by Cody "Micajah" Bye

In any roleplaying game, whether its a massive or a single player
title, creating a solid setting and background world for a player's
character to live in is absolutely essential. Some developers barely
touch the surface of the world they are creating, trying to find some
sort of suitable infrastructure that they can pass players through,
while other game creators dive fully into their game world and
completely immerse themselves and their community in the world
surrounding their game. The men and women at CCP have decided to take
the "immersive" option for their massively multiplayer online game, EVE
Online.

With this in mind, they hired a full-time short story writer by the
name of Hjalti Danielsson. Originally, Hjalti had served as a GM for
EVE Online and had been employed since EVE had been in beta. However,
as soon as Hjalti finished up his schooling (he had been attending
university and being an EVE GM at the same time), he began haranguing
Nathan about a set of short stories Hjalti had produced while he was in
school and whether Nathan wanted to do anything with them. "After a
bit, he asked me if I wanted to write stories full time," Hjalti said,
smiling. "After that it was just a matter of finding the right time to
start doing this sort of thing full time."

Ironically enough, Hjalti wasn't going to school to get a degree in
writing and instead was going to school to become a computer
programmer. However, Hjalti indicated that the two weren't that
dissimilar. "I use a very methodical approach to my writing," he said.
"It's very similar to what I did with my programming. I work on a
deadline, I publish a short story every two weeks and I don't have much
time to sit around. I plan what I'm going to do and I do it." While
doing this, Hjalti takes similar steps to what he would do when trying
to create a program; he works out an outline and really fleshes out
what sort of references he's going to put into the story and makes all
sorts of technical notes before he actually begins the writing portions
of his stories.

From a former fan fiction writer for Everquest, I was ecstatic to find
another individual who had also been a pseudo fan fiction writer,
albeit one who had already worked on the game in a fashion. Still, it
was interesting to hear about the process that Hjalti took to writing,
especially when it came to which areas of the EVE universe he explored.
According to Hjalti, he tried to take things that had been touched upon
in the EVE universe while also implementing his own creative thoughts
into the story. "The characters and situations I create are my own," he
said. "But anytime I can I try to write about events that have happened
in the EVE storyline. That said, I almost always write in the present
EVE timeline. I don't go into the past very often."

"However, I don't try to necessarily focus on the 'main events' that
are happening in EVE," he continued. "I try mostly to just give depth
to the world. I don't want to write about what the players do and see
so much, I write about things that are going on in the background -
like the janitor that is cleaning up the ectoplasm fluid." Aside from
being entertaining stories (who wouldn't want to read about a janitor
forced to clean up ectoplasm?), there's also an element of what Hjalti
is doing that adds an extra element of depth to EVE that wouldn't be
attained otherwise. The universe begins having a life of its own when
Hjalti's stories spring into existence.

On the other hand, players never truly see what's going on in the
background in EVE. How do players know that they would even need a
janitor, since they don't really know what that portion of EVE is like?
I posed this question to Hjalti, who answered the query quite
concisely. "I try to write the world as realistically as I can," he
said. "Yes players see all these ships flying around, but at some point
there has to be some in and out. It's like a fantasy city; produce
needs to come in and sewage needs to come out. It's not all pretty."

"So, what are all the other people in EVE doing?" Hjalti continued.
"Who's repairing the ships? Who's stocking the ammunition? That's want
I want to explore."

Although Hjalti does have a two week deadline for each of his short
stories, he noted that he often works on the sidelines because he's
often working with such a big buffer. "Sometimes I'll finish a story
and players won't see it till six months later," he said. "There are
times when I write a story about two people in EVE. There's not much to
it other than whatever plot is in there. However, there are other
stories that I'm working on - like what I'm currently pursuing - that
are much longer and more in-depth than that. These current chronicles
are titled "Black Mountain" and they're going to be running from now
till the end of April."

According to Hjalti, "Black Mountain" is a story about why good people
do really bad things, and vice versa. It features a character that
players have seen in previous stories by Hjalti, and its one of those
creations that he has decided to "explore in more depth" now that some
time has passed. Hjalti noted that the story is definitely set in
shades of gray, much like what he writes. "One thing that Nathan told
me to do when I started writing was make these stories dark," Hjalti
said. And from what he's described, they certainly are that, with moral
dilemmas popping up left and write and a vast majority of the
characters simply doing what they need to do to get by.

And EVE certainly fits the bill for a dark world. There are scandals,
robberies, even murders by players in EVE, so why shouldn't stories
that feature EVE be dark as well? "This isn't a light fluffy world,"
Hjalti said. "The world is grim, to say the least."

Finally, I asked Hjalti what were some good ways for other EVE writers
to break into the industry. Mainly, Hjalti simply said to take all the
opportunities EVE presents to you. Write stories for the message boards
and submit stories to E-ON. Even from my vantage point as a
journalistic writer, I can't help but agree that focusing on improving
your craft is a great way to prepare yourself, but actually exposing
your writing to the outside world is the best way to get
noticed.  The Ten Ton Hammer staff would like to thank Hjalti
again for talking with us, and we hope to see more of his fiction in
the very near future!