Welcome to the official website of Richard E. Dansky, horror writer, game designer and general cad. The site is intended to provide updates on my published work, my current projects, and other events that may be of interest (or morbid fascination) to the world at large. The theme of the site is something I call "snowbird gothic," a mixture of the classic Southern gothic with the sensibility of a relocated Northeasterner. I've been living in the South since 1995, and find more and more of it - its landscapes, its folklore, its literary traditions, and more - seeping into my writing. At the same time, well, I'm just a guy from Brooklyn who grew up in the Philly 'burbs, and it's the collision of those two worlds that produces the stories I'm writing now.

Upcoming Appearances:

July 4th Weekend -XVI EIRPG, Sao Paulo, Brasil
August 12 - Local Authors @ Eva Perry Public Library, Apex, NC - 7-9 PM

Current News:

July 1, 2008 - Brazil Prep

(Crossposted from the LJ)

I am alternately:
Pumped
Terrified
Nervous
Excited
Wondering why the heck those last couple of episodes of Burn Notice I bought from iTunes didn't transfer over to my iPod.

I got my schedule today, and it looks like I'll be speaking both Saturday and Sunday, as well as doing a gamedev workshop. I'll also be doing some interviews, a couple of autographing sessions, and a book signing in Rio de Janeiro. It's going to be a busy trip, but a very exciting one. The closest I've been to Brazil was a two-day stay in Boca Raton for a video interview for Freedom, which tells you how long ago it was (and how much hair I had then). I did some fairly strenuous research on Brasil for Raven Shield, but again, that was a long time ago, and I'm very eager to see someplace entirely new and, by all accounts, astonishing.

(The LJ poster in me is looking forward to it as well. It gets harder and harder to do travelogue pieces of the sort I enjoy when I'm going to the same places for the umpteenth time. Fresh material makes my typing fingers salivate, if you get my meaning.)

Even so, the leadup to a foreign trip is always a bit nervewracking. Do I have the right power adapters, what will I have forgotten, good Lord is that the local toothpaste - you get the idea. (And lest you mock me, French toothpaste could be used for tub caulk, only tub caulk is better at getting your teeth clean. Hold thy tongue until you do a thousand strokes on thy molars in my shoes. Or, err, something like that.) This trip in particular has been a heart attack due to some last-minute visa issues, compounded by the fact that I've been traveling in and out of the country for the last couple of weeks. Throw in some minor work agita (now mostly resolved) and, well, you can see why it's all been a bit Basil Fawlty on my end. Again, I can't say enough about the folks from Devir, who have been saints.

Last night featured my first encounter with the Brazilian media. I did a podcast interview for a website down there that was interrupted by A)Melinda's cat chomping on my hand mid-question and B)the necessity of constantly wandering around the house while answering, laptop in hand, in order to find the best wifi spots for Skype. Surreal does not begin to cover it. I also did an email interview, and will be doing more, I expect. The questions have been sharp and all over the map, from the new Ubi studio in Sao Paulo to certain projects I am Not Allowed To Talk About to my working relationship with Tom Clancy. I look forward to meeting these folks face to face, hopefully while not being chomped on by a feline, and getting a little more in-depth.

But that's for Friday and beyond. Tonight, I need to sketch out my talks, pack my bags, gird my loins, and make sure I know where my passport and plug adapters are.

OK. I'll save the packing for tomorrow. But the rest of it? Spot on.

June 30, 2008 - Happy Tunguska Day, Everyone!

While we commemorate the most cataclysmic cosmic impact of recent times' 100th anniversary, there's plenty of news to go around. First of all, my wife Melinda Thielbar, the extraordinarily talented author of "The Ghost of Me" in Weird Tales, is doing the Clarion West Write-a-thon this summer to benefit the Clarion West writers' workshop. All the money raised from folks sponsoring her word count goes to the workshop, where it pays for scholarships for students, stipends for teachers, and the basic supplies they need to keep it going. But wait, there's more - if that weren't a worthy enough cause, we're also offering prizes. Each week of the write-a-thon, one sponsor's name will be drawn at random and receive their choice from a pool of fabulous prizes, including video games, a signed copy of Firefly Rain, and more. So if you love good speculative fiction writing and want to see it flourish, I do heartily recommend sponsoring Melinda or one of her fellow writers.

Congratulations to James Lowder, editor of the Origins Award-winning Astounding Hero Tales! Jim is a damn fine editor, and he did a great job putting together a very cool anthology. And, for more James Lowder anthology-related goodness, you can check out this interview over at Flames Rising, wherein Mr. Lowder talks Worlds of Their Own.

And later this week, I'm off to EIRPG XVI. Wish me luck in Brazil - I'll be speaking on game writing and RPG design, potentially doing a workshop, and (possibly) playing soccer. This could get ugly, folks...

June 18, 2008 - EIRPG XVI

For those who are curious about the trip to Brazil I've mentioned, here's a bit more on the con. I'm deeply honored to be selected as this year's International Guest, and while I'm there I'll be speaking on both video game and tabletop RPG writing. Needless to say, this will be my first time headed to Brazil, and I'm incredibly excited about the whole thing.

June 18, 2008 - Slashdotted!

Wendy Despain pointed me at this review of the IGDA Writers' SIG's new book up on Slashdot. You cand all the juicy tidbits here .

June 16, 2008 - Bubba-licious

Beware, there are Bubbas afoot! Get your 'cuse sauce ready, hide the brains, and get ready to show them Yumbies what for - The Best of Bubbas will be available from BenBella Books starting Wednesday.

Five for Writing: J.M. McDermott

By day, J. M. McDermott works as a security guard in a prestigious art museum, dealing with tourists who like to point out fine detail on Picassos by waving around ballpoint pens. By night, he creates signs and wonders, as evidenced by his glowingly reviewed debut novel, Last Dragon . He's sharp, funny, and not afraid to posit that what modern literature really needs is more LOLthulhus. I give you Five for Writing with J.M. McDermott

1-There are no dragons in Last Dragon , at least none still living. Where does the title come from?

In the book, more than one character is referred to as a successor to the dragons. Hopefully, different readers will see the many possible dragons in the book, whether Proconsul Argarax, Prince Tsui of Tsuin, Seth, or even - as many reviewers seem to interpret - Adel. Maybe the reviewers are right. What do I know? I'm only the author!
(The title certainly doesn't come from an 80's Blaxploitation kung-fu movie.)

2-Literary high fantasy is a combination that seems more appropriate to the timeframe of James Branch Cabell or Mervyn Peake. These days, fantastic literature that wins the love of the canon seems to be limited to magical realism. What drove you to take a literary approach to high fantasy when all of the signposts seemed to be pointing the other way?

