Sidney Blaylock Jr.'s Blog, page 29
February 25, 2019
Weekend Round Up, February 25, 2019
So, here (in no particular order) are some of the things that I’ve done over the weekend.
Writing
Finished the “Opening Incident” section of my 2nd Draft of “Starlight, Starbright.” (2 of 5 sections). It looks like I’m not going to make my deadline of finishing by the Feb. 28th for the deadline of the anthology where I was hoping to send it. Still, it looks (& feels) far better than it did under the old story of “The Rocketman.” Even if it doesn’t “light up the world” (pardon the pun–starlight, starbright), it is still a fun story with a character that I understand.Re-outlined my graphic novel which has been at a stand-still for about a month. I realized that, while the first issue, was supposed to be an adaptation of the short-story, I didn’t really have a clue of what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go after I finished with that section, so I finally sat down and wrote out a beginning, middle, and end for the story. Now I just need to do the breakdown again for each individual issue and then I’ll start working on it again.
Gaming
Didn’t really do a whole lot of gaming this week, but here are the highlights:Cancelled my preorder for Anthem and moved the money over to Days Gone. I won’t reiterate my disdain for EA’s current “slash and burn” strategy towards its core audience, but I vote with my wallet, rather than just continually talking about it. I said it before and I’ll say it again: “fool me once (Mass Effect Andromeda), shame on you, fool me twice (Anthem), shame on me.”
School
This is where the majority of my time went this weekend:We had an assignment (class/group) that was due at 11:30 pm last night. Trying to coordinate this while this was Oscar Sunday was very difficult. We got it done, but it was pretty stressful–I won’t lie.I still have a Biography project due for class (in addition to the above assignment), so these next two days are going to be very “fun.” Yeah, not so much.
Oscars
So, since I’m taking a test in film this year, I felt obligated to watch the Oscars (which I have a love-hate relationship with) this past Sunday. I loved the Oscars during the George Burns (1970s/1980s era) and (Billy Crystal (1990s) era, but have disliked it recently due to its continued snubbing of popular films (I was shocked that Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won (& won big) and I guessed that would be the last popular film for a long while to win (and with the rise of “comic book movies,” it turns out that my fears were well founded). I watched last night pretty much out of deference to The Black Panther, but I knew it wouldn’t win (neither Chadwick Boseman nor Michael B. Jordan were nominated in their respective Actor/Supporting Actor Roles which is nearly always a bad sign of things to come for a picture’s Best Picture hopes). Still, I wanted to at least get a sense of the filmic landscape for this year just in case a question came up on the test.
Well, I think that’s all for today. Not sure if I’ll be able to blog tomorrow because of my assignment, but we’ll see and I’ll play it by ear.
Sidney
Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Starlight, Starbright (Sci-Fi Short-Story — 2nd Draft — “Opening Incident” (2/5 sections) Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft — Character Draft “Finished”)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 22, 2019
Anthem: Wait and See
Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I’m interested in all varieties of games, from racing to action to shooters. However, I have a soft spot for science fiction action games, no matter the genre (about the only exception to this is “puzzle” games, but even then, if the game maker can really sell me on the concept, I’ll at least take a look). However, after being burned by Mass Effect Andromeda two summers ago, I’ve taken a more “wait and see” approach towards games published by EA (Electronic Arts) as they seem content to release games that are not quite finished in order to 1) not disrupt their “pipeline” with future releases that that have in the works for later in the year and 2) satisfy their investors over their game-playing audience.
Early Reviews
So, Anthem “partially” released to subscribers of EA’s early access “subscription” platform and the reviews have been, for the most part, mediocre. While most praise the graphics and the flying and the gorgeous world, many are also criticizing long load times and the multiplicity of loading screens, bugs/glitches, and a story that doesn’t necessarily delve as deeply as many fans of the developer’s (Bioware’s) stories. Early reviews are generally speaking a 7 out of 10–okay, but not great.
Yes, I know you have a whole slate of games planned for the fall–Jedi: Fallen Order is one that we know of, and rumors persist of a “new” Need for Speed game, but Anthem is an important game for EA, so why not give it the time it needs to finish “baking?”
