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Jay Posey

Video Games, Story, and Oxford Commas

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This post doesn’t actually have anything to do with Oxford commas, I just felt like I should put three things in the title for some reason. Also, I prefer to call them video games rather than videogames because I don’t call board games boardgames, but I don’t know what the Accepted Standard is, even though I am a professional Maker of Video Games. Also also, this might be the worst opening to a blargh post in the history of blarghing.

Anyway. It probably comes as no surprise that I’ve played a lot of video games in my life.  And being that I write them for a living, it’s inevitable that conversations arise from time to time wherein people ask me which ones are my favorite, especially from a story/writing standpoint.

In those situations, I always feel pressure to say something clever and insightful which never works because I am neither of those things, and then I end up doing one of three things; I either

a) try to make up some obscure and probably pretentious thing about a really good indie game that I haven’t actually played yet but that I’ve really been meaning to because all my other game-writer type friends are raving about it;

b) fall back on recent classics, like Bioshock, or Portal 2, or Telltale Games’s The Walking Dead, all of which are great and deserve all the praise they’ve received but don’t really add any new information to the conversation;

c) stare blankly with a slight smile on my face that is supposed to communicate my friendly and sincere interest but somehow apparently comes off as creepy which is fine because I DIDN’T WANT TO COME TO YOUR STUPID PARTY ANYWAY

What I (almost) never do is tell the truth.  Because the truth is a terrible, terrible secret.  Which I will share with you, personally, as long as you promise not to tell anyone else.

The truth is, my most favorite stories from games are the ones I told myself while I played.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a well-told story in games, and there are plenty of them out there.  But I can’t think of a story I’ve been told that resonated with me nearly as powerfully as the ones I’ve been allowed to experience on my own.

This will sound crazy (probably because it actually IS crazy), but I have exceptionally fond memories of an old Nintendo game called Break Thru.

It had a story.  At least, according to the back of the box it did.  A secret aircraft had been stolen and it was up to me to BREAK THRU the enemy lines and recover it!

But that was just the box.  What REALLY happened when I played it was far more personal;  I wasn’t recovering an aircraft.  I wasn’t even starting the game at the beginning of the story.  For me, I was playing the last, desperate moments of a daring rescue mission.  I was saving a wounded hostage, someone I loved, against all odds.  I was there alone because I was the only one who cared enough to even attempt a rescue, and I had to do it without support from anyone else.  Just me and my trusty jumping car.  The aircraft wasn’t the goal at all, it was just a means of escape … I was stealing it from the enemy, from their own air base, because that was the only shot I had to get Her home safely.

That’s probably not a story that would appeal to many people, but for me it was the story.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! is another game that stands out; sure there was a framework there, rescuing family members, taking revenge, and so on and so forth, but for the most part, when I was at sea, none of that really mattered.  Sometimes I was just a trader, taking goods from one port to another.  Sometimes I was a pirate hunter, sworn to defend all ships against the scourge.  Sometimes I was a terror to all who dared to sail MY seas.  

Even fighting games weren’t immune.  You have no idea the noble and desperate reasons I fought for in those death pits.  The future I hoped to make,  if not for myself, at least for others who weren’t as gifted and skilled in the Deadly Arts as I was.  I’ll spare you the details because I’m sure they are boring and tedious to you but to me, TO ME, oh the wonderful times I had!

Sometimes as a ninja in Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, I would spend an hour or more sneaking around, silently killing every guard in the compound.  Except for one.  Why?  Because someone had to live to carry forth the message of what becomes of evil men who prey on the weak and helpless, of course.

OF COURSE.

And that, to me, is the true and still mostly-untapped, mostly-misunderstood power of video games; their ability to create worlds and then leave room for players to create their own unique experiences.  They aren’t books.  They aren’t movies.  They’re something else.

Which kind of makes it awkward for me as a game writer.  Because sometimes I’m writing stories and spending the whole time thinking that instead of this cutscene our cinematics director is super excited about with the explosions and the glass flying everywhere and all the porpoises,  maybe what we really ought to be doing is focusing on creating coherent context, and then making sure players have enough meaningful actions in that world to make the kind of difference they want to make.  Leaving motivation up to the player, instead of up to me, as it were.

