The 9th Circle of Hell – Capitalization and Punctuation
Finally, finally, finally, the edit is done. I have obsessed over it long enough. I have made enough changes. It's time to let it go. Evermore: Call of the Nocturne is ready for its final edit. All I need now is another editor. I'll give myself the rest of the week and weekend off and then start searching for a new editor. It's too bad that Erin won't get chance to edit it again. I think she would have loved some of the changes I made.Part of the reason that it took so long is that I was constantly struggling to establish consistent rules for myself on Capitalization and punctuation. My lifelong habit has been to capitalize for emphasis. For example, "oh my God!"; or "Protect the King!". However, based on Erin review, I have had to make many uncomfortable changes to the capitalization style because I was using them incorrectly and inconsistently.Let's take for example the word sovereign. In Evermore: Call of the Nocturne, the Sovereign of Evermore is an individual who leads the government in Evermore, known as the Consortium. Now in my earlier drafts, I had always capitalized sovereign, no matter how it was used in the sentence. So "Sovereign", "the Sovereign", "my Sovereign", "Sovereign Klein" and "Sovereign of Evermore" were all capitalized. But according to my editor Erin, and the Internet sites that I visited, only the last two should be capitalized. In everything else, the word sovereign, like king or prime minister, should be lower case. Only when the word is used as a proper noun should a title should be capitalized. Thus "Sovereign Klein" becomes "the sovereign" or "my sovereign".But then I ran into another problem. For one word in the English language, these rules are allowed to be broken. That word is God. But they can only be broken based on what you mean by the word god. If you are referring to a general omniscient being, then god should be lower-case when used in a sentence. The confusion comes from one of the unusual traits of Christianity. We quite literally call our god "God". When you refer to the Christian conception of god, then it is considered a proper noun, like Zeus or Ra, and thus must be capitalized.I had this capitalization problem with god, sovereign, strider and kernel. Going through the text and over again until I was using capitalization correctly (I think?) and consistently proved to be a major time sink.The second major problem that I had was with punctuation. More specifically, I had problems with periods and commas. When I was growing up, I was always taught to put two spaces after a period and so when I wrote the novel I put two spaces after every period. It was instinctual. I didn't even have to think about it. However, the current standard (due to the influence of the Internet) has been to put one space after a period. I suppose it looks much better on a typed page. So due to Erin's suggestions, I went back and removed all of the extra spaces. The result: a much more consistent-looking document.Commas proved to be far more challenging. Again, I had always been taught to use liberally, to add one whenever I want the ready to pause. However, Erin notified me that in some circumstances, such as when the comma would precede the word "and" in a list of items, the comma is not necessary. For example:"I went to the store to buy some eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns."can be rewritten without the last comma. Like so:"I went to the store to buy some eggs, bacon and hashbrowns."Having always grown up putting the comma before the word "and", I was fairly uncomfortable with this change. But for those of you who remembered my rule from a previous post, "The editor is (almost) always right", I decided to give it a try. I went through my document and removed all of the unnecessary commas. The only exception that I made was for commas that were in the song lyrics that Vanessa sings during the Goddess Pageant. I left those commas in because the reader to know that there was a slight pause in that place. Otherwise, the song lyrics would not flow correctly.The end result from removing all of these commas was a prose that was relaxed, uncluttered and far smoother to read. The text simply looks more attractive to the eye. I believe that it was a good change.Cormac McCarthy has gone even farther than this. In his novels, it eliminates as much punctuation as possible, including quotation marks. He believes that punctuation gets between the reader and the story. From my own experience, I can definitely understand what he means.Prose style is something that is incredibly personal for each author. While there are rules, there is room for each writer to experiment and find what works for them. In my case, my novel's long gestation period has forced me to confront my old ideas about prose and try out some new ideas. This process has led to a far better novel, but has been as excruciating as the 9th circle of hell.
