“In Play” Life Story Mode
I have exactly one RP table top game I play. It’s a solo game based in Star Trek’s universe. Even then I did not start until last year when I got the guide for Christmas.
Love it, for any number of reasons. But, I have learned a lesson from it I did not expect to learn.
In short, one can create a character to play in the game in one of two ways. One, the longer more detailed way. Schooling, upbringing, species, health, memories, age, all of that determined via rolls of dice and other things. This creates the backstory of the character which you then use on the various adventures.
Then there is a shorter way to create a new character. It’s an “in-play” mode.
In it, only a few basics are established at creation. The rest of the character’s life, interests, skills, are brought out during gameplay itself. One uses only what is needed at the time, and when something else is needed, they assign the strength or weakness of the character to the task at hand. By the time the first full session is complete, a full background of the character has emerged, as a result of decisions and smaller reveals as one plays.
I am experiencing a version of this in real life as I write a soon-to-be-available memoir of my Autistic experiences.
It will be an in-play building of my character in some ways. I do not call it a full memoir, but rather a collection of brief but deep looks at moments in my life that relate to the subject matter of my Autism experience. Through these periodic explorations, I feel I am connecting certain dots in my larger story that were not as clearly connected before I started this project.
But more than that, I at last feel that a large portion of my story, my struggles, are being told to the “world.” Or at least those readers I am targeting–otjhers with ASD.
It has been a labor intensive project to be certain. But now that I can see how these nuggets, these moments of my life, these individual stories create touchstones from which a fuller picture of me can emerge later, a satisfaction I did not expect at first comes with nearly completing this work.
I am of course not an RPG character, I am a person. Like any person, my full story cannot be known through one book, with a particular focus. Yet as it nears publication I now see how people that read this book can establish “in play” more about who I am and what I represent than perhaps ever they could by passing observation of larger aspects of myself.
Will it work that way? Who can really say. But if the book is anything like the game, there may at last be a more fully formed picture of the real Ty available to the world than has ever been before.
That alone will, if it happened, make the effort worth it to me.
Greek Chorus as Author: An Update
A week ago I posted, in a vague sense, about an audition I had, with hopes of only playing one particular character. I am pleased to announce I got the only role I was looking for in the production. I will be playing Alfieri in Arthur Miller’s A View from a Bridge.
I appreciate the congratulations you may feel inclined to offer. But as excited as I am about this production, it still makes for an interesting commentary on writing, just as my more general post did last week.
Alfieiri is a particular type of character in this tale, which allows for a commentary on fiction writing that not all characters allow for. That’s what I want to mention.
If you are not familiar with the story, it is about Eddie, a Brooklyn longshoreman in the 1950’s. He’s a surrogate father figure/uncle to Catherine, whom he has raised with his wife from childhood. A niece by marriage only, Catherine has fallen in love with another longshoreman recently arrived in the United States. This turn of events stirs feeling of jealously and possibly more within Eddie. It sets him on a tragic course.
My character, Alfieri, is a neighborhood lawyer. But more significant than that is the narrator to the audience. A certain type of narrator in fact. He acts as a sort of Greek Chorus, as often seen in those ancient tragedies. By that I mean he interacts with characters as part of the action of the story as it unfolds, even tries to influence it, but he cannot. When he is not doing this, he looks back on the story, setting the scene for the audience at the theatre after the fact. The tale is, in essence, Alfieri’s flashback, though he himself appears only sporadically on stage.
That is the aspect of the character that fascinated me, both back in high school when first encountered this play, but especially today. That’s because it occurs to me that as I perform the narrator functions of Alfieri, I will use some of the same “muscles” I use when I am writing my fiction, and that is not usually the case on stage.
I of course did not write this story, and within the play, neither did Alfieri. Nevertheless much of his job is to set the scene in direct address to the audience, much like an author does for the reader. To me this requires a particular approach and interpretation of the lines that I feel my being an author can enhance to some degree.
Authors are all narrators to some degree, aren’t they? Depending on which story they are telling, they can be reliable or unreliable. They can be a character within the story, as in first person point of view, or that can be distant observers, and nearly objective. (As one finds with third-person omniscient point of view.) The author’s voice is usually kn the past tense, telling a story that already happened. (Though increasingly in modern fiction we find present-tense narratives gaining popularity.)
The job, however is always the same–to tell a story to the reader.
Usually when I play a role on stage, I am within the story. Most roles for the stage are in fact of this variety. Actor are of course presenting a story no matter who they play, but they are not usually telling it. The script as a whole is telling it, the playwright is telling it. But the characters, even the leads, are a fraction of the story. Their job is to give that fraction life.
Only half of Altieri’s lines are like this. The rest, as I said, is direct, first person story telling to the audience. I look forward to entering an antechamber of my author mind as I perform these sections of character-as-narrator. I welcome the challenge of relating directly to those in the seats, as an author must with his fiction.
I realize it is not a direct correlation, but closer than I have been for a while on stage.
Interested in how it all works out? Consider coming to see it yourself, in your are local to Hagerstown, Maryland. Check out the Potomac Playmakers for details as we get closer to a mid-November set off performances!
(At least for that half of his stage time.)
Stories Filtered Through Characters
A few days ago, I auditioned for a community theatre production, as I often do. I have also been to this venue a few times before.
Like many auditions, in consisted of what we call “cold reading from the script. In other words, we read the script, with as much acting as we could, with others to create scenes from the play, as opposed to having memorized speeches to deliver from elsewhere.
One thing about this audition that for me was atypical; I tried out for only one role.
I never do this, or if I have before, not above once. Yet in the case of this story, this script, so connected am I to one spec icic voice, one particular angle on the story, that I expressed the desire to be considered for that role and that role only. The story, the essence of the piece as a whole does not speak to me from the other characters.
