(Steve here – one of our regulars, “Solarius Scorch,” aka Michal, and I talked about him doing a little writing for the Sanctum.  He’s got a killer discussion here of magic and economics, and writes both fiction and fanfic.  Get ready to see your worldbuilding a bit differently . . .)

“Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant. Need as well as greed have followed us to the stars, and the rewards of wealth still await those wise enough to recognize this deep thrumming of our common pulse.”

– Nwabudike Morgan, „The Ethics of Greed” [Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri]

As we know, humans (and human-like beings) are not rational in their decisions and actions. This irrationality means their choices are not always correct nor optimal, as defined by whatever measure we apply: wealth, happiness, reason or anything else. This is because we have various goals of different natures: we have material needs, emotional needs, preconceptions and simple desires, which often conflict with one another. Thus, people aren’t always rational… but they are always economical. (more…)

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum and at MuseHack]

Have you ever read a story and things just seemed to work . . . wrong?

• The hero defeats one guy and then the world is safe, the Evil Army is destroyed, he gets the girl, and his chin is still awesome?
• The superpowered alien who somehow manages to release massive, colorful, well-animated attacks that just well . . . have no side effects, no source, and no real explanation?  I mean how do you release a “gravity buster” without messing up everything but the guy you aimed it at?
• The villain who’s massive, connected, complex plot works perfectly while in the real world you aren’t even sure the game you’re working on will ship without a day one patch and an apology?

You know that feeling. Things happen easily in stories and games – too easily. Cause and effect apparently are having a trial separation and you worry they’re going to get a divorce before the book ends.. Simple actions have massive and unwarranted repercussions. We snicker, we laugh, we roll our eyes – and we’re out of the world because things just work wrong.

A lot of world building is about Power, in the non-Machiavellian sense.  It is about how something gets a result, and when you don’t make it work right in your world, then your world is no longer “real.”

Power, from super attacks to a clever cutting comment, done wrong makes a world unbelievable. If you’re building a setting, writing in a setting, you want to make sure that you don’t trip people up so they stumble out of your world. In building your world, you have to get the power of things, of people and weapons and comments and plans, right or the world is back to being words on paper or pixels in a game.

Fortunately I have a rule for getting it right. I call it the Pyramid Of Power. Which is a useful rule, and not the place Kephr-Ra, The Never-Dying, hid the Staff of Omens to keep it from Man-Cat and the Silvermasters. (more…)

Just wanted to give you an update on Crossroads Alpha – we’ve added a new site, Psycho Drive-In!

Psycho Drive-In is a site that focuses on video reviews with its own unique edge – television, movies, and more.  It’s actually the video section of Comics Bulletin moving to it’s own site and striking out to build it’s own direction.  You’ll also notice it’s a bit of a descendent of Indie Haven, from where the theme and look come.

It’s also a site you can write for – I’ve already gotten one new recruit for it – and there’s plenty of things to write on.  There’s also a lot to read if you want a nice juicy review or recommendation!

So go on by!

– Steven Savage

OK, so where are we?

Well, not much frankly.  Last week completely kicked my backside between my book, a reduced workweek, and some events.

• Way With Worlds continues and I’m happily writing on it!  Much more coming.  We’ll also have a guest column.
• I have not started any new serious generators yet, though still want to look at plot/prompt ones.
• In NON-serious generators, thanks to “Guardians of the Galaxy” I am thinking of silly generators for Bad Ass Animals like Rocket Raccoon (“Howitzer Hyena! Bomb Budgie!”) or SF hero titles like Star Lord (“Planet Protector!  Galaxy Queen!”) – though the latter may be useful.

But I’m here and alive.  And apparently imagining the adventures of Galaxy Queen and Bomb Budgie.  Which I would watch.

– Steve

A few weeks ago, I looked at the issues surrounding adapting a work to the silver screen. This week, I look at the smaller screen – television.

With movie adaptations, the big sacrifice is depth for time. Few people will sit in a theatre for longer than three hours, meaning that a lot of detail from novels especially gets lost. There just isn’t the time to do worldbuilding. Television allows for the build up of a storyline over a longer period of time, allowing characters to grow, allowing plots to wind around and find fertile ground.

