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Writers Interview: Legion

Tags: #My name is Legion  #Interview 
  • Member
    May 29, 2017

    My turn to make another guest appearance in this series, on this occasion to interview an Admin and friend, a person who writes for both universes on the Tamriel Vault, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. He is known, among other things, for his fiction, art, poetry, and his exterior shell which is 72% polymer.

    Take a bow....


    Alright, Liege? Please, introduce yourself. Pretend my blurb above isn’t a total spoiler.

    Well in the interest of actually being interviewed, I can spoil a bit more. My real name is Brandon and I've been a member of the Vault since November 23ish, 2012 or 2013. I'll have to double check the date. It's been a while! I used to write all the time when I was in middle and high school but had about a five-year gap in college where the only writing I did was academic. It was grueling and constraining, but the experience has actually been invaluable to my creative writing. I didn't actually post my first piece of creative writing here until October 15, 2015. Now blogs make up easily 90% of my entire library of content. Fun fact, I've only written a total of approximately 36,000 words between all my stories and poems, including the ones that I've been forgetting to repost.

    Brandon. Nothing wrong with that name, so why did you choose Legion as a username and an owl as an avatar? I like that fun fact, that’s probably way more words than I have written in the sphere of creative writing. Are you still studying, and what is it about academic writing that helped your approach to creative writing? 

    Legion was the last in the long line of usernames that I had hated. It was largely inspired by the Mass Effect Legion, the one we all know and love. Though it wasn’t just the character that inspired the name, but the concept that the character provided commentary on. This concept of a collective consciousness where the individual units have no conception of “I” fascinated me, and still does. I explored the very concept in a slightly different way in one of my Fallout shorts where a man meets his synth counterpart. My propensity for owl avatars came from my interest in philosophy. Philosophy means “love of wisdom,” and the owl represents wisdom. That isn’t to say I’m wise. But I am always watching. Always.

    As for academic writing, that goes back to my 36k words. That’s nothing compared to many other writers here. But what I learned in those five years was the skill of conciseness. Or, concision. It’s apparently up in the air. Anyway, I had this professor -- a great guy, brilliant social psychologist, and his classes were one part psychology, one part writing boot camp. He taught me the importance of eradicating fluff from one’s writing to deliver the most impact. This is crucial for any job that deals in the written word. Seeing as how I’m entering the field of communications, which is all about delivering messages in effective ways, this is a necessary skill. All that training made it incredibly difficult to get back into creative writing, though, as did my slippery grasp on active voice at the time. But the ability to convey in 10 words what is otherwise conveyed in 30 lends itself exceptionally well to short stories and poetry, my two main areas of interest.

    There’s this principle in creative writing that the best sentences do multiple things at once. This is only amplified the shorter the story becomes. Each word is inherently more valuable because there are fewer of them, and that’s the real challenge of poetry. Every single word needs to count.

     

    Legion in ME totally rocked, and I do like that he had no concept of I. Refreshing, inthis day and age. So, I gather philosophy is important to you. Is that something you actively studied at any point, and is there a particular philosophy you adhere to?

    Your point about eradicating fluff from writing is succinct, and I think I can see that lesson in Votaress of Arkay, your first piece of creative writing from 2015. Each chapter felt so very concise, yet without losing its ambiguity. While you were taught that each word needs to count, you didn’t seem to fall into a trap of over defining anything. Was that a struggle to achieve that balance? Also, learning that lesson so well means it must be hard to expand into using more words. Yet I look at your most recent story, Finding North, and can see how you use far more words now than before. How did you reconcile that lesson, and become able to still write something of greater length without sacrificing that paradigm?


    Man, those are big questions! I'll knock out the small ones first.


    Philosophy was my undergrad minor​, and I formally studied it for about three years. I actually only got into it because of Bioshock's commentary of moral Objectivism, which captivated me. I don't adhere to any one system, though a lot of existential and Buddhist concepts drive my day-to-day. Basically the philosophy of Vivec. Baassiiically. There's a hell of a lot of overlap.
    So, VoA (Votaress of Arkay) was an incredible challenge for me. The first chapter went through nine drafts alone, not to mention the remaster I gave the entire story about seven or eight months ago. Now, I'm not super sure about the terms, but I think that VoA is written in 3rd person omniscient, which basically just means that the narrator knows everything there is to know about the world and the characters, including their thoughts. This also means the narrator can leave out specific details. 

