Expanding Your Horizons — Storyteller's Crate

“Life is about working out who the bad guy is.”

— Sophie Hannah

Introduction:

Today I wanted to take a look at the storytelling process that involves expanding the horizons of your fictional universes. Mostly in light of the concept of the drama-thriller to catch a killer trope.

Something that several series and screenplays have attempted is this kind of trope mostly the Film Noir kind of solving a mystery or a murder, many of them basing themselves in real events, but, the rarest (Obvious Inflation) kind of criminal masterminds come in the form of a fictional story.

By far the most successful attempts of such trope come in the form of the mysteries taking place in the efforts of the detectives in real life, such examples being Manhunter: UNABOMBER and Mindhunter, another such example being the film Zodiac among others.

But I took the time to think outside the box while watching Manhunter recently and I thought to myself. 'Damn I'd love to see or write a story like this for a fictional universe that I love.' Something I have seen time and time again is the thought that it'd be too 'serious', or too probably convoluted or even that it would not fit within the boundaries of said universe.

Even in games it seems like the trope is difficult to grasp, the story might be there, but the aspects that make these stories are somewhat glossed over multiple times, it doesn't truly dedicate itself to solving a crime of a serial killer, mastermind instead the crime is a side quest that you encounter on your way to the ultimate goal, even LA Noire, the ultimate detective game - at least in its style and my own personal opinion - has an end goal that deviates entirely from the main focus of the game, if I am not mistaken.

You aren't chasing one big mastermind throughout the entire game or story, trying to uncover his mind and catch him, you're instead solving multiple crimes, in different spans of time as you rise through the ranks of law enforcement.

This is somewhat a lack of vision or ultimately, an attempt to make the games fun without dwelling in one case. Nevertheless, perhaps games are not the best vessel for this despite my belief that it is, perhaps a novel or a film would work best. But these are questions that can be befitted to the creator himself to answer.

However, I want to look deeper into the topic of expanding your horizons, mostly examining the concept and mannerisms of this specific trope, because I see it coupled with several types of one-off universes or real-life stories, I want to tackle the issue of implementing this into a different kind of universe like Halo, or even Mass Effect to build this and explore the implications that come in the genre in a different setting.

Is it too niche? Is it too serious? Is it not compatible with other universes? These are answers I always get from many of these queries, but, I don't think anything is either too serious, too niche or not compatible, at the end of this article I hope to have asked the question and answered it with a simple writing cue within the trope I want to talk about.

Beyond that, I also want to deliver a few words to most authors that might read this article, because I want to clear a few things that come with writing. Namely issues with 'inclusion.'

Without further ado, however, let's jump in this.

Act I Profiling Your Suspect

“The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning and answer it at the end.”

— Lee Child

The way to begin your story will always be here; on the drawing board, ask your questions, research your villain and even build the universe beyond of what you know of.

With that, you can establish the rules and the many things that our antagonist and protagonist will be able to use and with that, we can establish the ways they can escape each other's sight until the final confrontation, the question's answer.

Research Quest:

By starting here you can take a deeper look into what makes a criminal tick, research real and fictional antagonists, the Unabomber, the Zodiac killer, Joker, among other things.

This is always your starting point because this is what should be the beginning of your story.

It all starts with the criminal and it all ends with the criminal, he's the culprit of the story and the source of its catharsis and climax. But a rule of thumb, at least for me, is to implement him as the complete opposite of your protagonist while also being the most similar thing to himself. The only way to understand your killer and your criminal is to think like him.

The more your protagonist learns of your mysterious criminal the more involved the character should be.

Find the Issue:

I think this is obviously self-explanatory; find the mistake that your villain will commit, find the answer that will bring the culprit and contain the catharsis of the story forward and bring the antagonist down.

This can come in many forms, but this is a very personal question that has to be asked and answered, if the answer is dull it will ultimately bring dullness into the story and often times it will feel cheap, if the answer is not dull however, it will certainly benefit your story, it is nonetheless your own question to answer when taking your story into consideration.

The Same Coin — Antagonist:

"Now the moviegoer is being presented a less severe version of the underworld, with likable killers and corrupt cops. Good and evil go hand in hand to the point of being indistinguishable."

