Can you talk a little bit more about developing that style or that, that mode of storytelling 'cause it's, it's unique.

Yeah.

So I, I went to school to be a writer, and so I have tried so many different ways to write third person.

I actually, I, I, I've said this before, but a l- a lot of people don't believe me or understand.

I actually wrote the first draft of Dungeon Crawler Carl in second person, you instead of I.

And I've since switched myself back to the I, but I am a big fan of telling stories with a very limited point of view that are very, very close, and that lends itself to the more casual prose style of Carl, and I think it fits him perfectly.

Um, but I like cameras that are really, really, really tight on a single character and as, because of that he's a very re- unreliable narrator because everything you see as a reader is filtered through his brain, and you're not always getting the full story as you read it.

Do you go back and listen to the final product and, and what's that journey like when you, when you pen it and then have the chance to, to experience it?

How you came up with the first concept idea of this guy, what is happening to him, and how the world, you know, blows up and he has to dungeon crawl his way through these books?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've kept a list of story ideas.

And one of those story ideas, it just said Alien Game Show.

And One day when I was brainstorming, I came up with the idea of Carl, a Coast Guard veteran that's just a regular guy that's kind of coasting through life, not paying attention to anything that's going on.

He doesn't even notice that his girlfriend is cheating on him.

And he has...

His girlfriend has a cat, and the cat is a show cat.

keeping up to pace in the Spanish version, what can they expect from the six to eight episodes?

Can you talk a little bit more about developing that style or that, that mode of storytelling 'cause it's, it's unique.

Yeah.

So I, I went to school to be a writer and so I have tried so many different ways to write third person.

I actually m- I, I, I've said this before but l- a lot of people don't believe me or understand.

I actually wrote the first draft of Dungeon Crawler Carl in second person, for you instead of I, and I've since switched myself back to the I.

But I am a big fan of telling stories with a very limited point of view that are very, very close, and that lends itself to the more casual prose style of Carl, and I think it fits him perfectly.

Um, but I like cameras that are really, really, really tight on a single character and as, because of that, he's a very r- unreliable narrator because everything you see as a reader is filtered through his brain, and you're not always getting the full story as you read it, and I, I think that's personally the most compelling way to tell a story because you are, everything that he doesn't know, you don't know, and everything that he doesn't understand, you don't understand unless you do understand, unless you catch it when he doesn't, and that's, that's the biggest challenge of first person narrative.

Do you go back and listen to the final product, and, and what's that journey like when you, when you pen it and then have the chance to, to experience it?

So, uh, what do you think draws readers to this type of storytelling, and do you feel like that is your natural form of ramping up the drama in your books, is also treating it like a game itself?

Yeah.

So lit RPG, the term lit RPG, came about probably around 2013, 2014.

No one can really agree.

But there's been a few books that are like it f- before, but it really started to come into its own right around 2015.

And it is a genre of books where the people in the book are forced to exist with video game-like rules.

Like the most recent Jumanji movies, for example, where they're literally stuck in a video game, and there's a lot of them like that.

[laughs]

Mm-hmm.

And we learn something about, like, everyone around him at the same time.

That's... and but he's always, like, kind of like the hard, crunchy center of the group, whether he wants to be or not, and that's kind of the type of character I like writing.

Um, I have...

And he's extremely active too.

Uh, there's other stories I've written, like Operation Bounce House, m- um, the character's a little bit more passive at first.

He doesn't wanna be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I wasn't...

I actually wrote this a few years ago.

I was writing book seven and Operation Bounce House simultaneously, the end of book six and book seven, um, of Carl.

And I think this is what, this is a story of humanity is people come in, then they trot upon the weaker population, the other population, and those who are stronger wanna keep that position, and they, they bully, by bully I mean kill, the, those who are, um, not as strong as them in order to, you know, they say protect themselves, and it's just because they're big assholes for the most part.

Uh, and that story is, you know, a story that's gonna be told over and over and over again as long as there are humans that exist, I think, which is unfortunate.

But it just happens to be, um...

[applause]