Among the common daily responsibilities of
the freelance writer (no matter what beat or beats they happen to
write on) is the need to maintain a current portfolio that includes
the most recent published pieces and as complete a listing as
possible of their past work, with links to the original publication
or the online version of the pieces if they are available, the idea
being to provide the reader with a centralized and
convenient searchable list to help them find what they are looking
for or just keep tabs on you.
Some writers will throw everything that
they write into their portfolio, on the presumption that their
readers will want to read, well, everything that they write. Others
cherry pick from their output, placing what amounts to an edited
selection of what they consider to be the best of their work in the
hands of their readers and (I suspect that this is the major
point) into the hands of the odd editor who is perusing their
portfolio with an eye towards offering them an assignment. The
reality is that no matter how busy a freelancer is, new writing
assignments are a lot like Jello; there is always room for more.
I take a slightly different approach to
choosing what goes into my portfolio -- having adopted a simple rule
that controls what gets added to the portfolio -- though I cannot
take credit for it -- I picked it up from my friend and fellow writer
David Rakoff, who recently passed away after a personal battle with
cancer.
I originally met David through Captain
Peter Whitfield, who at the time was the skipper of the P-Town Ferry.
Peter is a fascinating character who is gregarious and outgoing and
always pleased to make a new friend, which goes a long way towards
explaining how he has a huge list of friends from literally all walks
of life. While he is the consummate professional when it comes to
the captaining of a vessel -- being a skilled veteran nautical expert
and commander -- he is also a unique individual and one of that rare
breed of human beings who you are better off having known, and I am
sure that David felt the same way about Pete -- who he met while
taking the ferry on a day-trip from P-Town to Plymouth.
We chatted via email for the most part,
as David lived and worked out of New York City and I am on Cape Cod,
but once or twice a year when I was in The City to cover an event we
met for lunch, and it was at one of those meals that I asked him for
advice about what to include in my writing portfolio.
"Put in everything you got paid to
write; if an editor thought it was good enough to pay you for it,
then it is good enough to include in your portfolio" he allowed.
So when I sat down to edit what would
become the ongoing and constantly updated online version of my
writing portfolio in place of writing samples and a list of published
pieces it contained a complete list of every piece that I was paid to
write. Each piece is linked to the online version and where the piece
does not have an online version, it will appear as a PDF of the print
version. While the end result was not a flood of extra work, it does
generate a constant trickle of jobs I otherwise would not have, so in
that respect I am happy to be able to say that it has generated
enough extra work to make it a worthwhile effort with no regrets.
If you are a writer -- freelance or
otherwise -- no matter what hat you wear or beat you write on,
building your online portfolio by creating a listing of everything
you were paid to write, with a link ideally to the online version at
the publication that paid you to write it and therefore published it,
if it exists, is the optimal format. Doing it that way not only
provides editors with a nice selection of your work, but it also
demonstrates that you are working, and hopefully it demonstrates your
range and the topics on which you write as well as the different
beats, and in addition to providing readers and those imaginary
editors access to your work, it serves as a constant reminder that
you are doing what you love. That being said you should also
remember that your criteria is all of the pieces that you were paid
to write, even the small and seemingly unimportant ones...
Changes in Attitudes
I mention all of this so that I can
segue into a recent event that reminded me in no small way that it is
very easy to overlook the little stuff while you work your way
towards the bigger pieces, and largely due to a confrontation over my
criticism of a review written by another freelancer I was reminded
that I had allowed a significant gap to appear in my portfolio!
The event I am referring to has its
roots in the fact that I recently reviewed the video game Damage Inc.
Pacific Squadron WWII which is the freshman video game title from
games peripheral maker Mad Catz (the game was actually developed by Aussie Games Studio Trickstar in conjunction with Mad Catz) and released on
28 August of this year for Microsoft Xbox, Sony PS3, and Windows PC.
I played and reviewed the Xbox 360
version, which was provided to me by Mad Catz for that purpose (you
can read my review for Game On, "Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII," and a review of the game for the online gaming pub Gaming
Update, "Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII -- Game Impressions"
and the feature article "Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII Adventures in Pre-Release Gaming" that was also written for
Gaming Update.) and found it to be an interesting game with a lot of
potential for online PVP and cooperative play.
