Warrior, Wizard Rough Draft Preview

Hey, everyone!  Like I said, I’d be posting the rough draft of the opening scene of “Warrior, Wizard” when I finished it.  Keep in mind that this is still the rough draft of the scene, may end up only being part of the full scene, and probably has a lot of work that needs to be done yet.  This is solely for preview purposes.

So with no further ado, I present:

Warrior, Wizard

One kill.

That's all it was. One more dead body. One more outlander defeated. One out of dozens.

But that one kill was enough to make Jaren Manse sit down. To actually stop and think. Not to contemplate who the man was or where he came from or why he had come. No, he had stopped asking those questions hundreds of deaths ago. This man was important because he was not his kill, but Alera's. Jaren had held nothing back on this mission, but for the first time ever, Alera Quill had outperformed him.

Forty-seven. Forty-seven to his forty-six. It was one kill. Just one kill, Jaren told himself. It didn't matter. And besides, this is what he had wanted. The two of them stood on equal ground now. Alera could keep up with him.

He just hadn't expected to be so shaken by it.

He sat on a log on the beach and watched his partner lobbing fireballs at the outlanders' ships in the fog covering Lesaria's shores. Few discovered the land. Even fewer returned to tell the tale. It was, in large part, thanks to the League, a collection of guilds and adventurers acting as everything from mercenaries to postal service to military. All able-bodied peoples were welcome, and there were plenty of well-paying jobs, but there were few who truly gained glory and notoriety. Jaren realized that he and Alera now stood a very good chance of becoming a part of those few.

As the ships started to catch, Alera walked over and sat on the sand beside him. She was a pale-skinned lithe girl that Jaren thought of as short, though that was admittedly because most people were short relative to him. She exhaled deeply and brushed her long black hair out of her face. “That was a good day,” she said, looking up at him. The bleak mist really drew the color out of her violet-grey eyes. Jaren just nodded in response. “The mission went well, don't you think?” she prompted.

He nodded again. “Yeah,” he said distantly. “Yeah.” He managed to find himself again and turned to his partner. “You outperformed me today, you know. Good job.”

“What? Is that why you—you meathead!” She punched his shoulder, though he barely even felt it under his armor. “That's what's got you like this?” She gave a small chuckle and shook her head. “So how badly did I beat you?”

“Just one,” he said.

“One? Just one?” She laughed. “That's what has you like this? Please, Jaren, that's more of a tie than anything. Luck of the draw. Besides, we're being ranked together. It's not like the count even matters.”

He removed his helmet and let the cool ocean breeze dry the sweat against his face. “...Yeah. It's just...weird.” He looked over at her and saw that she was staring out at the burning ship, a distant look in her eyes as well.

“Yeah,” she echoed. “Weird. I'm as strong as you are now.”

“Yeah, it only took you eighteen years, too.”

She flicked a small ball of flame at him with a grin. “Oh shut up, Manse. Still,” she added as he swatted at the flame, “I'm really glad you stuck with me all these years.”

“I'm glad too. You know, I think we stand a chance of making the lists this year.”

“What, us? There's only two of us.”

“And Ezeo Nohr was only one man, but look at what he accomplished.”

Alera laughed and stood, taking Jaren's hand and pulling him to his feet. “Ah, yes, Master Ezeo. Remind me again, is he on par with the gods, or greater than them?”

He gave her a playful shove. “Shut up! He's an impressive man, you runt.”

“This runt beat you today, meathead.”

“Yeah, well, enjoy it while you can. You know that there's no way I'm letting that happen again.”

“As if!” She grinned. “I've tasted victory now. I won't let it slip past me so easily anymore.”

They joked and talked like that on their way back to the League. The organization had started as just a single, simple guild hall, but had grown larger as dormitories were added for adventurers. Additions to the hall were needed to accommodate the League's growth. Blacksmiths and enchanters flocked in to sell their wares. The League expanded as its fame and popularity increased. In the three years that Jaren and Alera had been members, it had finally overtaken the city. What had once been known as Amnestia City was now simply the League. Many of the same shops remained, but vendors knew their sales base consisted of two groups: adventurers and tourists.