Fool Me Once, Shame on You; Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me
So, I’m waiting on the game, even if EA isn’t willing to do this. EA would prefer that I buy it and wait for them to fix it over the year and make it a good game, so that they already have my money to add to their numbers for their investors. I’m looking for a good product for my purchase price. So, unlike Mass Effect Andromeda, I’m not going to pick up my preorder based on both my perception of the game (in its current state) and the early reviews of the game. While I think that the graphics are top-notch, I’m not as sold on the flying/combat as even the reviewers are based on their reviews, and I’m certainly not impressed by the frequent loading screens. To be honest, the game reminds me of Knights of Legend, an Origin game that really wanted owners to own a hard-drive, but came out on the Commodore 64 (C64) with a disk drive. I was always switching out disks based on whatever activities that I needed/wanted to do–the same seemed true with Anthem. Everything that I was doing seemed to need a load screen (and that’s with the 2nd demo–for me, the first demo was plagued with the “infinite loading screen bug” where I couldn’t even load into a game for most of the afternoon). After buying Mass Effect Andromeda brand new (which also had major issues due to lack of development time), I’m choosing to (at best) wait quite a while before purchasing the game.
Sidney
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 20, 2019
Series Review: Babylon 5
Over the weekend, I finished the entire run (all five seasons) of Babylon 5. I thought I’d take a moment and give my impressions of the series as a whole and how I feel it fits into the Sci-Fi TV landscape. There are some light spoilers–basically, just plot arcs across the series, not individual episodes. I couldn’t avoid them in order to give a thorough review of the series, but I still tried to be as spoiler free as possible. Those wanting to go into the series completely fresh, should probably stop reading now, bookmark this page, go watch the show for yourself (as of this writing, it is streaming on Amazon Prime), and then come back. If you’re not bothered by knowing season arcs, then read on.
Seasons 1 – 4.5 : The Shadow War
I think this is where the show shines–“The Shadow War” storyline shines as an impressive piece of storytelling. While Season 1 isn’t the strongest as I feel much of that season was setting up the characters’ relationships. I liked the character of Sinclair (& initially, during the first run of the show, I was a bit turned off by the introduction of the new B5 commander, Sheridan, upon re-watching the show and understanding the struggle of the actor who played Sinclair, I found it to be fine). What really impresses me about this story arc is the way Season 1 drops little hints that the War is coming (foreshadowing) and Season 2 fully delivers on it. Now, it seems a bit archaic with so many shows having multi-season arcs, but at the time, it was almost revolutionary. I found the whole arc to be quite impressive and filled with drama and tension, with both humor and heart. I honestly liked all the actors and while I didn’t necessarily like each and every episode, I feel this is where the heart of the show is contained. I would rate these as 9 to 9.5.
Season 4.5 – 5: Earth Alliance Civil War
I’m simplifying here–some of these episodes are actually earlier in the season 4 timeline (and hints have been dropped about this upcoming confrontation earlier in the season). This where a bit of the seams come apart in the show. While the actual civil war is handled well and takes the show into a new, interesting territory, the whole Mars/Earth subplot feels forced and a bit strained. I wish that I could say that I enjoyed every episode, but (outside of the space battle scenes between Earth Alliance and the former B5/Mars Colonies), this storyline seemed to drag. There were some great scenes in this part (Delenn facing down the Earth Alliance is a particular highlight), but there are places (especially the Mars sections that drag), but overall, still enjoyable. These I would rate 8.0 to 8.5.