With better than 30 hours of potential
game play for the casual player interested in the single-player story
mode, when that is completed should the gamer embrace the
multi-player online side of the game its entertainment potential is
practically unlimited, but using the standard system I employ to
evaluate average playtime, the game scored a rather impressive
Average Admission Price of just $1.24 an hour, which is well under
the $2 per hour threshold which serves as the cost yardstick for
modern retail boxed titles today.
After investing over 100 hours in game
play time in order to obtain the full impression of the game prior to
reviewing it, with roughly half of that time spent in the
multi-player online PVP side of the game (OK I did indulge perhaps a
bit more time than was entirely necessary, but I had a great group of
games journos to play with who were also playing to review and we
liked this game). After wrapping up game play Damage Inc. scored a
solid 9.0 out of 10, and I was not alone in evaluating it and finding
it to be quite the impressive air combat romp!
At its most basic the lack of a wide
selection of air combat titles each year gave the game a boost by
itself, but it was the quality of the entertainment offered by the
game and not its cheesy story line that earned it that score, so you
may be able to imagine my surprise when I encountered a negative
review in the Manchester Guardian Newspaper written by freelance
games journo Grant Howitt (Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII -- Review, 31 August 2012 The Guardian) that was widely slammed by the
writer and reviewer for reasons that instantly got my back up. (This was originally addressed in the September 1, 2012 blog entry "Speaking Of. . . Constructive Criticism").
To begin with, the review was written
badly and lacked the professionalism and quality that we have come to
expect from The Guardian. Note that I only read this review after I
had written two of my own (linked above) and after I spent better
than 100 hours in playing the game, which at that point I considered
myself to be something of an expert on as a result...
Howitt's approach in his review
appeared to intentionally substitute an overtly sarcastic voice in
place of the to-be-expected serious opinion based upon lengthy and
full game play for the title; in simple terms the piece began badly,
worked its way towards horrible, and ended by demonstrating that the
reviewer had not actually played the game for more than an hour or so
(if that)!
Forget for a moment that you never
begin a review by asking a question, once you read the first graph of
the review you will feel strongly the desire to forget the question,
but alas it is too late at that point. A game review should never
make you wish longingly to be afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease, but
really, there is a serious flaw in your approach when you open what
is supposed to be a considered game review with the question:
"Do you know why American fared so
badly at Pearl Harbor, leading to the deaths of thousands of men that
would draw them into the killing fields of the second world war?"
I get it that America-bashing is
presently in vogue for the younger generation of writers (read that
as college-aged) in the UK, but actually I do know why America fared
so badly following the Japanese invasion attempt of Pearl Harbor, and
it was not "due to the fact that they placed the entirety of
their airborne defence in the hands of a single inexperienced pilot
who crashed explosively into nearby buildings at every opportunity"
which is what Howitt would have us believe.
