From Games to Fiction

by Matthew Lowes

The history of fiction inspired by games goes back at least to the 1970s when the first Dungeons & Dragons inspired novels were released. If we count gladiatorial games we might push this back to the Roman era. And if we count the “game of life” we can push it back to dawn of humanity and the very origins of story telling. In any case, there are enough examples, both good and bad, to discuss some of the issues involved with writing a story inspired by a game.

When I first designed the first Dungeon Solitaire card game, I couldn’t have foreseen the success we would have with the expanded Labyrinth of Souls game. And when that game launched, I couldn’t have foreseen that there would soon be a series of Labyrinth of Souls novels. When that opportunity arose, thanks largely to writer Elizabeth Engstrom and writer & publisher Christina Lay, I felt strongly that there were some game-inspired fiction pitfalls that we should avoid.

Games with a narrative element, like Dungeon Solitaire, lend themselves to fiction because the game itself is designed to generate narratives. Once involved with the game, the mind is already spinning stories. However, game narratives and fiction narratives have some key differences. And as a writer of fiction engaging with game-related material, one should be clear about this.

Game narratives are generated through game-play. They are generally open ended, often meandering, and sometimes surprisingly random or short. Dungeon Solitaire is a good example. The game is a kind of hero’s journey, and can generate some classically structured narratives. But it is also possible to die on the first turn, or to lose the dragon-battle or get lost forever, right where the classic story would end in victory. In a game, that’s all part of the fun. What’s going to happen is really unknown, and like life, there is an element of randomness to the outcomes.

Good fiction, on the other hand, is always a kind of optimized or archetypal narrative. Take thousands of games played, or thousands of lives lived, and artfully choose from them the most satisfying and illuminating narrative structures and elements. That’s what fiction does. It is a kind of distillation of the game or life narrative into its most essential and moving forms. No book randomly ends after the first chapter. And no good book sets up one ending and then delivers a completely different one. The archetypal narrative forms, like the gods, must somehow be appeased for the beauty of fiction to flourish.

   

With all this in mind, I wanted the Labyrinth of Souls novels to be good fiction first and foremost. We had a lineup of incredibly talented fiction writers and they had to be free to do what they do best. The idea of the Labyrinth was broad enough to encompass a broad range of stories, without limiting authors to any predetermined setting or time period. And that’s one of the things I find so exciting about the novels so far. Although they all involve a journey into an underworld labyrinth of some sort, each one is entirely unique.

In creating something inspired by something else, we are still creating something new. So when writing fiction inspired by a game, it is primarily important to fulfill all the requirements of good fiction. Evoking the game in some way is necessary, of course, but only of secondary importance. Any constraining requirements should be kept to a minimum. For inspiration reaches its greatest potential when it happens with the greatest liberty to explore one’s own ideas.

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You can learn more about Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls and download the free PDF of Dungeon Solitaire: Tomb of Four Kings at matthewlowes.com. Discover Labyrinth of Souls fiction titles and follow new releases at shadowspinnerspress.com.

Team Work

By Elizabeth Engstrom

About two years ago, Matthew Lowes, game writer/designer, asked me to edit the rule book for his new game, Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls. I got the manuscript, but it didn’t have any of the charts, graphs, or illustrations of the finished book. I couldn’t really follow the instructions, so I just carried on, looking for typos, sentence structure awkwardness, etc. Much of it was repetitive, as there are the Basic Rules, then the Expert Rules, which includes the Basic Game. Then the Rules for Two Players, which includes the rules for the Advanced Game, which of course includes the rules for the Basic Game. You get the idea. So my work was rote, and gave my imagination time to roam.

In the game, the player delves into the underground Labyrinth, there to meet monsters (Really? What kind of monsters?), find treasure (Really? What kind of treasure?), and encounter and endure all manner of adventures. At some point, the player must weigh how many resources he has left in order to turn around and make it back out of the labyrinth before losing all his light, or his food, or his life.

It’s a fun game. While reading through the rule book without real comprehension, I started to wonder: Who would delve into the underground labyrinth, and why? Pretty soon I had an idea. And then I had an idea of what kind of monsters that particular character would encounter, and what kind of treasure he would search for and find, or not find.

I finished editing, and when I returned the manuscript back to Matt, I said, “I could write a novel based on this game scenario.”

