L.G. Estrella's Blog, page 64
October 2, 2014
Killing A Research Paper
Research papers are one of the primary means of communicating the results of research. They form the foundations upon which theories in a range of different disciplines are built. If you have to engage in academic warfare or simply critique a theory, then knowing how to “kill” a research paper is an important skill.
So, how do you kill a research paper?
Although the exact structure of a research paper varies from discipline to discipline, most will follow the same basic structure:
Introduction.T...
The Concept Of Buy-In For Fiction
In poker, the term ‘buy-in’ refers to the minimum amount of money required to join a particular game of poker. However, the term can also be useful when applied to fiction. Specifically, we can use the term to describe the investment in time and effort that a book or series requires in order to be fully enjoyed.
Consider a typical fantasy trilogy. Each book will have its own plot and character arcs, but there will also be overarching plot and character arcs that run throughout the entire series. Indeed, the plot and characters may not make sense if the books are not read together and in the correct sequence. As a result, the buy-in for the second book is larger than for the first book, and the buy-in for the third book is larger still. Furthermore, the buy-in for a typical trilogy should be smaller than for a seven-book series.
Some fiction maintains strong links to the real world (e.g., political thrillers are often set in the present and take advantage of political, military, and economic realities). In contrast, some fiction maintains only a tenuous link to the real world (e.g., high fantasy or distant-future science fiction). The stronger the links that a story has to the real world, the smaller the buy-in it demands. This is because readers can rely on their knowledge of the real world to help them appreciate the story.
However, even in fantasy stories, there are ways to reduce buy-in. Vampires and werewolves are both highly popular and well-known monsters. A story that follows the traditional rules for these creatures will be less original than one that does not, but it will dramatically reduce the buy-in for readers since readers will already be familiar with the strengths, weaknesses, and behaviour of the vampires and werewolves in the story.
What happens if a story has a very large buy-in? It can be very intimidating. Imagine a story set in a world that is completely different from ours. It involves a society that is radically different, a species that does not share our appearance, psychology, or customs, and technology that bears no resemblance to ours. Although such a story may be very interesting and original, readers may struggle to come to grips with it. Indeed, the mental gymnastics required to keep up with all the new details may actually drive readers away. If, however, the buy-in for a story is very small, it is much easier for readers to just jump in and get involved. For instance, thrillers set in real-world settings (e.g., a story about soldiers in Iraq) should be quite approachable.
High fantasy is an example of fiction with a large buy-in. Take Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Middle Earth is a world with thousands of years of unique history and several races with their own languages and customs, only some of which are shared with the real world. To fully appreciate Middle Earth, it is necessary to not only read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings but also the Silmarillion and a swathe of additional material (e.g., Tolkien’s letters).
Another example of a high fantasy series with a large buy-in is the A Song of Ice and Fire series by G. R. R. Martin. The series is critically acclaimed and very popular. But it can be very daunting for new readers to approach. Each book is quite long, and there are currently seven books. Each of them is filled with details about the characters, plot, cultures, myths, and societies of the story. The series is also known for telling the story through the eyes of multiple characters and via complex, inter-connected plotlines. Missing out on a single book or being unfamiliar with a single character can make the series much more difficult to enjoy.
One way to reduce the buy-in is to offer a summary of the most important events and characters for new readers. It is not a coincidence that the books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series have glossaries at the back to help the readers keep track of things. Another way of reducing the buy-in is by using alternative media (e.g., the Game of Thrones television series does a reasonably good job of acquainting new readers with the series quickly although there are differences between the show and the books).
Having a series or a radically original story is bound to introduce some level of buy-in. However, this buy-in can be reduced by giving readers familiar things to latch onto (e.g., using rules or customs they are familiar with) or by offering recaps, summaries, glossaries, and the like to help readers.
The most important thing is not necessarily to eliminate buy-in. Instead, writers should focus on making sure that the readers feel that the buy-in is worth it.
If you want to read more of my thoughts on writing, you can find those here.
I also write original fiction, which you can find here.
Consider a typical fantasy trilogy. Each book will have its own plot and character arcs, but there will also be overarching plot and character arcs that run throughout the entire series. Indeed, the plot and characters may not make sense if the books are not read together and in the correct sequence. As a result, the buy-in for the second book is larger than for the first book, and the buy-in for the third book is larger still. Furthermore, the buy-in for a typical trilogy should be smaller than for a seven-book series.
Some fiction maintains strong links to the real world (e.g., political thrillers are often set in the present and take advantage of political, military, and economic realities). In contrast, some fiction maintains only a tenuous link to the real world (e.g., high fantasy or distant-future science fiction). The stronger the links that a story has to the real world, the smaller the buy-in it demands. This is because readers can rely on their knowledge of the real world to help them appreciate the story.
