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Writing Excuses 20.27: The Lens of Why 
 
 
Key Points: The lens of why? Authorial intent. Why did you write this book? Theme and meaning? Meaning is what the reader brings to the book. Approach them as questions. Theme is what the author puts into a book, meaning is what the reader gets out of a book. What am I trying to say with this book? Theme and meaning and authorial intent are just a coffee coaster. Help? A story or story structure is a pitcher, that you can put anything in that you want. The reader brings their vessel, a cup, which you fill from that pitcher. A story asks a question, while a polemic answers it. Theme as a series of questions? Moments of discovery of what my theme is? Rewriting can be a joy. 
 
[Season 20, Episode 27]
 
[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.
 
[Season 20, Episode 27]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[Howard] The Lens of Why. 
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Mark] And I'm Mark.
 
[Howard] We are joined by our special guest Mark Ashiro here on Navigator of the Seas...
[Mary Robinette] You will have already been listening to Mark on some of our earlier episodes at the beginning of the year. Because we time-travel. We haven't recorded those yet, so we don't know what we've talked about.
[Howard] We're quite sure they're awesome.
[Mary Robinette] Brilliant. They are brilliant.
[Mark] I'm going to tank those ones on purpose now.
[Laughter]
 
[Howard] Mark, will you take a moment and tell us about yourself?
[Mark] Of course. I am primarily a young adult and middle grade author. I have seven published books, many more to come. I'm also very lucky in that I am a multi-genre author and I get to genre hop. So I like taking deep dives into genre structure, all things nerdy.
 
[Howard] Outstanding. Well, let's talk for a moment about the lens of why. This is a category we're using to describe tone and frame, authorial intent. Theme and meaning. All kind of wrapped up under the question of why did you write this book? Why did you write this book? And I want to begin by focusing a little bit on just theme and meaning, because I always struggle with these. So I'm going to ask the question to my fellow hosts. How do you differentiate between theme and meaning?
[Mary Robinette] I… This is my own personal take. And I think about both of those as things that are not necessarily for me. So, theme, for me, is something that people who are writing essays or reviews are about, that it's big, sweeping arcs of stuff. Meaning, for me, is what the reader brings to it. There's stuff about the book that means stuff to me, but it's often a personal thing that never surfaces for the reader. So I tend to, when I'm going into this, approach them as questions. What is the question that I'm asking? And I think that that is essentially what people are talking about with theme. That… Like, I will… The novel that I'm working on right now, the question that I'm asking is how many times can you lie to someone you love? That's not… It's not my intention to answer that question. My intention is to explore it. And I think that's what people are talking about when they talk about theme. But, for me, theme… Like you, Howard, is an amorphous thing that someone… Because I also see people like, ah, yes, thematically, they've used the color blue throughout this. I'm like, or they liked it.
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] It was on sale.
[Howard] Okay. I'm going to… I need to one trick pony this. My one trick is metaphors. Theme is how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop. And meaning is the owl doesn't care about the question, the owl is just going to bite the Tootsie pop. Meaning doesn't answer the question, necessarily. Meaning provides an answer in a different way, and theme asks the question without necessarily providing an answer.
[Mary Robinette] I think in another way you've demonstrated my thinking here, which is, with your metaphor, you've used a metaphor that kids these days won't get. And so you've got a meaning that is important and meaningful to you, but they're going to bring a completely different meaning to it when they read it. What are you thinking, Mark?
[Mark] So, my way into thinking about this is very similar to yours, is when I'm starting a project, it almost immediately always has a meaning to me. This is the reason why I want to write this, this is what I think is interesting. I don't often know the theme until much, much later. Because the theme will then diverge very much from the meaning that I intended or the meaning that I had for it. I think it's also interesting, as someone who is writing kid lit and is constantly interacting with readers, how often the readers, these kids will go on long five-minute tangents to me about what this book is about or what this story's about. And I'm just sitting there, nodding my head, like, that's totally what I intended. And seeing the way that someone can read something and find 20,000 different things you never intended, you never thought of. And so, for me, that's meaning. That's where meaning is. It is also fun, though, when you have these experiences where someone does see the theme that you have written in there, that is intentional. But, yeah, they don't always match up. I think it is fun, though, I will say, when the two, your meaning and the theme, matchup, and someone catches it. Those are the [garbled], that beautiful trifecta moments you have.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Howard] At breakfast today, Kate McKean said… I asked the question…
[Mark] Yeah.
[Howard] She's going to be on some episodes with us this year.
[Mary Robinette] She will have already been on episodes.
[Howard] She will have already been on episodes…
[Laughter]
[Howard] With us this year.
[Mark] Time travel!
[Howard] Sorry, I keep forgetting to use the future has been tense.
[Chuckles]
 
