Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2006 17:17:09 GMT -5
Basically, what do you guys think of this as a basic tutorial on how to make a good story:
Preface_
I’m sure there are other ways to create a deep and meaningful story, but I’d like to share my method with you. I’m not saying it’s the best method either, just one that has worked well for me.
But first, I need to explain something. I’m aware that many people will disagree with this belief of mine, but I’m sure that most of you will be able to understand why I believe so:
You never truly understand anything until you experience it for yourself. Listening to others’ accounts of life events will certainly allow you to speculate what it would’ve been like to go through what they did, but that’s all it is: speculation. You don’t know what they went through, you only think you do.
For example, someone tells you ‘Drugs will ruin your life.’ Now, you’re perfectly capable of repeating that statement to other people, but you still don’t understand what happens when you take drugs. No one does, except for those that have taken drugs before, but if you haven’t taken them before, how could you know what happens when you do? You can’t. You can repeat that statement, but you don’t really understand what it means. On the other hand, if you got addicted to drugs, spent all your money on them, and gave up your education in order to take drugs, you’d really understand that statement.
I believe that there are two distinct types of knowledge: being able to repeat something someone else said, and truly understanding something because you’ve experienced it for yourself.
Step # 1_Making a Theme
I’m sure you’ve all been asked ‘Why did the author write the book?’ and ‘What was he/she trying to teach people through the story?’ in your English classes before. Well, this is where I recommend you begin your story from. This is what I call a ‘theme’ - the deeper understanding of something or life-lesson learned from a story. I’m certain that you have your own words-of-wisdom to try to help people with. Whether it’s something as simple as ‘treat others as you want to be treated’ or something more complex that less people will understand, you know that there are people that can benefit from learning that.
But, remember, they won’t actually understand it if you just tell them to ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, and they are most likely not going to change from simply hearing you say that. That is why you must show them why they should ‘treat others as you want to be treated,’ and this is where your story will begin. Try to make a story that will convince people to follow that statement. The greatest books of all time have always converted people into the author’s way of thinking. For example, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ showed people how horrible slavery really was, and in doing so played a big part in instigating the abolishment of slavery. ‘An Enemy of the People’ showed people how greatly corrupt a government can be, and has since played a major role in preventing corrupt governments from rising around the world by making the people less trusting of their governments. And, the Bible showed people what happens when you defy God, and has in turn made many, many people behave better.
Going back to our example of ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, what happened in your life that made you believe that bad things will happen if you don’t follow that statement? Or, what happened in your life that made you believe that good things will happen if you do follow that statement? If you’re unable to answer this, I recommend you propose a new theme to begin from. If you are able to answer this, meaning you truly understand the statement, you’ve got your story.
Step#2_Starting the Characters
Remember, you want the events the characters go through (past, present, or future) to somehow add to your theme. Going with our example theme from before, you would want every main character to somehow show that ‘treating other people as you want to be treated’ will lead to good things for that character, or that not ‘treating others as you want to be treated’ will lead to bad things for the character - there by converting people into following that statement. For example, the protagonist (main good guy) can be a young idealist that tries to help people in need and ends up succeeding in life by making friends with the people he helps, and the antagonist (main bad guy) can be the opposite: someone who kills, lies, steals, and in general harms people in order to better his life, but in the end becomes unhappy because he has no friends, or dies because the people he’s wronged kill him. The protagonist shows that good things will happen if you ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, and the antagonist shows that bad things will happen if you don’t ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, there by giving the player a better understanding of how his actions will be acted upon by others and teaching him that if he ‘treats others as he wants to be treated’, good things will happen to him.
Step#3_Developing a Plot/Developing the Characters
By now, you should have your main characters set-up, and the main events they go through that contribute to the theme. Those main characters and main events are the core of your plot. Now, you’ve got your basic plot laid out, which for our example was roughly:
Antagonist tries to harm people
Protagonist helps/saves them from the Antagonist
Those that the protagonist helped become his friend and help him in return
Antagonist becomes angry at protagonist for ruining his scheme/schemes
Protagonist manages to survive and/or kill antagonist with the help of his new-found friends
Now, I know you’re thinking to yourself ‘How the hell do I build that into a good story?’ Well, I’ll explain how:
First, you want your theme to be presented as strong as possible. For example: making the character hate the antagonist will make the player want the protagonist to succeed more - so have the antagonist do some ridiculously heinous things. To compound this wanting the protagonist to succeed, you should try to make the player feel sympathy for what the protagonist goes through - make him suffer through hardships that we don’t know if we could go through. The deeper the bond and stronger the emotion between the player and the characters, the stronger your theme will be to the player and the more-likely he will learn from it. Eventually, by conceptualizing cut scenes that improve the impact the theme will (likely) have on the player, and scenes that answer possible questions the player might have (Mostly ‘Why did he do that?’), you’ll have a full plot from start to finish.
