{"id":21824,"date":"2014-01-07T20:19:39","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T01:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=21824"},"modified":"2014-01-07T20:19:39","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T01:19:39","slug":"interactive-fiction-and-how-i-learned-to-stop-grumbling-and-for-gods-sake-outline-once-in-a-while-by-max-gladstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2014\/01\/07\/interactive-fiction-and-how-i-learned-to-stop-grumbling-and-for-gods-sake-outline-once-in-a-while-by-max-gladstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Interactive Fiction and How I Learned to Stop Grumbling and For God’s Sake Outline Once in a While, by Max Gladstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Max Gladstone is a member of Tiara Club, in that he was one of the nominees for the John W. Campbell Best New Writer last year, along with me, Mur Lafferty, Zen Cho, and Stina Leicht. He’s also the author of the Craft Sequence novels and now? Also the creator of a whompingly enjoyable interactive fiction app based on his storytelling universe. This seemed like a good place for Max to come and talk about the lessons learned while writing this epic interactive endeavor. Now hold still, and let him fill you with MAD CRAZY WISDOM.<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t outline as a rule.\u00a0 Or, I didn’t.\u00a0 But recently I had to learn.<\/p>\n

About a year ago, Interactive Fiction moguls Choice of Games asked if I’d like to write a game set in the weird world of my legal thriller fantasy novels Three Parts Dead<\/a><\/strong><\/span> and Two Serpents Rise<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 I said yes, because yes is what you say in these situations.\u00a0 Cool opportunity?\u00a0 Paid for writing?\u00a0 Lich-king lawyers?\u00a0 Sign me up.\u00a0 And I wrote a game, which was awesome: Choice of the Deathless<\/a><\/strong><\/span> hit app stores just before Christmas (that link’ll take you to the appropriate store for your device).\u00a0 It’s out there now, and while I’m biased reviews indicate it’s excellent and I think you should play it.\u00a0 (Okay, plugging done.)<\/p>\n

I put that bit at the beginning so you know this story ends happily.\u00a0 Because what follows is a tale of a writer struggling with the practical magic of plots and outlines, and it’s not always pretty.<\/p>\n

ALSO HERE IS AN IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER.\u00a0 This is a personal narrative about how I grew through this one writing project.\u00a0 Please don’t mistake this for a “How You Must Write” story\u2014everyone who writes comes from a different place, and each writer has her own goals.\u00a0 But if your history is anything like mine, the journey I’m describing here might be helpful to you.\u00a0 Then again, it might just be funny.<\/p>\n

Long as I can remember, I’ve been a pantser: with character, goal, and milieu in hand, I venture forth into Story Jungle and hack a way through to the El Dorado of a finished draft.\u00a0 (Though since this is a first draft we’re talking about, El Dorado often looks more like El Pyrite and needs an awful lot of basic plumbing before I can invite friends over.\u00a0 How much?\u00a0 I’ve written 160,000 word drafts, added 20,000 words in revision, and ended up with a 100,000 word final manuscript after I cut all the bad stuff.\u00a0 Not pretty, but it works.\u00a0 Sort of.)<\/p>\n

I’d outlined in the past out of curiosity and necessity, but each time I found the story’s rhythm only when the outline shattered and new characters snuck out from behind the arras. Fine, I thought, that\u2019s how I’ll use outlines from now on: like bamboo scaffolding, strong, flexible, and easy to destroy when necessary.<\/p>\n

