Category Archives: Writing

What Alignment Are You?

I was (and probably still am) a massive Dungeons and Dragons geek. The game was a turning point in my life. I recall trekking out to a summer school class as a twelve or thirteen-year-old and tripping out on the tiny lead figures and the various multicolored dice. I even adored the various statistics and tables (these satisfied the the inner math nerd in me). Mostly, role-playing sparked a love of imagination that would eventually lead to writing. After all, most of the game took place between my ears.

One aspect of the game that stuck with me were the alignments. Anyone who’s played knows what I’m talking about: Lawful Good, Chaotic Neutral. That sort of thing. These are pretty simplistic vectors of personality, but they could easily be applied to the characters in my stories. Moreover, giving my protagonist an alignment would actually make me aware of his motivations and action in the narrative.

I created my own (quite basic) alignment system for story characters. Instead of good and evil, I opted for selfless and selfish. I feel they account for many of the same behaviors. I thought about replacing lawful and chaotic with rational and emotional, but they didn’t have the same usefulness. After all, knowing a character is chaotic means he will take far different actions than an emotional character. (Note: I base my pronouns on the manuscript I’m working on at the time. Right now it has a male protagonist. The previous one was female. Feel free to change the he’s to her’s.)

Alignments

Lawful Alignments

These alignments prefer to follow the rules. You all know these types. If there’s a stop sign, they stop. On the other hand, you might consider this to mean rational or scientific. These types of folks would break a law if they considered the law to be irrational or nonsensical.

Chaotic Alignments

This is the domain of the anarchist. The “rock and roll all night and party every day” sort. They not only break rules, they yearn to live outside conformity. They dress different. They take risks. This could also apply to overtly emotional people. The ones that see a flash of light and jump to UFO rather than weather balloon.

Selfless Alignments

The bumper sticker reads: “Save the Whales” or “Visualize World Peace.” Bleeding hearts please line up here. The degree of selflessness may vary. Perhaps it’s just picking up some trash. Maybe it’s saving animals from abuse. All the way to obliterating nuclear weapons from the world. Bottom line, these people think more of others than themselves.

Selfish Alignments

The “me” generation. These folks think about numero uno: themselves. Whatever they can do to better their lot in life. They will steal or hurt others to get what they need. However, they often have a high level of confidence because who matters most? Why themselves, of course.

Alignment Breakdown

Lawful Selfless

The perfect union of law and order. This is your basic Superman or Captain America. This type of person works hard to maintain the greater good. He trusts authorities. After all, those people reached their jobs because they were so earned it, right? Othello might have started here before he fell.

Lawful Neutral

This person is on the split between selfish and selfless. He loves rules and logic. I picture him as a scientist who’s not so much interested in helping others or himself, but fascinated by the laws and puzzles he can solve.

Lawful Selfish

The corporate tycoon who finds the loopholes in the system. Is it really breaking the law if those loopholes are there? This might also be someone who is very calculating and organized in his plans. He gets what he wants because he’s patient and meticulous. He ultimately loves rules because he can subvert and control them.

Neutral Selfless

You want to stop that new toxic waste plant from being built, but that might mean breaking a few laws. You carefully weigh all the options, choosing what you think might be the best for everyone. You can break the rules if it justifies the end and helps people.

Pure Neutral

There are two options here: Buddhist or indecisive. Either you realize that there is no self or law and you must let things be, or you simply can’t make up your mind on anything.

Neutral Selfish

This is pure selfishness. This guy only thinks about himself. He don’t want to get caught, so he heeds the law when needed, but circumvents rules if they stand in his way. It’s all about what others can do for him.

Chaotic Selfless

This is your basic vigilante. This guy wants to help, but prefers to work outside the law. Batman and Spider-man fall into this category. Both want to help people, but they realize that following the rules will only let the bad guys escape.

Chaotic Neutral

Pure chaos. An anarchist. He wants to abolish all laws and rules and just have some fun. This fella would not be a team player. In fact he probably doesn’t think much about anyone and lives totally in the present moment.

Chaotic Selfish

Your basic criminal. This guy wants it all and he wants it now. He prefers to break the rules. It’s a rush to flout the law and get away with it.

Do any of these alignments describe you? How about any characters in books you’ve read? Consider this the next time you read or write a book.

Tim Kane

How Far Would You Go to Write?

I had a dream the other day that I was stuck in LA traffic, late for a meeting with a film producer. And when I say traffic, I mean that the cars had virtually stopped. I drove in the shoulder and veered through off ramps just to make some time.

The trouble was, this wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.

As I began my writing career, I had aspirations of becoming a screenwriter. I dashed off three or four of my own scripts. Read Variety. Even started filming a Dracula script with my friends. It was through Variety that I found a producer/director that needed his script punched up. I won’t mention the name. The script is still active and I could get paid upon production. I’ll also develop the mutant power of telepathy and go to Vegas and make millions at poker. The chances are about the same.

This script was along the lines of the Syfy network movies. You know the ones I’m talking about. They have a colon in the title—Magma: Volcanic Disaster, Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep. Only this script wasn’t fantasy or scifi. It was a heist flick where girls took off their clothes every five pages or so for no important reason. Yet, and I have to emphasize this point, the producer wanted this to be a serious action film.

