writing efforts

[rone]

So what do you do when you have a few really cool settings, some interesting characters, but no actual story to tell?

Comments

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

Neurology.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Fester around and feel like a schmuck, apparantly. Argle.

I have one story and a beginning of a second that's been fallow for two years now. Do you have anything at all?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

A vague beginning and a clever dénouement to go with what i think is a really nice setting. Perhaps a touch of Brustian repartee. That's really it.

[merde.livejournal.com]

start a role-playing campaign.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That's how this got started.... i started brainstorming for campaign ideas and my brain went off, which is encouraging, but only halfway. Sure, that's better than nothing...

What i really need to get my campaign going is some organizational skills that will satisfy the malnourished anal retentive inside me (it is his grating whines which have arrested any attempt at simply slapping something together because "it's not good enough").

[jeff2001.livejournal.com]

Has that ever stopped me?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you are Tom Strong, and i am just a schmuck.

sounds like...

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

The next Mark Leyner book. No, wait, _Tetherballs_ actually had something not unlike a plot. Ok, I give up, what do you do?

[gallifreyan.livejournal.com]

I think you have found the secret to Andrew Blake's porn. Beautiful women making sweet love to other beautiful women, glamorous settings, and classical music in the background. No dialogue, no plot.

[pobig.livejournal.com]

Andrew Blake WHA- oh wait, I guess most of the characters in The Butterfly Kid are real people...

[gallifreyan.livejournal.com]

Butterfly Kid? Chester Anderson?

Dunno. Andrew Blake is one of my favorite art porn directors. Didn't think of possible contexts. :)

Conflict

[(Anonymous)]

Conflict, baby, conflict!*

"What a beautiful and unusual setting this is!"

"Oh yeah?" he said menacingly. "You suck."

Continue. Repeat.

Almost writes itself.

—Allan (http://radio.weblogs.com/0105058/)

PS: I wish I’d known you were a roleplayer when we were in college. Oh, wait, we MUDded together, didn't we? Never mind. Gack, I can't believe I'm still drunk. What systems do you play?

*In order to get conflict, take your interesting characters and put things or people that are important to them in danger. Try it.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Good idea with the conflict... i did try that a bit, but it felt insufficient. I'll try that handy "Repeat" step; it sounds promising.

As a conservative sort of nerd, i only play AD&D 2.5 Edition (as a PC, mostly because "it's the only game in town") and D&D 3rd Edition (mostly as a DM, but i haven't run in over 6 months).

I've played Call of Cthulhu a couple of times, but the setting disagrees with me (although i cannot fault the quality of the games amywithani has run). I've looked at the Star Wars d20 ruleset, but, again, the setting leaves me pretty cold (whatever warmth i ever had for the Star Wars movies has practically dissipated). The Boy wants me to start a Heroes character, but as a member of the Warren Ellis Anti-Pervert Suit Revolution, the idea of playing someone in a pervert suit as a character gives me the heebiejeebies.

I never played in college (besides MUDing, and that wasn't really roleplaying so much as hacknslashing [remember, i stuck to DikuMUDs and scorned MUSHes]). I didn't start playing again until my stepson (The Boy) invited me to play.

Right now i have a standing invitation to go to Sacramento and observe how this one guy prepares his games, so that i may use that as a sort of tutorial for my own games. Once i do that, i figure the last excuse for not running my game will be gone.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

There's lots of potential unexplored in the Star Wars universe. What does a SW S&M shop look like? Do Ewoks taste like chicken? If you shave a Wookie will you get Luke? Is Lando gay or not? Did the Death Star have a shopping mall? What holonet entertaiment shows are there? Does anyone remember Luke and Leia kissing or did Luke use the Force to wipe it from their minds? How many blaster shots does it take to kill Threepio?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Actually, i did suggest something similar to this to The Boy (he's running the SW campaign and he complained about feeling fenced in). But the setting still blows... I mean, what's next, an RPG based on "Cats"? "Mamma Mia"? "Rent"? Wow, the very thought of that last one makes me want to retch.

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Just write some scenes. Let the characters loose and let them speak and do things. If they're as interesting as you think, they will move in the direction of a storyline and you will follow. If not, well, not.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

If not, i will KILL THEM WHERE THEY STAND.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

What Kate said. The characters will tell you their stories.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I suggest two midgets with chainsaws bursting out through a trapdoor

[nothings.livejournal.com]

So what do you do when you have a few really cool settings, some interesting characters, but no actual story to tell?

Make up a story.

Ok, I guess it's not that simple for everyone. Let's see. One rule of thumb, for movies at least, is that the story should be about the most important day/experience in the protagonist's life. (Arthur Dent's story starts the day the earth is destroyed.) Conflict of the "put something important to the protagonist in danger" is one way to go--it doesn't have to be family, it could be ideals (the country losing freedom of speech) or it could be a whale needing freeing or an innocent man dying in the electric chair (using cliches for clarity). But I prefer to figure the protagonist has goals--has things she wants to accomplish--and you can create conflict by putting in obstacles to achieving those goals. (Then you simultaneously put in threats to health or family or whatever, and you've got a movie.)

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

Worldbuild obsessively until the ideas come.

Well, that's what I do, anyway.