KRM398 wrote:My ideas of an AU is the "Many Worlds Theory"
A good way of putting it!
Thinking about your post I can now see that - if you set yourself free - AU can be as creative as anything else!
I guess you could even go to extremes. Character could even have alternate personalities like the Rimmer variants in Red Dwarf lol. That certainly has potential you could turn Julian into an interesting person!
It is funny how easy it is to get tunnel vision. I tended to approach the history of the X universe as if fixed in stone, and tried to work around, and between that. I saw the established characters as - limiting - rather than as springboard for wider expression!
Makes you think!
Last edited by Paranoid66 on Tue, 3. Jun 08, 19:50, edited 1 time in total.
Never more than 98.8 percent sure about anything.
98.8 percent sure that anyone who is 100 percent certain needs re-educating for the sake of humanity.
Valid points, all. I like. I've also adjusted my 'onboard' definition of AU (and others) to accomodate for this - discussions are great for rationalising things.
I agree with Paranoid66, in that I tend to see the original character cast as somewhat limiting. Hence why I haven't mentioned a single one of them in my stories - I try to keep the perspective wider, and reflect that there were millions of other people involved in these plots. A further extension of that would be mirroring some of the characters in my own - the closest equivalent to Julian would be Trent or Cova, while Ban Danna's nearest relative would probably be the Director.
So, while I may be avoiding the original cast, I haven't escaped them completely. Which is what I meant by an AU story being unable to exist without the IU base to stand it on, as all fanfiction is based on the canon anyway.
I would say move on. We can always revisit when / if anyone has anything else to say on the subject. Which hopefully they will.
I thought we might discuss: Time for a bit.
How the passage of time is handled in X3 Fan Fiction, and I don't just mean the use / non use of the dreaded Teladi system lol. I'm thinking about time in relation to the flow of events. I often found I was either jumping from one short defined incident to another or slogging along.
I find this a bit of a conundrum because time in the game is so condensed. Also in combat, and so on much can happen so very quickly. Even the amassing of fortunes or material can be done with dispatch which can aid plot development, but to me actual character development / interactions is slower, and takes place at a different pace which seems to cause a natural disparity. To me the technology speeds everything up then people slow everything down.
Also if you look at the short passage of time between the events in X2 to X3 for example it is a real shocker!
Never more than 98.8 percent sure about anything.
98.8 percent sure that anyone who is 100 percent certain needs re-educating for the sake of humanity.
A lot of it depends on the pacing you are trying to portray.
As you say, in a battle scene things happen very fast. A lot of description might be used to describe a relatively short timeframe, but if you shorten the writing to reflect the pace, the story suffers.
Observe:
'He ducked under the swing and came up on the other side, spinning on his heel and driving an elbow into the man's kidney. His attacker grunted and stumbled to the side, then his leg shot out with astonishing speed, connecting with his chest and landing him a puddle, winded and wincing. He rolled backwards to evade the other man's stamping foot, and sprang up from his crouch, a ready fist stinging towards the mugger's face.'
Or:
'He was attacked out of the dark, out of the blue, ducked a punch, countered, but then was caught out with a nasty kick and ended up on the floor. He scrambled up, and swung back at his attacker's face.'
They both convey a sense of speed, and both take place in the same timeframe, but I'd be more likely to try the first one. Unless the victim was in the middle of a larger battle and trying to get somewhere else, and the immediate threat isn't that important.
It depends, as I said, what the situation is and what you want to acheive. As for 'in between' time, I find it generally best to only describe the passage of time in any detail if there's something interesting going on. While sometimes it's good to inject a bit of normality (perhaps a character needs a penseive moment for some development, say) it's not always a good thing to describe a character's life 'behind the scenes' all the time. Often, a simple 'a few days later...' will suffice, and you can get back to forwarding the plot, if nothing of note has happened in those days.
Maybe a poor topic choice on my part. Absent yesterday as I wasn't feeling very well - luckily whatever was up I feel better today.
Good combat example SOTS (shows that close combat could be assisted by a little study of anatomy as well) but what interests me most is plot development, and downtime in relation to the X universes break neck speed of commerce, and production. If you accept this for the sake of argument as a result of future technology rather than X3 being a game!