[Howard] She said, oh, yeah, theme is what the author puts into the book, meaning is what the reader gets out of the book. Which is also a convenient definition. Dan, you were going to say something?
[Dan] I just thought… I'm really fascinated by this conversation, because I think I'm the opposite of you, Mark, entirely. I think about theme a lot. Theme, to me, is what is this about. What am I putting into it? I can't think of meaning… I can't think of a book I've written where I know what it means. Like, that is a completely foreign concept to me. What does this book mean? I don't know. Whereas the theme, what is this about, what am I trying to say with it, that's something that I do think about very consciously.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I think about… I think this is why I liked the umbrella term of the why. It's like…
[Mark] Right.
[Mary Robinette] The why of the book. Why is this important to me? Why is this a book I want to tell? Why is this a journey that my characters want to go on? Because theme does have so many different meanings for so many different people.
 
[Howard] There's… We have in a couple of weeks an episode about specifically authorial intent, and, for me, the Venn diagram of theme and meaning and authorial intent… Boy, depending on what angle I'm looking at it, it's just a coffee coaster. It's just one circle, they all fit in the same thing. And so I struggle a lot with these definitions. Help? Help me.
[Dan] We all thought you were going somewhere with that.
[Laughter]
[Howard] I am going somewhere. I am asking you a question.
[Mark] We thought you were providing us with guidance, and then you're like, I need the guidance.
[Mary Robinette] So this is something that… A metaphor that I use when I'm talking about a structure… Structure, but also the relationship with the audience. And I probably talked about this in an episode at some point, but… Hello, we're going to revisit. That when you're thinking about a story, a story structure, that it's a pitcher, that's a container. It contains whatever it is that you want to tell. Pitchers come in a bunch of different shapes and you can put anything in them you want. You can put gazpacho for reasons. You can put a Pinot Noir, you can put apple cider. You can put anything into that pitcher you want. Depending on the genre you're in, the pitchers may have different shapes. You may decide to become a glassblowers and make your own. That's the story as you intend it. When the reader comes to you, each reader brings their own vessel. And when you're looking at the vessel, a Pinot Noir glass is designed to shape the way you're experiencing Pinot Noir so it hits your palate in a specific way, brings out all of these bouquets and things. So if I have a Pinot Noir in my pitcher, and I pour it into your Pinot Noir glass, you are experiencing the story as I intended it. You're getting my theme and meaning. But if you come to me with a red solo cup, you're still going to enjoy that. If I've got hot apple cider, and you come to me with a ceramic mug, perfect! We got a good match there. If you come to me with that Riedel glass, which was so good for the Pinot Noir… It's likely to shatter from the hot apple cider. Which is not my intention. And so, for me, when I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about who in my writing for? But I'm also not… Like, I can't also think about, oh, I have to think about every possible vessel that may come to me. So, when I'm thinking about that meaning, like, for me, the meaning is the way the reader experiences the story. That's… And sometimes, as Mark was talking about, they do line up perfectly. So this is why I have found that if I think about the what question am I asking, why am I telling this, who am I telling it for, that those give me measurable things for myself that I can use to make decisions. I can measure against the is this going to make so-and-so laugh? Then that's… Yes. And that was… That's my intention. That's my… The meaning for this moment. Great. Then I can measure against that. If I want this… If I want a laugh here and it's not going to make them laugh… Other people may also laugh at that point, but also, sometimes, you put in, like, an in-joke that is for one very specific cup.
[Mark] I want to jump in here, because now you just triggered sort of a memory that might help with differentiating between theme and meaning. So my first book, Anger Is a Gift, I wrote… a secondary character is a trans-racial adoptee, like myself. If you're listening and unfamiliar with that term, it is someone who is adopted out of their ethnic and racial culture and into another one. It usually describes kids of color who are adopted by white people. So I have a white adopted mom and a Japanese Hawaiian adopted father. And so I wanted a dynamic I have almost never seen in fiction. Because usually adoption narratives are just… There's an adoption, it's usually not transracial, you might see foster care, orphans,  or whatnot. But that specific experience is so specific, you don't see it. So I wrote this character who's dealing with being Latino who is adopted into a white family and the privilege that comes with that. That's my theme. The themes of privilege and how this person who is a person of color is in a very white society… Not only that, but in the neighborhood she lives in, and then how she interacts with her friends who are from a poorer neighborhood. That's my theme. What I'm talking about, what's the authorial intent. The second day this book was out, I was at a book event with Jason Reynolds in DC, and a man came up to me and said, "I read this whole book last night and I loved it. But I need you to know, like…" It was an older white gentleman and he's like, me and my husband adopted this young black girl, and I think I need to, like, talk to her, because I don't think I've raised her right. And I'm like holding this book open and I'm like, who do I make it out to? Like…
[Laughter]
[Mark] That man got the theme, but it had a different meaning. Because… And I love that you're talking about [garbled]
[Howard] And it had a very powerful meaning.
[Mark] Very powerful meaning, but, also, I was like, that's not it. I do… This is not for you. I was not writing for you, but that is a thing where the liquid I'm pouring out went into… I won't say the wrong cup, because I don't…
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Mark] Want to make that judgment call…
[Mary Robinette] No, no.
[Mark] But a cup that shattered. And it was fascinating to me, because I'm like, I love that you did get the theme of this child's parents did not treat them well… Whoa, that is not the meaning I intended at all. Sorry if you happen to be listening and had an existential crisis for the last six years, but…
[Chuckles]
[Mark] But that's interesting because it's someone who understands the theme, but the meaning was still different for them.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Howard] But if that individual came away from your book and what they came away with first and foremost was I need to have a conversation with my adoptive daughter…
[Mark] Yeah.
[Howard] About transracial adoption and parenting. I don't see parents having conversations with their children as a bad thing.
[Mark] Oh, yeah. No.
[Howard] That's… I would not say that cup shattered. I think that someone got meaning from it that you didn't expect, and had a very powerful experience that you didn't intend, but that was probably a net good.
[Mark] Yeah, I agree. I agree with that.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I also don't think that sometimes a cup shattering is always a bad thing, because sometimes you need a different cup.
[Mark] Yeah.
[Chuckles]
 
