Greetings Fellow Readers!
'Beyond Logic: The Spectral Line' is now up and running on Fictionaut. Click on the sidebar link to check it out.
'NEW and NOTES' will be up Monday July 1 at 8:00 PM EST.
Facebook Event Planner will be up Monday July 1 at 10:00 PM EST.
That's all for now.
Until Next Time...
See ya.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Bi-Monthly Rants: June 19, 2013
Greetings Fellow readers! Welcome to another round of Bi-Monthly Rants. Are you all excited for next weeks release of 'Beyond Logic' on Fictionaut? To celebrate next weeks release, I am going to share some of my 'Thoughts on Writing'.
[Thoughts on Writing: Female Characters
Okay, this was something that I had on my mind for a long time. The problem is that being male, I don't know what I can say about females when I have never genuinely gone through the experiences of growing up female. There has been, for generations, all kinds of talk about females, from their rights to how they are depicted in fiction. While although I could share my thoughts, I just don't see the point, because other than showing vocal support for females and reject things that harm females, my words don't really matter. My words does not equal action, their just words, words do nothing. But writing is an action, and if there is one place I can, and have been doing my best, to help out females, is in my fiction writing, and hopefully future game inventions. Instead pointing out all the problems and what is wrong with, I will instead talk about what I want in my female characters in all my fiction works. It is a personal risk to make these statements, because I am human and I could accidental trip up and depict females in bad light without realizing it. I'm not looking to win points or curry, I just want an understanding of where I am taking my female characters in my own stories.
Females are Interesting:
Okay let me start with what is important in character development, making characters interesting. Most of my works have female protagonists because I find females interesting. Think of it like this, males in many action/adventure tend to follow the same formula; punch, punch, punch, outwit, shoot, punch. Yeah yeah that's very narrow-minded, but I did grow up in the 80s with all those action flicks around me and the 3rd grade girls in my class had cooties. Today though, I find that even though The Expendables and looking back at Die Hard, yeah its cool but Aliens is Awesome. Sigourney Weaver able to kick ass and still be feminine, the writers (James Cameron, David Glier, and Walter Hill) made Ripley an interesting character. She was an every-woman who rolled her eyes when the corporation did not listen to her about the dangers of the Aliens. What she went through, I don't believe would have been the same if a different character took her place. There is no reason to not make females interesting in fiction and have them face situations that are out of norm. Fiction is a what if scenario and my question is, "What is she going to do to get out of that situation?" That is when I write to answer such a question.
Females are Human:
We males make mistakes, females do too. We males can succeed and fail, females do too. We males try to find the best solution to an impossible puzzle and tha choice may not be the best, females do too. This is something important I try to keep in mind. Females can make mistakes, can succeed and fail, and can persevere in their life. Just like males, females has wants and dreams but also can lose said dreams. These is what make all of us human. I do my best to give my females motivation, drive, and at times they can make mistakes. I have them learn from it and move forward. I may not be perfect in many of my stories, but I at least try to give them respect as humans and get to them to stand up and push back. This isn't about asserting "strong independent woman" here, it's about them struggling to climb a mountain to reach the top and overcoming the trials that they face in the situation they are in.
Females are Different, and that's okay:
This is a tough one, because I always ask myself if it's okay to approach this in my fiction. Things like menstruation, feminine needs, pregnancies, these are things that do occur in every female and we males really don't know how that feels. We really don't. And sadly, there are some adult males who act like its cooties and not something to touch on. It's like "eeww" kind of behavior and as an adult, that's sad, really it is. For me personally, these things are genuinely personal and takes a modicum of understanding when putting it into fiction. However as male I'll really never know. Now granted, it isn't a requirement to depict these needs in every fiction unless it is relevant, but my point is that these needs should NOT be treated as taboo, by both genders. If such situations fit within the narrative, I won't hesitate to throw them in there. Because let's face reality, this is something that happens to females and should not be treated as if it doesn't exist. Yeah readers can assume throughout the story these are happening, but sometimes, these needs can happen when least expected and should never be ignored or poked with a long stick from a distance. It's just matter of asking, "Is this personal moment really necessary?" If the answer is yes, put it in there and stand by it.
Conclusion:
So yeah, it is very difficult to write an interesting female character do to the subjective nature of fiction. Some readers may take offense and other will say this is a great character female character. I can't sway 100% of the reader population. But what I hope is that when I write my female characters, they are interesting, fun, and most importantly, that they be who they are and be judged by the content of their character and merits, and not as a "female tag". What this means is that if a female a makes choice and its wrong choice, I want my readers to say "She was wrong.", not "Girls, am I right?". And I don't want to see my female characters used as a poster child for an agenda either. That is not why I write females for. Females are awesome.
