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bugbearjack · 6 years

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Day two, the return!

So I did the thing. I sat down. Brought up a fresh Microsoft Word page. And I stared at it for a long, long time. The little cursor just taunting me. "Come on buddy, you gotta have something," he says, smugly. He knows I got nuthin.

I force myself to start somewhere, ANYwhere. I decided finally to start with a sound, a **crunch** to be specific. I decided to start with our main characters (or a subset thereof) heading into danger. I know I said I would start them in the shit, but a bit pre-shit I thought was best under the circumstances. Who knows, I might change it later.

It turns out that once you started it was pretty easy to just keep plugging along. I got just over 2 pages. And you know what? It was 100% grade A bantha poodoo. Just the worst thing I've ever seen written down. Too much dialog. Too much description. Not enough of the right kind of description. Don't even get me started on how clumsy the fight scene was. Gross.

But I also know that’s art. I would never claim to be an artist. But I do write D&D adventures for my group, I have professionally made edited videos, and I cook. In my opinion all three f these things are considered art. And in all three cases it scares the shit out of me to present these things for people to consume (both literally and figuratively). However, I don’t get nervous when I cook my boy pancakes, or make that sausage alfredo thing my wife likes. Because I have it down. I've done it many times before. I can only imagine writing is the same. I botched up so many pancakes in my day. Then later I would only botch the very first pancake. Now I am the god damned Gordon Ramsey of pancakes. I will pancake your ass off.

So I am going to push through it. My characters had their first small skirmish with some nasty creatures. Had a bit of dialog/character development/exposition. My goal was to start with something more exciting than "you meet in a tavern" but also give readers a taste of each characters personality without spoon feeding it. Also I dropped hints that this group hasn't really found their grove as a team. Heck some of them don’t even seem to like each other very much.

The interesting thing was that this was supposed to be a nearly direct transcript from the adventure I am running for my players, and in the first two pages I am already taking several tangents away from it. Some of that was to be expected (I had to fix an issue involving sex toys in my game, no that’s not a joke, more on that later). I think that even though the give and take between me and my players create some great moments, many of which I wasn't expecting, some things aren't as interesting as I would like them to be. As I said before, if it doesn't interest me, it won't interest others.

On a side note, this blog is already helping with my writing. I just looked over this document and do you know I started the first 3 paragraphs with the word "so"? Well you don't, because I went back and fixed it. But yeah, that happened.

Side note #2. I just got a notification that I have a follower. I'm not going to lie, that scares the shit out of me. Because now I'm not just rambling to myself. People are actively listening. Judging. It's been less than 24 hours from my first post and someone likes it enough to want more? Slow down Cheezbot, I don't know if I am ready for this type of commitment. Just kidding Cheezbot, you rock!

The other problem I am running into is copyright infringement. So…(Dammit, I did it again) when you create a campaign adventure for your players to meander through you are not only allowed, you are encouraged to steal from anywhere you can. A character from this book, a castle from that movie, Sean Connery's accent for your local Sherriff. Totally ok. However, if I am going to make a novel to be sold for possible monetary compensation, I can’t do those things. Especially since some things I am pulling directly from Wizards of the Coast who owns Dungeons and Dragons. First example: Meffrey plays as a cat person. They are called Tabaxis in the game. I can't use that. So let's find something else. "OK google" I say into my phone. What is Latin for cat? Cattus. Well that sucks. Let's try something more European medieval-esque. Celtic for cat? Cath Sith. Hmmm. It's better, but Final Fantasy 7 already kinda used it. I would love love LOVE to just call them Sith but, you know, that’s got its own issues.

Check this out though. There is a type of cat called a Scottish Kellas. Boom! Done. His race is now Kellas.

Now that I think of it, not only are there terms and names I cannot use, I feel like there are some I shouldn't use. One of my characters is an elven paladin. But that's not what defines him. Yes his 5th edition character sheet does say Level 7 Elf Paladin. But he's a pirate. Well, technically ex-pirate. But I digress. I can't think of a single reason to refer to him as a paladin just because he wears heavy armor, swings a long sword and can smite shit real good. He's a pirate who has lost his ship, his captain and really his sense of purpose. So his character arc will revolve around finding that sense of purpose. Same could be said about the Tabax-I mean… Kellas. He's not a Kellas Rogue. He's a stoner shit head. He happens to be good at swiping things and hiding and stabbing things till they die and purring at the most inappropriate times . However (Spoilers) his character arc so far in the game is my favorite. It's dramatic and evocative and I can't wait to get to the part of the novel.

Alright, I have my intro, the killed the first thing and are now heading to the mcguffin. Now I have to find a way to make traipsing through the woods interesting. I have no idea how I'm going to do that. Probably more dialog, but that feels like a cop out. I don’t want to just have a character say "Jeepers these woods are scary." I need to find a way to shoot that image into the readers mind with my word-foo.

I'll let you know how that goes.

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