[Mary Robinette] The thing that I was thinking about was a conversation that I had with Elizabeth Bear years ago. It was, like, one of those conversations where you're sitting around at a convention, and someone drops a… Just a one sentence thing that blows your mind for the rest of time. And she said that a story was something that ask a question, and a polemic was something that answered it. And so, when you were talking about the questions that you are asking, how does she relate to the people that she knows, how does this impact… Those are all questions.
[Mark] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] And what you're showing is one way in which it might be experienced. But I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say you're also showing multiple ways, multiple answers to that. And that is, I think, where you… For me, the thing… Thinking about theme in that way, as a series of questions as opposed to a series of answers, is that it allows space for the reader. And I think any time you can allow space for the reader to come into the story, any time you can invite them in, that you do have the potential for a more powerful meaning.
[Howard] And on the subject of space for the reader, our advertisers don't actually read this, but we're going to give them some space.
 
[Howard] I have an experience I want to share about when I thought… When… I look at it now and think back at it. And I think that learning my theme, learning my meaning, caused me to change what I was writing. Early Schlock Mercenary, I did not realize… This is going to sound a little silly, I know… I did not realize that I was writing social satire. Once I realized I was writing social satire, a lot of lights came on, and now I had, as a writer, I had a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning. I knew what certain themes were going to be. My question for you, my fellow hosts, have you ever had a similar moment of discovery, where you realized, oh, wait. This is what this means. This is what my theme is. And you changed your course?
[Mary Robinette] Mark, I just watched you nod all the way through that, so [garbled]
[Mark] [garbled] And I love this too, especially because, it was for a book that was contemporary, and the theme could only manifest as speculative fiction.
[Mary Robinette] Ah
[Mark] So, my most recent YA book, into the Light, is a secret speculative fiction book, where the speculative fiction twist does not happen until like 325 pages in, when you realize you've been reading speculative fiction the whole time. Which, by the way, actually has made people very angry when they read it…
[Chuckles]
[Mark] Because it's so [garbled unlike]
[Howard] Dan has no experience with this.
[Laughter]
[Mark] Yes. And I'm sure you can speak to (one) it is a very creative… Creatively satisfying thing to do, but I even knew when I realized what the theme of this book was actually going to be, that it was going to be an unnerving and upsetting experience for the reader, because you thought I was leading you into one story, and your very much not being led into that story. And people… I do get why people go into a book and expect one genre and you don't get that. But I had written multiple drafts, I'd figured out structure. But I was having this problem with the two main characters where I was very frustrated because they sounded a little too similar. And what was it about the two of them that made them different enough to warrant this being a book? I had my meaning before I started the book. I had my meaning before I even started outlining it or brainstorming. I knew what the theme was before I started drafting. So I felt very secure in what I was about to do. But when I was actually writing these two narrators, something wasn't right. They felt disjointed, they felt angular. I was like, they're not clashing in ways that are interesting, their clashing in a way that's just upsetting. Why can't I get them to be what I want them to be? It was in a conversation that I was having that I… On the phone with my editor, where I said something very similar, like, they cannot be what I want them to be, and I was like, oh! That's actually the theme. The theme is of this whole…
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Mark] Kind of why I was struggling with this is it is a book about religious repression and rejection, it's about two kids who are tricked into conversion therapy. And they go through very different experiences with it. And the theme that I was struggling to vocalize is, for some people in this world, you'll never be good enough.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Mark] And I just was sitting there and I'm like, I'm doing it now, I'm saying they're not good enough and they aren't fitting the mold that I want them to. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's it! And I mean, unfortunately, you have that moment where I was on the phone with my editor, Miriam Weinberg at Tor, where she's like, you're going to have to rewrite the whole thing, aren't you? And I'm like, yeah…
[Chuckles]
[Mark] This is the third rewrite, and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to have to, but I know what it is, in the way I figured out how to… Without spoiling it, was it required something extremely bombastic and very, very speculative fiction. But… And I'm curious to hear, too, for people who have had this, that moment of, like, oh, this is right, this is it. I'm exactly where I need to be.
 