Season 5: Telepath “War”
So, to me, this is where the series grounds to a screeching halt. I didn’t buy the whole Bester/Garabaldi arc wherein (*spoilers*) Bester overrides Garabaldi and makes him act contrary to Garabaldi’s normal persona. Yes, I know that set it up in the show, but it still didn’t ring true for me. However, after the resolution of those episodes, the show seemed to get back on track, only to be hit with the character of Byron. While I have no particular animus towards the actor, I think the character of Byron was probably the worst in the Babylon 5 show and completely undermined what should have been a tense drama. I didn’t believe his “Messiah” complex, nor did I believe his “Malcolm X” switch when he found out about the truth of the true role of Telepaths in the story. That whole arc really took me out of the story. The only reason I didn’t stop watching the show was because of the Lyta Alexander character. While I wanted her arc to go in a different direction, she was still (by far) the most interesting character in the story arc. Once that was done with, the show finished strong by focusing on the “ending” of the show–characters moving on while new characters would ostensibly take their place for the future (which we wouldn’t get to see). The Londo story arc was quite good as was the 2-3 episodes leading to the finale. I also liked the finale as it was a satisfying conclusion to the series (& hearkened back to the themes of the “Shadow War.”
Sidney
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 18, 2019
Weekly Round-Up for February, 18, 2019
So, I’m going to be honest–last weekend was my birthday, so I did not do as much as I normally (probably) should have done, but what can you do? Here’s a round-up of my week last week and the weekend.
Writing
So, this is where I fell down the most, as I wasn’t able to get a lot of actual writing done. I’m actually off from my 2nd job tonight, so my goal (in addition to reading for school), is to catch up the writing that I didn’t get done over the weekend. Worked on the character sketch for the protagonist of “Project Dog,” (about half way through).I had a dream last night that might turn into a story at some point (probably a villain/antagonist as that was really what the dream focused on). Of course I didn’t write it down–though, so I’m saying this and by tomorrow, I will have probably forgotten what was so cool about it.
Gaming
This is where I actually spent most of my time this weekend (Big surprise, right?) I did way too much in terms of gaming this weekend. Valkyria Chronicles 4: I bought a copy of this game as I’ve wanted it every since it was released in last year. It is a sequel (of sorts) to one of my favorite games on the Playstation 3, Valkyrie Chronicles. It is a tactical rpg in a re-imagined world of World War II. The game is almost an “Alternate History” that uses many points of history of the war to inform the narrative of the story, but many things are changed and given a bit of a “sci-fi” bent (although not too much that it becomes a pure sci-fi narrative).Apex Legends: After earning two second places (or 2nd place twice), I decided my best move was to delete the game from my hard-drive! :0 I know this might seem like a drastic choice, but after starting it at 7:00 pm and looking up and seeing it was 9:17 pm on Sunday night when I’d just intended to play a couple matches to improve my ranking–(if you want to know what happened to my writing this weekend–blame Apex Legends). This game, while a blast, is no good for my PhD aspirations (or my writing goals either.)
Media
Finished Babylon 5 this weekend. There’s a write-up coming soon (I’ve actually got a partial draft written) for the blog, but I finally finished the last episode over the weekend and will share my impressions of it soon. Watched a YouTube video that I’d like to turn into a blog post. I’ll have to find it again (I forgot to “Like” it), but still I thought that it would be awesome to use as blog post. Hopefully, I can find it easily and add it to easily to the blog.
Well, that’s all I have at this moment. Will be back with regular blog posts tomorrow.
Sidney
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 15, 2019
Characters Lead the Way, Redux
While cleaning up this weekend, I happened to stumble across the original “Rough Draft” that I’d printed out for my story Dragonhawk. This story (to the time of writing this blog entry) remains my one-and-only story that was accepted on the first try. It is truly a “rough draft” in that it is only three (3) paragraphs long (and is probably shorter in total length than this blog entry will be by the time I’m finished writing it). What struck me, however, was the first word on the “rough draft” was Kelfryn, the name of the protagonist.
Inspiration from a Book Cover
So, the book cover above, is from a series of Choose Your Own Adventure books called The Lone Wolf series by Joe Deaver and Gary Chalk. While the D&D books were pretty popular at the time, the ones by Deaver and Chalk really spoke to me. While not part of the Warhammer universe, the illustrations still have that “Old World” feel that marks the Warhammer brand (and what is probably what drew me to that universe). While definatley dark (the character could and often would die and the “adventure” would be over–much like a “game over” screen in video games), I always found the artwork both on the covers of the book and in the interiors to be arresting and fascinating. The above cover of a warrior riding a giant “warbird” was particularly interesting and stuck with me into adulthood.