What television lacks compares to movies is budget. A typical movie adaptations will have a large enough budget to cover salaries and special effects*. In a TV series, even the series has an overall cost similar to a blockbuster, that budget needs to be divided over the run of the season. A big effect at the start of the series may drain the FX budget for several weeks or even the rest of the season. There are ways to get around the cost, mainly through creative accounting**, but there is a limit on what can be done. Stock footage helps, to a degree. In the Stargate series, the whoosh of the stargate could be reused through out the franchise, allowing the crew to create different views to give the illusion of new effects. However, in the original Battlestar Galactica, starfighter combat boiled down to mixing up the same stock footage into different orders; there was always a scene where a Colonial Viper fired at the middle Cylon of a three-fighter formation, causing the other two Cylon fighters to break away from each other. With CGI, though, the effects team can create the needed elements once and then animate as needed at a lower cost. When the new budget comes around, the elements can be upgraded, which did happen with the Stargate whoosh.

Television is also very much ratings driven. A seven year arc is rare; studios need to know that the audience will not only be around for season one, but also for season seven, and that later seasons can draw in more people. Depending on the network or cable channel, the series may have two months to establish itself, or just one airing. The days where a show like M*A*S*H could linger near the bottom of the ratings until discovered by audiences is long gone. Shows now need to be instant hits from the beginning or so cheap that even a bottom rating still means the series makes money. The latter is typically filled by reality TV. A series could be cancelled before the planned arc is finished, because of low ratings, a change in the executive suite, or a network retool.  A long arc will be left dangling.

One problem longer works may face is the slow switch from episodic to series arcs that’s happening. Most historical TV series were written so that each episode could stand alone, allowing networks to rerun episodes without disturbing continuity. Soap operas, both daytime and prime time, were the exception to the rule, but the idea of a non-soap that had a longer storyline was unheard of until relatively recently. Some network executives still aren’t fully aware of the idea; Firefly suffered when the series was aired out of order, destroying several storylines.

With the increased time available for a TV series***, it’s very possible that the show will outstrip the original work. Anime is well known for this phenonenom; it would be easier to list the number of series that didn’t outstrip the original manga. The possibility also exists in the North American market. A Song of Ice and Fire could run into this issue. George R.R. Martin can only write so fast and has released five books so far. The HBO adaptation A Game of Thrones has three seasons completed and has been renewed for a fourth, just one book back unless season four covers a smaller portion to give season five breather space. Completed book series won’t have this problem, but a TV series based on those books using the same approach as A Game of Thrones, that is, a book per season, then filler may be needed.

Actor availability is a rare issue, but can crop up. Usually, an actor is signed for the duration of a TV series. However, it is not unknown for an actor to want out of his contract. The reasons vary; conflicts with production staff or even the cast, a break of a lifetime comes up, injury, even pregnancy can require an actor to leave. If the actor is in a critical role, recasting becomes difficult. Movie series have also run into the same problem; in the Harry Potter movies, the death of Richard Harris required Warner Bros. to recast Dumbledore with Michael Gambon. And while most original TV series can write out a character and introduce a new one, adaptations aren’t as flexible if the goal is to remain accurate.

Television brings its own unique problems to adapting a work. With the smaller budget and push for ratings, a movie adaptation looks far better.

Next week, The Mechanic.

* Depending on the effect. Progress in technology allows for cost reductions over time, but early adopters pay more.
** In the first season of The Muppet Show, a prop that was meant to be used just once was used instead in three separate episodes, allowing its cost to also be split split over the episodes.
*** At about 45 minutes per episode and a 13 to 22 episode season, that’s about nine to seventeen hours available for storytelling in a broadcast year.

After spending last column talking about characters in continuity, in world building, it’s time to talk about creating characters themselves.

I held this off until talking about the role characters play because of all aspects of world building, Character creation is the one that can (and in my opinion, should) be the most complex. As noted, a character is in a way the summary of the setting, and in turn, extremely complicated. Because they’re complicated, a sense of where they fit is important.

Characters are your setting come to visible, relatable life. Or at least should be.

The problem in discussing “how to create” characters is the process itself is also unpredictable, personal, and unique for everyone – just as characters are unique. So I can’t give you a system or even a list of questions that’ll “do it for you.” In fact, I shouldn’t because we all do this differently.

What I can do is give a list of techniques i’ve used, I’ve encountered, and I’ve coached on to help you create characters. Some you’re doing. Some you aren’t. Some will work. Some won’t – but would work for someone else.

But you can find what works for you.

After all I said it wasn’t simple. People never are – and that’s what you’re creating. (more…)

Here’s my updates!

• We have a first submission to review for The Codex at Seventh Sanctum.  Yep, you may have another columnist soon!
• I haven’t started the next generator as formatting my next book took awhile – and I’ve been very busy with work and other things.  So I may not pick it up for awhile longer.
• Crossroads Alpha added a new alliance member, Psycho Drive In!  Check it out!
• Debating starting that mailing list idea – still not sure if that’ll really get people what they want socially.  At the same time, it may be fun.  That’s probably for later as well.

