If those few of you reading this would be so kind as to disregard most of the posts prior to this one, I would appreciate it.

I like the design of Sleepwriter, but not the content; therefore, hopefully soon, I will be “rebooting” Sleepwriter with a stronger focus on the topic of writing.

The old posts will (probably) not be deleted, for what it is worth.

See, I’m working on a story. A real one, this time. And I’m writing it in first-person using three people, the three primary characters. Two of them are pretty easy to write, but the third… The third is a very bestial character. One of those “strong in the body, weak in the mind” deals. Not EXTREMELY weak – so I guess that puts him more at “rather bestial” – but he’s definitely the least intelligent of the bunch.

And that leaves me in a quandary. That, and his particular dialect – lots of dropped letters, etcetera. D’ I write iht with an emphasis on his dialect? He’s gotta be distinct from the other two (a jittery, not very confident codemonkey/metahuman and a paranoid, “lives in a house in a forest all alone” ex-scientist). I want to write in a way that makes it feel like he’s thinking the words that are on the page, but at the same time what I write has to be readable.

Dilemmas…

This mention stuck with me, as it was something I have thought about before. There have been several songs that I found myself liking without qu-ite being able to hear the lyrics, only to find out some time later that the lyrics were about something I did NOT like at all. Usually drugs. (I’m a fairly big fan of trance, techno, and electronica; I feel it’s really a shame so much of what I can find in those categories ends up relating to drugs. But that’s a post for another day.)

At the time, I nodded mentally. “Yeah! How DARE those lyrics! They and their tricksy, tricksy ways!”

But today, I had a different thought. Lyrics, you see, are just words. Words are just fronts for constructs and concepts; how often have you heard the phrase “I can’t put words to it” or some variant? Without their attached constructs and concepts, words are just sounds.

And if you look at it that way, music (and other forms of speech) lose their ability to be offensive.

Is that a good thing? No, sometimes we need offense. If we’re never offended, our ideas are never challenged. I’m not saying we should take offense at everything either, of course. I could be offended by the fact that the paint in my room is not blue. But you know? That would be rather silly.

So what am I saying? Ah, yes, the topic. An important thing, I should get back to it.

If you must be offended by music, be offended by the whole thing. A good piece of music conveys a complete story in both instrumentals and lyrics. Trite, yet true. Don’t pick on the lyrics alone; give the whole song credit for your offense.

Who names a cereal for old elderly people Blammo, anyway?

Moving on

LOOK IT IS A DRAMATIC ELDERLY MAN

HE IS SO HEALTHY HIS FEET ARE BLURRING INTO THE FUTURE WITH THE POWER OF HIS HEALTH

k, that’s enough of that caps lock shit.

Also: you fear my MS Paint skills. FEAR.

I always pictured my rogue as rather stab-happy…

——-

I’m bored. Bored like a beaver on crack with no dams to build. I’ve slaughtered everything there is to slaughter, often the same things several times. The idiocy of my compatriots continues to be a thorn in my side. Sure, I can understand how suddenly becoming incorporeal and having magic can be surprising when your normal venue is running up to things and beating them until they stop moving, but after the first, oh, five times, you’d think it might become a little bit familiar. And what’s with the fire? I don’t LIKE being on fire. Sure, they mock me, they say that little ability I have to smother the fire by stepping into the shadows makes it easy, but guys, do you really like being on fire that much that you’ll just stand there? I’ve been on fire several times. It hurts. And burns. And burns in a very hurting way.

And that only covers the people I know. If I was going to start with the idiocy on behalf of everyone in the world, I’d never stop. Yes, Mr. Bear, you have a lot of protection. Moreso than I do. However, it doesn’t do you a lick of good when the enemy isn’t attacking you. No, Ms. Priest, that bandage of a heal isn’t going to help the bear who’s getting attacked by an ugly warlock and several other ugly guys wielding axes. Yes, Mr. Demonuser, I know that you have a lot of stamina. I’m sure the ladies love you. That doesn’t mean that you can run up to those two angry-looking birdmen while the rest of us are back here talking about what to do about them. Why hello there, my fellow rogue. No, just because you make the enemy cough up blood doesn’t mean you’re useful to the rest of us. Yes, my ability to beat things to death effectively is more useful than that. Yes, I know you wish it was useful. These trolls sure do have a lot of blood, with all the organ-destroying we’re doing and all the hemorraging you’re causing, not to mention the guy with the big sword over there ripping new wounds all over the place, along with the bear mangling their faces in. No, I can’t explain it either

So, I guess I’m looking for new things to beat to death. Supposedly they’re building some kind of harbor back in that human city, and when it’s done they’re going to build a boat that can sail to this continent they claim is there in the north. Can’t say I know. When they supposedly discovered that continent I was beating things to death rather ineffectively back home. However, they say there are new and different things to beat to death there, which is good, but on the other hand I can’t take Onyx with me until I can afford to buy some kind of magical protection against the cold for him. I say it’s rubbish. Onyx was born out in Shadowmoon Valley, which if you’re not standing by the lava (or in the lava) is a damned cold place, especially the crystally bits where netherdrakes are born at. I froze my buttocks off out there proving to the netherdrakes that I really was a good and nice person by slaughtering fel orcs and the local wildlife by the thousands, and now this? Not only that, they say I have to prove I’m skilled enough to ride him on the new continent. Bollocks! I say. I have skill. I’ve ridden Onyx all over the Outlands. They say that’s the rules. I say I’ll stab them, but I can’t find them.