Fast forward six months. The game came out to great acclaim, the accompanying deck of Tarot Cards with art by Josephe Vandel is exquisite, and a small group of writers got together to learn to play. Within a couple of weeks, ten or so authors signed on to write books loosely based on the Labyrinth of Souls.

My book is the first one to drop, only because I finished it first. Published by ShadowSpinners Press, authors to come include Matthew Lowes himself, Christina Lay, Eric Witchey, Stephen Vessels, John Reed, Mary Lowd, Pamela Herber, Cheryl Owen-Wilson, Cynthia Ray, and likely others. We plan a big launch of the first five books at this November’s World Fantasy Convention in  San Antonio, Texas.

The best part of this experience has been being part of the team. We’re all stupendously supportive of each other as we encourage the writing, the rewriting, the editing, the promotion. We even had a memorable weekend away, where instead of partying, the great room was silent except for the quiet tapping of keyboards. We helped each other that weekend with plot, character, and setting, and talked about the unique problems of writing a book that takes place underground. I’m not much for collaboration, but if this is what it tastes like, I will gladly change my opinion. I’ve read three of the novels-to-come, and they are extraordinary, each entirely different from one another.

I invite you to join us in the Labyrinth of Souls, to read these books as they come out, one every month, and bask, as I have, in the astonishingly unique vision each author has for this world.

The Art of Creative Frittering (and Creative Napping too)

By Lisa Alber

On July 1st, I began writing a brand-spanking hold-your-horses new first draft, and it was a little painful, to be honest. Wait, what, I need to use my right brain now? But I want to analyze my idea to death into foooorever … It takes me awhile to disengage from the left brain and just start. It’s like wandering off a cliff; we’d all resist that, wouldn’t we?

Luckily, I’ve walked off this cliff enough to know that I float rather than fall. Or maybe I fall a little, but I never do the Wiley Coyote kersplat. Writing first drafts ends up being a wild ride, that’s for sure, but I always survive.

I have to give myself a hard start date, whether I feel ready or not. Hence, July 1st. I’m calling the draft “The Shadow Maiden.” My goal is 1,000 words (about four pages) per day for July, and then I’ll pause to engage my left brain in a little analysis: Does the story have chops? What have I learned about the story, characters, their motivations, and so on? What adjustments should I make now so I can continue in a better-thought-out direction?

That will be fun, but right now, I’m Little Miss Right Brain with my brainstorming novel notebook and Kaizen creativity tiny steps and pints o’ beer to help lube the wheels. (Not every day, but, yes, sometimes.) I’ll revise the shit out of anything, and I’ll do it with focus for hours, but first-draft writing? Some days it goes smoothly; other days I spend all day to get my 1,000 words.

ALL DAY. I’m not sure why this is. To an outside observer, I probably look addled. Walking around. Sitting down at the laptop again to tap out a hundred words. Unloading half the dishwasher and wandering away. Staring into space while scratching my dog’s tummy. Spacey. Distracted. It’s not relaxing, per se, because I can feel my brain inside my head (like, literally, man), heavy with unconscious processing.

I call this creative frittering, and it has a different feel from generalized putzing or procrastinating or being lazy.

Summer is my best season for writing first drafts because gardening provides a perfect outlet on creative frittering days. In fact, I’m proud to say that Manolo, the man who helps me out a few hours a month (big yard), always comments on how good the yard looks, especially the weeds — or lack of them, I should say. Yep, that’s me on creative frittering days, doing his job for him. But the garden does look pretty darned good, if I do say so.

Is there an art to creative frittering? I think so. It’s waking with the intention to write that day, but then, oddly, giving yourself the time and space to “be” without striving for the end outcome. Most of us don’t have much time to spare, and that’s true for me too. Yet, my creative process orders me to allow space for creative frittering anyhow. Mind you, it’s not every day. Maybe once a week at most. Maybe my brain needs to fill up its well, I don’t know. And sometimes, nothing works, and I don’t get my 1,000 words in, and I have to be OK with that because I’m only human.

The art of creative frittering also includes the art of creative napping. Straight up, no joke, scout’s honor. TRUTH. Here’s a great example: Last Saturday, I was particularly restless, not knowing what to do with the current scene or with myself in my body. Even gardening didn’t work. Then I realized I might as well do the exact opposite, lie down. Weird realization: The reason I couldn’t sit still to write or do much of anything was because I actually did need to rest awhile. I was so relaxed on the couch with Fawn, my eight-pound little nugget pup, nestled against me, picturing the characters in the scene, dozing off … And then, A-HA! followed by a mad dash to find my novel notebook before I lost my brilliant idea.