We have signposts?! Nobody said there were signposts!
Seriously, though, I've never been a big fan of a few critics getting to pick what is and is not memorable. The thing that defines a classic book isn't placement on a year's best list. Plenty of those year's best books fall into obscurity. Also, it isn't being on some "100 Best..." list. Those books also fall into obscurity. The only thing that measures the greatness of a work of literature is how many people, of their own free will, consistently go to the store and buy the book. Classics aren't classics because professors or reviewers like them. They're classics because people still purchase them, and read them for pleasure. The print-runs earn-out. People still talk about the books, causing word-of-mouth buzz. People still engage with them.
Now, enough of my prattling. Show me these mystical "signposts" that portend the future. I will not believe in them until I see them. Also, we'll need some cans of spray paint so we can tag them. Also, let's staple a LOLthulu to one of them. That would be awesome.

3-The strong, aggressive, dangerous characters in Last Dragon are generally female. The connivers, manipulators and deceivers are generally male. This runs directly counter to most classical fantasy tropes. Was this deliberate on your part, or did it just evolve out of the manuscript as you wrote?

That says more about your reading of the characters than it does about the evolution out of the manuscript.
Trust no one. Unless you do.

4-There's a strong emphasis on smell as a descriptor in Last Dragon . What drove you to use that as a technique?

I'm actually saddened you didn't mention my work with the other four senses. When you, as a writer, want to create a vivid scene very quickly, you really ought to use the full spectrum of the senses. This is the one area where books kick movies and comics and any other story-telling form all over the floor. With words, we create a veil of the real in the mind. Thus, we have access to the entire spectrum of human experience, from all five senses to monologues and insights that dip in and out of consciousness. No other form has that scope. In films, for instance, the excessive use of sound and sight overwhelms quickly what limited suggestions of scent may exist.
However, of all the art forms, I suspect miming is the most deadly.

5-Ants. Why ants?

Fungus was already taken. I thought about sea coral, but the arctic north is no place for sea coral. Snow coral, maybe? Hm...but then it has to cross all those different climates...

No argument on the mimes, though I'd argue that Senor Wences could kill a man at thirty paces just by opening a box. You can find more of J.M. McDermott's writing at his blog , and Last Dragon in finer bookstores everywhere. Many thanks to him for taking the time to answer Five for Writing, and for the pleasure of his company out at BEA - even if his Dr. Ruth experience wasn't quite the same as mine. Until next time.

June 13, 2008 - Worlds of Their Own

Paizo Publishing has finally unleashed the table of contents for Worlds of Their Own. To wit:

• Introduction: "The Last Word Matters" by James Lowder
  
• "Mather's Blood" by R.A. Salvatore
  
• "Keeping Score" by Michael A. Stackpole
  
• "The Oaths of Gods" by Nancy Virginia Varian
  
• "The Doom of Swords" by Greg Stolze
  
• "Catch of the Day" by Jeff Grubb
  
• "Ghosts of Love" by Steven Savile
  
• "The Wisdom of Nightingales" by Richard E. Dansky
  
• "The Guardian of the Dawn" by William King
  
• "How Fear Came to Ornath" by Ed Greenwood
  
• "The Admiral's Reckoning" by J. Robert King
  
• "Memories and Ghosts" by Monte Cook
  
• "Three Impossible Things" by Lisa Smedman
  
• "Near the End of the World" by Greg Stafford
  
• "Confession" by Paul S. Kemp
  
• "Lorelei" by Elaine Cunningham
  
• "The Unquiet Dreams of Cingris the Stout" by James Lowder
  
• "On the Off-Ramp of the Intergalactic Superhighway" by Will McDermott
  
• "Twistbuck's Game" by Gary Gygax

The book is edited by James Lowder, which always means good things. You can find more about it here. I'd be more ebullient, but I just wrote a lengthy and witty post on the subject that my computer ate, and I'm really too tired to try to recreate all that at this moment.

I'm about to head out on a road trip that's essentially two continents, three weeks, three countries, and New Jersey. Posting may be intermittent during that time, but at the very least I'll try to keep the livejournal vaguely up to date.

Five for Writing: Rhianna Pratchett

Rhianna Pratchett is cool. Called out by Edge as one of the 100 most influential women in video games, she has been the writer and co-narrative designer on titles including Heavenly Sword and Overlord. He upcoming titles include Mirror's Edge and Dungeon Hero, and she also contributed a chapter to Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing. That, in my humble opinion, is pretty damn cool. But you don't have to take my word for it. Below are Rhianna's thoughts on Evil Overlordship, how to tackle making games funny, and what an Andrew McCarthy movie has to do with game narrative. Folks, I give you Five for Writing with Rhianna Pratchett:

1-You've made the successful transition from journalist to game writer. How did you go about it, and what made you decide you wanted to be on this side of the fence? Is there something you think game journalists are missing about game writing that they should know?

It was a happy accident, really. Sometimes the fence makes the decision for you. About 6 years ago, I'd just left a staff job on PC Zone magazine. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to pay the bills and all I knew was I needed a challenge. That was when the fence made its move. I got a call from a developer who needed a story editor for their next game. Remembering that I'd been a fan of their previous title, they though of me and suddenly the door to games writing opened a crack and I thought 'Hey, there's where I want to be!' The rest, as they say, is history.

Since then I've seen quite a few journalists attempt to make the move into games writing, with varying degrees of success. And not just journalists, either. I get a few enquires a month about how to become a games writer. I answer them all (eventually). There weren't too many people around to help me when I started, but at least I can make things a little smoother for the next batch (clutch/herd/gaggle?) of games writers. Karma is always watching, after all.

2-Game writing is often criticized, in many cases by people who aren't exactly stellar writers themselves. What do you think people should be looking for when it comes to good game writing, and are there any games out there you think really hit the mark?

Well, critics of any description are rarely skilled in the discipline their actively criticising. But they don't need to be; they're critics. Up until the last few years games have had a relatively easy ride in the reviewing space when it comes to games writing, because either it's not been deemed an important part of the gaming experience or it's just been regarded as something of a given that it won't be very good.

I think that's definitely starting to change as story-telling becomes more sophisticated and more integral. For me, games like Psychonauts and Vampire: Bloodlines have given me some of the best games story experiences - namely, great dialogue and compelling characters, but still making the best use of the medium in question and not merely trying to ape the movies.

3-Comedy is hard. Comedy in a video game, where there's only a limited number of lines that may end up repeating endlessly, is held to be nigh-impossible. How did you tackle the challenge in Overlord, and are there any lessons you learned for next time?

I don't think I thought too hard about how I was going to tackle the challenge and just got in there and did it, really. I tried to make a certain portion of the humour in the game directly relate to what the player did or didn't do, so even with repeated play-throughs players may hear different lines or variations. I also tried to make sure there was adequate dialogue to cover the 'what the player might do that we don't expect them to do' angle. I also think ambient dialogue can add a lot of humour to a game, as well as making a game world feel real - As if it would still exist and keep trundling along, regardless of whether you happened to be in it or not. Our ambient dialogue triggering could definitely have been improved, and we probably needed even more lines than we first thought we did!

We were lucky with Overlord in that the gameplay, script and VO gelled pretty well. Commanding a small army of sycophantic gremlins who loot and pillage at your command is inherently geared towards raising a smile!

