# [META] How I Write My Story Hour.



## el-remmen (Jul 27, 2005)

I have developed this strange method of working on the installments of my story hour, and it has made me curious about how others do it.

Sometimes, as muc has I love my story hour, writing it seems like a chore, and there is this great inertia to getting started, but once I get going I usually really get going.

So what I started doing to get over the inertia was to just open a word file and since I have my computer on whenever I am home anyway, just leave the file open, and then just force myself to write a sentence of it whenever I remember it is sitting there open waiting.

Just one sentence or piece of dialogue, and sometimes, if I have actually sat down at the computer I'll make myself do one more after that.

Maybe it helps that my computer is in my living room, so I walk past it no matter what I am doing around the apartment.  A sentence here, a sentence there and soon one or two is turning into a paragraph as it becomes easier to simply get some small description over with in one sitting, and then soon I am getting into it and thinling ahead and the next thing I know if I have the time I am writing a full page or two in s a sitting and then in the course of 5 to 7 days  boom! installment.

I just found it too intimidating to just make time and try to write it all out in one sitting or even two or three. . small bursts that swell into a longer writing sessions seem to work better for me.  This is especially true for me since my installments are rarely less than 8 or 9 pages in word (and sometimes are as much as 12).

So, am I weird?

How do you all go about doing it?


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## Enkhidu (Jul 27, 2005)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> So, am I weird?




Yes, weirdo!

On the other hand, I think your slow but steady method is far less weird than the way I write (which I do in collaboration with my partner in crime). Our normal M.O. is to loosely plot (really, outline from memory and notes and try to figure out the "high points" that absolutely can't be left out) the post and then do the mental equivalent of vomiting on the page. Then, whoever did the first draft gives it to the other. That person cleans up the update, points out logical inconsitencies with established conventions, corrects faulty memory on dialogue, etc. 

Then we get together and give the post a read through aloud to catch things that neither one of us caught the first 3 or 4 times we rewrote it. And probably have a fistfight over something stupid, like whether or not to use the word "blue" or "azure" to describe an incidental NPC's cloak.

Only after we do that do we post.

So I guess calling your method weird makes me the pot, Mr. Kettle.


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## el-remmen (Jul 27, 2005)

Jeez, Enk!  You are right, YOU are the weird one! 

I barely look my installments over (relying on my readers and players to catch my typos and grammatical mistakes and then edit the post over time).

I do benefit from an excellent quote log kept by one of my players and game notes kept by rotating members of the group.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jul 27, 2005)

I've always done mine in one fell swoop, more or less.  I'll write out an update (which I keep short - 2.5-3 pages in Word) and let it sit for a little while, and reread it after a while to make sure I'm not forgetting anything.  If I need clarification on an item, I'll email a player or the DM (as in my current story hour, where I'm a player, not the DM).

But mostly I just let it flow out there for a half hour to 45 minutes, and call it a day.


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## spyscribe (Jul 27, 2005)

I'd venture to guess that the writing part of my writing process isn't too different than anyone else's.  It's sitting down at the computer with my notes and finding ways to resist the impulse to avoid doing the work.  

At the end of last year, I found myself severly underemployed where I was stuck in front of a computer with no games and only limited internet access.  I wrote more than 50,000 words in six weeks and _still_ had time to read the collective archives of Sagiro's story hour.  Now I'm at home working on other writing projects and generation of new material has slowed somewhat.

The particular wrinkle in the process comes after I have a rough draft of a complete session.  At that point, I email the file to the DM (Fajitas).  He reads through and sends it back with his annotations which can be anything from spelling changes to "you haven't mentioned X in a while, maybe you should remind readers who she is."  I incorporate (or occasionally ignore) his notes, then do my own pass largely for style and clarity, and then it goes up.  One file is usually a couple weeks worth of updates.

It took Fajitas and I some effort and time to work out a revision process that worked for both of us.  The game and the world are very much his baby, and I didn't want him to feel I was taking it from him.  At the same time, it was important to me to feel like I owned my own writing.  

Eventually, we found the proper line between the game being his and the story hour being mine.  It helps that we are both writers, and good friends, which means we are more committed to good writing and remaining on good terms than we ever were to being "right" about a particular dispute.   After two and a half years, I can often guess what he's going to flag before he flags it.