Those were the days before I sat down to write a game.\u00a0 And when I say “write,” I don’t mean “write dialogue for”\u2014Choice of Games are choose-your-path novels with a stat screen, taking some gaming DNA from Bioware RPGs and some from the Lone Wolf books of yore and legend.\u00a0 Choice of Games provides the scripting language; I provided the code.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, awesome.<\/em>\u00a0 My first computer was an Apple II+; I spent days <\/em>coding adventure games for that box, using the simplest BASIC anyone has ever used.\u00a0 “Upgrading” from the II+ to something with a modern GUI felt wonderful, but also as if someone had cut off my legs\u2014I couldn’t program this weird new device, and when I tried to learn, the coding books I found spent a lot more time trying to teach me how to alphabetize a CD collection (Me: “I’m fucking ten<\/em>!\u00a0 I don’t have any CDs and if I did why would I want to alphabetize them?”) than how to write a game.\u00a0 (And yes, eventually I learned how to code simple stuff, though I never recaptured that initial “I can do anything with just what came in the box” feeling.)\u00a0 So, ChoiceScript in hand, I felt that old joy: I can tell your machine what to do, and I’m going to tell it to tell you a story.<\/em><\/p>\n

On the other hand\u2014terror<\/em>.\u00a0 As it says on the tin, ChoiceScript games are all about Choices.\u00a0 Fun!\u00a0 At first.\u00a0 Until I started work and realized that in practice, each story beat needed around eight possible outcomes, and a success and failure path for each potential answer.\u00a0 A beat that took 250 words in a traditional short story might need 2,000 words to offer a semblance of true interactivity.<\/p>\n

And so the cost \/ benefit of pantserhood tipped sharply toward ‘cost.’\u00a0 It’s trivial to cut and rewrite 2,000 words of story because that scene needs to do something else.\u00a0 Cutting 16,000 words at one stroke gives <\/em>writers strokes in turn.<\/p>\n

So I had to think through the story before I started.\u00a0 The usual “write what comes and fix it later” approach wouldn’t work.\u00a0 But I couldn’t outline<\/em>.\u00a0 Oh no!\u00a0 That’s for plotters<\/em>.\u00a0 I, on the other hand, like any kid who learned how to program from antique books on BASIC at his local public library, would draw a flow chart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I started out with a flowchart of choice-diamonds.\u00a0 What choices did the player face?\u00a0 What paths could she walk?\u00a0 Would success here bypass an entire branch of the story later on?\u00a0 How would other characters respond to her decisions?<\/p>\n

I then converted that flowchart into skeletal code, logic and command without dialogue or description.\u00a0 After a few scenes I felt comfortable enough to write in skeleton-code first, sans flowchart: your Determination needs to be this high for you to win your fistfight with the demon.\u00a0 Staying awake all night reviewing these wards will impose the following penalty to your Sleep stat, which will in turn make everything a little harder.\u00a0 In what ways might your law-wizard attempt to depose a goddess, or betray her firm, or romance a fellow junior associate?<\/p>\n

After another couple chapters, I’d written enough skeleton code that I could content myself with a short list of notes before I started coding: a line for each choice, a few bullet points for potential consequences, clear scene breaks, and on to the next chapter.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t deny it any longer: I was outlining. And it felt awesome.<\/p>\n

What had changed?\u00a0 Necessity, for one thing, but on reflection the outlines I wrote for Choice of the Deathless<\/a><\/strong><\/span> (and the outlines I’m using for my next book) differed in one huge way from my earlier attempts.\u00a0 Before, my outlines were bullet lists of scenes:<\/p>\n

Joey and Sarah meet Dragon Lord Vorthax.<\/p>\n

Vorthax eats Jimmy; Sarah escapes on rocket sled.<\/p>\n

Joey wakes up inside Vorthax’s stomach.<\/p>\n

Cloud-dwellers save Sarah, nurse her back to health.<\/p>\n

Joey talks with Vorthax.<\/p>\n

Cloud-dwellers attack Vorthax.<\/p>\n

Etc.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s okay as it goes\u2014I have a list of setpieces, and I can think of cool stuff to write for each.\u00a0 What’s missing?<\/p>\n