    In that respect, writing stories is a lot like writing music. Space is important. Gaps in information, gaps in notes. The things you don't say are just as important as the things you do say. When events are unaccompanied by exposition, you get ambiguity. And it's a wonderful thing to play with because people hate uncertainty, and they always seek to resolve it. And because VoA was from an omniscient POV, I was better able to explore the dynamics between Sib, Leris, their history, and their respective religions, which meant I could devote less space to scene setting without losing much. Description is what gets ya. That adds some real meat to a story. But because the details of the setting were so unimportant to the purpose of the narrative, I focused far more on action and dialogue which should be short and punchy to be effective.

    But Finding North? That's written in 1st person. Everything in the world is filtered through the main character's eyes, Arianna. ​So in order to appropriately characterize her and give proper weight to the important parts of the story, I had to "notice" things as her. The Blue Palace is just the Blue Palace to a god narrator, but it's much more to Arianna, who works for Jarl Elisif. It has an emotional connection. And writing that was a right challenge! The final I have posted here is about 1500 words fewer than the second-to-last draft. It is as concise as it needs to be, if that makes sense. Because certain changes in perspectives requires different levels of details, a 10k word story and 20k word story could both be "concise" -- it just depends on how much information is necessary to convey a message. Using more words than are needed is when the dial starts moving from "concise" to "flowery."


    And as I'm sure you're regretfully aware of now, I am a flowery speaker. Concise writer, loquacious speaker. Sue me.

    Thank you for the explanations. I think I hear you on the philosophy. To study it means to question it, to find one that defines you absolutely is not really the point. However, one can do a lot worse than following Vivec’s Fire and acting under one’s will.

    Right so when you describe VoA you are using some very technical words, and I really appreciate the clarification of those terms. It also sounds as though your intent when writing VoA was to deliver that ambiguity to the reader, which I doubly appreciate because there is nothing I enjoy more than trying to define something that is left undefined.

    VoA and Finding North seem worlds apart, but at their core both share a powerful love story, or more accurately, a bond between a man and a woman which makes for a powerful read.

    So, between studying philosophy, studying psychology under your professor, and studying communications, it seems as though you also delved into learning writing techniques. How did that come about, and why is it important to you when writing that you know these things?

    Consider yourself sued, by the way. Damn poets with their speeches and their language grumble grumble :D

    newbannerwrite.pngIn a lot of ways, my intent to deliver ambiguity is an intention to deliver a realistic representation of life. That’s a kind of tension we all experience day-to-day, albeit in small amounts most often. But when it’s big? It’s grueling. It pulls people towards action because tension and unknowing are unlivable.

     And one of the greatest tensions we know, one of the greatest sources of ambiguity, is love. It is that interpersonal connection where people share the depths of themselves with one another, and, that’s an incredibly vulnerable state. Trust is of course present most often, but questions never truly disappear. And threatening such a meaningful bond, unspoken or explicit, is one of the greatest threats to self we know. So it makes for great writing, I think.

    Honestly, I think my tendency towards learning and discovering new writing techniques is just who I naturally am. I’m analytic to my core, so I like it when things have purpose. I like discovering those purposes. And writing is a medium where every word works towards fulfilling a purpose, even the boring words that we all skip like, “said.” But on a deeper level, it’s important to me to understand things like philosophy, psychology, and communications, because they all work towards different ends, but while using the same words. So in a way, it’s like learning all the possible uses of this immense set of tools I have at my disposal. Really crucially, though, is perspective. And perspective is one of those things I highly value. I only have mine. I can only ever have my own. Those disciplines force the writer into considering different perspectives, and this is a lesson I carry with me daily.

    I’ve learned, or...appreciated, different perspectives I’ve encountered in the stories of the writers we have here. I’m not the best in what I do by any means, and many people are better than me at many different things. And that’s how it should be! It gives me -- and us all -- room to grow. To hone our crafts further. This isn’t even necessarily restricted to prose, either. Just a conversation with someone I don’t know includes some bit of information, or some hint at a perspective, that I don’t have. Like when I talked with Amornar about his work in one of the Fallout threads that dealt with raider society, I learned a completely new perspective and it changed the way I thought about an entire topic. It was in a nuanced way, but it was complete. It was a change felt throughout.

