# Any authors ever grow bored writing their story hours?



## Celtavian (Oct 13, 2003)

Do any of the other writers every find themselves becoming bored while writing their story hours? 

D&D is a very redundant, combat-oriented game. It's not a total surprise that this is the case, but it wasn't as noticeable to me until I started writing a story hour for a campaign. I feel like I am almost wading through battles just to get to the important parts of the story.

Have any other authors found it necessary to modify the experience system to provide a more story-like quality to their D&D games? For those who use a modified experience system has it become easier to write your story as you would like?


----------



## el-remmen (Oct 13, 2003)

It is the other way around for me.  While non-combat is very important to the story of my "Out of the Frying Pan" campaign - I find writing up the battles to be a whole lot of fun, but that could be because most of the battles further the story somehow - and the role-playing never stops in my game - esp. not during fights where heroic lines are uttered, foolish risks are taken and the environment of the encounter makes for unusual situations in the combat.

My second favorite is writing up the dialogue - I have one player who keeps a very good quote log and I use that to re-construct the PCs tryng to figure things out or argeu about plans or interogate NPCs (or vice-versa).


----------



## Joshua Randall (Oct 13, 2003)

I find myself wanting to rush through the less interesting parts of the campaign in order to get to what I consider the good stuff. To that end I will gloss over or completely eliminate entire encounters and battles.

Unfortunately I can't really do that in the actual game on which the story is based. 

Edit: how is it possible to make so many typos in a three sentence post? Oy.


----------



## drnuncheon (Oct 13, 2003)

Not so much bored as blocked, really.  I try to use a lot of literary tricks to keep myself interested in writing, especially when there's a lot of fighting.  Some of the things I've used:

- flashbacks, or having people tell the story after the fact
- writing from the opposition's viewpoint
- skipping the battle and showing the aftermath
- cut from character to character
- trying to emulate a particular author's style
- a different style of writing (like the current segment of my Freeport story hour, in a sort of screenplay format.)

Whatever you do, don't go round-by-round and try to stay completely faithful to the actual events.  You'll go nuts and your readers will get bored.  Do what film directors do: focus on the moments that reinforce what you're trying to get across, gloss over the rest of them.


----------



## gfunk (Oct 13, 2003)

drnuncheon said:
			
		

> Not so much bored as blocked, really.




I agree with this 100%.

I don't feel motivated to write a SH unless I can do it with gusto.  I want to look at the end product and be satisfied with my work.  Sometimes I like to take a week off or so and think about using some of the literary devices mentioned by drnuncheon.


----------



## Kayne (Oct 13, 2003)

I tend to compress combat down to detailing what the outcome was and mentioning any really notable occurences during the fights. I know that the group I play with enjoy seeing their characters name getting a mention for anything they have done that is worthy of note.

What I get disheartened about is the lack of comments from readers on our (Mine and Eccles) story Hour (Clearwater Crusaders). Kinda feels like I'm writing all of this up and nobody is reading it. I'd love some feedback.


----------



## Silver Moon (Oct 13, 2003)

Nope.  I've actually been keeping a written log of the games for 21+ years now, which I have always transcribed for the players.   The first five years were the hardest, using a typewriter and making xeroxes rather than world processing.  

My goal has always been to write down the most interesting or most comical aspects of each game, as they make for the most enjoyment when rereading.  I also try to get all of the jokes stated, which makes even the most uninteresting module fun to read.    My primary readers are and have always been my players, but I've also enjoyed posting them here.    The only changes I've made for the online postings are to include some DM's notes for background context, and dropping references to player's actual names.


----------



## spyscribe (Oct 13, 2003)

*Another "B" word that means writing isn't getting done.*

I find myself sometimes getting "bogged down" as I write.  When it happens, it's usually due to one of three reasons: 

1.  Nothing is really happening in the scene.  Sure, it might have been vital and exciting at the time, but in the arc of the story, it's not getting me anywhere.

2.  There is so much happening in the scene that I need to break it up so that it will read coherently.

3.  I'm too tired, hungry, or occupied with other work I have to do to concentrate.

None of these are really the fault of the game session I'm trying to adapt into a story hour, it's just the nature of the beast.  When I first started writing up sessions, I worried a lot about combat, and it certainly has its own particular challenges to write in a way that's both exciting and coherent, but the inherent drama of what's going on is a great help.

Almost more difficult I've found are lengthy sections of investigation or negotiations with NPCs which have to reveal exposotion with more finesse than an info-dump but less detail than a transcript.  That's when the literary device arsenal comes out full-force.   

Oh, and to get back to the original post, I'm not the DM, so I have no idea how the experience is or is not affected.


----------



## Lazybones (Oct 14, 2003)

I often get bored writing the story hour.  Luckily, my job is 1000 times more boring, so usually when things get slow I pop open the story and write a few pages.  It gets my mind going again, and helps me focus.