I have to agree that overall it is probably best to only relate interesting events (although I like to include some window dressing myself). I think it depends on the length of the story but like a piece of music it helps to have changes of tone. I think this is where some of the new Hollywood effects focused movies are losing it because if it is just blam blam blam you soon get anaesthetised, and it means nothing!
I like stories that are not too tightly plotted stories that retain a degree of confusion, and uncertainty, although I know this can go too far. I worry about cramming too, and those jumps (something people have drawn my attention to) that can seem a bit discordant.
Like I said earlier the disparity between the technological time it takes to do stuff, and the speed development of social, and political interactions including the formation of relationships is interesting to me as well. I think you need time to develop a complex plot, but I kept thinking in the back of my head that one rest day for example is a lot of flight hours / production time. Thinking anout it now I can imagine the technology forcing people to cram their lives just to keep up with competitors.
Maybe in the future peoples pace of life will speed up even more to keep pace with the technology - I don't know? Where do all the burnt out spacers go?
Another tricky point of balance is how much time you spend on any individual character when you have several on the go at once. I must admit being mildly frustrated reading some books when it moves away from an interesting incident with an interesting character to drop you somewhere else, but it does help to keep the pages turning.
I've noticed a big variety in the length of segments in my own work. What about the rest of you? Does anyone plan their segments, and chapters out in advance to make them fit some predetermined length? I keep thinking I should be more organised.
Never more than 98.8 percent sure about anything.
98.8 percent sure that anyone who is 100 percent certain needs re-educating for the sake of humanity.
Perhaps I was a little too 'black or white' with my 'FORWARD THE PLOT OR DOOM.'
I agree that it depends on the type of story you're writing. You may well be describing where all the spaced-out go (a concept city that never quite got off the ground, a new colony, or just a backwater) and be accordingly melancholy and slow-paced. You could be writing a Hollywood-esque adrenaline overdose, and be all 'AWESOME' and 'KAPOW' and 'BOOOOM.' Or you could compromise between the two - perhaps a war story told from behind the lines. There would be the semblance of normal life going on in the towns, trying to go about things as well as they can with a conflict raging just over the horizon.
Even today, our pace of life is an order of magnitude above that of, say, the Victorians during the Industrial Revolution. It seems to be getting ever faster; trying to secure that last deal before the stocks close, being impatient in a traffic jam because you absolutely positively HAVE to be there right now. I can see it getting even faster in the future.
I don't plan any of my writing at all - it's all spit and prayers. I have a vague idea of what I want to happen overall, and even foggier ideas of what to put in the next chapter, but the events and characters all come out at the time of writing. That's mostly the reason Siege ground to a halt, I just ran out of ideas. I do, however, try to write at least 1500-2000 words per chapter, or it doesn't seem worth it. That's about all the planning I *do* do, though.
Personally, I have to do some planning or my story won't progress. I love developing characters - they're the most important thing - but I find purely character driven stories unmanageable. They can be a nice read for others, but they're painful for me. I lose motivation because I don't know where/if the story's ever going to end!
I approached TD by having an endpoint, and thinking how to get there. A few characters and concepts popped up right there, in the planning. Then I got started. More characters (including my favourite) came out as the story went along. I tried to give the characters lots of scope to act, but ultimately the end-plan was always there. The advantage of doing it this way was that I could introduce things in the first few chapters that were then ignored for ten chapters, but were pivotal to the end. This, I think, allowed me to get a more powerful ending than I could have without planning. This is about the limit of my planning.
But back to the topic of time/timing. An approach I tried was showing time through the character. In TD, I needed to halt the movement for a while, for character development, and to synchronise subplots. I tried to emphasise the duration by having another character express frustration. A series of date-stamped reports showed the precise passage of time (not an inspired approach, but functional). But it was through her that I wanted to convey the feeling of time, the frustration of existing *in* that time, of waiting.
As for conveying time within a scene, I think sentence construction is about as vital as descriptiveness. I want to make it match real life experience, and the character. When you're character's relaxed, they can wander adverbially around nouns full of flowery adjectives. They'll notice it all. When they're philosophical, they can wander off on wonderful tangents.
But when they're stressed, busy, sentences are barer, more functional. It becomes a case of noticing just the things they consider relevant. Thinking practical thoughts. Doing.
