My name is Quincy Allen, and it’s been three days since my last login. Okay, okay, so that’s a lie. I logged in last night, but I won’t apologize for it.

Now that I’ve outed myself as one of those “lamentable” adults who dabble in MMOs, let me tell you why. Like a lot of writers, writing is not my only gig. I’m a tech-writer by day, operate a small but growing book design business by night, and do my writing in the wee hours as time permits. That means that I need to decompress from time to time. Slaying damn near any mob that gets in my way is a perfect way to accomplish it.

What can I say? It’s better than going Postal. Some people play golf. Some watch sports. I’m currently working my way towards the Pinnacle of Storms in order to slay Lei Shen who threatens all of Pandaria. Lei Shen’s power derives from ancient Titan technology, and the Titans were a race of elder gods who deemed the life of Azeroth unfit to breathe.

Over my dead body.

World of Warcraft has been a perfect environment to let off steam for someone who appreciates good storytelling and kilometers-thick back-story. WoW arguably has the most exhaustive canon of any game out there, and it creation goes all the way back to the game’s incept in 1994 in the form of Orcs and Humans. From those meager origins, a worlds-spanning history going back over 10,000 years has been born.

In many respects, that’s what has kept me playing WoW. There’s an almost never-ending sense of discovery as the main storyline unfolds for the players, and there are hundreds if not thousands of side-stories woven throughout the environment to keep someone like me intrigued.

There’s a lesson for all writers in what Blizzard has accomplished with their flagship product. History. If you’re writing contemporary fiction, then your history is written for you, and you can draw from that. If you’re writing alternate history, fantasy, or even future sci-fi, then you should do at least some work in creating your own canon. I can give one example that I use in the novel I just wrapped up.

It’s steampunk fantasy fiction set in the Old West. A half-clockwork gunslinger with magic-imbued mechanical limbs must protect a 15^th century vampiress from being sacrificed to raise a demon army. Simple enough, but the obvious question is, where the hell did the magic come from?

That part wasn’t as simple. I wanted to make the presence of magic in the Old West at least plausible in my head, so I had to alter history. Granted, this tidbit of data isn’t explained in the series I’m referring to, but it is revealed in another series I’ve started, which takes place in the same universe. Essentially, I had to assassinate a 13^th century Pope in order to have magic exist in the Victorian era.

Having done so opens up a wealth of possibilities in my writing and gives my rather critical notion of plausibility a leg up. Basically, I can believe in my own “invention” and build upon it as I see fit with cultures, characters, and histories that all have that single changed moment in history as their foundation. All roads lead to Rome, as they say.

This is a technique I recommend for all writers. While your story takes place “now,” you should have a strong understanding of “what came before.” Not only will this make your story richer, it will give you virtually limitless destinations that all have the same look and feel, because they all derive from the same point of origin.

If you’re writing the fantastic, then take some time to sketch out the timeline around your story. Know what’s going on in your world and have at least a moderate understanding of its history. Empowered with this knowledge, you’ll find that the depth of your storytelling increases by a factor of, and the creation of both sidelines and spin-offs is that much easier to write.

P.S. If you run on Kil’Jaeden, keep an eye out for a DK named Moondawg.

Worldbuilding with Games

August 23, 2013

Matt Jones

The Writing Life 1 Comment

Aria A guest post by Martin Greening

Most of the articles this month on The Fictorian Era have focused on inspirational video games. I have to admit, as an IT guy, I’m pretty low tech and really don’t play too many of those other than an occasional jump into Star Wars The Old Republic or Rift. What I do play a lot of are table top roleplaying games, like good old fashioned Dungeons and Dragons. My shelves sag heavily under the weight of my growing roleplaying game collection, with titles like Burning Wheel, Blue Planet, Dungeon World, Traveler, and Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth.

That’s the game I want to talk briefly about today, Aria.