Yeah, as you can tell post-holiday?  Kinda crazy for me.

– Steven Savage

The Empire Strikes Back getting the Shakespeare treatment.
William Shakespeare’s Star Wars did well enough to get the next movie adapted the same way. An educator’s guide is also available.

Neil Gaiman updates on American Gods TV series.
HBO is out. Freemantle Media is in. No network has been announced. From the same journal post, Anansi Boys will be made into a TV miniseries for the BBC.

Help put clues together with Sherlock LEGO.
LEGO is still reviewing the idea, but a set of Sherlock minifigs are making their way through the review process. Other sets being considered are the Macross VF-1 Valkyrie and a Back to the Future DeLorean.

Barbarella TV series sets up at Amazon Studios.
A pilot script has been written and is now waiting for a showrunner. Amazon Studios is run by the online bookseller. Gaumont International Television, the producing company, is also involved with NBC’s Hannibal and Netflix’s Hemlock Grove.

Gal Gadot to play Wonder Woman in three films.
Besides appearing in Batman Vs Superman, Wonder Woman will appear in two other movies, so far unnamed. Ideally, one of the other two movies will be a Wonder Woman movie, but this is Warner, who can shoot their own foot at a hundred paces.

Transporter: The Series to air in US in fall.
This slipped right by me. Season two of the series, based on the Transporter movies, begins filming in February.

The Astronaut Wives Club gets ten episode summer run.
Based on the book of the same name by Lily Koppel, ABC will be airing the drama over the summer. Both the book and the series follows the lives of the women who were suddenly elevated after their astronaut husbands on Project Mercury made history as the first Americans in space.

Redshirts to become a limited TV series.
John Scalzi’s Redshirts is being adapted by FX as a limited series. Casting has not started yet. It’ll be interesting to see how the novel is adapted.

Black Widow solo movie in the works.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps going. The Black Widow will be played, again, by Scarlett Johansson. The movie will delve into the background of the character.

Speaking of Marvel… Which studio can use which Marvel character? An infographic.
The surprising one was Namor over at Universal. He started as a Fantastic Four villain, has fought the Avengers, has been an Avenger, and has had his own series. The overlap is Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, who are tied heavily to both Avengers and X-Men continuity. Fox could easily commit to a Cable & Deadpool movie, while Power Pack falls under Marvel Studios.

Raving Rabbids to invade silver screen.
Ubisoft has been busy, getting deals to have Assassin’s Creed and Ghost Recon adapted to film. The latest of the efforts is Raving Rabbids, who already have a TV series.

And an update! A month ago, I reviewed the Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight animated movie and the problems it had at adapting the original novel. Over at io9 this past week, Lauren Davis posted an argument on why Dragonlance should be the next fantasy franchise to be filmed. She has strong arguments. The only thing that could hold back a new adaptation is the failure of the animated movie. However, if ninety minutes was only enough for a shallow adaptation, two hours isn’t going to be enough time, either. Will people go for a six-movie fantasy series based on three books? Going back, I argued that TV may be better for some works than movies; Dragonlance is definitely one of those works. The television format allows for the development of longer arcs, such as Laurana’s growth from elf lass to military leader.

(I saw this article at the www.OngoingWorlds.com blog, and the original author was glad to let me repost it – I figure it fits our various endeavors here at the Sanctum.   It’s by David Ball.  David Ball is a web developer and writer. He created the www.OngoingWorlds.com website which allows writers/roleplayers to work together on continuous stories. He also occasionally blogs at www.scifiideas.com.)

Mary Sue characters are common in roleplaying and fanfiction, especially if the writer is an amateur and doesn’t yet know the error of their ways. Mary Sue characters are perfect in every way, they’re written so that everyone likes them, they’re smart, incredibly beautiful, incredibly useful, and can do just about anything. They don’t have any character flaws so can tackle any situation in their stride. After a while this behaviour becomes very boring and we’re reminded why decent stories have characters with just the right amount of interesting traits to add realism.

We call these types of characters “Mary Sue” after a Star Trek parody of a fanfiction story (see here for the origins of Mary Sue), but it’s not just females that make Mary Sues, the same annoying qualities can be given to males.

Marty Stu (also called Larry Stu or Gary Stu)

While Mary Sue was a true beauty to behold, and everyone fancied her (or so the writer mentioned), her male counterpart is similar but not the same. He is unbelievably handsome, and females will swoon at his very glance. But he’s also a man of action, in fact he’s the total embodiment of action. He’s strong, daring and athletic and can win any fight. Even if the writer mentions he’s not very physically strong, he’s at least physically fit and fast in a fight.