Well I thank you for listening to my rants. I'll see you all next week with "Beyond Logic", and next months 'NEWS and NOTES' will be Monday July 1st at 8:00 PM EST.
Until next time...
See ya.
[Thoughts on Writing: Female Characters
Okay, this was something that I had on my mind for a long time. The problem is that being male, I don't know what I can say about females when I have never genuinely gone through the experiences of growing up female. There has been, for generations, all kinds of talk about females, from their rights to how they are depicted in fiction. While although I could share my thoughts, I just don't see the point, because other than showing vocal support for females and reject things that harm females, my words don't really matter. My words does not equal action, their just words, words do nothing. But writing is an action, and if there is one place I can, and have been doing my best, to help out females, is in my fiction writing, and hopefully future game inventions. Instead pointing out all the problems and what is wrong with, I will instead talk about what I want in my female characters in all my fiction works. It is a personal risk to make these statements, because I am human and I could accidental trip up and depict females in bad light without realizing it. I'm not looking to win points or curry, I just want an understanding of where I am taking my female characters in my own stories.
Females are Interesting:
Okay let me start with what is important in character development, making characters interesting. Most of my works have female protagonists because I find females interesting. Think of it like this, males in many action/adventure tend to follow the same formula; punch, punch, punch, outwit, shoot, punch. Yeah yeah that's very narrow-minded, but I did grow up in the 80s with all those action flicks around me and the 3rd grade girls in my class had cooties. Today though, I find that even though The Expendables and looking back at Die Hard, yeah its cool but Aliens is Awesome. Sigourney Weaver able to kick ass and still be feminine, the writers (James Cameron, David Glier, and Walter Hill) made Ripley an interesting character. She was an every-woman who rolled her eyes when the corporation did not listen to her about the dangers of the Aliens. What she went through, I don't believe would have been the same if a different character took her place. There is no reason to not make females interesting in fiction and have them face situations that are out of norm. Fiction is a what if scenario and my question is, "What is she going to do to get out of that situation?" That is when I write to answer such a question.
Females are Human:
We males make mistakes, females do too. We males can succeed and fail, females do too. We males try to find the best solution to an impossible puzzle and tha choice may not be the best, females do too. This is something important I try to keep in mind. Females can make mistakes, can succeed and fail, and can persevere in their life. Just like males, females has wants and dreams but also can lose said dreams. These is what make all of us human. I do my best to give my females motivation, drive, and at times they can make mistakes. I have them learn from it and move forward. I may not be perfect in many of my stories, but I at least try to give them respect as humans and get to them to stand up and push back. This isn't about asserting "strong independent woman" here, it's about them struggling to climb a mountain to reach the top and overcoming the trials that they face in the situation they are in.
Females are Different, and that's okay:
This is a tough one, because I always ask myself if it's okay to approach this in my fiction. Things like menstruation, feminine needs, pregnancies, these are things that do occur in every female and we males really don't know how that feels. We really don't. And sadly, there are some adult males who act like its cooties and not something to touch on. It's like "eeww" kind of behavior and as an adult, that's sad, really it is. For me personally, these things are genuinely personal and takes a modicum of understanding when putting it into fiction. However as male I'll really never know. Now granted, it isn't a requirement to depict these needs in every fiction unless it is relevant, but my point is that these needs should NOT be treated as taboo, by both genders. If such situations fit within the narrative, I won't hesitate to throw them in there. Because let's face reality, this is something that happens to females and should not be treated as if it doesn't exist. Yeah readers can assume throughout the story these are happening, but sometimes, these needs can happen when least expected and should never be ignored or poked with a long stick from a distance. It's just matter of asking, "Is this personal moment really necessary?" If the answer is yes, put it in there and stand by it.
Conclusion:
So yeah, it is very difficult to write an interesting female character do to the subjective nature of fiction. Some readers may take offense and other will say this is a great character female character. I can't sway 100% of the reader population. But what I hope is that when I write my female characters, they are interesting, fun, and most importantly, that they be who they are and be judged by the content of their character and merits, and not as a "female tag". What this means is that if a female a makes choice and its wrong choice, I want my readers to say "She was wrong.", not "Girls, am I right?". And I don't want to see my female characters used as a poster child for an agenda either. That is not why I write females for. Females are awesome.
Well I thank you for listening to my rants. I'll see you all next week with "Beyond Logic", and next months 'NEWS and NOTES' will be Monday July 1st at 8:00 PM EST.