One of the biggest tasks for anyone who wants to write fantasy is worldbuilding (creating the world in which your characters live). It can be a daunting task; creating the people and cultures, political systems, economy, environment, flora and fauna. Where do you start? How do you keep it sensible so the reader doesn’t say “whatever” and stop reading your story? And readers are smart. They will find the inconsistencies in your world.

That’s where Aria comes in. The game was published in 1994 by Last Unicorn Games (sadly they are no longer in business). Only two books were released, the main rulebook and Aria Worlds. Aria is more of what you might call a metagame, a game about creating a game, or in our case, a game about creating a world. It can be a great tool to guide an author in creating a consistent and logical setting for their stories. How does it do this? Typically, most table top roleplaying games assign numerical values to a character so their abilities are easier to determine in comparison to another character’s. Aria does this same thing, but not only with characters, Aria does it with any entity: nations, cultures, etc. This is especially true for the Aria Worlds book, which outlines a method of creating a logical and consistent society.

The book begins by asking about the foundations of that society. What is their primary orientation? Conquest? Survival? How much interaction does that society have with neighboring societies? From there the book guides you towards the societies technology level and their tendencies to innovate and assimilate. These aspects of a society are used to determine what is their likely subsistence pattern, which in turn directly relates to the society’s mobility. For example, a society that has developed metalworking is more likely to be a sedentary agricultural society. The chapters in Aria Worlds then move into politics and kinship, economy, military, religion, arts, scholastics, magic, and end with the development of the society’s hierarchy of social estates. Each of these aspects can be rated on a scale of 1 to 10 for easy comparison with other societies.

The main Aria rulebook also covers the hierarchy of social estates and a very general look at the other topics in Aria Worlds, but it also has chapters on the nature of magic and what they call heritage. The chapter on magic provides interesting guidance on creating the magic system for a world, including its origins and nature, along with the repercussions of those who utilize magic. Heritage is a term used to incorporate both species and culture since they are often intertwined. The heritage chapter outlines some of the aspects of culture that are covered in Aria Worlds, but also discusses species creation, which can be very useful when creating the non-humans that populate your world.

And for more inspiration there’s the artwork in both books. The covers by Michael Kuleta are stunning and the interior design and art will tickle anyone’s muse.

Being out of print, it may be difficult to find either of the Aria books, but the hard search is definitely worth it as inspiration in building your own story worlds.

Guest Writer Bio:

Martin Greening hails from Southern California and has been drawn to fantasy and science fiction from a young age. He is currently working on a fantasy adventure novel and several short stories. Martin lives in Sin City working as a IT guru by day and a dreamer of the fantastic at night. He can be found at his webpage.

Franchises: Buying In for the Long Haul

August 22, 2013

Nathan Barra

Marketing Nathan Barra The Writing Life 1 Comment

I remember reviews of the Wii that compared it to the Xbox 360 and the PS3, when all three consoles were shiny and new. From a technical perspective, the Wii was an inferior console. It lacked entirely in capabilities that its competitors were counting on as differentiating selling points. Like millions of others, I still bought a Wii. In fact, the Wii sold so well that it dominated the competition for a number of years after its release. Why would a technically inferior console do so well?

Loyalty.

Nintendo holds a number of huge franchises that have always released a installment shortly after a new system’s release. On IGN’s top 25 Videogame Franchises list, Nintendo franchises occupy the top two spots (Mario and the Legend of Zelda) and a handful of the remaining twenty three spots.

Authorial franchises start with a series. With enough time, and if enough quality works are produced, the author’s name becomes the franchise, instead. Even one series with the popularity of one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises, the Legend of Zelda as an example, is enough to build a very successful career on. The question is, then, what can we learn from Zelda’s success?

#5. Successful franchises are cannon controlled.

