Taven Moore's Blog, page 38

[Perry] Fight Scenes!

I’ll admit, I’m a total sucker for fight scenes and action sequences.

If I had to guess I’d say that it all stemmed from the time when I was a wee little boy. My dad and my uncle were huge fans of the old-school kung-fu movies and I’d watch along with them with rapt fascination.

We’re talking things like Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee. We’re talking Shaolin Wooden Men with Jackie Chan. We’re talking 18 Bronze Men era of martial arts movies here, and it was all GLORIOUS.

As I grew older, the general tone of the movies changed, fight scenes grew more refined. The action grew more complicated…but I never forgot the lessons imparted to me by that early batch of movies.

Do you know what the important thing is about a fight scene? It’s a hugely vital part of a good fight scene that many movies these days throw out the window.

In a good fight scene, your audience needs to be able to see what the bloody hell is going on.

What would a soapbox rant be without examples though, am I right?

Take a look at this climactic fight scene from the recent movie, The Expendables. Now, I’ve tried to go over this a bunch of times and I still only have the vaguest idea of what’s happening. 

Now take a look at this fight from Ip Man. While it goes at a much faster pace, you still have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. The camera frames the action in a way that you’re never lost.

Framing is the key word here, whether we’re talking about movies or books, your audience needs to be able to SEE all of the action. They need to be able to get a sense of the whole fight to really appreciate the effort you’ve put into crafting a good fight scene.

In literary terms, this means less of a focus on every movement of a fight and more making sure that your audience gets a good sense of the fight as a whole.

So less of this:

Teren attacked, rushing forward three steps and punching twice with his right arm and jabbing once with his left. Kier blocked two of the punches with his left arm and dodged out of the way of the third. He then countered with a swift kick with his right leg, aimed at Teren’s side. Teren blocked the attack with his right elbow, ducked his head and charged at Kier. Kier took two steps backward to blunt the force of the charge and tried to bring up his knee in Teren’s face. Teren blocked the attack by putting his arms above his head and tackled Kier to the ground.

BLEH!

More of this:

Teren attacked, moving forward and launching a blistering combination of strikes. Kier blocked a few hits and ducked the last, countering with a kick to brush him back. Undeterred, Teren blunted the incoming attack with his arm and talked Kier, trying to get him to the ground. Off-balance, Kier lashed out with a knee, hoping to disable his opponent but failed and was taken down.

Keep in mind that all of this is just about framing the fight scene. Choreography is important too!

You don’t want to do the same old boring things that everyone else has done time and time again.

Nobody wants to watch the same fight scene play out in every book and every movie they watch. Add a little spice to it!

Maybe add a little humor into the mix and see what results.

Maybe add in some external variables (like disabling gravity) and think about how that would look and what you might do with it, given the capabilities of your characters.

Or? You can just make all of your characters ridiculously overthetop and badass (Warning: scantily clad women ahoy) and see what that might look like.

Be imaginative!

Be creative!

Frame your action well and stay off the beaten path a little and you may find yourself rewarded with an unexpectedly engrossing fight sequence.

So?

Favorite fight scenes ever!

Go!

 

 

 

 

 

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A Request

Not just on my behalf, but in general.

If you have read and enjoyed a self-published book (either by myself, or by others) you can do a lot to help out that author simply by leaving a review on Amazon.

To the idle visitor, those reviews go a long way towards lending credence to the book they are considering buying.

I know that I, personally, am terrible about leaving reviews. In many cases, I feel like my voice is a drop in an ocean, and it’s left me with a habit of reading without leaving a review.

If you enjoyed the book and have time to do so, please consider leaving an encouraging note to prospective readers that will follow you.

You could also recommend the book to friends or buy them copies as gifts (That’s how Perry gets me to read so much stuff. *laugh*).

Many, many thanks from myself and every struggling author trying to make a name for themselves. All I can do is hatch the egg. Readers are the ones who help the little birdy to fly.

Links to My Books

Choose Omnibus (volumes 1, 2, and 3 may all be commented on here)
Saucy Chronicles I : Unicorns
Saucy Chronicles II : Dragons

 

 

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Art! Baby Bunny and Ruby-throated Rose Drinker

A very fun commission!

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[Perry] First Person Perspective

So…let’s talk.

One of the first decisions you have to make when you sit down with that intimidating blank document for the first time is what perspective you want to run with in your story.

The first person POV tends to be a pretty polarizing viewpoint, I’ve found. Most people tend to either love it or hate it.

But for those of you about to embark on a brave new adventure or maybe feel like trying something a little different, I am here as your humble servant to offer some advice.

1) What is it good for?