The failure at Pearl Harbor was
actually caused by a combination of errors, oversights, and mistakes,
not the least of which was the failure of the intelligence community
at the time to properly analyze the data and the intercepted
communications that it actually possessed; there is also the issue of
the intelligence briefing that the British provided the United States
Navy that was based upon the output of its Enigma decoding teams at
Bletchley Park, just outside of Milton Keynes. (1)
There was the matter of nearly a full
hour's advanced warning that was obtained from the Opana Radar
Station on the North Shore of Oahu, which was an integral element in
the new Aircraft Warning Service (AWS) that was established in 1939,
and that was intended to do just what it did, which was provide
advance warning of approaching waves of enemy bombers and torpedo
planes as well as fighters, using its SCR-270 radar system and the
skills of Army Privates Joe Lockhard and George Elliot, both of whom
were at their appointed stations on the bluff overlooking the calm
and gentle Pacific Ocean when at 0702 on Sunday, 7 December 1941,
they detected several waves of incoming bombers and torpedo planes
and correctly identified them as a threat. (1) (2)
They reported the sighting to the Duty
Officer manning the Temporary Information Center at Fort Shafter, on
Hawaii. That officer -- Army Lieutenant Kermit Tyler -- decided
that what the pair had sighted on their radar was nothing more than a
flight of twelve US Army Air Corps Boeing B-17 Bombers that was being
ferried in from Muroc Army Air Base in Muroc, California (via Luzon,
in the Philippine Islands) to Hawaii. The flight was made up of a
mixture of elements from the 19th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and the
7th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and for the purposes of obtaining the
maximum fuel range for the bombers, made the flight without any
weapons or ammunition on board. (1)(3)
Then there were the monumental failures
of Army General Walter C. Short, Hawaiian Department Commander, and
Navy Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the Pacific Fleet Commander at Pearl
Harbor, both of whom failed to pay heed to the ample warnings that
were issued by the Department of Defence and the coordinated efforts
of both the British Intelligence Service and the US Department of
State, all of whom warned that an attack was imminent and that basic
defensive precautions should be taken to prepare the islands. (3)
It Wasn't Funny?
Of course the question that Howitt
opened his review with was not serious; it was supposed to be humor,
but sadly it flopped, and I suspect that part of the reason -- the
obvious part of the reason -- for that has to do with its macabre and
tactless nature and the reality that he chose a very poor subject and
position for that humor.
That he feels it is appropriate to joke about the failed
invasion and subsequent attack at Pearl Harbor suggest that Howitt
has not the slightest familiarity with military service and why
joking about the death of thousands of Solders, Sailors, and Marines
not to mention civilian casualties really is not funny; in reality
Howitt is just another Jody, but he doesn't even know it. If we
could ask the victims of the attack I seriously doubt that they would
see the humor either. It may be edifying to know that a total of
2,403 military personnel died during and immediately following the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, with an additional 1,178 people
(service and civilian) being injured in the attack. (4)
 |
| Damage Modeling adds to the game play experience... |
Rehashing all of the faults with the
review serves very little purpose, so restricting this to the more
significant points, in reading the review it became very obvious from
what Howitt wrote that (A) he had not played more than twenty minutes
to an hour of the game; (B) he had not completed the tutorial phase of
the game; (C) he had not mastered the controls; and (D) he was not
familiar with the actual contents of the game.
One of the more annoying assertions
that he made was that the game falsly claimed to be an historically
faithful combat experience. Howitt complains in his review that the
game claimed to be historically-based but then goes on to have the
player face a number of enemy planes and shoot them down, thus
obtaining more kills than the historic leading ace fighter pilot of
the era, Army Air Corps pilot and Congressional Medal Winner Ira
Bong, who at the time of Pearl Harbor was a Lieutenant.
Neither the developer or the publisher
ever made any such claim; what they said was that the game featured
historically accurate aircraft, and it does. Howitt made gross
unfounded and unsupported assumptions based upon his own
interpretation of blurbs from the back of the box, and then took a
position based upon his interpretation, characterizing his
imagination as factual statements by the developer and publisher.
Ultimately after reading what he wrote I came to the realization that
Howitt had written the review about a game he had not actually
played, and yes, that really got my knickers in a twist, I freely
admit it.
"You don't by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?"
Under normal circumstances when I encounter a situation in which a fellow member of the Fourth Estate has firmly jammed a foot into their own mouth, I will watch (amused, not amused, it all depends upon the circumstances) and let it go at that -- rarely do I actually get involved, and still rarer is the violation such that I feel compelled to wiegh in on the situation personally. When it does come to that however, I much prefer to privately share my opinion with them because I find that in most cases a sincerely offered piece of personal advice is more readily accepted -- unfortunately in the case of Grant Howitt and his review of Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII the fact that he has gone to considerable efforts to conceal his personal email address, and has chosen not to offer a business email or postal address meant that the only option for all communications with him was via the public channels that he has created -- basically that meant either posting to his Twitter Account, or posting a comment to the actual review on The Guardian website.
