P.R. O'Leary's Blog: PROLeary.com, page 7

King of Tokyo explained by Homer Simpson

I created a video that shows Homer Simpson explaining the rules to the King of Tokyo board game. The clip is taken from one of the best episodes of Treehouse of Horror, but I’m sure you know that.

A mash-up that few people will get, but I still find very funny.

I stole the idea from this review of the game.

Did You know I have a YouTube Channel?

I do! Here it is!

You can find the intro below. It contains all of my short films and weird videos, and I have a bunch of projects planned that will soon make an appearance on there.

So stop by, subscribe, and enjoy. I demand it.

 

What I Learned While Writing My Fifth Novel

I recently completed the first draft of my fifth (unpublished) novel. The tentative title is The Intruders. Out of all of the long fiction I’ve written, I am happiest by far with how this one has turned out.

Not to say it’s a great book, but I can see the potential there for something that people will enjoy reading. Something that will hopefully hit them in a primal place and not let up. It’s in there for sure, but it is still a few drafts away.

Now that the basic story is complete and down on paper, I can look back on the experience of writing it. And I can see that I learned a lot. Maybe some of you have figured most of this out already, or maybe you haven’t. Either way, here is a quick list:

1) I found out what type of writer I am.

A discovery writer. Previously, whenever I sat down to write long fiction, I always had an outline ready. A chapter by chapter summary of what was going to happen, all the way through to the ending.

That’s no fun! For The Intruders, I had nothing planned. In fact, it was supposed to be a short story but once I got going I could see there was much more to it. By the time I was done it was full novel length. I didn’t plan anything out in advance, so it was like I was reading the book instead of writing it. Discovering what happened as it went on.

Which brings me to number 2.

2) Writing can be fun.

There were moments while writing that I was smiling because the events I was creating were so much fun to write. Or when some great twist or turn or scene just fell into place like a puzzle peice. It was so much fun to see that happen and to feel that momentum just build and build until the finale.

3) Stuff needs to happen!

Writing 101, right? Well, it took me a while to figure it out. Yes, my other long fiction had things happening, but the character’s never drove the action. And alot of the prose took place inside the character’s heads.

The Intruders has scenes. Scenes that the characters themselves initiate, and scenes that move the story forward.

4) Character is important

I used to write mostly for story. I liked ideas for tales, and whoever happened to get slotted in as the characters in those tales was secondary. But I can see now that the characters are just as important as what happens to them.

Mainly, because they should be driving the story forward. They should not be passengers as the story happens to them. When the plot moves forward, someone in the story should cause it to do so. And that someone should be a character that people want to read about.

5) I have a long way to go.

I am happy with The Intruders, but there are problems. It’s too short. One of the characters is pretty bad and needs better motivation. The opening chapter needs to be rewritten to have a stronger hook. I need to research some things that happen in the book because in real life they might not work. The events might be in the wrong order, depending on how you look at it.

In short, editing a novel is a little more involved than editing a short story. I can edit one of my short stories in twenty minutes just by reading it out loud with a red pen in hand. But that’s not going to work for this. There are too many moviing peices, and I want them all to work together like a well-oiled machine. But I’ll get there, and maybe some day soon this will be the first of my novels that I try to legitametly publish.

I know that I can do better and I look forward to applying all I learned to the next one. And learning even more when I write that one.

And then so on and so forth until the day I die.

Stowaway, Published on Acidic Fiction

A new story of mine was published on Acidic Fiction today.

I wrote the first version of this piece over ten years ago. It never worked, but I always like the general idea. So a year or three ago, having learned a lot in the intervening time,  I rewrote it completely.

Let me know what you think! You can find it here. It has a space ship!

Recent Reads: Revenge, Short Stories, and Soap Making

I’m feeling grumpy while writing this post. I haven’t read a good book in awhile. And to top it off, these were some books that I had been really excited to get into. Unfortunately, each experience turned out to be anti-climactic.

Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold was the best of the bunch. It’s a simple setup that provides plenty of opportunity for Abercrombie to do what he does best: create cool characters and setup great action scenes. And to be honest, I had a huge amount of fun reading those for a the first 500 pages or so. But the story gets too big, too expansive, and goes on way too long. Afterwards, the last 400 pages left a sour taste in my mouth.

