Donald J. Bingle

 July 2020 Newsletter

Fireworks are, of course, synonymous with July 4, but that's not really why I headed this month's newsletter with this shot from a few months ago. You see, summer has almost always been "convention season" for me during my adult life. From the late seventies through the turn of the century (you get to say phrases like that when you are my age), that usually meant playing classic RPGA roleplaying game tournaments at conventions like GenCon, Origins, Glathricon, Summer Revel, ConnCon, and other smaller conventions in the Midwest and elsewhere. After that, it was attending some of the same conventions (mainly GenCon and Origins) as an author doing panels and readings and manning a booth selling books. More recently, my conventions have included gaming conventions that focus more on board gaming, including open gaming, than rpgs. Conventions like Dice Tower Con in Orlando. Dice Tower Con used to always be held over the Fourth of July weekend in Orlando, so it was a good way to visit my brother, play games, and hit the major theme parks, including Disney World and Universal Studios and, of course, catch the fireworks at the end of the night.

 

Alas, with the current situation, we aren't going to any conventions this year. In fact, we're not really going anywhere and we're not even having any friends over to game. Instead, we have taken to getting our board gaming fix by playing online on boardgamearena.com. It doesn't have anywhere close to all the games we want to play, but it does have some old favorites and a few others that we've played before or learned online. We've played with friends we'd usually play here in the Chicago area, as well as people in Florida, Denver, downstate Illinois, and even Israel. No, this summer isn't like any other summer, but gaming online is a great way to connect with friends and have fun. Hope you are having some fun, too.

 

 

 

 

The Set-Up (A blog from March 28, 2012)

 

Some people say there are no new ideas in writing. I disagree--this is the kind of lazy statement made when someone sees/reads The Hunger Games and thinks back on, say, The Running Man or, better (and more obscure) yet, Series 7 (a pre-Survivor movie about a reality show where people randomly selected by social security number battle to the death in an uncontrolled environment--it makes The Hunger Games seem leisurely and non-violent). Yes, there are new ideas and they can help make a book or movie a success. Heck, we've all bought something because the idea sounded so cool and original. The thing is that sometimes these new things disappoint.

That's because ideas are easy. Old ideas are incredibly easy and new ideas aren't all that tough either. The thing is, it is the expression of the idea that makes it work.

There's an old joke about a guy who goes to prison and the first night after lights out, he hears someone call out "Thirty-two!" and everyone laughs. A bit later someone else calls out "Forty-five" and there is more laughter. After midnight rounds, someone whispers "Sixteen" and the prisoners within earshot all chuckle. So the next day he asks about it and his cellmate explains that they've all been incarcerated for so long, they have heard everyone's jokes a million times and, since you get in trouble for talking after lights out, they've just numbered all the jokes, so someone can just make a quick shout-out and everyone remembers the joke and laughs.

So the guy, he gets his cellmate to tell him all of the jokes and the numbers assigned cause he wants to fit in and eventually one night after lights out, he picks his favorite and shouts out: "Twenty-one." Silence. He waits awhile and tries again. "Seventy-three." No response at all.

So the next morning he asks his cellmate why no one laughed and his cellmate just tilts his head to the side, shrugs his shoulders and says: "You know how it is with jokes. It's all in the delivery. Some people know how to tell 'em, and some people don't."

The same is true for stories of all types. It's not just the idea, it's not just the plot, it's not just the foreshadowing or the characters or body count. It's the telling that matters. And one of the keys to delivering impact with your stories is set-up.

I'm not talking premise here (the base idea) or setting (the location and atmosphere of where things happen). I'm talking about setting up a scene in such a way that it has maximum impact on the reader.