“So the Winter's Requiem have invited us and Deadeye out tonight,” Jaren said as they entered the city gates. “Celebrating the outlander defeat today.”

“Really? Is Ashna coming this time?”

Jaren thought. The reptilos man wasn't exactly shy, but.... “I'm not sure. I wouldn't expect him. He's not fond of being around so many humans.”

Alera rolled her eyes. “Why doesn't he just invite some more repitolos? Does he not get any say? Anyway, I assume you're planning on going?”

“Of course. They're footing the bill. I'm not going to pass on a free meal.”

“And Deadeye will be there.”

He hesitated. “Okay, yes, and Deadeye will be there, but come on, Alera. Free food. You're going, aren't you?”

“Of course,” she said, doing her best imitation of his voice. “They're footing the bill. I'm not going to pass on a free meal.”

“Hey, Quill, remind me again why I didn't dump you with the first guild I could to go solo?”

“Because you know I'd make you look bad in the lists.”

He shook his head. “Don't get cocky, yet, Quill.”

“Don't get cocky yourself, Jaren. We did good today, but we've got a long way to go before we make the lists. Think we can do it within the year?”

He put on a great show of thinking hard about it before answering in his best imitation of her. “What do you think, meathead?” It was, admittedly, not a very good imitation. Water splashed out of a nearby trough as they passed to splash him as the mage took her revenge.

“Come on, Jaren,” she told him. “Let's pick up the pace. We've got dinner to catch, and I'm famished.”

He grinned. “Agreed. C'mon, I bet we can rack the bill up enough to make Drolm actually faint this time!”

***

Well, that’s how the story opens.  There’s a lot I’d like to change yet.  The whole scene feels a bit too dialogue-heavy, several of the names of things may change (though the names of the protagonists and Meela “Deadeye” Ran, Ashna Szil, and Arten Drolm will probably remain mostly the same), and I can probably write it much better once I’ve got the full story laid out in front of me instead of just half of it.

Thoughts, though?  How did you like it?  Any suggestions that I’ll want to keep in mind when rewriting?  Let me know!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #3: Worldbuilding

It’s that time of the year again: holiday season.  The time of the year that pretty much guarantees that I’m too busy or too distracted to write.  However, while I haven’t been able to sit down and actually write on Warrior, Wizard, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on it—or at least on the larger universe surrounding it.

Yes, I’ve been doing worldbuilding.  Here’s a bit of what I’ve got so far.

I’m focusing primarily on the human customs at the moment.  I’ll be delving into the reptilos, ogre, and gnome cultures more in the future (also possibly renaming the races as all those names are just working descriptions), but they don’t show up in Warrior, Wizard very prominently since our two primary characters are male.

The place I decided to start with my society was by bucking some standard fantasy conventions.  Fantasy is so frequently a genre that elevates the “fair” above all else.  Going by the four most standard fantasy races, the elves are prettiest and therefore the best, the humans are below the elves but run pretty much everything else, the dwarves are demoted to comic relief and get no respect, and the ugly orc knockoffs are savage beasts unfit for more than being canon fodder.

I really wanted to avoid that and did so by taking a different direction with beauty and race.  There are four main skin tones among humans.  I can’t exactly describe the tones since I’m not really an expert on skin tones (I live in a very homogenized location), but going with the Fitzpatrick Scale as my indicator of skin tone, the tones would probably be about 2, 3.5, 4.5, and 6, with the two middle tones being the most common and the lightest tone being the minority.  I want to give the world a more Mediterranean feel than the Medieval British Isles feel that most fantasy has.

I’ve also been thinking about “beauty” and what is and isn’t “attractive” in this world.  As we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  It’s relative, and different societies in the past have had different standards of beauty.  This society favors the strong, so I’m trying to reflect that into the standards of beauty.  Neither the portly nor skinny are particularly valued: instead it is the strong.  With the physical fighters this is obviously seen in muscle, but with mages, it’s more a manner of how they hold themselves—and the apparel they wear.  A mage can get by on being slender (though being particularly thin would generally indicate malnourishment) because they wear robes denoting their strength.

