Category Archives: Storytelling

Subtle References

  By Robert Watson | 1 February, 2014 - 23:17 |
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I sometimes cringe a bit if I go back and read some of the short stories I wrote for my 2002 fiction writing class. I think a few of the stories could be re-worked into something decent, but I learned two things about myself then:

1. I’m not particularly fond of so-called “literary fiction”.

2. I had a bad habit of being too blunt with references.

There’s an art to making a statement about some idea, event, person, etc. Political allegory is a good example, and I might be better at it if I had strong political opinions. I’m sure I haven’t mastered that art, but I like to think I’ve improved in 12 years.

I think some of the best stories are the ones that are not tied to a particular time period, idea, etc. They’re the ones that can be interpreted in multiple ways.

Of course, I also like to poke fun at the world around me. Anything is fair game, although the odd thing is I find myself poking fun at ideas, people, etc., that I respect more than the ones I don’t.

Such is the case with Epictetus’ The Handbook, which was the basis for The Philosophy of Many Hands. You can find the parody here, if you’d like: { PDF }   { about }   And here is the real version (although my own copy I worked from is a slightly different translation).

I actually found it to be a useful practical philosophy, which was the intention of the writer. It was a guide to daily life. I can’t say it really impacted my way of thinking, but it at least gave me a way to word it.

The upcoming An Ember in the Wind is full of lots of little allusions, references, and nods. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before the significance of the color schemes in the illustrations. Mara is always shown wearing Wolfpack Red, while the buildings in her city are Carolina Blue. (called Locana Blue in the book).

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Anyone familiar with North Carolina would recognize these as the colors of North Carolina State University and The University of North Carolina. While my wife was still a grad student at UNC, we lived in Chapel Hill. It’s easy to feel like an outsider when you’re an NC State student in UNC’s home town. So I put my character in the same position. I think it works okay.

“Locana Blue”

And then there’s the very first Ember illustration. The puppets picture. Actually, I’m going to keep that one to myself for now.

But for anyone who has read A Foundation in Wisdom, here is John Bartlebee’s route. It’s the route my wife and I took a couple times when we’d drive to Tulsa, OK for Christmas… a city which has the following avenues that would ring a bell: Sheridan, Mingo, Elm, Peoria, Utica, Aspen.

On sites like DeviantART, people like to ask where others draw inspiration from. I’ve generally resisted the urge to share mine on a public forum, because I can imagine my answers being disappointing and not at all helpful. In A Foundation in Wisdom, shortly after crossing into Virginia, John becomes obsessed with the clouds – scrutinizing his every turn closer and closer with every passing mile. Who could be ominously watching him from above?

Here’s the inspiration.

New Projects for 2014!

  By Robert Watson | 4 January, 2014 - 23:12 | , , ,
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So far 2014 is off to an odd start. I came down with a cold, and I had a hard drive die on me. Granted, neither of these things are as bad as could be. The new semester has not started yet, and I make backups. So I seem to have averted a sad tale about how I should be backing up my stuff.

Protip: go backup your stuff. Now 😉

I usually don’t make resolutions for the new year. New Years Day is typically a time to reflect on yourself and where you’re headed. But I do that on a consistent basis anyway. Nevertheless, I’ve had time to contemplate the inner regions of my soul, and have the following to consider over the next few weeks.

  1. Why does every episode of Downton Abbey start with a generous shot of a dog’s butt? I need to get to the bottom* of this. There’s a story here, I’m sure.
  2. I’m no longer buying mechanical hard drives.
  3. Clean the virtual shed.

I’m a “data squirrel.” For a while, every time I upgraded to a new hard drive, I dumped the contents of the old one into a single folder. This new drive was then dumped into it’s own folder on the next upgrade, and so on and so forth. I have virtual Matryoshka dolls that go back to ~1989. You know who has the high score in the family copy of Dungeon of Shalan? Me. And I have the high score table to prove it.

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I also have my copy of Monkey Island. Sadly, I don’t have the Dial-A-Pirate that goes with it… not that I couldn’t make a new one. (Thanks, Google!)

I’ve been toying with the idea of making a game or two to help promote An Ember in the Wind. The trick is to find something that would appeal to the sorts of people who may enjoy the book. I think a SCUMM-like point-and-click adventure game (like Monkey Island!) would be just the thing. I’ve also been wanting to experiment a bit more with the presentation of the Mara of the Ori riddles. This would be a good way to do both. And maybe I could make a tacky copy-protection device, like Dial-A-Squirrel.