However, even in fantasy stories, there are ways to reduce buy-in. Vampires and werewolves are both highly popular and well-known monsters. A story that follows the traditional rules for these creatures will be less original than one that does not, but it will dramatically reduce the buy-in for readers since readers will already be familiar with the strengths, weaknesses, and behaviour of the vampires and werewolves in the story.
What happens if a story has a very large buy-in? It can be very intimidating. Imagine a story set in a world that is completely different from ours. It involves a society that is radically different, a species that does not share our appearance, psychology, or customs, and technology that bears no resemblance to ours. Although such a story may be very interesting and original, readers may struggle to come to grips with it. Indeed, the mental gymnastics required to keep up with all the new details may actually drive readers away. If, however, the buy-in for a story is very small, it is much easier for readers to just jump in and get involved. For instance, thrillers set in real-world settings (e.g., a story about soldiers in Iraq) should be quite approachable.
High fantasy is an example of fiction with a large buy-in. Take Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Middle Earth is a world with thousands of years of unique history and several races with their own languages and customs, only some of which are shared with the real world. To fully appreciate Middle Earth, it is necessary to not only read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings but also the Silmarillion and a swathe of additional material (e.g., Tolkien’s letters).
Another example of a high fantasy series with a large buy-in is the A Song of Ice and Fire series by G. R. R. Martin. The series is critically acclaimed and very popular. But it can be very daunting for new readers to approach. Each book is quite long, and there are currently seven books. Each of them is filled with details about the characters, plot, cultures, myths, and societies of the story. The series is also known for telling the story through the eyes of multiple characters and via complex, inter-connected plotlines. Missing out on a single book or being unfamiliar with a single character can make the series much more difficult to enjoy.
One way to reduce the buy-in is to offer a summary of the most important events and characters for new readers. It is not a coincidence that the books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series have glossaries at the back to help the readers keep track of things. Another way of reducing the buy-in is by using alternative media (e.g., the Game of Thrones television series does a reasonably good job of acquainting new readers with the series quickly although there are differences between the show and the books).
Having a series or a radically original story is bound to introduce some level of buy-in. However, this buy-in can be reduced by giving readers familiar things to latch onto (e.g., using rules or customs they are familiar with) or by offering recaps, summaries, glossaries, and the like to help readers.
The most important thing is not necessarily to eliminate buy-in. Instead, writers should focus on making sure that the readers feel that the buy-in is worth it.
If you want to read more of my thoughts on writing, you can find those here.
I also write original fiction, which you can find here.
The Concept Of Buy-In For Fiction
In poker, the term ‘buy-in’ refers to the minimum amount of money required to join a particular game of poker. However, the term can also be useful when applied to fiction. Specifically, we can use the term to describe the investment in time and effort that a book or series requires in order to be fully enjoyed.
Consider a typical fantasy trilogy. Each book will have its own plot and character arcs, but there will also be overarching plot and character arcs that run throughout the entire serie...
September 30, 2014
How To Win Mario Kart In 5 Easy Steps
When I was younger, I loved Mario Kart. So did a lot of my friends. Naturally, that meant we played a lot of Mario Kart. Today, I’m going to tell you how to win Mario Kart. You don’t need quick reflexes. You don’t need a lot of experience. You don’t even need to be good at the game. You just need to be evil and follow these five easy steps:
1. Identify the most beloved character amongst your group of friends. Choose that character. Ignore their pleas to pick another character. This is about throwing your opponents off, and the easiest way to do that is to force them to play a character they’re not used to. Remember, during Mario Kart, there are no friends. There are only corpses.
2. Ensure that you are the one choosing the stage and/or the battle mode. Fairness will get you nowhere in Mario Kart. Play to your strengths and force your enemies to languish in their weaknesses. Mercy is for the weak.
3. If one of your friends nemeses begins to struggle during the game, go after them. Your goal should be complete mental disintegration. That means camping next to them with three red shells. It means leaving banana peels in front of spawn locations or under item boxes. It means pretending to be helpless and then activating a star when someone tries to ram you. It is both kinder and safer to put your enemies out of their misery than to give them a chance to recover.
4. Form expedient (and expendable) alliances. In any four player game, there is almost always one player that is noticeably stronger than the others. If that player is not you, then help the others to eliminate that player. However, do not strike the killing blow. Instead, let the others exhaust their items/ammunition. Provide them with just enough time to dispatch the more skilled player before turning on them. If you time this correctly, they will be completely unarmed and helpless. Treachery will win where talent and skill alone will fail.