I think humour in games, is often quite under-used. When we look across the entertainment mediums, humour is often regarded (wrong, in my opinion) as somehow being a lesser form of artistic expression - which is why you hardly ever see a comedy win an Oscar.

We talk about wanting players to 'feel' more and to have emotional responses to a game's story, character and gameplay. But being made to smile or laugh should be just as important as being made to cry or feel scared. We shouldn't he snobbish about emotions.

4-You've been quoted as saying "Games narrative is getting better, but we still have a long way to go." Where do you think game writing should be going, and what should game writers be avoiding at all costs?

I don't think it's just a case of what should be done or avoided on the games writers' side, but on the developers' side, as well. Most games writers will agree that, the majority of the time, they are brought into a project too late. That all they really can do is a polish, and there's no time to address the gaping plot holes or terrible characterisation. They basically have to make a dead thing seem alive. It's the Weekend at Bernie's approach to games narrative. Unsurprisingly, this isn't an ideal situation for anyone involved. So one of the biggest improvements that can be made on the developers' side is bringing in writers a lot earlier and allowing them to have some impact on the narrative design of a project. Believe me you'll get a much better story that way, not to mention one that sits better with the gameplay.

As far as writers go, I'd just say get to know the medium. Play games, read up on games writing. Come to understand what makes games wonderful and powerful. Videogames are still a relatively new entertainment form and have their own unique challenges and requirements. Being able to just 'write' isn't enough, it really isn't.

5-Assume that you're magically turned into an evil Overlord. What do you do to avoid feckless heroes from bringing down your mighty empire of darkness and despair (non-magical ring division)?

I'd maybe hire a really good team of evil accountants and Inland Revenue inspectors and get them on tax evasion. I'm thinking that smiting evil everyday doesn't leave much time for accurate book-keeping. Then I'd combine it with a really good PR campaign.Evil Open Days. tea and biscuits and 'Have you heard about our pension plan and health benefits?' campaigns to bolster my evil ranks. It's all about the spin.

Inland Revenue? OK, I admit it - Rhianna's more evil than I am. You can find her work on game store shelves everywhere, and quite possibly in evil Overlord-infested dungeons as well. Many thanks to Rhianna for taking the time to answer the questions. Next week, it's fantasy novelist J.M. McDermott. Until then.

June 6, 2008 - BEA Signing Pictures

Courtesy of Phil Athans at Wizards of the Coast, these are from the in-booth signing last Friday. Those are my fellow Discoveries authors J.M. McDermott (whose Five for Writing will be appearing in this space in two weeks) and Rob Rogers in the second and third images, respectively. Hi, guys!

June 3, 2008 - Back From BEA

The short version: BEA is overwhelming. 40K book people in a space I'm used to seeing filled with gamer types. Where were the explosions? The booth babes? The half-pipes on the show floor? The people dressed like Lara Croft? Who cares, it's full of books?

Seriously. People there practically shove free books into your hands. At one booth, I waited until the booth attendant hand finished unloading her pile of Ian Rankin novels into the "please take this" ziggurat before nabbing one, and she singled me out for being polite. Sad to say, it wasn't politeness; it was fear that the books really weren't free, and that if I took one I'd be pelted with mass market paperbacks by angry editorial assistants to within an inch of my life.

As for the show itself, wow. There were three signings - one at the marvelous Dark Delicacies in Burbank, one at the WotC booth, and one in Author Alley. The signings went extremely well (we ran out of books at the middle one), folks were very kind and very enthusiastic about Firefly Rain, and I did in fact get to sign a copy of the book for the estimable Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

(What the heck do you say to Dr. Ruth when you meet her, anyway? "I'm a big fan of your work" just doesn't quite sound right, does it?)

Many thanks to the fine folks from Wizards of the Coast - Jessica Blair, Toby Maheras, Sara Easterly, Phil Athans, Shelly Mazzanoble and more - who made the show a real pleasure. I also got to meet my fellow Discoveriesnauts - Joe McDermott (Last Dragon), Rob Rogers (Devil's Cape), and Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem (Man on the Ceiling), all of whom are wonderful people to hang out with in addition to being great writers.

The weekend got cut a little short when I rolled my ankle toting swag back to the hotel, but I figure that's just the universe's way of telling me I had too many free books. And, for the record, the free tote bags from anime publisher Viz came in very handy - I filled one with ice and stuck my foot in it.

For more details, check out my LJ - it's got some vaguely liveblogged rambles on things. Pictures will be up eventually. In the meantime, I'm wrapping up some rewrites, my review of David Williams' The Mirrored Heavens is up at Green Man, and I'm getting ready to go to Sao Paulo for a convention.

That's right. Me. Brasil. I mean, it's got to be warmer than Finland, right? Right?

(Don't answer that.)

May 28th, 2008 - Picture Pages

For the curious, here are a couple of pictures from the Great Alaskan Adventure. They are, in chronological order:
1-Me being goofy at Skookum Falls near Mt. Ranier. Skookum, depending on whom you ask, either means "strong" or "devil/Bigfoot".
2-Mendenhall Lake, near Juneau. I remember the day as being much brighter, but what a gorgeous shot.
3-Horseback riding in Skagway. There is a reason Melinda looks much more comfortable on her horse than I do on mine. It's called "competence".
4-Me, freezing my bippie off at Glacier Bay. Some of our fellow passengers openly complained that it was too cold while we were parked in front of a glacier. You know, that giant river made of, I don't know, ice? *sigh* The mind, it boggles.
5-One of the many waterfalls at Misty Fjords National Wilderness, near Ketchikan.
6-Orcas playing in the water near Victoria, B.C.

May 27th, 2008 - Essay Under Review

This month's Storytellers Unplugged entry is up over at, well, Storytellers Unplugged. It's a rumination on reviewing, and specifically on why I do it. Next month's will probably be more on reviewing, and what makes for a good one. Either that, or I'll be responding to the fact that Waldenbooks appears to be shuttering most of its stores. This makes me oddly wistful, in part because I once worked in a Waldenbooks (cue the infamous porn-to-nuns story), and in part because I bought a lot of books in the Waldenbooks at Willow Grove Park Mall back in the day. Who knows - maybe all the tiny Waldens can combine, Voltron-like, to form a massive Bordersbot.

Then again, maybe not.

Incidentally, while you're checking out Storytellers, I recommend looking at the essay from freshly minted contributor and excellent writer Lucy Snyder. You can find it here. It's good stuff.

Five For Writing: David J. Williams

There are all kinds of ways to make a literary debut. Some folks do it quietly. Some folks do it through deeply moving, personal stories of emotional conflict and quiet heartbreak. And then there's David J. Williams, whose first novel, The Mirrored Heavens, just blasted its heavily augmented, ass-kicking way onto shelves this week. In the midst of all of the hullabaloo, David took the time to answer a few questions about his take on post-cyberpunk, where you want to be standing when all hell breaks loose, and how best to survive Clarion West. Without further ado, I give you Five for Writing with David J. Williams.