Two practices are also fairly common: tattooing and decorative scarring.  Both are generally regarded as fairly ritualistic and are almost always done to commemorate special accomplishments, so it’s not like everyone is walking around covered in tattoos and/or scars.  Also, naturally obtained scars are considered highly attractive and sharing “scar stories” is a very common icebreaking conversation.

Which brings us to gender in society.  I specifically wanted to avoid writing a patriarchy, but also didn’t want to write a matriarchy.  I think a large part of why patriarchies evolve is because men generally have more natural strength than women.  So the men would hunt and the women would take on a social role, and men have ruled the world while women rule the men from that point on.  However, magic throws a wrench into things.  With a skill based on study and intellect that trumps pure strength, men and women have been pretty much on equal standings.  This leads to a lot more women who are actually physical fighters.  No one’s telling them they can’t.  Skill’s not a gender issue, and with enchantment and enhancement, it’s not like physical strength is the final say in everything. 

It also led me to think about the family structure.  Since characters have both first and last names, who do they take their surname from?  What are surnames like after marriage?  I had several different paths I could have taken with this.  One was joint names like some couples do now.  Of course, this could potentially end up with someone taking both their parents names ad nauseum and after just a few generations you end up with a John Smith-Doe-Miller-Wayne-Anderson-Richards-Smith-Koerner.  Another option was for the males to take the father’s name and the females to take the mother’s name, like a family I know.  However, I didn’t really like that idea, and I had already given Alera and her father the same surname.  Those were the same issues with the child having a different surname from the parents altogether.  I finally decided, though, that a new surname was chosen upon marriage.  Sometimes one half of the couple would keep their name or a name would be chosen in reference to one of them.  After all, names and the standing they have can mean a lot.  For example, I imagine that there was a Manse Smith (the surname here isn’t particularly important), and his son and said son’s wife took “Manse” as their surname.  The name “Manse” was passed on for generations to Jaren Manse.  If Jaren gets married, he’d probably insist on keeping the name as well.

So yeah, those are some of the little pieces of the society that I’ve been focusing on.  And from the types of things they are, you might think it’s an attempt to be politically correct or “progressive” in my writing.  In reality, though…it’s not.  It’s really just my attempt to make a world different than ours, and different than standard fantasy.  Medieval Europe is far too stock, so I blended it with a bit of ancient Rome and Greece.  Elves and dwarves are commonplace, so I wrote them down on a list of things I wanted to do, crossed them off and marked them with a big “NO.”  Humans are generally limited to a single Caucasian race, so I made the lighter-skinned humans the minority.  Elves being held up as the standard of beauty just annoys me, so I went a different direction with it.  As for the role of gender?  That’s largely a holdover from early Fire Emblem inspirations that I wanted to keep.  In The Sacred Stones, I’d take Amelia over Gillam just as soon as I’d take Joshua over Marisa.  And besides, you’ve got magic in the equation.  When Lute (the biggest inspiration for Alera) is flinging fireballs around like nothing to take out enemies three times her size, it really makes you resent females in fantasy being reduced to the white magic girls. 

So I guess maybe there is a little gender equality behind that particular choice because turning all female fantasy characters into nuns is stupid.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking on lately.  There have been a few other things, like some customary greetings (a kiss on the forehead between males), common forms of entertainment (theatre has grown very popular in the last few years), and the color of robes mages wear (a fairly simple system that will tell you what mage class and disciplines they are at a glance).  However, those are some of the more notable social things.  I hope you enjoyed reading about them, and I hope they excite you for that preview that I have coming!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #2

Well, as you may have guessed, I was unable to finish WW this November.  It’s probably not even going to be finished this December.  However, I’m making more progress. 

I’ve finished all the “past” scenes, save for one that I might edit out completely (Alera’s Class I ceremony) because I’ve already written a similar scene (her Class III ceremony) and it may end up becoming fairly redundant.  At the moment, I’m in the process of writing the opening scene, which I’ll put on the blog as a preview when I finish with it.

Warrior, Wizard continues to be something of a struggle, but I think I’m finally getting into the flow of things.  Jaren and Alera’s characters are slowly starting to come together a bit more and I feel more comfortable writing them.  The writing still feels like a trainwreck, of course, but hopefully a rewrite will change that.  Who knows, maybe I’ll just alternate between writing the “forwards” scenes and rewriting the “backwards” scenes I’ve already written.

