Of Art & Augury: An Interactive Fiction WIP

Genre: Historical Fantasy Format: Text-based interactive fiction Tags: Text-based, historical fiction, romance, fantasy/magic, art and artists, late 19th century Paris Current Status: Drafting (NaNoWriMo 2023 Project)

Synopsis

As a writer for one of the top Parisian society gazettes, you've advised many readers about the up-and-coming artists of the Paris Salon. The best painters there know how to weave subtle enchantments into the likeness of their subject to make the image come to life but, recently, something had been going wrong with the magic. It's up to you to head to the academy and figure out to truth for yourself.

Setting

Set in Paris at the end of the 19th century, you will explore the city and the art exhibitions of the academy. This version of Paris has an undercurrent of magical power which artists use to create enchanted artwork for society.

May the odds be on your favor, dear writers.

"Think of it (writing a novel) like baking a cake. In the beginning, you’ve got nothing but a wish (to eat cake!). You figure out a recipe, gather ingredients, start mixing… Maybe you make some mistakes, have to re-measure, or improvise a new frosting. But as long as you keep working, you’ll eventually go from having nothing, to having a bowl of batter (yum), to having a cake of your very own. The trick is to break down a big job into smaller pieces, and to not get discouraged along the way."

"I have work to do Leo. We need to find Mikey." Donnie responded, not looking over at Leo. 

New writers love to put character names in dialog. And try it sometime, actually say the name of the person you're talking to as you're talking to them. It's very intense, often kind of aggressive ("Clean your room, Leo.") When it does happen, it's usually a way to underline what kind of relationship you have with the person you're talking to. ("I'm sorry, Master Splinter." = I respect you, and see you as an authority figure.") ("We're cool right, Red?" = I want you to know you're someone I feel emotionally close to.)

Regulus groaned. "This will be fun."

“Reggie! Truth or dare?” Lupin asked

“Dare, Rems,” Regulus replied. No one else called him Reggie.

The nicknames get across a lot more meaning/utility/character development than just straight-up names would, so points. But my thing is, don't torture yourself. Just use "said." It's fine. It's a super common invisible word. You can't overuse "said" the same way you can't overuse "that." It honestly takes you out of it more if characters spend a whole fic "responding" or "observing" or "answering."

"Harvey, I wasn't flirting, I was just socializing. You know how much I love meeting and talking to people, men or not. You are the only one I ever wanted and you know that."

This is an example of 'on-the-nose' dialog. Even though the character is in a kind of intense situation, they're laying out exactly what they want to say very clearly, something people are are generally pretty bad at.

You can pack a lot of character development into a moment like this. This person has just been accused of flirting when they weren't - so does that make them angry? defensive? confused? let down? apologetic? scared? playful?

Movie dialog can get away with being more on-the-nose, because a good actor can bring all those different kinds of subtext to the same line. Like this bit from Revenge of the Sith:

OBI-WAN: Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!

ANAKIN: From my point of view the Jedi are evil!

Not "What do you know?" or "The Jedi threatened him!" or "He's given me more than the you ever have!" Just a very straightforward 'Well, from Anakin's point of view the jedi are evil, so why doesn't he just say that.'

But Hayden Christensen is a good enough actor to sell the line- he takes the slightly formal phrase "From my point of view" and delivers it in a way that sounds automatic, like maybe this is something he's been taught to say. I could believe that "From my point of view" is a phrase Obi-Wan has given him to use in arguments, and he's bringing it out here because they still have a teacher/student dynamic, and he's desperately hoping that somehow Obi-Wan might still be willing to listen. Imagine if once or twice in the previous films we had an exchange like "Anakin! What were you doing with those chance cubes!" "From my point of view, I was making it easier for the other customers to come up and talk to me," and then got hit with that exchange in the final movie.

"Turning yourself in frankly diffused a very unstable situation, and saved both sides a lot of trouble and probably some lives, and well... I thought I owed you that much."

This is a good example of a speaking quirk (I'm going though a few characters, all from the same fic.) Notice the code-switching. The character starts off very professional before becoming casual - they say "a lot of trouble" when they could have said "significant expense and effort" - which would be more of a match to "diffused a very unstable situation." So either they're getting comfortable with the person they're talking to, trying to make that person feel more comfortable, or else their professional mask is slipping for some reason

"Are you trying to paint yourself an honest thief? Ha!"

That "Ha!" is so nice because it's like... a little lame? But I totally buy that no one is actually going to tell this character that, because he's powerful. Great for a slightly funny sub-villain.

 "I gotta tell you about all the new jobs here! There's like, so many openings at the mines and in the factories!"

You don't even need to tell me this is a young character. That "like" does all the work for you.

"You want me to actively help you lot? Ha! What the fuck makes you think I'd ever do that?"

I like the combination of the precise and slightly technical "actively help" with the intense and in-your-face "fuck" and "you lot." There's a duality to this character. Like maybe they can code switch into 'expert' but choose not to. Intriguing.

Our d6 of the week is our writing dice set!

Aaaaanyway, I just wanted to give some motivation to my fellow writers out there. Here it is...*Drumroll*

You can do it! :> It might be cheesy, but just think of how rewarding it will be in a month! Do your best and it will be good enough!