1-Mirrored Heavens is your first novel, and it's an extraordinarily polished piece of work. What lessons did you learn from the first-time composition process that you're going to take forward into your next book?

The core part of the process for me is the nuts n' bolts brainstorming. I have to have it mapped out scene by scene, and once I've got "the formula", I'm golden. If I can't get that, it's a hell of a lot of no fun. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those lucky folks who can just plunge into the story, and pull something magical from the depths of their subconscious as their fingers fly across the keyboard and tears of joy run down their cheeks (aaarrrgh). If I try that, my subconscious hunts me down and has its way with me.

2-With razors, mechs, and zones, you create your own post-cyberpunk terminology. Is there any special significance to the names you picked, and where did they come from?

The main criteria was the vital one of Making It Sound Bad-Ass. "Zone" became my term for net, because it has such an all-encompassing feel to it (and maybe because I watched the Russian movie STALKER a few too many times while I was at it). "Razor"--I turned to this over the more standard "netrunner" because I wanted to establish very clearly that there were two types of runners: those who hack the nets and those who kick down doors on the street. Thus the dichotomy between razors (a reference to the razorwire that dangles from their heads), and mechs, who are the muscle. (The only worry I had was that people would think mechs were cyborgs, whereas really the word is just short for mechanic, i.e., assassin.)

But honestly, I don't know if I'd claim that my nomenclature makes this post-cyberpunk. Gibson did it all in Neuromancer, where he had Case as the hacker and Molly as the ass-kicker. All I've done is to put that in a new framework where the agents aren't working for corporations; they're working (whether or not they want to) for governments (who also mess with their memories, just to twist things up even more). To the extent that one *could* classify all this as post-cyberpunk, it's that I don't buy into the old-guard cyberpunk vision of "the state withering away" and corporations dominating a world free of geopolities.

3-First time author, highly regarded book. That's a heady combo. What's the ride been like so far?

About as surreal as you might expect. It's absolutely crazy to have people who you've always seen as Those Unreachable Dudes Up on Mount Olympus being quoted on the back of your book.

4-You're a survivor/graduate of the Clarion West science fiction writing workshop. What was that like, and how do you think that experience has informed your writing?

The honest answer is that I'm a bit of an asterisk as far as Clarion's concerned, since I was in the very weird position of having sold the novel about two weeks before I showed up in Seattle. And I discovered I wasn't exactly a natural when it came to writing short stories either (a week four story involving psychotic talking cats serving as Exhibit A here)[Ed. - All talking cats of my acquaintance have been psychotic. Just sayin'].

None of which takes away from the fact that Clarion's incredible--the critiquing process is second-to-none, and you're part of a community dedicated to the craft (the SF scene in Seattle is amazing). As with any workshop, you have to be careful, of course - some instructors will make Absolute Statements About What You Can and Can't Do in Writing, and you gotta take those kind of pronouncements with a grain or two of salt. Yet that's what's so valuable about Clarion in particular - having six different instructors ensures a multiplicity of viewpoint, and helps you formulate your own.

5-There's a whole lot of destruction in The Mirrored Heavens. If I want to live through the events of the book, where should I be standing?

Not under a space elevator, that's for sure. Try to avoid the maglev trains in the Atlantic Tunnels if you can help it. In fact, vehicles in general are a bad idea. Spaceplanes in particular. And you don't really need to see what's going on at the lunar south pole, do you? Just stay in your bunker and keep your #$#!ing head down.

There's a whole lot more coming from David in the future, so stay tuned. In the meantime, many thanks to him for taking the time to do the interview. You can find David at his website, and The Mirrored Heavens in bookstores everywhere. Up next: game writer Rhianna Pratchett. Until next time...

May 21st, 2008 - And I'm Back

Briefly, anyway - I'll be taking off again for some combination of work and Book Expo America in Los Angeles next week sometime very soon. While I'm out there, I'll be joining fellow Wizards Discoveries authors J.M. McDermott and Steve and Melanie Tem, among others, for a signing at the legendary Dark Delicacies bookshop in Burbank on May 29th at 7 PM. If you're in the area stop by, say hello, etc. - I'll be the very nervous one who probably looks like he needs a haircut.

More tomorrow, as the long, slow process of catching back up to life gets derailed by the sudden, sharp process of getting on the road again...

May 8, 2008 - Last Bits

A couple of notes before Melinda and I take off on our long-postponed honeymoon...

I have in my hands my copy of Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing. It looks gorgeous. Kudos to editrix Wendy Despain (who will be gracing the site with a Five for Writing soon) and the writing and editing staff, including my Red Storm partner in crime Jay Posey and the estimable Ms. Rhianna Pratchett.

Also, here's a couple of pix from the Cameron Village talk. Thanks again to everyone who swung by. For those who didn't, here's what I look like when I'm simultaneously using Powerpoint and summoning evil:

And that's all for the next week and a half. When I get back, Five for Writing will resume, with David J. Williams, Wendy Despain, and more, and I'll have a few announcements, including something about a world of my own. Until then...

May 4, 2008 - Hiatus

There will be an interruption in your irregularly scheduled updates, as my wife and I are finally going on our oft-delayed honeymoon this upcoming Friday. Apparently, I am indeed a keeper...

On a completely unrelated note, the talk at Cameron Village went extremely well. Many thanks to Rob Lambert of the Wake County Public Library System for setting it up, and for being a gracious and excellent host. Pictures will be up as soon as I remember what exactly I did with my digital camera.

As for Five For Writing, the scheduled interviews for when I get back include game writer Rhianna Pratchett, comics writer Cullen Bunn, cyberpunk novelist David J. Williams, and more. Dates will be posted as soon as I have 'em.

April 27, 2008 - Switcheroo

Sorry, there's no Five for Writing this week. There is, however, a new essay up at Storytellers Unplugged. And, while you're over there, I'd recommend checking out this one by Mort Castle, and this piece by Janet Berliner, and maybe this one by Justine Musk as well. There's some talented folks over there, which makes me wonder why exactly they let me in...

April 22, 2008 - No Focus

First, the big news. Once again, I am an uncle! My new niece decided she couldn't wait, and arrived on Saturday night. Consider me to be feeling extremely avuncular.

Just a reminder for those in the RTP area - I'll be speaking at the Cameron Village Library in Raleigh on Saturday, May 3rd, on writing for video games. Waitaminute, that's less than two weeks away. Yikes!

Congratulations to Ubi-Boss Matz for his Eisner Award nomination for The Killer!

And in the media department, Erin Hoffman quoted me in a piece over at The Escapist on what aspiring game writers need to take in college. No, the beer pong elective minor is not on the list. Everyone knows that aspiring designers should drink scotch.