Fortunately, there are a lot of exciting things going on in the indie game space exploring these kinds of things; Cart Life, Papers, Please!, and several others that I haven’t played yet but I’m totally meaning to play and you should check them out because they are totally awesome experiences, as all of my smarter game-writer friends have told me.  And to be fair, Telltale’s The Walking Dead still is a favorite of mine because even though it’s not my story, I am responsible and accountable for the decisions I make.  The character’s motives are my motives, and I get to help define the kind of person Lee is.

If this were an essay or an article or something, this is where I’d put a tidy closing statement that really brought everything together, and I’d put a nice, neat bow on it.

Sadly, this is just my blargh, so this is all you get.

 

How My GPS Makes Me a Worse Driver

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So as the title may have suggested, I made a discovery recently.  I’m a noticeably worse driver when I’m using my GPS.

At first I thought it was just my imagination because clearly a GPS isn’t that much different than having an eager-to-help friend or spouse sitting right there next to you, telling you exactly what your next turn is going to be in 22 miles, and then reminding you of it when it’s just a mile away, and then reminding you again when it’s 0.2 miles, and then pointing out cheerily that you missed your turn and that you should return to the highlighted route, and then diplomatically refraining from commenting when you do a three point turn in heavy traffic and everyone is honking at you.

But then I started keeping track of things like how much my speed varied or how many times my tires drifted out of a lane and I noticed that yep, empirically, I’m a worse driver when my GPS is on.

Naturally being the inquisitive guy that I am I said to myself, “Self, why is it that you are so much worse at driving when you have your GPS on?”, to which I replied “NOT NOW, WE’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THIS CORNFIELD FIRST!”

Later, I realized there was a pretty simple explanation for it.  See, my particular brand of GPS (which I shall not identify because they don’t pay me enough to endorse them and also I’m talking about how their product makes me bad at things) has all kinds of Good Information it can tell me besides just how to get where I’m going.  It can tell me what direction I’m currently headed.  Or my elevation.  Or my expected arrival time.  Or how fast I’m going.

The problem is, I don’t generally need all that information.  But because it’s available, I find myself constantly monitoring all of it.  Why I feel the need to check my speed on my GPS and compare it to my speedometer, I don’t know.  Nor do I understand why I need to look to make sure I’m STILL on the right street, even though I just looked six seconds ago, and I have 83 more miles to go before my next turn.  But I do it anyway.  And all of this data monitoring, while interesting, takes me away from the Primary Thing I’m supposed to be doing which is NOT DRIVING INTO THAT CORNFIELD.

And then I noticed I do the same thing when I’m writing.  I have all these ways to measure things like page number and red squigglies for typos and word count and what not and so forth and because I have deadlines I find myself constantly monitoring various metrics that are all very interesting and useful indicators of progress but are also taking me away from focusing on the Primary Thing I’m supposed to be doing which is NOT WRITING INTO THAT CORNFIELD.

Certainly there’s a time for analysis and evaluation.  Is this plot point working?  Is that character more than just a stereotype?  Am I on track to hit my deadline?  Is squiggly actually a word?  Are there really that many cornfields in Durham?

But constant monitoring is a trap.  It’s a great way to distract yourself from doing and, in the worst case, to deceive yourself into thinking you’re actually accomplishing something when you are in fact hamstringing your own productivity.

Focus is underrated.  Metrics have their place.  But mostly the way to get where you’re going is to keep your eyes on the road, your hands on the wheel, and your foot on the appropriate pedals depending on your circumstances.  Accelerator for road, brake for cornfields.

 

Between Inspiration and Perspiration

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There’s the old saying that goes:

something something something is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.

It’s not a very good saying obviously, but for some reason it’s stuck around.  As we’ve seen elsewhere, inspiration is never actually more than 3% according to scientifically-proven FACT, it’s true you don’t even need to Google it.  And it turns out that the amount of perspiration is vastly overstated as well, and one crucial piece is missing, which basically makes the whole thing useless.

Okay, it’s not completely wrong I guess.  Inspiration and perspiration are both important parts to Doing the Work.  But it leaves out a crucial piece that is frequently overlooked when we’re going back and reconstructing the Narrative of Our Moment of Genius.

