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Aspects by Neilan 'Darric' Naicker Interview by Jay Watamaniuk Go to (Previous - Introduction, Myranni's Magic, Walking with a Ghost, A Hero's Death, Firestarter, The Realm Below, A Moonless Night, Aspects, The Badger, the Cat and the Book, Grains of Truth, Find the Fish!, Ghosts of the Past, To Hell and Back - Next ) Where can I take a look at your module, Aspects?It's up at the Neverwinter Vault. What sort of story intrigues you the most?
Second, I'm a sucker for stories that have a great central idea. That may sound obvious, but what I mean by it is some sort of magic idea that's so powerful that if you were to give someone just the gist of that idea they would be excited by it. It often takes the form of some incredible flash of inspiration that a writer weaves a story around. It could be a neat twist, a unique setting, a style of writing.... It's hard to define, but it's a rare thing. It's the sort of thing you see in Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov stories, movies like Memento and Donnie Darko, books like Slaughterhouse Five and Snow Crash. Small ideas without which the story just wouldn't exist. Do you prefer novels or short stories for your personal reading?Tough choice! Each appeals to my different tastes in stories, as I mentioned earlier. Novels are often far better sources of characterization for obvious reasons. Quite simply, it takes time before one starts caring about the characters - time which novels amply provide. On the other hand, it's often that a really good "magic idea" is more likely to be turned into a short story that delivers on it in a punchy and precise manner. I'm going to go with novels; I definitely read novels more than I do short stories. I'd say characterization probably appeals to me more, and in addition there's many a novel with a fantastic central idea. Also, there's nothing that beats that feeling of the start of a new novel, knowing you're going to engross yourself in another world for a decent length of time. Was creating Aspects difficult due to the restrictive submission parameters, or did they streamline the process?I'd say it worked both for and against me. I definitely remember my creative process revolved around what was plausible with the restrictions. For instance, it forces you to think on a really small scale. I can't remember exactly how the initial idea of the module came to me, but it was probably due to thinking along the lines of, "Ok, I have three NPCs in a small space...." Then somehow setting it inside the player's mind with three facets of your consciousness seemed like the most natural thing. Of course it also works against the writer. I remember thinking the amount of dialogue for each of the three NPCs should be roughly equal, as no one "aspect" was more important than the other. However, as I wrote it, I found it far easier to write dialogue for one character (Creativity) than for the other two (Memory and Logic), and I just couldn't stop writing for him. At some point however one has to consider the word limit. Eventually, I realized that if I was going to write the same amount of dialogue for the other two characters, I'd have to make some cuts. And it's never pleasant to snip something you've put effort into! Go to (Previous - Introduction, Myranni's Magic, Walking with a Ghost, A Hero's Death, Firestarter, The Realm Below, A Moonless Night, Aspects, The Badger, the Cat and the Book, Grains of Truth, Find the Fish!, Ghosts of the Past, To Hell and Back - Next ) Related Links |
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I'm drawn to two sorts of stories. First, those that have well developed characters are particularly appealing to me. When I think about a story afterwards it's hardly ever the plotlines that stick in my mind - it's always the characters. Well written characters can do so much for a story, almost to the point that the plot doesn't matter anymore. The plot almost becomes just a shell that these characters are living and growing within. If a writer achieves that goal, that ability to create concern over their characters - you care about them, you want to know what's going to happen to them, if they're going to be alright - then it's a quality I admire greatly.
