From Hudson. “One thing that really stood out for us is that we underestimated how attached people would become to the characters.”

Everman said, “It shows how invested a player is in the story, and how much they care about the outcomes. I’ve learned that a bitter-sweet ending is much easier to watch in a movie, than experience in a long RPG where the player is very invested in the protagonist.”

And again from Hudson. “…all people would want to do was spend more time with the characters, sort of bathing in the afterglow – getting closure and just having some time to live in the universe that they fought to save.”

I was stunned that they wouldn’t have realized this… oh four years ago when this passionate reaction to Mass Effect 1 began to build. When the second game garnered high praise and major awards. When the anticipation for the third game hit a fever pitch. What did they think people were enjoying and anticipating? Shooting pixels on a screen? Players had spent five years with their particular Commander Shepard. The characters that were crafted by BioWare were engaging and fascinating. Romances were possible, close friendships, heartbreak, hard choices. Then there was this terrific science fiction universe that was almost a character in its own right. And the promise of a story that was epic in scale, and a message of hope and bravery. That friendship and loyalty matter. That good people can win against insurmountable odds.

So how could these gentlemen not have foreseen the backlash that would ensue?

Which made me wonder about the relationship game designers have with the act of creation versus the one experienced by writers? Is there a quantitative difference? And if so, why? When I think about my writer friends I can’t think of a single one who isn’t immersed in their particular world and the people who populate it. That is certainly true for George. Sometimes I think Westros is more real to him than present day America. For myself, I often find myself viewing current events through the lens of my Edge universe.

Oh, that must be the Old Ones at work

, I will think. My Imperials universe is going to happen once we achieve faster than light speed. I just know it.

I am also deeply involved with my characters. If I wasn’t I could’t write about them. Why would their story matter unless I believed they were important, that they, in some fashion, illuminated the human condition? I love my characters. I have literally wept when I killed a character. I want to make sure Richard steps out of the shadow of his father’s disapproval, and we reach the stars, and that Linnet discovers her purpose and bring peace between The Powers and humans, and that Tracy destroys the Solar League and wins the hand of the Infanta. Because they are real to me. I’ve breathed life into them. I know events that happened in their childhoods that will never appear on the page.

And this isn’t the case for just the creator/writer. Readers invest in characters. They will make up stories about events that the writer might never examine or explore. They write fan fiction, and this isn’t a new phenomenon. Apparently people rioted on the docks of New York City in 1841 as they waited for the next installment of Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop to arrive. They were screaming “Is little Nell dead?” These Dickens fans were Invested!

And along come games. Where you aren’t just reading about the adventures of John Carter or Sherlock Holmes or the March Girls. You are the hero/heroine. The protagonist of the story. You are saving Ferelden from the Dark Spawn or the galaxy from the Reapers, or the Republic from the Sith, crafting the direction of the next step in Human evolution. You also haven’t invested just a few weeks or even a few months to read that book. You’ve invested hours of game play. So how could the designers not know this? Is there something fundamentally different in the way they approach story telling?

If there is, I think that’s a mistake. There is a form and structure to a story that goes back into the hoary past, and I think these tropes and rules should be applied to this new entertainment medium. Because I have a feeling the people gathered in the halls of ancient Greece felt just as passionately about Odysseus as modern game players felt about Commander Shepard.

And she’s been developing more and more physical problems. Cataracts to the point she is nearly blind, she’s almost stone deaf, she breaths like she’s just run a marathon, arthritis in her hips, incontinence which, despite medicine, has been a continuing problem. Today it was clear she was not a happy animal. I finally got her on her feet and into the house. She does tend to eat like a cat in that she grazes, but she hadn’t touched her food from yesterday. She refused a treat, and there was no tail wag. There was no joy, and I realized that it was time.

I use a vet clinic just down the road that is something of a factory. A lot of vets work there. Turnover is frequent, and there is a focus on convincing people to run massive numbers of tests, and do a lot of very expensive procedures. Since I’m pretty hard headed I have always been able to say no, and since it’s a long way into town I had continued to use this place. So, I call and explain the situation and they tell me to come right now. I call Gilly and cancel my riding lesson, and I managed to boost Nikki into the foot well of the car. I make the drive wiping away tears because I love her and she’s been with me for a long time.

