Killing Time and Open Wound Marketing

It's good to be back from hiatus after the onslaught of the thirteen nights in October, even if it is only for a couple of weeks before the next one for the December holiday season. I thought that I would start the new entries with some news. I've released the first issue of my magazine Killing Time - Horror E-Rag™ in the Battered Spleen Productions™ store. I have also opened the Market section of the store with items in the Swag section. The Market section is where I hope to have other authors and artists sell their wares. They will provide me an image, a link to the sales page, and the name of the store or site that is directly selling their product. An author selling copies of their own book from their own site would send me that info. I will not handle the sales or take a commission, only charge for the space in the market.

I will of course have final say if a product is accepted. I want to view the promotional material to see if it's of proper professional quality, if it's going to offend people, and other similar things with which I do not want to be associated. Books for instance that are available places like Amazon or Barnes & Noble will get higher priority only because they've been through most of the checks I'd be concerned with. So why would an author do that? Authors often get copies of their book to sell for much more profit directly in their pocket. Signed copies are common in these cases. So why place a product with Battered Spleen Productions? Promotion. Your product available with those of others. This provides more variety and a chance to pick up a sale.

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure of the cost for inclusion at this point. I'm thinking a flat fee per item. Perhaps it will be an annual fee. My initial thought is it would cost about as much as your average paperback book. The main page for the market will have a primary featured item and then a selection of varied items. I have the market broken into three sections. Swag is for shirts, mugs, mouse pads and other similar items. Books is for printed books, which can be horror, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy or other similar related genres. E-books is for e-books only--in the same categories as the printed books. I'd also be interested in role-playing game books or art books in the same genres. Each product will have its own description page or go directly to your sales page as desired.

What do you think? Are you interested? Comments?

Mood: excitable.

Music: Against the Wall by Quiet Riot and Phantom Limb by Tourniquet.

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We're All Going to Die Terribly

One of the important parts of planning and running a role-playing game is the same as plotting a novel or writing a script. It is about managing threat levels. Doing this has a cascade effect that impacts pacing, tension, horror--if that is your angle--and mood. Take the ever-popular zombie apocalypse. The threat level is high any time that the characters are out in the world rather than sitting in their safety zones. Even in the safety of their sanctuaries all of the dangers of the old world loom around every corner. A pall hangs over everything because the walking dead dominate the mental landscape as much as the external one. This makes for constant inescapable tension. The dark mood is always an instant away only to be forgotten briefly.

This general look at the threat level of the setting is just that, only an overview. Scaling down to the level of specific encounters the danger presented to the protagonists can only reach a certain pitch. The protagonists must be able to survive--at least until the end, since they can only be killed once. There must be some way out of every situation. Something natural or organic and not forced or contrived. By the same token it should not be a cakewalk either. A balance must be struck. In a game luck can be a factor that brings disastrous results with even the most balance encounter. An author or scriptwriter can bend luck to their will on the other hand, again only in a way that seems genuine. Either way there needs to be room for adjustment.

A threat level system became a part of AD&D recently--in terms of the game's long history--to the joy of some and derision of others. It is a quick and easy way to say this many player characters of this level of power should fight these, these or those. It can be rigid and by the nature of its existence can drain away some of the tension, especially if the players know the Game Master is sticking by it. The player will likely even be familiar enough that they can tell an encounter is safely balanced. This tension draining phenomena can happen even with fiction, and especially scripts for television. Certain characters just aren't going to die. There will be an out to almost any situation that seems hopeless. Some things just are not going to change or come to an end.

Mood: open.

Music: Too Much, Too Soon by Green Day and It ('s A Monster) by Extreme.

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13 Nights 2008 Aftermath

I hope everyone had a great Hallowe’en and enjoyed the thirteen nights as much as I did. On one of the nights I revealed that there was an unintended connection between several of the movies. Most of them were made by a writer/director. This trend is most common with horror movies. It doesn’t matter whether these are all scriptwriters that want to be directors, or need to be to maintain the vision of their script. It doesn’t matter whether these are all directors who happen to write scripts, or need to as a matter of getting to direct the sort of movies that they want to direct. The first name in horror writer/directors is of course Wes Craven. Right behind him is John Carpenter. Oddly enough the thirteen nights did not involve either of these giants. This wasn’t the only trend.

The list of movies intentionally included several that were victims of bad press. They were written off as rip-offs, or in some cases declared unwatchable. This must be disheartening to everyone involved in their production. It is discouraging enough as a fan of some of these films to see them so maligned. This is further true with good movies that are not campy. At least with camp and a high cheese factor there are people who will flock to be fans for a movie because it is so bad that it’s good. Horror is a good genre for not being dismissive of low budget films. Some of the lowest budget horror movies gained great fame, from John Carpenter’s “Halloween” to Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” to the granddaddy of modern horror George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead”.

One last thing that was apparent from the selection of movies is that good horror comes from many different places. Some comes, naturally, from Hollywood. Others can come from a world away like New Zealand. The inspiration for horror movies has just as wide a spread. Some come straight from the scriptwriter’s imagination. Others come from the literary world. Yet others come from other media altogether such as video games. Then there are always the horrors that come from real life. One movie even came about because of one of horror’s most lucrative film genres, the slasher. Life spawns books and movies, books spawn movies, a genre spawns video games that spawn movies, and a genre even spawns parts of itself in a widening family tree. Isn’t horror grand?

Mood: exhilarated.
Music: Breakin' in the Gun by Vince Neil and Harbinger of Fate by Iced Earth.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #16: Too Much Information

One of the big deal breakers for the mood of a psychic horror setting is having too much of the right kind of information. It is especially contentious in the arena of role-playing games. It puts a great onus on the game master to, not only develop the information to be gleaned by psychic methods as is the case with authors or scriptwriters, but also to deal in a more hands on way with balancing how much information to pass on and when, notably without the safety net of re-writes. This manner of information handling is directly a result of abilities such as precognition, post-cognition, to a lesser degree remote viewing, and the like. Limitations placed on these powers and the additions of the vagaries of chance are thankfully in keeping with reports of such abilities in the real world.

There is a connection between this idea of too much information and the topic of evidence as discussed previously. A story's psychic who can see the influence of another psychic on a person has a certain amount of comfort that extends not only to the character, but also the audience. The ability as it serves the purpose of pushing the story in a particular direction mitigates its effect on the mood somewhat. In contrast if such an ability were able to identify the psychic responsible then things change drastically. At the level where this power is akin to reading a psychic fingerprint there is too much comfort afforded and the horror is lost. There is some suspense when the fingerprint isn't recognised by the psychic but beyond that it quickly reaches a point of diminishing horrific returns.

Another ability that effects comfort level is the sixth sense that warns a psychic of danger. Again, it has its uses, but can also quickly deflate the horror. The danger sense works best when it is vague. It is also most effective at the far ends of the timescale, but less so in the middle. When the sense comes on quickly with little, to practically no time, to act on it then the urgency and immediacy drives the horror through suspense. Likewise, if the warning arrives well ahead of the trigger event then tension builds and dread mounts until it is resolved. Of course that ratcheting tension and the swell of foreboding needs to be cultivated with a certain amount of finesse. All of this simply highlights two old adages; knowledge is power, and all good things in moderation.

Mood: lustre.
Music: F.I.N.E. by Aerosmith and Pump by Quiet Riot.

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