Monday, August 04, 2008

The Good Story

I like science and programming. That is the reason I applied to college under that particular major. However, one part about me wants to be a writer. Now, I'm not talking about Stephen King or John Gresham or JK Rowling or Fyodar Dostoevsky. I'm was thinking more along the lines of a magazine writer for PC Gamer or EGM. The reason I didn't want to try and go to college for that specific career in mind is because I know how hard it would be to get that job. People stay at magazines for a while and they don't hire a lot of people. So, therefore being a software engineer would be a much more lucrative choise, as computer development is listed as on the most rapidily growing fields of work.

Working at a video game or computer related magazine would be an amazing chance because it would combine some of my favorite passions: video games and writing. I do like to write, but really only opinion pieces, ones that I have a chance to be funny or witty or what have you. I do fancy myself a person who is relativly persecptive and is funny so putting my speech into writing would not be that hard to do, especially on things I know a lot about. This is one of the reasons I started this blog. It is a place where I can write about video games and a place to practice writing. I don't really write anything of real importance here, mostly about what I have been playing and what is cool about it and what have you. I have heard that blogging promotes blogging and the more you do it, the more you want to. I also posed the question, is blogging about one or two sentences or is it about fully fleshed out ideas that read like Magazine articles.

Now, getting to my point. If blogs are about realized and interpreted ideas, what does one write about? I could come and complain that the reason I don't do the former is because there is nothing to write about. But that is clearly not true for the folks over at PC Gamer do it every month. So, maybe the key to being a good writer is finding those things to talk about. That stories and articles are the ones that no one has really thought about. If everyone has already realized why things are the way they are, we would be stuck thinking "That sky is blue". Instead, the truly writers are the ones out there pushing the bounds of human thought, thinking that the true meaning of exsistence is to be nice to each other and make humanity have a nice day. So, if I really want to be a writer I should find things to write about that are things that no one else has though about. I also suppose that sort of thinking is what makes is possible to get 5s on the English AP test.

1 comment:

marchhare14 said...

Very interesting. Here's the thing about writing articles for magazines - there's a certain structure, especially in a magazine like EGM or Game Informer. You are basically promoting video games. Most of the time, there's no critical thinking required, nor is there any need to be creative. It's just telling people what they want to hear about a particular game or game designer. Of course there are game reviews as well, but those have a certain formula too.

You could definitely write for a magazine, especially if you majored in journalism.