That critical component is cultivation.

The mythical Flash of Genius is mostly just that … a myth.  More often than not our A-ha moments aren’t lightning flashes from heaven as much as they are Take On Me, or maybe The Sun Always Shines on T.V.

BOOOOO!  Sorry, that was terrible. There was this band, see, and they did these songs …

ANYWAY, what I meant to say there was that the Sudden Flash of Inspiration is most often actually the exclamation point on a slowly unfolding process that we sometimes don’t even notice is taking place.  Frequently it starts as a sort of hunch, that maybe there’s an Interesting Solution out there worth thinking about, and maybe we’ll get around to thinking about it at some point.

When we get that initial flash of Inspiration, it’s tempting to think that all that remains is the Perspiration, and sometimes we jump the gun trying to Do Work before we’re really ready for it. This happens frequently in writing, but most certainly isn’t unique to writers.

In any creative endeavor, it can be extraordinarily helpful to set things aside for a time and do Something Else.  Sometimes when we chase a solution, it’s squirrely and evasive and annoying and it thinks we’re playing WHEN WE’RE REALLY NOT.  But when you go away for a little while, solutions have a way of coming to find you.  It’s why so many of us have our Epiphanies when we’re driving or sleeping or showering or generally somewhere where there’s most likely not a pen handy.

So if you’ve had a Great Idea and you haven’t quite gotten around to Doing Anything About It, don’t beat yourself up.  Between inspiration and perspiration, there needs to be room for cultivation.

Which is a fine way to explain why it is you’re sitting in a coffee shop perusing Twitter instead of finishing up Chapter Eight of your sequel, POSEY!

Attention vs. Affection

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Supposedly there’s no such thing as bad publicity.  But I’m pretty sure if someone were to reveal that the secret ingredient to your hugely popular savory cupcakes is retired racing horse meat, that’s not going to launch your bakery business in a positive direction.  (Unless you consider it from the retired racing horse perspective, I suppose.)

Sadly, as hard as it is to do these days, it’s not enough just to get people’s Attention anyway.  Attention isn’t really worth anything if there’s no lasting impression.  And if you leave someone with the wrong kind of impression, you’ve just about guaranteed that you’ve blown it with that someone forever.  (About your only chance for recovery in that case is for one of your Fans to win them back on your behalf.)

Promise someone a FREE IPAD* if they Buy Your Book, and include *$2200 processing fee to receive Free iPad in the fine print, and you will probably get a lot of word-of-mouth.  It just probably won’t be the kinds of words you were hoping for.

Affection, on the other hand, short-circuits all of the other nonsense and wins Fans.  And Affection doesn’t just win you one Fan.  It tends to spread.  Your newly Affectionate Fans go out and tell everyone else how great you are.  They cheer you on when you need encouragement.  And even if you screw up down the road, they’ll usually give you another chance.

How you win the Affection of your audience depends a great deal on what you’re offering.  But whether you’re a baker, or a teacher, or a CEO, or a banker, or a pastor, or a Senator, or a writer (yuck) the starting point tends to be the same: serve your people, deliver more than expected, and be grateful for each person that chooses to spend some of their limited time, money, or attention on anything you do.

Speaking of which, if you’ve read this far, I really appreciate you!  Can I interest you in a savory cupcake*?

 (*No savory cupcakes are actually available at this time.)

Writing is Stupid

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And no one should ever do it.

But if you absolutely insist on torturing yourself and all those around you, it’s worth at least doing it well and for the right reasons.

See if you can tell which of the following are The Right Reasons:

  • To gain the admiration and respect of throngs of people around the world
  • To display your genius
  • To get rich quickly
  • To correct everyone else’s stupidity
  • To live a life of leisure, free of care and concern
  • To prove your parents wrong
  • To show everyone how much better you are than every other writer that ever was
  • So you can look down on others
  • Because it makes you special
  • Because it’s easy

If you selected any of the above you are wrong.  There is no right reason to write, because writing is stupid and no one should ever do it, EVER.

