Characters And Emotion: The Real "Special Effects"

This week has been one of my most productive in terms of writing lately. And once again I can only guess at how long the final product will be.

At the moment, it risks being longer than "Dark Ritual", because I'm trying to spend some more time on character relationships than I have previously. This week, most of my focus has been on the friendship shared by Merikk and Raan. Some of the best storytelling is only made possible when you believe that characters really care for each other. But developing that in a script takes time and a finesse that I'm not sure I've developed yet as a writer.

Now don't get me wrong, the action will be more epic than ever in Spirit Blade 3. But special effects are only as dramatic as the writing and performances that motivate them and that they have an effect on. To end this trilogy well, I feel like I need to tap into some emotional kinds of storytelling that I didn't have in Spirit Blade and only began to introduce to Dark Ritual.

While Dark Ritual represented a jump forward in technical production for me, I'm hoping that Spirit Blade 3 will be a jump forward in writing. There's a sense in which I feel confident now about the technical production side of things. But I know I have a lot to learn as a writer. I'm hoping to learn some of those things right now so I can give this story the strongest ending possible.

-Paeter Frandsen