Archive for January, 2006
How to Create Powerful, Sympathetic Characters
Creating sympathetic characters does not need to be mysterious. This week we’ll look a couple of unlikely sympathetic characters. And I’ll give you an easy, three-step technique you can use to build sympathy into your own characters.
Am I a Story Geek?
What’s happening in my appoach to wine is what happened long ago in my approach to stories. I used to drink wine occasionally, and I used to enjoy it occasionally. Several months ago, my blood pressure started rising toward the borderline-high area. I’ve been expecting this for a long time. It’s congenital. And I started [...]
The Longest Journey (Review)
Or maybe the longest, most arduous, most painful, most distressing journey. On two different adventure gaming boards recently, the subject has come up, the subject of the classic computer game The Longest Journey. No, I don’t want to call it a classic. But to be fair, it’s only a year younger than Grim Fandango, which [...]
Spotlight: Tales of Pirx the Pilot (Review)
This is Stanisław Lem week. This past Monday, we looked at his novel The Investigation. Today, we’re reviewing a two-volume set: Tales of Pirx the Pilot and More Tales of Pirx the Pilot.
The Investigation by Stanislaw Lem (Review)
The Investigation is a novel about strange occurences. Dead bodies start moving, by themselves. At first, it’s hardly noticeable. A corpse moves from its back over onto its front. Or it rolls off the table. People dismiss these occurences, when they notice them, as practical jokes. Then the bodies start getting up and walking, even [...]
Spotlight: east of the web
This episode almost didn’t make it out in time. Production got hung up when I got carried away at east of the web. east of the web is a web site featuring quality short stories, hundreds of them, by new and classic authors.
Internal and External Conflicts
Stories use two types of conflict: internal and external. Internal conflicts are resolved by something changing inside the character, whereas external conflicts are resolved in the world around outside the character. When these two work together, the result can be dazzling. And when they don’t, the result can be devastating.
EFF and Sony BMG Reach Preliminary Settlement over Flawed DRM
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced Thursday that it had reached a preliminary settlement with Sony BMG over their controversial CD copy-prevention software.