Burnt Tongues is a short story anthology comprised of stories chosen by Chuck Palahniuk from the LitReactor writer’s workshop. I was a member of that workshop for a short time, but felt like I wasn’t getting enough out of it.

Back in the day, Chuck Palahniuk published these essays where he gave his tips for writing well. You can find them here. They are excellent essays, and really useful. But I found that following them religiously made everyone sound like Chuck Palahniuk. And I saw that happening to too many people on LitReactor.

And now this anthology comes around and I still feel the same way. The stories felt like it could have been written by the same person. There is great writing in some of these, but I could see the rules being used instead of just feeling and enjoying the story.

There were some other disappointments I read after that, most of which revolve around Patrick Rothfuss. I picked up and read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland on a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente due to his review here. Great review, really built up the book. The book was pleasant, but I found it a surreal for surreal’s sake, sweet but forgettable fairy tale.

I also was privy to read a rare copy of his not-for-children picture book, The Thing Under the Bed. The art for that was the only thing that saved a poor, thin story. Again, nothing special.

And that was all in the lead up to his release of The Slow Regard of Silent Things. This one’s tells the story of Auri from the Name of the Wind series. Those books are EXCELLENT. Loved them. And I loved the character of Auri. But I could not get into this latest book. Auri’s point of view, and the events that transpire during the book, were honestly more annoying than engaging. Rothfuss is a good writer, but his style here doesn’t help the material.

I had written a lot more about this book, but I just deleted it. I don’t want to be negative. I am a huge admirer of Rothfuss, and I really look forward to more of his work. This book just wasn’t for me.

Board Games and Telling Stories

I am an avid board gamer and have recently been watching Top 100 Game of All Time lists from a few of the hobbies most stalwart reviewers. This prompted me to come up with my own.

The exercise made me think a bit about what I like in board games. Yes, I love interesting mechanics. I love to be made to think. I love to be given the opportunity to try to out-think my opponents. I love to have fun, be creative, and try to think outside the box while doing all of that. But most of all, I love when a game becomes a story.

I’m not talking about story-telling games here (although there a few on my list), but when a session you played becomes something memorable. An event you keep coming back to or a talking point among your friends.

Like the time in Eclipse where one of my friends was in the lead, holing up in his corner of the galaxy, building monoliths with abandon, and another friend found a way to blast through some wormholes with his custom ships and took over his whole system in the last round.

Or the time I spent the whole game of Shogun outguessing a friend of mine. Attacking him before he attacked, taking over his provinces right before he taxed them, and razing his castles right after he built them.

Or the time in Twilight Imperium when I made a risky move to attack another player (which almost worked!) and then another player sneakily added long-distance travel to his spaceships and swooped in to take over my home world while my back was turned.

Or the time a good friend of mine wrote a string of curse-words as his fake definition in Balderdash just so he could see me read them out loud. (I have never cursed out loud.)

Or the time in Wrath of Ashardalon, where our whole group barely escaped a dungeon with our lives because this goddamn rolling boulder trap somehow kept rolling towards us no matter what direction we went!

Or that time in Battlestar Galactica where we were so paranoid that we were convinced our lone engineer was a Cylon. We voted him into the brig even though he pleaded with us not to, only to find out later that he was a loyal human and had been trying to help us all along. He won’t let us live that one down.

Or the first time I played Tales of Arabian Nights and won after my character turned into an ape, murdered the princess who was in love with him, and ended up becoming a sultan.

These are stories we create ourselves, with our friends, without even trying to. Board games are the medium that help us do that in ways we couldn’t have done otherwise.

I wrote a few words about some games I love, and I hope they will inspire you to go out and give these games a try. Below that you will find my Top 100 Games of All Time list.

#3 Battlestar Galactica - Everyone must work together to try to get your spaceship home without dying or starving to death. But one of you is secretly working for the enemy. Which one? MY GOD WHICH ONE????

#6 Galaxy Trucker - Step 1: Build a space ship faster and better than your friends. Step 2: Watch all your spaceships fall apart in spectacular fashion.