Five For Writing: Rob Rogers

Devil's Cape is Rob Rogers' first novel, one of the first releases on Wizards' new Discoveries line. By now, you've probably heard all about the book - modern-day superheroes in a gritty New Orleans-style setting - and about the excellent reviews it's been getting. But you probably haven't heard what's really important: Rob's take on whether Superman could beat the Hulk at thumb wrestling. I give you Five for Writing with Rob Rogers:

1-Your path seems to have taken you from Illinois to Tennessee to South Carolina to Texas. Why write about a fictionalized Louisiana?

You missed Massachusetts, too!

One of the themes of the book is that the city where it's set--Devil's Cape, naturally--has been corrupt since it was founded. I wanted to tie that in to a pirate founder (the masked pirate St. Diable), and pirates are a consistent part of the background of the book and the city. So I needed a flavorful coastal environment. Louisiana came to mind--after all, the Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean ride starts out in the Louisiana bayou--and seemed to fit well with what I was trying to do. I took the Louisiana environment and ran with it, customizing it a bit to give Devil's Cape its own distinct flavor.

2-Superhero stories in non-traditional superhero formats are big these days, from Kavalier and Clay to Soon I Will Be Invincible to movies like Iron Man. And, of course, there's Devil's Cape. Why do you think we're seeing this explosion of superhero-related material, and where do you see yourself as part of that movement?

I've always been a huge superhero fan--some of my first "books" were comics like Spidey Super Stories or World's Finest. So they've always been a part of my own world.

It's neat to see superheroes coming into general popularity a bit more these days. That's something that seems to wax and wane over time. Superman came out and they peaked for a while, then dropped. Then there was Batman. Then the comic book industry went nuts for a while with a ton of companies popping up and a huge speculative market, followed by things kind of folding in on themselves for a while.

I'm not sure what's led to this latest surge. I think it maybe started kicking in big-time with the first Spider-Man movie and it's been carried along by other developments as well--the books you mentioned, the success of TV shows like Smallville and Heroes, etc. Graphic novels are getting more coverage in the general media, too, and hot properties like Stephen King's The Dark Tower and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are bringing people into the comic book stores more, too.

I hope that the interest sustains itself for a while longer, and that Devil's Cape is part of that.

3-You don't spend a lot of time on origin stories in the book, which sets Devil's Cape apart from a lot of modern superhero media. Instead, the world just accepts that superheroes exist. While we do get the origins of the main characters, they're born into a world that flatly accepts superheroes, and there's no attempt to rationalize it Why go that route, and are the origins of your heroes something you're going to go back and look at more later?

The whole "where do superpowers come from" concept often sets a clear point of demarcation from the real world. In the Wild Cards series, it's the alien virus getting spread in 1946. When Marvel Comics introduced its New Universe line in the 1980s, powers also came from a single event of some kind. In Heroes, the origins of the heroes' powers hasn't been revealed yet, but it looks like they're all tied together. This kind of "how'd they come about" process can fill whole books--and they can be very good books--but that's just not the story I wanted to tell. I wanted something different than a shared origin, something more like you get in the comic books-- some heroes get their powers from magic, some from radiation accidents, some are aliens or reincarnated hawk gods, etc. Not that I covered all of those in that way in the book, but that's the kind of vibe I wanted.

On a similar note, I didn't want to deal with the first person to fly or to put on a superhero costume or whatever. Again, those can be really cool stories. They just weren't this story. Devil's Cape has its roots in the types of comic book worlds that have been around since the late 1930s. It deals with legacies and history. Part of the pitch for Devil's Cape is that in a world filled with heroes, Devil's Cape is a city run by villains. And for the world filled with heroes part, I wanted superpowers to be part of the status quo--certainly not possessed by everyone, but known enough that some of the conventions of comic books, such as masks, superhero teams, or weird science, are accepted by the general population.

As far as the origins of the heroes in Devil's Cape go, I feel like I covered the basics in the book, but in each case, there is room for further exploration if I want. I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, but I could easily revisit the origin of those golden threads, the lives of the prior Doctor Camelots, the implications of Cain's curse, etc. And I plan to do that.

4-The book ends with what seems like a clear hook for a sequel, or a series of sequels. Was this your plan all along, or did the ending evolve naturally out of the action and the characters?

A little of both. A lot of the pleasure of writing Devil's Cape for me was in developing the setting and the characters, and I think I could write a lot more about these. My aim was to tell a complete story, with a sense of resolution at the end, but to leave room for more, and that's essentially where I ended up.

The ending of the book was something that evolved a bit for me as the book developed. I wrote the final scene quite a while before finishing up the rest of the book--it kind of started churning in my head until I just had to get it down, although I generally write things in sequence (I might add intermediate scenes in later drafts or move scenes around, but for a single draft, I usually start at the beginning and work forward).

5-Superman versus the Incredible Hulk, no holds barred steel cage match thumb wrestling. Who wins?

Tough, tough question. With the Hulk, you've got the advantages of rage, ruthlessness, and really, really big thumbs. On the other hand, Superman has intelligence, nimbler thumbs, and arguably greater strength (he's pushed the entire Earth before). I'm going to have to go with Superman on this one.

You can check out more Rob Rogers-related goodness over at his site. Many thanks to him for taking the time to answer these, and for shedding a little more light on the fascinating world of Devil's Cape. Until next time...

April 16, 2008 - Upon Further Review

There's a slew of new reviews of Firefly Rain available. You can find them at Hellnotes, Horror World, and School Library Journal. They call the book "a true southern treat", "an excellent addition to anyone's to be read pile" and "Compelling", respectively, which definitely makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Also, the estimable folks at Horror Fiction News Network have been gracious enough to post a chapter of the novel in their reading room. If you're curious, you can check it out here - and check out the rest of their site as well, which is chock full o' good stuff.

Five for Writing: Will Carroll

Normally, baseball fans love to see their favorite players' names in a nationally known sportswriter's column. The exception to that rule is Will Carroll's Under the Knife at Baseball Prospectus, a must-read for any serious fan these days. One of the pre-eminent writers on baseball injuries, Carroll has introduced terms like "subluxation" and "cascade injury" to a wider audience. The author of two books (Juiced and Saving the Pitcher) and a three-time Fantasy Sports Writers Association award winner, Carroll opens up on the history of baseball injury journalism, the doping crisis we all should really about, and how exactly a professional athlete can strain an eyelash. I give you Five for Writing with Will Caroll:

1-With your UTK columns at Baseball Prospectus, you essentially invented the field of writing about baseball injuries. Bearing in mind the fact that there are still people out there who think a SLAP lesion is something you get in a Bangkok massage parlor, do you think better awareness of injuries has penetrated the fan base? What sort of things should a fan know to consider himself reasonably well-versed on the topic?

Oh, I didn't invent it. Rick Wilton should get the credit for that. I think I took it in a new direction, focused more on the injury itself, what the trainers were doing, rather than the simple fantasy implications. I think that it was just one of those gaps, something that baseball fans, like baseball teams, took as part of the game. Now, I think we're at a stage where the better beat writers are getting it and where more need for content opens up a bigger space for this. What should a fan know...that's a good question. I treat my readers like they want to know more, but I also want to kind of walk them through it without being insulting. They read BP, I can assume some level of sophistication. I never know how often to "re-explain" something, since there's always new readers. Add in that every injury is individuated and it's always new. I don't think I'll get to a stage where I won't have anything to write about. One of the things I'd really like to do is get a serious injury glossary or even a book that's a reference without being a medical text.

