On the Process of Story Generation

I have about four million different stories buzzing through my head at any given moment. All of them are in some way influenced by the television I watch, the books I read, or the stories I roleplay out with friends. So choosing one story for NaNoWriMo was really quite difficult.

I wanted to write something fresh, that I hadn't thought of anything for before. Something I hadn't planned out carefully, constructed a perfect world with climate that made sense and factions all designed. A story like that has constraints. This story couldn't have anything to stifle its creativity.

At about two in the morning, I was about to go to sleep but figured I should probably make a start on my story. I started writing, got about 200 words in and deleted the whole thing. It wasn't right. I didn't connect with the characters, and the story wouldn't go anywhere.

I began again, and was surprised how quickly I came out with 500 words. Then, the beginning of the story established, I fell asleep.

Today was spent thinking about where to take the story, for I had really started without thinking of where it would go. But I think I have it planned out. It is set in a world similar to Terry Pratchett's Diskworld in that it disobeys the very laws of physics. But hey, wizards did it. This is a world I had designed for a Dungeons and Dragons game: a world where giant birds roamed the skies, where people rode them in sky and on land. Where the water which fell from the sides of the land flowed back in currents across the sky to fall once more onto the land.

The story will draw on many tales of the Daoine Sidhe (people of the mounds - Irish fairies). It took all day to lay out the plot, but I believe I finally have it. Of course, this is at the delay of my studies.

The biggest hurdle over, I think I am ready to conquer this story. My only problem today was starting the prologue with the main character a baby. I will have to do a summary of him growing up if I'm to get anywhere with this story. Also, just now considering merging the Prologue with chapter one.

NaNoWriMo 2010

National Novel Writing Month in length. It's where individuals (crazy individuals) drag out their worn story ideas and write a novel in a month. Coincidentally, it is the same month as Movember.

I'm drawn back to my blog to record my writing process and vent some angst during this period. I have four exams to do, and half my semester to catch up on. So I need somewhere to ground myself.

Feel free to read up on the behind-the-scenes process of writing a novel. 1700 words a day? Okay then, starting Monday, here goes nothing...

((Interestingly, I found three half-written blog posts saved here. I'll have something more than NaNoWriMo to put up after this month.))

If you want to join in, there's still time to register at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

You can also track my story in progress at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/633042

Looking in the Rear View Mirror

It always astounds me how many people are willing to break the law on the road. I drive to work or to university every day, and there is almost always one person willing to brave police, cameras and death to get to their destination faster. It's a pet peeve of mine that people risk their (and my) life in such a way. Some might get annoyed when they sit behind me as I do the speed limit, but for some reason they never flash their brights for me to go faster.

With an average trip (for me) taking half an hour with no traffic or an hour and a half with, it's no wonder people may be tempted. By breaking the law, speeding, using bus lanes or generally being jerks on the road, they get to their destination faster. They will avoid the soul-killing waits in carpark-like traffic. And they will be more productive once they get to their job. Or will they?

Take a 60km/h road such as the one near my house. I spend 10 minutes on that road on a good day. Increase speed to 80km/h like some drivers do along the road. That ten minutes becomes seven and a half, but the stopping distance of the car doing it nearly doubles. Two and a half minutes. What would this hypothetical driver do with their two and a half minutes when they got to work? Facebook? Talk for another minute before clocking on?

The time difference actually decreases as you increase in speed limits. On a 100km/h road, going 10 km/h over the limit will save you a fraction of the trip. In a school zone of 40km/h going the normal 60km/h will save you all of fifteen seconds. Hardly seems worth it.

Take a carpark of traffic such as the motorway near my house. This is a place where I cringe at the thought of paint scraping from my car as drivers weave through traffic. There was an advertisement on television about five years back. A motorcyclist tells the viewers to double check for him as he ducks through a gap between two cars. Here's a thought: don't drive dangerously. That might reduce accidents. As for cars, they are probably worse. Driving the motorway is a game. You have two or three lanes and at different points on the road one will move faster than the other. At entrances, the left lane moves slower. At exits, the left lane moves faster. It's all about knowing the lanes. But it's not really this that slows traffic. The thing that slows traffic is a series of cars trying to change out of the 'slow' lane into the fast. Take a look though, I implore drivers, at the cars in the lanes. Even if you play the game perfectly, and end up in the right lanes all along, you will be maybe fifty cars ahead of where you started.

Once traffic starts moving again (and it always does at a certain point for some unknowable reason) you will be fifty cars (or about nine seconds once you hit 100km/h) ahead of everyone else. I mean, nine seconds is a lot of time. With nine seconds you could let the shampoo soak in a little more, you could go searching down the back of the dresser for your favorite pair of socks. You could walk slightly slower to the office instead of at a normal gait.

Or you could wake up and leave home two minutes and thirty nine seconds earlier.

There's a thought. Go to sleep earlier and you won't even have lost any sleep over it. And it's not only my health you're saving by slowing down and leaving earlier. A major cause of road rage is stress. When we speed, we stress. When we spend the morning traffic looking for an opening we stress far more than the cars we pass. By the way, those cars get to work on time. The people in them are less stressed about time. They are enjoying the moment for what it is: a chance to reflect or plan the day. Or, hell, I've seen people enjoying the moment with breakfast and a broadsheet.