[Howard] I shared with a student yesterday morning… We were talking about the necessity for rewrites, and I said, yeah, I got bad news for you. If you love having written, finding that you need to rewrite the whole thing is terrible. But, if you actually love to write, the opportunity to make this discovery and go back and rewrite it can be a joy.
[Mark] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Howard] Because now you get to do it again.
[Mark] With… At least for me, this sort of, like, infectious certainty.
[Howard] You get to do it better.
[Mark] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Mark] Where you've [sussed?] out as you are making decisions, and then you get to make even more because you feel good about the decision you made.
[Dan] I've talked about this a little bit before, but I've had this experience with three of the John Cleaver books. Four, five, and then, in between them, a novella called Next of Kin. Which I think of as my basically Alzheimer's trauma books…
[Chuckles]
[Dan] Because they were about memory. The kind of basic premise of the John Cleaver series is that there are monsters who lack something and they steal it from us. And I wanted to have one who didn't have his own memories and so he had to take ours. And does that by… Does that in order to survive. And realized very quickly once I started writing that, that I was trauma dumping my grandfather's Alzheimer's experience all over the readers, and I… Then had that moment of, well, I need to go back and make this a little more palatable and a little more acceptable, but also, wow, I didn't realize that that's what this book was about, and it absolutely, that's what this book is about. That's what all three of those books are about, is me trying to work through my own history with loss of memory and the impermanence that this creates in your life and the other people around you. And having that experience halfway through really changed how I saw what those books were and what their theme was.
[Howard] All right. Well, if we have answered for you the question about what theme and meaning are, and how they are different from each other, please let me know, because I still am not confident in that. But I'm okay with not being confident in it. I feel like this is a place where the definitions we each come up with are going to function as the lens of why.
 
[Howard] And I have a homework for you which should be fun. Take a popular book to film or book to TV adaptation and ask yourself if the film changed the meaning or changed the theme of the book. And then, ask yourself in what ways it did it.
 
[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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[personal profile] mbarker posting in [community profile] wetranscripts
Writing Excuses 20.26: Gaming as a Writing Metaphor 
 
 
Key points: What's the difference between experiencing a narrative as a game or prose? Choice, direct agency? Narrative games? Energy and complexity? Games are simulations. What are the actions, what are the verbs? Buy-in! Between games and writing, there's a middle ground of control in games. Competence. Not all books or games are for everybody.  What makes a narrative game? Obvious narrative? Present me with a story, don't make me randomly discover it. Make room for the audience. Let them make their own interpretations, draw their own conclusions. How much do I love the characters? How much do I care what happens to them? What are the levers in your game or narrative? Invite the reader in... 
 
[Season 20, Episode 26]
 
[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.
 
[Season 20, Episode 26]
 
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses. 
[Erin] Gaming as a writing metaphor.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Dan] And I'm Dan.
 