To the best of my investigative skills, there has been neither a third party production of a Legend of Zelda game, nor a Legend of Zelda game produced for any system other than a Nintendo console since Nintendo started producing hardware. Why would the license holder of such a huge franchise do this? Isn’t Nintendo limiting their potential audience by not offering the game on PC or it’s competitor’s consoles? The answer is two-fold.

First, Nintendo does not want anyone other than Miyamoto and Tezuka (the games’ designers) working on the franchise, lest they muddle the cannon. The current prevailing theories as to the canonical timeline suggest at least three independent time streams. This milieu and wealth of plot is too complicated for anyone else to handle. One bad game, like one bad book, risks the entire franchise. As to the second point, a gamer must do business with Nintendo’s hardware branch to play a Legend of Zelda game. By limiting the availability of the game, Nintendo increases the profitability of all of its branches.

The Take Away: Upon establishing a successful series or franchise, it is essential to recognize the power of the IP represented therein. I need to be very, very careful who I allow to work on it and how it is distributed.

#4. Successful franchises use iconic imagery.

To me, the Triforce is indelibly linked to the whole Legend of Zelda series. When I see that symbol, my mind automatically goes back to the games and how much fun I had playing them. And you know, doesn’t those three golden triangles mean that this game is also a Zelda game? Maybe I should stop walking through the mall and pay attention to that cutout in the window of the game store.

Point being, the Triforce is an excellent branding piece for several reasons. First, it is strongly tied into the series, serving as a major focus for no less than six of the Zelda games. It appears as a design element in many of the other installments of the series. It’s a simple design that can be easily printed, embroidered, cast or otherwise incorporated into merchandise. I am able to recognize it from across a crowded game store. That’s some good branding.

The Take Away: If used properly, brands let me market my books, sell merch, and establish and communicate a reputation at a glance.

#3. Successful franchises inspire nostalgia.

The basic premise of a Zelda game is that a young boy from a rural village in Hyrule is called to save the world and sets out to explore a number of dungeons, killing monsters and collecting loot, until he faces off and defeats the ultimate evil of his time. It’s a Hero’s Journey, every time. Each game feels the same, and has the elements of puzzles and monster combat that I enjoy. The familiarity is comforting. Yet, there is enough variety in the storyline, treasures and items to collect, and milieu to explore, that it still feels fresh. The learning curve from one game to the next is shallow.

Nostalgia also has value in that it can generate sales. I remember, very fondly, my first game of the Majora’s Mask. Because I enjoyed that game, I bought and played the Ocarina of Time, which I also enjoyed. Each subsequent game has built up the nostalgic warm and fuzzies that I have for the Zelda franchise. The release of a new Zelda game has pushed me off the fence about buying a new console before.

The Take Away: Nostalgia is a powerful position from which to sell books. If a consumer looks at my name at the bottom of a new release, and is flooded with a sense of nostalgic enjoyment, the book is likely sold.

#2. Successful franchises have staying power.

The Hero’s Journey is one of the essential story archetypes that speaks to the human condition. It has resonated with people for thousands of years and continues to do so. I want to start the game with Link and gain power enough to kill the ultimate evil of the day. I can play, and read, that storyline over and over again, and never get bored so long as there is enough variety in other aspects.

Wise selection of archetypes is not the only element that can give staying power to a series. One of my favorite things about a Legend of Zelda game is the underlying philosophy that serves as the theme for the game. In Majora’s Mask, the world is destroyed at the end of the third in-game day, so you are forced to time travel back to the dawn of the first day repeatedly. Whenever I play this game as an adult, I can’t help but ruminate afterwards about the nature of time, how I live my life and what I would do over if I had the chance. In the Twilight Princess, the game focuses on the concept of twilight as the border of light and dark, and this imagery is dragged throughout the game’s other aspects. To me, this speaks to the idea that the world is both bright and dark, and that, most of the time, we live in a world of moral greys.

The Take Away: There isn’t one method to give staying power to a series, but it is essential for a series to have the endurance to become a successful franchise, none the less.

