Christopher D. Votey's Blog, page 10
March 1, 2015
#1 Self-Serving Bias & Stockholm Syndrome
I get a lot of web searches that lead people to my site for this article. It is a really great one, describing how we protect our ego from harm. Ego is often seen in a negative way, indication one is full of themselves. In truth, ego is rather benign.
The thing is, we protect who we are on the inside, and we try to remain strong. When something threatens that, we do whatever we can to maintain that protection, which often results in us doing things that we might not ordinarily do...
February 28, 2015
#2 Nash Equilibrium & Need-Hierarchy Theory
Unlike most other articles I put in this top 10, #2 and #1 are articles that are still viewed even though the AtoZ contest is over.
These are two very important topics, not just for Game Theory and Psychology, but for writing and life. Though honestly writing is capturing life, so they are really the same thing.
Nash Equilibrium is the optimum strategy for non-cooperative play where as Need-Hierarchy Theory is about the importance of our need to the point of self-actualization.
Bot...
#3 Red Herring & Retroactive Continuity
Red herring is a very intricate plot device with many possibilities to employ for your narrative. This article talks about Retroactive Continuity, which you may know as Retconning.
This is a great article because it doesn’t just give you a simple understanding of both, but a deeply complex one and all the ways to employ both. It also uses a great many references from Hot Fuzz, Team Fortress 2, South Park, Futurama, Star Wars, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek, and even Scrubs.
This is a go...
#4 Ab ovo & Anitclimax
For everything, there is a beginning, and this was the first article of the AtoZ challenge, and what better than an article talking about Ab ovo. Ab ovo is Greek, meaning, from the beginning. Interesting, it can also mean, from the egg.
Ab ovo is about a story of how Zeus turned into a swan and had sex with Leda (human woman) and she gave birth to two eggs. Greek mythology is weird.
It’s an important term for writings, meaning a story starts at the very beginning. Different from I...
February 27, 2015
Leonard Nimoy’s Death
It is reported today that Leonard Nimoy has died. This is a loss to the world. This is also a great loss to me. Growing up, the only thing that really meant the most to me was Star Trek. We had the VHS of the films and I must have watched them 1000 times. Star Trek was a big part of my life and Spock was definitely a favorite.
As I developed myself as a person, the pursuit of logic was very important to me. Spock in many ways became a mentor to me. Other characters from other shows did as well...
#5 – Vice & Virtue
This article was one of the last fun ones I did for the AtoZ challenge. While understanding Vice and Virtue can be simple, I must make everything overly complex. It’s who I am.
The common misconception is that Vice and Virtue is synonymous with Bad and Good, respectively. But good writing makes Vice and Virtue interchangeable between good characters and bad, between Antagonist and protagonist.
I tried to expand on this idea about how to use Vice and Virtues in your story rather th...
February 26, 2015
#6 – Xanatos Gambit & xX Centric Plots
So for X. The hardest letter. I actually looked in the dictionary for X-words. Not much you can do for X, so I cheated and made up my own term, that while logical sounding, is really stupid.
However, Xanatos Gambit was a really good term. Describes a complex villain that is a true mastermind. Capable of coming out on top while his plan fails. I assume this article gets a lot of views being of the term Xanatos Gambit.
February 25, 2015
#7 – Flashback & Foreshadowing
This post was about the point that I really started to feel confident of what I was doing with the AtoZ challenge. This was an easy one to do, as they deal with really knowing the events in your story and knowing key elements to reveal to the reader at a specific time in your story.
I also liked that I made a Star Wars and Star Trek reference back to back.
#8 – Yandere & Your Usefulness
Near the end of the AtoZ challenge, I started running out of words that could be used in a literary sense. For X, I can to make up a term. Y, I nearly did, but got creative.
Yandere is something I saw quite a bit but never knew it had a name. It is a term used a lot in animé, but is seen in many different kinds of media.
Your usefulness is another thing seen in a lot of places. Not so much a term, but a cliché often seen with villains.
Good terms to understand to flesh out your cha...
February 24, 2015
#9 – Learned Helplessness & Least Effort Principal
The April AtoZ Challenge was something that initially put me on the map. While I use doing my worldbuilding series, doing this got the most number of viewers. It was record setting for me.
This article was one of my favorites. It was two principals I never heard before and had to learn as I wrote it. But as I did, I was able to apply it to my favorite series of all time, Red vs Blue. While spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen all 12 seasons, it was beautifully written. Makes me...
