Where is Ray's Brain?!?!

I have found that games are one of the easiest subjects of fiction writing. A game has already done much of the hard work of establishing a setting, a cast of characters, and an objective. Even better are when completely unscripted events happen in a game due to the way one interacts with the different characters. It also helps that I love playing them. Take Left 4 Dead 2 for instance, a great game where a group of four people struggle to survive and escape the zombie horde. The story practically writes itself. Take this one, which uses the intro movie to Left 4 Dead 2 as inspiration.
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Running. It seems like all I ever do these days. Which is funny because I started out being on the run and now I find myself running for my life. Take now for instance. I’ve already run up fifteen flights of stairs with fifteen more to go and I am dog tired. The fact that I’m not running alone is the only thing keeping me going.

There are four of us together on the stairs. A young hillbilly with baseball cap and faded blue jeans is out in front. A black woman, excuse me, african american, is not far behind. The two older fellas bringing up the rear are myself and a big black guy wearing a purple and gold polo shirt and khakis. Its the kind you sometimes see high school football coaches wearing during practice. I glance back and notice that it even says ‘FHS’ on the front so my guess was right. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not over the hill geezers. One look at my cream colored suit and pants and you would see that I am not the running type. And Coach, bringing up the rear, carries a few extra pounds of flab all around his midsection.

You might ask why are we running up the stairs of one of the big hotels on the outskirts of Savannah. And I’d say, ‘Are you out of your freekin mind?’ Have you not heard the news? Maybe you have and you choose to believe it. That highly contagious infection that they’ve been blabbing about? Its not the flu. Its something else. It changes people. Turns them from mild mannered sheep into mindless rabid wolves, who’d like nothing better than to kick and bite you till you get infected and turn into one of them too. Or, for those few of us who are immune, they kick, bite, punch, and claw us until we’re dead.

Good old CEDA put out the usual warnings. Barricade your homes. Stay away from infected. Report unusual behavior. Wait for further instructions. Some who remembered CEDA’s crappy performance before and after Hurricane Katrina weren’t going to settle for any of that. Me, I thought it was a good opportunity to head south and escape a couple of irate mobsters that fell for my ‘investment opportunities’. Caveat Emptor I always say. Of course, things just kept getting worse until finally CEDA told us they were setting up evacuation centers and flying out anyone who showed up.

“Who the hell…puts an evac station…up thirty flights of goddammn stairs?” That was Coach, who managed to huff and puff a complete sentence while still running. I guess that wasn’t all flab under his shirt. It would have been better to save my breath for the stairs but I couldn’t resist getting a jab in. “Cheer up Coach. Maybe, maybe the helicopters are all made of chocolate.” The look on his face was priceless.

We finally made it to the roof. I could hear the hillbilly calling out as I burst through the door. “Hello? Where is everybody?” I heard helicopters but my blood chilled as I realized the sounds were fading instead of getting louder. I had to shade my eyes as they adjusted to the bright rays of the setting sun, perfetly silhouetting the several choppers that were already headed west.

“I thought they was supposed to be savin our asses,” said Coach. I stooped over to catch my breath. “Looks like there’s been a change of plans.”

The kid waved his arms frantically at the retreating choppers. “Hey! We’re not dead! Come back!”

“Yeah, we ain’t dead,” said the girl. “But we’ve been left for dead too.”

I picked up a book about writing that was recommended, of all places, on a forum about video games. Its called Spider, Spin Me a Web by Lawrence Block and it contains a bunch of essays collected from his column on fiction writing for Writer’s Digest magazine. Its a good and quick read and every chapter is a self contained nugget of writing goodness. One chapter talked about writing in the style of your favorite author.

I got turned on to Tom Clancy during high school and it always fascinated me how he could go on and on about the way technology worked. He made it sound fascinating and not at all like a technical manual. I wouldn’t call him my favorite author, but it made me think about attempting to do the same thing but for a different time period. I have to say, this kind of writing involves a heck of a lot of research and I don’t know if I’m cut out for this kind of techno-realism. Which is great because that was the point of trying to write in someone else’s style: to figure out if that’s the kind of writing I wanted to do.
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August 5, 1940. The sky was still pitch black and the German ground crews were already busy. German airbases doting the French countryside came alive with a steadily increasing hum of activity. Fighters were being fueled and made ready for combat while bombers had their precious cargo loaded carefully on board.

The flight crews and pilots were busy with their own preparations. Each squadron had already been briefed on the on their different missions. Coordination of the different bomber raids and fighter escort would be the key to their success. Several bomber crews would be attacking airfields located near the British coast while others were to attack the radar towers which sprouted up along the coastline. The Germans knew little about the radar towers and still less about how they, along with the British coast watch units, were tied into a complex network of switchboards and command posts. They did not know that the British had already created an integrated aerial defense system designed to help determine when and where the German air raiders were going to strike next. And more importantly, how best to intercept them.

On the British side of the Channel, near Dover, Airman Donaldson manned his radar station located in a small underground bunker just south of several large steel radar towers. The radar console had a round glass display in the center. Unlike modern radar displays which showed a radial line sweeping in a circular motion, the display showed a bright fluorescent green line running along the bottom of the screen. The line was currently flat, meaning that the radar waves sent out by the tower were not being reflected back by German bombers.