----------



## pogre (Oct 14, 2003)

Celtavian said:
			
		

> Have any other authors found it necessary to modify the experience system to provide a more story-like quality to their D&D games? For those who use a modified experience system has it become easier to write your story as you would like?




You know the odd thing is writing a story hour has made my players much more conscious of the story, and how an adventure will play out as a Story. They still are pretty much a low fluff, high action group. If your group enjoys combat after combat I would not change a thing.


----------



## Celtavian (Oct 14, 2003)

*re*

It may be that I've bitten off more than I can chew by trying to write a story hour with eight PC's. I am finding it very difficult to find a voice for each one. I'm not a very experienced writer and finding a voice for a PC is difficult even with help from my players. 

I have been glossing over quite a few combats by incorporating them into exposition or dialogue. That helps a bit, but there is still alot of combat. The players often deal with a combat situation in the same way over and over again. I am really going to have to use a discerning eye to determine what events are most important to write so that I can avoid redudancy. Redundancy is the main reason I grow bored.

Anyhow, thanks for the responses. I can't wait for my PC's to reach the higher levels. The higher levels always seem more interesting because you can really create interesting encounters for high level PC's.



> You know the odd thing is writing a story hour has made my players much more conscious of the story, and how an adventure will play out as a Story. They still are pretty much a low fluff, high action group. If your group enjoys combat after combat I would not change a thing.




My players are starting to think about what they say more. They definitely love action and combat. There is no greater joy to them then cutting or blasting down the enemy.


----------



## el-remmen (Oct 14, 2003)

I really think it is the job of the players to create "voices" for their characters.  You should just be able to lift their "voices" straight from the game.  I mean, it may take a session or three for a PC's voice to develop - but once it does there is your source.

Also, I'd hav to disagree about higher level meaning more interesting encounters - I find I work a lot harder on low level encounters to make sure they _are_ interesting without being deadly (which is too easy a thing to be).  For me, I try to use physical environment as much as possible - to make sure people are having running fights, alternate between melee and missile combat, combat is having on different levels (some at the top of the gully, others at the bottom for example) and add goals to the combat that are not kill/capture oriented (stop the shaman before he rings that bell, keep that door from closing, get that door open!, etc. . .) also by insisting that all strategizing is done in character (and within the limits of speaking on your turn as a free action) you create more chaotic combats with great dialogue interspersed.


----------



## peteyfrogboy (Oct 14, 2003)

I'm still finding my legs as far as writing my story hour goes, but I've started to get a feel for how I like to write. Here's what I've noticed so far:

* I tend to do a lot of scene changes where I'll skip some boring bit of plot advancement and just have someone sum it up at the beginning of the next scene.

* I take rough notes at the end of each session and try to write down the basic structure of each combat while it's fresh in my mind. Even still, I like to get the story hour updated as soon as I can after playing so I don't forget too much.

* As far as combat goes, I'll often compress several successive rounds of the same thing into a single action (e.g. the pathetic miss-fest between Nevroth and Rittoro). I try to keep everything in the right order and properly attributed. I haven't had a whole lot of combats to write, since it's a city based campaign and not every situation requires wholesale slaughter.

* My biggest stumbling block so far has been writing up modules. I don't much enjoy parroting other people's work. Often I'll read the text from the module verbatim during the game, but rewrite it for the story hour

* Sometimes I'll change the attribution of some minor bits of conversation or rewrite dialogue entirely. I try to keep major discoveries or ideas attached to the right people, but I bounce other things around to give everybody equal time.


----------



## Capellan (Oct 15, 2003)

Do I get Bored?  No.  Hopelessly behind due to over-commitment?  Yes 

I write three SH's (Because I'm an idiot: kids, don't try this at home), and each has a different tone / millieu, which helps to keep them fresh.  I concur with drnuncheon's suggestions for making the process more fun - those are all good ideas.

Above all, don't be afraid to be brief, especially with combat.  While brevity is something that I also need to work on, it's generally something I manage quite well with combats.  Generally, I only recount any details of the fight if it was significant (either to the characters, to the plot, or just because it was unusually tough).  For example, if your PCs tend to use the same tactics in a lot of fights, then it's sufficient to say that's what happened:

"The group were attacked by another band of blue-spotted nurgleflodders.  By now, they had developed an efficient routine in such battles, and quickly defeated the creatures."

This gives you lots more time to focus on finding the 'voice' of your PCs.  One of the best ways to do this, btw, is to focus on a certain aspect of the character, be it class, race or personality, and try to convey that in the story.  For instance, if you have one dwarf in a party of elves, focus on his race, and use that to shape his dialogue.  Maybe he mutters through his beard, a lot, or punctuates his dialogue with oaths to dwarven gods, etc.