5. The game does not end at the television screen. The unwritten rule of Mario Kart is that only fools keep the competition in the game. Your enemies can (and will) resort to out-of-game strategies to defeat you. These strategies include (but are not limited to): screaming obscenities, throwing food/shoes, blocking your view of the television, and even attempting to choke you with their forearm while using their hands to maintain control of their character. However, these strategies are for amateurs. You can still play while being insulted. Food/shoes are unlikely to immediately render you unconscious, and blocking the television can easily be countered by kicking your enemy in the back. As for the choking, you can retaliate with a simple head butt to the chin. What you should do is something much simpler: unplug the controllers of your opponents. Without their controllers plugged in, your opponents are helpless, regardless of their skill. For wireless controls, you can either remove the batteries or de-sync. The best kind of victory is absolute victory.
If you have made it this far, then I congratulate you. You are now ready to win Mario Kart.
Next week: Why Every Mario Party Player Should Wear A Helmet
1. Identify the most beloved character amongst your group of friends. Choose that character. Ignore their pleas to pick another character. This is about throwing your opponents off, and the easiest way to do that is to force them to play a character they’re not used to. Remember, during Mario Kart, there are no friends. There are only corpses.
2. Ensure that you are the one choosing the stage and/or the battle mode. Fairness will get you nowhere in Mario Kart. Play to your strengths and force your enemies to languish in their weaknesses. Mercy is for the weak.
3. If one of your friends nemeses begins to struggle during the game, go after them. Your goal should be complete mental disintegration. That means camping next to them with three red shells. It means leaving banana peels in front of spawn locations or under item boxes. It means pretending to be helpless and then activating a star when someone tries to ram you. It is both kinder and safer to put your enemies out of their misery than to give them a chance to recover.
4. Form expedient (and expendable) alliances. In any four player game, there is almost always one player that is noticeably stronger than the others. If that player is not you, then help the others to eliminate that player. However, do not strike the killing blow. Instead, let the others exhaust their items/ammunition. Provide them with just enough time to dispatch the more skilled player before turning on them. If you time this correctly, they will be completely unarmed and helpless. Treachery will win where talent and skill alone will fail.
5. The game does not end at the television screen. The unwritten rule of Mario Kart is that only fools keep the competition in the game. Your enemies can (and will) resort to out-of-game strategies to defeat you. These strategies include (but are not limited to): screaming obscenities, throwing food/shoes, blocking your view of the television, and even attempting to choke you with their forearm while using their hands to maintain control of their character. However, these strategies are for amateurs. You can still play while being insulted. Food/shoes are unlikely to immediately render you unconscious, and blocking the television can easily be countered by kicking your enemy in the back. As for the choking, you can retaliate with a simple head butt to the chin. What you should do is something much simpler: unplug the controllers of your opponents. Without their controllers plugged in, your opponents are helpless, regardless of their skill. For wireless controls, you can either remove the batteries or de-sync. The best kind of victory is absolute victory.
If you have made it this far, then I congratulate you. You are now ready to win Mario Kart.
Next week: Why Every Mario Party Player Should Wear A Helmet
How To Win Mario Kart In 5 Easy Steps
When I was younger, I loved Mario Kart. So did a lot of my friends. Naturally, that meant we played a lot of Mario Kart. Today, I’m going to tell you how to win Mario Kart. You don’t need quick reflexes. You don’t need a lot of experience. You don’t even need to be good at the game. You just need to be evil and follow these five easy steps:
1. Identify the most beloved character amongst your group of friends. Choose that character. Ignore their pleas to pick another character. This is about throwing your opponents off, and the easiest way to do that is to force them to play a character they’re not used to. Remember, during Mario Kart, there are no friends. There are only corpses.
2. Ensure that you are the one choosing the stage and/or the battle mode. Fairness will get you nowhere in Mario Kart. Play to your strengths and force your enemies to languish in their weaknesses. Mercy is for the weak.
3. If one of your friends nemeses begins to struggle during the game, go after them. Your goal should be complete mental disintegration. That means camping next to them with three red shells. It means leaving banana peels in front of spawn locations or under item boxes. It means pretending to be helpless and then activating a star when someone tries to ram you. It is both kinder and safer to put your enemies out of their misery than to give them a chance to recover.
4. Form expedient (and expendable) alliances. In any four player game, there is almost always one player that is noticeably stronger than the others. If that player is not you, then help the others to eliminate that player. However, do not strike the killing blow. Instead, let the others exhaust their items/ammunition. Provide them with just enough time to dispatch the more skilled player before turning on them. If you time this correctly, they will be completely unarmed and helpless. Treachery will win where talent and skill alone will fail.
5. The game does not end at the television screen. The unwritten rule of Mario Kart is that only fools keep the competition in the game. Your enemies can (and will) resort to out-of-game strategies to defeat you. These strategies include (but are not limited to): screaming obscenities, throwing food/shoes, blocking your view of the television, and even attempting to choke you with their forearm while using their hands to maintain control of their character. However, these strategies are for amateurs. You can still play while being insulted. Food/shoes are unlikely to immediately render you unconscious, and blocking the television can easily be countered by kicking your enemy in the back. As for the choking, you can retaliate with a simple head butt to the chin. What you should do is something much simpler: unplug the controllers of your opponents. Without their controllers plugged in, your opponents are helpless, regardless of their skill. For wireless controls, you can either remove the batteries or de-sync. The best kind of victory is absolute victory.