…..Absolutely nothing! Say it again, y’all!

>.>”

Ahem.

The strength of a well-written first person POV story is the close ties that you develop with the main character. FP-POV lets you get into the head of the protagonist and when it comes to conveying emotions (joy or heartache), there’s almost nothing better.

There’s a stunning immediacy when it comes to well-written FP-POV.

Done well, it can tie you closer than you may realize with the lead character, to the point where you can feel the pains and joys they feel as they go through their adventure.

Even better, it gives you the ability to surprise the reader by proxy, through the surprise of the character.

Sure, you can do the same with limited third person perspective but is it really the same? It’s hard to convey the depths of emotional shock a character might feel when you’re standing outside their head. Far better to describe that mental explosion from within, I say.

2) Pacing and Puppetry

Here’s an interesting thing.

I tend to have a serious problem with puppetry in my writing. Puppetry is when you walk the characters from one location to another. Things that need to happen for the plot to progress but it’s something that feels a little forced and unnatural.

There are a lot of techniques one can use to disguise puppetry but you can never really make it go away altogether.

With the proper application of FP-POV, puppetry can become a thing of the past! Kiss those awkward plot stains goodbye and watch them disappear like magic!

First person lets you fill in the gaps between or during those awkward moments with some relevant thoughts from the mind of the protagonist.

One of the best examples of this?

The Dresden files by Jim Butcher.

Technically speaking, there’s an awful lot of puppetry going on as Harry wanders from one location to another during the course of his investigations…but it’s never really in-your-face obvious.

The thing is, as Harry travels, Butcher will have his thoughts go off on a tangent about the case or about a memory or about how he’s feeling and then…suddenly, Harry’s at his destination and plot related stuff is happening.

There’s puppetry still, but it’s disguised well. It doesn’t go for the Clark Kent glasses disguise, but instead, goes for the Mission Impossible face masks (which they rely on too heavily as a plot device >.>”).

Take the same example in the third person and really, you’re reduced to either doing a scene break as they travel, having something significant happen on the way or blatantly shoehorn in a distraction, and every one of these come with its attendant share of problems.

3) Pitfalls

So here’s the thing.

While you may WANT to write a story in the first person, not all stories SHOULD be written in the first person.

Do you know what has a hard time working well with FP-POV?

Multiple characters.

A lot of the big fantasy titles lately feature multiple viewpoints to tell the story. This is often used in an effective way by having the characters start in different locations and then gradually bringing them together, thereby giving the reader a view of many different locations and how actions are affecting them before they’re brought together for the finale.

To do that with a first person POV is…tricky, to say the least.

It’s jarring to jump from one person’s head to another from chapter to chapter. Throw in the confusion you risk by having to “speak” in different voices to get a genuine impression of people’s real voices and you’ve got a pretty big nightmare on your hands.

On top of that, by doing this, we void one of the main benefits of writing in the first person: drawing a reader closer to one character.

Sitting shotgun in a character’s head from start to finish makes for a pretty intimate experience. One of the easiest ways to wreck that feeling of immersion is to jump in and out of their head instead.

A little bit of focus can make the difference between a protagonist your reader will care about and a character they barely realize exists.

4) Finally, it’s over!

First person perspective can be a POWERFUL tool when handled properly and for many people, it tends to be the most comfortable way to write.

Just be aware of the problems and weaknesses inherent in the format as you write and it should turn out right as rain.

Out of curiosity though, if you’ve ever enjoyed first person perspective stories, I’d love to hear which ones were your favorites.

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Writing Tip – Be the Boss
Close Third Person Point of View
[Perry] Game of Thrones: Red Wedding

[Jenny] Cabin in the Woods Drinking Game

Tami says : This was an email sent to me by Jenny. After reading it, I couldn’t NOT beg to blog it. Enjoy!

—-

Horror fans really need a The Cabin in the Woods drinking game. Every time a theme from TCitW appears in the horror film you’re watching, you drink.

If such a game existed, I would be blotto. I’ve taken to watching 15-20 minutes of horror while I eat lunch. (A futile attempt to reduce the size of our Netflix queue.) At the moment, I’m slogging my way through Necrosis. Supposedly it takes place in Donner Pass, California (and yes, it’s about the ghosts of the Donner party haunting a bunch of kids trapped by a blizzard.) But it was filmed at Crater Lake, OR, so I’m enjoying the familiar scenery.

Anyways, it’s an okay movie. I’m good with it. Or, I would be — if I hadn’t seen The Cabin in the Woods. That damned film cast a pall over my shlock horror!

