Tuesday 27 January 2015

Noctis Point - Edits

I've been doing a lot of editing recently. Noctis Point, the book I wrote for last year's NaNoWriMo, is finished; I wrote the last chapter in the first week or so of January. I didn't want to shelve this for forever before I started editing, partly because I need to justify not working full-time right now, but mainly because I want to see Noctis Point published.

I've finished the first round of edits; general sense, continuity, consistency. And I tore through it in about a week and a half. That's pretty fast, for me. My wife was kind enough to print it out, and I did the edits in pencil. Sure makes you feel like a 'real writer' when you're sat in a coffee shop with a folder containing your writing.

I transcribed those edits into the Scrivener file. (Scrivener is brilliant, and I use it for anything longer than a piece of flash fiction. It's just a nice program to write in, more than anything, but it's got some lovely organisational touches that appeal to my love of over-filing things!) With another printout in hand, I'm now going through the next stage of edits: Reading it out loud.

Sue and I share books at bedtime. We've been reading 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (lists, polyps and tubercules); We did The Player Of Games, which I've just realised we mostly finished early last year... 20,000 Leagues has taken forever. We've done The Hobbit too. But reading Noctis Point out loud is a uniquely embarrassing experience, in a weird way. I want to do it, but every time I do I find a dozen things wrong with every chapter that I've missed out. It's extremely useful, no doubt aboutit, and I know that what Sue says will be insightful and useful. But it's still something that I need to get used to: baring my work, in a potentially unfinished state, to the world. Because later this year, as soon as possible in fact, I'm going to be looking for ways to get it published.

So far, it's going well.

Friday 23 January 2015

Pocket Fiction is back!

I've started doing Pocket Fiction updates again, with a view to uploading a more finely-polished product each Friday. I'm using different software again, something simpler: Garage Band '11, which is actually a downgrade. Turns out they took out the Podcasting functionality in the most recent version of Garage Band, and it's pretty darned good. I've had a play around with it, and I think it's generally better for me.

I've also made a recording booth in my downstairs walk-in cupboard; it's basically a plastic box with some foam in it. I've also made my own pop-filter out of a pair of tights and an embroidery hoop... it's pretty good! Didn't get a single plosive in the two short stories I recorded today, so it's obviously doing its job!

Also! I'm going to take a break from recording episodes of Poisonroot, for two reasons. One, it's difficult to jump-on at any point other than the beginning. Two, some of the writing is actually a little shaky, and I'm writing better stuff now. If, at some future point, people ask me to do the rest of it, I will record the other half.

For now, the podcast is available on the iTunes Podcast store, on YouTube and on my Tumblr. It'll be updated every week now that there's absolutely no excuse.

I'm actively looking for other authors who would like their work read out. As a guide, 1600 words is about ten minutes talking time, so if you've got something of about that length and would like it narrated, then fully linked through my blog, Tumblr, podcast and YouTube channel, drop me a line!

Thursday 8 January 2015

Final Fantasy XIV - Ceremony of Eternal Bonding

The Ceremony of Eternal Bonding between Kenshin Tenshi and Scarlet Moon was a quiet affair. There were four of us in the congregation, watching as Kenshin and Scarlet exchanged rings, drank from chalices and posed for screenshots – not photos, because Eternal Bonding is the ingame wedding ceremony for characters in Final Fantasy XIV, the MMORPG.

The Sanctum of the Twelve
Kenshin, real name Mark, was impressed by the depth of the immersion in the experience. “One word: Amazing. The quest has a rich deep history in it that makes it special, and the places they take you really make you see the game's world for its beauty.” To even get to the ceremony, your characters have to obtain Promise Wristlets, craft or purchase the rings and visit twelve locations in the game, each one tied to one of the pantheon of gods. “We sometimes stopped in the middle of it to take in the scenery,” Mark said. “They really did a good job.”

Friends you've invited are part of your customised cutscene.

Final Fantasy XIV’s stance on weddings has been refreshing; there are no restrictions on gender or species for Eternal Bond. In fact, the only criteria you need to meet is being on each others’ friend lists ingame. Mark and Scarlet, real name Mackenzie, hope that bonding their characters will deepen their relationship. “For me, it’s a sign of connection to the people on the game, whether they be your love interest or a very dear friend," Mark said.


