Photos: The first harvest from the garden is fava beans this year! Just enough for last night’s dinner. Absolutely delicious. Nothing to do with the words below, but… yay!

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Death Stranding 2 is coming out on the 26th, which is very inconvenient because I’m starting Clarion West on the 22nd. I’ve been a gamer girl since 1988 and while my “omg must play this game on the first day” list gets shorter and shorter as I age, there are still some that make it onto my calendar and this is one of them. I loved playing Death Stranding. I really cannot wait to get back into the world.

Truth be told, I’ve been hanging out in the world already. One of my favorite streamers (yes, back to that again) has been doing a replay of the Director’s Cut version of the first game and I am having so much fun watching him play it and watching a lot of people in his community experience the game for the first time. It’s been a great mix of people who love the game, people who never finished the game and people who were curious and came for the playthrough so they could see what the fuss was about. The game never disappoints. The chat hasn’t disappointed either. And this is where I have been having writer thoughts because this has been the best part:

Something happens and it’s weird and the reaction goes:

[New to the game person]: “I’m so confused. What just happened??

[Streamer]: That’s just Kojima for you…

[Us who love the game]: Classic Kojima moment!

[New person]: I’m still confused. But that was kinda cool, maybe?

Inevitably, you’re probably asking, “Who or what is a Kojima?” And the answer (first of all, is yes) is, Hideo Jojima, the Japanese game designer and pioneer, who gave us such classics as the Metal Gear series (famously weird!) and who is the writer and director of Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2. Kojima-san walks to his own beat. He writes stories that take strange turns. He certainly plays in spaces of storytelling that are not Western (See Henry Lien’s awesome book Spring, Summer, Astroid, Bird for more examples on Eastern storytelling and how to engage with it in your own work)

Today, one of my favorite streamers got to my absolutely favorite part: the beginning of Episode 8: Heartman, which you can watch here if you’d like. It’ll be weird without the full context of playing the game, but not inaccessible. At least, I hope not. The reason why I love this cut scene is because Kojima brings the entire video game for a full stop for about 30 minutes of cut scene and even flexes about it with a timer in the corner of the screen, and as a gamer, it’s so fascinating, you barely even notice it.

When I was at Viable Paradise, Elizabeth Bear, who is a member of the faculty, talked about the concept of “stunt writing.” As in: flexing your literary muscles by not just writing a scene, but going out of your way to write a scene as originally and as cool as possible. Like, writing an entire action scene but showing it to us upside down and backwards because that’s how the POV character is viewing it. Some of my favorite examples come from other great works: Sir Terry Pratchett does some stunt writing in Wyrd Sisters when two people kiss for 15 years (I won’t spoil how, but it’s brilliant! The whole chapter is amazing.). Another example is the opening of Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest (Three-Body Problem book 2), where we are show how much time has passed by being shown the grave of a key character: through an ant tracing the lines of the characters on their gravestone. It’s disorienting, but interesting. Another one of my favorite’s is in Deacon King Kong by James McBride when we read about the ants and the cheese (again, no spoilers but omg). There are just some chapters that leave you breathless. They stick with you as a reader and as a writer. Whenever I come across these scenes, I think to myself, first: “I’ll never be able to write like that” and then I shake myself and say, “I will write like that someday.”

I want to write a scene like those scenes I’ve mentioned above and like the Heartman chapter I’m mentioning here. Because what makes the scene brilliant isn’t just the inside jokes built from the game, or learning the tragic backstory of this character who we’ve gotten to know through the game, but because we did it while standing in one room for 30 minutes, the timer coming in and out of view, the time mattering to how the information of the scene is delivered. In a world where we can’t go 30 seconds without thinking about what comes next, looking at our phones, etc etc, this game director has the gaul to tell you that you’re gonna be right here for 21 minutes, for real, and you know what? You do it. It’s amazing.

And the reason why I’m writing all of this is because what I’ve learned from this experience of watching this weird game with strangers in-community is that people have more patience for weirdness than we might think. I mean, this streamer is drawing 1.2K viewers with every stream. Some of those folks just put him on and walk away, happy to support. Or they watch passively, doesn’t matter. But plenty are there and have many other people they could be watching on Twitch, but they stay because they love the streamer and they are curious about all the weird things that are going on. They’ll ask questions. Someone will explain. They’ll say, “oh, ok. I don’t get it.” But they’ll stick around to ask another one.

I think there is a ear that sometimes we’ll just lose readers and therefore doing anything weird or unorthodox isn’t worth it. And maybe I’m writing bullshit here, but: I’m telling you that I’ve seen people do weird things and earned fans from it. There is someone out there who is waiting for your weird shit. They are sitting in a room they didn’t decorate, wearing clothes they hate, listening to a conversation they wish they could run away from, looking up at a sky that’s the same damn blue that it was yesterday and they are hoping and praying that someone out there will just obliterate their sense of reality for even just one second.

What if that someone was you?

Look: I’m a suburban mom. I drive a whole-ass minivan. I worry about nutritious meals. I tell my kids to brush their teeth every night. I put my hands out in front of them if I break too hard in front of a red light. I go on the same vacation to the same spot because I don’t want to brain up a new kind of vacation at a new spot. I’m not a risk-taker. Especially not right now. But… I’m writing this because now is a great time to do weird shit with stories and to write cool things in compelling ways so you can make it memorable for a reader. Write weird shit just to make a point. Take a leap. Make a stretch. Go maximalist and rococo in your storytelling like Kojima does. We let this world go Millennium Gray for too long, with safe, safe stories and entirely too many sequels. You know what it got us?

This. All of this. We’re here because of a complete and total lack of imagination coupled with extraordinary cruelty on the part of key people.

Anyway…

Obviously I’m writing all this because I’m about to embark on a big scary workshop all summer and suddenly, very suddenly, I don’t feel ready. So. Thanks for reading my ramble.

Hey, after I’m done with the big scary thing I’m doing, I’m teaching a class with StoryStudio Chicago and I’d love to read some of your stories. Maybe do some stunt writing with me in August? Learn more and reserve your spot here.