See? Napping, the next best thing to frittering.

I hope you enjoy these pictures of my garden, the end result of last year’s creative frittering while writing PATH INTO DARKNESS (out in a month!) and this year’s.

What say you to creative frittering, or just frittering? Do you get impatient with yourself or go with the flow?

The Sound of Writing

By Cheryl Owen-Wilson

I recently attended a writer’s retreat where each morning after breakfast we’d sit around a large table, laptops open writing. The unique sound of many fingers hitting keys surrounded me. At some point in the morning, my coffee fueled brain kicked in and the end of a chapter began to unfold. In that moment I realized there was a specific rhythm to the tapping of my fingers against the keys. Is there anything more satisfying to a writer, than that very distinct sound when words naturally flow, revealing story, like the petals of a perfect flower opening?

On the flip side, when all around me was silent and my own fingers lay frozen on the keys I yearned for the sound to return. Many things have been written about famous author’s choices of writing tools. But while sitting in the silence of that room I wondered if the actual sound created by the tool itself, if that sound might have aided in the words created.

I recalled reading how Ernest Hemingway wrote on a typewriter while standing. What a visual it creates. But can’t you also hear the sound the keys made while striking the page to form each and every letter? Those old typewriters had a most distinct reverberation when the keys were struck. Could it have contributed to the intensity in his novels?

I wrote my first short story on an electric typewriter. To this day I can hear its soothing whir as it helped my words come forth.

 

Then there are writers who compose with a ballpoint pen. I’m always in awe of them. I’ve tried it. For every page I filled to the margins, I salvaged maybe five useable sentences. The remainder, were rendered as blobs of ink marked through again and again. I realize now, it was the scratch of the pen on paper. The sound. To me, it is nails on a chalkboard. And yet, when writing a quick note to work through an anger issue I might have, a pen, is my perfect instrument of choice —oh, wait—I get it.

Now let’s go back in time a little, to say, Shakespeare.   When I read his plays I know I will be immersed in the—to my ear—lyrical cadence of his words. They easily bring to my mind the visuals of his time; cobbled streets, thatched roofs, etc. But the other visual, I always have, is of a solitary man bent over a desk, quill in hand scratching words onto papyrus by the flickering of candlelight. Scratching, the scratching of the quills point against the porous page, seeing him having to stop and dip it into the inkpot again, and again. Could it have aided in the cadence of the words written? Would the same sentences have come forth, if perhaps he had at his disposal a graphite pencil? Heaven forbid he would have used it to erase, or replace, even one word of his poetic prose.

Now let’s go back even further to when words were carved into rock or stone. How precise must the writer have had to be before taking chisel in hand? Can you not hear the pounding as stone gave way to create a simple idea, word or visual of what the writer intended to convey? The crude instrument along with the sound it created. How could it not have shaped what was being written?

What sound does your chosen writing instrument make? If you changed it, would your writing change? If your writing could have the impact of Hemingway’s would you not gladly pound away on old typewriter keys?

Now I’m not suggestion you go out, with chisel in hand and find some stone. But then again—maybe I am. After all it does feel some days like that is exactly what we are doing, doesn’t it? Chiseling words from our brain and placing them carefully into our story. Now, I like the sound of that.

 

 

Marilyn, Perfectionism, and Quitting

By Lisa Alber

I spend last Friday night with Mom. One of our Friday movie nights. My mom is 85 years old and has dementia. She still lives at home with my sister who lives at home (not because of Mom, she just does) and two caretakers who come and go. We like to watch old movies together. Mom seems to be able to follow them, well enough anyhow.

Last Friday we watched an old Marilyn Monroe movie from before she hit sex symbol status. “Don’t Bother to Knock” (1952), a noir-ish thriller in which Monroe plays a deranged babysitter. I was fascinated by her performance. She was still herself, that Marilyn thing, but she wasn’t yet typecast or peroxide blond or shimmying rather than walking. She played dramatic quite well.

When I think about Marilyn Monroe, I think about perfectionism. It’s said that she was a perfectionist, and that this was one of her obstacles (among many) to getting to the set on time, to knowing her lines, to being prepared. She wasn’t a flake; she was crippled by the need to be perfect. It’s a low-self-esteem, all-or-nothing, kind of thing.

