Comments on The Free RPG Blog: How to write a free RPG - Chapter 3: Writing and s...

Ah. I took the Style section as largely being on e...

2012-01-04T00:21:48.874Z

Ah. I took the Style section as largely being on editing (and hence trimming down). Anywho, I'll eagerly await Chapter 7, then.

Thank you, Thought! I'm glad you agree that it...

2012-01-02T22:42:55.492Z

Thank you, Thought! I'm glad you agree that it's pretty typical as I am really not trying to rewrite the workshop manual for the wheel. I mention trimming down a game as part of testing (Chapter 7). It was originally in this chapter but when I read the game as a whole, I worried that people would trim the game down too early. This writing and style chapter aims to keep the words coming in - Testing is where the cold light of day shines down.

Thanks for your comment, I am glad you're enjoying the series!

This is a fairly standard "How to Write"...

2012-01-01T02:38:10.196Z

This is a fairly standard "How to Write" post, but that is a good thing. A lot of what you said here can be found in Stephen King's "On Writing," for example, so you know you're in successful company. The advantage of your version is, of course, that it's tailored for the game-writer community, that it IS a good bit shorter than a book, and that it is in your lovely "Lang-lian" style.

In particular, the comment about setting a time aside to write every day is incredibly important, and can never be said enough. One can write through writer's block, but one can't write through "not writing."

A concept that might be useful to include in the "style" section is King's rule of that the second draft should be 10% shorter (at least) than the first. If you have a chatty style in the first draft, well, it is more important to be chatty and writing than to be laconic and not writing. But cutting subsequent drafts down forces out the unnecessary chattiness, helps make points clearer, etc. Or if you are having a separate section for editing, perhaps this might go there.

Anywho, I'm being chatty. Lovely post.

Having a different project was one I considered in...

2011-12-27T21:28:45.464Z

Having a different project was one I considered including but my problem with that is that it is difficult to set in motion a process to get you back onto the original game. You can't really make a useable rule that says "Do something else for 2 weeks then come back to it" because rules like that are difficult to keep to. I tend to have about 10 on the go!

Thanks for commenting, I am sure it will work for someone.

Often my problem is burnout. No matter how long I ...

2011-12-27T14:29:54.332Z

Often my problem is burnout. No matter how long I sit I can't think of something to say. In most situations if I go onto a different project (home remodeling, writing a novel, learning to juggle) for a while, my creative juices start flowing again.