Step#4_What Else Effects the Theme
You know that a deeper emotional connection between the player and the characters and a greater understanding of why the characters do what they do help to strengthen your theme, but what else effects your theme?
Motive: No one does stuff for no reason. The difference between my example and the typical RPG-save the world story is that my characters had their reasons for doing things (Protagonist was very ideal and thought he could fix the world, and Antagonist wanted to better his own life). When the characters have motives for their actions, they’ll be a lot more believable to the player - and the player will have a greater chance at bonding with them. It’s important that not only you know the characters’ motives, but the player as well.
Mood/Atmosphere: This is created by tons of stuff including the environment you create, the visuals you use (lighting mostly), the music you use, and what the characters do and say. It’s hard to come up with a proper mood for our theme as a whole, so I’d just stick to having the visuals, music, and characters’ actions/dialogue add to the mood of that particular cut scene or place. Keep in mind that you don’t want to use too much happy music, silly visuals, and goofy dialogue or else the player will be more likely to forget about the running theme.
Overall, just try to keep everything story-related as believable as possible. That’s not to say you can’t have Elves/Dwarves/etc. in your game, because in your story’s world they may very well exist, but rather to keep the characters and plot as believable as possible (mostly motives).
Credits_
Doan’s Domain - If it weren’t for you guys constantly supporting me, my game-making, and RPGM2, I would’ve never made it this far. This is for you.
Vespuleth - He was my story-sensei at one time and taught me most everything I know.
KingSpoom - Thank you for your RPG Design articles - they helped me a lot way-back-when.
Scrubs - This show's taught me tremendously too. Are there any Scrubs fans out there?! Whoot!! Go Dr. Cox!!
Preface_
I’m sure there are other ways to create a deep and meaningful story, but I’d like to share my method with you. I’m not saying it’s the best method either, just one that has worked well for me.
But first, I need to explain something. I’m aware that many people will disagree with this belief of mine, but I’m sure that most of you will be able to understand why I believe so:
You never truly understand anything until you experience it for yourself. Listening to others’ accounts of life events will certainly allow you to speculate what it would’ve been like to go through what they did, but that’s all it is: speculation. You don’t know what they went through, you only think you do.
For example, someone tells you ‘Drugs will ruin your life.’ Now, you’re perfectly capable of repeating that statement to other people, but you still don’t understand what happens when you take drugs. No one does, except for those that have taken drugs before, but if you haven’t taken them before, how could you know what happens when you do? You can’t. You can repeat that statement, but you don’t really understand what it means. On the other hand, if you got addicted to drugs, spent all your money on them, and gave up your education in order to take drugs, you’d really understand that statement.
I believe that there are two distinct types of knowledge: being able to repeat something someone else said, and truly understanding something because you’ve experienced it for yourself.
Step # 1_Making a Theme
I’m sure you’ve all been asked ‘Why did the author write the book?’ and ‘What was he/she trying to teach people through the story?’ in your English classes before. Well, this is where I recommend you begin your story from. This is what I call a ‘theme’ - the deeper understanding of something or life-lesson learned from a story. I’m certain that you have your own words-of-wisdom to try to help people with. Whether it’s something as simple as ‘treat others as you want to be treated’ or something more complex that less people will understand, you know that there are people that can benefit from learning that.
But, remember, they won’t actually understand it if you just tell them to ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, and they are most likely not going to change from simply hearing you say that. That is why you must show them why they should ‘treat others as you want to be treated,’ and this is where your story will begin. Try to make a story that will convince people to follow that statement. The greatest books of all time have always converted people into the author’s way of thinking. For example, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ showed people how horrible slavery really was, and in doing so played a big part in instigating the abolishment of slavery. ‘An Enemy of the People’ showed people how greatly corrupt a government can be, and has since played a major role in preventing corrupt governments from rising around the world by making the people less trusting of their governments. And, the Bible showed people what happens when you defy God, and has in turn made many, many people behave better.
