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STORY: Kaleidoscopes

Started by Guest_zan_* , Apr 10 2001 10:16 AM

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34 replies to this topic

#21 Guest_zan_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 04:51 PM

> But... zan... that was GOOD poetry... :o

(author's view and reader's view differ, but thank you all the same)

> Two words: Bethphel's Diary. ;)

Well, there are always exceptions...and now that I think about it, that rather special one does leap to mind. Sorry Leo, zan was generalising again - bad zan, bad zan! :)

> Well, more than two, actually. One of my favorite authors (Chuck

> Palanhiuk) constantly writes in first person, and many wonderful novels

> are written in 1st, too. So it really depends on how you're working, I

> guess.

Didn't make myself clear, sorry. My point was more that it takes talent and discipline to keep a first person persepctive - maintaining the right voice and tone, etc. For skilled writers, it's a powerful tool, just not for me.

> Yeah, but there are many ways of telling a story, and I like locking

> myself away in a character's head. ;)

Oh, it's definitely a blast, but it wears you out, and it doesn't make for great action sequences ;)

> Actually, third person isn't really

> all that different, when used in limited form instead of omniscient. I

> know when I used to write 3rd all the time, it was almost as introspective

> as my 1st. I guess I'm just an introspective person. ;)

I suppose writing third person from one viewpoint would offer a similar effect (if slightly less so). But I need more practice at this, because at the moment I end up head-hopping like a headlouse ;) The omnipresent narrator thing...that's a different prospect entirely.


#22 Guest_kevtg_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 05:47 PM

> Oh, it's definitely a blast, but it wears you out, and it doesn't make for

> great action sequences :)

Oh, I don't know about that. Narrow action sequences, like duels, I actually prefer writing from the first person because it allows me to focus more on the psychological side of things.


#23 Guest_kevtg_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 05:56 PM

> Am I alone in feeling rather self-indulgent whenever I try a first person

> POV? I always feel like an angsty teenager when I use it.

When I first started writing with my Keven character, using first person just seemed natural because that was my character in the game. I never considered anything else. I guess I managed to avoid the self-indulgence because the situations I put him in don't allow for a whole lot of deep thinking. However, I'm going to have to go to 3rd for the next set of stories. THe tale I'm planning is just a little too wide ranging for 1st.


#24 Guest_kevtg_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 06:03 PM

Very moody. Makes me wonder if they have AA in Athkatla.

#25 Guest_Oyster Girl_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 06:42 PM

> Just don't turn into the slayer again :)

When you least expect it, dearie.

*quiet clacking noises*

I have a redheaded temper, y'know.

The Original Oyster Girl

#26 Guest_darkrose_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 07:12 PM

> Very moody. Makes me wonder if they have AA in Athkatla.

Unlikely, which is too bad. If Cor Delryn had gone there, an awful lot of hurt might have been avoided.

Tales from the Copper Coronet

#27 Laufey

Posted 10 April 2001 - 10:38 PM

Dark. Depressing. But very good. Not all people are made to be heros, so many would just give up and give in like this main character. It is entirely believable that you could be so broken by the torture that you were never able to pull yourself together again.

Lady Nightshade's custom portraits
Rogues do it from behind.

#28 Guest_zan_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 11:02 PM

> Oh, I don't know about that. Narrow action sequences, like duels, I

> actually prefer writing from the first person because it allows me to

> focus more on the psychological side of things.

Hadn't thought of that. Would work well for a duel, for the reasons you suggest - half the battle there is mental rather than physical.

I was thinking more of big action set-pieces, involving all party members. Covering these from a first person POV might be difficult, because the chosen character would be a bit too busy to watch what the others were doing. (Or might not even be able to see them at all). It could be done....but I think it would be tricky.

#29 Guest_zan_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 11:12 PM

> For example: What if The Kents drove over a nail, and their car had a

> breakdown, so they would not find the little baby from planet Krypton?

> -> A world without Superman? (Do You know that issue?)

zan doesn't really read comics, but can still see what you're getting at :)

> What I want to say, is that You might think about including such a trigger

> like the nail, to explain, why Your version is so different from the story

> in the game.

Hmm...the problem is, I don't think I can identify a trigger, as such. It's more a consequence of personality. zan probably should have pointed out that this PC isn't Zelgadis - it's someone who, through no fault of their own, just doesn't have it in them to be a hero. Someone who is a lot more fragile than the average PC, and can't cope with the lifestyle and tragedies in the same way. No one event triggered the change, it's a situation that has built over time - and the events in Jon's dungeon were the breaking point. The first game was relatively easy on the PC, so their mettle was barely tested. The second is different, and the life proves too much to handle.

