Review of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND STORYTELLING FOR GAMES by Lee Sheldon

Title: Character Development and Storytelling for Games
 
Author: Lee Sheldon
 
Publisher: Course Technology PTR
 
What It's About: Character Development and Storytelling for Games is a book designed specifically for writers who are interested in the process of developing stories for video games.
 
Why I Read It: I've always loved the stories in my favorite video games, with the stories in the Final Fantasy games probably being my favorite. I love writing in general, and I've always wanted to learn about writing for games. 
 
What I Liked About It: The book is thorough. I love video games, but this book will help you to understand games better, especially from a story development perspective. This book gives writers the tools to develop compelling story lines that get games engaged not only in the game play, but in the story as well. Learn about characterization, which is really important because gamers play as characters and often interact with many non-playable characters in their game play. You'll learn how to script stories for games. Learn about the different types of games that feature stories and how those stories fit in with the game play.

The book is also a helpful guide for helping writers and designers to communicate in a way that each understands the other. I thought this book was very helpful and a lot of fun to read as a video game player and a writer. If you're interested in writing for games, this is the book to get.

Review copy provided by Course Technology PTR

Review of THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY by Carolyn Kaufman

Title: The Writer's Guide to Psychology

 

Author: Carolyn Kaufman

 

Publisher: Linden Publishing

 

What It's About: The Writer's Guide to Psychology is a book for fiction writers who want to write the psychological aspects of their characters as authentically as possible.

 

Why I Read It: I'm a fiction writer, and I wanted to understand the psychology of people so that I can write characters that are more believable.

 

What I Liked About It: Kaufman puts to rest many misconceptions that fiction writers may have about psychology. Mistakes that fiction writers have made in the past are brought to light, so that fiction writers can make the best use of the tool of psychology in their writing. 

The book, on one level, is about the drives that people have that make them do the things they do. On this level, the book helps fiction writers get into character motivations and understand what makes people tick. It also helps them to understand the psychological disorders some people experience so that a writer can write a character with a psychological disorder authentically. 

On another level, the book is about understanding the roles of psychological professionals, the people that help those who suffer psychological disorders. For example, what does a therapist do, and what does a therapy session look like. What kind of treatments do those with disorders have to go through. Understanding these things can help you to avoid inaccurate portrayals of what psychology looks like in real life. 

This is a book that should be on every fiction writer's bookshelf.

Review copy provided by Linden Publishing

 

Where You Can Buy It: Amazon.com

Review of WHAT'S BEST NEXT by Matt Perman

Title: What's Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done

 

Author: Matt Perman

 

Publisher: Zondervan

 

What It's About: What's Best Next is a book about productivity, specifically from a Christian perspective. It looks at productivity from a biblical standpoint.

 

Why I Read It: I've read a lot of books on productivity. When a great deal of your work is focused production and creativity, the many things that you have to do can get overwhelming. I was immediately interested when I found out there was a book on productivity that could speak into God's desire for your productive life.

 

What I Liked About It: I loved this book. Perman makes compelling arguments for the distinctly God-desired role of productivity in a Christian's life. I loved the title of this book because it focuses the book's strategy on choosing the right things to do. Perman argues that getting things done isn't the point because you can get a lot of things done, but they may not necessarily be the right things. Instead, you should develop a way to prioritize the right things to do. Not everything should make it onto your task list. Then I love his definition of productivity. Productivity, from a biblical standpoint, is about doing good things that benefit other people. This framework for productivity helps in the choosing of what's best next to do.

The first part of the book is about theory and theology of productivity. It sets a great foundation for why God cares about productivity and why it's important for us to rethink what being productive means. The second part is more practical. Perman offers an organizational and productivity system that will help you to do more of the right things that will benefit other people. The four step process is to define, architect, reduce, and execute. This process helps you to plan out your productivity schedule and get more of the right things done.

Another great thing about Perman's book is the wealth of wisdom he draws from all of the great productivity books we've all probably read. He pulls the best from these books and organizes them into his what's best next framework.

I've read a lot of books on productivity. This book is, without a doubt, the best of its kind. Though this book is written from a Christian perspective, it's also something that works, so that even if you're not a Christian, there's much to learn from the productivity strategy of this book. I can't recommend this book enough.

