# [Story Hour Authors] How Far Behind Are You From Current Action in your Story Hour?



## el-remmen (Oct 21, 2004)

So, two questions really. .. 

1) How far behind are you from the current goings-on in your campaign are you in your writing of your story hour?

2) Whether behind or not, what methods do you use to keep things fresh in your mind for recording the whole thing?  (But I am most interested in those that are very far behind).  And what kind of routine do you follow when you write it up?  Do you do it all in one shot, or do you write a little at a time as the mood hits you, etc. . .?

As for my own "Out of the Frying Pan/Fearless Manticore Killers" Story Hour is about 20 sessions behind (about a year), and I try to updaye every two weeks, but the average is more like 3 weeks to a month. . .  I have taken off a month or two at least twice, which explains the long delay, but also it takes me hours (broken up over days) to write up an installment and two to three installments to do one session.


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## Piratecat (Oct 21, 2004)

I'm about a year behind, with the game ongoing. Almost every game is saved on tape, though. I have mixed feelings about that; it's a better record, but dramatically increases the time that it takes me to write the story hour updates.

I tend to write in three-four hours bursts, which is about two updates worth.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Oct 21, 2004)

Mine's a mix of two...its a completed campaign, but the PCs are still going strong at this point.

I'm just so insanely far behind(since I decided to start it now) that it isn't funny at all. Luckily, when we first started the game we would put it together as a story type thing afterwards anyway, so I've got that to work with. It isn't very coherent, and a lot of the things in it contradict each other...so it also gives me room to get the general idea of things and play around with it some.


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## Morte (Oct 21, 2004)

About 3-4 sessions behind, but the campaign finished a year ago.


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## Droid101 (Oct 21, 2004)

Many many sessions behind, but that's because I didn't start writing the story hour until about a month ago.  The campaign has been going on for three years.  I think I'm about a year behind the action now.

The campaign right at this point is about to draw to a close.

I update every weekday.  Usually takes me from 1-3 hours to write an update, which range from three to six pages (12 point font in a Word document).

I never thought I was going to record my campaign, so I never really recorded anything.  I go off my vague notes and memory, which has served me well.  Some parts are more difficult to piece together than others, due to having only a sheet with hit points marked off on it.  "Hm, that must have been a critical hit.  Or maybe it was a fireball.  What had 80 hit points?  A gorgon?  A wraith?  I can't remember..."

My second story hour is my friend's campaign.  I'm all caught up there, and I post the day after our session every time.


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## spyscribe (Oct 21, 2004)

In terms of what has been posted, Welcome to the Halmae is close to two years behind where the campaign is in real time.  (One of the other players once remarked to me that we must be the only story hour that updates weekly, and still manages to fall behind).  To be fair, when I started, I was about a year and a half behind, so it's not as dire as all that.

I'm almost always working off of a backlog of written updates that haven't been posted yet, so that the thread keeps going even when we don't play for a while or I don't have time to write much.

For writing up sessions that happened so long ago, I rely on a combination of memory and extensive notes.  When I can't quite remember how something went, I'll check in with the DM and we'll come up with something that seems right for what we know about the characters and what the scene has to accomplish.  

We tried tape-recording a session once.  None of the PCs rolled more than a 10 all night.  We decided not to do that anymore.

I write when I can find the time.  It's hard to give a good estimate for how long an update takes because I'll write the rough version of a session, then send it to the DM who gives his notes. (Are there details that weren't important to me but will be crucial later?  Are there parts that could be improved/made clearer?)  Based on that I do another pass and polish and only then does it go up.

I also don't necessarily write in order.  We had a big session a couple of weeks ago, and I wrote it up over the next two days.  Having bits already done to "catch up to" makes the whole deficit much less duanting.


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## EternalNewbie (Oct 21, 2004)

Well, now I don't feel so bad.  I'm about a year behind, and fading fast.  I started about 3-4 months behind, and it's gotten worse, although since Galeman (our DM) returned to school in a different city, I should theoretically be able to get caught up now.  What's worse is that I don't have any real method of keeping track of what happened, save for discussions with the other party members and a few scattered notes, so I suspect that when I resume writing it'll probably start looking a little more cinematic, and a little less mechanical.

