I am re-posting my novel in work to the Distant Stars Lore forum, but am making some changes in the story itself, but mostly to the way that it will be told. Below is a brief overview of what i would like to do, and to say to the DS Lore players that i won't be interfering with their Role playing, though perhaps later i can join in with them, aware of all their preferred rules, but abiding by them.
(Personal Story/Outer Rim, Beyond Advent Colonies and Trader Space. Not yet in DS)
This is a re-post, it is now the 6th of September and Summer classes are over, but i am starting fall classes. I have been thinking a lot about writing, and how it might be interesting to bring something different to my writing. Many stories are concerned with a character more than a story, which means that both the author and the audience are reluctant to let go of a character that has been created, regardless of the story.
In creating Tier, i had much the same issues, it was hard to let her go because i had invested so much effort into her. Readers to when they invest a lot of time in reading a character, any character, are reluctant to let them go.
I recently came across several things that sort of threw a different angle at me about this. One was a new game for pc coming out called 'Heavy Rain" where the game world is treated less like a fictional story, or a recurring character, and puts 'story' up front, regardless of what happens to the individual characters. This felt more 'real world', and very very interesting because of that. Another was of course the film 'Inception', where multiple layers crossed and recrossed each other as the story unfolded. I have been stunned by this movie and love the fact that it makes the audience think as each layer is exposed. Then there is a trailer for another game for pc called 'TERA'. In the trailer of course the heroes battle a band of evil villans, 
But unlike most games that play like this, or at least for the trailer, because i am not sure it is this way in game, although i would love it if it was, most of the heroes die. You see them fall in battle and the agony of them failing. It is not something you see in a game every day, and for that reason also, it was extremely fascinating.
What all of this is leading to is of course my idea to tell a story, not just with one character that may get hurt, but never fails, but rather the opposite. To tell a story, where what happens, happens. I will be using a dice roller program to determine what actions succeed and which actions fail, and if they fail what the repercussions are for the characters, who lives, who dies, what planets or stations or ships survive and which do not. In this way the story is true to chance and to an element that usually exists here in the real world, but not often in fiction (at least with re-occurring characters) or in games. As a story teller then, i don't have to try and trick the reader into thinking 'oh the hero is in danger' and then figuring a way out. Because in this way of telling a story, there may not be a way out.
I think it will make the story and or stories more interesting, giving them a quality that is often skirted or ignored in regular games and fiction. I am very excited, because it gives me a way to tell a story without scaring other players that my character is omnipotent, but it still allows for all those excesses of chance and circumstance to be told.
Anyway, here is hoping it is worth reading!
Sincerely,
-Teal
September 6, 2010
Outer edge of Galan system