#8 Sentinals of the Multiverse – This is the one super-hero game where it feels like you are in a super-hero battle. Choose your heroes, choose your villain, and choose your location. Then proceed to have an intense and fun battle of epic proportions.

#12 Tales of Arabian Nights - This is a completely unique experience. You play a character travelling around looking for adventure. You encounter something: A rich princess, a raging storm, a mystical djinn. What do you do? Choose from your many options, consult the book of tales, read from one of the over 2500 things that could happen to you, and laugh with your friends as the story unfolds!

#17 Arkham Horror - Grab some friends and try to sastop an ancient god from awakening and destroying humanity. This is a lingering, atmospheric game. Give it a chance to grab you and you’ll have sessions you’ll never forget.

#90 Cards Against Humanity – Play this game with your parents.

Rank
Game


1
Shogun


2
Yggdrasil


3
Battlestar Galactica


4
Castles of Burgandy


5
Eclipse


6
Galaxy Trucker


7
Glen More


8
Sentinals of the Multiverse


9
Steampark


10
Alien Frontiers


11
Small World


12
Tales of Arabian Nights


13
Cyclades


14
Heroscape


15
Kingsburg


16
Agricola


17
Arkham Horror


18
Balderdash


19
King of Tokyo


20
Twitch


21
Dixit


22
Ticket to Ride


23
Legend of Drizzt


24
Wrath of Ashardalon


25
Castle Ravenloft


26
Catacombs


27
Jungle Speed


28
Mage Knight


29
Airlines Europe


30
Modern Art


31
Star Trek: Fleet Captains


32
Age of Conan


33
Word on the Street


34
Hanabi


35
Puerto Rico


36
Mansions of Madness


37
Pocket Battles


38
Forbidden Desert


39
Carcassone


40
Escape: Curse of the Temple


41
Stone Age


42
Carson City


43
Race For the Galaxy


44
Love Letter


45
Earth Reborn


46
Legendary


47
City of Remnants


48
Mage Wars


49
Mr. Jack Pocket


50
Space Alert


51
Quarantine


52
X-bugs


53
Long Shot


54
No Thanks


55
Civilization


56
10 Days in Europe


57
Gloom


58
Yedo


59
Lords of Waterdeep


60
10 Days in Africa


61
Zooloretto


62
Dynasties


63
Kemet


64
Elder Sign


65
Exodus: Proxima Centauri


66
Samurai Swords


67
Enigma


68
Merchants & Marauders


69
Star Trek: Deck Building Game


70
Pit


71
Martian Dice


72
Best Sellers


73
7 Wonders


74
Betrayal at House on the Hill


75
Twilight Imperium


76
Cineplexity


77
Guillotine


78
Forbidden Island


79
Dominion


80
Tsuro


81
Wits and Wagers


82
Runewars


83
Kill Dr. Lucky


84
Scrabble


85
Biblios


86
Cosmic Encounter


87
Power Struggle


88
Time’s Up


89
Game of Thrones


90
Cards Against Humanity


91
Letters From Whitechapel


92
Khet 2.0


93
Formula D


94
Flash Point


95
Settlers of Catan


96
Pandemic


97
Fresco


98
Shadows Over Camelot


99
Heroquest


100
Battle Masters

 

Recent Reads in Graphic Novels: Magic Boots, Dead Rabbits, and Mushrooms

As promised, here is a catch-up on what I’ve been reading recently in the graphic novel world.

The Hood – Brian K. Vaughan

I love Brian K. Vaughan. He wrote Y: The Last Man, Pride of Bagdad, Runaways, and many more. The Hood was one of his early OOP graphic novels that I finally got a copy of. It’s the story of a young man who gets super-powers, and how he becomes a super-villain instead of a hero.

It’s an interesting concept, but the story is too simple and lacking in anything that particularly grabbed me. Very generic feeling, unfortunately.

Pretty Deadly – Kelly Sue DeConnick

This one definitely looks pretty, but it was trying to hard to be like Sandman. The author tried to build her own mythology but the ideas never resonated and it ends up being hard to engage with.

