3 Green Fish

So, I’ve totally reinvisioned this story, and it’s starting to make more sense again. (This makes what, the third time this has happened? How many more times can I do this before I start losing credibility here?) I’ve had this issue where I have multiple plotlines all intersecting but none that really seem to drive the story — the main conflict always seemed to lack an antagonist, and while a better writer than I might be able to work it out, I think this story really needs a primary conflict to tie it all together. I think I have that now, and it will show up in the very first paragraph, which is also important given that it takes a while for other stuff to start.

I’ve also been thinking about my characters, and I’m really starting to get a handle on Bandolor and Iggsle more, while Adrianna recently came into stark relief for the first time (praise Apollo and all the muses). I think I finally understand her trauma and where she’s coming from — and why she ends up doing what she does. I see her driving force, and that’s huge.

Currently I have those same 107.5 pages of my second draft, plus 2 new pages of a 3rd draft that actually seems like it might work. Tonight I worked on character notes and plotted out all the scenes that I have written already. It’s a long list, and my plan is to go through them and reorder some things while really looking at what happens in each scene — what’s the conflict, and where are the characters coming from at this given point (by which I mean emotionally or in terms of trying to get what they want)?

So that’s where I am. It’s the beginning of November and I still feel like I’m just starting. I guess it’s not too surprising — the last novel I wrote took 9 months and that was just for one draft. Also, it isn’t really any good. So, all in all, I’ve made lots of progress so far on this one!

A little game for the Xbox 360 came out early this month: Halo 3. You may have heard of it. The conclusion to Bungie’s sci-fi first-person shooter trilogy grossed an ungodly $170 million the day of its release (the highest-grossing entertainment launch ever), gave the games division at Microsoft its second profitable quarter in said division’s history, and prompted Hollywood executives to blame it for poor box office sales. But is the game worth the hysteria? While it’s a solid game and undeniably fun to play, I have to say that it’s not the video game to end all video games, even if it made more money in a single day than the GDP of several small countries.

It’s been a while since I’ve played Halo 1 and 2, but I remember two things that bothered me when I did: the story was incoherent, and the designers never included a map, making it really easy to get lost. At first I thought the level design was better in Halo 3 than its predecessors, but that was mostly because I was playing co-operatively with someone who knew where he was going. When I played a level with another newcomer to the game I had just the same old issues of “where am I going?” and “how do I get there?” Some games try to put you on rails, and some give you multiple options of where to go and what to do. Both can be fine, but I do get a little annoyed when a game only gives you one way forward and makes it hard to tell which way it is.

The storyline is almost impossible to follow, but there are a few very satisfying moments (and a few overly dramatic moments that flop). I’d have liked to see more of the alternate weapons lying around — while there were a nice variety of weapons to be had, it was rare to see more than just the basic ones. All those gripes aside, and I realize that’s a solid paragraph of complaints, Halo 3 is superbly paced. The game keeps you sucked in to the action, and there’s no real breaking point in the campaign — you just don’t want to stop. Bungie clearly focused their efforts on pumping the gameplay full of excitement, and the end result turned out quite well.