I've been stuck in a period of burnout recently. I've been playtesting games, and while that's not necessarily bad, my main focus has been testing systems rather than telling stories.
At times like these when I feel burnt out by, for lack of a better term, play-free play, I often look to improve my craft, especially if I can do so in a way that helps me overcome my weaknesses and fills me with new excitement for the games I make.
The other day, I had a thought while I was in the shower about some ways in which I could improve my storytelling practice, and I've finally gotten around to writing it up more coherently.
Image courtesy of darkmoon1968 on Pixabay
Understanding Scene-Building
Scene-building is the middle-ground between characters and world-building. There are good analogies to be made to film and how directors can use lighting and camera work to build their scenes and how writers and storytellers can use similar practices to make their stories better.
The original thought I had was to try and describe a place, and the notion popped into my head:
"Why do I love this place? That's the question you want to ask, and answer, when you set a scene."
Of course you can replace that question with any similar question: there may be something to fear, or be in awe of, or the like.
However, I've been listening to Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning on audiobook, which has also helped to give some insight to this.
Psychologically, we're primed to receive things with fear. It is our default response to the unknown. Other emotions come with time; meaning is actually derived not from familiarity, but from valence, the ability of something to change our situations.
When you're examining your setting, you only really need to use a simple question like this to get a "good enough" picture of your surroundings, because that simple emotional pull is tied to your valence.
An unknown setting–a truly unknown setting, like an unfamiliar graveyard at night–has a different meaning than it would when it is encountered. A hero who has slain a dozen dragons likely does not shudder when entering into a dragon's lair (though, perhaps, they should). However, positive emotions are powerful and can draw people in.
Simply having a description of something that focuses on positives can be incredibly powerful. Instead of describing a quiet village at night, describe a quiet village where a young woman walks through warm torchlight cradling an infant, her lips curling into a relaxed smile.
You don't want to over-do descriptions, but when you base your descriptions on a simple question and build backwards to establish the cause of perceived valence, you will automatically focus on the important parts of the scene and leave out meaningless ones (woe to the storyteller who tries to describe all the contents of a room in detail).
This is what you would use when you're a GM in a roleplaying game, for instance, because you don't need to evaluate deeply. However, this can also be good, given an appropriate moment in a plot, to build empathy for a character and to serve as a breather from intense action. It's certainly a good way to approach exposition instead of thinking of it as "facts-first", which leads to dry stories.
Setting versus Context
From the simple question you get the outline of your setting, and you can continue to ask more questions.
However, it is antithetical to ask "Why do I love this place; why do I fear it?"
This will simply create confused and muddled writing. While it is true that emotions can be conflicted, and one may truly love and fear something at the same time, to focus on two points of consideration, rather than the complications that surround one presents a threat of becoming needlessly complicated.
Rather, follow up your first question with the context that paints it in the appropriate light of the context. To use the example of the young woman walking happily with an infant, you can build upon it in a number of ways to change the emotional valence.
First, you could introduce some detail that is otherwise overlooked. To create a sense of melancholy, there could be some significant loss. Perhaps the young woman is walking alone, when she should be accompanied by the father of her child. He may no longer be alive to accompany her, but she may be consoled in that moment by the joy of their shared legacy.
Perhaps the audience knows that this situation leads to doom. There is a killer they can do nothing about on the loose, and the woman is in danger. Maybe this is a source of jealousy; while we have a healthy response, one or more of the focal characters of the story resents the woman for her happiness.
Maybe there is the sound of cheerful song and carousing in the background, indicating that not only is this a lovely, good place but that it is one that is celebrating something.
Each of these inflections adds to the scene by adding small details that do not require much for the audience to comprehend them, but provide deeper emotional ties, forming a bond of valence between the place and the events that are currently ongoing. This marries setting and context, but does not actively intrude into the plot.
In a visual medium, this sort of passive communication could be conveyed in light and shadow; in an audio one euphonia or cacophony. These are metaphors for deeper psychological processes; the order of the known and the chaos of the unknown. Giving known, clear values (positive or negative) provides certainty. Unknown values provide anxiety.
Application
As a game-master of a roleplaying game, where you have to deal with multiple players and characters, this is the sort of context that you cannot necessarily provide directly, but must instead rely upon using good questions from the start.
Players and the events going on in the story fill in your context, but if you don't start with questions you won't build a scene; this is something I've been guilty of more times than I can count.
That's a good idea to start with questions. I have my problems with creating a good description of what the characters are seeing because I am focusing on the plot and how to keep it going if the players are picking an option I haven't thought of ^^
It's amazing how much work a game master needs to do to mod a game, I am usually not aware of it, even though I should. It is such a lot of work and dedication, made for the enjoyment of other people. I really like that you are detailing some parts here in this post.
