sorts. There are some vague texts and some pictures that are assembled, and apparently (though I haven't actually done this) a collection of ridiculous hidden items that unlocks a special reward. But some of those hidden items require extremely convuluted lengths to get there.

In creating something so complicated, you as the artist can celebrate when members of the audience get the whole picture, but you can't be mad if someone focuses on the dog in the corner. This is evident in the visual art world as well, where I have a bad habit of focusing on details in the margins as opposed to the main point up front. If you gave me something to look at, don't get mad if I focus on that instead of what you wanted me to focus on.

So basically what I'm saying in this second example is, don't get mad when your audience doesn't focus on exactly what you wanted them to focus on. Braid had a fascinating gameplay element and if you get upset that people are focused on this rather than your complicated plot, well then you're kind of being a jerk.

However, if you had simply explained your plot out either in the story or on some sort of blog which I hear all the best writers are maintaining these days, maybe there's some wiggle room.

This post has already reached a considerable length, so I'm going to wait to go into ways you can break expectation for another day. I hope you've enjoyed this rant. Come back tomorrow for some more when I decide to tackle one of the main issues addressed in the Joseph Gordon-Levitt quote from yesterday. That's right, I'm going to talk about Love.

The Responsibility of the Reader

How did you all enjoy Chapterella 2? Hopefully as much as I enjoyed writing it. But that's a story for another day. Today I have important things to begin discussing.

This next series, that's right, series of posts are all inspired by a Facebook conversation I had with a friend on there/devoted fan. One of those two pieces are a lie, but part of this conversation did happen on Facebook. First, the back story.

For those who have never seen (500) Days of Summer I present the following trailer. I also recommend seeing the movie, but it isn't necessary to understand the conversation. I'll go into some non-spoiler details.

An important aspect of this movie is that it is a story about love, "but it's not a love story." I use quotations here for a very important reason. It is explicitly stated at the beginning of this movie that it is not a love story. I will repeat that, because it will make my unintelligible ranting further on better. It is explicitly stated at the beginning of this movie that it is not a love story.

Some fans are apparently still calling this a love story.

Ub-bu-whah? How? The movie tells them not to! Why?!

Levitt himself confirms what the movie he starred in is not a love story, in a recent interview in Playboy. Note, the link is surprisingly mostly safe for work, and contains nothing you wouldn't see on late night television. That's a discussion all its own, so I'll stay on point. The quote I want to hone in on is the following.

"The (500) Days of Summer attitude of “He wants you so bad” seems attractive to some women and men, especially younger ones, but I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is. He develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies. He thinks she’ll give his life meaning because he doesn’t care about much else going on in his life. A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person." JGL

So in a story that's not a love story, we have a character played by Levitt who is not meant to be a love icon, and Levitt himself is telling us not to idolize this behavior. And yet people still are.

So on to the first part of my series, where I'm going to talk about the responsibility of the reader/viewer/audience when it comes to their ingestion of media. Media being in this case art, since I consider this art, but I could go on and on about other media as well. I won't today. Must stay focused.

What responsibility does the audience have when they consume their chosen media? When I legally purchase a movie like (500) Days of Summer who says I have to read into it what the writers, directors, actors, production itself is trying to sell me? I paid for it, shouldn't I be allowed to interpret this film anyway that I please?

I'm going to shock you all and give you the answer you can probably guess I was going to give. No. You may not interpret it as you please.

Now don't jump down my throat because I also don't believe there is only one way to interpret something. One of my film buff friends and myself had a good conversation about whether the end conversation between Levitt's character and Zooey Deschanel's character actually have their final conversation, or if it's just in Levitt's head. This is fun to discuss, but in the end it doesn't change what the movie is trying to give us. A not love story.

While the audience should be, and in my mind is allowed certain interpretive rights, they also  have a responsibility to take what is presented to them as what it is. What I mean by this is that when an apple is put in front of you, you don't talk about it as if it's a car. The apple is an apple, barring symbolism which I hate anyways.

When a movie tells you that it is not a love story, it is setting the stage for you. A play which does this is Romeo and Juliet. Note that Romeo and Juliet begins by talking about the two houses, Capulet and Montague. This is the important part of the play. What is happening between these two houses and what it leads to. The love story is secondary. It's the story of a 14 year old and a 17 year old killing themselves over tragic circumstances. This play is not Shakespeare telling us this is what true love means, it is him telling of the tragedies which befall two families when they pointlessly war with each other forcing their two children to go to extreme lengths for stupid reasons. Part of that is my interpretation, but it is an interpretation justified by facts I believe I found. At no point does Shakespeare come out and contradict this interpretation. And if he does then congratulations, the zombie apocalypse is upon us.

By ignoring what the author is telling you, as an audience, what you essentially tell the author is that you don't care what they intend. What you are essentially doing is trying to take ownership for something you had no hand in. That might seem extreme since the culture is still arguing over what Shakespeare intended in plays like hamlet, and a lot of fun can be had debating why things happen and what ifs and...all that, but there is a difference between acknowledging what is there, and what is not, and discussing what is not, as opposed to flat out ignoring what is right in front of you.

As a writer who writes particularly strange fiction, I want my audience to be entertained. I want to give them the liberty to imagine my characters in strange circumstances or carry on the story without me. It's no different than fan-fiction or cosplay. People should be allowed to enjoy my stuff outside of the world I put it! But it's one thing to take things out of the world I create, and an entirely different thing to essentially tell me what I created when I explicitly told you what it wasn't. If someone tries to tell me that my work is a scathing social commentary I will become furious unless they present me millions of dollars to support the idea, in which case I'm listening. But seriously, it's not a social commentary except where it is. But I tend to be pretty explicit with these things.

So am I saying you as the audience must interpret something one way? No. Any author worth their salt leaves you some room to spice up the work how you please. But are you allowed to get anything and everything from my work? Also no. You have to work with what I give you.

Don't think it's all on the audience though. Tomorrow I'm going to discuss the responsibilities of an author both to their craft and to their audience. Until then, have a great day.