jakebe | Necessary Distraction

Lapinica is the name of my just-created country on NationStates.net, in the region of NARFA. I've seen a few other people (most notably Xydexx and Cargo, I think) playing with this as far back as two years ago, but I wasn't as willing to entertain the notion of being able to run a country as readily back then.

So far, I'm pretty happy with my small country of 6 million people. They're devout and fiercely patriotic (can you imagine so many people proudly proclaiming themselves to be Lapines?) and the major export is soda, which is highly fattening but entirely agreeable. I really expect the economy to take off when we introduce the Splenda-enriched Diet Lapin line.

The only downside so far, I suppose, is the staggering 43% income tax. Then again, Lapinica is a socialist nation, and I'd like to think that its inhabitants are entirely willing to pay for universal health care, free secondary education, no drug laws and government protection of all rabbits and other lagomorphs in its borders. :)

A neat feature that I think might be a recent addition is that of issues, where various little hot topics come before your parliament, congress or dictatorship and you must decide which way your country leans. Today's kind of caught me off-guard because it was a really good question: Should voting be compulsory?

Both sides of the argument are valid, in my opinion. Compulsory voting ensures that the populace represents itself and the government is comprised of who the people want. That's the theory, anyway. At the same time, doesn't the very idea of compulsory *anything* undermine the foundation of a free society? Shouldn't people choose to be free and have a voice instead of made to speak when they're unwilling and perhaps unable to do so?

In the end I chose voting to be a right that can be freely exercised. While it would be nice to see the populace take a more active role in choosing its government, the solution isn't passing a law to force it; the solution is providing a system that is attractive to the general public and encourages its participation. You do this by giving them choices that don't suck and making sure that the debate between candidates is informed, informative, lively and accessible. I really do think representative democracy works, as long as everyone remembers their place. The elected officials are public servants; the populace their bosses. Unfortunately in this day and age, that seems to be too much to ask.

I've been hammering away at this short story slowly but surely for about a week now, and have arrived at the place where dialogue is becoming significant. One of the things I've learned from working on Boomer Express is that dialogue isn't my strong point; this is slightly distressing because I used to write fairly decent plays in college. So with this I've been trying to pay particular care with watching dialogue and making sure it sounds natural and helps the story in some way.

What's the point of dialogue any way? I'm of the opinion that it aids in showing character motivation (rather than merely telling), and helps the audience get a grip on where the character is coming from. Done right, you can learn an awful lot not only from what someone says, but how he or she says it. It also goes a long way towards establishing nuances and quirks for a certain character; one of my favorite activities is writing out a monologue (or finding something from a play) and rewriting it in the words of a different character. No one ever says anything the same way; depending on how well-imagined any particular character is, a lot of what someone finds important or what they're more likely to pay attention to comes from how they approach a...more or less objective text. It's like a Rorschach test that way.

Anyway, dialogue is what's been slowing me down the most so far. I'm trying an al dente style in my shitty first draft ("throw it against a wall and see if it sticks") and I'm having to backtrack constantly as old motivations I thought were true invalidate themselves through character speech and new motivations arrive that change the narrative landscape of the story. It's all great fun, but the person who's been waiting forever for this to be written has been so good at being patient, bless him. :)

When I'm done with this short story and GWO, I'm going to go back to the exercise Tube had me doing some time ago; create six characters and have them interacting in a fairly neutral setting, making dialogue key. The project turned out to be a lot more intimidating than I thought the first time, but now that I am Fearless Writer(tm) I think I can give it a proper shot.

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