Story Elements Part 1: Story from Character and A vs B Plot

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When I was in film school, a friend of mine maintained a website dedicated to paper craft models he’d created for Star Wars Miniatures and posted online for free.  In a moment of hubris I wrote some guides for his site to explain some simple storytelling techniques in the context of creating engaging games within Star Wars RPG and Miniatures Battles.

Some years later, my friend’s website is no longer active.  In a moment of further hubris, I’ll repost these three guides here in the coming weeks.  If the context of Star Wars and/or Role Playing aren’t your thing, I hope you’ll still find the explanations of the techniques interesting.

 

Part 1:  Story and Plot Development...

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Guilty Pleasure: He's a Rebel

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I've written before about my love of this song, "He's a Rebel" by The Crystals from 1962.  Not only is it a classic, but it's got a great twist.  She's singing about how her guy doesn't do what society wants him to, but she's the one staring society in the face saying she's going to love him anyway.

In the original Star Wars film, "A New Hope", Obi Wan asks, "Who's the bigger fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?"  Well who's the bigger rebel, the rebel or the rebel who loves him?

I didn't mean for that to turn into a whole Star Wars/rebel analogy, but it kinda worked.

When Did Utopianism Become a Bad Thing?

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     I recently read “The Hidden Wealth of Nations” which is an analysis of the economic impacts of corporate tax havens, much like Apple’s Irish tax haven which made headlines today.  In the book, it’s author Gabriel Zucman offers not only analysis and critique of this topic, but offers solutions ranging from regulation to sweeping tax reform.

     For each potential solution Zucman offers, he takes a moment to explain why the suggestion isn’t “utopian” because it may have worked in another country or be within the purview of a sovereign nation, etc.  In part, I think Zucman spends this time pre-emptively defending against the charge of utopianism because his colleague and mentor Thomas Piketty's was also accused of utopianism for suggesting a global tax on wealth in his work “Capital in the Twenty First Century".

     Rather than discuss either economist’s particular argument, I’d like to focus on the accusation of utopianism as a means of dismissing the argument outright...

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Not Everything Should Be Run Like a Business

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After a recent expose by Mother Jones on corruption, abuses, and waste in privately run federal prisons, the DOJ announced they’ll end privately run federal prisons.  This is amazing, but only the first of many steps to end the cycle of for-profit, mass incarceration in this country.

     It’s also, I hope, the first wake up call toward the total realization that not everything should be run like a business...

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High School Parties in the Desert

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Growing up in El Paso, there were a lot of ways for teenagers to get into trouble.  We could go across the border and drink (back when it was safer to do so) or go out in the desert and drink.  Basically what I'm getting at is that there were plenty of opportunities for minors out there to drink.

El Paso is right on the border with New Mexico, so when there were huge groups of teenagers out in the desert, it became tough for law enforcement to know who had jurisdiction to break up the party and issue citations or perform arrests.  

To solve this issue, the New Mexico and Texas State Troopers formed an alliance called "The Wolf Pack" that would roll out to the parties together.  That way, once they figured out which state the party was in, the appropriate team could do the work...

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