Simulation

 

(Pixabay Image. I don't have the patience to build something spectacular like this.)

Do you enjoy simulation games? One of the very old computer games that I had on my first computer was Prince of Persia. In brown and black... the tension as the poor lad hopped along, climbed ladders and was confronted by sword-wielding men left you drained for ages.

My favourite is The Sims. There are a lot of versions, and at the moment, with a new girl from our church, I’m playing Sims 4. It’s very emotion-driven, more than the other versions. The women in the game are not very fortunate. My first set-up family was a single teen mum, with her toddler sister. That was what we had decided to play, so I started there. Of course, the emotions weren’t very happy, although she perked up by the time her daughter was a teenager.

The daughter married, and had six children, as teenagers can help to earn money towards a better house. Unfortunately, her husband was older, and he died, leaving her a single mum with six kids. Tension, anger, and lots of crying on my screen. Absolutely heartbreaking. But just a game.

Why play games? Why write books where the first paragraph drops your poor character into disaster after disaster? Or a story where the happy couple is just about to settle down for a healthy family life, and trouble finds them. We spend many evenings describing their troubles, writing chapter after chapter with details of their grief and anger. Once the chapter is done, we lean back in our chairs, satisfied and ready for a coffee, smiling at our friends and family.

One of the ladies in our church never reads fiction, apart from my books. I felt honoured when she read my books and she said, “I just tell myself that although I know it’s fiction, it could happen in reality.” Knowing what I wrote, I hope it’s nobody’s reality. Just like watching my poor Sims family crying on my screen.

I sometimes wonder about killing off characters in a book. Or having a character become a Christian. Because they didn’t really become a Christian, did they? They aren’t called by God, set apart in eternity, were they? I made them up and pretended their names were written in the Book of Life. I know my readers are aware that my books are fiction, but am I overthinking this? I’m sure I am.

Simulation games are wonderful for imagining people’s lives. Just like writing stories based on a picture or a snippet in a newspaper. I like visuals. I like to have a picture of the house I’m writing about or the village where trouble is going to take place. Sapphire Beach was our wonderful just-about private beach in Crete. I enjoy that kind of familiarity. Do you use pictures, real ones or made-up ones? Do you use elaborate simulation setups?

Anyway, I need to sort out my Sims family, before disaster strikes again. And check with my friend how her pregnant teen’s family is handling life...

Maressa Mortimer is Dutch but lives in the beautiful Cotswolds, England with her husband and four (adopted) children. Maressa is a homeschool mum as well as a pastor’s wife, so her writing has to be done in the evening when peace and quiet descend on the house once more. She loves writing Christian fiction, as it’s a great way to explore faith in daily life. Because of her interest in writing, Maressa is part of Creativity Matters: Find Your Passion For Writing, an anthology encouraging people to write.

Her debut novel, Sapphire Beach, was published in December 2019, and her first self published novel, Walled City, came out in December 2020, followed by Viking Ferry, a novella. Beyond the Hills is the second book in the Elabi Chronicles, and was released in 2021, followed by stand-alone novel Burrowed, released in 2022. All of Maressa’s books are available from her website, www.vicarioushome.com, Amazon or local bookshops.