When the six heroes were introduced, I thought, “Jock. Slut. Virgin. Jester. Brains. Virgin. Huh. Two virgins. That’s innovative.”

They stop at a backwoods restaurant to pee before heading out into the wilderness. “Cue the Harbringer!” I mutter. A mutant-looking guy shambles out and delivers the obligatory ominous speech about their… omg. Their cabin in the woods. (Just realized that. I guess I would have had to drink twice there.)

They ignore him. (Drink) They drive up to the cabin, have some character development (drink) then go down into the basement (drink) and fiddle around with the stuff down there (drink) until they discover a mysterious old book (drink) detailing the history of the murderous rednecks (drink) that will be coming back as zombies any moment now.

Once upon a time, I would have been perfectly content with this. Now I sit there thinking, “Tequila is my LADY!!!!”

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My Week As A Full-Time Writer

Monday

EXCITEMENT! EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS!

My first day all to myself with my shiny new resolution to write. I was hoping to get something along the lines of ten thousand words a day.

(For the non-writers in the audience, many excellent slow-and-steady writers try to get 500 words a day)

Typically, I get between 1,000 and 2,000 words per hour (slanted heavily towards the low end of that scale on average).

So how did I do?

My daily total was just shy of 6,000 words.

In addition to that, I ran on the treadmill twice AND finished a chapter in my giant design book (study rather than fantasy).

In short, it was quite a lovely day.

Tuesday

Ah, Tuesday.

Can we go back to Monday? I liked Monday. Monday was shiny and sparkly and full of new beginnings.

It’s not Tuesday’s fault. I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning, so I tried to run a few errands between dropping Steven off at work and meeting a new sawbones.

First thing? Mailing off some art.

Only, the post office doesn’t open till 9, which I didn’t know till I got there. (God forbid their hours make sense or be accessible to working people. I know postal workers and they are lovely, lovely people, but I do not approve of the business practices but that’s a whole different can of worms)

So I go to Walgreens where I find out that I cannot purchase my allergy medications in bulk ahead of time without having the prescription expressly written that way. I also buy a bag of epsom salts which just so happens to have a whole in it and it goes all explodey when the poor checker tries to scan it.

Also, Walgreens does not sell mailing tubes. *grump*

Back to the post office. I arrive to stand in line ten minutes early, along with several other disgruntled postal customers. In the background, I hear muffled shouts and a lot (A LOT) of repeated heavy bangs, thuds, and metallic whirs.

They open the front door at precisely 9:05, which I totally forgive them for despite the line of waiting customers. Given the racket I heard behind the POBoxes, I can only assume they were restraining a murderous robotic t-rex that had gotten loose.

I bought an extra mailing tube for use next time I need to mail something and I’m not conveniently off work that day.

Then it was time for my appointment, which was just about the most disappointing and frustrating visit I’ve ever had. Yet ANOTHER in my disturbing and expensive chain of automatic referrals to another doctor.

I was not in a good mood.

I did not want to make lunch. I did not want to work out. I did not want to talk to humanity. I most certainly did not want to write.

I made lunch. I worked out. I talked to Steven and Perry and Lauren.

And I sat down and wrote. It wasn’t amazing, it wasn’t fabulous, most of the words felt like I was peeling them out from beneath my fingernails, but I wrote.

1,800 words is my count for Tuesday and I’m more proud of those than I am of the 6k from Monday. Writing when you’re up and excited is easy.

Writing when you’d rather build a cocoon of blankets and pillows in the hopes you’d wake up a refreshed and happy butterfly? That is taking writing seriously.

Wednesday

Wednesday started strong and fizzled by the end. I got a good start in, then I went on an adventure at lunchtime and signed up for a hair appointment and before I knew it, Wednesday was over.

Thursday

Thursday was another kind of test entirely.

Immediately, I exited the house and went to the coffee shop, where I got an absolutely ridiculous amount of writing done.

Then I swapped to writing in the little dining area at the bottom floor of the building where Steven works, and got a pathetic amount of writing done. It might have been because I was hungry, but it might also have just not been a good environment.

Lunch with the hubby, after which I felt unaccountably BLAH and went home, where I pretty much cleaned for the rest of the afternoon. I did attempt another writing session, but it didn’t last very long and I felt quite odd about it, so I stopped before I monkeyed with plot points that needed giraffing instead. (that made a lot of sense in my head, so we’ll just go with it).

Friday

I took Friday off.

No arguments! I had exactly ONE WEEK off between jobs and I wanted one day to relax.

And I didn’t even relax all that long, because I had a fantastic, amazing, incredible evening planned and it required not only cleaning, but also cooking and costumes.

Oh yes. Costumes.

