Back to relative story relationships, mapping, and the practicals of feeding, watering, wedding, pruning, and growing your area of the Garden....

One of the elements of growing bulbs is the ability to 'force' them to mature (forcing refers to the activity of getting bulbs to bloom out of season). We've discussed how to mature characters in organic ways, and there are ways to propel more complex structures, esp. ones that you do not control.

1) Get up and wander the gardens -- look at other gardens, read about other characters, find out about other places on the grid. Look at other characters' motivations before doing anything. You want other characters to act (not react), then you have to give them motivations that stem from their own situations, not from your characters'. The site was intentionally developed in relation to this aim to keep the hypertext, but to allow visibility into it.

2) Localize -- you are less likely to get action from characters if you place the source of interest too far away. Put it in their backyard! You may want to get to z-place, but start at a, and grow it. Which leads to...

3) Patience -- realize that this activity will eventually circle back around to you and your characters/situations. Prepare, invest, and reap benefits later. Plan for success and enjoyment. Take time: wait, watch, tend your areas, maybe help tend to others. You can learn a lot that way. Maire's comments on reviving stalled characters is DEFINITELY in this arena.

4) Move Grid -- Variety helps. Move existing characters or situations to another venue. Often characters and situations realize, manifest, and dialogue differently in variable space. Start up a tendril (not a leaf, that doesn't often work) in another zone. Work with the energy and sites at Newgrange. What does Venice inherently support in your storyline that London isn't really shaking out? If you went to Urgup's shops, would something rattle off-key?

5) Plan short arcs -- intentionally develop a 3-7 scene developmental arc. A series of episodes to give yourself a full tendril from which to work, and in the sheer math of probability around Myriad, that tendrils may have relation to other tendrils. Have a beginning and an ending - EVEN IF YOU PLAN A FIXED ENDING. You have to start creating somewhere. A precipitating event can start multiple arcs, or a planned sequence of episodes both work. Think here of the arc created to teach Rose's lover, Vincent, a lesson in playing with Elders (his gallery was thrashed and his favorite works seemingly destroyed, though it was Edward and William behind it on Davydd and Sandrine's unwitting behalf: ran 5 scenes over a year) or an event that is precisely defined to have specific outcomes (Venice, while Carnivale, was meant to be a vampire and magical event, with posts that specifically set the city/mood/themes, and a couple of events hard-planned and a few semi-expected as possible, designed around motivations/needs of several characters).

6) Avoid creating random leaves -- if you're actually needing to force maturity, why do things that don't directly lead to where you want? This isn't about generating random situational angst in a leaf or tendril - it means creating full situations with realized beginnings and endings and a generalized notion of what may be out there for the character to potentially understand (knowing sometimes, it doesn't actually happen that time around too). Remember, this is about the care and feeding of gardens at large...."

7) Create multi-levels of characters and use them to specific ends, if needed. Not every sperm is sacred. This is not to say that you need to fill the space with random junk (ha). However, you do need to create a localized environment. If you're going to work on developing a character, you may just need to create a bubble of others around them, both players' primary chars, some secondary chars, and a host of your own, new ones, and backdrop ones that may never be played. The localized universe must exist, even if only in your and in the character's minds...

8) Write and post. Want to push a theme as backdrop for development of a locale, arc, or character? Write it down! Place it on the Threads board. Write up items for the IC board. Write a log for MM.net. Heck, the ultimate writing would be to create a space, infuse it with the right vibe that reflects a character and themes that drive the space and then play there. Create the bubble! Even if you do it for yourself, it helps you with characterization, dialogue, developing the unique details of the character or the vibe of the space in development. Hell, write characters into someone else's story and ask permission later. (Oh, it was always like that. *cough*). Of course, Alexei knows Caterine and Alix, and well, knows them both better than most should. Or! The Man in White absolutely know the Archangel of Dreams, Divine Master of the Sphere, Blandine. Ishrael knows him too. And apparently Nate knows Cesare too (um, I decided that at the door when Nate showed up and Sakir posed. Guess Sakir shoulda said no. :P)

9) Create structures. Frankly, sometimes we need them. Fall back to them and use them to get to where you need. If everyone is tending, that structure will either develop or fall away as needed. Call it scaffolding. Yeah, yeah, we're all super-advanced, dammit, and don't need no steekin' books, systems. Whatever. Fall back, reassess, Create and Destroy local structures at whim. Scaffolding is your friend, not a crutch. Smart folks get rid of the crutch and know when to do it.

10) Circle around: Wander the gardens. Local action, think globally. Patience. Shake up the Grid. Plan short arcs with fixed endings with someone else. Don't create random leaves if you're in the business of forcing anyway. Control it. Create multi-levels with specific ends and aims. Create the universe you need, then kick it away. Write and post. Make the NPCs, make the courts, list the homes, write the IC whispers, write on MM.net, scribble who knows whom, write dialogue, do whatever it takes. It will benefit you in the end.

In the end, there's a Garden here, and we all tend sections that are nearest and dearest to us. But there's someone next to you doing the same -- peep over and check it out.

Posted by rowan at May 21, 2004 02:58 PM