Something that has been proven quite a few times is the fact that the antagonist should be a mirror of the protagonist - or at least in most cases - building ones antagonist which the protagonist can fear not because he is either frightening, gruesome or brutal; but instead because he represents a mirrored and distorted image of who your protagonist can become.

Its one of the things that made Dark Knight's Joker so great, and one of the things that made Manhunt: UNABOMBER so intriguing. Is the fact that the killer or perpetrator is seemingly on the same wavelength as our struggling protagonist, keeping ahead of him several steps forward even if they don't know each other face to face.

There are many different ways to portray a criminal, however, in fact, there are a ton of different criminal 'professions' that can help you carve out a proper character and antagonist for your story, but for the sake of brevity, we're going to focus with a sympathetic serial killer as it adds to the drama of the story. But for the sake of presenting many alternatives for you:

- Yakuza grunt

- Mafia grunt

- Aggressive Drug Addict

- Hitman

- Accidental Murderer

- Dirty Cop

Among many others.

The Detective — Protagonist:

"An inglorious victim who may suffer, before the happy ending, appalling abuse. (Cont) As such, he is far from the Superman of adventure films"

Time to delve into the person that would serve as the vessel of the story, the detective as it is commonly stated in the film noir and drama trope, he's the one that we'll follow throughout the entire journey trying to decipher our killer's intent, who he is and more.

He should be a line between good and evil, the person that constantly walks the fine line between the criminal underworld and the light of justice because to understand your criminal you must be willing to delve deeper into his way of life. In one way or another, the detective must face his fears, with the ever-present face of death by him.

He's a hero that gets no credit, he obtains no prize, he does not obtain the girl and most importantly, they obtain a chilling end to their story as they walked the thin line between these two worlds that leaves no real satisfaction. Because to tell a story of crime is to tell a story of death in one way or another.

"Down these mean streets, a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness."

— "The Simple Art Of Murder", Raymond Chandler

The kinds of cops that you can hope to find in these stories are the following:

- Born Detective

- The Private Detective - By the book cop

- Bad Cop

- Incompetent Cop

- Atonement Detective

Among others.

Building the Crime:

This is either the best or the worst process for some, in a similar manner how it is the easiest or the most difficult depending on how specific and how deep you want to dig. Of course, I am no expert, I am merely an amateur writer who is still learning, but from the things I have learned across my years writing, interviewing certain people for certain characters and more.

Building the crime is something that will revolve around the entire arc, it can be just one crime or it can be various, going through all of them building the puzzle as our antagonist decides to make his or her hit time and time again as we work our way to deliver justice.

This can be entirely up to the author, the kind of crime and the moments when they're committed. They shouldn't, however, be continuous, each crime scene has to run its time to allow it to get cold, when the tracks run cold our killer should hit once again.

By cold, I mean the tracks that our protagonist is going to have to uncover, clues and more, these are going to remain there, any killer will get sloppy, which is why building the crimes in detail is fairly important, nonetheless, the extent of the world building and scene building can be different for every author.

Executing the Ideas:

By the time this process comes to fruition, this means that you are in the process of placing words in the paper. More importantly, you're in the creative process of the story where you begin with either of these things:

A storyboard, the first word on the script/novel, or even something as menial as building the lore and background info that you will be working with for the entirety of your story because lore establishes the rules and your understanding of the universe or story that you want to tell and flesh out.

Which is why it is important for writers to write as much as they want and as much as they need for them to receive a very basic understanding of their universe.

This being said, I would say that it is sufficiently obvious beyond this point on how to begin to execute your ideas, so, grab a cup of coffee - or tea if you swing that way, sit down, fetch you best music that helps you write and keep on at it, procrastinate a little bit, let yourself put words on the screen or on the paper, and just take it a day at a time.

Procrastination is... Way too natural. Probably a little too much

Act II Universes; their styles, and issues.

I will echo an old quote I used in my Military Noir article once again here:

"To me, science fiction- It's not about the special effects or giant battles between the forces of good and evil. Science Fiction is using speculative scenarios as a lens to examine the human condition."

— Ted Chang

This is a part that I want to hammer home because there seems to be a belief that certain universes can't take themselves seriously in their stories, at least from my understanding there are a few people that don't seem to believe that some stories can't be completely serious.

