Staff Blog: Weaving Stories for Worlds

There is nothing in this world that kills my productivity faster than a new Jim Butcher novel.

As far as fiction goes, I don’t think I’ve come across a stronger author in science fiction or fantasy in recent years. At their best, both genres use their conventions to explore rarities of the human condition, of the things people feel and how they react. There’s a few authors that are masters of it, really – your Anne Bishops and Neal Stephonsons, your Eriksons, Bakers, Hienliens, Simeks, Adams, Asimovs, Kings, Pratchetts, and so on, and so forth. Even non-genre authors, like Dorsey or Thompson, are using words to paint portraits of the human soul. They grab you with words, hold you in place and take you to an entirely different world, capturing your mind and your heart with nothing more than printed words.

These people are magicians of the highest caliber. All of them, to one degree or another, render me useless for days at a time as a lounge around and devour whatever their latest offering entails. But for all that collective talent at writing, none of them bug me to the same degree as Jim does with each new novel. I set, entranced by the way he weaves his stories together, creating that oh-so-hard to capture tapestry called plot from the far too often disparate threads of story and character. When a writer does their job properly the results might surprise you but they still make sense, presenting a world that possesses an internal consistency that informs everything.

It’s hard to do. I just finished novel number nineteen. Some of them are better than others; there’s a four book series that needs to be rewritten, and heavily. The other two series need an editor, stat. But Jim… Jim seems to weave his stories together effortlessly, giving even his smallest characters life with a casual grace. All of the people in his world, even the ones that are mentioned in only a single chapter, are well informed, fleshed out, and contribute something to the overall mythos. Everyone contributes to the whole, adding something to the depth of the story that would not be there otherwise.

Whether it be the Dresden Files or the Codex Alera, Jim’s prose is like the deadliest of all attackers. It strikes you, bears you down and does not let you go. Some of it is haunting, some of it sticks with you. He tells the kinds of stories that you can talk about with others – perhaps not to the extent of Asimov or Hienlien, but you always get the sense that he’s going to get there at some point, that he’s just skimming the edges of greatness and that he’s going to go even further at some point.

So, as gamers, what can we learn from Jim?

Jim uses the backstories of his characters to present challenges for them in his world. The character of Karrin Murphy from the Dresden Files, for example, would be nothing more than an aside in the hands of a less talented writer (look no further than the failed television show for proof of that). She evolves not just from one book to the next, but frequently from one chapter to the next while influencing the man character and how he reacts to his world – but all of her actions and reactions are based on her own profile, how she views the world and where she’s coming from. She makes sense, and she makes sense because she is consistent in her views and with what she knows and has learned.

Worlds, take note. Murphy is a perfect example of using a character’s back story to further the plot while allowing other characters to grow around her. She pushes things forward just by being who she is, and she contributes so much to Dresden’s mythology that it becomes impossible to imagine the series without her. Likewise, players, this is a sterling example of how to work in an ordinary person into a exceptional setting. Keep track of what your character would do, and why, and try to add as much to the experience of everyone around you as you do to yourself.

At their heart, that’s what these games are about – a chance to delve into the minds and actions of other personae, to do and explore things that we simply could not do in what passes for the real world. And as far as inspiration goes, people, you could do a lot worse than the Dresden Files or the Codex Alera. Just make sure you’ve set some time aside to read them… if they do to you what they’ve done to me, you won’t be much good for anything else until you’re done reading them.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the latest Codex Alera just came out and I just got my copy yesterday and I want to go read it, and read it again, and again…

Aaron is the principle author and creator of the Triune Legacy mythos and the 8Fold Soul System. Find out more about Aaron and the rest of The Triune Legacy Team. This Staff Blog entry was posted on November 19th, 2009.