When I do write, I tend to write updates in one or two big chunks, in about 6-8 hours.  When I get stuck (like I am now) I try to keep moving things along, a paragraph at a time if necessary, until I can get back into it.  I also spend a fair bit of time re-reading and editing when I get stuck, which is why the beginning of my updates always reads better than the end.


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## Boojum (Oct 21, 2004)

I marked "more than 10 sessions behind and still playing", but in reality I haven't even started yet, although I keep meaning to.  My notes are pretty fragmentary from the first year of the campaign (I run the game at my college, so we had a hiatus for the summer and just picked up again a month ago), so I will probably write up a relatively short summary for that whole span and then start writing session-by-session updates for what happens this year.


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## Morte (Oct 21, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I tend to write in three-four hours bursts, which is about two updates worth.




I tend to write in three-four hour bursts, which give me about half an update, and my updates are shorter than Piratecat's.

Damn these people who can write...


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## Angcuru (Oct 21, 2004)

Well, since my story hour is more of a _story_ than a campaign summation (for lack of a better phrase), I'd say I'm as caught up as I'll ever be.


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## Capellan (Oct 22, 2004)

Depends on the SH.

X-PATH: Stick Your Citadel Where the Sun Don't Shine is up to date and the campaign is (at least for now) finished.

In Hextor's Name is up to date (as of today).  Again, the campaign is (at least for now) finished.

Company of the Random Encounter is finished as a campaign.  I have half a session left to story hour in something resembling detail, and then I'll probably wrap up the last 5 sessions we played with just a few paragraphs each.

Q-Ship is five and bit sessions behind, which sounds fine until you realise there have only been seven sessions and they took about a year to happen!  The story hour of the first session alone was about 25,000 words.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Oct 22, 2004)

I stopped updating my story hour about 2 years ago.  While I was doing it, I was only a week or two behind for the most part.  

I intend to tape portions of my game next time I do a story hour - but not all of it.  Just important conversations that I think will have good bang-for-the-buck.  I've got a digital voice recorder just for that purpose.  I can see how recording the whole shebang would create more work than its worth.  If there were programs that could transcribe a game situation even remotely accurately from a digital .wav file, that would be a great advance...


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## Desdichado (Oct 22, 2004)

Currently, about three sessions behind.  I'm takin' a smallish break -- until December, at least, before I run again, so with any luck, I could theoretically catch up by then...


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## ledded (Oct 22, 2004)

I'm about 4 sessions or so behind, and I started writing after the second session.

However, this is a one-off from our usual campaign, so I should theoretically have plenty of time to be caught up.  I'm such a terrible writer though, I can't just sit and make myself write.  I have to be inspired, then get some time, and I just type-type-type until I can't take it anymore, then try to do a quick edit of the ramblings I tossed out and post it because I can't stand to let it sit for too long.  I call it stream-of-consciousness writing, but it's pretty much spray-n-pray 

I also tend to be a bit wordy sometimes, so I have well over 100 pages in Word for about 3-4 sessions of play (well, I had to write backgrounds, then fit some in-between scenes that I liked, and... eh).


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## Desdichado (Oct 22, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Currently, about three sessions behind.



Now only two...


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## The_Universe (Oct 22, 2004)

I started the Story Hour about 10 months into the campaign, and we're on about month 15, now.  

We're still going strong, but the campaign out to wrap up sometime in the next six months, if not sooner.  

I did it this way on purpose, so I don't really feel behind.  

As for how I keep track - I have a lot of electronic records of in- and out-of-character discussions, as well as a pretty good memory for game stuff, and my own adventure notes.


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## Silver Moon (Oct 22, 2004)

I voted less than 5, which seems to be the average, but I currently have four different ones running:

In "Silver Moon Stories", which is my weekly group's D&D campaign I just got caught up a few weeks back.  I'll be starting up a new module whenever we have a Sunday night that the Red Sox aren't in a post-season game. 