    So much of my motivation presently is to learn different perspectives. Psychology was a happy accident. Philosophy was largely the same. Communications was far more deliberate. But understanding multiple ways to view the world as well as the basic drives of human nature certainly comes in handy when writing people who, despite being elves or cats, have human brains. And! And. Knowing writing techniques is crucial because the best writing breaks rules in the most interesting ways. You need to know the rules to break them, at least deliberately. And deliberate action is the difference between long term success and a lucky accident. Oh man. I like talking about techniques a lot. Cause, the whole analytical thing. I’ll tone it down. Let’s talk about poems!

    I guess that’s why love is so emotive and compelling as it is something we can all relate to, all that vulnerability and anxiety. I wonder what the philosophers say about it these days, is it still the eternal mystery it once was, or has science solved it now?

    In regards to the writing techniques you have learned, if there are any sources on-site we can link to that you have referenced, that’d be cool.

    Knowing the rules in order to break them, that makes a lot of sense. Considering how you have that Dibellan creativity and Julianos logic, as we saw in our lore collab, that you would have that point of view in all aspects of your projects should come as no surprise. How do you approach lore in your work?

    Ok, so your poetry. How did that interest come about? You mentioned that it ties into your appreciation of concisity, but poems can also very emotional. Talk me through it, how and why poetry?

    :D Ooohh man. Okay. Stand back for this can of worms. Or...whatever those party tins are where the squiggly snakes explode out the top. Just, grab a drink.

    I believe there are some sources I’ve used on-site, and I will fetch those for you to put at the bottom of this post. I will say -- one of the best resources that’s far more...transient? in nature, is fellow writers. And Writer’s Discussions because of what they do. They facilitate that interaction between writers that shares perspective and breeds inspiration. I didn’t write Streets of Boston. I didn’t write Chasing Aetherius, or Roaring Thunder, Hissing Lightning. But I know I can learn something from them! And I know I can learn something from their authors. So really, in many ways, your peers are your best resources. There are endless sites that will list and explain technique -- but until you apply that technique and are able to see it applied in different ways in other people’s writing, you can’t truly understand it. And I think that’s why people often say that if you want to be a good writer, “you have to read.” Sure, that’s good advice. But too broad. You need to understand how different writers apply the techniques that everyone uses through their unique perspectives, and what exactly it accomplishes. We have the privilege of being able to speak to one another as writers that we all pretty much enjoy. I’m an exception, or a hypocrite, take your pick. I’m quiet, but I’m not distant from the blogs on site. The Writer’s Discuss is how I’ve been trying to better connect with our writing community, but that’s a whole other discussion on its own. And not quite as entertaining.

    Anyway! Lore? Lore. IIIII...I might piss some people off with this. “Some”. I’ve taken a fairly liberal approach in my lore, and I think that’s because I often approach it from a really abstract, metaphysical level. At least as far as VoA and Signal Fire are concerned. They deal largely with...well, SF deals largely with mythopoeia and the ambiguity present within the lore as to whether the gods exist and how. In many of my short stories, I actually approach lore very canonically, often from the perspective of the ignorant mortal. And I mean “ignorant” by our standards, where we, as readers of the lore, are able to understand how all the threads connect and where they tangle. But the average person on Nirn? They don’t know a thing. I once wrote a short story for AMOSS, last year I believe. “Questions of a Dying Man” I think is the title. It’s about a man “cursed” with lycanthropy. And he’s “cursed” with air quotes because the story is told from his perspective. He encounters Dagon I believe and has a very human reaction to it all. Fear, Unknowing. Uncertainty. So in that respect, I approach lore as it is written by the all-holy loremasters. I simply take the perspective of the mortal, who is most often ill-informed. But in Signal Fire, yeah...I pretty much make it a point to piss on the boots of the gods.