Inception and the Rules of Writing about Virtual Worlds
Upon seeing Christopher Nolan's Inception, I was filled by both joy and sorrow. Joy because Inception is an outstanding film created by a craftsman at the top of his game. Sorrow because it made my own novel about imaginary worlds, Evermore: Call of the Nocturne, look amateurish in comparison.Upon closer inspection, however, Inception demonstrates why it is so difficult to write stories that take place in a broadly-defined "virtual world". The problem with writing stories in such places is that it can difficult to come up with challenges for the protagonists than are not easily overcome. For example, if you can do anything in the dreamworld, then what's to stop your hero from magically solving every problem that comes his way? "Oh no. There's a tiger blocking my path." Shazam! "I've just created a laser cannon. Problem solved! Where's my cake?" Thus for a story that takes place in a virtual world, writers must adopt the following rule:Rule #1: The rules of the virtual world must be established early on in the story and must limit the power of the protagonists.
Stories that take place in virtual worlds must come up with a series of rules that limit the options available to the protagonists. These rules must be clear, concise, and explained early on in the story.The first Matrix movie works well because it effectively defines the rules governing the world early on in the movie in a way that is easy to understand. Morpheus teaches Neo, and by the extension the audience, the rules of the Matrix by demonstrating them visually. These rules and the consequences that bind stick with audience as the action moves into its exciting third act. Without these rules, the action at the end of the movie would be rather meaningless and ultimately confusing.Christopher follows this rule to the letter. The first half of Inception is dedicated to introducing the dreamscapes of the not-so-distant-future and the rules that govern them.1) If you die in the dreamworld, then you wake up safe and sound.2) However, if you are too heavily sedated when you are killed in the dreamworld, you will not wake up. Instead, you will go to a special place called Limbo where you will trapped for eternity while your brain turns to mush.3) If option #1 is not available due to heavy sedation, then you can still use a 'kick' (sensation of falling) from the host of the dream in order to wake the everyone up.4) if you are in a dream, you can enter a dream within a dream using the same methods as before (sedation).5) If you are in a dream-within-a dream, then you can step out of the innermost dream through death in the innermost dream or by a kick in the surrounding dream.6) If you are in limbo then you can escape it by killing yourself. Even if you are heavily sedated.etc.In accordance with Rule #1, Nolan establishes these rules early and demonstrates them in a visual way that the audience can understand. However, right from the get-go, Nolan encounters a problem with his rules. At the beginning of the heist, death is not a likely threat. It is established early that when killed inside a dream, they simply return to the outlying world, free of harm.Thus the second lesson that we should draw when writing about virtual worlds is the following:Rule #2: The protagonists must be able to die or suffer a fate worse than death in the virtual world.
The threat of death or a fate worse than death must remain a possibility. Sure, part of the fun of writing about a virutal world is the cool stuff that your characters are permitted to do. Run up walls, stop bullets, learn kung-fu in second. But without the threat of death, our characters never seem to be in any real danger and thus the action falls flat. Thus we must maintain the threat of death in the virtual world. For the Matrix, the solution is easy "The mind makes it real." If you die in the virtual world, the mind believes that it is dead and thus kills the otherwise healthy body. In Neuromancer, you could have brain fried and end up a vegetable. In Inception, you could end up in Limbo.The Wachowski brothers encountered a problem with this rule when they tried to make a sequel to The Matrix. How do you make the action exciting when you've essentially turned your main character in to a god? If he's too powerful then it doesn't really matter what he does. The Wachowski brothers tried to get around the problem by creating more powerful enemies and simply removing him from the action. Think about it. The most enthralling action sequences are those in which Neo is not involved. This is because for him, death is a distant possibility. Instead, we find ourselves identifying with Morpheus and Trinity because their deaths remain a likely possibility.In Inception, death is not possible. However, under certain circumstances you and end up a place called Limbo. In Limbo, time is infinite. You can spend a lifetime doing whatever you while only seconds pass in the real world. Losing the ability to tell the difference between the real world and the dream world, your mind degrades into mush. The concept is an interesting one and would certainly satisfy the requirements of Rule #2.The problem for Nolan occurs when you examine the rules more closely. At first they can enter minds and be killed without consequence. Then it becomes that if you are heavily sedated, then death will put you into Limbo. However, if you already in Limbo then death will pull you out of it. If the ending is a dream, then Ariadne and the mark must have escaped from Limbo by the sensation of falling (a kick) inside Limbo at the same time as the kick is done in the next outer level of dreams. Once you start to examine it, Nolan's rules fall apart under the weight of their own logic. The rules are inconsistently applied and instead of reflecting the realities of the dreamworld instead seem to exist solely to serve the conveniences of the plot.Inceptions' problems result because it hadn't followed a third and final rule.Rule #3: The rules governing the virtual world cannot change.