But before I delve deeper upon this: by that I don't mean Snyder gloomy, I mean that they can feel grounded almost as if you could see it happening. My definition of serious storytelling is not that our characters shouldn't crack jokes and that they should all be gloomy and brooding and saying fuck every three seconds. No, serious for me is that it takes advantage from all the best parts of reality and makes these stories feel as grounded as possible.

That's what 'serious' entails for me, if not presented already by the quote I have placed at the beginning of this section. I also want to create this section to address certain beliefs pertaining to the inclusion of race, sexuality and more. For me, the way that everything has been pushed is a mistake, and I want to elaborate further upon this, beyond that, I'd like to take a look at two universes that I like, that have parted ways with their original style to craft serious stories - more specifically the Noir kind or criminal kind that this article has been based upon.

Now that we have that out of the way, its time to delve deeper into it!

Expanding Your Creative Process of Ideas:

Such ideas have been implemented in several different universes that start and belong to another type of genre, such examples being Mass Effect and Halo, but they haven't been fully delved into.

And by fully delved into I don't mean dedicating the entire universe in that kind of story, but instead, dedicating one single novel or graphic or even a mini story in a blog that delves deeper into these kinds of aspects that go farther from their core and expand them beyond their designated style.

Further grounding their universe, because I truly believe, that if you dedicate yourself to grounding a universe in some modicum of reality and make it relatable it becomes far more palatable more people and then some.

This affects their perspective of the story and thus expands the storytelling possibilities beyond what is established.

Mass Effect:

In Mass Effect we have been given the opportunity to delve deeper into many aspects of their universe, from the civilisation of certain species to an actual and deliberate heist that is planned out by a companion that you must gain her trust and loyalty, as such, I believed that these were the best parts of the games, delving deeper into their universe, not to expand it with certain characteristics like how they approach sexuality, race or even skin colour. Instead of choosing to develop these places in a way that they feel relatable, their environments allow you to bask in their storytelling and more.

This coupled with great stories to tell, no matter the amount or style of such story can become such a great asset that it can heighten the experience in limitless ways allowing you to fall in love with the universe you love time and time again as you experience something new that makes complete sense in the context of what you love.

And I would even argue that Mass Effect's use of racism in the original trilogy was one of the best parts in its essence and style because it delivered the message that the issue is present, not by telling us, but by showing us it.

And it shows us that sometimes the use of race can be in good faith with the banter between Joker and Garrus in the bridge when they were making jokes of their own races and laughing together at it. Because jokes are jokes and context does matter. But, not to touch too heavily on a present issue that has been happening with a certain Dankula in an article that has nothing to do with that.

Though, I would be mistaken if I didn't mention the colossal and irreversible mistake that Mass Effect Andromeda is.

Taking everything that the original trilogy built and trying to remake it in the worst way possible while cattering SO heavily to the wrongs ways of doing these things, including sexuality so heavily to a point that my discussions with characters felt almost as if I was some kind of horny teenager looking to fling everyone instead of a normal human being because the dialogue options are so idiotically simplified now that it gives you 'Hate, Neutral, Love' options and that's it and even then I am not touching on the many fundamental issues that Andromeda suffers from.

Halo:

'So this is what my father found...'

This universe is special because it does not allow itself to be shackled to one style of story while retaining its core formulas and philosophies, this being the drastic differences between a story like Halo: First Strike and another like Halo: Last Light. Both following the same Spartan-II protagonist Fred-104, but their narrative being drastically different from each other as well as their atmospheres.

On the one hand, Last Light is more akin to that of a Noir film, following the GmOP Detective Veta Lopis and the Spartans of Blue Team as they try to uncover the perpetrator of a crime. Obviously, to those that have read it know that it becomes more than that, but I want people to read it since I genuinely think it is a fantastic novel - so I will leave it at that.

As opposed to Last Light, Halo: First Strike is a story of warfare and survival. We follow the perspectives of both Fred and John in this novel, but for me, the main protagonist of it has to be Fred instead of John.