2-A lot of the interest in baseball injuries seems to be driven by fantasy baseball fans. Do you think the rise of fantasy fandom has been a good thing for the game, particularly as it seems to have paralleled the rise of statistical analysis?

Yeah, why else watch the west coast games at midnight than to see if J.J. Putz gets the save? It's made everything meaningful in a way the game might not often seem. I don't understand the people that JUST want the fantasy angle, but hey, if that's how you watch the game, cool. I don't go to the ballpark and think pitching mechanics; I'm thinking "Do they have anything other than Bud Light?"

3-Writing about injuries by necessity involves a lot of medical jargon. The last column of yours I read included words like "Costochondritis", which is rarely something you see in the same paragraph with "Mariners" or "Josh Hamilton bomb". What's the key to taking such specialized, technical material and making it accessible to a baseball audience?

Explain without talking down. Most of the time, it starts with me having a very general understanding.

4-You've written one of the definitive books on steroid use in baseball with Juiced. In a post-MacNamee, post-multiple-Canseco-book-deal world, what changes would you feel would be needed to bring out a revised edition, and what other sources do you think readers should go to in order to get the - pardon the phrase - straight dope on PEDs?

Definitive is taking it a step too far, but thank you. If more people read it, maybe we wouldn't have a need for most of this discussion, but we're a TMZ society and Jose Canseco will always outsell me and outyell me. There's surprisingly little that's changed. The names of the drugs, the spread of the usage (it's significantly down, but it was always lower than most expected), and such. I think the biggest thing is that we're closer to some of the doomsday scenarios regarding genetic doping and I don't think anyone has any better clue what to do with that yet. That one is a world-changer, not just a game-changer.

5-How exactly does a professional athlete strain an eyelash, anyway? [Ed. - The late San Francisco Giants 3B Chris Brown once notoriously missed a game because of a "strained eyelash".]

Same way you get to Carnegie Hall -- lots of practice.

And so Chris Brown remains a mystery for the ages. Many thanks to the estimable Mr. Carroll for taking the time during this injury-riffic season (yes, that was the sound of another one of my roto league outfielders going down. Ow) to answer these questionsYou can find Will's writing at Baseball Prospectus, Football Outsiders, and SI.com, and hear him regularly on Baseball Prospectus Radio. Until next time.

March 27, 2008 - Off Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Just a quick news update before I head west for WHC. Due largely to travel and time constraints, there will most likely not be a Five for Writing this upcoming Sunday. With luck, things will resume next Sunday, and the list of upcoming interviewees includes comics writer Cullen Bunn (The Damned: Three Days Dead), science fiction novelist David J. Williams, French graphic novelist Henscher, and Devil's Cape-meister Rob Rogers.

On the other hand, to tide you over there's a new Storytellers Unplugged essay entitled "In Memory Yet Black and Twisted". There's also a raft of book reviews up over at Green Man Review - five at last count - for your reading pleasure. One Spider Robinson, one Jack Vance, two graphic novels, and one of the all-time great horror novels by Ramsey Campbell - it's a diverse lot.

Five for Writing: Keith Law

With baseball season just around the corner, today's Five for Writing is a special treat (for me, at the very least). Formerly one of the writers for Baseball Prospectus, Keith Law joined the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2002. By the time he left the organization in 2006, he had risen to the role of Special Assistant to GM J.P. Ricciardi. Currently, he writes regularly about baseball for ESPN.com, as the senior baseball analyst for Scouts, Inc., as well as maintaining his own blog. From his thoughts on the Hall of Fame to what really happened in the Blue Jays' draft HQ on that fateful day in 2005, Keith was gracious enough to give us this week's Five for Writing:

1-With your writing for ESPN.com, you seem to be standing at the intersection of two different debates raging about baseball writing and analysis: statistics-based analysis versus traditional scouting, and mainstream media versus bloggers. How do you see yourself as straddling those divides and integrating all of those approaches?

The key point for me when I write about players, teams, or front-office decisions is to take a single view. I don't present the scouting argument, and then the statistical argument, and hedge every bet. I am responsible for doing the integration myself and presenting one argument to the readers. Because we have Rob Neyer to provide stat-based arguments, and because there are several popular and talented other writers on the net who do the same, like Joe Sheehan, I try to skew my arguments toward the scouting perspective. It's what I was hired to do, and I think it has helped me carve a separate brand identity for myself in a crowded space.

I don't think of myself as a member of the mainstream media or as a blogger. My work doesn't appear on dead trees. Mainstream media writers sit in the press box and collect vapid quotes from players and coaches after the game. I sit in the stands and evaluate players the way scouts do, and I speak to front-office execs and occasionally scouts, nearly always off the record, to gain insight or identify my own mistakes rather than gather quotes. It's a different job.

At the same time, I'm not the stereotypical guy-in-his-mother's-basement. (Other than summers between years in college, I haven't lived with my parents since I was 17.) I go to games. I have to comply with the ethical guidelines of a big media company. I know most of the people whose decisions I praise or criticize. I know most of the writers who draw bloggers' ire. And I have the experience of working within an MLB front office for several years. So I don't fit in either camp.

2-Most of the ex-baseball professionals working in the media are former players, or in rare cases, former managers. You're one of the very few former front office personnel to have moved to the media side of things. What do you think that perspective brings to the table that's different from, say, Joe Morgan's?

I think there's something to be said for having gone through certain processes - evaluation of amateurs, being in the draft room, being at the winter meetings and present at negotiations for trades or with agents, etc. It gives you a better idea of how those processes work in the real world, and it gives you some perspective on what actually matters in terms of winning ballgames or assessing trade value. You'll rarely if ever hear me spout the usual cliches about the game because I know they're bogus, either from my own work with statistics or from significant anecdotal evidence I accumulated during my four-plus years with Toronto.

There's an idea out there that being a former player or manager confers credibility on an analyst. I get that sometimes from readers who dislike what I say, trotting out the tired "well how many years did you play in the big leagues?" appeal to authority. Even before I joined ESPN, I never believed that that had value. Credibility is earned or destroyed by what comes out of your mouth. Every new person I see on TV starts with a blank slate, and the onus is on him or her to earn my trust.

3- Gary Huckabay recently announced on Baseball Prospectus that "baseball analysis is dead". Do you agree, disagree, or wish to analyze the statement further?

I said at the time that I felt the statement was wrong and hyperbolic. It seemed to be a way to garner attention, perhaps to stir up controversy. Baseball analysis is alive and well, but the standard is much higher today than it was five years ago.

4-Hall of Fame debates seem to be getting more and more heated these days, especially along battle lines like Jim Rice's candidacy. They also seem to be the new flashpoint for the stats vs. intangibles debate. Why do you think this is, and how do you think the situation will play itself out long-term?