At the clinic they take us into a “euthanasia room” That has little birds twittering in a cage, and a cross on the wall, etc. etc. For me it was more offensive then comforting, but I figured — okay, maybe this works for other people. I sit on the floor with Nikki’s head in my lap and this vet comes in. The woman asks what’s going on. I tell her. She then says she has to examine the dog to make sure. She does a two minute exam — “Well good news, her heart sounds fine, her lungs are clear”, and then she announces it’s not time, and there are _lots_ of treatments we haven’t tried. I point out to her that this dog is 14 and not happy. She ignores me and goes on about this pill and that pill, and this treatment and that treatment. I say forcefully — “I’m not spending hundreds of dollars on a 14 year old dog who is failing.” At which point she gets nasty and says, “Well, we don’t _kill_ animals on just your say so.” I am completely rocked back by this, and I realize that this woman is playing head games with me, and trying to guilt me into treatments. I was breathless, and I sat there trying to figure out if I needed to just go off on her. She then says, “Well, if you just can’t cope we can find her another home.” Yeah, like I’m going to give away my elderly dog who has been my shadow and companion of my heart for 14 years.

I’ve steeled myself for this parting. I had been tearful, but now I’m so enraged that I can’t find the words. The woman tells me she’ll be back with some medication and she leaves. When she finally comes back she says in this snotty voice — “Well, since money is such an issue for you I’m going to give you these pills… _for free_! At this point I just want the hell out of there. We leave, and the desk says “Here’s the wet food that’s been ordered for your dog.” I end up paying for it, and find myself in the parking lot trying to boost Nikki back into the car while she yelps in pain. I debate going in and displaying a red head’s anger, but Nikki is shaking and panting, and we are trained to be polite. I finally get her in the car and take her home.

I called my equine vet who was just speechless over this. She said, “As if a two minute exam can match what you know about your pet!” And as another vet has said, “Better one month early than one minute too late.” The rest of the day was spent dealing with business that couldn’t wait, and truthfully I could not find the strength to prepare for this yet again. So because of this woman’s arrogance I now have to steel myself to face this next week, and prepare to say goodbye because this poor animal’s body is wearing out, and the gift I can bestow on her is never allowing her to suffer needlessly.

The other thing that will happen is a strongly worded letter to the owner of this clinic calling out this woman vet by name. And finding a new vet for my cats who isn’t running a money generating factory by playing on people’s very real love for their pets, or guilt tripping them into letting an old dog linger and decline.

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to vent.

You can find Cherie’s story here.

Wild Card Story

But what I actually wanted to ponder and muse about is the scene where people have to tell each other how they feel about one another.  Those are also bitchingly hard to write.  It’s so easy to make the “I love you” moment feel like bad dialogue on a really low rent daytime soap opera.  ”I love you more than life itself.”  ”I love you so much that I feel like my heart can’t hold it all.”  ”You are everything to me.”  These may work in real life, but damn on the screen or the page it can often have you groping for the barf bag.

It was my brilliant friend Connie Willis, who has made a study of romantic comedy and how it works, who taught me how to handle this.  She said the characters should never directly say what they are feeling.  They need to talk around it, talk about other things that are a stand in for their emotions, come at it obliquely.  You may have noticed that I quote Connie a lot.  She was the reason I could write the post on Irony a few weeks back.  Connie is a wonderful writer, but she is also a gifted teacher because he has spent a lot of time analyzing writing as a craft.

Having had this long conversation with Connie when she and the family were down for Thanksgiving I decided to put it to the test.  First up — in the Mass Effect story, and by god, it was one of the scenes that a friend praised in particular.  Two weeks ago I used it in The Edge of Darkness, and I think (I hope) it worked.  My writer buddies will let me know next week when we get together.  And I’m thinking about it in particular for my upcoming Space Opera that I’m getting ready to prepare for my agent.  The whole drive of these books is my leading man’s love for a woman that he cannot possibly have, but it consumes his life.  Her’s too since they are going to be star crossed lovers.  So I’m really processing all of this as I get ready to tackle Imperials.

And yes, they are going to have a happy ending.  There just won’t be bunnies and rainbows and unicorns.  But they will have each other.  :)

That is classic Second Stage Rocket.  You think it’s about the names of agents on a hard drive, but then you find out it’s much, much worse than you knew.  Your enemy is five steps ahead of you, and he’s gunning for someone that Bond actually cares about.

They also did a lovely job of having the personal story lines for both Bond and Silva echo each other, and intensify the emotions that are driving these two men.  There is just so much going on in that movie.  It’s about loneliness and isolation and seeking validation.  The more I think about the film the more I like it.