In "Arcade's Gang", which is my weekly group's Western (Boot Hill/D&D hybrid) campaign I am one module behind in my posting, which ran for three game nights.

In "Revenge, Renewal and the Promise of a New Year" which is a Play-by-Post that I'm running over on the Randomlingshouse board I'm way behind, having only posted up to the start of the 2nd thread (we're now on the 7th).  I'm posting another chapter every day or two, and after 8 weeks of playing the PBP has finally started to slow down, so I might get caught up at some point.  

And I have one more incomplete Story Hour that began as a single live game and was then going to go switch to P-B-P, but the main player who wanted me to get it started up it just dropped off of the board.  At a minimum though I still have another chapter or two to write up and post from the live game so I'll try to get that done in the next week or two.


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## Shemeska (Oct 22, 2004)

I'm two years behind, which translates to a little under 104 sessions. The game is still ungoing, however between my notes, my own memory, and my players notes and memory there's little lost between the games and the campaign storyhour. If nothing else the players are getting to see behind the scenes plots in the storyhour they only got one side of in the campaign.


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## Rel (Oct 23, 2004)

The campaign chronicled in my Story Hour is now over and I'm probably 8-10 sessions from having it done.  But that is still a lot of writing since this is really only between 2/3 and 3/4 of the way through the campaign.

What has helped me tremendously is that I have these "Battle Reports" that some of my players have written up.  I give a small amount of XP for that and these brief descriptions of the combats help jog my memory tremendously.  

For the out of combat stuff I rely upon a combination of my memory, my notes, e-mails swapped between the group members and asking the players questions about the way things played out.  With all of that I still make some mistakes but they tend to be minor and few.


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## el-remmen (Dec 26, 2006)

/me casts _thread necromancy!_


Have I mentioned that I am all caught up?


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## megamania (Dec 26, 2006)

At this point I have gotten caught up.  I was over a month behind on Creation Schema.

The other games I am anywhere from caught up to several months behind.  Thought I would get caught up over X-mas weekend but family says otherwise.  Maybe New Years.....


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## Nonlethal Force (Dec 26, 2006)

Congrats!

Of course, I'll take the time to advertise that my Story Hour is complete (for now ... I plan on starting up again in January.)  I am curently going back and doing some much needed editing and revising!  But I anticipate being completely done by January 1.

[I should note that my Story Hour is pure fiction and not based on a game, so I could technically never be "behind."]


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## shilsen (Dec 26, 2006)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> /me casts _thread necromancy!_
> 
> 
> Have I mentioned that I am all caught up?



 Show-off !

And in that vein, apparently I am the only voter who is all caught up with his story hour and updates after every session.

Take that, you lazy so-and-so's!


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## Lazybones (Dec 27, 2006)

I have the luxury of combining a fictional story hour and a job that's very, very slow over the holiday season.    I post updates every weekday in my Rappan Athuk story hour, and as of today I am 62 chapters ahead (pending revisions and rewrites as the story moves forward).


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## Tsillanabor (Dec 27, 2006)

I am about 6-7 sessions behind. I did quite a bit over the holiday. I have everything on audio tape and I occasionally make notes in addition.


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## Silver Moon (Dec 27, 2006)

Regarding my campaigns and Story Hours:

"Ballots and Bullets" (our current PBP module) is five months behind.

"Wizards, Whiskey and Wonderful Things" (our 2nd PBP module) is around 18 months behind.

"The New Exiles", from my weekly gaming group,  is only three sessions behind.

"Arcade's Gang", from my weekly gaming group, is one session behind.

"Into the Fire/From the Ashes" from my weekly gaming group is two years behind. 

"Seven Outlaws in Search of a Bank", my travelling convention campaign,  is only two sessions behind, although those were played last April and June.


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## Altalazar (Dec 30, 2006)

I have four campaigns I'm involved with - one is a homebrew I run, and there is no story hour with that because I am not a player.

One is of Hawaiian flavor, and that one alternates with another one that is in cauldron (with Cordozo the lawyer).  But I've not written on either of those in a while because both are on hold while those two DMs (a couple) take a break.  