Even worse, though, and one of the worst sins in comics, is that the way the panels were presented made the action very hard to follow. I have zero interest in continuing to read more volumes.

Infinity Gauntlet – Jim Starlin

I read this to get some detail on the upcoming storylines in the Marvel films. Pretty good. It was a bit old-fashioned, lacking the more modern gritty feel of comics of the last 10 years. Also, I felt out of my depth because there were so many characters I wasn’t familiar with. The ending was cool, though. We’ll have to see if the movies head in the same direction.

Seconds - Bryan Lee O’Malley

This was a disappointing graphic novel from the author or Scott Pilgrim. It’s a bit of a mess. A chef finds a stash of magic mushrooms that allow her to correct any mistakes she might have made in her life. But using them causes her even more problems than she anticipated.

It’s full of surreal and dream-like ideas that never quite work out, and lacking in the humor of Pilgrim. The art is beautiful, though.

Recent Reads: Mass murders, Vomit-zombies, Metal Cities, and Hollywood

I haven’t posted about what I’ve been reading lately, and now seems as good a time as any to catch up. Below are some thoughts about some of the books I’ve read in the past few weeks (A graphic novel post is forthcoming).

Reading is fun.

Lexicon - Max Barry

What if language gave people the power to control someone? And what we thought of in the past as wizards, were just people who were able to wield words like a weapon? What if these people were still around, and recruiting others for something big? Something biblical?

Well, that’s the premise of Lexicon. And it’s a hoot. Barry uses the time-tested magic-school premise to launch into a crazy story that just gets bigger and bigger. I would characterize it as action-mystery, full of like-able characters and thought-provoking ideas. Barry’s prose is getting better, too. This is his best yet.

Leviathan Wakes - James Corey

Space Opera! And a good one! This epic space story takes places hundreds of years in the future when humans have spread all across the solar system. There is a tentative balance between the three major governments (Earth, Mars, and The Belt). But something sinister has arrived from another world and it’s starts threatening that balance in a big way.

It’s told from the point of view of a Belt cop investigating a missing person case (straight from a film noir), and a ice-trawler captain who both just happen to get sucked into the middle of this whole galactic mess. It’s written simply, but balances the science and the politics and the action quite nicely.

After awhile, small cracks in the narrative start to show. The authors aren’t quite up to the task of keeping everything perfectly cohesive. But, really, it doesn’t matter. The book is just too much fun to read.

Steelheart - Brandon Sanderson

Sanderson has a gift for making what I would call Hollywood style books. Good hollywood. The three-act structure is clear as day. The characters have just enough depth to them to keep things interesting. The pace keep moving, and the set-pieces are exciting. Combine that with really cool story concepts, which Sanderson has a great track-record with, and you get some great books.

Steelheart is one of those. I mean, just read the synopsis:

“Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics…nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart – the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning – and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.”

This delivers on it’s exciting premise. Not deep, but solid and engaging.

All You Need is Kill – Hiroshi Sakurazaka

I read this because I enjoyed the premise of the film (Edge of Tomorrow) quite a bit, and, frankly, I think the title is awesome.

A soldier relives the same doomed battle against an alien race over and over. Teaming up with another soldier who used to have that same power, they try to figure out a way to win the war.

The prose is pretty juvenile, but that could be a result of the translation. Otherwise, the premise was interesting but I found the film presented the idea in a much more engaging way. However, where the film flopped at the end, the book did not. The ending was much more interesting and more fulfilling than the generic Tom Cruise action set-piece we got on the screen.

Run! 26.2 Miles of Blisters and Bliss - Dean Karnazes

Don’t read this book unless you really like running. It’s poorly written, unsubstantiated, and faux-inspirational. Classic Dean. Still, it was about running so… that’s good I guess.

The Song is You – Megan Abbott

Damn, Megan Abbott can write. This early novel of hers takes place in 40′s Hollywood and just drips with the atmosphere of the time. An actress has gone missing. Could it have been an abortion gone wrong? A depraved sex-act and murder? Or something even more sinister? Enter our anti-hero, studio PR fix-it man Gil Hopkins, who gets sucked into the mystery that is more personal than he would like to admit.