Stress is bad for anyone, but so is an accident. Accidents don't happen to everyone, but stress certainly does.

The Mythical R18+ Rating

If you're particularly into the world of gaming (or even if you briefly walk past the local EB Games on your way to the food court) you may have heard of the debate currently raging in Australia over an R18+ rating for video games. Essentially it boils down to this:

There are calls for an introduction of an R18+ rating on Australian video games. Currently, we have an 18+ rating for films, but this does not extend to what the government calls "Computer Games". This means that the maximum rating allowed for Australian games is MA15+, a rating intended more as a recommendation than a ban. All games that other countries would rate suitable only for adults must either be altered to fall into the MA15+ rating, be determined suitable for MA15+ even if they are not, or be refused classification and banned from sale, distribution, or advertising.

Up until recently, games have been squeezed into the MA15+ rating, despite some adult content (such as Left4Dead 1). Only recently has media attention begun to cover the topic. Now it seems there is a canny rater sitting in the Classifications Board fanning the flames of media attention by refusing classification to a few high ended titles.

The two being talked about currently are Left4Dead 2 and Aliens vs Predator. Both have dealt with the problem in different ways, and both of these ways highlight the problems in our classification system.

Left4Dead 2 (a zombie survival game with a selling point of intense horror) was refused classification for the excessive violence present in the game. Police zombies and gruesome decapitations from melee weapons tipped the balance. They must have. The first one got through fine with an MA15+ rating. In response, the developer Valve cut out a large portion of the game: making zombies disappear almost instantly, removing decapitations, and changing other elements of the game. Rather than cut out the minimal amount needed, the developer took an axe to it and decapitated the game. That's good. Okay, it sucks for Australian consumers. We end up with a game that (while rated overseas with a 9/10) has been given a low 4/10 by the ABC's Good Game show. But it's good because it's keeping the heat on this debate. Sure, they could have made minor edits to it like with Fallout 3, where players could use Morphine for pain relief but could get addicted, and where they merely changed the name of the drug to be more 'futurey'. But they didn't. And they highlighted the impact of the lack of rating.

Aliens vs Predator, developed by Rebellion, took an opposite standpoint. They simply (as they had in Germany) refused to change the game. Thus Sega was been forced to quit distribution in Australia. As of December 18th, the Classifications Board has reviewed that decision and awarded the MA15+ classification. So it will be released in Australia, with no changes made. What? Really? They had this to say...

the violence depicted in the game can be accommodated within the MA 15+ category as the violent scenes are not prolonged and are interspersed with longer non violent sequences. The violence is fantastical in nature and justified by the context of the game, set in a futuristic science-fiction world, inhabited by aliens and predators. This context serves to lessen its impact. The more contentious violence is randomly generated and is not dependent on player selection of specific moves.

Hang on a second. But didn't you guys ban that game? On further review, it actually belongs as an MA15+ game? What is this doing to parents? They have no faith in the ratings system for games. Kids, do you know how easy it is to convince your parents to buy you an MA15+ game? Try it sometime. And if not, because children only need an adult present, they can get a stranger to walk in with them and stand to the side while they buy the game themselves! This decision totally discredits the value of an MA15+ system.

Right now, the only Attorney-General in Australia openly against the R18+ rating is Michael Atkinson of South Australia. In his view, these games will only incite violence in children, and we can have fun on systems such as the Wii without the need for violence. He clearly hasn't played Mad World. Still, it's good to hear the other perspective.

The government is currently accepting public opinion on the matter, and I highly suggest you send in yours. The full text is available here but I will summarise it below, with my opinions.

...when a person visits a store to purchase or rent a DVD, they are guided by the classification or 'rating' of the product. The rating lets the person make a decision on the suitability of that product for themselves or other viewers in the household.

Basically, when a mom goes in with her sons to buy the latest Grand Theft Auto game (which has multiple times been marketed as a freeplay sandbox game where you can steal cars, run people over, and get points for staying away from the police for long periods of time) she knows that this game is bad. The sales associate can tell her what is in the game, but she can see the rating and trust that the ratings board has deemed it unsuitable for those under 15 years of age. Unfortunately this does not work. The inconsistencies in what is rated MA15+ mean that something like Aliens vs Predator with a ridiculously high level of violence, initially banned because you could have human heads as trophies, is lumped into the same category as Bioshock (excessive violence) or Mass Effect (tasteful sex scene). Both relatively weak in comparison. Conversely, an adult going in to purchase the game for themselves will not know whether it is offensive until they have played it.

Although the NCS allows for the sale of R18+ DVDs, it does not allow the sale of R18+ computer games anywhere in Australia.

Again an inconsistency, and a strange one. With film classifications, parents know that their children shouldn't see R18+. It's a given. R = Restricted, X = Very Very Bad but sometimes on SBS late at night. But because of this high rating, MA15+ films are considered okay to watch by many parents. This translates across to games, which have no R rating, and thus MA is the maximum.