     Parables.jpgLoving “concisity”. Never heard that, not sure if it’s real, but I’ll trust it is an add it to my dictionary. After all, all words are made up. Poetry...I never thought I would write poetry in any serious manner. I was required to in my Junior year of highschool, the 11th grade. Hated it. Hated creative writing. But I was an angsty teen, what do you expect? I wrote and published my first ever serious poem on the Vault, on SE. That was...I really don’t remember how long ago it was, but I know the poem well. It’s called “The Diminuendo,” and it is a not a happy poem. And I think that’s exactly why I turned to poetry. At that point, writing was a release for me, a way to express many of my positive emotions. But when shit hit the fan, I didn’t have the energy to write and edit an entire story. Enter poetry. Poems are more than the sum of their parts. Every word is intentional, and every words works towards conveying this higher message, often multiple messages left to the interpretation of the reader. The Diminuendo is about a man who believes his existence is a mistake. He’s caught -- trapped -- in this state that I can really only describe as a “conscious non-being”. He calls to Arkay specifically, which is exactly what the “Diminuendo” is referring to. It’s that gradual decrease. In this case, the decrease is of life, headed towards death. He feels as though his own internal cycles of Arkay’s creation have stopped and prays to Arkay to “spin your wheel just a little bit more.” The man is praying for death from the god that oversees life and death.

    After writing enough of it, and learning some techniques around the medium, I verged into a slightly less personal approach. Not entirely impersonal, mind. I do firmly believe that good poetry can only ever come from genuine emotion, but I stretched the boundaries a bit to see what I could do. I wrote a poem for the Brotherhood once. Except it was about a .44 magnum. But it worked for both! That was my aim. I wanted a poem with two distinct meanings. One was about the Brotherhood cause and all the passion contained therein, and one was about how fun it is to murder things with the hand cannon. But even in its mostludicrous form, poetry is emotional. And it's been a huge influence on my most recent and ongoing project, Signal Fire. It has actually has its own dedicated poems, but it does go further than that.

    Literally all of this: Writer's Discussions and Help Threads

    Holy hell! Great advice at the beginning there, finding perspectives and learning from the writers of our site is fundamental to the exchange of inspiration and the progress of learning. I think writing your own advice posts is a splendid idea, there can never be enough knowledge shared.

    I find your approach to lore to always be what I consider the best way to tackle it, as from the ground looking up is how it is presented to us, and the ambiguity of that allows for freedom in all projects. It should never be a constraint, only an aid. I do remember Questions of a Dying man, I think I had a fair bit to say on it at the time, too! :D

    Yep, concisity is now a thing :P Poems have been a release for you, that is good. I use them mainly for that but have never really branched away as you have. I do remember the Diminuendo too, most of your poems show up on my radar for their subtlety, emotion, and because the theme is often something I am interested in. Good poetry is always a joy for me to read, and you write great poems!

    Ok, so at the end there you mention Steel Empress, one of two examples of Fallout poetry you have written. In addition to those poems, you have also written a few blogs set in the Fallout universe. One of the things that always surprises me with you is that your inspirations seem to be easily compartmentalised, by that I mean you are able to shift from one to the other without any apparent difficulty.

    Is it a challenge to make that shift between TES and Fallout? Both settings are very different, do you find you think differently, or is your approach the same for both? I guess, lastly, which setting inspires you the most?

    You, Thorien, and Sotek had a lot to say about it! Even our resident werewolf who revels in the gift of the Hunt liked it, and I took that as one of the highest compliments I could have received. Thank you for liking my poetry though :D Thank you to everyone who’s liked it. I know it gets a bit obscure when it has to do with SF, but that’s intentional. Leris is complicated man and the poems are meant to become clearer as the story progresses.

    1e4de_d189.pngYes, Steel Empress, that’s the name. That’s actually the one part of writing I kind of fudge. Titles. Not super, if you listen to 99% of the advice out there. As for switching between the universes, it’s actually fairly challenging for me. A lot of that has do with the fact that Fallout’s lore is far less open to interpretation. I don’t remember if I mentioned it back when you asked about lore, but I do generally look to lore when considering how to fit a story within the universe. I think I said this in a WD a couple months back: ES allows the writer to read and interpret the lore in many ways. Nothing is ever truly certain. But in Fallout, there’s a significant amount of concrete details and facts, far more than ES. One only has to look as far as Karver’s Practice of Magic to understand the depth and breadth of interpretation that ES allows, down to the very mechanics we play with. But there is no interpretive value in firearm operation. I suppose Fallout is more sci-fi? Which has never been my strong suit. I learned that “science fiction” is fiction that purports to be a realistic, though wild and unlikely scenario. That is, it has to be possible. And Fallout seems to be straddling that sci-fi/fantasy line which makes getting a proper read on it difficult.