And so on that break we started another group, where I'm working toward the True Necromancer prestige class (Vincent's Lab Notes).  That is eventually going to be run by the two players in our group who have never DMd before, but I said I'd run it until everyone was up to 5th level or so, so I've been runing Vincent as an NPC and taking them through Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury (which I ran when they first came out years ago... and these players never have been through).  

It is hard to do writeups when your character is an NPC, at least the way I do them - I don't have time to make many notes and I have to pay attention to far more than just my character, so it is somewhat abbreviated.  But that will change when I'm not DMing.  

I always try to keep up with my writeups.  Generally, I always get my write up for a session done before the next session starts.  Sometimes that means doing it the next morning, sometimes that means doing it the afternoon before the next session.  I like to do it earlier rather than later, so I don't feel rushed.  Sometimes I work on it over a week.  I take notes and try to stick to the highlights when it comes to extended dialogue or combat.  

Given my busy schedule (and busier 16 month old daughter) if I don't keep up after each session, I'd fall behind and never catch up.  So I always stay current.  Sometimes that means I don't get as much writing in as I want to in a write up, and sometimes I miss small things, or don't get it quite the way I'd ideally want it, but at least it keeps me current.


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## Ashy (Jan 6, 2007)

Next session we play will be Session 31 and the latest post of mine is Session 16, but there are large gaps in what is posted - there's more on my website, though (see sig).  We're still churning them out, however, and I record them all digitally on my laptop, so they WILL be written before its all said and done....


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## Delemental (Jan 6, 2007)

When I first started mine, I was about a year behind the campaign, but I did that on purpose because I wanted the 'padding'.  However, between a 7-month hiatus in the game, and more recently the disruption of the holiday season, my Story Hour is now caught up to current events, and new entries will likely keep pace with the game.  We play weekly, and I can write up a session in about 3-5 days, depending on amount of free time and motivation.


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## el-remmen (Apr 26, 2007)

There is definely a slippery slope of falling behind.

While I finished my "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour this past December, I started a new one for my "Second Son of Second Son" campaign (see sig) this past February.

At first, I was all caught up, starting on writing up a session on the same evening the session happened and finishing somewhere in the 2 weeks before the next session.  

But between the unforeseen events of life and my first full-time semester of grad school, by the time our 7th session came around, I was still not finished writing up the 6th. 

Well, I finished the 6th, but now I will be much further behind in the 7th when we play the 8th this Sunday, which means of course, I will be even further behind when the 9th rolls around (unless the month break we are taking allows me to catch up - but since final papers and exams will be due/happening in three weeks of that month, it is unlikely).

I guess my point is that no matter how "good" I am about writing (and I try to do at least a few lines everyday) I think it might be close to impossible to remain "caught up" on a story hour.


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## sniffles (Apr 27, 2007)

I'm all caught up on all of the Story Hours that actually belong to me. But there's one that actually is "owned" by another player, and unfortunately he's fallen behind, which has made me fall behind too because I wait for him to post first before I add my update.


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## el-remmen (Oct 10, 2008)

*Threadomancy 2: Electric Bugaloo*

How's about a little bump to say that once my group plays tomorrow's session I will have fallen _*ELEVEN*_ sessions behind the current action in terms of the "Second Son of a Second Son" story hour. . . sigh. . .


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## barsoomcore (Oct 11, 2008)

I generally don't start writing my story hours until the campaign is over (how do you know how to start if you don't know how it ends?), so the fact that Barsoom wrapped up more than three years ago, and that I'm writing about an early part of the campaign, doesn't bother me at all. I have about ten more episodes to wrap up Barsoom Tales II, and that's all the story hour writing I have planned right now.


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## havenstone (Oct 18, 2008)

*Talismans of Aerdrim*

I just posted a Talismans of Aerdrim episode from 12 and a half years ago.

In theory, the campaign is ongoing, because I do want to have another couple reunion games to wrap it up... but I'll call it completed for purposes of the poll, the last game having been in 2006.


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