A rule is a rule is a rule. There can be no exceptions or changes to the rules. Otherwise, you will confuse the audience and weaken the cohesiveness of the virtual world you have created. This is what happens in Inception. Christopher Nolan spends the first half of the movie explain the rules of the dream world but then throws them out the window when the plot demands it. The abrupt changes in consequence immediately confuses the audience and the excuse of heavy sedation is not compelling. A better excuse would be the training that the mark has received makes it more dangerous for people invading his mind. Neuromancer used something similar. When hacking in virtual reality, the threat of having your mind fried from counterintrusion measures was a likely possibility. It is to Nolan's credit as a filmmaker that we don't notice these inconsistencies when we watch the movie the first time. It is only upon reflection that we realize that the logic of the movie doesn't work and the reason that it doesn't work is that the rules are inconsistent.So how does my own story, Evermore: Call of the Nocturne, stand up against these three rules? While not as innovative and original as Inception, Evermore: COTN (after many rewrites) thus conform to the roles listed above. When you enter Evermore, your mind is protected by a series of security protocols. These security protocols make sure that no matter what happens to you in the virtual world of Evermore, you will be able to wake up in your bed safe and sound. If the security protocols are disabled and you are killed in the game world, then your mind believes that you are dead and induces brain-death in the real world (just like the Matrix). This is important as Evermore is a commercial MMO like World or Warcraft or Second Life. If people could be killed inside the gameworld, then nobody in their right mind would enter it. The security protocols justify the virtual world's existence while leaving the door open later for possible danger. No matter what happens throughout the novel, this general rule doesn't change. If the safeties are on, you are safe. If the safeties are off, then you can die. Thus Rule #1 is satisfied.Evermore: COTN satisfies the second rule as well: there must be threat of death or a fate worse than death. The whole plot of the novel is pushed forward because someone figures out how to bypass the security protocols and kill people at will inside the game world. This threatens the lives of everyone inside as well as the fiscal viability of the online world itself. Thus the minute the plot begins, the protagonists are very aware that they can be killed when they find the killer. They are also racing against the clock as the more time passes and the more victims appear, then it becomes more likely that the public will discover that they can die inside the game world. If the public realizes they can die, then mass panic and eventual shutdown by the authorities would ensue. Thus it satisfies the second rule: you can suffer a fate as bad or worse than death.As for the third rule, the rules that are applied early on in the novel are in place for the entire story. They never change. The security protocols remain the guarantor of safety throughout the entire novel. The audience is not surprised by a new rule and the events that fall within these rules make sense to the audience. The third rule is satisfied.But does following these rules guarantee that the the story you have written will be a success. No. As Nolan has shown, Inception is a masterpiece despite the house of cards that it's founded on. Following these three rules won't make your virtual reality story great, but it will make it coherent. To tell a good story is a far more challenging task.
Toy Story 3 and the Pixar Storytelling Magic - SPOILERS -
Last week, I had the pleasure of catching Toy Story 3 at the local multiplex. For those that don't know me, I am a huge Pixar fan ever since Ratatouille. There is no question that Pixar is the king of animation right and their storytelling prowess has drawn favorable comparisons to the best work of Walt Disney. But what is that makes Pixar's stories so compelling? When so many of their contemporaries are making movies that are leaving their audiences cold, Pixar is continually telling stories that leave their audiences overjoyed. Pixar movies are timeless classics that hold up to repeated viewings over years. The only comparable record of excellence would be Disney's animation Renaissance from 1989 to 2000.The fact that Pixar has been making excellent movies for the past fifteen years is not a surprise. What is surprising is how continually excellent storytelling has been. For us writer's, what lessons can we draw from Pixar's films? What is the secret behind Pixar's Storytelling magic?
The first thing that is apparent about the Pixar films is that they are based on High-Concept ideas. The Toy Story Trilogy is based on the idea that toys are alive. Monster's Inc. takes the idea of monsters in the closet and makes them working professionals. Then it reverses the monster concept when the little girl enters their world and causes mass panic. Finding Nemo views the world through a fish's eyes. The Incredibles combines a super-hero story with a domestic drama. Cars imagines a world of sentient cars. Ratatouille tells an ironic tale of a Rat who dreams of becoming a chef. WALL-E tells the story of a robot looking for love. Up tells the story of an old man flying his tale to America.