    It’s actually a bit ironic that ES is where I chose to explore the intimate and human experiences we’re all familiar with, when such a topic would be much more at home in Fallout. Two of my three shorts in Fallout deal with really human experiences: love and fear. The third is a very brief conceptual piece. Let’s see if I can remember the names. “Mornings With Jen” is the one about love. “Good Morning, Marly” is about fear and paranoia, broadly speaking, and…”You Only Live Twice”! That’s the short one. It’s 250 words. Anyone can knock that out on their post-coffee bathroom run. But back to my point, I do think differently between the two series because they demand unique approaches to get the most from them. I will fully admit that Fallout is a right challenge for me. It is an obstacle I strive to overcome insofar as finding sparks of inspiration. I do think many of my ideas of Fallout have been poorly colored by Fallout 4, which took the all-too-colorful, silly route. Had it had the heavier and more oppressive atmosphere experienced in FO3, and to some degree in New Vegas, I think inspiration would have flown much more freely. So I commend anyone who is able to write in the Fallout universe, as that is a skill I lack.

    The Elder Scrolls inspires me the most, and for so many reasons. When I joined this site, I found many inspiring things. I have this deep emotional connection to Skyrim largely thanks to this site and the people I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know on all levels. I do believe Skyrim is quite possibly one of the best games created, and it is by far my favorite. The music, the world, the lore, the characters, the freedom to create and interact as one pleases...we are the breath of Nirn. We, the players, give it life. There is an infinite pool of inspiration that lives in anything that is loved. I really really like Fallout, but I love Skyrim. I love it for so many reasons, but the reasons aren’t important to the end that that which is loved will breed inspiration, creation, and deeper love.

    I won’t try and sell W3 to you, I’ll let the readers do that :D

    Karver’s thoughts and insight into collaborations were fascinating, as I struggle to imagine being so open with anyone about what goes on inside my head, and so those who can not only work with another but craft something as rich as he and Lis have crafted is amazing.

    That perspective switching idea is a really good one, and to be honest sounds like a really cool event. Provided those rules you have thought of were in place, I could see many potential pairings and bonds forged.

    Right, so seeing as a collaboration with another isn’t entirely rejected, I had a semi-related question on interpretation. For someone to work in your world or you in theirs, I imagine it requires that both share an interpretation. You aid earlier how you actually like to play with the, uhmm, 3rd person omniscient so that the reader is left slightly more in the dark. Has there been an occasion in which you have been frustrated that someone missed the point, as it were, or taken aways something you didn’t intend? I know you value that in poetry, but in terms of telling a story, is there ever any frustrations?

    I’m actually really glad you asked that, because now I get to ramble about my insane theories. So, I really value misinterpretations. Or, not, “misinterpretations” as a bad thing, just an interpretation that is not my intention. Again, this goes back to valuing other perspectives. I like to hear about how people interpret the ambiguous parts of my stories. The story behind the details that are not being told is complete, and potentially as captivating, as the story being told. It’s those sentences that people don’t say, the things they do around certain things or people, it’s the story behind the unconscious motivations we’re all driven by. They’re never explicit in our lives by definition, but we all understand those experiences implicitly. And really, in my unprofessional and random-guy-on-the-internet’s opinion, the most crucial defining feature of the “Show, Don’t Tell” rule, is to preference showing emotional and instinctive actions and events, and telling the more logical and detail-oriented events. Because if you can convey to the reader additional character growth with everything that goes unsaid, it adds a whole new layer to your storytelling. And I have barely begun to grasp this in practice! But it’s what I’m testing a bit at the moment.

    Good god, I got off track. I like to hear what other people think because it allows me to consider other perspectives and really refine the craft of deliberate ambiguity to create an untold story just beneath the surface. Should have just said that. So I welcome interpretations and criticisms. It’ll all helpful to me.