[Erin] And we get to talk about gaming...
[DongWon] Yay! Prepare for a six hour long episode.
[Erin] Yeah. Yeah, I know. I was like, this is actually sort of hard because there's so much that...
[Dan] Yeah.
[Erin] You can talk about when it comes...
[Howard] This play-through of Writing Excuses...
[Erin] Exactly.
[Dan] Kind of a speed run.
[Erin] Oh, my gosh. Yes. But I've been thinking about sort of what is it that separates the way that we game from the way that we write, the way that we experience prose narration from the way we experience being in a game. And the thing that I... the reason I really love games is I actually think that sometimes giving the person experiencing the narrative more choice and more direct agency over what happens, whether that's true or you just make them feel that it's true, changes the way that we experience story. And, for me, that's the big difference between them. But I'm curious, for you all, like, what makes you pick up a game instead of a book for that day? Like, what is the difference between having the same story as a television show versus a game that that show was based on?
[DongWon] Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I love narrative, but I don't love narrative games a lot of the time, like, if a game is very story heavy, I'll often be like… Like I tried to play Last of Us a little while ago, and I just was like, I'm putting this down, I'm going to watch the TV show. Because it… The way it was giving me the story felt so slow compared to what I wanted in terms of my ability to consume a narrative, and then all the opportunities for player choice were so constrained to things that felt like they didn't matter, a.k.a., how I searched the drawers in this room versus the big narrative stuff I was interested in, which is, what do we do about this outbreak plague situation? Right? And so, I think, for me, when it comes to what am I looking for from game experience, I want something that's more energetic and more complex than you can get from somebody telling me a story. Right? So this is why I love FromSoft games so much, where I build the narrative by interacting with the world rather than them telling me what the story is.
[Howard] I think it was… It must've been 15 years ago now. I was at a convention and had the opportunity to go out to lunch with Steve Jackson. And he dropped a bit of wisdom that I have never been able to shake. He said, "All games are physics simulations." And I thought, now, that's not true. That's… Wait. Crap. Every game… Chess! Is a physics simulation, at some level, all games are simulations. And so, when I sit down, when I think of gaming or playing a game as a metaphor for writing, I often think, why would I want to play a game like Burger Time instead of working fast food? Why would I want to play a simulation of fast food restaurants instead of working fast food? Well, because I don't want to smell like hamburgers at the end of the day. But these simulations that we play can teach us things. And in many cases, they can teach us the same things that the job would teach us, only without the risk of smelling like [frieda?].
 
[Erin] And, I think that also they create a game play loop. So if you're writing a game, the main thing you have to figure out is what are the actions of the game? What are the things that the game lets you do?
[DongWon] What are the verbs?
[Erin] What are the verbs of the game? And so, like, in a… And it limits them. There are always less than the verbs that you can experience in life. Because a game is not going to be able to, like, do, like, and then I scratched my nose for three seconds for no reason. I mean, who knows… Maybe in the future. But it's hard to get to that level of granularity. And so, they then have to make those verbs things that you are going to want to choose. And, it's funny, I'm thinking back to, like, weeks and weeks and weeks ago, when we talked about second person and how second person requires buy-in. And games are often a second person medium, and, similarly, you have to get the player to buy-in to this is the situation I want to be in. These are the verbs that I want to be able to use to navigate that situation. Like, you may not like the… I love a narrative game. But where it feels like I don't have enough verbs to, like…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Move this narrative forward. Whereas I'm like, oh, actually, for me, the listen, the experience, the watch it unravel is a verb that is one that works well for me. Which is why different people have different desires and loves of games. Like, some people like a puzzle game, like I do. Some people like a narrative, some people like I want to shoot the thing from a weird angle.
[DongWon] I mean, this is why tabletop can be so interesting too, because even in this case, buy-in is so important and difficult to get. So when you're trying to get someone to play a new game system they've never played before, just the lift of getting them to understand what the core metaphors and verbs of the game are can be three hours of sitting there and walking someone through the session or whatever it is. And so how you get that buy-in in terms of, like, what are the world building hooks, what are the character hooks, what's the setting hooks, to get them on board with the idea of these are interesting verbs I want to interact with. I think that can be such a challenge with really effective game writing.
[Dan] Yeah. Erin, I'm glad that you enjoy narrative games…
[Laughter]
[Erin] I'm buying them all.
 
