Writing Wednesday

If you know me, you know I like to play the occasional video game.  If you don’t know me, now you know I like to play the occasional video game.  What the hell has this got to do with Writer Wednesday?  I’ll TELL you what it’s got to do with Writer Wednesday!

 

Red Dead Redemption.  (SPOILERS FOR THIS GAME FOLLOW, GO PLAY IT IF YOU INTEND TO)

 

Red Dead Redemption is one of those games that LOOKS like it’s just going to be a mindless fun shoot-em-up, but ends up being one of the rare shining examples of what video game storytelling COULD and SHOULD be (and WOULD be if the industry as a whole could get its head out of its ass).  Red Dead Redemption (henceforth RDR for convenience) is the story of a man named John Marston, set in the turn of the 20th century (that’s around the 1890’s-1900’s for you uneducated folk).  John used to be a member of a fairly nasty Old West cowboy gang – you know, the bandana-over-the-mouth, stick-em-up, tie-women-to-train-tracks types.  Thing is, John eventually found himself a good woman, got hitched, had a kid, and got the HELL out of “the life”.

 

Until the FBI came calling, that is.  They gave him a choice – go take out the last remaining members of your old crew, or we’ll put you in jail you monster.  SO, John takes the only choice he’s really got and thus the adventure starts.  The rest of the game puts John into some really awful scenarios he never asked for, all in the name of tracking down the men he used to call brother so he can return to the people he calls wife and son.  John is shown time and again (at least through cutscenes, if not player-driven actions) to be a decent man who just made some mistakes when he was young.  He doesn’t whine or complain about his mistakes coming back to bite him in the ass, though he does get bitter and homesick now and again.

 

Eventually, John does make it home, and we’re treated for around an hour of gameplay just doing…stuff at home.  Scaring birds away from the crops, teaching John’s son Jack to ride a horse and shoot a gun, helping the neighbors get some new cattle, shit like that.   It’s all very Harvest Moon and honestly, when you’re playing it for the first time, is also kind of jarring and almost BORING.  Shouldn’t the game have ended when John gets home?  It’s all very sweet.

 

Until the FBI shows up again.  But this time, they brought the army.  And after a violent shootout in which John’s old farmhand gets killed, John sends his wife and son off on his trusty horse (the one that brought him through all the bullshit of the rest of the game), and after a deep breath, steps out into the open to meet the enemy head on.

 

You’re given a moment to try and take out as many of them as you can.

 

It’s not enough.

 

And John Marston gets gunned the fuck down.

 

This was one of the greatest moments in video games for me.  I’ve played a bunch, but I never had such a gut, emotional reaction before this moment, aside maybe from when I got my first Pokemon.  This man, who has been through so much for his family, gets a handful of days with them (which seems SO BRIEF from a player perspective) before the men who forced him into leaving them to begin with double cross him and put him in the ground.  It was heart wrenching.  It was almost like the first fifteen minutes of Up.

 

So why the hell am I talking about RDR?  Because it used a tool that we should all be using as writers if we want our readers to care about our characters.  It used everyday life.  It took us out of the action of John Marston the outlaw, and put us into the doldrums of the day-to-day for John Marston the farmer.  Not only did we let out guard down, we finally got to really connect with the guy.  Sure, some of us might have connected earlier – military family men come to mind – but for the rest of us, it was more of a vague connection, more of a “I can feel for the guy” than a “I know exactly what he’s going through.”  Then we’re given the normalcy, and we can finally be one with him.  “I know what it’s like trying to teach my son” or “I know what it’s like keeping an employee from slacking off” or “I know what it’s like trying to protect my home from vermin” are all everyday things that most of us can connect with.

 

And then we get to see all that come crashing down around him.  We get to experience his dream shattered.  And we start to compose our own feelings.  We take his situation and make it our own.  What if this had happened to me?  Would I be brave enough to step out of that barn?  Oh god, he’s lost everything.  It’s a NIGHTMARE.

 

The same thing can happen when reading.  It’s why George R.R. Martin puts so much detail into non-combative situations, why we get so much time with his characters at meals and in bed and behind closed doors when they’re not just playing the fucking Game of Thrones.  It’s all so that when the Red Wedding hits, we want to cry and flush the book down the damn toilet, but we keep reading anyway because WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS NEXT.

 

Take some time away from the major plots and story arcs.  Away from the combat, from the drama.  Have your main character sit with a cup of tea and read the paper.  Have your antagonist grab a beer with some old college buddies.  You’ll be surprised what you might come out with – it might just be important characterization, and it might just make your book, story, or whateverthefuck that much sweeter.