I took on the job and worked many late nights grasping for reasons to justify the main female characters disrobing. I managed to get the producer to cancel all but two of the scenes. (Maybe if I hadn’t, the film would have gotten made. Who knows.) Anywho, I live in San Diego and the producer was, well, in Hollywood. A few times a week, I’d drive up there to meet him and go over the script. It was hell. I never got paid. Not even for gas.

What can I say? I was young and hungry. The opportunity looked good. I learned plenty from the experience. I could finish a whole script under deadline. I could convince someone to ditch unwanted scenes. I could dodge cars while driving fifty in the shoulder.

How far are you willing to go for your writing?

Tim Kane

Four High Production Book Trailers

In the last post, I explored four low budget book trailers. Well here are the big boys. Not always better, as you’ll see. Most of these have a hefty budget and were most likely produced by the publishers.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

This trailer certainly has that Hollywood feel. It clearly delivers the premise of this books. I’ve actually read the sample chapter and it dovetails with this trailer almost scene for scene. It shows the reader exactly what he or she would expect.

Going West by Maurice Gee

Are you amazed? You should be. The cut paper art is breathtaking. I couldn’t take my eyes away. Now, can you tell me what the book is about? Yeah, there was the voice over reading snippets from the book, but I didn’t listen. The visuals overpowered the text. This is an example of the production team going too far.

I can’t say for certain, but I believe the art may be by Peter Callesen.

The Return Man by V. M. Zito

The trailer, put together by Swank Banana Productions, sucks you in with very simple visuals and text that interacts with the smoke. I have to say, I was drawn to this trailer. I can see the same techniques working on a smaller budget (perhaps without the fancy text).

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

The illustrations by Keith Thompson drive this book trailer. It shows that if you know someone who can draw, the trailer can center around this artwork. Again, this does a superb job of hitting it’s target audience of steampunk readers.

Tim Kane

Four Intriguing Low-Budget Book Trailers

I am creating a book trailer for a friend of mine, so of course I perused the YouTube offerings to see what’s what. Book trailers seem to fall into two categories: the low-budget and the “hey did a Hollywood filmmaker direct that?”. In a subsequent post, I’ll tackle some of the high end book trailers. The ones below are anywhere from a near zero budget to knowing some film students to help you. Let’s check them out…

Souless by Gail Carriger

This trailer appears to use found footage, or perhaps recreated footage, in a grainy black and white. Instead of a voice-over, black screens with text outline the premise of the book. Like it or not, this trailer gives you want you need, a reason to buy (or not buy) the book. It clearly explains the genre and premise as well as giving the mood of the writing. Compare the Souless trailer to the one below.

A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell

This trailer is quite clever and low budget (simply a camera filming the author). It engaged the viewer, but perhaps not enough to click over and check out the book. Despite the shocking title, I get no sense of what the book is about. I did click over to Amazon, but only so that I could be sure it wasn’t really about pornography (you never can tell these days).

Nocturnal by Scott Sigler

This is the man that gave away so much of his writing that gathered tens of thousands of followers. The publishers came begging to sign him. Although this trailer has a heightened budget, it is still essentially drawings animated to outline the plot. It’s the pacing and style that capture you. I was instantly enthralled. It also serves its purpose: you know what the book is about.

i am in the air right now by Kathryn Regina

I am addicted to this trailer. It not only captivates me, but makes me want to read Regina’s poetry. Partly this is due to her reading some of poetry for the trailer. She “animates” her poems, matching the images to the words. While the we see images of a bird crying for help and wasting away, we hear this:

“I was thinking of the bird that flew into a man’s head, hard, so that it actually flew inside the head and it got trapped there and confused.”

Addicting. This is clearly a brilliant book trailer, though not easily emulated unless you’re writing poetry.

The next post will explore some of the higher budget book trailers.

Tim Kane

Why I Write

I was talking to a friend the other day about how most writers have vastly unrealistic ideas about the business of writing. I once shared their views as well, so this is not purely peering-down-my-nose at “those folks.” We dream of writing one stellar book, becoming instantly famous, and then retiring to a) a yacht in the Caribbean, b) a log cabin in the woods (this the Stephen King dream), or c) a villa in Italy.

I’d laugh if I didn’t have this dream myself. And I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Way back, when I first discovered my passion for writing in a class with Susan Vreeland in my senior year, a local author came to speak to us. His name was Vernor Vinge. If you love SciFi, then you’ve certainly heard of him.

We asked him a multitude of questions, but mostly he tried to illustrate the process, and demystify the glamor. I was like Teflon, and it slid right past me. One thing did stuck. He asked us all why we wanted to be writers. We had to write down our response. Of course visions of books covers with my name on it, money and fame flitted through my head. What I settled on was this: Because I have to.

I’ve spent the last twenty some odd years since then working this out. I find I’m happiest when writing, even when it frustrates me. Maybe it’s because I end the session creating something? Writing offers a level of control that is ephemeral in real life (I think this is the lure of video games to some). That’s my world in there. I created it.

So why do you write? Do you have what it takes to go the long haul?

Tim Kane