If you have made it this far, then I congratulate you. You are now ready to win Mario Kart.
Next week: Why Every Mario Party Player Should Wear A Helmet
1. Identify the most beloved character amongst your group of friends. Choose that character. Ignore their pleas to pick another character. This is about throwing your opponents off, and the easiest way to do that is to force them to play a character they’re not used to. Remember, during Mario Kart, there are no friends. There are only corpses.
2. Ensure that you are the one choosing the stage and/or the battle mode. Fairness will get you nowhere in Mario Kart. Play to your strengths and force your enemies to languish in their weaknesses. Mercy is for the weak.
3. If one of your friends nemeses begins to struggle during the game, go after them. Your goal should be complete mental disintegration. That means camping next to them with three red shells. It means leaving banana peels in front of spawn locations or under item boxes. It means pretending to be helpless and then activating a star when someone tries to ram you. It is both kinder and safer to put your enemies out of their misery than to give them a chance to recover.
4. Form expedient (and expendable) alliances. In any four player game, there is almost always one player that is noticeably stronger than the others. If that player is not you, then help the others to eliminate that player. However, do not strike the killing blow. Instead, let the others exhaust their items/ammunition. Provide them with just enough time to dispatch the more skilled player before turning on them. If you time this correctly, they will be completely unarmed and helpless. Treachery will win where talent and skill alone will fail.
5. The game does not end at the television screen. The unwritten rule of Mario Kart is that only fools keep the competition in the game. Your enemies can (and will) resort to out-of-game strategies to defeat you. These strategies include (but are not limited to): screaming obscenities, throwing food/shoes, blocking your view of the television, and even attempting to choke you with their forearm while using their hands to maintain control of their character. However, these strategies are for amateurs. You can still play while being insulted. Food/shoes are unlikely to immediately render you unconscious, and blocking the television can easily be countered by kicking your enemy in the back. As for the choking, you can retaliate with a simple head butt to the chin. What you should do is something much simpler: unplug the controllers of your opponents. Without their controllers plugged in, your opponents are helpless, regardless of their skill. For wireless controls, you can either remove the batteries or de-sync. The best kind of victory is absolute victory.
If you have made it this far, then I congratulate you. You are now ready to win Mario Kart.
Next week: Why Every Mario Party Player Should Wear A Helmet
How To Win Mario Kart In 5 Easy Steps
When I was younger, I loved Mario Kart. So did a lot of my friends. Naturally, that meant we played a lot of Mario Kart. Today, I’m going to tell you how to win Mario Kart. You don’t need quick reflexes. You don’t need a lot of experience. You don’t even need to be good at the game. You just need to be evil and follow these five easy steps:
Identify the most beloved character amongst your group of friends. Choose that character. Ignore their pleas to pick another character. This is about throw...
September 20, 2014
University Can Be A Funny Place #1
I’ll confess that when I was a student in university, I was not always the most attentive student. There were times when I may even have wavered in and out of consciousness during lectures. I’d like to blame it all on a lack of sleep due to excessive amounts of hard work, but boredom also played a role. I do, however, take a certain pride in having never been caught taking a quick nap. I imagine it must be due to my formidable skill in propping my head up in my hand.
But, I digress.
I have, at...
September 11, 2014
About My Reading Habits
I’ve had a few questions come in about what I read, so I thought I’d take a few moments to give you guys some idea of what I like to read.
I’ll start off with the obvious. I read fan fiction. In fact, I read a lot of it. There are several reasons for this:
I like a lot of different series, and fan fiction helps me get more of what I like.
Some fan fiction is actually very well written. In fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that there are fan fiction writers out there that are the equal or better o...
September 5, 2014
The Rules Of Storytelling
After years of carefully honing my writing, I have finally devised a universal set of rules that covers the art of storytelling. Following these rules will all but guarantee you success:
Add more ninjas. No story has ever been written that could not have been improved by adding more ninjas. But what if ninjas don’t make sense in the story? Fool. Ninjas always make sense.
Add a dragon. What’s not to love about dragons? They’re huge, breathe fire, and can eat any characters you dislike. The only...
August 29, 2014
How Not To Throw A Jab Properly
I’ve long been a fan of combat sports. And until my knees decided to quit on me, I used to train quite regularly in them too. In any case, I still enjoy watching combat sports, especially boxing and MMA (my knowledge of striking is somewhat better than my knowledge of grappling), and there’s something I’ve noticed a lot of people in MMA doing that kind of bothers me.
They don’t throw the jab properly.
Okay, let me expand on that a bit more. A punch does not end when the arm reaches it maximum e...