The High-Concept film has been prevalent in the Movie Industry since Jaws exploded into theaters in the 1970's but history is replete with high-concept failures. Just compare Toy Story with Small Soldiers. One is a cultural icon for a generation of children where the other has been thankfully forgotten. So if we are to learn one thing from the Pixar run of excellence, it's that while a high-concept idea is necessary, it must be matched by excellent storytelling.
The second element that Pixar movies excel at is they pass the three rules of dialogue as described by Terry Rosio and Ted Elliot (Pirates of the Caribbean). These three rules are simple: writing must (a) move the plot forward, (b) develop character, (c) make the audience laugh, or preferably (d) all of the same time. The Pixar films excel at doing (d) again and again. Compare Toy Story again with Small Soldiers. Toy Story is a constant joy that creates lovable characters and moves quickly. Small Soldiers is slow, contains characters we don't really care about, and thinks fun is a four-letter word.The resonance that I love the most recent run of Pixar films is that they are more daring in what they expose their audience to. In Ratatouille, Remy gets separated from his family. In WALL-E, WALL-E is alone on a polluted planet but still yearns for love and companionship. In Up!, the first ten minutes are perhaps the most emotionally devastating ten minutes on film.
In a montage, we see Carl's entire relationship with his wife Ellie. We see their courtship, their marriage, their hopes for the future, their discovery that they can't bear children, the dream to travel to South America, and Ellie's tragic death. This montage, full of sadness and sorrow, sets up the rest of the film. It establishes Carl's obsession with getting his house, a representative of Ellie, to Paradise Falls. It also makes the absurd adventure more believable in an emotional sense. In the DVD commentary, the creators admitted that for such an incredible adventure, the story must be grounded in something that the audience can identify with. A similar montage is used in Toy Story 2 to establish the emotional motivations (far superior to rational motivations) of Jessie who has been abandoned by her beloved master Emilie. By introducing an element of sorrow and tragedy into your stories, you can get the audience to identify with your characters while establishing motivation.
However, it can also be used in the finale of a story. In Toy Story 3, Woody and his gang are trapped in a trash incinerator with no avenue of escape. Facing oblivion, all the toys can do is to hold hands and face death together. It is an extremely powerful scene that still causes me to well up when I think about it. The remaining scenes also contains elements of sadness as we along with Andy say goodbye to the toys, thus bringing the trilogy to an appropriate close.It is for this third reason, their boldness in appealing to emotions of sorrow and sadness, is what makes Pixar's films so powerful.Pixar's films contains storytelling magic that is hard to understand or explain. But by combining high-concept ideas, entertaining storytelling, and bold appeals to the full range of human emotions, all of his prospective writers can hope to capture some of their magic.
Cormac McCarthy, Run-On Sentences, and Quotation Marks
With the introduction of the Kindle for iPhone, I've finally taken the opportunity to read Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. I have loved the movie, even though I missed it an theatres and wanted to how close the movie stuck to the novel. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. No Country for Old Men is a terrific read, the most fun I've had since the Harry Potter series finished up.One of the more interesting things with reading a Cormac McCarthy novel for the first time is his unique prose style identifiable by two consistent habits: run-on sentences and no quotation marks. Now for the most part English teachers will balk at both habits as bad grammar but I'm always interested when a writer does something different. I always want to understand why an author makes that choices that he or she does and how does it affect the manuscript.Run-on SentencesMcCarthy has been compared to William Faulkner for his consistent use of the run-on sentence. An example from No Country for Old Men:
The deputy left Chigurh standing in the corner of the office with his hands cuffed behind while he sat in the swivelchair and took off his hat and put his feet up and called Lamar on the mobile.