[Dan] Because I'm with DongWon on this one. And I find that I don't like the way games tell stories often. Which is strange to me, and I'm trying to figure out why, and I don't know if I can articulate it. But, relating this back to writing, I… There's an interesting middle ground of control. And we talked about this a little bit. Whereas I'm going to just go and work in a burger restaurant, then I have control over what I'm doing. Maybe not as much, because I am an employee. Right? Where is if I'm going to read a book about that, I have no control whatsoever. And games exist in that very intriguing middle ground, where there's a lot of interaction, there's a lot of input from both sides. And that's… Writing for that is very different.
[Erin] Yeah. I was just thinking about, like, the competence thing as well. Like, we people love a competent character. If you want people to love your characters, one way to do it is to show them being really good at something. Because for some reason, we like it. We like feeling competent. And in a game, like in a burger… There's a game that I play on VR called Star Tenders, where you are tending bar for aliens. And the entire game is just like increasingly complex drink orders, that you have to try to make before your customers get mad…
[Chuckles]
[Erin] And wander off in an alien type way. And so what I like about it is, like, you're not expected to master it the first time.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] It's like learn… You get to learn a skill and then they add a little bit more. They had a slightly more complex thing, and all of a sudden, like, the verb that was hard for you in the beginning is one of a much larger sentence that you're able to manage. And that gives us a feeling of competence that really makes us feel like we are able to advance. But I think it's hard to do in prose. Like, you can show a character going through that journey, and have you really relate to that character, and therefore you go through that. But in games, because you're the one who has to make the physical motion, it often feels like in that physics simulation, like, you got a chance to level up.
[Howard] I had a friend tell me years ago. It was the very first of the Batman Arkham games. And he said, "Oh, my gosh, this game was so good." And he described this one scene that plays out. And he says, "And I was Batman. I got to be every bit… I got to do all of the Batman. I did all of the moves, I used all the tools, I used all the whatever." And I played that game and realized, I do not get to be Batman. I was not good enough. I did not learn fast enough. And I got tired and I moved away from it. And that's fine. You play a game for a little while, you decide it's not for you, you play something else. But the idea that the simulation of whatever can map out players differently, where a player gets to have an experience that they've been dreaming about their whole life and maybe didn't know it. My friend Joey, a Batman book would not have made him feel the same way that game made him feel.
[DongWon] Well, and I think that kind of ties into what makes Hades such a big success, is the way they tied narrative to failure. Right? When you fail, you get a little more piece of story, you get a little more piece of interaction. And then you repeat the loop. Right? Like, they were able to build the storytelling into the road like nature of the game. As you go back through it, you learn more about the world, you learn more about the characters, deepening your investment in the character and in their relationships when you do fail. So where something like the Rock City game kind of falls down is, if you fail at being Batman, now you just don't get to progress. You don't get more Batman because you were a bad Batman. If you fail at being [Zacharias], then you're… He's a failure. That's the whole point of the story. That is, you engaging with it and getting more of it as you build those skills and learn. Right? So, like, whether it's your aliens walking away from you in an alienating way because they're upset, or it's being spotted by the criminals because you're a bad Batman, like, the way in which we participate in the stories has to be fluid in that way, or has to be a rewarding experience in that way, or our buy-in starts to break down.
[Erin] I was laughing when you said that because I remembered the time I tried to play Grand Theft Auto, and there's a tutorial quest where you just get on a skateboard, and I don't drive…
[Chuckles]
[Erin] And I'm not good at driving related tasks. I could not finish. Like, it's a thing that they mean for it to take three seconds…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] And, like an hour and a half later, I was like, obviously, this game was not meant for me because I can't even get a car…
[Howard] I have decided that my… I should not be stealing automobiles.
[DongWon] I think that comes back to books in that way though, because not… Books unfold… Not all books are for everybody. Right? Like, what makes sense to you and what you have buy-in for and what is an engaging world building character narrative to you will be really different than the next reader. Right? In the same way, that a game about stealing cars is probably not for someone who has never driven a car before. Right? And I think that can be true in fiction as well. And understanding who your reader is is also really important there.
[Erin] All right. I'm going to interrogate you about narrative games and yellow boxes, but first, we're going to press pause.
 
