I recently picked Tera up again. Apparently there’s a new class and it’s really fun and overpowered and some of my friends want me to play. Whatever. The taste I have in my mouth because of that game is sour at best, downright toxic at worst. Again, whatever. To play with friends, I’ll do it.
So I threw together the new class and went out for a test run. They’re kinda cool, giant-ass laser cannon strapped onto a hot Castanic, sure, I’ll bite. But what struck me the most about it is how out of place I felt. Not because I don’t know the game (let me tell you how much dumb shit I’ve done because I keep defaulting to the GW2 control scheme) but because I’m a Castanic in a skimpy little outfit running around with a giant laser cannon...
... that shoots cannonballs.
There’s something painfully jarring about the design of the weapon I’m firing, the casings that it’s apparently launching out the side, and the projectile I’m firing. As in, not a single piece of those three fit together in any way, shape, or form. I admit fully that I’m a firearms person so I understand why these things don’t go together but at the same time I have to sit here and contend with myself to wrap my head around the designs and why it ruins the class - and by extension, game - for me so much.
I’m a well-versed writer. I’ve been writing for most of my life, I’ve gone to school for it, and I’ve written creatively in three languages. But the thing I’m better versed in is writing very, very poorly. And before you get good, you have to suck. Dave Grohl actually summed it up very well and succinctly;
Musicians should go to a yard sale and buy and old fucking drum set and get in their garage and just suck. And get their friends to come in and they’ll suck, too. And then they’ll fucking start playing and they’ll have the best time they’ve ever had in their lives and then all of a sudden they’ll become Nirvana. Because that’s exactly what happened with Nirvana. Just a bunch of guys that had some shitty old instruments and they got together and started playing some noisy-ass shit, and they became the biggest band in the world.
Writing, in my very unprofessional opinion, is the same way. You need to suck. You need to make mistakes and throw stupid things around and make a fool of yourself before you get any semblance of where you’re going. And honestly you should do so in a place where people can critique you openly. Some of the critique you’re going to get is going to be awful. Some of it is going to be unerringly good. And some of it, somewhere in the middle, lay the people you should truly listen to.
I’m not condoning people bashing others and I’m not condoning blatant fanboyism. Both of those things will set a writer back exponentially in their development. And yes - being a fanboy and loving everything someone writes hurts them almost as much as harassing them. If not more.
To bring this all back around to where I was originally going before I went off on a tangent, here are some of the things that I personally have learned and picked up through years of sucking. I could write a comprehensive guide about how to write a story, but then anyone who follows it becomes formulaic. Writing a story isn’t about checking boxes; it’s about distinctly avoiding them to the best of your ability. There are some times where this isn’t strictly true (as you’ll see in a bit) but for the most part, doing your own thing is the most important part of writing. If it’s second to anything, it’s second to having fun.
1) Continuity. I cannot stress how important it is to have all of the pieces fitting together. I cannot stress how important it is to have all of the pieces fitting together nicely. And I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure your entire puzzle is moving in the same direction.
This is what murdered me on Tera (yet again). The Gunner class is supposed to be some hyper-technologically advanced class working off some alien power source and then using it to build what appears to be Gauss or rail guns.
... ejecting a spent casing.
I won’t go into why these things don’t work in great detail, but to try to put it into layman’s perspective: a cannonball is fired from a muzzle-loading weapon with no cartridge. A cartridge is a full package that contains bullet, powder, casing, and firing cap. A Gauss or Rail gun is fired using magnetic forces and currently doesn’t exist in any form (that I am currently aware of. The power required to fire one is astronomical). The time gap between these weapons is several hundred years, so cramming them into one shell makes not a lick of sense from any perspective.
Throw it all together and you’ve got a mess. Your puzzle may as well still be in the box and by the looks of it, three puzzles have been mixed together.
I understand where they were going with it, but from a lore standpoint, it doesn’t work. Everyone has their ‘line’ so to speak - the moment when all disbelief can no longer be suspended and everything comes crashing down. That was my point.
2) Characters. Having strong, engaging characters is very important. Strength has nothing to do with character traits either; it’s entirely about investing your audience in what you’re saying.
Let me make something clear that a lot of artists will disagree with: it is far harder to engage an audience with the written form than it is with any other artistic medium. Looking at a picture or piece of artwork is a nigh-immediate form of consumption. It takes seconds to appreciate artwork (longer if you’re looking at absolutely incredible work) and you get the basics down.
As a writer, you need to convince your reader to read your work. You need to hook them and drag them in. And if you can’t do that, you’ve fallen flat on your face far before you’ve even gotten off the ground.
3) Story. Much like above, telling a good story is paramount to keeping your audience. I won’t go into too much detail about how to write a story or even why it’s important as everyone should have some grasp of it by this point. What I will indulge myself in is to point you towards possibly the best resource I have ever found when writing fantasy, especially in long form.
The Rivan Codex, by David Eddings, is an amazing little book. Within, he divulges every bit of planning, pre-planning, and lore for his novel series. With it, he adds cliff notes, funny anecdotes, and intrinsic detail about the inner workings of his mind.
And I cannot stress how incredible it is to see the process up close and personal. One of my favourite excerpts from it is actually detailing a very important list one of the few you - or any writer - should ever print out and tack to their wall.
Item one: Theology
Item two: 'The Quest'
Item three: 'The Magic Thingamajig'
Item four: 'Our Hero'
Item five: the resident Wizard
Item six: heroine
Item seven: a villain with diabolical connections
Item eight: obligatory group of companions
Item nine: group of ladies who are attached to the bully-boys from item eight
Item ten: the kings, queens, emperors, courtiers, bureaucrats, et al.
I’m paraphrasing heavily here so don’t jump on my back about it; if you want to see the full list in all of its glory, I strongly recommend either downloading the ebook or picking up a physical copy. You will not be disappointed.
Unfortunately, most readings I’ve picked up lately have fallen flat on their face through one or many of these means. Sure, maybe I’m just a picky writer but at the same time I feel as though far too many people are starting to consider writing to be something quick and easy that anyone can knock out.
If you want to do something quicker and easier than writing, I strongly recommend you take up rocket science.
This obviously isn’t an end-all-be-all list. It’s not a step-by-step guide to becoming a better writer or role player, but these are things that you should keep in mind if you want to improve.
And in the interest of not making this essay longer than it is, we’ll end on this note:
The most important rule of thumb I have learned through my years of writing is to heed Chekhov’s Gun.
Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.
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