Stefan Gagne's Fiction Factory

25+ years of novels, games, and other creative fiascos.

Archives for May 2014

#YesAllCharacters

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Today’s a big day. One of the largest week-to-week updates so far, the grand conclusion to //021: Choke Point, in which we defeat the Citadel once and for all and everything is great, forever. Presumably the next four chapters are all about Penelope and Dave eating pizza and playing video games.

Before you go off and enjoy that, let’s talk about something less enjoyable: Sexism.

So last weekend shortly after posting the story update, the shootings made the news. A depressing, depressing weekend followed. Both grief at the loss of life, and the outpouring of madness on Twitter and the like. I followed the #YesAllWomen hashtag and saw heartbreaking stories of the harsh realities of life for half our population… along with more than our fair share of jerkbags who mocked and discredited and spewed outright venom over it all.

(The fair share, by the way, should be zero. I do not believe and never have believed that “The Internet” is an excuse, it’s an explanation. It excuses no level of bad behavior.)

It also got me thinking about my own writing, because I genuinely enjoy writing female characters, and am sometimes told I do a good job at it. I have no idea HOW I do a good job at it, but hey. “Write what you know” rarely ever applies to me because my life experiences are pretty limited, and that’s certainly a perspective I can never fully know, but somehow I pull it off.

After the hashtag went live, I started to feel I wasn’t representing that experience particularly well. Obviously I don’t want to make every waking moment of every day for my characters be a hellscape of sexist garbage, but I am dropping the ball in some respects. In others, I’m doing fine showing that side of life. Let me highlight three prime examples.

One time where I got it right was with Kelsey and her would-be suitor in the Grey Market Gang, Greyscale. He’s clearly a little bastard who feels entitled to Kelsey’s affections, posing as a gentleman, showering her with attention that’s reciprocated only in fear (because he backs it up with implied violence). She doesn’t scoff and dismiss him or yell back because she’s terrified and rightfully so that this maniac will one day decide he’s had enough of “no” and just go for it. This is certainly echoing harsh reality, of persistent men who refuse to accept that they aren’t wanted.

One time I got it wrong was with Marcy’s nocturnal antics. Every night she’s crawling in and around and through the City, alone, and without a single fear about what’s out there. Her sister worries, but she’s worried about things like the Defined Tower, not other people attacking her sister. Granted Marcy’s pretty fearless but the way I wrote her offscreen adventures there was absolutely zero concern for assault there, no preparations taken, not even given a token mention as something she has to deal with. If I could go back and edit vol//001 again (it’s in print, so not likely) I’d at least discuss it for a paragraph or two, acknowledge the reality of it.

Fortunately I didn’t completely mess up with Marcy. A more subtle form of sexism she faces is in the situation with Gus in the previous chapter. When we’d last left the couple everything seemed fine… but it fell apart along the way thanks to the attitude Gus and his clones had quietly harbored. One of his clones, enduring an identity crisis that got worse each month, felt entitled to the life that “the Zero” was leading and decided to partake of that life… and Marcy. In turn, Gus stomped him flat in an act of pure revenge. Outwardly it was in defense of Marcy’s honor… but I like to feel that inwardly, without even realizing it, it was offense at someone taking “his property.” He gets the same possessive fervor when his grocery store is threatened. The same madness that old Gustav had to deal with. The one positive to come out of that is that Gus recognizes the weakness in himself and parts amicably with Marcy rather than constantly trying to “win” her back.

So… I’m improving my writing and my representation of gender issues, little by little, but in other aspects I’m completely ignoring some things that should really not be ignored. In an ideal world it wouldn’t be a problem at all, a character would be a character would be a character, but we don’t live in an ideal world and neither does Penelope. Even if I don’t intend to make my stories a parade of social nightmares, I feel I need to be doing better at acknowledging and dealing with them.

Okay, I’ve chewed your ear long enough. Post reactions in comments below, let’s see how you feel about the role fiction and fictional characters plays in all of this. And enjoy the rest of //021.

achievement unlocked

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This week we have a grand adventure in a haunted house with Penelope and Echo, over in //021: Choke Point. Of course, that’s the latest chapter of the City of Angles saga, and we’re nearing the end… if you need to hop in at the beginning, you should read //001: Starting Out Sideways.

As for blog content… today, I’d like to be a bit wacky and/or implied serious.