----------



## Seravin (Oct 15, 2003)

Capellan said:
			
		

> Do I get Bored?  No.  Hopelessly behind due to over-commitment?  Yes




Here, Here.    
Thanks to everyone for the shared tips though.
I'll add one more - do an installment from the villain's perspective every once in awhile, or even from one of the bystanders or minions.   _(edit: of course if you had read drnuncheon's post you'd have gotten this suggestion.  ah well)_

For me it gives me a leg up in the game when I'm wondering what the villain is going to do or how the rest of the town is going to react to the characters when they go striding through town.

If your players read your story hour it gives them a bit of what happened behind the scenes - of course this last bit only works if your players have moved well beyond what you're currently playing.


----------



## Leopold (Oct 15, 2003)

yup


----------



## Renfield (Oct 15, 2003)

Heh, I'm also very new to writing a story hour, though not exactly new to writing in general. Alas my main problem is dedication, I am a sever procrasticator by nature, one of the wonderful traits I picked up from my father. That has applied to one of my passions: writing, in which is is quite easy to slack off with excuses like "oh I'm not inspired." or "Oh I've got better things to do like looking up Pr0n or playing Temple of Elemental EVil (is it me or does anyone else think it's way too obvious that that game was rushed?)" Things like that. However one tip I've recieved as far as the inspiration goes is to write regardless of inspiration. If you feel you need a break take a break. My own campaign is a few sessions ahead of where I am in posting. Hell, the big battle that I recently posted took place about a month ago, since then quite a bit has happened considering I'm working on a new campaign >.< my players never did have good luck with trolls.

As for combat, and the like, here are a few techniques I use that work well enough for me even if I'm not some great SH writer like Sepulchrave or PirateKat

* P.O.V. (Point of View) Very useful. If I get bored writing from one characters perception than a reader will likely be getting bored as well, so I change to another after that characters 'scene' is done.

* Long boring shiznit: Again, P.o.V. but with the added bonus of jumping around skipping the dull parts. Not every chunk of dialogue or activity needs to be cataloged, just so long as you get the important ones. I.E. in the temple session when the PC's were attempting to rescue the kids I elaborated on a few significant or entertaining events and left out pointless exploring and wandering aimlessly through temple corridors avoiding the various patrols and the like. I did a quick run through with the Harpies and the Stirges. Showed the encounter with the two acolytes from their point of view... love writing pov's like that. And most significantly the final battle and escape that resulted in Nym's death.

* Voice: If you are one of the poor DM's who's players have the roleplaying skills that are equivalent of "I open the door ready my sword and attack any enemy I see." or  "Okay, so I talk to the guy and get him to do blah with my diplomacy role of 28" then I cannot help you much. I thankfully have players who are reasonably competent at RPing their characters even if all they do is paste their personality on and essentially play themselves. Delver was played as softspoken, calm demeanor, and downright creepy in his apathy and casual atitude towards death and undeath. Alias was a maniacal power hungry sorcerer. Nym a softspoken, kindly druid. Amarbie a normally timid amazon who found her normally calm and passive demeanor stretched in the adventuring environment often moving into the fiesty uppityness that was normally reserved for the aftermath of battle. In essence your players should allready have voices for their characters to repeat a previous poster.

*Long drawn out battle scenes?: Be creative. The big battle scene I posted recently required two long posts but I enjoyed both of them. The entire session was divided between three rather annoyingly long posts. But it was fun writing them. In the battle I decided it would be nice to switch to the NPC's pov's for a bit. Giving them a bit of the action as well as the PC's to make things a bit more interesting. I'd switch from pov to pov spending about two or three paragraphs on each. Using terrain and having enemies or pc's using various tactics (like having a called huge air elemental join in the fray >.< ) can be interesting. Especially when you as the DM toss in a few amusing bits and pieces like said air elemental batting the comparitively frail bodies of enemy soldiers dangerously close to the very sorcerer/elementalist who called him.

*Flavor stuff: I find I enjoy writing the occasion villain pov from time to time. Just be careful not to expose too much and leave things cryptic. Give the villains a little flavor. I like my villains, very standard issue stuff but because now-a-days people try to deviate from 'standard' villainous archetypes I find myself drawn more and more to the classic sinister and powerful though in some way dumb in his zeal underling. And the nasty truly scary real boss. You can also switch to other NPC's pov. I created a whole new character complete with personality that the characters never met until he was rescued. Those who read my posts would know him as the child Donovan. Brave, somewhat intelligent for a young lad, and with a firey spirit. The PC's interacted with him on a very limited basis and the soul purpose of his creation was to make the plot interesting and provide the basis for a future NPC.

