Good and Evil in Stories

Interesting, complex characters aren't "grey", since grey is still only a mixture of black and white. Good characters have colour. And for that storytellers need to shift more towards an alternative worldview ...

The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that
there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

One advice storytellers often hear is not to make their characters black or white but grey. Everybody seems to be fed up with shiny, good, pretty heroes fighting evil queens, overlords and their ugly henchmen. So the advice is to put both good and evil into one's own characters, to blend black and white into various shades of grey. This, people say, turns two-dimensional characters into complex three-dimensional characters.

However, what people often forget is that grey is, still, a mixture of black and white. It technically isn't even a colour. "Grey" is still a symptom of a two-dimensional, even deeply religious worldview.

Good, Evil and Religion

I'm not quite sure when this binary perception of the world first was created, but there's no denying that monotheistic religions eagerly make use of it. The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

Art and Personal Experience - How Much Do You Need to Know?

Life would be boring if art dealt only with everyday life. We want art to be exciting, we want our characters to face hardships we never faced ourselves. But how can we create art around something we have no idea about?

If you lack personal experience: Do research!

How much personal experience does an artist need in order to create good art? This question has bothered me ever since I started writing. There was so much I wanted to write about, but being a teenager, there was so little I knew.

I still don't know much. But certainly more than fourteen years ago. And so this is what I came to believing during the past years. Please do argue with me, if you disagree:

Creating Art with Software - Is It Cheating?

Computers ease many processes - the process of art creation included. Working on a creative project requires less and less skill. All you need is a little basic knowledge and a good idea. Art isn't what it used to be. - Or is it?

We can't stop technological progress. We can only embrace it and make the best of it.

Computers ease many processes - the process of art creation included. Using traditional brush and canvas, you have to paint every single grass stalk when painting a landscape. If you use Photoshop, however, you can adjust the brush settings in a way that you only have to go over the areas where you want the grass to be - et voilà, you have a quite realistic grassy landscape within a few seconds.

With other art genres it's no different. You play only keyboard, but you need a guitar for your piece? No problem, there's software for that. You want to create a video game, but you have no programming skills? There's easy editing software for that as well. You need a professional-looking website, but you don't want to waste your time on PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS? There's professional software for that, and it's free.

Filler Is Killer: Why Spice Lies in Brevity, Mostly

Even though filler content sometimes has a good reason to exist,
too much of it usually kills the recipient's interest in an artwork.

There is this extremely successful anime called Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. The original manga series started in 1999 and ended in 2014. The anime adaptation premiered in 2002 and still isn't finished.

Because the anime would catch up with the manga at some point they started to release filler episodes. Some function as prequels, some are nice spin-offs ... The main plot didn't progress, but since it takes time for the manga to continue, the existence of filler episodes was fairly reasonable. However, when the manga was officially finished in 2014 ... Well, if you say that the final battle truly started with the reunion of the original Team 7, then the anime version of this final battle started in 2014 and continues to this day. With weekly episode releases.

According to AnimeFillerList.com Naruto Shippuden has a filler percentage of 45%. In other words: Almost half of the episodes do not contribute to the main plot! Considering this, it isn't hard to understand all the fans freaking out all over the internet.

Action No One Cares About

Fillers aren't a problem existing only in TV shows. Movies, too, suffer from this phenomenon. Personally I like the first Matrix movie, but as for Matrix Reloaded, I still remember that one endless fight between Neo and Smith. I still remember the shocking realization that despite my love for fighting scenes and special effects I got so bored that I left for the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. When I came back and glanced at the screen I simply had to ask: "Are they still fighting or again?" "Still," my mother answered and I was glad I hadn't missed anything.

Chemistry of Romance - 4 Rules for a Good Love Story

Which rule is most important to you?

Love is one of the most common subjects in all genres of narrative art. And as it is with common subjects, there are good love stories and bad ones. Furthermore, I believe that the romance genre is especially vulnerable to overdoing: If there's too much violence in an adventure story you can just roll your eyes and go on; yet if a love story is too cheesy it's really hard not to throw up.

So what can we do to spare our audience the need for vomit bags? Here are some thoughts on this question.

Clichés: Good or Bad? 

My personal love story trauma is the movie Waterloo Bridge from 1940. And I can take much, actually. I generally enjoy romance anime, I love the movie Désirée (1954) as well as the original novel by Annamarie Selinko and I love shipping fictional characters. I generally like love stories. However, watching Waterloo Bridge was a torture. I hated the story, I hated the characters, and most of all I hated their relationship. I know the movie was made at a time when people had other ideals concerning love, but I still couldn't help but think that Roy is an a****** and Myra a stupid cow without a noteworthy personality. From the very beginning of the movie I wanted them to die, and when Myra threw herself under a bus I was genuinely happy her miserable and annoying existence finally ended.

Case Study: "Game of Thrones" and Its Overuse of Character Death

Game of Thrones and Its Overuse of Character Death

Many are looking forward to April 24th when the start of the sixth Game of Thrones season is scheduled. I too can't wait to see how the story continues, and yet ... Well, the great success of the series proves that it does many things right. But as any successful project it does a few things wrong. And one of these "mistakes" kind of sours my watching experience.

What I'm talking about is character death.