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[Erin] And now we're back. And so… Un-pause.
[DongWon] How was that load screen for you?
[Erin] Hope you enjoyed it. So [garbled] interested in is I'm like people who don't like narrative games? I must find out why? As somebody who enjoys writing the narratives of games. And I think it's interesting, like, the wanting to tell a story versus how much gamers experience it is fascinating. If you write for games, you know that you're writing the item description that, like, 89 percent of people will just be like, nope. X out. It's like you're writing the dialogue that people are trying to skip in order to get to their next action. But I'm wondering, like, when you say I don't like narrative games, I'm wondering what makes something a narrative game? Is it just how obvious it is in its narrative? Is it an outside category? Like, what does that mean for you?
[Dan] Well, I don't think it comes down to the obvious nature of it, because I, for example, really don't like Hades because it is not presenting me with a story. I mean, that's not the only reason. But it's a story you have to discover. And that's a place where DongWon and I diverge, because I don't like that in games, I enjoy being told this is the story that we have to fulfill, go do it. Here's what this is about, go do it. And the idea that I have to just randomly discover what the story is by talking to people or by reading books that I find laying around the environment always just rubs me the wrong way.
[Howard] Sorry. I'm giggling over here. Railroad Tycoon, The Linear Narrative.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] I… No, I totally feel you here. One of the things that I love about games where a lot of the story is in front of you, but there's a lot of open space is that… And no, fair listeners, I'm not going to become a streamer of games… But I will often talk back to the characters on screen and say stuff that is just funny to me and is sort of in universe or not in universe, and I get joy out of that. Even though the story is maybe a little flat, I enjoy fluffing it up a little on my own.
[Erin] And thinking about this as a metaphor for writing, it's interesting, because it's, like, how strong… How, like, is the power of the narrative? Like, how much is the narrative saying, like, a story is happening here?
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] How much is it making you discover it? Because there are prose pieces where the story is not, like, a very clear, like, plot point to plot point type of thing.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] But it feels a little more like you're kind of wandering through and story is occurring. And it's interesting thinking about, like, how much are we guiding, how much are we controlling our readers? I mean, we're always controlling everything, but how much is that control felt by them versus is it just feels like they're having to put it together for themselves?
[DongWon] Well, I'm getting on my soapbox for a second here of my obsession with FromSoft games. Right? And so, these are the Dark Souls games, Blood-Borne, Elven Ring, and the reason I love these games so much is they're deeply authored experiences. Like, there's no question that there isn't a very specific point of view behind those blows and that they are creating an experience for the player that has thematics and characters and all the things we expect from story. But you're just getting that story in big cut scenes, where people are talking to each other and there's story being told to you. You're having to discover that story by doing things like reading the item descriptions, by piecing together, like, oh, I thought this boss. This boss was like… Said this one thing that's related to this other boss. Like, you're trying to, like, weave string theory together, the world building and the plot. And I recognize that it's not for everybody, and completely understand why. But what I love about it is I think it gets something… Or gets at something that's really true about all storytelling that we do, which is you have to make room for the audience. Right? And this is a thing I talk about a lot as I'm putting together an actual play show and things like that. One thing I talk about with my players and with the rest of my cast is we need to make room at the table for the audience. There is a fifth seat at the table here, and it's the audience who is here participating in this with us. And it's why I love actual play shows like Dimension 20 or [What's My Number?] or Friends at the Table, because they understand that I am also a participant in this story in an active way. Right? And I think that's true of a book, too. When you write a book, you're writing a book for someone. You have to understand that the reader is there picking it up and interacting with it. Now, their verb is limited to turn the page and continue reading. They have one verb, which is keep reading, don't keep reading. Right? How they feel about that, how they engage with it on a moment to moment basis can change and evolve. But the more you make space for them to make their own interpretations, to engage in a certain way, and to draw their own conclusions from stuff, I think that's where interaction with fiction can be so exciting and so deep and rich.
[Erin] It's funny, thinking about, like, the verbs of games, I'm reminded of… So I used to do writing for Zombies Run, which is a game with only the verb run.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] And so, years and years and years of narrative, of, like, small scene of, like, people talking and then something has to happen at the end of the scene to force you to run. And to go to the next thing. Which is like… Was really interesting in figuring out what are the ways to continue to get audience buy-in. Because, if you think of tabletop games, some have extraordinarily complex mechanics that will take you…
[DongWon] Exactly.
[Erin] 10 years to figure out. Or, like that boardgame, where you're like, our first eight hour session…
[Chuckles]
[Erin] Is going to be figuring out…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] How this boardgame works. And then, eventually, we'll become experts. But thinking about, do you need that level… Like, how much complexity is too much? Like… And that can be true in a game, but also in a narrative. How much just becomes distracting where it becomes about the experience of the narrative as opposed to the narrative itself.
[Howard] When we look at audience buy-in, it's useful to look at improvisational theater, where the audience is literally shouting suggestions at the stage. And if the audience is not engaged, the show falls flat pretty quickly. By the same token, comedy acts on stage in comedy clubs, the audience is buying in by laughing. They make noise. If the audience does not make noise, we say that the comedian is dying. Because that's what that experience is like. And if the audience is making noise, if there laughing all the way through, the comedian is killing. Why is it so violent? Probably because public speaking is the thing we're all scared of the most. And so we tie it to death this way. But the sense of audience buy-in is very, very visible in improvisational theater and in comedy clubs. And if you think about how important the audience participation is to the performers, and then look at what an audience means to you as a writer, that contrast might change the way you think about what you're writing.
 