Let's take an example from real life, with a story from high school (my teacher friends just smile tightly when I tell this story):

My senior year I had a math class with a teacher named Mr. Roll. Mr. Roll was a very large man with a very deep voice and he did his best--which was pretty darn good--to maintain discipline in the class. Still, there was a group of miscreants in the class who would do things like yell "Mr. Roll's a jerk!" in a falsetto voice when his back was turned at the blackboard. When Mr. Roll spun quickly around to catch the offender, the group would all by pre-arrangement be staring at some innocent third party, so it looked like he or she was the offender. Clever. Well, we had a student teacher one semester who was young and lacking in confidence and easily flustered. One warm spring day, Mr. Roll decided it would be good for her to be in charge of the class, so he left and headed off to the teacher's lounge in the new wing--about as far away as possible from where the class was on the third floor of the old wing. Maybe he was trying to boost her confidence, but maybe he just wanted to go to the lounge, which was air-conditioned, cause barely a breeze stirred from the open windows in our room.

So Mr. Roll leaves and almost immediately people start talking in class and not paying attention and generally goofing off. The student teacher is not attempting to control the class, but is instead just doggedly going forward with her lesson plan, chalk in hand at the board, back to the class. Not only was it noisy, but one guy just got up and wandered out the open classroom door without her noticing. This goes on for a few more minutes, when there is a sudden commotion at the windows. Two guys are standing at the windows, each holding the leg of a third guy, whose torso is all the way out the window, pulling him back into the room. The guy they are pulling back is screaming "I told him not to do it! I told him, I told him!" and when they pull him in, you can see that his eyes are wide and in his right hand is a shoe--not his shoe.

So, everyone rushes to the third floor windows, including the student teacher, and there, splayed on the concrete below is a body, wearing just one shoe--the guy who snuck out earlier. Well, the student teacher screams and tears out of the room. The miscreants give their friend below a signal and he beats it up the back stairs to the classroom. A few moments later, the walls rattle as Mr. Roll comes thundering down the hallway, into the classroom and yells "What the hell is going on in here?"

The miscreants are all sitting calmly, their hands folded atop their desk-chairs. "We don't know, Mr. Roll," says the ringleader. "Suddenly she just screamed and ran out of the room."

(fade to black)

Okay, a cute, fun story. Let's talk about it for a moment in terms of set-up. There are two types of set-up in a story like this. The first is the writerly set-up--the telling of the tale. The questions here are: Was the story well-paced? Did it get bogged down in too much detail? Did it leave out any important details? Did it have sufficient pace and interest to compel the reader to finish the story? Did it go off on a tangent? Did it have sufficient sensory information to enable the reader to visualize the scene? Were pieces of information key to understanding the scene (third-floor location, open windows) conveyed subtly enough they didn't give away the climax, but clearly enough they weren't ignored?

If, instead, I had said that some kids fooled a teacher by making her think a student had jumped out of the window, the story would have been flat. No suspense, no context. By describing Mr. Roll and the student teacher, you can better visualize the story in your mind's eye. By telling of the prior miscreant misbehavior, the story gains color and credibility and the reader can run along with the story, guessing what may come next, and be more satisfied with the ending. By referencing the air conditioning in the teacher's lounge, I can relate that the windows are open without giving too much away too soon.

There is a gestalt to scenes that is critical to effective writing. One of the reasons I write sequentially (i.e., I write chapters, scenes, and sentences in the order the reader would encounter them, rather than, say, write all the protagonist's scenes first, then all the bad guy's scenes, then all the subplot stuff and weave them together later) is because it helps me understand the reader's mindset at each moment--what information they do and don't have, how the pace is tracking, whether they have just finished dialogue versus narrative description versus internalizations, etc. This allows me to better feel what is needed next. By the way, it also helps keep my timelines in sync without a lot of extra effort. Especially in mysteries and reveals, there need to be enough clues and suspense to keep the readers intrigued, yet not so many as to make the reveal anti-climactic or so few as to leave readers frustrated or even angry.