    Well, I can think of a few times when your dialogue hasn’t been gloomy. Pink Sloads? You don’t give yourself enough credit, and the light-hearted moments in your writing are enough so that the weight of the darker parts have impact.

    What is APA?

    Ok, so. One thing that I am curious about is what books have inspired you. Iirc, you have reached this site and hobby without the traditional background many of our members have. That is to say, you weren’t a Tolkien fan, nor have you a background in anything resembling Dungeons and Dragons. Is that right? Do you read more fantasy literature now than you used to? Has your reading material changed since exploring your writing talents?

    Riiiight, Pink Sloads. I still need to repost that. APA is the American Psychological Association, but also refers to the writing format they use. It’s like MLA, Chicago, or Associated Press styles, but with different rules. All the professors I’ve ever taken seem to have a different idea what actually is required by APA, and it made things very frustrating.

    That’s right, I have never played D&D nor read the Lord of the Rings books. Or seen the movies. I did read Harry Potter through the 5th book and watched the movies through the 4th, but lost interest pretty rapidly after that. And I mention Harry Potter because it’s, from what I’ve gathered, the “other” massive fantasy series as compared to LotR. You also have GoT which I have so many problems with, it could be its own interview. So I don’t really read fantasy anymore. I read a few Merlin books when I was kid.

    The most inspirational books to me have been the dystopian novels. Fahrenheit 451 is my favorite book ever, 1984 obviously makes the list, and The Road inspired by Cormac McCarthy was a massive inspiration to Signal Fire. I’d say he’s the author that’s mostinspired me. The man knows how to create tension. I also really enjoyed Last Orders by Graham Swift, which is about a group of friends on their journey to scatter an old friend’s ashes and all the intertwined histories they all have. Real heart-wrencher. Dark Days, a memoir by Randy Blythe of Lamb of God, was a superb book. So great in fact, that I emulated his voice for months trying to understand what made it so captivating. And I just finished reading The Wrong Way Home, a book by Authur J. Deikman that explores and discusses how cults in American society form, evolve, and eventually collapse, as well as the cult behaviors every person experiences in their day-to-day life. Incredible book, huge influence for Signal Fire’s plot.

    Reading books outside of the genre you’re writing in is so damn beneficial to generating inspiration and creating something that feels different. It’s like what I said earlier about perspectives! Books are just large and complex perspectives. Oh! And Finding North was inspired a lot by Henry James. I had no idea who the dude was. I was just walking though the school library one day when I passed through the short stories section, found an anthology of his, and grabbed it. Really ended up liking it, and so I was inspired to write something in a similar fashion. Mostly I was fascinated with his prose. He could work punctuation in ways I’ve never seen.

    That’s an excellent list of books, although I say that only because Cormac McCarthy was mentioned - I read his No Country for Old Men, and All the Pretty Horses. The latter was interesting because there was like zero punctuation used in the entire novel, something which really made me pay attention to dialogue. As a writing trick to increase immersion, I have to say it was clever.

    You deleted Pink Sloads? Yep, get that back up!

    We can see in all your answers how gaining perspectives and learning from diversity matters to you, and we have seen the inspirations which have led you to where you are now. I think it’s time we talk about the things you are proudest of. I know VoA and SF, along with Leris and Sib are important to you, and we have touched upon why, but haven’t really explored the details, scenes or passages that make you feel proud. Is that something you are comfortable to discuss and talk me through? Just a chance to get into the detail and draw my attention to the most important aspects of your work in your eyes.

    If you look at the dialogue in the first chapter of SF, you should see the inspiration. I love the way he handles dialogue. I still use punctuation, but I heavily emulated his brief and choppy dialogue style. And Pink Sloads wasn’t deleted, it was just never reposted! When we moved platforms, I neglected to repost Pink Sloads and A Refutation of ‘The Madmen of the Reach’. More like forgot. Sotek actually growled at me recently to repost them but I didn’t listen. I feel too bad knocking new blogs off the side bar with my old work. I’ll find a chance, though. They were well-received, after all.