I know about this. I’m on that spectrum, but not extremely so. Thankfully. But just enough that I’ve had good discussions about it with my therapist. I had never considered myself a perfectionist. I mean, come on, I rarely make my bed. In person, I’m the disheveled sort. No perfectionism here!

Yeah, no. That’s not what perfectionism is, though it can look like perfectly coiffed hair and made beds. My perfectionism is more the getting-straight-As thing. The problem with perfectionism is that it is an illusion, and living in the land of illusion only causes suffering. I was thinking about all of this in March for my last post: A Confusing Lesson in Resistance and Illusion.

Perfectionism is all about trying to create your worth because your internal sense of self-worth isn’t the best ever. You think people will only like or love you if you’re perfect. You don’t have the sense that you’re worthy all on your own, just as you are. Isn’t that the sense we get from Marilyn Monroe? That she was chasing this illusion?

How exhausting. For me, like I mentioned, it’s more about getting As. I want to do well in my chosen activities. Novel writing is the activity that causes me the most suffering. Seriously. I could be as perfect as I could possibly be, write the best novel I know how to write, and get no joy — no contract or no sales or no reviews. That’s where the illusion lies: that I need all this stuff to be happy as a novelist, because then it will all be just PERFECT.

So what ends up happening? Instead of having a dream, the dream has us. It owns us. Everything is the illusion of that future place where everything is perfect, if only we could get there. So we strive, and strive, and find no satisfaction in our current place because we aren’t at that future perfect place yet. And, oh the suffering, because no matter how well we write (or do whatever it is) or fast we write, or how well we engage in social media or go on book tours that we have to pay for ourselves, we aren’t on the bestseller list — !

I’m exhausted just having written that. I’ve been in that striving place since 2001-ish. And, as I told a friend last night: “This may sound pessimistic, but I give up. I’m not going to strive anymore. I want to live my life, and I want to write novels as part of that, but I give up on being owned by the dream.”

I’ve decided to quit the dream. That’s it. And that may sound horrid, but it’s not. Because quitting the dream is quitting the illusion and the perfectionism and the unhealthy striving that goes along with all of that. In fact, “quitting” is quite possibly the healthiest thing I could do for myself right now. Quitting isn’t a bad thing even though it has a bad rap.

I’m not quitting writing — no way — and you’ll see a new novel out in August, and I’m working on something totally different right now. I’m just quitting the Marilyn Monroe.

If you’re curious about the quitting topic, check out this NPR “Freakonomics” broadcast about quitting: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-upside-of-quitting/

And here’s an article I found about perfectionism versus *healthy* striving, which clarified a few things for me: https://cmhc.utexas.edu/perfectionism.html

 

What The World Needs Now

by Christina Lay

For many years I had a Take Back The Night flyer pinned to my wall. On it was a simple abstract figure dancing and the words across the top read Take Up Space! As someone who was raised to be demure, polite, invisible and most importantly, quiet, this message meant a lot to me.

I’m not sure where that flyer went, but recently I’ve found myself thinking about it again. Perhaps like me you’ve been somewhat alarmed by recent political events. Okay, I’ll go ahead and say it; perhaps you were thrown into a spiral of despair when our country elected a bigoted sociopath to the highest office of the land. Perhaps you asked yourself what you as an individual could possibly do to counteract an apparent rising tide of hatred and ignorance.

I’m personally blessed to work and play in  environments where I’m surrounded by creative people who are literally working their hearts out to create art in dance, song, images and words. As you can imagine the stunned reaction was fairly universal amongst my friends and coworkers. But then of course everyone went about their business, which is to make art. I’ve always been a supporter of the arts, but in January I was seized by how extremely crucial it is to the health of our culture that individual expression does not wane in the face of disinterest, but grow, and take up space.

Even before the election there was a general reporting of abysmal attendance at the performances of local art groups and the trend continued on afterward. Speculation has it that people are too depressed, wary, unsure or economically strapped. Probably a combination of all those factors and more is keeping the more casual appreciator of the arts away from the theatres. But this is exactly the wrong time to hide in our houses. We need to step out and support each other, in any way we can.

As I listened to many people discuss what we can do in a world where close-mindedness seems to be the in thing, I looked at myself not just as a writer but as a citizen and human being and asked myself—what can I do? My first impulse was to buy more tickets to more things. Supporting creative expression seems more important than ever in a time when simple human empathy is being shouted down from every corner.