But thanks for the comments, some useful food for thought :)


#30 Guest_Flarn_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 11:13 PM

This is a very powerful piece - it reads like poetry and is full of haunting images. The fallibility of the PC and the line about them continuing to tell themselves they will go back after Irenicus... It was heartbreaking and sad, especially considering how easy it can be to head down that same road, even when faced with lesser odds. Painfully, disturbingly beautiful... Wow...

Flarn

A Baldur's Gate Romance

#31 Guest_Silrana_*

Posted 10 April 2001 - 11:42 PM

*sob*

Forget Yoshimo, the one that got to me is Minsc! After that image, I may never be able to ever drop his character.

#32 Guest_Anonymous_*

Posted 11 April 2001 - 02:55 AM

All I can see is...wow. This was wonderful.

#33 Guest_Oyster Girl_*

Posted 11 April 2001 - 04:19 AM

> I was thinking more of big action set-pieces, involving all party members.

> Covering these from a first person POV might be difficult, because the

> chosen character would be a bit too busy to watch what the others were

> doing. (Or might not even be able to see them at all).

The Spellhold fight in City, for example.

An archer could cover such a fight, I think, or most mages if they could keep out of the way of the combatants.

City of Sorrows

#34 Guest_Dorotea_*

Posted 11 April 2001 - 01:27 PM

> I am remembering the tales of my childhood, the storytellers weaving

> worlds, crafting their goldfish bowl utopias where a halfling might slay

> fifty giants, or a dwarf might find a city built from gold. Where nobody

> died.

You are delivering a very powerful message in this little tale. In fact we rarely stop to think about how much courage the whole ordeal with JI will require. Yes, the second game is different, its deeper and scarier, it lives mental scars on the pc as well as physical ones.

http://www.gamejag.com/WithoutName

#35 Guest_Oyster Girl_*

Posted 12 April 2001 - 12:41 PM

> Cheers, much appreciated :) (zan is pedantic, but in an enormously

> hypocritical way)

Editor's read came up clean, BTW.

Good pedantic zan.

> Ah, but you gave him a heroic and tearjerking death, whereas I gave him

> the worst fate of all - dying off-screen :) (the old soap staple for

> naughty actors)

Does that mean my Ajantis was a naughty actor? *grin*

I have never been completely satisfied with the deaths we could do nothing about. Gorion's I could explain. Khalid's I could explain. (And I love Flarn's dramatization of Jaheira failing a System Shock roll.)

Yoshimo.... I had to explain. I'm too, too fond of the character. In a PnP game, I'd have resurrected him on the spot and chanced that the geas would continue after his death. (It had before, after all.) The geas would certainly have ended with Irenicus' death.

But Ajantis, and his party, I've never been able to explain. Why didn't we bring them back? I know I've argued before that the responsible gods (Helm and Torm, most likely) had decided it was their time and would have refused to allow the souls to return, but that's still...unsatisfying.

So I dodged the issue entirely.

> Well...zan is a teenager, though not angsty in the slightest. (Heheh, the

> writing may suggest otherwise! :)) I think it's becuase of the

> confessional diary connotations - I admit, I've never written a journal,

> but I would imagine it to be from first person.

Usually. :) And I tend to drift off into a confessional diary when I try 1st person.

> When I start writing bad

> poetry and turning goth, you have permission to shoot me.

> (Looks back at "Love's Labours Lamented")

> (examines dyed red hair in the mirror)

> (ducks bullets)

No, dear. So-called "bad poetry" is only bad if you're not going for a laugh. LLL was too well executed for me to think you couldn't have turned it into a masterpiece for the stage had you not been tied to reproducing H'D's limitations as a poet. *gd&r*

> I admire the genuine narrators here, who manage to create entire

> stories from the outside looking in, rather than the inside looking out.

> Your City of Sorrows is a prime example of this - the ability to tell a

> story without locking yourself away in a character's head.

In one character's head, no, although I'm going to try a tale with a single POVC before too much longer.

But I work within a POV character in each scene, and that POVC is an unreliable narrator. IOW, you get Anomen's opinion on what the other characters in the scene are thinking, and we all know how well he really understands other people....

> But the most important reason is this: given that she keeps referring to

> herself as a separate person, zan has to write in first person somewhere

> ;D

Heh.

City of Sorrows
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