Well, I've written a good bit for the XTM forums, and I was asked how I get my ideas. So after a while I had to say, I get a general idea of what is going to happen, and who will be in it, like Julian, Ban and Saya, then I start out with a more or less normal day and LIVE it...with the idea always in my mind, so I have no idea how long the story will be until I see for myself. This explaination has raised a few eyebrows, but if you want to see how it works out, drop down to the XTM forums and read more,ty.
@Zig, I find some of my favorite characters the same way as you- they're necessary for the plot. Thrk and T'ach from the Factional RP, for example, were both secondary to start off, but now T'ach has taken almost more of the stage than my main character, Adrian. And I've developed Thrk in my mind to the point where I'm afraid to write about him because I won't do him justice
This is most likely why I've never actually finished a story that I've started, though on several I've just about reached the end. Of course I know exactly how they all end and how they get to that point, and it's usually a gigantic, apocalyptic, cataclysmic catharsis of doom and destruction.
I suppose I'm the "massive planning" sort when it comes to writing, though that's also what defeats me most often.
EDIT
I just read First House of Argon, Zig... (yes, I'm a wee bit behind on the creative board...) quite awesome stuff you have. It's especially good as a companion piece to Terraformer Dreams.
Anyway, thought I'd make your day a little brighter with some compliments
As for conveying time within a scene, I think sentence construction is about as vital as descriptiveness. I want to make it match real life experience, and the character. When you're character's relaxed, they can wander adverbially around nouns full of flowery adjectives. They'll notice it all. When they're philosophical, they can wander off on wonderful tangents.
But when they're stressed, busy, sentences are barer, more functional. It becomes a case of noticing just the things they consider relevant. Thinking practical thoughts. Doing.
Great bit of common sense advice I need to apply. Beginning with my recently bloated, and grown hideous Chapter One cursed thing turned into a total mess. Got far too close to it - kept tweaking and adding instead of doing a proper structured considered rewrite - result being I haven't fixed anything just made it worse! A fine lesson in what not to do!
Don't know if it is just me, but sometimes it helps to focus the mind when somebody else points out the obvious!
It helps to get a bit of distance. I'm going to blame my own mindset at the moment, and doing corrections directly on the PC - it is far too easy to just add more words - tweak, and bloat a serious wake up call!
Never more than 98.8 percent sure about anything.
98.8 percent sure that anyone who is 100 percent certain needs re-educating for the sake of humanity.
Just remember guys that you have talent!, though the stories may not appear to be appreciated by a lack of responses. I find that there are times when you have just enough time to log on, scan read and log off. Whilst at work for example, meaning to reply a bit later but getting caught up in the hiatus that is life and forgetting. Till like now! I have a bit of time and wanted to read and respond.
I hope your creativity never wanes!
OO,OO, talent! (swells head) hehehe, joking of course. We do ,what I think is what we like, the way we like it. We have ideas about X or even other games. I saw some good writing I said was a lot like the Doom storyline not long ago. We all have hopes for our storys and maybe one off us will do well. I was asked by an editor on xtm forums if my series " The Way It Could Be" was turned into a new game how long it would run, and I laughed, first to think it would make it, then to have to actually coinsider. The entire series follows the Brennen Family through several generations, and does actually have an ending, but not until total peace is established. So I had to admit, with 1 game being a generation, then maybe 3 could finish the Brennen Tales, but I hope the real writers stretch it better than me,lol.
So it would seem SOTS. I must admit I've not been in the best frame of mind recently - RL woes so that is my excuse! Was struggling with some rewrites plus just struggling along period. In one of those situations were things probably have to get worse in order for them to get better.
Anyway I guess at least this thread is here - if anyone - wants to sound off about anything creative. At the moment I would be more inclined to reply than try to instigate a new topic my batteries are very low.
Never more than 98.8 percent sure about anything.
98.8 percent sure that anyone who is 100 percent certain needs re-educating for the sake of humanity.
Sorry to see everyone having problems, but I decided that even though my series technically ended, that maybe I could squeeze a little more out of it, so "the way it could be..." has just gone on to book..(series part?) 4..so I hope everyone else has some good ideas that leap to mind, keep trying guys.
Ah... I'm in the summer crunch at work. Summers are busy. We've got about 30% more staff, yet still everyone's running around like a squirrel with it's tail on fire.
And at home, I've got a (nearly) 3 month old son with a milk habit, and a bunch of unpacking yet to do from a move 3 weeks ago! Oh... and no home internet. D'oh.