My plans now are less “try to get it published as a short story” and more “publish it as an e-book and see how that goes.”  While I would have loved to get it published by an actual publisher so that I could attach a name to it, I’m far more likely to find an audience on Kindle and Nook than to find anyone who’d publish this story (currently around 10,000 words).

While I haven’t had a lot of time to actually sit down and write or the ability to make much progress when I do, I have been working some on the world.  I’ve been trying to develop some characters from other guilds that we only get passing glances at, work on bits of the setting that are only implied, and develop races and other things that don’t feature prominently in the story.  I’d really like to revisit this world after I’m done with this story.  Maybe not write big, multi-volume stories in it like most writers.  Just write shorter stories, unconnected except for a few events that tie the world together.  Kind of like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, only shorter and not actually anything like Discworld.

Anyway, that’s the status on WW so far.  I’ll put up the opening scene when I finish it.  Look forward to it!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #1

Things are not going as planned.

I thought "Warrior, Wizard" would be fun!  Because writing is fun!  I love writing because of how fun it is!

Naturally, I've spent so much time not writing that I've forgotten that writers only pretend writing is fun so that they don't go Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs.

I think the thing that's getting to me is the length.  WW is getting daunting because it's a short story that's apparently pretty long.  I'm not breaking it up into chapters because, at this point, I can't.  I wouldn't even know how to since I'm writing it chronologically, a word that in this case means, ironically, out of the proper order.  Even when I finish it, I don't think it's going to feel like a "chapter" story.

This is different from pretty much everything I've written before.  Most of what I've written have been chapters for novel-length projects or updates for blogs (which are like chapters, only shorter and there's more of them).  Chapters are usually about 5-10 pages long in my usual style (12 pt Times New Roman, single-spaced--I'm an idiot who hasn't quite figured out how to measure length by word count).  The few short stories I've written have also been around that length. 

But WW?  I'm twelve pages into it.  I've just passed the 7000-word mark.  And here's the thing: I'm not even half done with it yet.  It is easily twice as long as I expected it to be.

That's not to say that I haven't made good progress in it.  I don't have time to write at NaNoWriMo speeds (and it's clear that even "finish WW" is going to be an unrealistic goal for the month), but at least half of that has been written this month.  And while I'm not to the halfway point, I'm close to it.  I only have a few more scenes to write.  And then a few more that I had skipped over.  But then I'm to the turning point, where Alera and Jaren are at approximately the same strength.

Which means that I'm finally almost to the beginning.  Non-linear order is weird like that.

I've also been brainstorming on the world some.  After some long, hard, consideration and weighing all my possibilities, I've come to the enlightening conclusion that it's all just a bunch of shit that doesn't matter in the first draft.  Sure, I can toss it ahead of me and slog through it, but all I've accomplished is that I've made a mess and everything stinks of poo.  No, what I should be doing is focusing on planting the story, and then taking that same crap and sprinkling it behind me afterwards to fertilize it.

But back to the length.  Let's say that, at my "not-quite-halfway" approximately 7000 words, I'm actually at half because I look back and say "there's a lot I can cut out."  Double that so that I've got 14,000-16,000 words for the finished product.  That's an awkward length.  For comparison, NaNoWriMo's goal for "completed novel" is 50,000 words.  The first Harry Potter book (i.e., the shortest) is about 77,000 words.  Meanwhile, flash fiction is about 500 words or less, short stories run from about 1500 words (pretty darn short) to 5000 words (pretty long).  Get up near 10,000 and it's hard to call it a short story anymore. 

So if I can't cut a whole lot off of WW (since I certainly can't/won't pad it to four or five times the length), what exactly is it going to be?  Apparently, that puts it somewhere between "novelette" and "novella."  And since I hope I can actually publish this story, who exactly do I go to?  Sure, you've read short stories in magazines or anthologies.  And I'm certain you've read novels.  But novellas and novelettes?  They're not exactly common.  As much as I'd like to try getting it published somewhere that actually has some repute, I may have to try to find a market for it on an e-reader.  Who knows?  Maybe it'll catch on.