I'm generally a fan of major characters suffering a dramatic death, but I really dislike it in Game of Thrones: Just for the same reason as why stories in which it's pretty clear that nobody will die often are boring. When you know that there isn't real danger for your beloved heroes an adventure loses potential for suspense.

With Game of Thrones it's the exact opposite: The past seasons have made it clear that everybody - or almost everybody - will die sooner or later. Character death is simply what I expect to happen and when another bunch of characters gets their throat slit my reaction isn't shock or surprise but a rather bored: "Oh, again? Who's next?"

Experience vs. Showing and Telling, or The Magic of Interactive Narration

Playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with my stealthy mage and my warrior character
are two completely different experiences and stories.

When I published my essay Art vs. Entertainment - Are Let's Plays an Art Form? back in November 2015 it quickly became one of my most-clicked essays on this blog and some people on Twitter added me to lists with names like "awesome gamers". My conclusion is that discussing games as an art form is something many people are interested in, so I decided it's about time to dedicate another blog post to this genre.

What personally I am most interested in games is the aspect of interactive storytelling or interactive narration. Yet by now the world of gaming is so diverse that it's really hard to talk about games in general, and I think this is what this post will be about.

So let's discuss what's so special about the narrative in games. The most important thing about it is undoubtedly the fact that games don't have mere recipients. You can argue, of course, that when reading a novel or watching a movie the recipient needs to be active as well, that it isn't just dull swallowing of content, but unlike with novels or movies in the world of gaming it's you who makes choices and the artwork - the game - responds to your actions. In this way playing a game is more personal than reading a novel or watching a movie. Every playthrough creates a slightly different story, depending on your individual decisions. Games are generally more about experience rather than telling or showing.

What is a Narrator? - Why Narration Is Manipulation (or Not)

Every narrator is a liar.

Does the title sound like a stupid question to you? After all, a narrator is the one who narrates. And according to the modern "show, don't tell" fashion the narrator should be as invisible as possible. - Why? Because, as avid supporters of the "show, don't tell" philosophy seem to believe, the modern reader is too stupid to deal with the specifics of prose, since they're so different from what he's used to from movies.

Please don't get me wrong: I'm not against "show, don't tell" in general. Moreover, often this is what I wish beginners would do. In many cases the advice "show, don't tell" is appropriate. - But! A novel is not a movie. There are things it can't do while a movie can. And there are many things it can do while a movie can't.

As stated in a former post, the main difference between prose and other narrative art genres is the existence of a narrator. So what's so special about him?

Self-Insert Out of Control, or The Creepiest Writing Experience Ever

Valley does what she wants. That's what she's like in the story, and that's how she behaves towards me.

Fanfiction wouldn't let me go. While I write novel-length fanfictions my original works somehow always turn out to be short stories. I've even managed to turn ideas for original novels into short stories. Don't ask me how I did that. One of my readers said about one of them that it seemed like a trailer. ... Well, I don't know. Maybe one day I'll actually make a novel out of my Log Out short story. Maybe. ;)

For now I'm cursed with fanfiction. In 2013 I actually planned to start writing an original novel, yet ... I came across Assassin's Creed III and its Protagonist Connor Kenway and I didn't have another choice than to write a fanfiction in order to release that squealing fangirl inside of me, so she'd let me alone. I still made the best out of the situation by writing that fanfic in English and thus improving my language skill.

And I also made an interesting experience with a self-insert character who started to make autonomous decisions.

Case Study: How the First "Hunger Games" Movie Turned Us Into Sadists

Metalepsis - How the First Hunger Games Movie Turned Us Into Sadists

Tomorrow is the big day when Mockingjay Part 2, the last part of the Hunger Games movie series, is going to be released. It seems like a good occasion to talk about the very first part. The one that unlike all the others had a very special effect.

Maybe it's just me; maybe you noticed it too. Maybe it was done consciously; maybe it was done unconsciously. But if you ask me, the effect of a narrative metalepsis is there, and this effect is the reason why the first movie impressed me so much. It's the effect of blurring the line between the viewer and what's happening on the screen.

In narratology we speak of a metalepsis when one narrative level enters another one. This happens, for example, when a narrator starts meddling in the affairs of the characters instead of just telling the story. Or when a novel is about the reader reading it. Or when the characters decide to kill their author for all the horrible things he did to them. Or when the reader somehow turns out to be a character in the story. ... You get the idea, right?

OMFG Y R U SO HAWT??!!!!!!!!11111 - How to Create a Fangirl Magnet

Fangirl magnet characters are good: The creator gets more money,
the fangirls get someone to squeal over and everybody's happy.

Many art genres feature characters. And it often happens that one particular male character becomes extremely popular with the female part of the audience. Some characters are made to be such fangirl magnets and actually succeed (e.g. Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto), some characters are meant to be disliked by the audience, and yet many female readers still fall in love with them (e.g. Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter), and finally, some characters are meant to be total fangirl magnets and totally fail (e.g. Derek from RE: Alistair ++).

What is Narration? - The Main Difference between Prose and Other Narrative Art Forms

There is much media that is narrative, but only prose has a narrator.

There are many art forms out there, and some of them have one thing in common: They tell a story. - Yet isn't narration inseparable from prose? What about stories that are filmed, drawn or carved in stone? What about Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture?

Can other art forms than prose have narration? The answer is: yes and no.