Kelfryn and Scryfe
As I began writing, I had several incarnations of this image pop up, most notably an idea for a novel entitled Sparrowhawk as I imagined the protagonist would be a young Norse warrior who was mentally bonded to the bird (much like Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders were bonded with their dragons in her series of books (which I, of course, loved and devoured as a child). I was also much taken with the idea of a bird hunting other birds–which is what the Sparrowhawk is named for doing. However, the novel did not progress and that idea fell by the wayside. After I had a few publications under my belt, I decided to revisit the idea, but this time I went back to the original image that had captivated me: the warrior riding a giant warbird. Then it came to me: why not have both the warrior and the bird still be mentally bonded, but why not have them hunt dragons?
The Art of the Character Sketch
From there, I tried to come up with a reason for them to hunt dragons and I likened them to fishermen. They had to hunt dragons to survive. Finally, I reasoned that even with the warbirds, dragons would be too ferocious, so they would only hunt things that the dragons left behind (scales, teeth, talons, etc.) when they went out hunting for food. Then came my stroke of brillance: I used Scrivener’s “Character Sketch” template to completely write out each of the two main characters: Kelfryn (who became a young “wannbe” warrior) and Scryfe (his devoted warbird companion). I filled out all of the sections of the Character Sketch with a solid paragraph for each of the major categories (I found those sketches earlier this year–that’s how I know). After doing the character sketches, I simply started the story and everything seemed to fall into place–I didn’t have Writer’s Block at any point, nor did I have any major diversions to the story that I dreamed up–both character and plot seemed to just seemed to merge together, so that’s what I’m working towards now–getting back into the Character Sketch mentality.
Sidney
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 14, 2019
HawkeMoon Acceptance!
So, sometime ago, I wrote an Author’s Note that covered the genesis of my short story, HawkeMoon. While I thought it was an awesome story, I despaired of every getting published as it is an action story. And it features an ending that is not the typical “GrimDark” fare that you see these days in Fantasy based on the successful of Game of Thrones (and its many imitators). Well, after 21 tries, #22 turned out to be the right market! HawkeMoon was accepted for publication by StoryHack Action and Adventure! While I’m not sure what issue it will be in yet, you can be sure that I’ll be keeping readers know when it is available.
Action and Adventure
So, this market is exactly the type of market that I wish there were more of in the Fantasy and Science Fiction field. Most of the markets are more for “social” sci-fi where they look at a trend and extrapolate on that trend for near future/far future and then that becomes the author’s world. Fantasy is a lot more fluid, but thanks to George R. R. Martin’s success with his “GrimDark” Game of Thrones series, it is very hard to interest editors of markets to get behind anything that is not “GrimDark,” or has elements of that sub-genre in work. I make no bones about despising the “GrimDark” sub-genre, hence my despair at finding a publisher for HawkeMoon.
One of the things that I like about this market–in addition to the awesome system of keep authors in the loop about the submission process–is that the editor understands that “action” and “adventure” are not dirty words, but are elements that are integral to the story. Yes, characterization is the most important (see, I’m learning), but just because characters don’t have “bad things” happen to them and then they turn around and do “bad things” to others (take a guess to which Fantasy series I’m referring to), doesn’t make the story nonpunishable. Action/Adventure, when used appropriately, can heighten the suspense for the reader and make the character “change” by putting him or her under extraordinary circumstances from which they must escape. So, they don’t “change” via a soliloquy or deep intense reflection–that’s okay. They still change–whether its deciding to kill (or not kill) that Troll guarding the bridge, or whether or not to pull the trigger on those starfighter controls that will, in effect, kill his mother and yet, all the girls go gushy over because of his long black and emo personality (guess which popular space opera movie I’m referring to here), still these are choices that the character makes and these choices define the character (for good or ill) and are just as appropriate as deep navel gazing (reflection) or long dramatic speeches (soliloquy) in defining the character.
Celebration
So, I haven’t decided what to do quite yet to celebrate HawkeMoon’s acceptance. My birthday’s coming up soon, so I may just roll the celebration into my birthday and call it a day. At the very least, getting an Acceptance for HawkeMoon is an awesome birthday present!