Books and panels on writing often discuss this type of set-up. (Screenwriting commentaries on movie DVDs can also have insights on this issue.) The thing that I believe sometimes gets less attention is the set-up of the scene/action/plot, itself. It's not just the telling that makes this an amusing story, it is the foresight and set-up of the protagonists, themselves. Someone going to the window and yelling "Look, Steve jumped." would have been less effective and less credible as an action, than the other guy hanging half-way out the window, screaming, as others pulled him in. But what sold the prank? The single shoe. Suddenly, this isn't some half-assed joke--this is an elaborately planned scheme with some sophistication in execution and some creativity in concept.

Look, readers will accept a certain amount of coincidence is stories (more so if the coincidences create problems for the protagonist than if they magically solve problems for the protagonist), but they stretch credulity and take the reader out of the story. But if the action/scene/plot of the story is set up by the world-building and the characters and the backstory and the prior chapters, so that everything that happens appears to be logical and have a credible cause, then you have not only set up the telling of the scene, you have set up the scene, itself.

If you want to read more about cause and effect and writing and on worldbuilding in general, look for Eighth Day Genesis: A Worldbuilding Codex for Writers and Creatives, which includes my chapter, "Cause Ways."

 

As always, you can find more about me and my writing at www.donaldjbingle.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Play/Movie Review: Hamilton (3 of 5 stars)

 

Like anyone else, I'm a fan of many things. Certain books, certain authors, my own eclectic collection of bands, singers, and composers, movies, television shows, games, and on and on and on. Goodness knows I can be opinionated. But, for the most part, I'm a fan; I'm not fanatical. Even when I'm a fan of something or somebody, I still see the flaws and areas that could use some improvement. Frankly, it annoys me when people heap on too many superlatives and tell me that every experience they've had (food, travel, art) is transformative. Maybe it's just the contrarian in me, but hype doesn't get me more interested in something; it is more likely to make me skeptical.

 

Accordingly, I had little interest in plunking down big bucks to sit in a small seat in the big city to see Hamilton. But, put it on Disney+ so I can stream it in my own living room and I'm willing to take a look. And, in the end, I think Hamilton was fine, just not all its fans told me it would be. Were my expectations too high? I don't think so, because in my own contrarian way I didn't expect to like it at all and my first reaction was that it was better than expected on that front. Look, I'm a 66 year old former political science major who does not like rap ... er ... hip hop, so I'm not exactly the target demographic for this show. I found it clever and interesting in parts, with some notable staging and a few catchy tunes (well, tune phrases, anyhow), but far from my favorite show of all time. Here's a few pros and cons:

 

Pros:

 

1. I like to learn interesting stuff and there were some cool pieces of history embedded in the storyline.

2. I like clever phrasing and there was certainly some of that.

3. I like the irony of Hamilton's insistence that he is not going to waste his shot, then (spoiler alert!) dying at end because he literally wasted his shot.

 

Cons: 

 

1. The second act is stronger than the first and the opening scenes are, I think, some of the weakest in the show, which made it a bit hard to get into it. I didn't even know who was who in terms of history for several of the characters for some time.

2. I disliked that some actors play multiple characters. I'm not talking about the chorus people playing various anonymous bit parts, but more significant roles being played by the same actor (e.g., Lafayette/Jefferson, among several others). It's not that the actors did a bad job, it's just that it somewhat added to my confusion about who was playing which historical character and seemed ... well ... cheap. I can understand a new show trying to get off the ground in an affordable way by double-dipping on the cast, but for a super-successful show raking in big bucks, it just felt like they could afford to have two actors for two different parts.

3. Though there are some catchy phrases, there isn't a single song that I find myself humming or even internally hearing that goes longer that a few phrases.

4. King George was overused and by far the weakest part of the show. I understand the concept of comic relief, but King George felt like a typical Saturday Night Live sketch. Too broad and waaaayyyyy too long.

 

For me, the biggest irony in the show wasn't the "not going to waste my shot" irony, but that most of the public that adores the show and the Hamilton character are often dismissive of the Federalist Papers which Hamilton wrote. Ahh, this is what happens when you read a show critique by a political science major.