Of course, if this whole story turns out to be a steaming pile of salvageable junk, I'll be upset.  Maybe a synonym for upset.  Livid, maybe.  Yeah, I like that.  Let's go with livid.

Anime First Impressions: The World God Only Knows

Who doesn't love dating sims?

What?  Lots of people?  Okay, that's fair.  But one the people who doesn't love dating sims isn't Keima Katsuragi.  Keima is a dating sim-obsessed sixteen-year-old boy who is known as "The God of Conquest" on the Internet.  There is no dating sim he cannot beat.  No heroine he cannot conquer.  No challenge that he cannot overcome.

Oh, and also, he doesn't even look twice at real girls.

Yes, Keima states that "reality is a crappy game."  Which is unfortunate for him, considering that he ends up accepting a contract with a cute little demon girl to help capture "loose souls" around the city by entering girls hearts to replace the evil spirits.  The boy who won't look twice at a girl now has to make them fall in love with him.

It's difficult to say how exactly I feel about this show after the first four episodes.  When I heard the concept, I was intrigued and wanted to check it out.  However, it actually seems kind of generic.  While I'm enjoying it, it's just doesn't really have that spark I'm looking for.  The characters aren't particularly memorable, it's not particularly clever, not particularly funny, and not particularly deep.  It's a nice little parody of dating sim tropes, yes, and I like watching how he figures out how to "win" each girl's "route," but I guess I just expected more from it.

It's not bad so far.  I don't know if it'll get better, but I'm going to keep watching for now.

Gaming Reflections: The World Ends With You

I am not a Square Enix fan.  I'll admit that.  It's not that I dislike Square Enix; not at all.  It's just that I've played almost none of their games.  I grew up without owning a gaming console, and by the time I knew about Final Fantasy, I didn't have access to the games, as any Game Boy Advance ports were out of stores.  I've never had the chance to play Kingdom Hearts.  So how can I hate Square Enix?  But more importantly, how could I like Square Enix?

I really don't know what it was that encouraged me to seek out The World Ends With You, then.  Maybe it was Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's favorable review of it, when most of Zero Punctuation is dedicated to accentuating the negative.  Maybe it was the "Player Pin" decal I kept seeing everywhere.

You might not recognize this, but it's pretty recognizable to certain circles of gamers.

But whatever the reason, I decided that I'd give this game a shot since I owned a Nintendo DS and everything.  And I was not disappointed.

I'll admit that I'm not a gamer.  I really don't play a lot of games.  But I'm a critic.  The hardest part of making a "Top 5 Favorite Games" list for me isn't deciding which games are better than the others.  It's finding games I loved enough to put in a Top 5 list.  But TWEWY?  It easily takes my #2 spot (second only to Majora's Mask, which I love enough to write a pseudo-dissertation on.  Nothing's usurping that).  Why?  I'm glad you asked.  What?  You didn't ask?  Well I'm going to tell you anyway.

First of all the game flawlessly integrates story with gameplay.  Of the games I've played, only Portal has done as well.  This is because the entire story is based around the protagonist competing in an otherworldly game.  The game masters force Neku to complete certain tasks to get to certain places, require him to battle monsters, etc.  This story seems to have been formatted to work best as a video game, since the story itself is also based around a game.  There are monsters you have to face called Noise, and instead of fighting them as random encounters, you scan for them and choose to battle them.  You can grind for pins/money and experience when you want to, and you can just ignore the Noise when you want to.  There are, naturally, some story-forced battles, and later on there are some Noise that actively pursue you (though these can still mostly be avoided), but for the most part, you get to choose when and how you battle the Noise.  In fact, if you're well-enough prepared, you can run through the game and only engage in as many battles as are absolutely necessary.

