Stories & Gamers

I sit a lot next to a Gamer and watch these different worlds that he gets into...different worlds.  The kind of worlds that I like to get into inside my head when I write, or attend, personally, at Renaissance Festivals.

My Gamer's current obsession is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

As I sit and get involved in my posts and forums and the other internet social activities, my Gamer is running around with a flaming, magic sword (a conjured Bound Sword) in one hand and flowing, sparkling magicka of fire in another, killing off a Frost Troll.

I peek up from time-to-time from my typing, and look at this incredible world of graphics where even looking up at the night sky, the clouds slowly flow along gradually revealing stars to peek through before continuing on.

It's a real world!  And it's incredibly BEAUTIFUL!

My Gamer doesn't seem to notice all the little things like the stars, the fleece of snow, the stone steps (each individually designed with its own cracks) and the way the water flows in the rivers. But, I see how beautiful this world is designed and created.

What I also noticed too, are books, yes books, that sit on the shelves of these cabins and castles and huts of homes. You can open these books and read entire stories about this Skyrim world: an adventurer's travels, seeking and killing evil magical creatures; how to travel and where to explore; a short ghost story of a weeping woman that lives near an abandoned cabin. My Gamer doesn't bother to read these novels on the shelves. He's too busy on quests and opening and shutting books just to gain points to level up his character. But it amazes me that there were writers, yes, authors, who took the time to put together and weave entire communities and towns and relationships and religions and politics and...and EVERYTHING inputted into creating this world!

This world is so very close to the Renaissance Festivals that people go to where they can pretend to be whatever they want to be in a live world of Make-Believe. But unlike the "live" fantasy world, where you are constantly reminded that you're still in the "real world" when you have to take out your wallet to buy a funnel cake, or use the porta potty, this Skyrim world is constant...just like a book.

I like the fact that reading novels is an option in this game, and stories are entwined and belief systems are in magical order. I can look at this world and learn a thing or two to incorporate into my own world of story-telling, just like when I absorb information from fantastic films filled also with computer animation.

The imagination takes place in all sorts of places and things.

And it's all such an incredible world!