And there are many other examples of Halo tackling into different genres along the years, one of the most specials - to me - being Halo 3: ODST, who in their ViDoc nicknamed Dramatis Personae both Marty, Cowan and Weinland can be quoted saying this:

"We wanted the hub to be dark and rainy, and have that film noir feel. There was a point, halfway through the production, where the programmers said, "We can’t implement rain in the engine." Maybe we don’t have rain falling all over the place, but we have to have the feel of that rain is in the distance."

— Martin O'Donnell

"The score that Marty wrote really lent itself to both that film noir feeling and that feeling of loneliness in the hub."

— Jay Weinland

"Like a detective, you have to put it all together, and it’s the layers that make the story so interesting."

— CJ Cowan

And, most importantly, Joe Staten can be quoted saying this about the Story he created for Halo 3: ODST:

"We often talked about the ODST as a kind of detective. A lone gumshoe in the dark mysterious city. Hey, let’s drop one man, that’s not a Spartan, on his own, into a dangerous environment, and let him really solve a mystery, let him solve a mystery, let him find clues."

— Joseph Staten

Halo is probably by far one of my dearest franchises in the gaming industry, albeit, with all its issues and mishandlings from both father companies that have had control over it in its entire existence.

For me, however, Halo is more than just the sum of its parts, it is with their expanded universe one of the most compelling stories that have been told in sheer magnitude regarding the human struggle and the story that comes after our struggle.

Of course, bringing to bear the quote that I originally quoted at the start of this section, Halo embodies that in more than one way with their extended universe story catalogue. Beyond that, Halo does not shy away from 'inclusiveness' being done the right way, taking advantage of cultures, monikers, language and more to build their inclusion of character cast forward. It's a simple universe as well, really is embodied in two different core philosophies; 'everything wants to kill you, let's see how you fare with it.' and it being a military-focused universe at its core philosophy makes it so that the stories you can tell aren't overly complicated but instead relatable in one way or another.

Forced Inclusion - A Dagger That Cuts Too Deep:

With all this being said I wanted to give a very brief and dedicated section to this issue that has been plaguing the universes that we love, for starters, the namely forced inclusion that has been repeatedly pushed into the spotlight by MANY different kinds of progressive outlets, SJWs and more. This is an issue because I firmly believe that writers should be allowed to write what they wish, how they wish and to the extent that they wish.

This is important when it comes to several things, for starters, the inclusion of more people of different races, a la Black Panther, when that is satisfied it will create the issue that 'Where is the LGBT, where is x, where is y.'

This will never be satisfied and thus it creates an issue where the writers are forced to allocate their own resources to write for characters that they never intended to write because there's a certain line and bullet point list that you must check to apparently appease the public with.

This is an issue that has plagued the industry for far too long now and is starting to become immensely toxic, plaguing series like Mass Effect, Star Wars and the entirety of the Marvel Comics catalogue, I say this as well, as a Hispanic man that certainly becomes immensely happy whenever people of my culture and more become represented in stories the RIGHT way. - I'm looking at you America Chavez you disingenous disaster of a character, - Which brings me to my last point.

Inclusion Via Culture - The Right Way:

Culture, you must represent, through culture.

Why? Because culture is what defines us, culture is what forges the people that you're trying to represent, we are people with hopes, with different drives, we have dreams and needs that we must take for our own.

We're people and we're not represented by the colour that we wear on our skin. That's a gross misallocation of priorities, you're singling us out merely by the colour of our skin and not for who we are.

Which is an immense, inscrutable mistake. You're trying so hard to appease the public who DON'T truly know how these people are and that is so focused on skin colour, that you miss the very fact that we have many differences that make us who we are.

Our accent, our culture, our mannerisms.

There are reasons why I like series or universes like Halo, Mass Effect (Pre-Andromeda), The Expanse, and more. It's because of their dedication to the cultures and development of their characters that take priority above anything else.

Halo, by far, the most 'inclusive' of all, in the right manner treating people as real people as we see through their hardships and beyond, their cultures and personalities taking the forefront while relationships, skin colour and sexuality take a back seat unless it benefits the development of said characters.

Make no mistake, however, the current issue with all these stories is not the stories themselves or the authors its that everyone is focusing, oh, so much on the wrong issues. Inclusion IS good.

