This month is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to all the cool kids). For reasons modern science cannot explain, I have decided to subject myself to this ritual. I walked into NaNoWriMo with a nonzero amount of hubris that was quickly shattered on the rocks of reality. It’s not that I thought I was going […]
Writing Contest: Reap What You Sew
In the footsteps of my flash fiction of last week, my friend Leah teamed up with author Joseph Devon to host a writing contest… about sewing. Can you take this seemingly harmless craft and use it as a story’s climactic scene? Show us what you can do!
One Hundred Monkeys, One Hundred Typewriters, One Hundred Wands Of Magic Missile
As some of you are no doubt aware, WotC has once again opened the window for article pitches to Dungeon and Dragon. For the first time in my life, I have decided to submit some stuff. As I have been writing about roleplaying games for nearly 5 years now, and with the recent success in this arena of several of my esteemed blog-tribe fresh in my mind, one might think I would be overconfident. One would be crazy wrong.
Defeat Your Invincible Enemy Using This One Weird Old Trick
In both fantasy and science fiction, it’s a fairly common theme to pit unlikely heroes against impossible odds. In very few circumstances do we said unlikely hero train and practice for years to become strong enough to beat his enemy — in many cases, the fan has been thoroughly defecated upon and the problem needs to get solved as soon as possible. That means something really unusual needs to happen in order for the good guys to win. Are you brave enough to wield the double-edged sword to give your players this option? Will you cut your own kneecaps off? Will they beat you to death with their PHBs? Or will you achieve Total Victory?
Pain of Publication: Writing to Revise
Even though revisions are a pain in the ass, there’s a feeling of wizardry when you combine two throwaway characters into one quirky minor character or change a few proper nouns around to create foreshadowing. It almost feels like cheating. Knowing that revisions will be made should inform how you write a draft. I have learned to prioritize certain aspects of writing in my first draft and give other considerations lower priority.
The Pain of Publication III: Making the Most of your Work Sessions
The reality for most aspiring authors is that their writing has to give way to the realities of a full life outside of it. Most of the time, that means squeezing in time in between your job that pays you and other life activities. However, sometimes you can get lucky and have the opportunity to spend a large dedicated chunk of time writing without work getting in the way.
Chatty’s 2nd Anniversary at Critical-Hits: The Enthusiastic Storyteller
In which Chatty realizes he’s been blogging at this here website for two whole years… and then indulges in good old fashion navel gazing for a few more hundred words.
One Hour Blog Post: Don’t Need To, Want To!
Where Chatty tries yet another new schtick to get the writing juices again and manages to pull it off!
Preference is Puzzling
It is not terribly hard to write a typical dungeon-delve adventure with 3 encounters, a skill challenge, and the PCs rushing in at the last moment to stop the ritual before the evil creature of great power is unleashed. Many DMs and players are happy with that. Thank goodness! However, not every DM or player is happy with the standard fare.
Chatty DM, Freelancer, Part 5: OMG! I Made it!
In which Chatty comes full circle and ends up being a freelance designer of the games that brought him up into the hobby in the first place.
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