Top Ten Lame Reasons to Not Write a Blog Article

Today marks my 100th post on this blog, so it seemed appropriate to write a list of bogus excuses for all of my fellow bloggers out there.

10. My dog ate my laptop.

9. I’ve got a computer virus that turns all my periods into commas.

8. Every time I upload a picture, it’s facing away from me.

7. I’m only typing with the backs of my fingers until next Tuesday. Don’t ask why.

6. I tried dictating my article to my computer, which worked great, except I was dictating into Notepad.

5. There’s a squirrel out my window.

4. For some reason, I can’t type the word “the”. Wait…

3. All of my followers (except you) asked me not to post today.

2. Cat videos.

1. I changed my font color to white and now I can’t find my article.

On Naming Characters

Whenever I give my workshop on word choice to a group of writers, I’m almost always asked about how to name the various people in a story. With that in mind, here are a few tips for christening characters.

Character Names are Seen, not Heard

Remember that the majority of your audience will encounter your character names visually, rather than audibly. So, choose a name that looks like your character. Think about the combination of letters and what they suggest when they are seen together on a printed page. Does “Devon” sound more dangerous than “Lloyd”, or does “Natasha” sound more mysterious than “Joan”? What sort of first impression does a name give your reader?

Don’t Overuse Starting Letters

Be wary of giving names that begin with the same letter to multiple characters in the same book. If your book is really gripping (which is usually the goal) readers may resort to a form of speed reading where they glance at the first letter of a name to identify who is speaking. Having a cast of characters that includes a Roger, Richard, and Ryan may simply be inviting unnecessary confusion.

Avoid Naming Unimportant Characters

Think of the way Hollywood decides how to pay its extras and bit-part actors. Basically, if a character is mentioned in the screenplay, then the actor playing him is considered a cast member with a spot in the credits and a healthy paycheck. If the character isn’t mentioned in the screenplay, then the actor is an extra, and might get a free lunch out of the experience. Just remember to ask yourself, does this character deserve a spot in the credits for his contribution to your story?


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Game Story Review – Planescape Torment

While I’ve done a fair number of opinion pieces dealing with the storytelling in video games, it’s been a long time since I last did a proper game story review. With that in mind, I was sitting around this morning trying to think of a good game to review, when my random music playlist started playing a song from the soundtrack of this amazing 1999 computer RPG from developer Black Isle Studios. Good enough for me.

Premise

The main character is known as the Nameless One, a man without a past who can’t die. After waking up in a morgue, he begins a quest to discover not only who he is, but how to stop the endless cycle of death and rebirth he is trapped within. He soon finds himself surrounded by an eclectic band of adventurers as he journeys through Sigil, a world-between-worlds where castaways, demons, monsters, and even gods wander the streets and try to scrape together a living.

Review

While the premise of this game may seem stereotypical at first, you should know that this game handles nearly every RPG trope with its own unique style. Unlike a spoof game like The Bard that openly mocks things like random monsters having money or the player character being a Chosen One, in Planescape the developers have used the same set of paints to create a picture that is completely different from what we normally see.

For example, while most games would use an amnesiac protagonist as an easy way to avoid lots of initial backstory and reveal the world and plot during the course of gameplay, regaining the Nameless One’s memories is the primary conflict of the plot. There is no world coming to an end, no MacGuffin to find or princess to save. The story is a very personal one, the journey of a single man to learn who and what he is.

Another difference in this game is the focus placed on dialogue. While most games in this genre use combat as the main way for characters to gain in skill and advance the plot, in Planescape it’s in conversation that the majority of the gameplay takes place. Almost every NPC encountered has an expansive, branching dialogue tree, and nearly every conversation has a potential XP reward associated with it. As a result, the world of Sigil feels more realistic than any number of beautifully-rendered backdrops from less story-driven games.

  

A comparison of Planescape's dialogue trees with a more modern RPG.

So, is there a downside to this heavy focus on storytelling? Oddly enough, I think the biggest issue with this game is re-playability. While the writing in the dialogue trees is often interesting and evocative, it is surprisingly confining. There’s a clear best-option in each conversation with an associated reward attached. The lack of focus on combat also means that the dungeon sections are more tedious than enjoyable, which is weird since most of the equipment and skills in the game are used for fighting.

If you’re a fan of story-heavy RPGs, I would say that this is definitely a game to play all the way to completion at least once in your life, though you may never feel a desire to go through it all over again a second time.

A New Video for Beast Hunter Fans!

I'm very excited to announce that I finally have a new video on my YouTube channel. The first of what I hope will become a series of author readings, this video features a reading from the prologue of The Beast Hunter performed by yours truly. 

Watch the Video

This project was a lot of fun for me, as it gave me a chance to dust off some of the performance and editing skills that I haven't really used since my time in the theater and film school. Of course, regardless of my experience, there were some kinks in the process. The video that is now available to the world is actually my second attempt at this project. 

The first time I tried making this video, I did my best to do the reading like a voice-over professional would do for an audio book. I tried to set a mood with my tone and inflection, and was very careful to enunciate and speak in an even, measured cadence. While I succeeded in creating a moody, atmospheric piece, when I shared the video with my street team, the reaction was mixed. Several members felt that it was too dramatic and lacked a personal touch. They much preferred a second reading I had done after filming my Q&A video that was done in a single take and felt much more like the sort of reading I would do for a live audience. 

In the end, I decided to set the atmospheric video aside and post the more personable one instead. Perhaps I'll share the first video once I start to get serious about doing an audio book of The Beast Hunter. That way, I can let you, my wonderful fans, cast your votes for which style you'd prefer to hear as I read my first steampunk fantasy novel to you!