Until then? Guess I’ll just keep stabbing the same old things to death. If anyone knows how to kill a spirit healer – these things keep coming back somehow, must be the same way I do – let me know. I’d be grateful. And by grateful I mean you’d move to the bottom of the stabbity death list.

A story is nothing without its characters.

Sure, a plot is important, and people decry the stories that have weak or nonexistant plots. The “plot hole” is the bane of many. And sure, a setting is important. It makes a difference whether your story is set on the surface of the sun or in a cave deep underground on Earth. However, that cave is uninteresting without someone (or something) to inhabit it, and that plot can’t even run without characters.

The best place to begin is with the role you want the character to fill. Say you already have a plot, and you need to come up with interesting characters to make it move. Well, that’s not exactly right. Plots and characters, in the best of situations, are interdependent; the plot is driven by its characters, and the characters are (at least in some small way) driven by the plot.

The key here is to be able to answer the question, “In this situation, how would this character react?”

Another key is not to have one-dimensional characters. It’s all well and good to imagine the “chivalrous, if slightly lecherous, swordsman/fighter/similiar job-type”. It’s a commonly used character model in today’s media… and that’s the problem with it. What’s going to make your character stand out from other characters if he or she is exactly like other characters, with only (perhaps) aesthetic differences?

The memorable characters have something unique and/or unusual about them. Consider your favorite characters. Why do you like them? I’ll take odds on them being somehow different from the ‘average’ character, even if it’s just some particularly funny quirk.

As a parting note, don’t rely too much on quirks to define your character. A character having some quirks is essential, since real human beings are very quirky, but don’t let a quirk define your character. Most times, that won’t work very well.

A picture is worth 1000 words:

——-

There is a hole there now, for all of us.

It was impossible for there not to be one. For someone like that… someone with so much life… his sudden disappearance left a void. Where once there was a strong and powerful lifeforce, now there was… nothing.

Lug and Crow theorized for days as to where he’d gone. Lug suggested, rather half-heartedly, that he had just gone after all the demons, to finish with them once and for all. None of us believed that; Esre knew as well as we did that demons could never truly disappear from the world. He was reckless and wild, but not stupid.

Crow thought that somehow the earth had taken him. The last place he had been, after all, was within the heart caverns. It was true that the world had changed the same day they said he disappeared. The demons had fled – some almost said were thrown – to the outer fringes of known territory, and the places they had infested were beginning to heal. It was a good possibility, she said, and Lug agreed with her.

And me? I said nothing, but I thought many things.

I couldn’t help feeling guilty. If he had truly gone to the earth, then it was to undo what I had done. No one was blaming me, and that made it worse. If they had blamed me, then I could have felt guilty, and been able to try and make amends. It’s not that there wasn’t work to do now; the devil machines had to be found and destroyed, and there was plenty of rebuilding to be done in the now-empty demon villages.

But…

Everything just feels unresolved. I almost wish Esre would come back, just to say, “It’s your fault”. No… I do wish he would come back. Even if he came back to kill me, it would be enough to know that he was alive. It’s not right, that I, who nearly wrecked the world, am alive, while he, who saved the world, is… not.

It’s more than that. Lug, Crow, Cimah, the Swryn… none of them mention it, but I know they feel it, too. Lug and Crow were like his parents, Cimah his rival, and the Swryn… he may not have been their leader in name, but they all look up to him, especially the terrible trio. Rais, Lew, and Mim… they were the ones who upheld his innocence during the time he was exiled from Heaven. They were so sure that they even got thrown in jail for it, rather than quit supporting Esre. They practically worshipped him.

There is a hole in the world, and I put it there. Because I thought I could control the world, with enough magic, enough skill… I was arrogant and idiotic, and now Esre is gone because he fixed my mistake. I have taken him away from everyone.

There is only one thing I can do now. The devil machines… they are the start of all this. If the devil machines are destroyed and forbidden, then maybe… just maybe… this will never have to come to pass again.

I know now what I must do.

It’s not for lack of trying. I have sat down, with all my other worries, problems, and work resolved or out of the way, and said, “I am going to start at the beginning of this story, and I am going to write to the end.”

And I just sit there.

I know the stories, but the ability to actually write them down eludes me constantly. Sometimes a fragment of a sentence will come to the surface, and I take it and run with it. Those are the good times. The rest of the time, I’m left staring at a blank document, fumbling for the words that describe the visions my mind presents me with…

It’s frustrating. FRUSTRATING, I tell you. When is that Vision-to-Document Machine getting invented, anyway?