(god I love rambling while sleep deprived)

*People not reading your posts getting you down?: I read an old thread on that very topic and recieved the following tips:
  - advertise your SH in your signature and accompany it with a link, if you want to avoid messy looking url addresses you can do something like this: (url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=69) "The 13 Kingdoms" (/url) replace the parenthesis with [ ] brackets and you have a link that comes out like this  "The 13 Kingdoms"  
  - read other story hours and post elsewhere. The more you post the more you advertise your story hour with your signature. And if you respond to other story hours it'll show peopl you actually read them and they might be inclined to read yours in return.
  - don't worry. With the exceptions of some of the most popular story hours like Sepulchraves and PirateKats comparitively few will respond to your posts. Keep tabs on the number of times your thread has been viewed. After awhile you'll find that they can't all be from you and your players  I was feeling down right around the time before I began work on the battle scene and one person responded saying they missed my story hour and to keep it up. One person. Next thing I know I'm typing like a madman  

Oh, and for those reading, give a little positive reinforcement on the threads you read, it helps SH authors morale a lot!

*If players aren't creative in combat be creative for them: I normally don't have this problem. But if you do keep tabs of critical hits (in my group a natural twenty counts as a crit, old tradition from ancient 2nd edition  that makes things a little more risky) and add a little flourish to it in the post. Any clever ideas take advantage of. If a fighter is being swarmed by enemies using the kobold tactics have him shove some back to get them out of the way, trip one to account for a miss and the like. 

These are my personal tactics, stuff that works reasonably well for me, I am by no means an expert and don't think such things. If I was a true expert I might have attracted more responces by people other than that one from Look_a_Unicorn (thanks if you're reading that.) and Black_Kaioshin who happens to play Nym and Alias. At best I consider myself a slightly better than average writer so no body get any ideas of me having a huge ego... *cough*I'm king of the world*cough*

Anyway, sorry if I repeated anyone elses idea, this thread just grabbed my attention.


----------



## Look_a_Unicorn (Oct 29, 2003)

Renfield said:
			
		

> Hell, the big battle that I recently posted took place about a month ago, since then quite a bit has happened considering I'm working on a new campaign >.< my players never did have good luck with trolls..




Arrrrgggg Spoilers of the worse kind... ones that indicate a TPK 
My last PC was captured & subsequently eaten by trolls after a failed rescue attempt, so I can sympathise...



			
				Renfield said:
			
		

> other than that one from Look_a_Unicorn (thanks if you're reading that.)
> .



Hey, thanks for writing! My Story Hour failed miserably, not surprising considering I never had the time to review what I churned out


----------



## Angcuru (Oct 29, 2003)

While my Story Hour is mainly a product of my imagination and not of an actual gaming group's experiences (if you couldn't tell already from the first 5 or 6 chapters), I still run into the occasional writer's block.  I know of several extremely important and emotional points in the story that will be godly awesome when written up, but there IS the obstacle of getting from point A to B to C and so on and so on.

Which is where daydreaming during class comes in.


----------



## Dirigible (Oct 29, 2003)

I gotta thank you, Celtavian and the others who've spoken (typed?) here. You motivated me to get of my ample butt-ox and write up the latest installment of my storyhour, in addition to giving me food for thought for later ones.

Cheers 

Something I've noticed in my own writing; I don't report the game session verbatim, I tweak and change bits of he story to make it more coherrent and interesting, or just more explicit. Anyone else do this?


----------



## Celtavian (Oct 29, 2003)

*re*



			
				Dirigible said:
			
		

> I gotta thank you, Celtavian and the others who've spoken (typed?) here. You motivated me to get of my ample butt-ox and write up the latest installment of my storyhour, in addition to giving me food for thought for later ones.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Something I've noticed in my own writing; I don't report the game session verbatim, I tweak and change bits of he story to make it more coherrent and interesting, or just more explicit. Anyone else do this?





I do. I write down the flow of events, memorable quotes, and memorable combat events. I make sure to get a background and personality profile from each of the PC's, then I work what I feel is important into the story. 

I used to write quite a bit when I was younger. I had even created a bunch of story arcs for comic books when some friends and I were planning to start our own company. 

Mostly I had turned from writing in later years for a variety of reasons, but I've found that I actually still enjoy creating stories and trying to put them into words, aka writing. I am using this Story Hour to polish my skills and expand my word repertoire until I feel up to snuff to start to submitting stories for publication.

It takes a while to get good and develop a style. Tenacity should carry me through, just as it always does.


----------



## Zad (Oct 29, 2003)

No I've never gotten bored. Over the three years, I've only started enjoying it more. I try to push my meager writing skills to make a better and more engaging story each time and I enjoy the chance. It really helps that there are a few readers that are awaiting each update and have been vocal about it 

Combat is key, but combat alone doesn't make a good story. It's always a challenge to find the right mix of detail and drama to make a particular installment really come together.


----------