This leads me into the second point: the replay value.  If you don't need to grind, why should you?  Because Noise drop pins, which are, in this game, both your weapons and your money.  And there are a lot of pins.  304 different types, to be exact.  Most of these pins level up after use, and will either max out or evolve at a certain level.  Whether or not a pin evolves is based on what type of experience it gains: Battle PP (gained during battles), Shutdown PP (gained by turning off the game), or Mingle PP (gained by "mingling," where you gain points for either encountering other people using wi-fi or just random encounters).  Even ignoring the desire to strive for 100% completion that games naturally evoke in people, training and evolving pins is fun because you get to see their different effects.  The gameplay changes drastically based on what type of pins you choose to equip.

On top of that, there's plenty of replay value in the story.  I'm going to keep it as spoiler-free as possible, but there are a lot of different agendas colliding with each other, some of which you might not even catch on the first playthrough.  About five characters have notable goals that are all opposing each other and our protagonist, Neku.  After you beat the game, replaying the story will do two things: first, completing the missions for each level will unlock secret reports that provide additional information about the world and some of the characters.  Second, the storyline is filled with brilliant foreshadowing that you almost certainly wouldn't have picked up on the first time around.  The second playthrough will provide new insight on one character, but after you've read all the secret reports, the third playthrough will provide you with insight on yet another.

The third point reason I love TWEWY so much is its brilliant use of a learning curve.  The game not only allows you to select your difficulty (Normal as a default, and then Easy, Hard, and Ultimate after you unlock them in that order), but to level down.  Why would you want to level down?  Well, while adjusting the level nets you different pin drops (and consequently requires you to play on Easy at times to get certain pins), lowering your level increases the chances of a pin drop.  In fact, to get all the pins from the Gatito brand, you'll need to face some of the most difficult bosses on Ultimate difficulty at very low levels.  This provides a wonderful challenge even after you've mastered regular combat.

And while I've touched on the story already, I'd like to bring the writing up as the my fourth point.  Not only is the story wonderfully complex with memorable characters and great dialogue, there are also some wonderful themes and motifs.  The central theme of the game is, I'd say, opening up to the world around you.  But it's the motifs I'd really like to talk about.  Shibuya (the Japanese city where the game takes place) is, in this world, a very trend-conscious place.  You gain boosts or deductions in power depending on whether your pins and threads (i.e., clothes) are trendy or not in any particular area.  Hate unequipping everything all the time?  Don't worry; it's not too big of a deal, and enough battles in an area will actually make the trends turn in your favor. 

But I digress. 

Trends are based around thirteen brands: Mus Rattus, Jupiter of the Monkey, Wild Boar, Hip Snake, Tigre Punks, Pegaso, Natural Puppy, Dragon Couture, Sheep Heavenly, Pavo Real, D+B, Lapin Angelique, and Gatito.  Have you picked up on what these brands have in common?  If you're sharp, you'll notice that most of them (actually all of them) have animal motifs.  If you're very sharp (and have played the game to pick up on the more obscure ones (like D+B) through context), you'll notice that these animals are all the animals in the Chinese Zodiac, plus the cat.  This isn't really tied into the game too particularly much, but it's pretty cool.  Likewise, the seven "metal" pins (Scarlite, Rare Metal, Tektite, Adamantite, Orichalcum, Shadow Matter, and Dark Matter) all have a color and a number of gems on them.  Scarlite is red with one gem.  Rare Metal is orange with two.  From there, it continues with ascending numbers of gems as their colors move through the colors of the rainbow.  Again, not that important to the game, but a neat detail.

The more noticeable theme is the motif of music.  Neku is always wearing headphones, which he uses to shut himself out from the world.  But on closer inspection, most of the world of TWEWY uses musical motifs.  The person who created the Underground is the Composer, the one who runs the game is the Conductor, and there's a person whose title is the Producer as well (though going into that further spoils a few things).  Beings can move between different planes by lowering the "frequency" of their soul's "vibe."  And unlike the other motifs/patterns, this fits in much better with the story.

And speaking of the music, it's great.  It's maybe not my style, but it's still very enjoyable, especially the song that plays over the closing credits (don't worry, no spoilers--as long as you stay away from the comments).  Do yourself a favor when you play and wear a pair of decent headphones, which vastly enhance the experience.  The DS's speakers do not do the music justice.