The radar towers themselves rose more than 50 feet high in order to increase their range of detection. It was the same principle that guided sailors to post lookouts on the topmost parts of the ship. In both cases the aim was to see further to the horizon except in this case it was not light waves but radio waves that were being detected. The massive towers sent out continuous pulses of radio waves across the English Channel and several smaller radar receivers front of them monitored whether any of the radio waves were reflected back.

The Airman said a quick thank you as someone handed him a cup of tea. He held it in both hands and took a long slow sip. In almost that same instant radio waves sent out by the radar transmitters, traveling at near the speed of light, had crossed the Channel and reflected off the lead bombers of the first wave. Before he had even put his cup down, some of the radio waves had bounced off the bombers and came straight back to the radar receivers, the signal amplified, and sent straight to his display.

The flat line on the display turned into a curved mound, grew bigger as more radar waves were reflected back by increasing numbers of German bombers. Airman Donaldson put down his cup and swore an oath as he adjusted knobs on his radar set. The set could immediately determine the range, or distance to the approaching bombers but the Airman had to perform manual adjustments in order to determine the bearing or direction they were coming.

Finally he arrived at what appeared to be the best settings and read the numbers on the knobs. He called for the watch officer. “Sir, incoming German raid, bearing 247, range 150 miles. From the strength of the signal I’d say its a big one. Probably 100 planes.”

Thinking up a story concept is hard. You’d think it would be easy to think of a story that can play itself out in at least 500 words, but it isn’t. Not for me anyway. This next story started out as a description of a simple train ride home. I realized early on that I didn’t want to describe the train and every single stop until I hit 500 words.

That would be extremely boring. So I had to think of some event or conflict to bring tension to the piece. Time travel? Nah. Premonitions? Maybe. Flashbacks? Ay yay ya. Finally, I hit upon a story idea. Ironically it came to me while I was browsing the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section at the bookstore. I would elaborate more but that might give away some ideas that I’m not ready to dole out for free just yet. I’ll let the story speak for itself.
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The doors to the subway car swooshed closed after Rachel entered. The car was mostly empty as she slid into the two person seats near the entrance. The window seat was already occupied but she didn’t mind, as the aisle gave her a better view to indulge herself in people watching during the ride.

Not subway, she reminded herself. TheRail. A simple and unassuming name which suited the locals quite well. She had to admit it was a no-brainer as far as names go, especially since the city bus company was already called TheBus. The name was a fitting description too, as the entire rail system consisted of only one rail line roughly following the coast from Waikiki all the way west to Ewa Beach.

Looking around the car she could see that it was still pretty new. The orange plastic molded seats were padded with vinyl coverings in sun yellow. A thin carpet of deep blue, with nary a speck of food or spilled soda stain covered the floor and thin rainbow stripe ran along the sides. As she took a deep breath she could swear that there was even a new car smell. That particular mix of fresh vinyl, carpet, and new upholstry almost like the one in the car she had taken a test drive in, just yesterday. She smiled as she recalled the young salesman who helped her out. He was very young and very eager to help.

Her seatmate kept his gaze out the window as she glanced over at him. He was a young kid, probably still in high school judging from his youthful looks, hip hugging blue jeans, t-shirt and backpack. Not to mention that disaffected look that teens usually acquired when they think they’ve reached the age where school or life no longer had anything new to offer them.

He turned back from the window to look at her. She had been caught gazing just a bit too long and offered a smile as a token of apology. “Hi,” she said, and received a mumbled “hi” in response. She flashed her smile again, “I’m Rachel”.
“Zach.”
“Pleasure to meet you Zach. How are you doing?”

Zach had the tendency most people have of being wary of strangers on TheRail, which would have been amplified by the fact that here was a much older person (past 21 anyway) trying to be “cool” with the teen crowd. He gave her the once over as he considered whether she was a weirdo or a psycho. Rachel smiled inwardly as Zach’s eyes performed a quick up and down appraisal of her body. She knew that on her worst days she still looked stunning and today was on the better side of the worst/best day meter. Zach apparently agreed because he replied in two complete sentences. “I’m doing okay. I have to go home and do some homework.”

A few stops later the two were having an animated discussion about the unpredictable nature of high school girls. Rachel took a moment to lay her hand on top of Zach’s, which was resting on the seat between them. “I’m sure you’ll find a nice girl Zack. You seem to be a nice guy and, aside from a slight acne problem, you’re pretty good looking.” Zach looked at her hand, which did not remove itself from his, and suppressed a reaction to snatch it away. He didn’t regret his decision as he felt the warmth of her palm and the smoothness of her skin. He grinned and looked out the window in a sudden bout of shyness.

The subway soon made another stop and a strange old man entered. Strange looking anyway. He had a straw hat and sunglasses, a button down polo shirt and an orange-reddish complexion which spoke of too much time in the sun. He took off his sunglasses and revealed eyes even older than the rest of his face. Rachel sensed something odd about him and focused her awareness more intently on him as he came closer. She gasped as she realized he was an Other.

