Well Ben Abraham was away from the internet last week, something to do with spelunking I think, and asked me to step in as writer of the This Week In Video Game Blogging feature again. I don’t know what it is, but every time I take up the task the internet decides that this is the week to get super prolific. So, we I ended up writing what I believe to be the second longest TWIVGB…so far. It didn’t help that my list of links doubled about an hour before I should have written the damn thing.
You can read it here.
While I waded through the mass of writing and trying to figure out what was worth spreading around, I noticed thematic trends floating around this week’s work. That and I while reading one post I began applying the thoughts of other posts to it, even if they weren’t on the same thing. The most pronounced of these were the posts examining Inception and the connection they seemed to have with examination of the self that many writers were doing via examining RPGs. So instead of simply grouping all of the related material together and calling it a day, I tried to do something new. I tried to connect them thematically in the post the same way they were connecting thematically in my own mind.
It was an experiment and so far, I’ve gotten really positive feedback. I would still like to hear how well the connection style worked, was it sloppy, did I not do enough, did I do too much. Like all writers I’m insecure about my own work and my ego has to be stroked/validated or crushed/criticized. Doesn’t matter which, either will do as long as I know why.
“While I wading through the mass of writing and trying to figure out what was worth spreading around I noticed thematic trends floating around this week’s work. That and I while reading one post I began applying the thoughts of other posts to it, even if they weren’t on the same thing”
I think this description of your process is evidence that you did a good job. There is so much written about games that while it can be easy to identify certain trends it’s somewhat more difficult to observe how some trends, when compared to each other, can reveal an even more subtle pattern. Two seemingly unrelated topics may interconnect because they share a common
influence.