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## Spider_Jerusalem (Jul 27, 2005)

Hmmm. Pretty much the same as you guys, though a touch more sporadic. I usually find myself at a loose end, sit down, then stand up six hours later (minus tea, biscuits and the like). Couple of chapters, as in 20-ish posts worth, written in one go. Then spend the time from then until sending it up tinkering around with the writing/structure/blue-or-azure-debate.

Then I wait another few weeks until I'm ready to do that again.

Terrible policy, I know. I'm looking into a more regular approach (as in every other day), but that hasn't bloomed into a schedule as of yet.

Anyway. That's me.

Spider J


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## Funeris (Jul 27, 2005)

Eh...I know it can feel like a chore sometimes.  I usually just go about my daily life (which recently has been quite busy) ignoring the fact that I *have* a story hour.  Eventually, some unnamed deity (or muse or whatever) opens the floodgates, releasing a tidal wave of creativity.  Whatever I'm doing at that point in time stops be it work, playing with the kid, or, again, work as a hallucination (of a sort) about my next update hits me.  Okay, its not a real hallucination...even if I can *hear, see,* and nearly *taste* it.  

::Quickly stuffs antipsychotic drugs back into pocket::

But I just automatically know what I need to write.  Then I sit down and write it out.  Sometime its one update...sometimes its two...sometimes its for multiple story hours.  Personally, all my notetakers are horrible.  I know the basics of what happened (being the DM) and all the important stuff sticks out in mind.  So I write it up...and expand as necessary.

Voila.  Done.

Oh yeah, I believe very very heavily in editing your own work.  Unfortunately, I never get off my butt to do it.  <sigh>


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## barsoomcore (Jul 27, 2005)

Slowly, painfully and with great effort.



I usually work on my SH's while I'm at work -- I just have a text file open and switch over to that window every time I have an idea and continue the entry with that. My job has gotten very busy over the past year and so I update much less frequently now.


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## Shemeska (Jul 28, 2005)

I write like a child with severe ADD acts: in short, random, sporadic bursts.

I usually write my weekly update on and off from monday till thursday, never writing more than a page at a time. When I have no more time and friday rolls around I'll actually sit down and write for as long as it takes till I find myself at a decent cliffhanger in the plot. Usually this involves sitting down in the evening and writing, telling myself that 'I'll write a nice 6-8 page update', and then looking up to notice that the clock says 5am, and I've written double that. That happens more often than not.

Normally it's an 8-10 page update each week on friday or saturday for SH#1, and about 8 pages every two weeks for SH#2. And then there's the other stories I'm writing to flesh out individual antagonists within the first storyhour (13 individual Baernaloths) which are anywhere from 15 - 30 pages each on average, and I'm doing those literally at random when inspiration strikes me. And inspiration strikes at bizarre times, usually when I'm driving or I'm in my lab working. Perhaps it's creepy to be working in a virology lab while coming up with ideas about evil evil creepy beings who tend to have an association with disease... naaah.







But back to the writing process. I don't write in a linear fashion. Ever. I write random bits of different sections of the story as inspiration for the sections hit. I get an idea I write it and then later go back and tie them together, writing what happened in between those portions.

Thankfully I wrote up all my notes in Word, or at least most of them, and I have all of my handwritten notes collected for reference. Plus I have the obsessive compulsive notes that one of my players took, plus random quotes that the other players wrote down from various sessions. I'll draw on those when I'm writing, plus adding interlude material as appropriate to present events that happened behind the scenes and away from the PCs (such as dialogue between various NPCs, action by various Yugoloths outside of those that the PCs opposed them in).

Oh yes. Caffeine. I probably go through about 10 shots of espresso in the process of writing. And lots of music in the background, usually some form of industrial.

When done I'll read over it myself for spelling etc, how it flows, and then I'll sometimes as one of my players to look over it and give their approval before I post it.

I write more when I don't have the time to write because it sticks a fire under my tail so to speak. Back when I was writing the Sigil chapter for Planewalker.com (give us a look when you vote for the Ennies!) I was, for reasons no longer relevant, depressed. I don't know how much I slept that week, its all sort of a blurry haze, but I wrote around 100 pages in the space of three days with all the reference books sprawled around my apartment and cracked open on the kitchen table.