My major hobby is video games. I love retro games. I love gamer culture. I love following game industry news. As a child, I dreamed about joining Sierra On-Line or Lucasarts (both now defunct) to make amazing narrative games. Eventually I gave that dream up because game industry jobs are as stable as a Pacific fault line, but I still partake in the scene gladly.

One advantage games have over writing is a true sense of progression, with little reward food pellets along the way. Put in the time, and you get the cheese. Writing’s cheese is far more vague, can strike weeks after you’ve done your madcap tapdance on the keyboard, or may never be given to you at all.

Therefore, I propose WRITING ACHIEVEMENTS! They improve your Writer Score and make you feel good about the endless hours and emotion poured into your word processor for little to no real benefit. For instance, here’s a list of them I’ve unlocked!

  • FIRST STEP INTO A WIDER WORLD (100pts): Write a full-length novel that is not anime fanfiction.
  • ABANDON SHIP (20pts): Ditch a project partway through in favor of something better.
  • NOVEMBER HAS COME (200pts): Write 40,000 words in November, because for some goddamn reason NaNoWriMo has to coincide with holidays, relatives coming in, work crunch periods, and new game releases.
  • TREE MURDERER (100pts): Publish a book on actual, factual paper.
  • ANY DAY NOW (5pts): Refresh your blog comment tracker ten times in one day, hoping for some sign that people are reading your work.
  • KICKSTART MY HEART (75pts): Launch and complete a successful Kickstarter.
  • KICKSTALL FOR TIME (5pts): Add in so many stretch goals that you still haven’t been able to complete all of them.
  • I AM MY OWN PATRON (25pts): Spend so much on commissioned art and proofreading that it takes two-plus years of trickling book sales to actually break even.
  • MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (50pts): Inspire someone to write fanfic based on your writing.
  • THE FEDORA INVASION (25pts): Be linked to on Reddit, causing a swarm of incoming potential readers.
  • SORCERER’S APPRENTICE (25pts): Get the attention of a far more popular writer and pick up dozens of new readers as a result.

…and here are a few I wouldn’t mind unlocking in the future.

  • THE SOCIAL MEDIA DREAM (1000pts): Achieve the fabled ‘One Thousand True Fans’ core that supposedly snowballs you into a major following.
  • STICK FIGURE THEATER (200pts): Have as much daily commenting and interaction with fans as a webcomic about fart jokes slapped together in MS Paint.
  • CREAMY LEMON (25pts): Inspire someone to invoke Rule 34 based on your writing. Without bribing them.
  • THE GOLDEN CALF (300pts): Get noticed by one of your favorite authors of all time, without that notice coming in the form of being served legal papers.
  • TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT (2000pts): Evolve your expensive vanity hobby into an actual thing you can make an actual living off of.
  • DUSTY TRAILS (5pts): Write a full-length novel in secret, shop it around to publishers unsuccessfully, waste a year of your life, and have it be found after your death in a desk drawer in the attic.
  • YOU’RE GONNA BE A STAR (10000pts): Get noticed by a bigtime publishing industry agent, get signed to a five book deal, make a million off your first release, get writer’s block, drink heavily, lawyers come out to feed, die broke and penniless while off your meds and ranting in your underwear about the government to a stray dog who then bites you and you get rabies and die.

…and one I THINK I’ve unlocked, but there’s no real way to be sure.

  • MAKING A DIFFERENCE (50000pts): Someone in a dark place finds your writing, reads it, and it brings them comfort in an hour of need.

So, a mix of silly and serious. That’s writing, really; you have ambitions, but tempered in reality. Ego and a need for attention, but self-effaced in a desperate attempt not to look like a heel. Big dreams, but grounded hard by practicality. In the end you want your work to be read, and you want it to make an impact on lives… but you also want to justify the time you sank into it, but you also know money isn’t really the point, but you also need to eat food, but… agh.

It’s a crazy mix of goals and desires. Maybe treating it like a video game will make a few of those goals seem like they’re actually within reach. At the very least, it’s a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.

patterns of life

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Spending a week in the warm bosom of the mouse is a surreal thing. You start to get used to a new lifestyle… a new home, new food intake, new activities. Things like work and your usual hobbies fall away. This is the new reality, this theme park touring experience, followed by collapsing on a cheap foldaway bed to watch streaming video and try to cool down from the heat that beat you into the ground… then you come home and it’s back to work and your usual hobbies and that’s… kinda weird.

