Stories That Go Deep and Make You Think: My Interview With GameLit Author Stan Faryna
His stories have drawn praise for their depth and thought-provoking nature. "His stories go deep," writes Yomar Lopez, founder of a community of techno-geeks called Geeky Antics. "Stan makes me think," writes a fan on Facebook. He does that in an immersive context of a dystopian world, life-like characters with vivid problems and pain, and Christian hope. A recurring theme across his writing is right out of the bible: Love never fails.
Brian Tubbs (BT): Stan, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Stan Faryna (SF): Thank you for honoring me with your kind words and attention, Brian.
BT: As Yomar Lopez says in his review, your stories go deep. Tell us about that.
SF: Yomar (aka @yogizilla) was very kind (and I loved doing Dr. Who podcasts with him), but I do hope that I take the intrepid reader, deep. Deep as into self-knowledge, hope, and life. Of course, I want the reader to enjoy a great and compelling story, but I also want that story to encourage them to ask themselves (and live out) the big questions.
- Who am I?
- What can I legitimately hope for in this life?
- What should I be doing to make that hope happen?
Beyond God, it doesn't get more real than that. Of course, the key to any kind of meaningful answer is love. Love strongly.
That love is the answer should be obvious to the good woman. And to the good man. But good is not where the world is and most of us fail to love. Too often, we fail.
What do you think? What is possible and likely without love?
BT: Tell us what got you started writing fiction?
SF: I suspect that my writing is staged by my experience which must include reading. C.S. Lewis, himself, believed that reading is key to writing and, more importantly, that good reading is essential to good writing.
My father taught me how to read at a young age. Maybe, four or five. By nine, I had read most of his science fiction books - Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov among them. I don't think I understood everything I had read in those early years, but it fed my young imagination.
I believe my father also introduced me to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Of course, I preferred comic books and TV superheroes - The Mighty Thor, Dr. Strange, The Amazing Spiderman, Adam West's Batman, and George Reeve's Superman.
But the story that seems to have spoken most to me (in childhood) was Homer's Odyssey. That epic poem of Odysseus’s ten-year journey to return home after the Trojan war is an epic, romantic and difficult journey of self-awareness, discovery, and hope.
My own life, it would turn out, is not a very different story.
Fast forward. I'm almost 40 years old and a novel is overdue. As Milan Kundera explains in his The Art of the Novel, what defines a novel most is that it asks important, eternal, and urgent questions. He gives us the example of Don Quixote by Miquel Cervantes; it asks whether virtue is still relevant.
My own heart tells me that it is. That virtue is necessary for the good life. So I must ask, what is virtue.
Such questions seem better placed in fiction. Or science fiction. Because we can be more honest with ourselves in that context. That's why I'm writing fiction.
Of course, fiction is not the only kind of writing that I do. Or that I have done. Business plans, proposals and corporate communications. Op-eds and blog posts. Book reviews and marketing copy. Thank you notes, personal correspondence and consolations.
A good writer should know how to write to a variety of purposes. passions, and necessities.
If you are a writer, do try.
BT: Tell us about GameLit or LitRPG. What's it all about?
SF: GameLit and LitRPG is science fiction, fantasy or some combination that is plotted like a computer or table top role playing game a la Dungeons and Dragons or World of Warcraft. Its roots go back to the stories of players relating the adventures and backstories of their player characters. Though these stories initially developed a market among Russian and Eastern European readers as LitRPG, a market for this sub-genre evolved in the West over the last ten years.
A popular example of LitRPG is Travis Bagwell's Awaken Online series. On the other hand, an example of GameLit is Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.
BT: Your latest project is part of an anthology of novellas and short stories in the gamelit subgenre. In fact, the pack is titled GameLit: Expansion Pack. How did you get involved in that project?"
SF: Being a gamer myself and having a concept of a game that I would like to develop, I began an epic, romantic story about a gamer. The concept of a massively multi-player, post-apocalyptic game, Jacob's Trouble, came to me in the late 90s. I began writing the story in 2006 as a way to define the story, world and mechanics of the game. For the purpose of a business plan. That story, however, became something more. An exercise in love.
Fast forward to 2016 when I released my novella, Francesco Augustine Bernadone. It's about an aging man who enters the game, Jacob's Trouble, in hopes of making enough money to pay for experimental medical treatment needed by his dying wife.
As I scrambled to figure out some of the marketing mechanics behind book sales, LitRPG seemed like a good sub-genre market for my story. It wasn't. Some complain that LitRPG is more sewer than anything that might be mistaken for literature. On the other hand, GameLit stories are more about the writing. The game is more of an element of the story than a substitute for a story - or so I hope!
GameLit, however, is a new market and time will tell if it will grow large enough to sustain the authors that want to write and sell to it. R.M. Mulder believes in GameLit and he's done a lot to develop the concept, sub-genre, and community. He's also the mastermind behind the GameLit Expansion Pack and an upcoming GameLit magazine. He gave me a space to do my thing and I'm grateful to him.
BT: Tell us about your story 'Why No One Likes You.'
SF: Magda is a thirty something woman looking for a good time in a popular online game. As a new player, she's got to figure out the general mechanics of game play and her place in this new world. None of which come easy for Magda because she's narcissistic, anti-social, and impulsive. Worse, her reputation and character becomes a topic of public conversation and condemnation.
Magda's predicament reminds me of the problematic of people who pull up roots and go somewhere new to start over, but they can't leave themselves behind and, therefore, they bring their old troubles with them.
Unfortunately, online shaming, bullying and negativity is a thing. Real people are destroyed by it. Often for sake of a single, thoughtless comment or statement. As a result, some end up killing themselves. That's a horrible tragedy. Others lose their jobs. Some don't get hired. Online reputation is that serious. It's a thing I wanted to consider through her story.
I also wanted to explore rejection and how character, personality and intelligence contribute to one's existential predicaments.
How do you manage your online reputation?
Hopefully, with love and humility.
BT: You were kind enough to invite me to join the next one, so thank you. And I look forward to being a part of that project with you.
SF: I'm excited for you. For your newly embarked odyssey in writing. For the stories you will bring. I'm confident you are going to bring an intelligent and substantial voice to the subgenre. I've enjoyed more than a few of your sermons.
Intelligence, substance, and sincerity is increasingly lacking across genres and media. We need your finger on the dam.
Consider it an exercise in love and hope.
Check out GameLit Expansion Pack over at Amazon. Don’t forget to leave a review after picking up a copy.
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