“Excuse me son. Do you mind if I sit there? My old legs are tired and I like sitting near the door, seeing as how it takes me so long to get there. I believe this is your stop anyhow.”

Zach looked at him as if in a daze and slowly looked around. “Oh my god, this is my stop. Excuse me mister. I have to go.” He sped past the man and out the door seconds before they hissed closed. The man smiled as he sat himself down next to Rachel.

“Good afternoon Rachel. Or should I say, Rachele? You know, we don’t get many Succubi around here. At least, I haven’t seen one in the last one hundred and fifty years.”

I caught the writing bug again after reading about another person who gained an interest in writing. On a gaming forum no less. One particular response caught me eye. “Don’t just talk about writing. Write! Write 500 words a day and when that becomes easy write 1000 words a day.”

So I started writing using darkroom, which I said previously was great because there are no other distractions on the screen. Then I found out that writing 500 words is not easy, especially if I wanted to write well. So, here’s my first attempt at a 500 word piece. It took me four days but I’m satisfied with how it turned out:

She was on the verge of understanding the artifact when she was taken away. It wasn’t fair, she thought. Each time she had come close to understanding it, she would be snatched up as if she weighed nothing and taken elsewhere. She reviewed her new knowledge as she was carried to her containment chamber.

The artifact was small, less than a third of her height. There was a large opening at the top, circular and wide enough to fit both of her hands through. Then there were the curious smaller openings on the sides. The smaller openings were of different shapes, small enough to put one hand through, but not if it were holding anything. The sides were covered in alternating swaths of orange and yellow.

She had become aware of something else as well. Sounds came out of the artifact when she placed her hand through the opening at the top. At first she thought they were random but the sounds seemed to repeat themselves after repeated experiments of putting her hands through and listening. The sounds seemed familiar, as if she’d heard them before, and at times she imagined that they were forming word concepts that she could understand. Too late though, as she was taken away yet again.

Now she was here at her containment chamber. A small retangular pit with smooth walls and shiny finish. The walls were black as night yet polished and reflected the light coming from the ceiling. One side was a solid panel, the other three made of wooden slats with spacings in between, too small for her head and body to go through, but wide enough for everything else. Not that she could grasp anything outside of the chamber anyway, everything in sight was far out of her reach.

It was here that she was expected to sleep at various times during the day, not that she could even grasp how long a day was. No clocks or calendars were in sight; nothing that could let her mark the transition of time from one segment to the next. Only her internal body clock knew, and it wasn’t telling much besides “I’m sleepy” or “I’m not sleepy.”

Her consious mind felt wide awake and aware but soon started feeling groggy as she was lowered onto the bedding at the base of the chamber. Her body felt heavy and her mind soon followed. It was almost as if she would fall asleep on cue whenever returning to this place. She tried fighting previously, perhaps days or months before, but again she could not really tell how long time had passed until she stopped fighting altogether and just accepted her fate. It didn’t help that the bedding was soft and warm and a feathery blanket was within reach for her to pull close to herself. She contented herself with the thought that she would wake much later, refreshed and ready to tackle the mysteries of the artifact once more.

I like my DarkRoom writing program. It reminds me of the days of my youth that were spent in front of a computer with a pitch black screen and green font, typing away at a keyboard in response to an Infocom interactive fiction game. No pictures, no sound. Just the story and me and my imagination.

There are no distractions here. No background wallpaper to look at and fanatasize about. No external stimuli telling me what to think or feel. Everything is up to my imagination. I find myself missing this “power of imagination” in today’s games and digital media. All the action happens on-screen, all the horror or fantastical effects are rendered digitally for everyone to see. And I think that renders the action a little less scary and a little less awe-inspiring. Perhaps its because all the audio-visual special effects, in my opinion, don’t match the spectacle that I can conjure up in the special effects department of my own head.

I suppose what they say is true. If one doesn’t exercise one’s writing skills enough then they atrophy and eventually die, leaving one with nothing but half-baked plots and a few witty lines that eventually go nowhere.

Such as now for instance. I’m half tempted to simply spin off into a few lines of fictional prose but I’m not really sure where to go with it. I haven’t planned it out in my head, nor do I feel particularly interested in seeing how it would play out without advanced planning.

I suppose it may be better than the titles I see on the bookshelves nowadays. Especially in the teen section. When I was young the teen section was mostly real-life stuff. Stories about angsty or troubled teens with problems that loomed large in the teenage world but not so much once you get older and get past the drama. Still, anything dealing with the mystical, magical and otherwise other worldly was relegated to the science fiction and fantasy section.

Not so today. I’m amazed at the plethora of teen vampire, undead, and werewolf books. As if writing about the lives of angsty teens and real-world teen problems weren’t enough, now we have to include such problems as – vampire/human relationships, undead/human relationships, what happens when human adults find out about the relationships, and so forth.

In addition, it seems that these “mixed” matches also lead to a lot of sex. Or at least sexy feelings, judging by the front cover and the alluring prose on the back. Not that I mind exactly, but I’m wondering if maybe the female protagonists in these books isn’t exactly role-model material.