So... Not a conducive environment. All things considered.
That said, one question. In Universe (IU) or Out Of Universe (OOU) narration? Pros and Cons?
My thoughts:
OOU narration (e.g. a 3rd person omniscient narrator) gives you freedom of perspective. You've got more flexibility in how you show the story because you're not fixed to one view-point. You can draw in extra sources, such as alien or enemy sources, that would be unavailable to any IU source. You can also choose what to show and when, you can jump around in time more naturally. And more importantly, you can choose what NOT to show - for anyone who's read TD, I had a lot of fun tip-toeing around what Aksandros was actually doing on Lil's ship for all that time! This is something it's difficult to do naturally in first person IU narrative. Plus, from a purely stylistic point of view, I feel happier using present day idioms or references with an OOU translater - an OOU narrator is telling us the story, we are the audience - whatever was said in Argon/Teladi is just being translated for us, to be suitable to our ears (eyes?)
Wheras IU gives you much more casual realism and atmosphere. With IU narration, your narrator is immersed in that world; their words can drip with IU ideas, idealogies, and facts that an OOU narrator would have to explain. The narrator is a character, writing (for a purpose) to IU readers.
So the narrator has scope to discuss the world as a native: to exhibit prejudice, humour, to worry about IU problems, to talk about IU places or people - they can mock IU senators, compare drinks - in First House my narrator whines about public transport! They can lie, tell half-truths, they can push their ideology and try to persuade the the reader to their point of view. I feel this can all give a passive realism and atmosphere to the story, without needing to ram descriptive paragraphs crammed-full of adjectives in your reader's face.
Anyone have any ideas/opinions on this?
p.s. @ Tenlar Scarflame: Cheers for the compliment! I need to re-read First House. I need to check I didn't introduce any plot holes when I finished TD. It was slightly tricky keeping things straight as both stories were supposed to occur in the gap between X2 and X3 which - according to the games - is only a few months/weeks!
Anyway, the mysterious "Jo" who flies our reporter off the Pirate base in First House, is the same "Jo" as the main guy in Terraformer Dreams.
p.p.s @ Paranoid66. Hope all's okay with you! I know the low-battery feeling only too well right now! Hope the editing's going well on your story - I always intended to read it, but it just grew too fast for the time I had available! You were posting about 3 solid chapters a week at one stage! Prolific, dude! Anyway, when I get the internet back at home, that's about next on my list!
I use almost all IU narative. It gives me the chance to show what players are thinking and what the enemy/freinds/or outsiders feel about the same ideas. In my storys I can be in one place talking to my father about events and in another minute be in an enemy talking to their troops about my charcter or his people. It gives me the chance to show what everyone in the story is thinking/doing at any time while staying close to the storyline.
Symapthies Zig sounds hectic, my real life from the point of view of stability - is a total disaster area - at the moment. I am finding it hard to concentrate on much beyond the superficial for this reason. As they say life is change, but change is suffering.
Funny I decided to sort of cheat this IU OOU situation. My whole story is in the process of being reworked taking in the concept that it was generated as an almost - simulated - take on one history. Using the concept that all history is fiction - it is never exactly what really happened.
The idea actually fits in well with my story line. Although the Reapers Passage has lots of internalised thoughts, and feelings these are now supposed to be based on data collected after the fact forensically from scores of sources then welded together. Thus some error, and inaccuracy is clearly built in not least interpretation.
I admit I partially did this to cover personal fears of inadequacy, and as a good way to time stamp divide the action into segments. I am inviting my reader to question, read between the lines, and make up his or her own mind despite any clear cut emphasis. I admit I fear the characters on some level are still talking at times too much with one voice (my voice) I will try to rectify this phenomena in the rewrite / edit.
I haven't really had the opportunity I need to overview the whole thing properly so far. Some changes I have posted are already introducing unwanted repetition or changes that need to cascade outward - until the rest of the rewrite catches up. Really it needs done off line, but foolishly I was hoping for some input on early alterations to help me consider the best way to go, but you know how that is lol.
Never more than 98.8 percent sure about anything.
98.8 percent sure that anyone who is 100 percent certain needs re-educating for the sake of humanity.
It's especially good as a companion piece to Terraformer Dreams.
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