 

Your mileage, of course, may vary. No problem. Remember, even curmudgeonly old me didn't dislike the show. It's a fine show. Frankly, I prefer Evita and 1776 over it. And Linda Ronstadt's and Kevin Kline's Pirates of Penzance is in no danger of being ousted from my top spot. On the other hand, I'll take it any day over Rent or Les Miserables. But, that's just me.

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Games, Games, Games

 

I like games. All sorts of games. We played board games and card games when I was a kid. As I got older, I got into various war games (the SPI and Avalon Hill hexagonal grid battle games like Borodino, Sniper, Napoleon at Waterloo, and Battle of the Bulge), Diplomacy (I actually went to weekend conventions dedicated to nothing but playing Diplomacy), and early computer games (like Inter-nation Simulation). After law school, I got into role-playing games (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Paranoia, Chill, Timemaster, Top Secret, and more and more and more--you can find my RPGA history here) and some collectible card games (Doomtown and SimCity). Now, it's back to board games like Settlers of Catan (my oldest copy is still in the original German), Puerto Rico, Ethnos, Wingspan, Rail Baron, Russian Rails, Ticket to Ride, Tikal, and on and on and on).

 

I'm a competitive guy and I've done pretty well playing games. I was the world's top-ranked player of classic RPGA Tournaments for the last fifteen years of the last century, I was nationally ranked in Diplomacy and played a high-profile game in Diplomacy World magazine, I've played in and/or won championships in Doomtown and SimCity and a bunch of roleplaying games/categories. I even played in a regional Monopoly tournament in downtown Chicago.

 

I enjoy winning and I enjoy figuring out how to win and learning how to game a game system. I also enjoy the social aspect of gaming, including commenting on the course of the game as it occurs (often lamenting about mistakes I've made). I try to be a good loser when I lose (losing at least makes my whining about mistakes more credible the next time) and I try to be a good winner when I win (though I don't always succeed).

 

And I'm happy to talk with you anytime about what games I like, what games I don't like, and what I think about certain rules, etc.

 

But, rather than chat about my favorite games, I thought I'd pass on my opinion about what makes a good game. So here goes, more or less in order of importance:

 

1. In a good game, every move has some importance, but no single move is of critical importance. In other words, you need to pay attention and try to improve your position with every move, but a single error will not doom you completely. This makes sure you pay attention and care about the progress of the game at all times.

 

2. The game needs to be very, very replayable. I don't want a single shot board game. I want a game I can learn and replay a lot. There's two important corollaries to this: (a) There needs to be multiple strategies that can win. If there is a single strategy/approach which leads to victory, the game is no longer fun once you figure that out. Instead, you should have to adapt your strategy to what the other players are doing and whatever random factors (cards, dice, etc.) occur in the course of the game. Heck, in some games, my strategy can be affected by the personalities and the playing quirks of the people whose turn goes before or after mine. (b) There needs to be variability within the game itself. Not just luck but such things as cards left in or out varying each time you play, how the board is laid out, etc. These things may every game a bit different and, thus, affect strategy.

 

3. The game needs to hold my interest. Sure, this can be affected by theme and difficulty, but it is also heavily dependent on how long turns take for each player and whether the other players have something to do when it is not their turn (like planning their own turn or adjusting to what is occurring on the board). Long ago Linda and I saw a television commercial for some game (I know! Remarkable!) which started off with a family sitting at a table playing some other game. The dad took his turn then got up and looked at his watch and said something like "I guess I'll go rotate the tires before my next turn." I don't like "rotate the tires" games; I like to be constantly involved. That favors games with simultaneous movement or decisions or decisions impacted immediately by other things happening on the board. That also favors playing with people who can make a fucking decision. (We played a board game where movement was based on dice rolls and involved choosing which way to go once you rolled the dice--okay it was Talisman--and this friend counted out every movement possibility for every possible dice roll before he would roll the dice so he would know "what he wanted to roll" before rolling. (No, he did not have telekinetic abilities.) Not so fun for the rest of us. By the way, folks, that means if you are playing a game, play the game; don't scroll through your phone or wait til it is your turn to think about what you want to do. Sure, some moves take longer than others. That's okay. Just be self-aware.

