Writing, Miyazaki and MMOs
A reflection in three stories.
I joke with friends by saying that I still need to learn English. And to some extent it's true! I may know the individual words but can I use those words to create vivid imagery and tell great stories? Does my writing have a rhythm to it flowing like music from idea to idea?
A book I re-read recently was Dr. Suess' Oh, the Places You’ll Go. It's a book that sells itself as a children's story but whose lessons are important in every stage of life. There's a magic and excitement about the adventures ahead that I feel each time I read it.
Dr. Suess likes to use Anapestic Tetrameter in his writing which is just a fancy poetry word to describe a type of rhythm. The rhythm is a three count beat repeated four times per line that goes like, "da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM". The first two syllables are unstressed and the third is stressed. I'm writing my own short story in this style that I might share soon but here's a great example from his book.
You'll be on your way up! You'll be see-ing great sights!
You'll join the high fli-ers who soar to high heights.
Every possible combination of two count and three count beats is a type of rhythm. I discovered that Iambic Pentameter, this scary word from my high school english classes, just meant "da DUM" repeated 5 times per line. There are great examples for each poetry style on wikipedia however be warned, it's a rabbit hole. Albeit a wonderful one.
I also watched Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises for the first time and was left with that same magical feeling as in Dr. Suess' stories. There are so many things that help this movie come alive. The slices of life that capture idyllic Japanese landscapes. The music. The careful use of animation to guide the viewer's attention to interesting details.
The thing that I found most fascinating were the juxtapositions. Miyazaki weaves together many different themes in this story and explores their full range. Airplane designs that are big and lavish versus small and streamlined. Spending time on work versus with those you love. War and destruction versus beauty. These juxtapositions, these opposites, do two things well. The story feels rich because we can see the full range of possibilities each theme can have in the world. Also, since it’s difficult for characters to pursue both ends on a theme, there is this constant push and pull. Characters are challenged to figure out who they want to be, how they want to live and as a viewer, we get to reflect on this as well.
On a final note, I created a fresh account to try playing Runescape with a few friends. The game is nostalgic for me as I used to play it when I was younger. Reading about the history of the game, I discovered that the founders, two brothers, liked playing text-based MUD (multi-user dungeon) games as kids. In fact, at the beginning, MMOs like Runescape were known as graphical MUDs.
But I wanted to see how far back I could go. I found that MUDs were inspired by a tabletop board game called Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). A game of improvisational theater where players assume various roles and go on quests together in a world imagined by each game’s assigned dungeon master. MMOs feel like a natural extension of D&D since they give players an open world to explore and to go on quests with their friends.
But wait, we can go back even further! As kids, the designers of D&D immersed themselves in the fantasy worlds of J.R.R Tolkien (Lord of The Rings), H.P. Lovecraft (The Call of Cthulu), Lewis Caroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) and hundreds more. It's in these stories that we find the inspiration, creatures and magic (figuratively and literally) that bubbles back up through D&D, text-based MUDs and MMOs like Runescape.
A theme stands out across these three stories that I only see after writing this. There is a magic we create in the stories we tell. In the worlds that we make from the words that we write. We need more stories that ignite this magical feeling within us. I want to be surrounded by it every day and to create as much of it as I can.
Addendum
The Wind Rises was going to be Miyazaki's final movie. However, he has since announced that he will work on one more movie to be called, How do you live?. It's based off one of Miyazaki's favorite children's books with the same name. The book was a part of a series from 1935 titled Nihon shōkokumin bunko that focused on providing “children with knowledge that had been cut from the public school curriculum”. When the movie was announced, Miyazaki said that this movie is his way of telling his grandson, "Grandpa is moving onto the next world soon but he is leaving behind this film".
After reading his motivation for this final movie, I found myself in a reflective state about life and death. Beginnings and endings. I wanted to learn more about Miyazaki's early years. His beginnings. In high school, he aspired to become a manga artist but struggled to draw people. Instead, he would draw planes, tanks and battleships which he later compiled into a book called Daydream Data Notes. These machines became a key part of the visual imagery in his movies later on. I also found a collection of sketches from his early films courtesy of my friend, Yoshiki.
There is also a documentary series that follows Miyazaki during making of Ponyo. It's always fascinating to see someone's creative process so I appreciate him giving the world a peek. You can tell there are times where the filming interferes with his creative process.
stunned upon this substack from twitter & ahh makes me want to revisit dr suess books (or children’s books in general) and that miyazaki movie!