And then I looked a little closer at myself and decided it was time, not to isolate and circle the wagons, but to get out into the world. Take up more space. Interact with the humans. Express my humanity. I signed up for a drumming workshop and a European long sword demonstration, just to expand my creative mind and step out of my comfort zone, not to mention supporting the artists who were presenting them.

At the same time I stumbled across a local call to artists for an “Objects Afterlife” show in which artists are assigned a used object at random and asked to make a piece of art out of it. I’m not a visual artist but this sounded like fun and a good way to get out there, so I applied, paid my admission fee, and was assigned a tube of blue vinyl. I had no idea what I was doing but I had fun doing it, and for a brief time, I took up a little space on a gallery wall.

But what about the writing? In times like these, one might think a writer should turn away from fantasy and attempt to write something contemporary, politically-edged, “real”, or possibly a post-apocalyptic warning of the dire future we seem to be headed for. Alas, whenever I attempt to write fiction that is a direct response to what’s going on in the world, it comes off as pedantic and self-righteous. I think this is one reason we make art. Sometimes we have emotions that are just too overwhelming or powerful to express.  Some people, like my friend Cheryl Owen Wilson, whose artwork is below, can do it, but I’m not one of them.

The Guardian by Cheryl Owen-Wilson

So I turn to my fantasies and my fairy tales and ask, does this have value? I believe it does. Escapism gets a hard knock, but who would argue there is value in beauty, peace, comfort, and happiness, even if only temporary? On a basic level, this is what fantasy, romance, cozy mysteries, etc. provide. A place of refuge. A momentary respite into a world where the good guys win and Love trumps hate. I always remember a story, and I wish I could remember where it came from, about a holocaust survivor who spoke in later years of how important it was for him in his depths of despair to know that somewhere in a world gone dark, someone was penning a beautiful symphony.

On a deeper level than ordinary expression, art allows us to explore depths that are hidden to us in the day-to-day living of our “mundane” lives. Art no matter the form or presentation is full of archetype, symbols that speak to our souls, souls that are often buried beneath a mountain of survival tactics and walls. Art is reality in disguise, attempting to slip past the guards of reason in order to whisper to the heart.

In times when so many people are more afraid than ever, confused, possibly full of anger and hate, the magic of art is crucial to the survival of the spirit. If you open your heart to them, fictional tales are immensely real and I believe this applies to all art and creative expression. Dance, music, theatre, painting, you name it- we need to do it, and we need to consume it. No matter what form the expression takes, it must be done, or our culture will wither and shadow will fill the empty spaces.

 

 

Free Yourself From Your Work

by Matthew Lowes

The experience of hesitation just before one starts writing is something all writers have probably felt at some time. Whether from doubt of our abilities, the fear of what might come out, or the aversion to collapsing our grand nebulous ideas into something concrete, we hesitate, sometimes only for a moment, and sometimes for a lifetime. In the middle of a big project, doubt may seize us and again we hesitate, certain the work is a mess. Likewise, when we have expressed ourselves freely and fully, we may hesitate to rewrite and to put it out there, to let others see what we have done. And all these fears, all these doubts and hesitations, spring from one simple thing. We identify ourselves with our work.

In this day and age, when we are encouraged to brand our work and our identities to suit the market, this tendency to internally identify with our work finds ample reinforcement. It may prevent some from writing all together. It may prevent some from finishing a great book. It may prevent some from doing their best work, from fully opening themselves to writing the most challenging, most daring words they have to offer. And it may prevent some from sharing with others what they have written.

Of course, one must be critical at times, especially when learning the craft and while in the midst of doing any edit or rewrite. But to cling to this criticism or to identify ourselves with any work, is not only to suffer, but to stifle our own creativity. The creative mind is free and open, unlimited by any expectation, and unhindered by self doubt or personal identification with any work, past or present.

Don’t allow this tendency or pressure to identify with your work to stand in the way of your creativity. Whenever you feel this hesitation or doubt, just remember that you are not your work. The work itself is just a stream of words on a page, just symbols on paper. And while you have a right to the act of putting these symbols down and arranging them as best you can, you do not control the origins of this act, nor its ultimate ends.

Our own true nature will always be beyond all words. So free yourself from your work, whether it is the work you are about to do, a work in progress, or the work that you have already done. Our work is really not our own anyway. For we do not know what thoughts will arise in the act of creation, nor from whence they come. It is all a spontaneous happening. Just allow it to happen.