    Regarding what I’m proud of, there’s a few things I can think of. I have to say I’m really proud of both starting and finishing it, and then remastering it. It was my first real story that I had written beginning to end. It was only supposed to be a standalone story, which is funny, because it was only “supposed” to be a one-chapter story. I purposefully left the end of the first chapter open enough for potential sequels, but conclusive enough that people would assume, “okay, yeah, she went to Skyrim after that.” It was a really detailed backstory, basically.

    As far as parts of the story I’m proud of, the big one would be character building. And I don’t mean that in the way we often mean it, I mean it only in the context of writing. Leris has a teensy moment of racial ignorance, Sib shows her vulnerable side in a brief moment that perhaps no one but Leris would have caught. Some examples are when Sib was looking over her dagger in the nave. She relieved a lot of her stress by sharpening this ceremonial dagger that she got upon induction. They were never meant to be used as weapons, but she made it one. And that goes by in maybe two sentences. Sib spoke to Leris differently than she spoke to anyone else. Leris was modest at the beginning but apparently he morphed into quite the hit with the ladies over time. I think even you swooned over him once, Phil.

    The big things are of course standout moments, but I’m really happy with how those less intense moments turned out. Further to that, I’m actually fairly proud of the relationship I wrote and how I showed it. That’s partly because I’m not super keen on the plot. I find that the plot was not bad, but lacked real weight. It moved too quickly, I think, and never built up real momentum. But I believe from my own critical look at my work and the responses from all the readers I had, that the plot was the least important part. It acted as the structure that supported the characters and their relationship, which was the real focus.

    I actually read something recently that said something along the lines of, “good stories involve simple plots with complex characters.” Perhaps a bit of a broad stroke, but not wrong! One last thing I’m proud of in a weird way is how I chose to end the story, thinking full well at the time that it would end there. It was hard for me to end it that way, but it was important to me to tell the story I wanted to tell. Thematically, it’s also one of those things I like exploring. And I’m being purposefully vague just in case anyone who reads this who hasn’t read VoA, and might want to read it, won’t be spoiled. It’s only like 12,000 words. That’s an hour, maybe. For me definitely.

    Yeah, I remember I may have slightly swooned. In a very manly way. Leris is quite protective, somewhat sullen and brooding, but in some ways he wears his heart on his sleeve. Sib is so strong, I will definitely need to reread and pick up on some of those vulnerable moments. It was certainly the bond between them that was the biggest deal for me. The eternal quest to be understood and accepted just for who you are is something that maybe speaks to us on the most fundamental level.

    Alright, so on the subject of character building in the sense of writing and crafting a believable person, has there ever been a character who was only supposed to play a small part but eventually played a larger role? Or, one that started off with a bit-part but who you came to like and have big plans for in the future? Lastly, and further to that point, do you find the character takes on a life of their own and have a story that you discover needs to be told?

    Oh gods yes. Leris fits all of that. He was never meant to be the main character of VoA, but I think he had more page time than Sib. I know that doesn’t necessarily make him more “main,” but I never planned on Sib being gone for as long as she was. Leris was the natural protagonist post-VoA I think, because, in the way I set it up, though never explicitly stated it, Sib’s build Hands of Arkay began immediately after the events of VoA. Signal Fire takes place during Sib’s time in Skyrim where she does, well, everything in the build! Even goes back to Morrowind for a stint. Leris was left in a bad way, and it would have easy enough to leave it there but because I had just read The Road, I was really, in a mind state that turned out to be extremely conducive to writing his story and taking him in this totally unexpected direction that’s allowed me to explore some really intense themes. Challenging ideas, twisting emotions, creating a very uncomfortable experience for all involved.

    Unfortunately, I haven’t had experienced much of the “characters taking on a life of their own” thing since most of my stories are pretty short. Often, there isn’t room for more than 3 or 4 characters, and I only just pushed to 5 in Finding North. I do wish I could have explored Benjor a little more, but I really loved writing Arianna as a character. She’s not the completely, morally pure character I painted her to be. Which isn’t to say she isn’t good. Hell, she’s a hero! And I think that’s why those areas where I tried to tease out some grey in her character didn’t stand out as prominently as I had initially wanted them too. But, all that said, most of my character develop organically to some degree. I’m what they call a “discovery writer,” meaning I don’t do the whole “planning” thing. I am for SF because it’s become a huge story, but almost never for the shorts.