The Murder Mystery Party was ridiculous fun, even if we were so sloshed by the end we didn’t have a clue who the killer was. Thank heavens nobody’s depending on us to solve crimes.

Or keep an accent for more than two words at a time.

So What Did I Learn?

Maintaining a creative pace is a lot more exhausting than it would seem. Not physically so, but mentally.

Were I a stay-at-home writer, I’d probably only get about a half-day’s work in each day, even if I didn’t have a silly number of appointments and social engagements scheduled.

That being said, it wasn’t a failure. I don’t come home and write every day, not even close. I got a CRAZY wordcount in, and I could easily write multiple books a year if I stayed home to do it. Not like dozens or anything, but probably a pretty easy two (and that includes time to revise and edit).

I learned:

I am MUCH more productive early in the morning
I benefit from getting out of the house, and the local coffee shop seems to be the perfect location for me to hang out for a while
I am very capable of ignoring games, movies, tv shows, and even the internet itself if I set my mind to it, but a dirty dish whispers horrible, terrible things into the cobwebbed corners of my soul and cannot be ignored.
I depend on Steven rather a lot to choreograph fights and help make last-minute plot decisions. This pace made it more difficult to get his feedback, and I think that would become a significant problem as I forged more deeply into our loosely plotted center.
Perry is awesome. (Actually, I knew that already, but it’s worth note)

Could I be a stay-at-home writer? Yes, I think so. I could write half-time and spend the rest of my time doing social media stuff (which I’ve heard becomes somewhat important once one becomes famous).

Do I want to right now?

No, I don’t think so. Maybe if the guilt of paychecks was removed and I was making money on writing, I could see it as a serious professional move, but I was pretty itchy to get back to work by Friday.

I am happily enjoying my first days at my new and challenging job.

Besides, I’m kinda worried that the whole obsessive cleaning thing could turn unhealthy pretty quickly. I was scrubbing WALLS, people. Scrubbing. Walls.

That’s … well, it’s not all the way off the deep end, but I can certainly see the diving board from here.

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[Perry] Shaping Player Behavior

So I’m a fairly avid gamer.

Shocking, I know. When you’ve picked your jaws up off the floor, we can continue.

Lately, a constant source of both absolute frustration and fierce competitive joy is League of Legends.

For those (lucky people!) not in the know, League is a free to play team based competitive game where everyone choose a champion to fight alongside your team as you kill waves of computer controlled critters, destroy big scary towers and bust down the enemy base.

All the while, there’s an opposing team that has the exact same goals and you all meet in the middle in “glorious” combat.

There’s a problem with games like these and in short, it comes down to the people.

People are asshats.

Wait, let me amend that.

Normally? People tend to be fairly decent. Maybe not all of the time, but for the most part. But when you toss people onto the internet? When you afford them the ‘protection’ of anonymity, a lot of people turn into these curiously bigoted, insensitive pricks.

Nobody really looked into why that is. When faced with the issue, many people just shrugged and tossed it off as a natural consequence of online gaming and in NO gaming genre is this phenomenon (I just had some SERIOUS trouble spelling that word) as prevalent as it is in a competitive team-based environment.

The player base of League of Legends has gotten a little bit better. In a large part, this is due to the initiative shown by the company (Riot Games) to take on the monumental task of…attempting to reform player behavior.

Look, trash talking is a part of gaming culture. This is true and it can be a lot of fun, I’m not going to lie. But when you start making bigoted and racist comments? Or when you start telling people to kill themselves over a bunch of pixels on the screen? That’s just not right, and I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels this way.

Riot is doing a lot to try and reform their player base and one of the men spear-heading the effort is Jeffrey “Lyte” Lin, who is the lead designer of social systems and has a background in psychology and neuroscience.

Fairly recently, at the Game Developer Conference, Lin took the stage with a panel titled “The Science Behind Shaping Player Behavior in Online Games.” 

It’s a 25 minute presentation and it’s a fairly interesting thing to check out, especially if you’ve ever done any online gaming (or browsed around the internet in general) and wondered why people were such jackasses online.

The highlight of the presentation for me was the Optimus Experiment (it’s the 8th category from the bottom on the left hand side if you want to skip to just that) where they detail an experiment they’re running with the League of Legends community.

Essentially? They’re looking into how changing the color of one line of text before or right at the beginning of the game (the loading screen tip) can lead to less (or more!) toxic behavior in the game itself.

It’s fairly interesting stuff and if you have any interest in the shaping of player behavior or even how the smallest things can influence our moods, you might want to check it out.

 

 

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Geeky Fandom Teas

Guys, guys. I’m in trouble.

Serious, serious trouble.