There are myriad reasons, but one sticks out in my mind. Hall of Fame voting is sort of the last bastion of dinosaur baseball journalism. It's the exclusive province of the BBWAA, and the large number of votes each year ensures anonymity for writers who desire it.

Yet the aggregate results seem to regularly display an obstinate adherence to a completely discredited way of looking at value in baseball. Seventy-five percent of eligible voters thought that Tim Raines, one of the hundred best players to ever take the field, wasn't a Hall of Famer, yet nearly that many thought Jim Rice, who was the third-best player in his own outfield for a few of his prime years, is a Hall of Famer. I think it drives knowledgeable fans nuts that a group of people who, as a group, refuse to acknowledge the most basic facets of how baseball games are won and lost control so much of the flow of baseball information.

I'll make a confession: I don't care all that much about the Hall of Fame. Its relevance to the game is extremely limited, and Halls of Fame in general are exercises in self-congratulation. I speak up, loudly, about Hall of Fame elections because I despise the process, and the way that so many voters pat themselves on the back for objectively incorrect choices.

I should add the obvious caveat, which is that there are many intelligent and thoughtful baseball writers in the mainstream media, many of whom cast Hall of Fame ballots. They're just outnumbered by people who still think RBI are the measure of a hitter and W-L record is the measure of a pitcher. Those ideas are analogous to the idea that each human sperm contains a homonculus.

5-What are you going to do to the next person who asks you in a chat why the Jays didn't draft Troy Tulowitzki while you were there? {Ed. - The Blue Jays famously picked pitcher Ricky Romero over their expected - and Keith-Law-recommended - choice, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki in the 2005 amateur baseball draft. Last year, Tulowitzki helped lead the Colorado Rockies to the World Series; Romero struggled in the minor leagues.)

Oh, that never gets old. It's a textbook example of a managerial failure. The consensus of the people who were hired to evaluate players was to take Tulowitzki over Romero. (It wasn't unanimous, but it was the majority opinion.) The GM substituted his own evaluations, based on one observation for each player and a flawed one at that for Tulowitzki, who was just coming off of a wrist injury. Several of us made the case for Tulowitzki over Romero, myself included, but Ricciardi is not one to change his mind, and I always thought he rather enjoyed digging in his heels when anyone questioned a decision. There had to be a million dollars in salaries sitting in that draft room, and the GM overruled them. If you're going to hire talented people and pay them all that money, let them do their jobs. The fact that the decision has backfired so spectacularly just justifies that point - if the Jays had Tulowitzki at short, they'd probably be one of the top four teams in the AL.

It would probably be tacky of me to thank J.P. Ricciardi on behalf of my long-running N.L.-only fantasy baseball team, which is now built largely around Troy Tulowitzki. That being said, it is entirely appropriate to thank Keith Law for taking the time to answer these questions. You can keep up with Keith's work at ESPN.com, as well as at The Dish, where he shares his thoughts on literature, food, and occasionally baseball as well. Until next time.

March 22, 2008 - Reading at WHC

To quote Sean Connery in Dragonheart, "I am the lasht one!" 12:30 on Sunday, that's me. I fully intend to have "Carmina Burana" going in the background so it's suitably apocalyptic and finale-like.

March 21, 2008 - Congrats to Matz

Congratulations to Ubisoft coworker (and Five for Writing victim) Matz, a.k.a. Alexis Nolent, whose graphic novel Cyclopes just got picked up by Warner Brothers for a feature film deal. The movie will be directed by James Mangold, previously responsible for 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line.

Five for Writing: Susan O'Connor

Susan O'Connor is one of the best-known and most visible video game writers in the field. From her stellar body of work to her tireless advocacy for the role of game writing in game development to her leadership of the writers' track of the Austin GDC, Susan is a force to be reckoned with in the video game writing world. She also is a force to be reckoned with while interviewing, as you'll see below. From her thoughts on why game writing isn't a sausage factory to her criteria for projects to whether she'd kill a small child for the sake of mutagenic goo, here's Five for Writing with Susan O'Connor:

1-Every game writer is constantly asked "how do I get into game writing." Let's turn that around - how did /you/ get into game writing?

By accident, I'm afraid. I was looking for a writing position - any place would do; I was starting out so I would have written haikus on the sidewalk if somebody paid me for the trouble. A friend of a friend introduced me to a producer at a small games studio in Austin. They produced kids' games, and they were ramping up production on a slumber party game. Four little-girl avatars, onscreen jabbering all the time = lots of talk. So they needed a full-time writer, and I got the job, even though I was completely unqualified. Except for the fact that I had past experience as a little girl, and therefore understood the slumber-party phenomenon.

What makes video game writing different from, say, writing movies or television?

The player and the writer tell the story together. I think it's the game writer's job to feed the player's imagination, so that he can become engaged with the world. In a perfect world, the writer's story and the player's story connect - and in a REALLY perfect world, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Game development is, to be honest, very much still a boys' club. However, many of the best and best-known game writers (such as yourself, Marianne Krawczyk, Rhianna Pratchett, and many others) are women. Is this indicative of a larger change within the industry, or is there just something about game writing that lends itself to a different sort of gender balance than the rest of gamedev?

When you say boys' club, you mean sausage factory, right? HA! Well I'm flattered to be counted in such good company. I think writing is a gender-neutral exercise. Anybody can do it, as long as you don't mind opening a vein. Good writing is emotionally honest and revealing. And our society really teaches guys to shove their feelings way deep down inside. That becomes a handicap when it's time to put pen to paper and write a good story. The older I get, the better writer I become - because I'm slowly, painfully learning what it is that makes people tick.

You've been a part of numerous projects that have garnered both critical raves and financial success. What sort of criteria do you use when you're looking at a project?

I look for a couple of things. Well, more than a couple. What kind of story/story world/game do they already have in place - and is it compelling? Second, how do they collaborate? Third, have they worked on a story-heavy game before? Fourth, do they have somebody in-house (like a narrative designer) who will be running interference between story and game development? Fifth, who are they and what have they done? Sixth, are they guys I'd want to have a beer with? Wow! That's a serious list. I didn't realize I had one, to be honest. Well I'm sure they have a list of criteria they apply when they consider me for the job.

Would you, in fact, harvest a Little Sister?

No. It's too hard to have any objectivity when it comes to them. I used to be a little girl myself.

You can find Susan's website and check out her numerous credits, awards, and cool projects. Or, you can come to Austin GDC and just bask in her general coolness. Many thanks to Susan for taking time out of her insanely busy schedule to answer these questions. Until next time.