Falling back into a pattern for my writing hasn’t been easy, but fortunately before leaving to be consumed whole by the cryogenically preserved golem that bears Walt Disney’s screaming head, I’d sat down and worked out all the plot problems facing me. How to deal with the bleed, how to avoid leaving Cass and Vivi behind, what exactly Patient 31 is. (I wish I hadn’t cameo’d him at the end of the last book. He’s playing a VERY different role now than I’d originally planned. Ah, well.)

In the end… despite having my life thrown off balance and then thrown on balance awkwardly, I was able to resume writing. TL;DR? Here’s more of //021: Choke Point, in which we rejoin Penelope, already in progress.

I have a scene and a half in the buffer now. Once that’s gone I’ll be writing week to week. I think I’m on top of this, though. I think. I hope. I must be, or we are all doomed, doomed, doomed.

mountains of madness

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Finally home from my Disney vacation. Let’s try to get life back to some semblance of normalcy, if only to help keep the tattered remnants of my sanity together.

If you’d like to review the “director’s cut” of my vacation experience, I’ve taken all my terrifying tweets and compiled them into one master list, with additional notes. An amusing read. Or a horrific read. Kind of depends on your proximity to the events in question, I suspect.

We’ve got the prelude section of //021: Choke Point to read today! This is largely the Commander’s scheming; next Saturday we’ll see what Penelope’s up to. In fact it’ll be her perspective for the remaining… hmm… 95% of this chapter, I think. This is a major turning point of the book, and you can expect some major developments. SOMEONE WILL DIE! Well, no. Well, maybe. Well, okay, yes. Perhaps. I make no promises.

I’m running out of writing buffer as a result of the vacation plus some writer’s block, so soon we’ll be catching up and running out of advanced material. My throat may go raw from anxious screaming when that happens, but on the plus side, it might mean I can do a proper livestreamed writing session in the future. I’ll give you a few days notice in one of these blog posts if I decide to go ahead with that. I promise not to scream TOO much on camera.

Lastly, don’t forget we’ve got the City of Angles Fate Core Campaign Setting fully written for your enjoyment. I welcome any feedback about it, especially from experienced GMs.

Okay, that’s plenty of fun and madness and fun for one week. See you May 17th for more madness and fun and madness.

the temples of the mouse

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This week we wrap up the Fate Core Campaign Setting. All the content’s there, but it’s still in draft; I welcome any and all feedback on it, particularly on the game-y bits I may have gotten horribly wrong. I’m more of a world builder than a game designer, in terms of skill rather than enthusiasm. I enthusiastically design wonderful worlds and enthusiastically craft horribly broken and imbalanced game systems. It’s kind of my thing, as you may know if you played NWN.

In addition, I’ve got the cover to the upcoming vol//003 book to show you. As you can see we’ve managed to keep the visual motif going from cover to cover, which is gonna be kinda awesome in the end. I may need to do a social media contest where you tweet all three covers together and I give you a prize of some type. That’s the kind of thing smart viral marketers making the big bucks do, yes? Yes.

The next update will be the start of //021, slightly delayed to the evening of May 10th because I’ll be flying back into town that afternoon. “Flying from where?” you may ask.

All next week I will be enduring a madcap steeple chase of finicky toddlers and finicky grandparents through the manyfold appendages and orifices of Mickey Mouse. I am unconvinced that this will be a ‘relaxing vacation’ although I am still willing to give it a hearty try. With any luck, it will be an enjoyable experience rather than a harrowing ordeal. If you’d like to smile, laugh, and/or cringe along with me, I’ll be frequently Tweeting the experience and you can follow me over yonder. (Conversely if you enjoy my writing tweets but don’t want vacation spam, I won’t mind if you unfollow me for a week as long as you come back into my gentle and waiting arms in the end. Shhh. Daddy’s got you.)

With any luck I’ll secure some time to write more of //021 in Florida. I actually have a week’s worth done and ready, but I’d like to get farther ahead. I had to sit down and seriously think about upcoming twists, like the mechanics of the bleed, the alliance of Patient 31, and where ultimately all of this is going… this is a major, major turning point chapter. I can’t fly by the seat of my pants anymore, I need my hazy plans to become concrete, or disaster will errupt. My goal is to have all that insanity invisible to the reader, though, LOOKING like a smooth and fully planned experience crafted by a master rather than an easily panicked and anxiety riddled madman. …which I suppose is negated by this blog post so I think I need a distraction so I can run for it HEY LOOK OVER THERE WHAT THE HELL IS THAT