Marty Stu is also intelligent and extremely useful. He can solve any scenario with his advanced knowledge of astrophysics, nuclear science or computer hacking. He has knowledge well in advance of his years, a skill he shares with Mary Sue. This means he can finish off any story with the least amount of tension or drama, much to the annoyance of any member who wants to create suspense in your roleplaying game.

Because Marty Stu is more about the action than Mary Sue (although of course Mary Sue could be an action hero too), writing about a Marty Stu makes you dangerously close to becoming a god modder.

Einstein Sue

Like the way Mary Sue is perfect at her job, Einstein Sue is the most intelligent character… ever. She (or he) will be the one that always comes up with the best solution to a problem, despite a team of equally qualified scientists thinking about the same problem.

This character type isn’t just limited to roleplaying or fanfiction, you’ll also see it in TV, films and books as it’s a way to roll several boring scientist geek characters into one so that you can consilidate the character development.

Copycat Sue

This is common in roleplay spinoffs from a TV or film series when a member creates a new character that is almost identical to one of the characters from the show. The member can’t think up an original character so they take the character from the show, copy their personality, their upbringing, and creates an identical character. A few things might vary from the original, like they might have swapped gender, or changed the hair colour, or removed a few character traits they weren’t quite sure about, but more or less it’s a copy of the original.

Sometimes the character might even have a similar name to the original, or possibly be a long-lost relative they didn’t know about.

Jerk Sue

A short tempered character who lashes out with her fists, usually at men. Jerk Sue is probably supposed to come across as a feisty, kick-ass, independent woman who can fight her own battles, but actually comes across as an unhinged mentalcase that bullies other characters into getting her own way.

Sympathetic Sue

A character full of angst, this is a type of Mary Sue who wants your sympathy. She’s normally a female character, as they’re generally more emotional characters but could easily also be a male. Sympathy Sue probably had abusive parents, had a hard time growing up on the streets, saw her parents killed or is the last of her species. She cries a lot and might resort to self harm.

In roleplay this could mean the writer has some problems, or wants some attention. Or it could be a genuine character that the member is quite happy to write. There’s a possibility that this character could be played well, and these quirks used to develop a character, but in the case of a Sympathetic Sue, the usual Mary Sue elements have to be there also, and the amount of problems a character has doesn’t equate to the unrealistic and exaggerated amount of depression they have.

Relationship Sue

A common trait of a Mary Sue character is that they’re the perfect girl, and that everyone loves them, so they’re all part Relationship Sue too. But a Relationship Sue is a character who’s only purpose in a story or roleplaying game is to be the girlfriend or wife of another character.

When they’re introduced, they’ll be the absolute ideal girlfriend for the main character, and will be the perfect match in every way.

Lemon Stu (also known as a Casanova)

Lemon Stu is a character usually in sexually explicit fanfiction (sometimes called lemon fiction). Lemon Stu is a sexual predator, he’s the type of character who can sleep with any woman he wants, as often as he wants.

Usually written by a hormonal teenager with a sexual appetite larger than his vocabulary or knowledge of character development.

Just like the Marty Stu, Lemon Stu is perfect at what he puts his efforts into, and this is sex. Lemon Stu will be the best sex his partner will ever have, and he’ll last as long as he wants (or as long as his parner likes). There’ be no awkwardness, nothing will go wrong, and he will perform perfectly every time. He most likely won’t even fall asleep after sex.

Villain Sue

Most villains are given incredible powers to make them hard to kill. Imagine a villain so powerful and so evil that they’re actually impossible to kill. That’s the Villain Sue. S/he is so good at being a villain that you can’t actually kill them. This type of character is usually played by a god modder.

Parody Sue

An intentional parody of a Mary Sue, when a Mary Sue character is created and used deliberately for a joke. Often in this case the name “Mary Sue” is actually used to let everyone else know it’s just a joke. Too much use of a Parody Sue can be just as annoying as the real thing.

If you want to know more about how to spot a Mary Sue see this article and for more variants of Mary Sue character types, see this article on TV Tropes.

– Steven Savage

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum and at MuseHack]

You have built a world. You know it’s origins and its ecology, you know it’s people and their religion, you know technology or sorcery (or both) thta they use. You have a world that is a living-breathing creation, all in your head, and your documents, and your stories.

It’s time to populate it with characters. Sure you’ve probably started early, but we are going in order here.

Most of us creating worlds have them populated with people to tell stories about or to play (in the case of the game). Characters in a way are the start and the result of worldbuilding – the result of the worldbuilding we do to have people to tell a story about. More on that later, however.

So, where do you characters fit into all of this? Well, let’s take a look. (more…)