March 12, 2008 - World Horror Convention Panel Schedule

Here's my panel schedule for WHC, for those of you who are attending and looking to throw rotten fruit at me live and in person:

1:00-1:50 - Horror video games
Richard Dansky, Christopher Treagus

2:00-2:50 - Writing (and marketing) an RPG
Richard Dansky, Christopher Treagus

6:00-6:50 pm - Call of Cthulhu: the best horror RPG on the market?
Cullen Bunn, Richard Dansky, Cody Goodfellow

Sunday:

2:00-2; 50 pm - The best horror games
Cullen Bunn, Richard Dansky, Christopher Treagus

I'll also be part of the mass autographing session. Otherwise, I suspect I will be wandering around and generally causing trouble. I'm good at that, you know.

Five for Writing: Lucien Soulban

Confession time: Lucien Soulban and I have been friends for a long, long time. We first met face-to-face during the disastrous trip I took for the Montreal By Night book release party, but had worked together before that on numerous books for White Wolf: Buried Secrets, Guildbook: Haunters, and more. At the end of my White Wolf tenure, the tables were turned, and I wrote for Lucien on the critically acclaimed series Orpheus.

That was, as they say, years ago. In the intervening years, Lucien's made waves as a fiction writer (The Alien Sea, a story in the upcoming anthology Blood Lite), a video game writer (Warhammer: Dawn of War, Rainbow Six: Vegas) and RPG writer (Lockdown and Hero High for Mutants and Masterminds). The busiest man in Montreal, I give you Five for Writing with Lucien Soulban:

Necromunda, the World of Darkness, and Dragonlance are three of the most recognizable settings in tabletop RPGs, and you've done a novel set in each. Which is your favorite sandbox to play in, and why?

The diplomatic answer would be: Why, all of them, of course! That said, I'd have to say each of them lets me stretch a different writing muscle. The Warhammer 40K line is science-fantasy, and military to boot, so I get to write war fiction. World of Darkness allowed me to write horror. sort of. I'd have to say that I actually enjoyed writing the WoD novel the least. There was an element of the supernatural lacking for me, even though I was happy with the results. Well. that and I got tired of fans telling me I didn't write like another author and why that was bad.

Dragonlance, however, holds a special place in my life, primarily because I devoured the novels when I was growing up in Saudi Arabia. I drew war maps of the different armies and where they battled for a campaign that never saw the light of day. But I was hooked, so the opportunity to write for that world is both fulfilling and it's coming full circle from me as gamer to me as professional. Otherwise, Dragonlance also has the most leeway because it is fantasy. Magic can account for a great many original ideas, so I rarely feel constrained.

Your video game work, with credits including Kim Possible and Tom Clancy games, is very different from your fiction. Even the licensed novels you've done tend to have a dark edge to them, while Chicken Little.not so much. How do you see the dichotomy between the games you write and the fiction choices you make?

What, you didn't get the subtext of Chicken Little's cannibalism through his love of Chicken McNuggets? Oh wait. I think they excised that part of the dialog. Fact is, there is no real dichotomy for me. It's just different personality elements that rise to the fore or fade into the background as I need them. I would classify it more as an ability to compartmentalize different elements of my personality. Writers are afflicted with multiple personas.writing demands it in our characterizations and in our stories. We may feel comfortable with one or two voices, but it's the ability to tackle different voices and types of story that keeps our writing fresh and invigorated. In my case, there's my humor, there's my dark imagination, my childlike sense of whimsy, my fascination with history and war, etc. No dichotomy, just elements of myself that I let loose.

One thing that does help, however, is the profound difference writing fiction and writing in script format. They are two different muscle groups mentally, and I find that writing for either also requires I tap differing parts of the imagination. In fiction, I need to worry about setting and lighting. framing the shot essentially. In script format, I'm free to ignore those and focus on writing dialogs in as concise a manner as I can.

You've written extensively in both tabletop and video games. What, in your opinion, is the difference between the two forms, and are there any overlaps or similarities?

The most immediate difference is that writing for a tabletop game can be a solo experience. Your only lifeline is your editor and maybe your co-writers. The experience is very much insular. in your own head. That allows you to develop an idea and run with it through the first draft. Videogames, on the other hand, are a team effort. collaboration in the truest sense of the word. You can't go off writing whatever you want, everything you do relates to another team. Your environments are tied into level design, your character actions relate to animation and programming, your dialogs must fit a format outlined by the sound engineer. The list goes on, but writing for videogames is very modular and very reliant on the social dynamics of your coworkers. Check your ego at the door. you need to play well with others.

To borrow a line that I once used when comparing writing for novels and videogames, game writing can benefit from embellishment, but videogames will suffer from it. That said, videogames force you to be economical in a creative way. The dialogs can end up being far punchier than RPG writing.

Another difference is that videogames rely on dramatic conventions, because the voice you're writing in belongs to a character. Paper and Pen RPGs, however, are more technical in their approach, giving the reader the where, whys and hows of their subject matter.

Where they overlap is that at their mutual core, it's about imparting information. In the case of videogames, you're using dramatic elements to relate information, while in tabletop games, you're using rules and world-fact to do the same. In the end, however, the reader comes away knowing more about their purpose in the game environment.

With Orpheus, you pretty much pioneered the idea of an episodic RPG mini-series. What was that like, compared to working on longer-term properties, and did it provide any particular challenges or creative rewards?

Oof. prepare for a short answer made long. I loved working on Orpheus, possibly more than any other roleplaying game. White Wolf made my career and helped me improve as a writer. I felt like I was given a sacred honor by a company I held in high esteem, by editors and line developers I held in higher regard.

Working on longer-term projects is a bit of an assembly line mentality. You churn out books trying to detail as much of the world as you can, knowing that every book you release somehow diminishes the sense of wonder by demystifying everything under a pile of facts. Worse yet, each book detailing the world somehow locks the players and GM into running canon. They are part of a storyline that they can rarely hope to influence because the world is set or the timeline hasn't been determined yet. Thus, books can actually derail campaigns because they go against the wishes of its fans. With Orpheus, I could detail enough of the world to run people in a direction, I could still maintain a sense of mystery about the world and its monsters, and I could offer advice with each book for players who didn't want to follow canon.

More importantly, it allowed me to tell a story without the X-Files or Lost factor. where people want answers instead of being strung along with more questions. Orpheus was all about Setting the World, Presenting the Global Mystery, Investigating the Mystery, Discovering a Greater Truth, Taking Matters into Their Own Hands and Resolving the Situation. Six books. each pushing the storyline along and falling along those guidelines.

As for the challenges. let's start with trying to foresee potential hurdles that might arise in the future. With Orpheus, I used the old writing adage of "If you fire a gun in Act III, you better have shown the gun in Act I, and if you show a gun in Act I, you better damn well fire it by Act III." Orpheus forced me to take a global approach to the game, where I had to consider where the game was going to better foreshadow events in each book up to the ending. That said, man is it easy to overlook things and not realize how important they are until your actually writing about said event.

Another challenge was taking into account the fact that some people didn't want an evolving world. They might choose to play in one specific point in time, or not agree with where I was taking the story. While I couldn't account for every facet of the game, I could offer advice and acknowledge the reader's imagination and will. That proved to be a crucial lesson for me in game writing: Provide the tools and rules for people to contribute to the process just by running