Going back to our example of ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, what happened in your life that made you believe that bad things will happen if you don’t follow that statement? Or, what happened in your life that made you believe that good things will happen if you do follow that statement? If you’re unable to answer this, I recommend you propose a new theme to begin from. If you are able to answer this, meaning you truly understand the statement, you’ve got your story.
Step#2_Starting the Characters
Remember, you want the events the characters go through (past, present, or future) to somehow add to your theme. Going with our example theme from before, you would want every main character to somehow show that ‘treating other people as you want to be treated’ will lead to good things for that character, or that not ‘treating others as you want to be treated’ will lead to bad things for the character - there by converting people into following that statement. For example, the protagonist (main good guy) can be a young idealist that tries to help people in need and ends up succeeding in life by making friends with the people he helps, and the antagonist (main bad guy) can be the opposite: someone who kills, lies, steals, and in general harms people in order to better his life, but in the end becomes unhappy because he has no friends, or dies because the people he’s wronged kill him. The protagonist shows that good things will happen if you ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, and the antagonist shows that bad things will happen if you don’t ‘treat others as you want to be treated’, there by giving the player a better understanding of how his actions will be acted upon by others and teaching him that if he ‘treats others as he wants to be treated’, good things will happen to him.
Step#3_Developing a Plot/Developing the Characters
By now, you should have your main characters set-up, and the main events they go through that contribute to the theme. Those main characters and main events are the core of your plot. Now, you’ve got your basic plot laid out, which for our example was roughly:
Antagonist tries to harm people
Protagonist helps/saves them from the Antagonist
Those that the protagonist helped become his friend and help him in return
Antagonist becomes angry at protagonist for ruining his scheme/schemes
Protagonist manages to survive and/or kill antagonist with the help of his new-found friends
Now, I know you’re thinking to yourself ‘How the hell do I build that into a good story?’ Well, I’ll explain how:
First, you want your theme to be presented as strong as possible. For example: making the character hate the antagonist will make the player want the protagonist to succeed more - so have the antagonist do some ridiculously heinous things. To compound this wanting the protagonist to succeed, you should try to make the player feel sympathy for what the protagonist goes through - make him suffer through hardships that we don’t know if we could go through. The deeper the bond and stronger the emotion between the player and the characters, the stronger your theme will be to the player and the more-likely he will learn from it. Eventually, by conceptualizing cut scenes that improve the impact the theme will (likely) have on the player, and scenes that answer possible questions the player might have (Mostly ‘Why did he do that?’), you’ll have a full plot from start to finish.
Step#4_What Else Effects the Theme
You know that a deeper emotional connection between the player and the characters and a greater understanding of why the characters do what they do help to strengthen your theme, but what else effects your theme?
Motive: No one does stuff for no reason. The difference between my example and the typical RPG-save the world story is that my characters had their reasons for doing things (Protagonist was very ideal and thought he could fix the world, and Antagonist wanted to better his own life). When the characters have motives for their actions, they’ll be a lot more believable to the player - and the player will have a greater chance at bonding with them. It’s important that not only you know the characters’ motives, but the player as well.
Mood/Atmosphere: This is created by tons of stuff including the environment you create, the visuals you use (lighting mostly), the music you use, and what the characters do and say. It’s hard to come up with a proper mood for our theme as a whole, so I’d just stick to having the visuals, music, and characters’ actions/dialogue add to the mood of that particular cut scene or place. Keep in mind that you don’t want to use too much happy music, silly visuals, and goofy dialogue or else the player will be more likely to forget about the running theme.
Overall, just try to keep everything story-related as believable as possible. That’s not to say you can’t have Elves/Dwarves/etc. in your game, because in your story’s world they may very well exist, but rather to keep the characters and plot as believable as possible (mostly motives).
Credits_
Doan’s Domain - If it weren’t for you guys constantly supporting me, my game-making, and RPGM2, I would’ve never made it this far. This is for you.
Vespuleth - He was my story-sensei at one time and taught me most everything I know.
KingSpoom - Thank you for your RPG Design articles - they helped me a lot way-back-when.
Scrubs - This show's taught me tremendously too. Are there any Scrubs fans out there?! Whoot!! Go Dr. Cox!!
) is how I did and am doing The Solemn Truth's story. With Paladin I didn't know what I was doing from the beginning. 
The next The Solemn Truth demo should help to show what I talk about in this guide (theme) and how it leads to great results.