For the most part, this is a mild example of McCarthy's run-on sentences but does illustrate the reasons why he uses them. For the most part, McCarthy uses the run-on sentence to string together a bunch of action statements that by themselves are not that interesting. It almost seems if McCarthy is following Elmore Leonard's old axiom to eliminate the parts that the reader skips over. However in McCarthy's case, instead of deleting the boring description of action, he shortens them and puts them all together in the same sentence. In a sense, he is skipping over the text alongside the reader. Now, if I was writing it, it probably would have gone like this:
As the deputy walked in to the station, the door creaked in protest. I would have to oil that, thought the deputy. But he couldn't do it right now because he was not alone. Upon his right hand rested the manacled hands of one Anton Chigurh. His arms behind him, Chigurh was led to the corner by the deputy. The deputy left him in the corner and walked over to his desk. Papers lay strewn everywhere and a pen could not be found. The deputy sat back into his swivel chair with a relaxing oomph. He dropped his hat upon the desk and put his feet up, taking the opportunity to scratch an itch that had been bothering him for the last ten miles. Leaning back, he picked up the mobile and dialed the number for Lamar.
As you can see, my version spends a lot of time describing things that aren't really that important. McCarthy's text zooms past this unnecessary description and cuts right to the chase.While run-on sentences are generally seen as the result of poor grammar, I believe that in the manner that McCarthy uses them it works well. It skips over the boring text without completely removing it. It also makes the story appear to be going by faster. For this reason, I would recommend it but don't overuse less someone accusing you of simply copying McCarthy. They'd be right but there is nothing wrong with copying good technique.Quotation MarksThe other unusual grammatical quirk that is a trademark of McCarthy's writing's is his use of the quotation mark or more accurately, the fact that he never uses a quotation mark. For an example, here is the second paragraph from No Country for Old Men:
Just walked in the door. Sheriff he had some sort of thing on him like one of them oxygen tanks for emphysema or whatever. Then he had a hose that run down the inside of his sleeve and went to one of them stun guns like they use at the slaughterhouse. Yessir. Well that's what it looks like. You can see it when you get in. Yessir. I got it covered. Yessir.
Not one quotation mark. McCarthy states that it's because the quotation mark halts the reader. That it is an intrusive obstruction into the reading experience or to paraphrase him, he hates seeing all of this marks all over his page. At first it is a little jarring but you soon become used to it. On this McCarthy has a point, the reading experience is far more fluid when you don't have to deal with quotation marks. The punctuation disappears and the dialogue and not the punctuation becomes the focus. However, there are problems with this strategy when you mix dialogue and description. For example:
Wendell leaned and spat. Yessir, he said. I'm ready. He looked at Torbert. You get stopped with that old boy in the turtle just tell em you dont know nothin about it. Tell em somebody must of put him in there while you was havin coffee.
In this case, the reader must switch back and forth between description and dialogue several times. Each time the reader has to shift focus, there is an opportunity for the reader to lose his place and become confused over whether or not he is reading dialogue. I found that this happened several times while I was reading to book. Confusion resulted, forcing me to go back and read it again. Every time that I did so, it broke the momentum of the story, thus nullifying the advantage that Cormac McCarthy was trying to gain. Thus, I would recommend that you stick with quotation marks. They may mark up your page something awful, but they will ensure that your text is clear and easily understand, thus helping to maintain the flow of the story. Now if you decide to forego quotation marks, just be aware of how the reader can become confused and try to avoid mixing description and dialogue in the same paragraph.Cormac McCarthy is one of the best writers in the English language. There is a lot that you can learn from reading his books. But keep in mind that every writer has their own style and this style must have a purpose. Take from your favourite writers what works for you and leave the rest. Only you can write like you.
Heavy Rain and the Development of Interactive Story-Telling
You'll have to forgive me for the relative quiet over the past two weeks, but I made a last second decision to fly west for the last three days of the Vancouver Olympics and it's taken me a week to recover. However, the recovery time did give me chance to play Heavy Rain and reflect on the surprising power of interactive storytelling.Now, I've been playing video games since I was six years old but I had never considered the story to be significant part of the experience. Mario? Save the princess. Contra? Shoot aliens. Bionic Commando? Swing around the first level for hours. We played these games for the gameplay, for dodging death and never-ending bottomless pits. Who cared about the story?
And then in 1998, I played Metal Gear Solid and I was blown away by its ground-breaking cut-scenes, the hero's gruff persona, and the action-packed storyline that kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a revolutionary game and it set the storytelling standard for video games over the next ten years: cut-scenes, cut-scenes, cut-scenes.