I think this happens with stories sometimes, both as the author and as the reader.
We bring certain things to the table when we approach a story. Personal history, preferences, time of year, time of day even. These particulars allow for a specific reflection off of the stories we consume. Most often, I dare say, this reflection takes in the entire story as an experience. But everyone now and then, as is the case with the production I tried out for, what we bring into the table is distilled best through one particular point of view.
A memorable, resonant character that does and says things that move us can, in my opinion, make up for other lackluster aspects of work of fiction. It’s probably best when we can delve into all of the aspects, but let us not dismiss the odd possibility that any given day it is not so much the story, but the story as filtered through a particular person that calls to us.
It may not be the most complete presentation of the story. In some cases it may not even be the most objective, (if objective point of view in fiction is possible.) But it might just be the most engaging, interesting, and worthiest of our time as readers, (and writers on occasion. )
As of this writing I do not yet know if I secured the role I auditioned for. It was the narrower, probably riskier way to audition. But when you find a voice that matters to you specifically to such a degree, it’s worth the extra risk.
If you’re acting. If you’re reading? Well, there no risk at all in this approach.
Love the characters you love, and consume stories accordingly.
Don’t Bore Yourself As A Writer
The frequent conundrum for the writer is whether to write “to the market” or to be true totally to one’s own vision no matter what and write accordingly.
Often when I open a discussion in such a way, I proceed to explain how it is somewhere in the proverbial middle.
Not this time. And while I eschew extremes, in this case I advise leaning towards your own vision, even if they oppose conventions and rules.
Actually, I amend this. I don’t suggest breaking rules for the sake of breaking them. What I suggest, what I absolutely endorse is not boring yourself.
It is possible, believe me.
If you decide to chase the market, and write what is the current trend ignore entice an agent or publishing firm, you’re already making several mistakes. Trends change, and by the time you are done, the trend you chased could be over.
Such approaches also keep one from standing out as a voice, even if somehow one does manage to catch that gust of wind into fam and profit.
Yet the biggest mistake with writing to catch a trend would be boring yourself as a writer.
You have to find what you are writing interesting, exciting, fun.
Don’t get me wrong; by the time you are done editing and revising, you will feel someone sick of what you love. Like having your favorite meal every day, it will begin to lose its appeal.
Yet in most cases, take a break from that meal, and you will eventually remember why you love it.
That is not boredom. That is numbness. Every writer faces a bit of numbness even when they believe in their material.
Just shake it off, like you do a sleeping leg, and the blood will return.
But if there is nothing therein the first place to get back to? Might as well push a rock up a hill all day and achieve the same tedium.
Which is why I am not coming down in the exact middle of this quandary. If in your heart of heart you love writing the most predictable, formulaic stories, then you must write those. Nobody can give you any guarantees about marketability, in a conventional of self-published model. But what I can say is the process of continuing to write over and over and over is crucial…and that you will find it most sustainable if you love what you are writing.
You can tinker and repair drafts that have been written out of love and/or excitement. You can, if you decide you want to, adjust for the market as you understand it. You have a passion-informed baseline from which to jump
But if your writing is tedious, your story stale, it could be the most avant-experiment the world has ever seen, and it won’t do a thing for you. And if it does nothing for you, it’s not writing. It’s producing.
I’m one to talk, I know. I have sold, lifetime so far, 2,000 copies of my various books, give or take. But I would never have finished any of them if they bored me. I’d be better off trying to sell tires, about which I know nothing, than trying to muster up the enthusiasm to sell a story I never liked writing to begin with.
Don’t get bored. Get writing. No matter how weird, (or how common) it is.
The One That Got Away
I’ve come to the sad conclusion that the biggest acceptance of my writing that I have thus far ever received will not come to pass.
This is a hard one to swallow, I won’t pretend.
About a year ago, one of the oldest continuously published magazine on the art of writing, one to which I have been subscribed for many years, The Writer was purchased by a company mostly interested in creating television content. The current editor mentioned this in his note at the beginning of the last issue to be published, September of 2023. In that note, he called for “contributors” to offer pieces to the magazine’s next issue, as he sought to tighten the focus as well as the budget of The Writer by stepping away from national paid-freelancers.
In response to this call for content, I submitted a piece…and it was accepted.
I knew it could take a few months to show up. But as I communicated periodically with the editor, it became clear that although the magazine was not officially dead, his superiors had placed television on his main burner for the foreseeable future. He loved my piece and related to it on a personal level, but could not give an indication of when it would appear, because he had no idea when the magazine itself would return.
I have not contacted him, or he me, in the better part of a year now. My research from other sources has in fact led me to conclude that despite announced plans in 2023, the magazine is in essence, defunct.
I have a book coming out in a few months that talks more about my poor luck and difficulty in igniting my career, among other things, because of Autism. But since it is not yet out, I will use this post as a medium by which to express both how utterly disappointing, yet somehow utterly predictable this situation is.
That is to say, what was to be the first national (even if niche) byline of my life seemingly will not come to pass because the oldest magazine in the world dedicated to writing is, at the very same time, going belly up.
Such is writing, but shit. Talk about no honeymoon with success.
I am holding the piece for now, which I consider one of my better pieces, (and probably why it was accepted initially.) I am holding out for the possibility, at least until the end of this year, that the magazine could return in some form, long enough to publish my piece.
At that point, I will look for other places to submit it to. One professional editor liked it, I imagine another one might as well. I will make that decision no earlier than 2025.
I wish I had a grand lesson to share with you about this, especially fellow or potential writers who may read this. I don’t though, other than luck is a large enough factor is being a successful writer it borders on stupefying.
As my soon-to-be-released book on success and promotion talks about, some of us have more working against us than others.
Keep reading if you read, keep writing if you write.
Ty Unglebower 