Great dialog, great prose. Snappy, pretty and clever, but a bit too flowery at times. Story-wise, the twists and turns hit and miss. As do the characters and the arcs. The bottom line is that the book is carried by its style, which is substantial, especially if like the genre or just appreciate a good turn of phrase.

My first Jodorowsky Film

Below is an essay I wrote for a contest. I probably did not win, but I like it anyway.

I became a fan of cinema through the backdoor. Back in pre-DVD days a friend of mine collected bootleg VHS tapes of rare foreign, horror and art films. Being a collector myself of other things, I was completely entranced with the idea that there were movies out there that weren’t easily available for anyone who wanted to see them.

I mean, my favorite movie up until that time was Terminator 2. A great film, but not a particularly creative choice. So enter this friend, and my eagerness to experiment. He let me borrow copies of films from all over the world, from all different genres. Copies off or rare Japanese laserdiscs or taped off of Australian TV. It was a good selection. Argento. Jackie Chan. Raul Ruiz. Pasolini. Tinto Brass, etc.

Among that stack of tapes was a film called El Topo. Of course, just like the other films, I had never heard of it. And at some point I decided to give that one a shot.

It was late. Maybe after midnight. I didn’t have any expectations and figured I would just fall asleep if the film wasn’t any good. I won’t go into detail about what I saw unfold that night. We’ve all seen the film. But what I will talk about is what it did to me.

I had no idea what was going on in my head! I was drawn in and enamored and shocked and amazed and just all-around felt strange. It was an amazing experience. After the film ended, and the TV turned off, I lie there for I don’t know how long until I fell asleep and suddenly it was morning.

Upon waking, I did not know if it was all a dream. Seriously, I woke up and thought “My god that was a weird dream.” And for a while I was unsure if I fell asleep during the film or if I had actually experienced that.

So I watched it again immediately. Confirming the fact that the film does exist and that it was something that I had actually watched. Some guy thought of those things, filmed it, and now I was watching it in my house. That experience broke cinema wide open for me. From then on, I was a hooked on the possibilities, and had become a true fan of film and a true fan of Jodorowsky.

Emotions, Honesty, and Dangerous Writing

It’s funny how life is sometimes. I’ve always kept my feelings tight against my chest, not letting them out. Very rarely have they peeked through in my real life, which means rarely have they peeked through in my writing.

My fiction has been built around ideas and stories. Surface thoughts that are great to write and (hopefully) read but lack emotion or empathy.

Some of my favorite fiction to read, though, is full of emotion. And I feel it. The great authors are able to inspire empathy, and I’ve always cherished them above other authors.

Tom Spanbauer for example, who I’ve mentioned ad nauseum. His books are full of life. It’s as if he took his heart from his chest and just smeared it across the pages. You can feel everything when you read his words.

That’s because he writes from his own heart. He opens himself up like I wasn’t doing. He takes his own true emotional experiences and fictionalizes the surface points while keeping everything else personal and real.

He calls that Dangerous Writing. It’s dangerous because you have to dig deep within yourself, extract and examine your inner life. What really makes you feel. It’s a scary process to do that and put it on the page.

I’ve always admired that, but I never thought I had anything truly emotional and real to write about. But recent events in my life have made me realize otherwise. I really am full of emotion. I’ve kept it buried for too long, but after much contemplation I’m being honest with myself about my feelings and finally letting them out.

And man, it is a roller-coaster. I’m so full and ripe that sometimes I am bursting with optimism, sometimes laid waste with fear, but all the time I’m happy that I’m being honest with myself. I’m not pushing down these feelings. They are here and I’m feeling them. Pushing them away only gets me into trouble, but listening to them and learning to work with them is going to help me move my life forward.

Like I said. It’s funny how life is. I now understand what Tom Spanbauer meant when he spoke about Dangerous Writing. And I understand how I can take some of my own experiences, hold them up to the light, and turn those feelings (good or bad) into art.

Right now, I’m just happy to experience life fully and unrestrained, and to be more true in my writing. But depending on how things turn out I may start a new writing project, and then I might really understand what Spanbauer meant when he said “People ask me why I write, and I tell them it’s because I can’t cry and speak at the same time.”