Stefan Gagne's Fiction Factory

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

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.

Comments

  1. I should use this as a basis for getting my own writing goals.

    I dreamed about Sierra too! Which was your favourite? I’m partial to KQVI but I have to say that QFG almost didn’t make any bad games at all (QFG V doesn’t exist I tell you!)

    • Space Quest is what got me into Sierra in the first place, so I’ll go with that… but Quest for Glory really sparked my imagination. In 6th grade I wrote a story about an online networked version of QfG which basically predicted MMORPGs well before they actually happened. Crazy.

  2. Penultima brought me comfort in, like, a year of need. I don’t know how I can really describe why it meant as much to me as it did, but as someone with Asperger’s/on the autism spectrum/whatever they’re calling it now, there weren’t a lot of things that managed to reach me through my isolation.I don’t know how to articulate why your work brings me comfort even to this day, but it does.

    • Results matter more than methods. If it’s working for you, that makes me glad. Everybody deserves to find something in the creativity they consume which speaks to them; I know I found a lot of solace in my favorite authors at a young age.

    • It must exist, because Internet. That’s Rule 34. It further cements your work as a Thing Which Is A Thing if it complies with Rule 34. Until that point it’s not noteworthy enough. Kinda like having a TVTropes page or a Wikipedia entry, it’s another sign that you’re established.