[As part of the classification code we need to take into consideration]... community concerns about: i) depictions that condone or incite violence, particularly sexual violence;

Now I'm not sure why sexual violence is so highly whipped against, but that's a different argument which doesn't need to be explored right now. Needless to say, this is what the debate is about. Should we be able to "read, hear and see what [we] want"? and is an interactive game actively encouraging violence?

All of Page 4, especially Computer Games Classification.

The NCS also clearly reflects the principle that minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them.

Fair call, guys. It also seems to want to protect indigenous Australians. Because, you know, they clearly can't protect themselves or their children and need the government to intervene. Argument for another time though!

...the specific, negative effects of interactivity on players...

This tells of the difference between films and video games in that with games you are actively pressing a button to kill someone, where as movies are passive activities. There may be a point here, but research is sparse and contradictory on the subject. As Margaret Pomeranz, co-host of At the Movies says, it's ridiculous to have this division between movies and games. They are essentially turning innocent consumers into criminals.

Introducing an R 18+ classification for computer games should not occur because of the risk that minors will be able to access more computer games with high impact violence than currently possible.

I'm not sure if the writers of this have met minors lately, but there is now (or will be if Internet Censorship doesn't get passed through) something in Australia called "broadband". This high-speed internet allows the download of a 10GB game file in less than a day, meaning any minor with an internet connection and knowledge of torrenting (so really any minor) can access games banned in Australia. All the system as currently stands is doing is making what they do illegal. Or rather, forcing them to do illegal things to get the games they want. I don't know what this is doing to our economy. I won't comment on that.

At least some stores and parents facilitate access to restricted games and break the law by doing so.

As they may do with alcohol. We all know it happens. We just don't say it. This has a lot to do with the perception that MA15+ is merely a recommendation. Page 7 of the report has a number of other points, most of which I opinionised with the previous point. The internet means children are able to "obtain 'forbidden' games from other sources."

An R 18+ for computer games would exacerbate problems associated with access to high level material for Indigenous communities and by other non-English speaking people.

What? I'm sorry page 8, but what is this? The Australian Stolen Games Generation? Why are we singling out indigenous Australians in this debate? The idea is that the adults do not understand the classification system. I'm not entirely sure how this isn't already the case. In any event, a label which says "this game is restricted and it is illegal to buy for anyone under 18" seems a whole lot more effective than one which says "this game is recommended for mature adults and requires parental permission to purchase". One equates the game to smoking. The other equates it to a dangerous amusement park ride.

There is no demonstrated need to change existing restrictions.

Again, I won't comment on the harm that a Christmas title like Left4Dead 2, or a high seller like Aliens vs Predator being banned or changed does to the Australian retail economy. I'm no economist. In my simple understanding of doing basic maths I can surmise a quick calculation: Games being purchased in Australian stores = good = jobs for underpaid retail employees and out-of-touch retail CEOs. Games being purchased online and imported to avoid ratings or pirated = money not spent in Australia.

The existing MA 15+ classification is not a complete prohibition on children under 15 having access to this material.

And neither would an R 18+ system. Just like some parents buy their children alcohol or cigarettes or pot, some parents would break the law on this system. But is that enough to punish all of Australia by saying that we should no longer sell alcohol or cigarettes just in case a minority of minors get their guardians to buy these things for them?

There have been cases of computer games being edited for Australia to enable them to be classified MA 15+.

In some cases (Fallout 3) the game has been altered world-wide because of our refused classification (don't we feel special?). In others (Left4Dead 2) the game has been butchered to make it acceptable to us.

The development of an R 18+ category would also allow Australian game developers to compete in an international market.

Now I don't know about this one. According to the report, there are 50 game developers in Australia, with 1500 employees in total and with revenues of $140 million. I don't think we need an R18+ rating to compete internationally, because we're a small enough industry here and because (as Atkinson put it) we don't need intense violence or gore to make a fun game. Sure an R18+ rating would allow these developers to make R18+ games, but I don't think the impact of this is enough to warrant this as a question on the report.

And finally we come to what I touched on before and just caps it all off...

Anecdotal [because no one would admit to it] evidence indicates that some gamers import Refused Classification games or access them online... This [introducing an R18+ rating] would be beneficial to Australian distributors, retailers and copyright owners.

We have enough trouble with digital distribution cutting out the developers' profits to add another road block to it.

Whether you agree or disagree with the R18+ rating, I strongly advise everyone to send in a submission to the Attorney-General, as they are looking for submissions right now until February 26th 2010.

The submissions should be sent to classificationreview@ag.gov.au
or you can fax it to 02 6141 3488 or post to
Classification Review
Attorney-General's Department
3-5 National Circuit
BARTON ACT 2600

Submissions should be succinct and try to answer the questions from the Discussion Paper, which you can read here: http://www.ag.gov.au/gamesclassification and which I have summarised in part above.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, and all that cliche jazz. What you need to know is that they are looking for your opinion. It might be a good time to share it.

- Shannon