Review copy provided by Zondervan

 

Where You Can Buy It: Amazon.com

Review of MR. MERCEDES by Stephen King

Bill Hodges is a retired police detective whose life hasn't been the same since he left the police force. Everyday seems like a struggle to find a reason to keep living, and someone else seems very aware of how hopeless he feels. Before he retired, Hodges was working one of the most horrific crimes he'd ever encountered--an unknown man had stolen a Mercedes and ran over several people waiting in line for a job fair early one morning. The one who did it was the one who got away, and Hodges hates that he was never able to catch whoever was responsible. But he's about to get a second chance. The killer is still out there, and he wants to play a cat-and-mouse game with Hodges. 

Hodges is soon pulled into a dangerous pursuit of a man who seems void of compassion or guilt. The Mercedes Killer is more dangerous than Hodges imagined and he has to be stopped before he strikes again.

MR. MERCEDES by Stephen King is a novel that is a mixture of fun and disturbing. King does a great job of getting us into the head of his main protagonist Bill Hodges. And Brady, the primary antagonist, is truly twisted. The Mercedes Killer pushes Hodges' buttons in a way that somehow brings him to life. Hodges only feels alive when he's in the pursuit of finding a killer. Brady knows this and exploits it. 

The novel has the fun feel of a mystery as Hodges digs deep into the evidence to discover who the killer is and what he plans to do next. Having read several Stephen King novels, this one does feel a little different, but its true Stephen King all the way through. King talks of writing books that start with a situation in his book On Writing. This is definitely that type of book with the Mercedes Killer attacking the people waiting in hopes of getting a job the way he does. 

If you're a fan of King, this is another great book by him. It's a story of good versus evil and the pursuit of stopping a heartless killer. As a fan of Stephen King myself, I definitely recommend this as another great story by one of the greatest writers around.

Review copy provided by Scribner

Blog Tour Review - HACKER by Ted Dekker

Title: Hacker

 

Author: Ted Dekker

 

Publisher: Worthy Publishing

 

Nyah Parks is an extraordinary teenager who knows how to hack into computer systems better than most. She makes a living from hacking into the systems of major organizations, who then hire her as a data security consultant to make sure it can never happen again. Nyah's mother, after suffering major brain damage from a car accident, is close to dying. If Nyah can secure $250,000, she'll be able to enter her into a medical program that might save her. Nyah decides to perform a hack into a major organization in hopes that they'll hire her so that she can get the money she needs. Unfortunately, she comes upon some information no one was ever meant to see, and her life quickly becomes in danger. She now has to fight to stay alive while trying to find a way to help her mom. 

Hacker is the third book in Ted Dekker's Outlaw Chronicles, and it reads very much like some of Dekker's earlier books. It's an interesting concept. When I picked up the book, I had an idea the book would be about tapping into the potential of the human mind because of the cover, but actually reading what Nyah and Austin (a character from the first book in the series) do to themselves was both creepy and interesting. Most of Dekker's books are about tapping into the unseen reality behind all that we see. This book is no exception and probably does it to a far greater depth than some of the other books. Nyah and Austin tap into the unseen reality, but what's really interesting and that I found particularly compelling was the way they're able to tap into the future. Nyah discovers something that she desperately wants to stop. 

I thought it was another great Dekker novel. The pace is quick. The themes are clear. The characters are well-developed. The only drawback I have with this series and the book Outlaw is the frequent idea that comes across that we are merely spiritual beings having a physical experience. Our physical bodies are often described as costumes that aren't our identity. While I agree that our identity isn't wrapped up solely in our physical makeup, biblical thought places a high view of the physical throughout. The Bible describes us as a complex hybrid of the physical and spiritual, and the eternal state isn't one in which we shed our physical bodies; it's one in which are bodies are restored to perfection. We'll be forever a complex hybrid of the physical and spiritual. I'm not sure why Dekker has latched onto this concept of the body as costume, but it's one I wish he'd drop. It's a flaw to an otherwise excellent series.

Fans of Ted Dekker's books will probably love this book for all the reasons I mentioned above. It's a great story, and I'd love to read more stories about the characters from Nyah's and Austin's world.

Review copy provided by Worthy Publishing

Buy it from: Amazon.com