I found loose leaf teas in adorable tins that are THEMED AFTER GEEKY THINGS.

Look, right here. This is just the “Fandom Samplers” page. There are even more available for purchase in larger quantities.

I just don’t even know how to contain myself, but I cannot afford them all.

You like My Little Pony? They’ve got a fandom sampler for that.

How about Dr. Who? MULTIPLE samplers.

Supernatural. FIREFLY. Pokemon.

And the teas all sound SO incredibly delicious.

I’ll never be able to afford all the teas I want to try, not if I pick up a dozen commissions.

How’s a body to choose?

As if that weren’t enough?

Maybe I should pick up some of the base teas and make my OWN blends. Oh god, I could totally do that, couldn’t I?

Cream plus peppermint. Blueberry and hazelnut. Caramel apple.

Help!

(and by “help” I clearly mean “will art for tea gift cards”)

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This Week’s Experiment

One Whole Week

So, as you know, I quit my job.

My next job doesn’t begin until next Monday.

You heard me right. I have a WHOLE EMPTY WEEK stretched out before me. Taking a bit of time for myself was excellent advice given to me by someone I trust. I’ve never had this much time to just … sit around and do whatever.

It’s heady stuff, I don’t mind tellin’ ya.

Writing, Writing Everywhere

So what’s a Tami going to do with five whole days of pure, unadulterated free time?

She’s going to put her money where her mouth is, so to speak.

For this whole week, I have been pretending that I am a professional writer. No day job, no interruptions I don’t give myself.

Just me and my manuscript.

The Reality

It’s nearly impossible to be a full-time writer. It doesn’t pay well unless you’re already making money for the publishing companies, there are zero health insurance benefits, and it’s pretty much a pipe dream outside of a few lucky folks whose significant others are willing to do the daily grind to support a non-working dependent adult.

So, pretty much all of the adult writers I know consider being a full-time writer the holy grail of writerdom.

Known pitfalls litter the path ahead. Internet distractions, writer’s block, lack of a structured workday, self-motivation … better writers than I have tread the path before me and failed.

The Fantasy

Yet I (like all those other writers I know) assure myself that it would be DIFFERENT for me. Given free rein and no work obligations, I would be SUPER DUPER PRODUCTIVE. I would prove them all wrong. If only I had a chance, I could write six or even ten thousand words per day!

… well, here’s my chance. A chance either to prove that I could be a good, productive stay-at-home-writer, or a chance to be humbled by my own behavior and learn a valuable lesson about dreams versus reality.

The Result

I’ll post a follow-up result after the week is finished (and it’ll take a few weeks to appear, given how far ahead I schedule my blog posts) but I’m reeeeeally hoping my biggest accomplishment will be wordcount rather than a game score.

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[Perry] Game of Thrones: Red Wedding

The following post will contain minor, minor spoilers for Game of Thrones season 3, episode 9 OR book 3. It is safe to read this post without being spoiled so long as you don’t click on any of the links herein.

EDIT: The comments section has very seriously turned into HERE AND THERE BE SPOILERS for Game of Thrones as well as a host of other series.

Proceed at your own risk =)

So have you been watching Game of Thrones? And have you read the books already?

Even if you knew what was going to happen, it came as a little bit of a brutal shock.

If you DIDN’T know what was going to happen?

Well…look at how people reacted for yourselves. (This link contains MAJOR spoilers)

Let’s think about this a little, though.

Do you know the main reason why people reacted so strongly to what happened?

It’s because they cared.

They were made to CARE about the characters and so, when something awful happens to them, it hits them like a solid punch to the gut.

But it’s more than that, isn’t it?

It’s not just because they cared, but because they cared about characters they thought would be invincible.

This is a topic we’ve danced around before with regard to the idea that character death (especially main character death) could be a very powerful tool when it comes to telling a story and drawing out a reaction from the reader.

The video linked above showing people’s reactions to the climax of the episode bears that out. People took to Twitter and social media, outraged, in shock or just plain depressed about what happened.

But let me say again, they wouldn’t feel this strongly about the event if they didn’t care about the characters.

George Martin had this to say about the Red Wedding: “I try to make the readers feel they’ve lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a friend is killed, you should grieve if a fictional character is killed.”

I think this is something that I want to shoot for. This is something I want to do.

These are the kinds of reactions I want to inspire.

Maybe not for the same circumstances and maybe not even for character deaths…but I want to make people care about what happens to my characters.

I want to make them feel like they’re right there with the protagonist as he goes through his Darkest Night.

And if? If they need to die?

Hells bells, do I EVER want the reader to feel it.

 

 

 

 

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