[Dan] I've been sitting here trying to think about what narrative is in games I enjoy. And it comes back to a lesson that I have learned for my own writing, which is, how much do I love the characters? How much do I care about what happens to these characters? Because there are plenty of games, and I apologize for continuing to rip on Hades…
[Chuckles]
[Dan] Because it's a beloved game that everyone other than me adores.
[DongWon] You're alienating our whole audience.
[Dan] I know. I could not possibly have cared less about any of the characters in that, and so…
[DongWon] [gasp] Dash…
[Dan] I know. And so, playing the game didn't really hold a lot of appeal for me, after the basic gameplay loop, I figured out the narrative side of it didn't work for me. Whereas something like Cyberpunk 2077 and this… So much of this comes down to personal preference… Those characters I fell in love with. And I wanted to spend time with them. And so when I am doing my own writing, I… That's what I keep coming back to is the lesson I learned, which is, I'm asking my readers to spend however many hours it takes to read this book, to invite this character into their brain and spend time with them. It has to be somebody that they love and care about.
[DongWon] Well, it's so interesting, because I played Hades because I love the characters and I played a billion hours of Cyberpunk 2077… I really love that game, I play that game not for the characters but for the world. I find the characters… They're fine, I enjoy engaging with them a lot of time, but mostly, what I want to do is run around that city stealing and driving cars…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] And…
[Erin] No!
[DongWon] Getting…
[Dan] Yeah.
[DongWon] In fights with weird criminals. Like, that's the thing that I really… Like, mechanically and vibes-wise, being in that world… To me, Cyberpunk is a game that's all about vibes. Like, the aesthetics of it, the culture of it, all of that are things that I really, really enjoy, and so… I think it's, like, also [garbled] the lesson when I say make room for your audience in terms of crafting your narrative experience, whether that's a game or novel or short story or a film, it's… You also can't predict what part of your story that people are going to attach to. Right? I know people who play Hades and have never read a single piece of the text… They just like the combat. They enjoy the mechanical aspect of the combat. And I know people who have never played an action game in their life that somehow saw credits on Hades, the thing that I, who play a lot of action games, have never been able to do, because they just love the characters so much that they just kept playing this thing and learned a whole set of skills that they never had before in their entire life. And so, watching what your audience will connect to is something you can't necessarily predict. Right? And you can't control for that. You can have guesses, you can have focuses, but that's why you kind of gotta chase your own interests as much as anything else.
[Howard] I… Dan, I remember a comment you made on the Borderlands games years ago, which was, yeah, this is cute games, and one of them is really fun, the one where you run around shooting things and exploring the world. And then there's the game of comparing red arrows and green arrows on your gear, and I don't like that game at all.
[Dan] Yeah.
[Howard] And…
[DongWon] 100 percent.
[Howard] And I love that principle, that there can be a thing that we just love that is inextricably fused to a thing we despise, and are we going to play anyway? Are we going to continue to consume or are we going to look for something that doesn't have the up down arrows game in it?
[DongWon] This is me and Destiny's death grip on my brain, but… Yeah.
[Chuckles]
 
[Erin] I think one of the reasons I really love games and game writing is because there are all these different levers you can be pushing in any narrative.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] You can be pushing the character lever, you can be pushing the world lever, you can be pushing the what are the actions lever, which is often a plot lever. But it's like in games, they're all sort of… They are more discrete. They feel more discrete from each other. Like, in a prose narrative, you can really weave in… Like, the world is happening, what the characters, with the action is all at once. But the way that games are designed, like, someone makes the world and then they sort of put characters in it who have their own set of actions. And they can't 100 percent control how you use those actions and that character to experience the world. And because of that, there are intersections that will happen that they will never be able to anticipate as public… Emergent gameplay is here. Somebody is having a gameplay experience you did not intend.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] But they were able to find those connections in interesting different ways. And I think it's nice when we think about our stories to think about how are all the levers that we're pulling different? And, like, how… If we separate out the way that were talking about lenses, it's sort of a version of doing that, of thinking about what are all the different lenses, what are all the different levers, and how are we combining them in really interesting ways to make stories?
[DongWon] And also just letting… Learning to realize that you don't have full control over the audience experience. Right? And that they are going to bring their own lenses, they're going to bring their own verbs, the going to bring their own ways of interacting with the story to that experience. And once it's out of your hands, you don't get to tell people you're reading this wrong. Right? Or you can try. Sure. But, like, you're going to get…
[Howard] Feel free to say that. It's probably not going to work out the way…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] And so I think one of the things that I found really exciting about this topic of gaming, not just because I clearly love games, as do we all, but because it is this thing that I think is really, really hard for people who create prose to wrap their heads around, is learning to… Not just, like, ease off of the control, but actively invite in the reader into making this experience with us. And I think learning how to do that is a thing that can really take your fiction from being exciting to truly connecting with a huge fan base.
[Erin] And with that, we're at the end of this game session. And we are going to move to the homework.
 
[Erin] And for the homework, I'm going to challenge you a little. There are probably folks who are listening to this who are like, I only… Last game I played was tag. But I would like you to think about… Take a project that you're working on and imagine that someone is making a game of it. And figure out what would that game be. What would be the actions that the characters would be doing? What would be the parts of the world that the game would be focused on? And just write out sort of, like, a here's the game of my amazing work of art. If you need help with this, you can look at things that are games that were made from things like Lord of the Rings game. Just read a description of it, see if anything comes to you. And then as you're writing that out, is there anything you've discovered about your story that was unexpected?
 
[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 

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