Struggling With writing with Alan Wake Pt. 2
In this second part of the article, we delve into the significance of the signal, the writer, and the concept of the American nightmare. It is truly intriguing to witness this bridge between Alan Wake 2 and observe Alan’s internal struggle as he battles with his own demons. The exploration of depression in this context deeply resonates with me personally. Each time I write, each word becomes a needle, piercing through my fingertips. I am fighting against myself, fighting against the current version of myself that is afraid of writing or that hates reading my writing. The experience of reading each paragraph has turned into a vast ocean of depression that I have to navigate through. That is why I love the DLC’s of Alan Wake. Let us start with the signal.
In the story so far Alan has reached the dark place and is now trapped in there and this is the first part of him fighting himself, his mind is split into two, one is the rational and the other is the unrational creating scenarios to make it harder for his rational self to get back to his body and it is interesting ‘cause you take a dip into Alan’s mind especially in the writer, you will see little scenes of it and his self doubt of him being reminded of how much of a fraud he feels. Throughout the game, you are following a signal. It is interesting because remedy can twist the world and bend it into Alan’s worst nightmare. Initially, it hides itself but throughout the episode the curtains open up and you are always reminded through TV of Alan’s attempts to stop himself and if this is not the most perfect personification of a writer complicating his own work, then I do not know what is. Because, as numerous people think, writing is supposed to be easy, but it is not and it makes it a hell of a lot harder when your imagination is working against you. This resonates with me because sometimes my imagination can run wild and produce either brilliant ideas or complete nonsense. It is a hit-or-miss situation, so while I enjoyed the beginning of this episode, it did not have as much substance as the writer intended.
My favorite out of the three, even though American nightmare takes place in Arizona, is the writer which has this sort of silent hill vibe. A little early on before Alan Wake two had its silent hill persona. The world doesn’t hide itself it twist and turns. And words float in the air. It’s astonishing, you see brief glimpses of Alan’s memories being manipulated against him. In this video game, the concept of being a writer is taken to the next level, where words are physically represented as typewritten messages in the air, serving as both a source of light and a means to combat adversaries. This DLC made me fall back in love with words and see how powerful words can be once they can be on or off paper. It’s silly to say, but playing the game you never realized how much fun you are using these floating words to your benefits to fight the enemies that are in front of you. It’s also a start to stare deeper into myself and to know that all writers feel like frauds themselves and it’s OK. You have this fictional bestseller and you see all of his self doubt and internal struggle with himself while making everything complicated for himself. Parts of that resonate with me. It’s like one day I wanna write and then the next day I don’t think it’d be a good idea. Something with the writer helps me open that creative door backup to be as weird as possible. I really do love how weird remedy can get by making a silent hill esque game about a writer and how each title they’re getting better at using the techniques of being a writer in the game.
As I finish it and start working on parts per chapters of the Podcast, I have a couple stories that are already finished, but I took notes with Alan wake, the writer DLC. I made a little short story of a struggling writer while putting some of my thoughts into the story. It was very cathartic, and it felt therapeutic. Some thoughts or doubts I had about myself were just thrown up on there and outlined in this short little horror story that I can’t wait to have time to finish. I’m happy that I can start my podcast with this and it helps replay Alan Wake to get me out of that rut and to really get my ass up in gear with the writing. And so I’ve been working hard on the story and have been working towards getting the podcast together with this blog. Continuing posting stuff, I don’t want to say consistent but I’ve been pretty good on continuing with writing and building this habit with it and I think it was a good idea to make this little miniseries of going through our own lake and diving into it. While playing the Writer having this like warm a blanket comfort me and also motivating me at the same time without this series of games, I wouldn’t be complete as a writer, of course there are a lot of communities off of Youtubers that share these insecurities of being a writer but for there to be this game about literally being a writer there has never really been a full on series that is like this. Yes, you can say with some of Steven King’s titles he usually tortured writers, but nothing of this sort it really goes into the psyche of a writer.