But if you still think you should, know that it is one of the most difficult things in the world to say exactly what you want to say, and nothing more and nothing less.  Know that the more you study writing, the more you will realize how impossible it really is to fully capture That Thought or Dream in words.  And even if you happen to think you’ve captured it, you will come back later and read it again, and realize you could’ve done it so much better.

And if by some stroke of luck you happen to accidentally hit upon exactly what you wanted to say exactly the way you wanted to say it, which is unlikely, lots of people who read it will misunderstand what you were trying to say anyway, because they’ll misread it.  Not that “lots” of people will ever read what you wrote.  The vast majority of people will be completely unaware you exist.

Even if you are a wildly successful author, most of the people in the world will never have heard of you.  Of those that have heard of you, many won’t like you.  And even many of the people who like your work won’t be able to remember your name or recognize you in person.

You will never finish anything.  Because whatever It is could always be improved, if only you were a little better.

That Thing you spend years pouring yourself into, sacrificing countless mornings and lunches and nights that could be spent enjoying yourself?  Your audience will consume it in mere hours.  And forget most of it.

So don’t bother.  Writing is stupid and no one should ever do it.

Unless you simply must.  In which case none of the above should prevent you from doing it, because maybe, just maybe, you might be doing it for a reason that is something like right.

 

Uninspired vs. Unmotivated

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So, there’s really only ever one reason to actually Do the Work You Should Be Doing.  It’s, duh, because it’s something you should be doing. And of course there are somewhere between seventy-three and eleventy-seventeen billion reasons not to.  Like, you know, “Darn, this chair is too comfy!” or “Yes, but the remote is all the way over theeeere.”

I frequently find myself sitting on the couch thinking “I really should be doing That Thing” and then I immediately get up and get to work!

And by “immediately get up and get to work”, I mean “continue to sit there and feel guilty about how I’m not working.”

Generally all the Reasons Not To Do The Work fall into two big categories.  Either I feel Uninspired and make excuses, or I feel Unmotivated and make excuses.

Turns out, uninspired is fine.  Most work gets done by people who feel uninspired when they’re doing it. You know, the whole 10% inspiration/90% perspiration thing.  (That’s actually a lie, by the way.  Turns out, empirically-speaking, that inspiration is no more than 3%.)

Continuing to work when you’re Not Feeling Inspired is what we call “being a professional”. You were inspired at one point.  That’s a good sign.  Trust your gut and stick with it, and there’s a very good chance that Inspiration will reappear at some point to give you the jolt you need to carry you through a little farther.  At least until you Feel Uninspired again.

Unmotivated is a different flavor that they don’t serve at Baskin-Robbins but is probably available at Ben & Jerry’s.  Unmotivated frequently comes from a Lost Place, where it’s tough to see how the Work connects to Anything That Matters.  Unmotivated means you’ve lost sight of how what you’re doing right now (or rather That Thing You Should Be Doing Right Now) moves you further towards The <Noun> You Want to Be.

Calling it Unmotivation is sneaky because it makes it sound like it’s merely a lack of something, when in fact Unmotivation is a powerful force of Resistance that must be overcome.  And the way to stomp Unmotivation in its weak ankles is to back away from The Work and dream a little bit about what having accomplished The Work is going to do for you.  Stand in front of a mirror and remind yourself why you started it in the first place.  Sit down and interview yourself as if you’ve already completed The Work.  You know, like:

You: “So, you’re looking pretty amazing today.”

You: “Thanks.  I pretty much look amazing every day.  Also, I am clever.”

You: “I’ve noticed.  Let’s talk about The Work.  How do you feel after winning All the Awards?”

You: “Well, you know, for me, it’s never been about All the Awards.  I’m glad to have them, of course, but really I just wanted to do The Work because <spoilers redacted>”

And so on and so forth.  Dreaming about the end was likely what got you started in the first place. Take a moment to remind yourself about what’s waiting on the other side of Unmotivation, and then while he’s standing over you breathing out of his mouth thinking he’s stumped you for another day, FIST HIS EYEHOLE.

And then get to work.

In summary:

  • Uninspired? Do the work anyway.
  •  Unmotivated? Take a breather, dream a bit. Then do the work anyway.