Congratulations for your curie vote :).
The weird thing about games is how they intersperse simplicity and complexity. You get to have a whole lot of opportunities to tell stories, but sometimes it is simple, quiet moments that give you the best return. It's like painting, really. You don't always want to use your largest brush, and sometimes you can get as much done by omission as by doing things.
Thanks! It's the community that I write for, but Curie really helps to keep the lights on.
Hi loreshapergames,
Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
It's amazing how a brief description can either trigger different emotions. I liked your example of talking about how the woman is walking under warm torchlight with her lips curled in a relaxed smile. And even the smallest change can make the scene scary.
I enjoy writing short stories sometimes, so I'll keep these hints in mind the next time I do. :)
This is something I've always struggled with finding the perfect window for, so I'm glad you found the example to be good. Honestly, I wasn't even sure if I should write this because I'm far from an expert, but I figure that any insight I gain is at least an insight and might be helpful.
Sometimes it's helpful in a "retrieving the black-box after the plane pinwheels into the ocean" manner, but I find that writing down the random stuff that jumps into my mind at least permits seeing where things went off the rails.
I don't think this went off the rails. I did find it helpful.
I've written some stories that didn't turn out, but that's how it works. Steemit is a great place to try things. Even if they don't work, you at least got some experience and are able to apply lessons to your next piece.
Thanks!
I think that one of the things that people forget is that creative endeavors almost always lead to failure. Failure isn't an end; it's a path to succeeding. The more you fail, assuming the cause is a willingness to take risks to achieve success and not just quixotic tendencies, the more you grow.
I didn't know that it takes so much to create a game. But I like that you're thinking about how to improve. And asking yourself some questions is a great idea. If you set what you want to see or experience then I'm sure many people will feel the same. I think that this way of creating is not only to be applied in creating of games but also in standard writing.
I hope you will manage to overcome feeling burnout.
Have a great day!
Honestly, the real thing about burnout that's always scary is that you never know it until you're through it. I found myself going through situations where I was just not engaging and connecting, and that let me know that it was time to take a step back. Being frustrated as a player also hurt my ability to run games for other people, which is a sign that things were going off the rails somewhere and needed a reset.
Interesting what you comment. I'm also a follower Peterson, the man obviously knows something. I like the fact that you put a lot of effort and constantly seek to improve your methods to tell stories, that is the spirit that makes us bigger and bigger.
One of the things I find particularly interesting in Maps of Meaning is Peterson's analysis of the Egyptian pantheon, particularly that of Horus and Osiris.
Osiris represents traditional wisdom, and Horus the new opportunity of the unknown.Together they rule in tandem, a blend between order and novelty.
I think that's a good model for the way I view learning and development. You never throw away anything, but you just keep working until you finish going through what you can go through to become your best possible self.
That's insightful explanation!
I guess you have much and many experiences on gaming?
How many years you'd been to gaming online if you don't mind?
I've been doing tabletop roleplaying for about a decade, though I started playing games a while before that (though at that point we're getting into the realm of blurry childhood memories). I first started making games on an amateur basis then, and I've been doing it on a sort of "amateur plus" basis for the past three or four years.
That's great!
Lots of games now online, growing exponentially.
Some already made money playing games online but too difficult to master such games.
It is interesting to learn more about how to make players or participants interested and that made me to recall the seminars I attended. I noticed that recently they went from just a lecture more often to role-play situation. Of course the situation will depend of where we are, what we supposed to do and what is the aim. This structure of seminars made a great change, everybody is interested and involved at the end many have a lot of fun and that is the main aim to get people involved, interested and to remember. If the situation is connected with some emotions like happiness, fear, surprise those moments are easy to memorize.
That's part of emerging learning science that has seen limited adoption. The old lecture format is good in many cases, but it relies on the presenter doing everything right.
A good presenter gives a good lecture, but if you have people who don't present for a living it gets boring, and even then it helps to have some interactivity.
Some of the research on learning styles (or all of it, actually) is overstated. However, roleplaying gives real benefits over direct presentation in many key areas, like memory retention and engagement.
Posted using Partiko Android
Congratulations @loreshapergames! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click here to view your Board of Honor
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPDo not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
@loreshapergames, go and place your daily vote for Steem on netcoins! http://contest.gonetcoins.com/
That's done now, Mr. Bot.
Yeah. It started the day of the finale for me, and has kept going ever since.
You have been scouted by @promo-mentors.
We are a community of new and veteran Steemians and we are always on the lookout for promising authors.
I would like to invite you to our discord group https://discord.gg/vDPAFqb.
When you are there send me a message if you get lost! (My Discord name is the same as here on Steemit)