J P Smythe’s Website.

Blog/web/internet/interactive/cyber/paper/periodical/serialised fiction – and you can really pick any of those to focus on for the next point – seems permanantly at a crossroads. There’s always someone saying that these things have either a) died or b) turned a corner, and there’s always someone on the opposing foot waiting to stamp them down. In looking at blogs for my work I have been reading about the new problem of ensuring that you visitors know that your site is a blog as opposed to a website – as the internet becomes less imposing to less traditional users, people are more likely to visit blogs, whereas they were, before, the territory of the somewhat ‘geekier’, selective denizens of the web. And so some people – mostly marketing people, admittedly – thing that we should be using the blog as a method of making simple websites. And I spoke about this with a friend yesterday – blogs are easy websites. They are nearly idiot proof (and I only say nearly, as there’s no stopping idiots posting idiotic content on their blogs, or telling you what they had for lunch that day). But why stop them being blogs? That, I don’t get.

The concept of the weblog always makes me think of Star Trek, directly leading to the notion of Ships Logs from ‘back in the day’. As a way of tracking what was being done as reported information for those who weren’t there to see it themselves, the Logs were invaluable. However, random strangers weren’t asked or invited to read them. This is equally true for the internets: why bother reading something with no interest to yourself? How can you persuade someone to read fiction on the internet if they have no interest in reading fiction in the first place? Answer: you can’t. Impossible. However, that tells you the target market, surely? Readers. Get them in, lure them with decent fiction that they will know and appreciate and want to read. Make it easy on the eye and simple to digest, and make sure that it’s damned simple to find and print. Take away the idiotic notions of ‘tailoring’ stories – because, really, people, just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it has to be written with either l33t speak, a cyber-hacking protagonist or in the form of emails. If its a good story it’ll stand out. Simple.

[Sidebar: None of the above accounts for the sheer volume of Vampire stories. I swear to God, every second person who starts a fiction blog starts it about Vampires, and every third starts it for children (which means that occasionally there are child vampires. Probably). I suppose it's all about understanding your target market. I suppose.]

So, now, I put out a request: any ideas of where I can find some decent blog fiction that steers away from these things?

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Hotel Dusk is a brand new game by Nintendo which they are describing furiously in their marketing as an “interactive mystery novel”. There’s a whole fuss being made about the fact that you “hold the DS like a book!” whilst playing, and blah blah blah. Here’s my problem with this – and this translates to the games industry, generally, as a whole – it’s not brilliantly written, and the story is less than engrossing. Very few companies – Bioware being the only notable example I can think of – employ writers to work on their stuff, and if they do it’s a huge Gaming press big deal. Why the hell is this not the standard? Directors of films only write their own films if they can write in the first place – why do games manufacturers assume that because they came up with the story that they are the best people to tell said story? I love the new Legend Of Zelda game, but, dammit, the writing could really be better! I love my Gods (and Gears) Of War, but the writing is often generic and uninspiring. As a writer, and someone who loves being told a great story, why aren’t games fufilling my requirements? The ones that look like they will – the aforementioned Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright, most RPGs – rarely do, and it’s only when you have a Halo, a Half-Life, something where the story isn’t touted but is stupidly cared for, that’s when the games really come into their own with stories. It’s like wrestling: when you hire out-of-work sitcom writers as the WWE does, why are they surprised that the writing can be so godawful? Gah. I’m off my hobby horse now. Only for a second mind you.

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Back on. Marvel has continually dropped the ball on two of the greatest comic characters of all time, Cloak and Dagger, and it’s peeved me. I have to shout about it here: someone, please, take Cloak and Dagger and give them the damned respect that they deserve. They are two of the deepest characters that Marvel has in their stockpile, and they are so underused it is criminal. Just let them breathe, Marvel. Don’t know how? Come talk to me. Really. I’ll story them to death. Metaphorically.

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The new Modest Mouse album is amazing. It has Johnny Marr on guitar, which seemed oddly desperate to me, a grasp as something interesting, and yet its so far superior to its kin – The Shins new album, for example – I can only applaud. Really, it’s quite the thing. Well done them. Other things I have really been enjoying include The Sarah Silverman Show, Squadron Supreme, Ex Machina and the fact that new NIN singles are amazing (if you remember how great NIN could be). I’m out.