Sidney
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 13, 2019
Write It Down, Sidney!
One of my favorite movies is National Treasure (Shh, don’t tell anyone) and one of the scenes in the movie goes like this:
Ian Howe (villain) (whispers): Stupid!
Shaw (Henchman): Who?
Ian Howe: Me. It’s not here, it’s there.
Sorry if the wording isn’t verbatim (I’m doing this from memory). However, the gist of the conversation is that Ian Howe is berating himself because he followed the obvious answer rather than thinking the problem through and in doing so allowed Ben, our protagonist, to get to the “prize” first.
That’s how I feel right now–stupid. Not because I’m on a “treasure hunt” for a hidden Templar treasure in modern day Washington DC and New York City, but because I didn’t right down a great story idea (along with characters) and now I’ve mostly forgotten it! ARRRGGGHHH!
Monster Hunting for the Win
The story had to do (as best as I can remember) a group of three people hunting a monster. I remember the basic plot-line well enough so I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, but as an upcoming blog entry will show, I’m a much better story writer when I have the characters fleshed out along with the plot–and I did (I promise)–I had really unique and interesting characters with fairly unique backstories, but now I don’t because I didn’t write them down! ARRRGGGHHHH! I had the villain and his motivation as well, but I didn’t write it down–I’ll save the Argh this time, but you get the drift. It is so annoying to be working against myself. I need all the help that I can get, so when I get a chance, I need to write it down. And that’s the rub.
Writing on Breaks
The rub is that I came up with this story and characters while working at my second job which doesn’t have a lot of downtime. There’s a normal break, but 15 minutes isn’t a whole lot of time. The problem is that I intended to write this down during my break, but I forgot.
I try to read on the break, but there’s just not enough time–as soon as I get interested/involved with something, it’s time to stop and go back to work. I have my notebook with me and this needs to be when I pull it out and just jot down story notes/character ideas/character sketches or any other writing related thing that I need to remember or otherwise this might happen again. On my break tomorrow (or, Heaven forbid, if I happen to arrive early), I plan to jot down what I remember from this “monster hunting” story in my notebook for future reference (which I should have done in the first place).
ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!
Sidney
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 11, 2019
Weekly Round-Up (February 3rd-9th)
Writing
2nd Draft–Starlight, Starbright: “Exposition” — I worked on the beginning of the story and reworked it to add in more characterization, more character backstory, and to revise the introduction of the story so that it matches the changes that I made in the middle of the story in the 1st draft (I didn’t go back and revise it as I figured I would get bogged down and not finish the 1st draft which is what I wanted to do.The market that I’m aiming this for is a yearly one and it stops taking submissions on February 28th. I already missed a different market that stopped taking submissions on Jan. 31st (& will have to wait until June for their next period), so I don’t want to miss this one and have to wait an entire year (along with it having a different theme, to boot).
Gaming
So, I finished the campaign for Star Wars Battlefront II published by EA. I bought it on sale (9.99) and I bought a digital copy. I played the first one (only because it was Star Wars) “day one,” and while it was fun, I really did miss having a campaign (I rarely played the first game, so it was money wasted). I decided that this time I would wait until the game went on sale before purchasing it. I thought the campaign was good–although Iden goes through a character change quite quickly about a third of the way through–and while I liked it, I did find it abrupt. I didn’t even bother with the multiplayer which is this game’s bread and butter because I didn’t like the “loot box” controversy–just let us play games EA, stop looking at you gaming customers as stupid sheep to be fleeced for your shareholders. Not cool.Speaking of multiplayer, this week saw the release of Apex Legends, a first person shooter which mixes the best of Battle Royale games (like Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBg), “character shooters” (Overwatch) and cartoony action/combat (Fortnite). This game was released on Tuesday or Wednesday and it has taken the gaming world by storm. 10 million players have played it in approx. 72 hours. Whether it has staying power remains to be seen. Oh, I also one my first match today. It is a three-person team, and my contribution was healing, revives, and calling enemies, but even though I wasn’t the “star” on the team, my help was both necessary and critical to the win!