Finally, there's the controls.  Lots of people think that the Nintendo DS is gimmicky.  I won't lie, it kind of is.  Every game seems to shoehorn in the microphone or touch controls when they're not necessarily needed.  Well, TWEWY makes extensive use of both the touch controls and the microphone.  But it does it in a way that's natural instead of gimmicky.  You can be using up to six pins in battle, and they all need different commands.  From blowing into the microphone to slashing an enemy to tapping an enemy to drawing a circle and more, there are plenty of varied and distinct commands that work well because you need that many distinct commands so that the controls are distinct and the DS can pick up on them.  Why not just use the buttons instead?  Well, because the D-pad or the ABXY buttons (depending on whether you're right or left-handed) control your partner, while the stylus controls Neku.  The combat is challenging, but insanely fun, and the touch controls work well instead of seeming obtrusive.

I've said earlier that Madoka Magica is about the closest thing to a "perfect show" that I've ever seen.  Well, The World Ends With You is about the closest thing to a "perfect game."  Now, this obviously doesn't mean that it's the best game ever (as evidenced by my ranking it second to Majora's Mask), but it's an amazing game that's worth playing.  If you own a DS, you need to play this game.  Buy it, even.  It's worth the price.

What's that?  You don't have a DS because you don't do a lot of handheld gaming?  That's fair.  I don't expect you to go out and drop about $100 for a used DS and TWEWY cartridge, just so you can play one game.  However!  Fairly recently, the game was ported to iOS as "The World Ends With You: Solo Remix."  You can now play TWEWY on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.  While there are obviously some differences between it and the DS version (being short a screen will do that to you), and while I can't vouch for it myself, I've heard that they did a very good job with the port.  If you're willing to shell out $18, an admittedly steep price that I still think is totally worth it, you can play it too.  Seriously, play it if you get the chance.

What, you're not going out to buy it at this very second?  So zetta slow!

All other games are garbage!  CRUNCH!  I'll add them to the heap!

NaNoWriMo and Warrior, Wizard plans

If you haven't heard of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, it's basically an attempt to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.  It's not about writing a good novel, just about getting the words down.  Quantity over quality.  Editing can wait until December.

I've attempted to do it for a few years now, and failed each time because of distractions.  So this year, I've decided not to participate.  Instead, I'm going to push myself to finish "Warrior, Wizard."

I've been working pretty hard on WW.  Not the actual writing part, but the preplanning part, which is taking a lot longer than I've expected.  Once I started writing, I realized that I needed to know how my magic system worked.  And once I started writing again, I realized that I also needed to know how exactly my world worked.

At this point, I've decided that while the "Warrior, Wizard" I finally release to...wherever it is I release it will be a final draft, it's also not going to be the final final draft.  It's more like a beta release, or a pilot episode, since I plan to revisit the world of Lesaria.  Or maybe not Lesaria, since the name is definitely not final.  I like the world I've started setting up, and I'd like to refine it.  History, themes of racism, the world outside of the isolated island it's set on, the political dynamics, the different cultures and subcultures...these are all things I'd love to explore, but WW is not the story to do that.  WW exists to tell the story of Jaren and Alera, and in this case, brevity is the soul of wit.  A reader doesn't need to know who Caro Plith is or what influence he had on the study of magic since Jaren is our POV character and probably doesn't even know who Plith is.

So after I've gotten the basics of the world nailed down a bit more (which I've almost finished), the plan is to write.  Try to push out at least one scene a day until I've gotten the whole timeline done.  Put the scenes in the order I'd like them.  Look at how it works, then remove, add, and change scenes until I find something that works.  Tweak them to make them flow together better.  That should be the point where I can officially say that the story has moved from "rough draft" to "completed first draft."  Then I find some people who can give me feedback.  Get critique, edit accordingly, and rewrite until I'm satisfied.

What will I do when I'm finished with it?  I'm not sure.  I might send it in to a few places.  See if I can get it published.  Experience the joys of rejection letters.  I've only gotten one so far, so it'd be nice to get a few more before I can get anything published.  And then?  Then I set it aside for a while.  Work on another project.  Actually get some things written before I come back to Lesaria, because why on earth would anyone want to work on a single project?

I mean, come on.  That's just ridiculous.