Personally, I thought that this would be the peak of interactive storytelling but there was another little game that came out in 1998 that signaled the changes to come. It was called Half-Life. Now I didn't play Half-Life until 2002 so I never understood why it was considered such a great game. But where it did innovate was in how it told its story. Rather than use CG or in-game cut-scenes, it told its story through the eyes of Gordan Freeman. No matter what happened, you never left the point of view of the protagonist. This choice always made you feel that you were experiencing the story yourself rather than watching another character play out the story. In short, it led to a far more immersive experience. But it was also a cold experience. As a cipher, Gordon Freeman had no discernible personality. As a character, he had no character. Thus while the experience was immersive, I found that unlike Metal Gear Solid, I couldn't care less about what happened to the characters.
As the 2000s progressed, Half-Life's perspective on storytelling gained more and more influence in the industry, but I was so busy playing Metal Gear sequels that I didn't notice. Bioware allowed you to create characters and make choices that affect the storyline but the effect was somewhat cold and distant. I still preferred my cut-scenes.It was not until I played Fallout 3 in 2009 that I saw the power of the interactive storytelling that Half-Life had wrought. Unlike in previous games, choices had real consequences. A dress I found in the Statesman Hotel turned out to be a Father's dying gift to his daughter. A choice to sell a child into slavery horrified me. As I succumbed to Fallout's world, I came to the conclusion that the Nameless Wanderer wasn't just some character. He was my character. In other words, I was no longer the player, I was the writer of an epic tale and I could choose how it ended up.
As immersive as that was however, it contained some limitations. The choices were simply binary. You had good, bad, and neutral choices. It was fairly easy to tailor your character to these three categories, dramatically limiting your character-creating scope. Its artificial simplicity was one of the full elements that pulled me out of the Capital Wasteland. If your dog died, no big deal, just reload your save. Not happy with the choices you made, no problem, just reload your save. Thus while a groundbreaking game, its storytelling still left me with very little emotional connection to my character.
Based on strong reviews and hype from gaming websites like 1up.com, I decided to give an obscure game like Heavy Rain a try. For those unfamiliar with the game, Heavy Rain is an interactive novel that is played completely through Quick-Time Events. When you're asked to shave your beard, you slowly move the right analog stick to the right. When you put your son on your shoulders and run through the yard, you use the motion control to steer. When you throw or block a punch you use one of the face buttons. On the face of it, a game completely centred around Quick-Time Events is a dumb idea. However this design choice allows the game to focus completely on immersing you into the game and its characters rather than iterating on various gameplay mechanics. The result is the most immersive and emotional experience that I've ever encountered in a video game. Not only do I feel a part of the action when I chase down a criminal like I've never felt before, the emotional investment in the characters is unparalleled. 
When I lose my son, I feel like I've lost my son. When I do a series of increasingly horrific tasks to get my son back, I am mortified and repulsed by my actions but determined to do whatever it takes to find my son. In one scene, a mentally disturbed man pulls a gun on my violent partner. I pull my gun on the perpetrator and am faced with a terrible choice. Shoot an innocent man or let him kill my partner. The option to shoot is clear and easy to ready. The other choices such as "order" or "reason" are shake around the "Shoot" option. I try to order the mentally-challenged man to drop the gun. My partner screams at me to shoot, my options become more agitated. I am running out of time to make a choice. My surprise is not that my character is panicking. The surprise is that I am panicking too. In the end, I panicked and pulled the trigger, killing an innocent human being. My character's revulsion and horror over what he has just done is matched by my own.This is a revolutionary step that Heavy Rain has accomplished with seemingly ease. Not only do I play the characters in the game, I become the characters in the game. I feel what they feel, I think what they think. I have experienced the first true implementation of interactive storytelling and it is stunning.
But what does it mean? Will this be the future of storytelling? I don't think so. Interactive storytelling is so expensive and so time-consuming to get right. Heavy Rain took years and tens of millions of dollars to produce. Prose fiction, on the other hand, is relatively cheap and quick to produce. I imagine that prose fiction will remain the standard but that interactive stories such as Heavy Rain will continue to present a unique experience. The multimedia capabilities of the iPad could present some interesting possibilities such as the return of the Choose Your Own Adventures books that I loved as a kid but this time with far more complexity and innovation. Or how the use of digital graphic novels could explode with full access to a powerful sound and graphics processor? Perhaps the digital novels of the future could combine voice, illustration, text, and sound to create something new and wonderful. The possibilities are endless.