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## MavrickWeirdo (Jul 28, 2005)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> So, am I weird?




Makes sense to me


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## TheYeti1775 (Jul 28, 2005)

Funeris said:
			
		

> Personally, all my notetakers are horrible.




     
What are you talking about, my mental notes are excellent.

Now for my sorry excuse of a story hour, I write all the time on the bus.  But never put it to electronic format.  I'm just lazy that way.  But I do sit there and bug Funeris about updating his all the time.  He's a much better writer than me.


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## Sagiro (Jul 28, 2005)

I have a terrible, terrible memory.

Once upon a time I wrote my Story Hour using a combination of that flawed memory, hastily-scribbled notes taken during the session, and my pre-game notes.  I’d often supplement these with begged-for e-mails from my players, detailing specific things they remembered doing during a game.

This system worked okay for those few times I was able to write within a day or two of the game, when the details were still fresh in my mind.  But if I waited longer than that, I’d start to forget things, and that would launch me into a vicious cycle.  I’d be less enthusiastic about writing about a game whose details I’d forgotten, which would cause me to delay writing and thus forget even more details.   

Also, my long-time readers will probably have noticed that my early installments have little or no character dialogue.  That’s because a) I can’t remember specific spoken lines for longer than about 90 seconds, and b) because my players engage in such wonderful dialogue, I’m loathe to put words in their characters’ mouths they didn’t actually say.

Then I started using the tape recorder, and almost everything has changed for the better.  Now I can write Story Hour chapters that reflect what actually happened, and not a half-forgotten hazy memory.   There’s more character development, because I can include what the characters actually say to one another, and to NPC’s.  Even better, I’m reminded of (and record) all sorts of smaller scenes and forgotten details.  This helps the Story, and also helps me maintain better campaign continuity, which in my case is sometimes an insane juggling act.  

The only downside is that it takes significantly longer to write each installment.  Dialogue in particular takes a long time, because I can’t type as fast as the characters talk, so I’m always starting and stopping the tape.  But I’m more excited about writing now, and love listening to the recorded sessions, knowing I’m no longer missing a skillion improvised details.  I usually do the work between 11:00 P.M. and 2:00 A.M. (when the family's asleep), and am generally keeping up.  (That is, the Story Hour has lagged about 10 months behind the campaign for almost a year now, and I'm not falling further behind.)

I know it’s not for everyone – Piratecat tried using the tapes and hated it – but for me it’s helped my Story Hour, and my campaign, significantly.

-Sagiro


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jul 28, 2005)

I picked up a digital recorder with somthing like 6 hours of recording capability, and I've been considering using it, but haven't got around to it - I intended it for when I was DM'ing and writing a story hour, but that hasn't happened.  I may use it to record key conversations in the game I'm currently writing up as a Story Hour, where I'm a player  rather than DM.  It would be neat to have a more accurate record of conversations, and with this setup I could rip the session onto my hard drive and work with it that way - a little easier than using a tape recorder.


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## pogre (Jul 28, 2005)

My method is somewhat similar to nemmerle/el-remmen: I force myself to write a sentence or two as I pass my cpu and while coats of paint dry or hirst arts blocks are drying in the molds. I usually get to a certain point where I start writing pretty heavily and those turn into my 8-10 page updates. I use the pictures I take during the game and feature in my story hour as a reminder.


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## sniffles (Jul 28, 2005)

I'm a n00b in the Story Hour section, but here's what I do: 
I'm the primary note-taker for my group in all our campaigns (we have about 6 other current campaigns besides the one in my story hour). In the past I wrote up my notes in an email and sent it to all the other players in that campaign, and any other friends who were interested in following along. I then copied the text from the email into a Word document and saved it. The intent was to eventually put all my character journals on a website. I started posting to story hour recently because it seemed like a more convenient way to store my writings and my fellow players can still read it at their leisure without having to join the forum.

But I haven't changed my basic process since moving to using story hour. I write up each session within a day or two of the time it takes place. I use a first-person narrative style so I don't have to worry too much about leaving out things that the other characters did while my character was somewhere else, or otherwise unable to see what was going on. I usually do my writing at work, since my job involves working on Word documents all day, so it's easy for me to make it look like I'm working.


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