And now I’ve completed American nightmare and wish they would remaster this title. This is such an underrated piece of DLC content, plus you’re in my home, Arizona. The combat is so much more refined and fast-paced it’s been two years, so Alan is a bit more seasoned with his craft. It’s more of the same as the other two, except he’s fighting an evil version of himself. What stands out is that it’s not really him, but it’s what other people have perceived of him, what others on the outside who don’t really know him have, I guess, created about him. They created this narrative that has made an evil character of who he really is. And that’s mostly the antagonist of the game. It seems fitting, honestly. People have this perception of creating a narrative for you. Maybe they think you’re egotistical since you’re a writer or how you could be this arrogant asshole, because they think somehow creating stories makes you smarter. But once you have a dream, other people try to tear you down or perceive you in a different light. You’re not perceived as normal, you're perceived as different and, in some sense, I guess I can understand that. Since I haven’t fully come out with a book and other people perceive me as lazy, why aren’t you writing anything? Writing should be easy, you must be lazy or you must not be writing. It’s an annoying narrative but yeah, I admit there is no book, why because it’s difficult, not as easy as I thought it was. It’s been about 13 years since I played the original Alan wake for the very first time and I thought being a writer was going to be easy. No, it is not even close.
I think my evil doppelgänger is someone who has completed everything I've wanted to. That's what Mr Scratch is. He is someone who only cares about the limelight and only cares about the celebrity status. But acts as someone who is drunk off of his success, (Alan's success) and will use all of Alan's resources to benefit from. When I contemplate my evil doppelgänger, I envision someone who has long been engrossed in the process of creating a book, which now sits proudly on a shelf alongside numerous other books, far surpassing my progress in the realm of writing. The more I try to ignore him, the more he screams out at me, the more I can see him having everything I want. American nightmare is perfect with that. At every turn, you hear Mr Scratch taunt and tease Alan using his face and status to torture people around him. It gets you thinking, what if you had an evil doppelgänger? What would they be like and how would they be able to torture you? Besides all the goofy stuff in American nightmare, that question has always stood out to me whenever I played the game and see this goofy version of Mr scratch. I still never let my guard down because there is that side of you that you can try to ignore or hide from. Hell, it could be a future version of yourself that you think is better than you and lives a better life than you, makes better connections than you, and has better relationships than you. All while continually taunting you. And that's what Mr scratch means to me and how it must be for Alan and it's so satisfying to defeat him because in reality he cannot write Scratch is not physically real and Alan Wake is still the creator, he is still the writer of the story.
And so I've quickly beaten both Alan Wake, and it's DLC's. My next and last trip is through Alan Wake Two while doing two play throughs of it. One going to the rough draft and the next going through the final draft which I've beaten once but I want to take my time and soak it in so I can just throw my thoughts in it into the blog because it's all about loops and spirals and to be honest I relate to Alan for those 13 years ever since I've lost sight of what becoming a writer is. I am still in the same spot. I still feel like I'm at the start of everything even though I've had this blog up for a year and a half. I'm getting things done with the podcast. But I still don't think it's enough and I think once I can create a book and hold a physical copy in my hand then that is when I think I can break the loop and be in an upward spiral and if you've played Alan wake two you would get that reference.
There are still a lot of things I want to work on I've done a lot of work of cutting out the fat and getting rid of distractions and I'm barely learning to not do everything myself or if I am doing it myself to know what is possible with the skills I have and what is not possible. And it's given me more room to understand what being a writer is and how I soak up info. and write. I think ever since I left Phoenix I think I've made more progress than I have ever made after getting out of high school and I'm I'm happy it's not like the password 10 years I've not been writing I have like a madman and I've learned so much but now it actually feels like I am putting words on paper and throwing it out there. Taking a chance finally, whether it's good or not it is the most genuine piece of work I can put out there and this is something I want to do for the rest of my life I've been writing for such a young age so it's nice to break the shackles. cliche to say laziness but of self doubt and analysis paralysis and bad habit making. I also want to thank remedy for opening my eye for being weird and being OK to be weird as I reflect after beating a few of these games. I'm glad I'm not that same Stephen King copy right now I can say that I am a writer with a unique original voice and these stories are something that have circled through my head for years and it's crazy to be this honest and vulnerable after playing a game.
So for now my sights are towards Alan wake 2. I don't know if I want to throw it up this month or next month for my next post or the end of April because I do like throwing out my thought pieces up on here. So we will see I want to do an overhaul and edit a lot of these blog posts because a lot these are tossed up quickly without being completely edited to my liking so we will see but thank you for taking the time to read this till next time.