#1. Successful franchises have consistently high quality.

I didn’t start at the beginning of the Zelda franchise. I started with Majora’s Mask, then went backwards in the release chronology. I then follow the series to this day. If Majora’s Mask had been the one bad game in the series, I would have done neither. There are some other franchises which I started from the beginning, but ended up dropping mid-series due to a single bad installment. When I build a franchise, what I’m really doing is building a brand, and for that brand to continue living, I must be sure that I deliver quality work, every time.

The Take Away: If I’m disappointed by the quality of a single installment, I may not come back. Franchises trade on their name and upon garnered authorial trust.

MYST: The Game that Had it All

August 21, 2013

Colette Black

Action & Adventure Colette Black Fantasy Science Fiction The Writing Life No Comments

Long before Portal or Portal 2, there was MYST, played exclusively on the pc. I know Portal can be played in other formats. In fact, it’s probably preferable, but we never got around to graduating our Nintendo any higher than a Wii, so when my kids and I played Portal it was like the old days, on our pc. Watching my son’s fingers pounce around on the little plastic keys brought back memories. As much as I love Portal, especially the cake song at the end, I think MYST was better. It had EVERYTHING, and I think that’s a bit of a writing lesson:

Mystery: No info-dumping in MYST. You start out relatively clueless, with just enough information to draw you in, so you want to know more, and you want to solve the mystery. Most of the game was spent figuring out puzzles, but the goal pulled you on, because you had to find out what had happened in the world and you wanted each clue in order to put the pieces together and reach the end goal.

Point: Our novels need to hook our readers, give a sense of mystery, and excite the passion for discovery in order to pull our readers from one chapter to the next.

Intelligence: MYST wasn’t some Sudoku or Word Find. The puzzles were hard and varied. It stretched my brain. For some people, that made it too much. They couldn’t figure out the solutions and so they gave up. My husband and I used to play the game together in our early married years–it constituted many of our date nights–and, I admit, we cheated a couple of times. But often, the puzzles would use our different skills. I remember one where we had to match the pitches to sounds on some other part of the island we were exploring. My husband figured out the pattern related to the problem, but I identified the sounds to find the right pitch. Good fun.

Point: Challenging our readers intellectually can actually make them more invested in the story, but push it too far and we might lose readers. We need to find the balance that gives us the widest audience.

Setting: Speaking of the puzzles, the music, and the island; the setting for MYST was incredible. Up until that time, at least to my knowledge, there had been nothing that compared. You’d step into a world and every color, line, and shape told you about the new environment. Eerie creaks and groans added to the sense of mystery. Sometimes, I could almost imagine that I smelled certain things, the details were so complete. When I stepped into the game, I stepped into another world.

Point: We need to immerse our readers into the world we create, whether it be contemporary, fantastical, or far-future. The details need to paint such a complete picture that our readers taste, see, and fully experience that sensation of having stepped into another place.

Story: There’s more I could say but I don’t want to make a ten-page long post, so we’ll end with story. In the past, most games I played, I played to win. With MYST, it wasn’t about winning, it was about completing the story, finding the conclusion, and finally understanding how it all came together.

Point: It’s important that we set up our readers expectations right to begin with, so they have some idea of the type of journey they’re undertaking and where it will take them, and then we need to fulfill those expectations with a satisfying conclusion.

The best part: After playing a couple of versions of MYST, I discovered they’d taken the game and turned the whole thing into a series of books. I don’t know if they were widely read, but I loved them. When my oldest son discovered the series, somewhere around 3rd grade (when the school wouldn’t let him read Harry Potter) he jumped to an adult reading level within weeks, all because he fell in love with those books. From that point on he couldn’t be held back. He voraciously read every fantasy book he could get his hands on. MYST not only made an awesome game, it translated well into an interesting book series. That game, had game.

Just as a side note, anybody else think it’s time for some Portal books…and maybe a movie?