I called HP for help.  Was told the machine was out from under warranty, but if I’d like to give them $25.00 someone would try to help me over the phone.  Maybe I should have done it, but it really irritated me.  A nice fellow on Facebook offered some advice.  I tried all the diagnostics, etc.  Nothing worked.  I then pulled out the color cartridges.  Guess what?  It won’t work unless all four cartridges are in which is expensive since mostly what I print is black ink on white paper.  I don’t actually mail hard copy of scripts or novel manuscripts any longer.  Everything goes electronically. but if I have to write a letter I’d like it not to look like it was printed with blood.

I just noticed something weird.  I had printed out the stallion contracts from CSU.  They had been attached to an email, and they printed with black ink just fine.  I will go and check the settings in Final Draft.  Maybe the problem is there.

Next, if anybody is interested the first two sections of the Mass Effect story are posted over in Writing.

And now I have to go and try to figure out something to cook for dinner that won’t make me sick.  I really do want a new stomach.

I went to Iron Man 3 with great anticipation and equally high hopes.  All the pre-release buzz had presented this movie as better then even the first movie.  Which was high praise indeed.  The first Iron Man movie ranks for me as one of the top five superhero movies that have been made thus far.

We expected a crowd so my friends and I decided to go to a 10:15 feature.  It wasn’t necessary.  The theater was pretty much deserted, proving yet again that Santa Fe just isn’t much of a movie town.  We settled in, and I was ready to love this movie.

Except I couldn’t.  There were some cool bits and some huge missed opportunities.  Tony Stark’s PTSD could have been a powerful and meaningful thread for this film.  Instead they used it as a gag and to get laughs which I found insulting to the thousands of men and women who are currently dealing with the debilitating and dangerous effects of PTSD.

As the movie spooled out I kept trying to figure out what it was about?  What was the theme, the issues that would illuminate the human condition?  I kept coming up with nothing — just confusion.

It started with the bad guy.  I mean the real bad guy.  They gave me at least three different explanations of why he was doing what he was doing.  Reason one — Tony Stark had dissed him years before.  Reason two — he wanted the government to fund his research so he was creating false flag/terrorist events.  He was creating false flag/terrorist events so the government would pay to use his super soldiers to fight off this terrible threat.  I never did figure it out which left me confused and cranky.

Tony does something stupid — gives the “bring ‘em on” speech, and bad guy destroys his house and kidnaps Pepper.  Okay, big flashy scene, but I kept wondering why the FAA never reacted to these military helicopters heading toward Malibu presumably without any kind of flight plan.  If the movie had been working for me otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gotten tripped up on this little real world issue, but it wasn’t and I did.

Tony is now back to a guy without resources just a faulty suit that he has to repair.  We go into some of the best moments in the movie as Tony interacts with the little kid, but then they completely undercut the scene by having Tony summon a bunch of remote guided suits for the big final fight.  If he could do that why did he spend all this time trying to repair Mach 42?

And that also completely undercut the whole PTSD thing.  If Stark was afraid to be the “man in the can”, well, he didn’t have to any longer.  He could be a remote drone pilot and run the suits from a safe location in Tierra del Fuego.

Next there’s turning Pepper into a superhero.  I guess, though even that is unclear because at the end Tony says he’s “fixed” Pepper thus proving he is not just an engineering genius, but also a brilliant biologist.  I guess he’s a scientist with a capital S.  Anyway, I’ve always liked Pepper.  She is an independent woman who can run a giant multi-national power, and she has a super power.  She can stand up to Tony Stark and tell him when he’s being a douche.  And make him listen.  Now they made her Nuke Girl or Fire Girl, and I really didn’t need that unless Robert Downey Jr. is not planning on making any more Iron Man movies and it’s going to become about Pepper Pots fights crime.

Finally we come to the end of the piece where Tony orders his faithful computer to destroy all the suits, and he fixes his heart and removes the device that not only kept his heart beating, but apparently powered the suits, and then he throws it in the ocean.  Which means he can no longer power the suits even if had some.  Which means he’s no longer Iron Man.

And then as if they writers/director realized what they had done they throw in this line at the very end where Stark declares “And I am Iron Man.”

No, you’re not.  You’re a really rich guy who threw away the device that powered your awesome fighting suits.

I’m disappointed.  So much money and so much talent and not a coherent story to be seen.