Of course, nothing comes for free. Final Fantasy XIV has a healthy subscription, starting at £7.69/month, and devotees wishing for a more intricate Eternal Bonding Ceremony can opt to pay for it. The Gold level, giving you options for background music, clothing, a special two-person mount and gifts to give to your guests, will set you back $20, while the Platinum level, which adds another set of clothes for the bride and different decorations for the Sanctum, clocks in at $40.
“It’s an MMO. There is going to come a time where they will ask for more money besides subscriptions,” Mark points out. “The price isn’t bad either, since even attendees get something. For stuff like marriage or extra mounts? Yeah, I think it’s fair.”

The rings can be bought or hand-crafted for the personal touch.
“I think paying for content helps to get stuff like the Eternal Bonding. I mean, it kind of gives them a reason to develop something like this,” Mackenzie adds. “I chose the standard pack, but if I could, I would have chosen a higher tier.”

By far the sweetest things, available to all tiers, are the new embrace emote, and the rings which allow you to teleport to directly in front of your partner – just right for kissing distance.



For my character, Atys, it was a chance to dress up in my smartest suit and cheer on my comrades-in-arms, people I’ve fought alongside, and welcome them into the next stage of their friendship. And of course, just like in real life, to loom somewhere at the back of wedding photos.

Atys (centre back) is scarily like me in real life...

Wednesday 7 January 2015

More CYAO - Decision trees

Here's a sample of the decision tree for my CYAO:

It's pretty complicated already... and this is at a point when the hero is only just getting to Dragonstone Keep, the main area for the game. It's going to be pretty complex by the end. Those black ones are deaths; four chances to be dead already, and we're barely out of the starting blocks. I don't know about you, but my favourite bit of the CYAO games I read as a child was reading all the deaths. Some just copped out, with a 'You are dead' script, but the best ones were a bit more flavourful. The larger one at the bottom is a placeholder for something like this:

"A goblin club catches you on the back of the head. The sudden pain is quickly replaced by a warm, wet feeling, and you sink into darkness. You awake hours later, your shoulders burning in agony. As you reach over to see what's wrong, you realise your arms have been removed. The smell of sweet meat cooking finds your nostrils. A goblin looks up from where he is sucking the flesh off your fingers, growls something in a guttural language and grins, displaying a mouthful of fangs. You are (mostly) dead."

Grisly, fun and something worth going through the decision tree for? Or would most people see the words 'You are dead' in bold and immediately flip back? I can't think that both Sue and I are alone in wanting to know all the gory details...

Monday 5 January 2015

Choose Your Own Adventures!

It's ok as long as you kept your thumb in the page, right?

I remember whiling away the hours reading through the Ian Livingstone/Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy books. They had green borders, wonderful cover illustrations, and the ending was almost always at paragraph 300. But I don't remember ever actually 'playing' one of them. Just reading through and assuming I'd won the fights, because it was fun to seek out all of the terrible deaths.

Then there were three stand-out series of video-game tie-in gamebooks, for Sonic the Hedgehog, the Mario Bros and Lemmings. I'm actually genuinely amazed that the first two have wikipedia pages, and that there were only two Lemmings gamebooks. I didn't just play those, I used to sit and trace the images. I can still draw a Lemming as a result of that book.

As a writing exercise, I'm trying my hand at creating a CYOA book, mostly inspired by those gamebooks of my childhood. It's complicated; thanks to this article by Karen Woodward, I'm using SimpleMind+ app on the iPad, which makes flowcharts fun and interesting to look at, and also simplifies it somewhat. I'm genuinely interested in inkle, a software for making interactive stories that are just a bit better than CYOA, as they feature sound, colour visuals and so on. I'm really interested to note that there are fighting fantasy games on the Nintendo DS and might see if I can check that out on my own 3DS.

Watch this space; I'll put the decision tree up as soon as it's finished.

I hope you had a great Christmas and that your new year has got off to a nice start!


Pages