    I admit, I would love to see one-off’s of Sibella’s adventures in Morrowind! As for Arianna, I think that the grey areas, despite being left unsaid, were apparent. This reader was very much aware that to become a woman of her rank and station, sometimes cutting through the tape or getting something done requires certain shortcuts or questionable methods. Sometimes those things don’t make someone a bad person, it’s the intent that matters. Her light shone through, but I liked the darkness around the edges.

    As a discovery writer taking the steps towards the planning thing, you have hinted a few times what your plans are for the future. Care to summarise them so as to give us a taste of what’s next for Legion in the coming weeks?

    Sure! Signal Fire will be the main feature over the next few weeks, of course. I do have an idea for a long Fallout story, however. “Long” as according to the Story Corner’s definition, that is. It’s a chaptered story, though I’m not at all certain where it’s going to go. All I know is that the main character’s “hook” is that he has an extremely weak immune system and has to therefore wear this pretty intense apparatus in order to survive his day-to-day. The hows and whys will obviously be revealed further down the line, but I thought it would be really interesting to write about someone who’s greatest threat in the wasteland is...everything? Damn near. Mutants and Raiders are of little concern to someone who could die from a bad piece of meat or from breathing the wrong air. Should be pretty cheery. That might be a few months away, as I really want to focus on getting SF done, but it’s in my queue.

    Thank you, Legion!

    There it is folks, check out more of Legion's work by clicking on the links above and images below.

     

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  • May 30, 2017
    Great interview! And so much technical stuff about writing. It's almost like 36 Lessons of Writing. I love it! :)
  • May 30, 2017

    It is a great interview. Well done!

  • Member
    May 30, 2017

    The Lorc of Flowers said: Great interview! And so much technical stuff about writing. It's almost like 36 Lessons of Writing. I love it! :)

    Thanks Path :D Yep, it is quite a beast and Legion has lots of useful stuff he has learned from writers here :)

    Lissette Long-Chapper said:

    It is a great interview. Well done!

    Thanks Lis :)

  • Member
    May 30, 2017

    I'd like to thank Phil for, one: the interview; two: for asking me the hard questions; and three: for tolerating my long ass answers. And thank you to you two as well, Lis and Karver. This came in a little over 6,000 words, so I know it wasn't exactly...bite-sized. But I appreciate that you both read it anyway. 

  • May 30, 2017

    Legion said:

    I'd like to thank Phil for, one: the interview; two: for asking me the hard questions; and three: for tolerating my long ass answers. And thank you to you two as well, Lis and Karver. This came in a little over 6,000 words, so I know it wasn't exactly...bite-sized. But I appreciate that you both read it anyway. 

    Only 6000 words? You are joking right? LOL, silly Legion and Phil thinking the Long-Chapper is intimidated by a mere 6000 words. 

  • Member
    May 30, 2017

    Yeah, but 6,000 words of me blabbing? I had my doubts. Especially since it's now the longest WI to date. 

  • Member
    May 30, 2017

    6000 words? My stories get at, like 10% of that. Anyway, grat interview. It's good to get to know our best writer.

  • May 31, 2017

    Legion said:

    This came in a little over 6,000 words, so I know it wasn't exactly...bite-sized. But I appreciate that you both read it anyway. 

    Ah, well...there are people who can show support no matter how many words they have to read through. Can´t be said about everyone. So yeah, appreciate :)

     

  • Member
    May 31, 2017

    D3LTAFOX said:

    6000 words? My stories get at, like 10% of that. Anyway, grat interview. It's good to get to know our best writer.

    That's a lofty compliment, D3LTA. Could be a typo. If it's not, then, thank you. If it is a typo, then still thank you. This is uncomfortable for me, I'm going to stop now. 

    The Lorc of Flowers said:

    Legion said:

    This came in a little over 6,000 words, so I know it wasn't exactly...bite-sized. But I appreciate that you both read it anyway. 

    Ah, well...there are people who can show support no matter how many words they have to read through. Can´t be said about everyone. So yeah, appreciate :)

     

    I can, will, and do.