What was way less interesting was — in the wise words of George R.R. — “All the damn family drama.”  I didn’t care that the librettist had a fling with the guy playing Joe DiMaggio and it wrecked her marriage.  That her teenage son started acting out.  That one of our ingenues had boyfriend problems.  Now the other ingenue sleeping with director that felt much more real and again a look behind the curtain.  If you don’t think the casting couch is real, I’ve got a bridge for you.

Anyway, that was first season.  Then comes second season and they decided they had to skew younger, and bring in a “bad boy”.  So now we have a composer/librettist team that are two men and the gay and straight are reversed, and the composer is this complete jackass and our leading lady walks out of Bombshell (the Marilyn show) to do this off Broadway thing because he’s just so hot.  No, he’s not.  He’s an ass and his music isn’t all that good either.  And her leaving the show made me question her sanity and IQ so now that character is pretty well trashed for me.  And now we discover the Bad Boy has drug problems.  Whoa that’s a surprise.  In addition to all this family drama there was this incredibly stupid subplot about doing Dangerous Liaisons as a musical with a physical comedy guy playing Valmont who also has mental problems.  It wasn’t funny and it didn’t tell me anything about behind the scenes in musical theater which is why I watched the show.  Was it an attempt to be edge?  Funny?  I don’t know.  Whatever the intent, it didn’t work.

George and I agreed that we like shows where we learn something about worlds that we don’t know and the drama comes from doing those interesting job.  We know a lot about book publishing and writing and about Hollywood, but we don’t know how things work on a major newspaper, or how to bring a show to Broadway, or train a race horse to get to the Derby, etc. etc.  We all know what it’s like when a relationship goes bad, or mom gets breast cancer, or dad starts drinking.  Not only have most of us experience “real life” we’ve seen it done to death on television for fifty years.  I know the networks and executives think that family drama makes the characters more relatable, and up the drama, but I think it’s just become lazy writing.  Need a B plot?  How about mom and breast cancer?  Need a C runner?  Kid is getting bullied at school.

Please can we put the bad boy to bed and go back to trying to create buzz on a new Broadway show by gaming the reviewers?  That was interesting.

I’m having trouble picking a feeling.  Elated because it’s done.  Proud because it’s good.  Nervous because this may be the end of the line for me as a writer on the project.  I will still be attached as an executive producer, but I would like to continue as the writer as well.  Realistically that probably won’t happen, but hey, I’m an optimistic person so I’ll hold onto a small kernel of hope.  :)

Whatever the outcome at Universal I now have a new sample that my manager can use to, hopefully, find me more employment doing something that I utterly love.  Writing scripts is so fun and exciting for me.  I’m one of those people who can’t not write, but I confess I love writing scripts more than I love writing books.

Now I have to readjust my brain and go back to writing on THE EDGE OF DARKNESS.  That book is due June 1st, and I still have at least four chapters to go.  At least it gives me something else to think about while they ponder my fate at Universal Pictures.

Great-grandmother’s quilt was another thing all together.  It was what Courtney called a true “scrap quilt”.  Connie and Courtney were carefully inspecting the quilt, and their understanding of what they were looking at enabled me to finally “see” the quilt as a unique creation and not just a bundle of multi-colored material.  Courtney recognized certain material as the sacks that had once contained flour.  Back in the old days flour came in cloth bags with colorful prints on them.  There were tiny scraps of a pink fabric with little kittens on it that had clearly belonged to a little girl.  Had my grandmother worn the kitten dress?  There was another fabric that had clearly been a man’s shirt.

As we looked closer I was stunned at how nothing had gone to waste.  There was one tiny scrap no bigger then the fingernail on my little finger that filled out one tiny corner.  The stitches were these perfect tiny loops.  A woman had done this by hand with only an oil lantern if she was working at night or on a cold and gloomy winter day when she had to be inside.  Or maybe she’d been part of a quilting circle where these women in the Oklahoma territory had talked and shared dreams and fears and recipes and remedies.  I realized that each tiny piece of fabric told a story.  The stitches connected me to a woman who’s genes made up my body.  It was a silent story, and it touched me in a way I can’t explain.

I had been thinking about donating these quilts to some quilt museum, but I think I’m going to keep them, and even use them.  Yes, they will decay further, perhaps disappear, but if I put them on a bed and let people see them, and sleep under them it’s like I’m honoring my grandmother and great-grandmother’s lives and work.  I don’t have children so using them is probably the better choice then merely passing them on when I’m dead.  Those stories probably wouldn’t speak to anyone else.  I should let them sing now.