World-building

I am at the same time writing two plays, a couple of choose-your-own-adventure games, and another thing that may turn into a book...or nothing at all. I tend to launch into projects as early as I can in order to let the characters inform me about what happens in the story, rather than me telling them. I often have a hope about how the story will turn out--and often the characters educate me on the way, and the story ends differently, and much better, than the way I had at first hoped it would.

This morning a question came up on a games forum I follow about creating the "world" for a game. The writer was daunted by the amount of work that seemed to be required before you could start the first sentence of the first page of the actual thing you wanted to write. Here's my response (I'm posting it here so I can find it again when I need to remind myself):

You can write a first draft of a game without knowing much about your main character's physical world, world-view, opportunities or threats. But to go beyond first-draft level you need to discover and articulate the world. 

Knowing the world of the story keeps you honest as a writer: it leads you to write about things the main character would be concerned with, not what is on your authorial agenda, and it helps you keep things believable. If there's a pirate attack--how come? What forces them to become pirates? If the main character finds treasure, whose was it and who else is trying to find it? If there's a love interest, do the social rules of the world make it easier or harder for the main character to pursue that person?

If creating a world seems daunting, then go ahead and write the first draft of the game against a blank backdrop. If it seems like fun and you want to make it a richer game that's fun to play, you will then be motivated to explore and define the world.

I was writing about making games, as you can see. But I think the observation is true for any sort of creative writing.

Goodness endures

Every year Mom used to draw and print a Christmas card for the family to use. My dad sent out hundreds of cards each year to colleagues and fellow-clergy in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, so it was probably a real budget-saver as well as being a card recipients looked forward to year after year.

My sister Mary evidently came across a stash of unused cards recently, so today we received in the mail a card that was created for a Christmas in the early 1970's (lookit the telephone on the corner of the piano!):

That's me in the background, with the youthful figure and the dark curly hair. Mary is in front of me; my wife, Rebekah; is at the piano, and Robin is doing her best to help the dogs keep on pitch.

This card reminds me that the good stuff we do can reach far beyond our expectations for it: another good reason for making good stuff (or trying to) whenever we can, without knowing or needing to know who shall become its audience, or how. Thanks, Mom! And thanks to Mary for using the card.

Search for intelligent life

I have long felt a bond of shared experience with the members of SETI, the organization that searches for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. They labor long hours, usually on top of the time they spend at their day jobs, preparing for an encounter with beings from elsewhere in the universe.

There is no guarantee that such beings, once encountered, would understand or care about any message we tried to deliver to them. Their motives, ethics, and desires might always be obscured from our understanding. They might regard with puzzlement or dismay the most carefully crafted expression of our hopes, our observations of our world and our lives.

I feel this bond of shared experience because the lonely, earnest, likely-futile-until-maybe-wow work of the SETI folks rhymes with a lot of my experience as a playwright. Despite all the talk about a script being a collaborative creation, until the play or screenplay is on the edge of production, the chief collaboration involves the writer, the writer's fragile imagination, and the interior editor who keeps saying it's all crap. Then, when the writer tries to get the attention of a potential producer--even a potential reader--all too often the response is a sniff of incomprehension. That's not just like everything we have ever seen before (while still being fresh and exciting)! Why should we even peruse it?

That's why writers' groups can be so precious. I recently attended my last meeting with Merrimack Valley Playwrights, a group I founded a few years ago. As usual, there were about 15 people present--playwrights, actors invited for the evening, and a couple of friends who are obviously gluttons for punishment.

The punishment lies in the fact that the scripts the actors perform are unfinished works, still stiff with splinters of uneasy text. But the pleasure lies there, too, as we are the first audience for these dewy words, and can give the new play its first feedback.

I have been part of other groups where the idea seems to be to deliver the most cutting dismissal, whether it is merited or not. But this current group is at the top of the league for creative feedback that the author can carry back to the writing dungeon and actually make use of. So the playwrights are not afraid, or not too afraid, to bring out their skinless, unfinished children for review.

I should explain the hat in the picture. I got to be an actor at this meeting, and one of my characters was obsessed with a pop singer and believed her communicate with her through his complex headgear. So we whipped up the hat as a surprise treat for the playwright--the delight when I put it on reminded me what an innocent, and productive, joy it is to take part in such readings.

It was my last meeting because we are on the edge of relocating. And in the new place, one of the first things I'll do is hunt out the local writers' group. And if there isn't one, I'll start one. SETI keeps searching, and so shall I.