Why we love November Tuesday, Nov 3 2009 

Uncategorized eliseblog 5:17 am

Movember
Nanowrimo
The Melbourne Cup
It’s one month till Christmas!
And if you’re where I am, it’s warm enough to fry an egg on the pavement
End of Semester

 

Talent means nothing if you’re not hot. Tuesday, Jun 30 2009 

Feminism , , , , , , eliseblog 12:37 am

Oh my freaking GOD!

The Morning Show just reported that Wimbledon is placing “more attractive” but lower ranking female players on centre court.

When the choice is between Dinara Safina, the number 1 women’s player in the world right now, or Gisela Dulko, currently ranking 45, OF COURSE Gisela should play on Centre Court.

But that’s not why I’m pissed off.  Perhaps it’s because I’m used to discrimination of women in sport.  Perhaps it’s because the immediate reaction of one of the (female) Morning Show guests was “actually, I agree with this.”

WTF?

“You know, it’s about the money and obviously more attractive players are going to attract more people, and maybe we won’t hear so much grunting.  They’ll just go ‘dink, dink’.”

Okay, that’s not exactly what she said, but it’s very close.  Especially the part about the grunting.

It’s women like her that make me want to…  I’m not sure.  Is it possible to force someone to use their brain?  How can you not see that it’s wrong to rank women in a sporting competition on the basis of their looks?  They’re undermining the whole point of the competition.  Obviously, it doesn’t matter how good you are at tennis, because you’re not going to get any recognition unless you’re “hot”.

Back on The Morning Show, Adam Spencer, who was also a guest, replied to this woman with “you’re the sort of person who’d want them to turn the lights down when they close the dome at night, aren’t you?”.  Except, you know, not so blunt as it looks written down.

At least someone on the show had some sense.

 

Character Creation with Celtx Tuesday, May 12 2009 

film writing for role play , , eliseblog 12:36 pm

I wonder if anyone is reading this?

Just in case they are, I ought to let them know that Celtx is a freely available pre-production software.  In fact, it has so many bells and whistles that you can more or less organise an entire film shoot with it.

The character creation template is pretty straightforward.  It has all the usual fields and also includes goals, plans to achieve those goals and key personality traits, which are rarely seen in RP character outlines.

However, if you create a screenplay in Celtx, you also get the option of using index cards for plotting.  Check out Holly Lisle’s workshop on this type of plot building here.

I’m still learning Celtx as I write this, so it’s highly possible there are other exciting things about it I don’t yet know.  So far, these two are the ones I’m the most interested in.

 

Quality over quantity – the definitive answer Friday, May 1 2009 

film writing for role play , , eliseblog 3:50 am

A definitive answer, anyway.

In film, your main character gets proportionally more screen time than the supporting characters.

In film, we (and by “we” I mean “the people who make films”) also assume that everyone has the attention span of a comatose snail.

So makers of a film, like the writer of a roleplay post, want to engage the attention of their audience and have them identify with the main character.   Even if your character is evil; if they are the main character, the audience must feel some empathy or sympathy for them.

WRITE LESS MORE OFTEN

  • Can you count on your readership’s attention span?  (they are probably not going to print out a role play topic and read it in their spare time)
  • Reading on the computer gives many people eyestrain.
  • Most of the information in the epic post you’ve written is padding

You may disagree on the last point.  You may think that everything you write is absolutely VITAL for others to understand where you’re coming from.  Take one of those epic posts and run through it with the following questions:

1. Is this important to my character?
If whatever you’re writing has no impact on your character, you shouldn’t be telling your reader about it.  Or you shouldn’t be devoting very much time to it if you do.

If your character has grown up surrounded by magical wonders, they are not going to think magic is wonderous.  Rather than devoting a paragraph to their entry to Diagon Alley, either mention it in passing or just have them arrive there.

2. Is this important to my audience?
Do not give your readers information that they neither need nor want.

You may think your character’s privileged childhood is fascinating.  If it has no bearing on the events at hand, you should leave it out.

TO SUM UP

According to the law of screen time + the law of attention span, you’re better off writing better quality (and if that means shorter, so be it) posts more often (and hopefully with a greater variety of people) than writing epic posts that are essentially an attempt to fulfil a word count.

That’s it for today.  Next time I think I’ll test out Celtx’s character creation abilities on role play characters.

 

Stuff I’ve learned about roleplaying through studying film Monday, Apr 27 2009 

film writing for role play , , eliseblog 9:15 am

Hello Anonymous Readers,

Role playing is a weird past-time.  Everything that happens to every character in role-play happens from their point of view.  Every character is the most important.  It’s unlike writing any other way, but after my narrative lecture today (that is, I had to attend one. I am not a lecturer), I suspect it’s more like writing a screenplay than anything else.

Almost every screenplay follows the same basic rules as a role playing game:

  1. The audience MUST identify with the protagonist (and in RP, everyone is a protagonist – that’s probably what being a MarySue is all about)
  2. The protagonist MUST go on a journey (preferably of self discovery, but it can be an actual journey, too.  Bonus marks if they get both, I guess)
  3. During this journey, the protagonist MUST suffer (and change – though there is something to be said for people who don’t learn from their mistakes)
  4. And, of course, they should overcome the odds, though that’s not exactly a prerequisite, especially for tragedy.

So that’s basically it.  And you know what all that is?  It’s Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory from The Hero with a Thousand Faces.  Obviously, everyone acknowledges this.  If you want to go the whole hog, you also get to be rejected from society at some point, usually by going insane, or at least being thought to be insane even though only you can see the truth.

The main difference is that in role play, everyone gets more or less equal “screen time”.  Or as much screen time as their writer is willing to put in.  We have endless quality over quantity debates.   In a film, anything that doesn’t directly effect the protagonist gets cut.  Every other character’s screen time is in proportion to the protagonist’s.  That’s how you know he or she is the most important character.

So without further ado, I give you film writing for role play.  Stay tuned.

 

Hello world! Thursday, Apr 9 2009 

Uncategorized eliseblog 11:39 pm

Hello world! This is my new blog. I will get to blogging on more interesting subject matter just as soon as I come home from Hoopla.