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Written by Paul
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Tuesday, 08 January 2013 23:29 |
Coincidence and happenstance can play a good or a bad role in your story. Every story operates on unlikely coincidences, but you have to be careful how you use them. Used poorly, they make the story feel contrived and unbelievable. Used well, they glide in under the radar and make the story feel smooth and neat.
I mean think on it. How unlikely is it that Ben Kenobi just happened to be wandering around the "not to be traveled lightly" wastes at the right time to save Luke's life? How unlikely is it for R2D2 to crash land within a short hike of the one guy on the whole PLANET he was looking for? I can't even count the coincidences that prop up the Harry Potter books, and even Shakespeare had a lot of really convenient overheard conversations. It's a staple storytelling element.
The reason a lot of these work is that we know for a fact that shit like this does happen in real life, and so as long as the coincidence seems messy enough, we buy it. The hero can't trip, grab the tapestry, and thus reveal the hidden niche where the +5 Slayer of Hit Points is waiting for him. No, that is too easy. But if after a fierce knife-fight the slain guard falls and reveals the hidden passage that leads to the Maze of Doom where the sword may be hidden, we'll go with that, it helps the hero along without seeming too contrived. Plus, a dramatic image worked into it always helps, creating a feeling of destined events. The last part of this chapter has several of those 'perfect timing' moments, but they are, I think, sufficiently dramatic that the reader will accept them.
Started the creation of the new campaign today. I got the audio in the can for the trailer and I'm really pleased with it. Watch this space.
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Written by Paul
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Monday, 07 January 2013 00:20 |
I know this is the kind of big, action-packed scene that seems like it would go at the end of the book, but trust me - there's a lot to do yet. We have ten more chapters to go before the end, and then bonus scenes, so we're not done just yet.
Gearing up for the next campaign, and I have already started Queen of the Sky Frontier. I am really pleased with how it's going, and I think it will be a worthy sequel to Sky Pirates of the Rio Grande. This will be the first proper sequel we've done on Adventurotica, and I'm not sure how it will go over. I'm also not sure how this campaign will go over when it is A: so soon after Xmas, and B: is coming before the fulfillment of the last campaign. That's just how the timing worked out, and we can't really put it off any longer. I'd like to hope this one will do better than the last, but I'm bracing for it to do less well.
So keep your eyes peeled, the next two weeks will bring a lot of news for you, and a lot of work for us. That's just life in self-publishing. Stay tuned!
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Written by Paul
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Thursday, 03 January 2013 23:44 |
We have this idea in our heads from movies that swordfighting is a big, flashy affair with swords going shhhiiiiinggg all over the place as the actors whack their blades together. Either that, or we imagine the fussy, swishy-pokey styles of sport fencing to represent something closer to 'reality'. Neither of these things are true at all.
The fencing used in The Golden Mask represents a transitional period in the world it takes place in. Real-world Musketeer-style fencing was conducted full-forward, sword and parrying dagger extended far out in front with a wide stance. Attacks included both cuts and thrusts, as the 'rapier' of the time was an edged weapon, not the glorified radio antenna of a foil or epee. If there was no dagger, a heavy glove or even a cloak wrapped around the left arm might be used as an offhanded tool for parrying.
In our own world, Italian-style fencing was the first to emphasize a sideways stance, and the thinking is that this was intended to make the swordsman a smaller target to a pistol-shot. This seems ridiculous until you remember that the smoothbore pistols of the day had the effective range and accuracy of a thrown rock - even at close ranges the odds of a lethal shot were very low. Thus, a sideways stance did in fact help make you harder to hit. Some people even posit that the cup-hilted sword was intended to deflect an incoming shot - which it might be able to do. It would screw your weapon up, but it might save your life. Testing has shown that the deeply keeled breastplates of the era would in fact stop a musket ball, albeit while leaving a huge dent.
A sideways stance may have become dominant as men used it on the battlefield. A rank of men shoulder to shoulder did not have room to swing their swords around, so a style that emphasized attacking and defending on a single plane would be more useful when engaged in a mass of troops fighting side by side. Tactics of the day often focused on: move in close, discharge muskets and pistols to break the enemy formations, then drop them and charge with sword and dagger. Said daggers had wide guards and were intended as defensive weapons, as well as for delivering the death blow to a fatally wounded opponent, though this was more often seen in duels.
So Varian's shifting from one stance to another represents a shift taking place in the martial styles and weapons of his world as gunpowder weapons become more accurate, powerful, and reliable. Most students were taught in massed groups to fight the same way - gambits, openings, endgames - like chess. So his refusal to fall into patterns is exploiting a weakness in the way his opponents learned their craft.
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