The best part is, I already have a pretty good library of scenes. Throughout the past year I drew a lot of scenes from Fordham Forest, and they link together pretty well. I’m not thinking anything too big – although larger than a “roomisode.”

The hardest part will be doing animations. Most likely, I’d base the game off of the entire “A Conundrum of Eggs” series (including the third part that hasn’t been published). Most of my efforts will go into animating the two playable characters, Mara, and Ry the Squirrel. I’ve not studied animation very much at all, but I’ve also never been opposed to learning new things.

In the meantime, think about this. It’s 2014.

2 0 1 4.

2  0  1  4.

Isn’t that weird?

* sorry.

How Many Novels Are There?

  By Robert Watson | 15 November, 2013 - 02:32 | ,
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We are now halfway into November, and if you are behind on your Nanowrimo novel, you may be looking into how to cheat catch up. You’ve probably heard that a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters will eventually turn out the works of Shakespeare.

Is it true? Technically, yes. Likely is a different question. The odds are small.

Very small.

Let’s suppose we want our monkeys to type out a particular 50,000 word novel. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a good example, as it’s roughly around that mark.

There are 26 letters and seven basic punctuation marks (, . ? ‘ ” ! space) that are frequently used. There are others, but these are enough to make my point.

So the chances of a monkey hitting a particular character is 1 in 33.

According to the multiplication principle, the chances of a monkey hitting a particular 2-character combination is $latex \left(\frac{1}{33}\right)^2 &bg=e6eaea&s=0$. The chances of a monkey hitting a particular 3-character combination is $latex \left(\frac{1}{33}\right)^3 &bg=e6eaea&s=0$, a 4 character combination is $latex \left(\frac{1}{33}\right)^4 &bg=e6eaea&s=0$, and so on.

If we assume an average of 3 letters per word, then the chances of our monkeys banging out Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is roughly $latex \left(\frac{1}{33}\right)^{150000} &bg=e6eaea&s=0$

Note that there are roughly $latex 10^{80} &bg=e6eaea&s=0$  atoms in the universe, and the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. To put the odds that our monkeys will produce Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy into perspective, if every atom in the universe was a monkey, and they had been typing 150,000 characters every nanosecond since the big bang, it still ain’t gonna happen.

This is probably the least interesting problem, though. If you want to win Nanowrimo with monkeys, you don’t need to write a specific 50,000 word novel. You just need to write any 50,000 word novel. And this is where the numbers really get tricky.

The fundamental question becomes what constitutes a novel?

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There was an interesting discussion over at what-if.xkcd about how many unique English tweets are possible. The bottom line is that there are roughly $latex 2^{140 \times 1.1} \approx 2 \times 10^{46} &bg=e6eaea&s=0$ possible tweets. The details are in the linked post and its own references, but the gist is this:

In a 1950 article, Claude Shannon determined that the typical written English sentence contains roughly 1.1 bits of information per letter. If you have some text with n bits of information, there are $latex 2^{n} &bg=e6eaea&s=0$ ways it can be interpreted. So a written English sentence containing t letters, or about 1.1t bits, can be interpreted $latex 2^{1.1t} &bg=e6eaea&s=0$ ways.

This certainly cuts down the number of novels. There are roughly $latex 2^{165000} &bg=e6eaea&s=0$ possible 50,000 word “novels.”

Does that make much of a difference?

No. The probability that any of the 150,000-character strings constitutes a 50,000-word “novel” has 178,000 zeroes after the decimal.

And keep in mind that I’m using a very loose definition of the word “novel”. A 50,000-word “novel” in this context just needs to be a collection of sentences that are readable individually, but not necessarily together. Here’s an excerpt of my fan-fic sequel to Atlanta Nights:

“Jim, do I have a dingo on my back?”
The sun set three fortnights ago on Afdw-IX.

But it’s not hopeless for my team of hypothetical monkeys yet. Perhaps out there is another segment of our universe, not unlike our own, except that not only did my team of monkeys actually write a 50,000-word novel, but also this blog post. And I have a pet duck. Just because, I suppose. The other me has a reason.

I bet its name is Fred.