Since what I needed to say naturally required more than the 140 character limits on the service, unless I was willing to generate a literal Tweetstorm, the official comments section on The Guardian Website was the only practical option. The choice of making the criticism public required a mental review of the reasons I was irritated enough
to actually take the boy to task for what he had done -- so that was the next necessary step. Thinking about it helped focus it.
In the end my ire took the form of a rather lengthy and detailed comment to his review on the Guardian
website -- and it was largely constructive -- addressed all of the areas of concern, and resulted in his telling me where to head in.
What Howitt did to warrant a reaction was flagrantly violate the trust that exists
between the writer/reviewer and the reader; he also compromised the ethical commitment
between a writer and their publication and in the doing of that, sacrificed a measure of the trust that The Guardian has built with its readers since it began to offer game reviews -- in essence Howitt chose to burn a bridge when it was not only not his bridge to burn, but a bridge that should not have been put to the torch in the first place.
Those two crimes are reasonably egregious and sufficient to warrant the level of response that I made to him, but it was his third transgression that really made the matter terminal. By taking an assignment that he never intended to properly complete, Howitt took a job away from another writer who would have legitimately
reviewed the game! Considering the economy and the fact that paying gigs are not like apples on a tree anymore (if they ever were) it would have been better for all concerned if that review assignment had gone to a writer who was prepared to commit to doing it right -- and there are plenty (hell, almost every freelancer out there) who would have and could have done a better job. In fact this is one of those cases where ten monkeys on typewriters... Just saying.
 |
| Grant Howitt and his Zombie LARP Startup - hit over to Zombie LARP for more information! And thanks Grant! |
The Newspaper Industry
Shortly after I posted my comment on Grant's review the admins at The Guardian locked all further comments on that review, and Grant took his disparagement to
Twitter, where it is clear from his comments that he visited my
website (I was flattered that he felt the need) but in the doing of it he seems to have found it wanting. Sigh.
Specifically he declared that he always considers the source when someone offers him constructive criticism, and that in
considering the source (me), he felt that as he was a video game reviewer, and
I was a newspaper columnist, my opinion on the matter did not carry
any real or informed weight, since according to Grant I had no
familiarity with the subject of writing video game reviews, or gaming
in general.
It was at that point that I realized
that I had failed to include a significant element of my writing in
my portfolio! It was at that point that I realized that Grant had actually helped me to recognize that gap, and so had prompted me to correct it. It was at that point that I realized that Grant had helped me. It was at that point that I realized I owed Grant a debt of thanks.
While my portfolio did include the 41 video game
guides and walkthroughs that I have written over the years, it did not
include the more than 250 game reviews that I had written over the
years! Thanks to Grant I was now aware of that fact; but it seems that as Grant was not, and taking into account his assertion that -- his feeling that -- his eleven
game reviews published on The Guardian website represents a clear and authoritative background and presence, he felt that he spoke from a
position of strength and expert opinion (compared to me) with respect to video games and I was just going to have to accept that....
So what was the lesson that I took away from all of this?
Well, clearly there is the fact that I considered the game reviews to be unimportant -- I must have done so, because I failed to include ANY of them in my portfolio in spite of the fact that by my own standards they clearly belong there!
After giving it careful thought and consideration I have come to the conclusion that because
they are all comparatively small next to many of the feature pieces
and guides that I had written, I have been subconsciously undervaluing them all along!
Clearly they are not.
So I must ask myself: How is an
editor going to know that I review games if I fail to provide that
information to them as part of my online portfolio?
That second generation of questions immediately made me
wonder what other assets I had neglected to include in my portfolio? I have to give that some thought.
And that brings me full circle, and back to the fact that I owe Grant a note of thanks for helping me to see that I had (have?) a weakness in my approach to documenting my writing. Thanks Grant! And good luck with your new Live Action Role Playing Game Business thingy!
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