February 7, 2019
Mini-Review: Netflix’s The Dragon Prince (Season 1)
Okay, with the impending release of Season 2, I thought I’d take a moment to come back and talk about my reactions to Season 1 of the show now that I’ve taken I’ve seen the first season all the way through. This will be a shorter entry as I have a packed schedule today, but I’ve been meaning to revisit this series for a while.
Characters
So, one of the main reasons that I didn’t initially like the show was that the main character was just too close to their earlier creation–Sokka from The Avatar: The Last Airbender series. Prince Callum (pictured in the above image on the left) is very much in tone, spirit, and vocal inflection a “spiritual successor” to Sokka. While I like Sokka, I can only take him as a “side” character. As the main character, he grates on me (or at least he did until the 4th or 5th episode). I think they toned down his character and gave him a “specialty” which made him seem more in tune with the other “main” characters and less of a walking “joke.” The other main characters were fine and I didn’t really have any problems with them, but Prince Callum really turned me off at first.
Plot
I actually liked the way the plot unfolded after say the 4th episode. The main characters find something and must return it to its rightful place — in other words, a quest. This was missing in the early episodes. Once they set out and began their quest, things seemed to fall in place for me with the show and I began to look forward to watching it, rather than it being a chore to get through.
The main villain seems a little off, however. He seems to use the best interests of the Empire as his justification, but his actions are at odds, and much of what he does seems like a “power grab.” I can’t tell if the creators are trying to create a “complicated” villain (and just not reaching it, in my opinion), or if they are trying to show the villain’s “two-faced” nature (i.e., the Palpatine/Emperor duality from Star Wars Prequels).
Final Observations
The show has potential–which Netflix seems to have seen as they greenlit a second season of the show. They’ve added a new “main” character–so I’ll be interested to see how that works out in regards to the characters’ dynamics as they go about their quest. They’ve added several side characters, so I’d like to see how they are going to be used over the upcoming semester as well as I kind of like their side characters as much as the main characters–probably not their intention, but they are still varied and fun.
Overall Grade: B
So, due to the earlier part of the season, I would have rated this as a B-, but based on the stellar last half of the season, I’m raising my grade to a solid B. If you can get past the early humdrum episodes, I think there’s a worth fantasy series that is worth checking out. It’s no Avatar: The Last Airbender, but it isn’t that bad as fantasy series go.
Sidney
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric Spec
Purchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or Kindle
Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
February 6, 2019
Characters Lead The Way
So I’m probably doing what I always do, which is obsess over the details way too much, but after not really caring about characters over the last few years–well, that’s not really true as I cared about them, but cared about the plot and the action far more. However, now that I’m looking for ideas on creating better and more fully fleshed out characters, I’m finding inspiration everywhere.
I’m very close to finishing Babylon 5’s entire run (I think I have about 2 or 3 more episodes), so imagine my surprise when I saw a slew of writing based suggestion videos on YouTube dealing featuring J. Michael Straczynski describing his process on writing, especially characters and characterization.
Writing Excuses Podcast
So there’s a podcast that I listen to called Writing Excuses and they just finished a whole “season” (most of the year) dealing with characters and characterization. I’ve not listened to the whole season yet–you’d think a hour and forty-five minute drive would allow me to stay current, especially when the episodes are only 20 minutes once a week, but when the other podcasts I follow are 45 minutes – 1 1/2 hours, then it is easy to get behind. However, one of the contributors is Brandon Sanderson, one of my current favorite authors, so I really try to listen whenever I can for advice, tips, and “tricks” to help me become a better writer.
The Character “Sketch”
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m using a “Character Sketch” worksheet from Scrivener to help me create better, more fully fleshed out characters. It has several questions that one answers including occupation, mannerisms, etc., that should help be create better characters. Here, I think actual artists would have an advantage as they can draw their characters in order to express the characteristics they want to show, but I have to use words to create an image or “picture” of who my character is in the story.
Still, even a basic character sketch seems to be helping me create better and more fully fleshed out characters.
Sidney
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Current Work-in-Progress–February 2019: Project Dog (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