 

4. There should be some instinctual feel for what the game is about. Look, games have rules and those rules can be as wacky and arbitrary as someone wants them to be, but if the game mechanics and the themes match up well, what you are doing should have some instinctive sense to it. It also makes learning the rules simpler.

 

5. The game should adjust well. Does it play well for 2, 3, 4, 5, and possibly 6 players? Does it play somewhat differently in terms of strategy depending on the number of players or their abilities? Flexibility helps.

 

6. Can I learn it quickly enough to want to play it?

 

Enough said. Don't want this to be labeled tl;dr (too long; didn't read) if it ever gets commented on.

 
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Donald J. Bingle Writing Update: Still writing. In addition to whipping up a 3,300 word short story for a new fantasy anthology, and getting some research materials from Jean Rabe for one of the new cases coming up in the sequel to The Love-Haight Case Files, I continue to make progress on Flash Drive, the third book in my Dick Thornby spy thriller series. I'm now at almost exactly the halfway point for my projected wordcount and exchanging emails with the other side of the world re the location of a shootout between our hero and some shady guys who have been following him and his family. Scads of action and lots going on.

 

The Dead of Jerusalem Ridge by Jean Rabe

 

Sheriff Piper Blackwell’s three-day vacation with old Army buddies ends in tragedy. At the same time, a vile hate crime along a county road enrages her department. Their forces divided, Piper and her deputies must solve both cases before tensions boil and threaten the rural fabric of Spencer County, Indiana. Only eight months on the job, the young sheriff must weave together clues to uncover both a killer and a secret that could scar her soul.

 

Piper Blackwell is a smart and capable small-town sheriff, a thoroughly modern woman who leads a colorful cast of characters in this entertaining read. Well-crafted and suspenseful, THE DEAD OF JERUSALEM RIDGE adroitly threads the needle between Cozy, Procedural, and Action-Thriller. Jean Rabe's fans--both old and new--won't want to miss this one. Baron R. Birtcher, LA Times Bestselling author.

 

Click on the cover of the book to get it in ebook or print format.

 

 

Write Like Hell: Kaiju Anthology #3

 

 

Twelve tales of monstrous beings, twelve different approaches. Write Like Hell: Kaiju is an anthology of stories focused on terrifying creatures, and the humans who must face them. From Viking sagas, to sci-fi thrillers, you'll find a host of imaginative and compelling fiction within these pages.

 

Featuring stories from C. L. Werner, Justin Fillmore, Mitchell Lüthi, Scott Miller, Adam Gray, André Uys, Leon Fourie, Matthew Fairweather, Erik Morten & Samantha Bateson, Andrea Speed, and Tyron Dawson, as well as illustrations from Stephen Spinas, this anthology offers up a wide range of tales from authors around the globe, each with their own perspectives and ideas, and all eager to contribute to the genre of kaiju.

 

Click on the picture to buy on Amazon in ebook or print formats.

 

 

 
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Unfathomed: A Strange Air Mystery by Eric Mertz

 

One night, Cameron Bray awoke to strange sounds. Someone was in his house, an intruder who abruptly called the cops -- on himself. What he was running from was far more frightening than any punishment dished out by the law.

 

A paranormal mystery short read, Unfathomed, tells the story of DT Webb, a Canyon County estate attorney. One day Webb receives a call from a prospective new client. He decides to take him on, only to discover the next day that the man has died. What was in his estate? Not much. Only a few bucks, a boat, and a phone number leading into a strange story, slowly drawing Webb into it’s weird, haunted end. How far down must one sink the past before it’s gone? Find out in Unfathomed, a Strange Air paranormal mystery short read.

 

Click on the picture to get for free on Amazon.

 
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