Until next time...
See ya.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Bi-Monthly Rants: June 5-6, 2013
Greetings Fellow Readers! I really, really am sorry for missing the scheduled 8:00 release last night. I did not pay attention to the clock and found myself waking up this morning realizing it. I do have a valid reason for missing it and this would be a good opportunity to use that as the focus of today's rants.
[Cyber Tactics®
So yeah last night, I had an idea for some new card designs. This happened during my taping of Prototype Presentations. Now as you know, there currently three type of cards Sprite Programs, Support Files, and System Tools. Where in early prototypes, there were actually five different card types, and one of those I had been tinkering a lot. Either I'd put or take out with each incarnation of the prototype. It's called the Server Board, and originally it did what System Tools does today. But I consolidated them because of redundancy and made it more streamlined.
Now there was another interesting thing I'm trying to tinker with in the game and that is no monetary cards. See in games like Magic: The Gathering and Legend of the Five Rings, they use a monetary system to allow players to place cards from their hands to table. The problem I had was that it was too much of crutch and lacked flexibility. So I never bothered making them. However, some kind of system had to be in place to play cards in order to keep the game balanced. So, I came up with the idea of letting cards pay for each other and not rely on monetary cards.
But, time went on and while this approach does work, I feel like not having monetary cards is the opposite of forcing monetary cards. This was a combination of years of researching game creation from places like Penny Arcade, and extensive playtesting. I came to realize during that recording that I would be cheating players out of something very unique from other cards. Total freedom of creative strategy.
What this means is that by putting in the Server Boards to serve as monetary cards AND keeping the every pays for each other rules, players will be able to freely come up with strategies without the mandatory barrier of having monetary cards in a deck. In other they don;t have play monetary cards if they don't want to. Players can form a deck without Server Boards, or with little Server Boards, or they can rely heavily on it like Magic: the Gathering. Either way, players will have freedom in this game.
Of course there is another bonus to this. I was able to move one of my game mechanics over to Server Boards, because it's nature makes sense. Originally I created three of these cards but because of this change I ended making 4 new additional cards around this game mechanic and it was not easy. It took me all of last night to conjure up these new cards and then strike a balance to keep them from being broken. I also ended up making other new cards for Server Boards expanding on the monetary theme.]
So that is what happened last night and I apologize again for being very late. I am thinking about making a different type of video on YouTube. These videos would be more in depth on all my games and a little more personal then the robotic, sterile sounding Prototype Presentations. I don't know when to begin or how to go about it, but I definately do want to make these videos.
So that's all have for the rants today. Thank you all for joining me.
Until Next Time...
See ya.
Monday, June 3, 2013
NEWS and NOTES: Month of June
Greetings Fellow Readers! Welcome to the monthly issue of 'NEWS and NOTES'. This is the first full month of the Facebook Monthly and what do we have on tap, check it out.
[NEWS]
-Wednesday June 5 and June 19 at 8:00 PM on Blogspot: The Bi-Monthly Rants.
Get the latest thoughts and insight from author H-M Brown.
-Friday June 7 and June 8: Free 'Shell' Friday.
Pick up your free copy of 'Shell', prequel to The Geolyth Equation, only on Kindle.
-Friday June 18 on Fictionaut: Beyond Logic.
The Speculative Fiction anthology series is back to take into the all thing surreal and illogical.
Coming soon to Fictionaut.
[NOTES]
- As you can see, 'NEWs and NOTES' will be a monthly posting. You will find more information regarding all upcoming events in my Facebook by clicking on the sidebar link to the left of this page. And I will post up on Facebook and Twitter when these events are posted.
That is all for 'NEWS and NOTES' this month.
Until Next Time...
See ya.
[NEWS]
-Wednesday June 5 and June 19 at 8:00 PM on Blogspot: The Bi-Monthly Rants.
Get the latest thoughts and insight from author H-M Brown.
-Friday June 7 and June 8: Free 'Shell' Friday.
Pick up your free copy of 'Shell', prequel to The Geolyth Equation, only on Kindle.
-Friday June 18 on Fictionaut: Beyond Logic.
The Speculative Fiction anthology series is back to take into the all thing surreal and illogical.
Coming soon to Fictionaut.
[NOTES]
- As you can see, 'NEWs and NOTES' will be a monthly posting. You will find more information regarding all upcoming events in my Facebook by clicking on the sidebar link to the left of this page. And I will post up on Facebook and Twitter when these events are posted.
That is all for 'NEWS and NOTES' this month.
Until Next Time...
See ya.
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