Choice. Or, to put it another way: drama.\u00a0 That list elides any moment when Jimmy, Sarah, or Vorthax consider their options, stand torn between gut-desire and heart-need, sacrifice one possibility for the sake of another.\u00a0 In fact, I’ve written the negative space of drama: all of the cool and\/or heartbreaking stuff that happens because of choices<\/em>. But I haven’t written the choices themselves.\u00a0 They’re an afterthought to the action.<\/p>\n

As a result, the scenes in my outline have a sort of loose cause-and-effect relationship but nowhere to go<\/em>.\u00a0 The outlines I learned to write for Choice of the Deathless were <\/em>that negative space.\u00a0 The cool results, those weren’t nearly as important as the dynamics of the choice.\u00a0 Let’s add some of that stuff to the outline above:<\/p>\n

(Sarah and Joey need to save their Mom, who’s been taken captive by bandits.\u00a0 Sarah decides they’ll go to Dragon Lord Vorthax, even though they know he has a nasty and carnivorous reputation.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Joey and Sarah meet Dragon Lord Vorthax.<\/p>\n

(Vorthax asks both of them why they’ve come.\u00a0 Joey speaks up first: he wants power to save Mom.\u00a0 Vorthax asks what he’s willing to trade for it.\u00a0 He says, everything.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Vorthax eats Jimmy. (Sarah runs first, then stops, almost goes back to save her brother; decides she can’t.<\/em>) Sarah escapes on rocket sled.<\/p>\n

Joey wakes up inside Vorthax’s stomach.\u00a0 (What does he do next?\u00a0 Jump around inside Vorthax’s stomach & start pulling out wires until the Dragon talks to him.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Cloud-dwellers save Sarah, nurse her back to health.\u00a0 (Should Sarah ask the cloud-dwellers to try and save her mother, or Joey?)<\/em><\/p>\n

Joey talks with Vorthax.\u00a0 (Vorthax has swallowed the boy to teach him dragon-magic, but this will involve Joey transforming into something not quite human.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Cloud-dwellers attack Vorthax.\u00a0 (Does Joey kill the Cloud-dwellers with his new power?\u00a0 Does Sarah kill Joey to save her new friends?<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Silly, sure, over-the-top, limited in a lot of ways, but also propulsive; each scene has a dramatic purpose.\u00a0 Thinking in terms of choices rather than setpieces felt like turning my brain inside-out at first, but over time I grew comfortable with the process.\u00a0 As a result, I wrote better, and faster.\u00a0 The game’s web of decisions seemed less a danger and more an opportunity\u2014I could hide neat worldbuilding down little-traveled pathways, sneak humor into secret moments, build consistent characters who seemed villains when set up one way and beleaguered heroes in another context, all because I knew basically where I was going and how I wanted to get there.<\/p>\n

I’m working on my next book now, taking the outline road with this new approach\u2014building around choices, conflicts, and costs rather than action set-pieces.\u00a0 Once the dramatic framework’s in place, I think\u2014I hope\u2014everything else will grow in between.\u00a0 The cool stuff will come, because it will have a reason to be there.<\/p>\n

Of course, writing this next book I’ll probably learn a whole bunch that will make all I’ve written here seem quaint.\u00a0 But that’s the process, isn’t it?\u00a0 We’re always learning.\u00a0 Or we should be.\u00a0 Sometimes, we learn from people; most of the time, we learn by doing, thoughtfully and with conviction.\u00a0 There’s no hope in waiting to write until we’re already perfect writers.<\/p>\n

Heck, when I started writing Choice of the Deathless<\/a><\/strong><\/span> I couldn’t outline my way out of a paper bag.<\/p>\n

Max Gladstone: Website<\/span><\/a> \/ Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Max Gladstone is a member of Tiara Club, in that he was one of the nominees for the John W. Campbell Best New Writer last year, along with me, Mur Lafferty, Zen Cho, and Stina Leicht. He’s also the author of the Craft Sequence novels and now? Also the creator of a whompingly enjoyable interactive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-5G0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21824"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21830,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21824\/revisions\/21830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}