If only it is done right, not by any one's white guy's standards but by that of the necessities of the story.

Act III Closing Words and A Story

With all that we've spoken of, learned and developed here today, I want to present the last words with a simple writing cue and format for the story as well as presenting you with my conclusions.

Those Writing Cues, Please:

I want to present a writing prompt where you can judge whether or not it'd work, whether it is actually interesting or not, and beyond.

I want to take an example prompt from the universe of Halo, seeing as it is my favourite universe and the one I know the most of.

Taking inspirations from: Unabomber, Mindhunter, Almost Human, Halo: Last Light and more.

"Location: Chicago Protectorate, Earth.

Year: 2532

A series of murders have begun to spread on the city, a mysterious killer that continuously evades all surveillance and detection, his mark being the delivery of paper notes taking use of cutouts from several different advertising continuously, however, he avoids detection as the papers are always clean.

He goes by the name of 'Freedom Front', his targets are seemingly random, but you must see the connection that they are all politicians, officers and engineers, this has earned him the nickname of POEKILLER. There's no philosophy to his actions and he's been active for several months."

Without giving too much, there are several ways that prompt could go, he's an insurrectionist sympathiser that never acted on the rebellion, he's an anarchist that does not believe in the system or governments, he's a one-off killer that is incredibly smart, enough to avoid detection from the high-end tech that the PD would have.

Nevertheless, I believe that depending on the story being told it could work. Similarly, however, a secondary prompt entirely dedicated to the Halo Universe could go like this:

"Several attacks have been raised in the outer colonies, using the methods of bombing, assassination and hit squads to political and military targets of the UEG, this has caused grave concern inside the UEG. Innies were supposed to be done for but you must find the cause of the uprising, you're sent undercover to join insurrectionist ranks, you must delve deeper into the underworld of the insurrectionist terror and prove yourself to both ONI and the Innies that you're on their side."

Conclusion:

It would be difficult to deliver a compelling story to an audience of a series that would not like it, despite this, I truly believe that universes that don't involve themselves in the deeper prompts of storytelling should not lack the courage to at least attempt to delve into them, something like Mass Effect which has delved upon heists, would be a perfect fit for such a story.

Or Halo itself with its down to earth expanded universe which now surpasses the number of lore entries and holds a capacious and dedicated fan base that contains all the lore in one place in a tidy manner such as Halopedia.org - I really recommend delving into it if you're interested in Halo lore. - It all just depends on the ingenuity of the writers and the courage that those who control these universes have. A universe that even I have considered to be a 'Military Noir' before.

I believe that the more fleshed out a universe gets in its essence of world building and not in a literal manner enough to contain its own mysteries and interesting prompts such as the incredible fate of Admiral Preston Cole in the Halo Universe or even something such as the Criminal sector of the Mass Effect Universe or the First Contact War that have been touched upon but incredibly mismanaged.

As long as the mysteries remain in your foundation, there will never be enough stories to tell.

But, you must also abide towards the laws of your own universe, don't let yourself be confined in the boundaries of what others want from your stories, do your research into the cultures of people, ask people who come from them, and tell what you want to tell.

You're in control of your stories and who and how you will be inclusive of people. Make sure you do it the right way, even if it'd garner some controversy, you'll grow from it because controversy sometimes is good. But you'd also come out the other side telling a better story.

Author's Notes:

A Familiar Breach

Once Again we have been brought to the end of yet another article in the making, I'd like to apologise for the lack of releases this month, been working on several renders and then some for a lot of different stuff as well as keeping my presence known in the Sins of the Prophets team allowing myself to work a lot more with them for some awesome new stuff!

Like a certain Arty that I have developed with some proper lore...

Beyond that, however, I have also been figuring out some stuff for my next articles, researching, among other things! Better late than never am I right?

But this should be something new that expands my own horizons so per se, as the purpose of this article suggests, it's a little meta.

Los Patrones:

I'd like to profusely thank my patrons, without you I wouldn't be where I am, thank you guys, you make every day worth working for. And these very special boys are the following:

- Robert

- Ardent Prayer

- ThanMuffin - Act Man

- Nels Jones - Rachel Carr - Brendan Lowry - ULTRAMANZX - Some Perv - Thesk 'Darram