Reply With Quote- - - WA Update - - -
---------------- All Members ---------------
Tomorrow is our first Brainstorming Session! Please come prepared with story ideas to share and discuss!
As of right now, the starting time is 10:00 am EST.
Have a great day!
The Writer Assembly
The Next Era of Quality Stories
Role Play Discussion Thread
The WA is a circle of innovative author’s that coalesce to brainstorm quality story ideas, produce convincing treatments of the ideas, and introduces these tales to the world.
Members:Spoiler
It seems that at the moment, most stories that regulate around the role playing community are declining in quality. The majority of stories appear to contain “write as it comes” movement and understandable but less than suitable plot expanse. This is the reason why the WA was brought into existence.
Meetings to discuss ideas and treatments will be held weekly to biweekly. Below are a few of the steps the WA takes in consideration whilst discussing story/plot ideas and treatments:
Phase 1: Brainstorming
• What genre is the idea categorized in?
• Does the idea effectively capture interest?
• Is the idea clear?
• Does the piece have an appropriate title that generates interest?
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Current Brainstorming Ideas
Spoiler
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Phase 2: Analyzing the Treatment
• Does the treatment effectively capture interest?
• Does the treatment make sense?
• What are the pros and cons of the idea?
• Is the treatment’s theme clear? Are any parts confusing?
• Where does the treatment stand in the category of the Four Comprehensions?o Incomprehensible: Due to serious problems with content and/or mechanics, the message simply cannot be understood.
o Understandable: Although the message may contain many errors of various kinds, the basic point seems clear. This is a good start for any treatment.
o Favorable: In addition to having a plot and theme that seems clear, the writing gives a favorable impression. Content is probably well organized and well supported; mechanical errors are probably few. All treatments should strive after the 2nd-3rd revision to reach this level.
o Eloquent/Profound: Not only does the clear plot create a favorable impression, something about the content, word choice, sentence structure, figurative language, etc. moves the reader to “Wow!”__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _______
• Does everything in the treatment contribute to this main idea?
• Should anything be deleted because it is irrelevant to the story?
• Does the treatment “flow” between plot suggestions?
• Does the piece have an appropriate title that generates interest?
Starting Treatments
Spoiler
Final Treatments
Spoiler
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Phase 3: Final Composition/Introduction
• Does the introduction effectively capture interest?
• Is the introduction clear? Are any parts confusing?
• Are ideas supported and developed in the OP?
• Can you identify a main idea that pervades the introduction?
• Does the ending of the introduction leave the reader with a final impression that reinforces this main idea?
• Does the introduction use concrete images that bring the composition to life?
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Final Compositions (OPs)
Spoiler
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Special Thanks to Brovo, Kestrel, and Marrone for their advice!
Last edited by MasterCrew; 11-09-2012 at 09:06 AM.
- - - WA Update - - -
---------------- All Members ---------------
Tomorrow is our first Brainstorming Session! Please come prepared with story ideas to share and discuss!
As of right now, the starting time is 10:00 am EST.
Have a great day!
Unfortunately, a family matter prohibits me to begin the Brainstorming session. If you guys want to start it without me, please do so! Talk about the ideas you have for stories. Pick two that you would like to go a little more in depth on. Hope you guys have a great day!
Before discussions start, I want to address this:
What's interesting about roleplaying versus writing stories is that it's difficult to calibrate a sense of action economy. Because characters in a roleplay have an unusual amount of agency compared to those in stories (or, it takes a damn good writer to not unconsciously shunt certain characters to archetypal roles), they will exercise their thoughts and actions in ways unanticipated to the master of the game (unless the master is very experienced). The issue with this is that every universe has a sense of action economy. In the real world, time, safety, and mental security are incredibly important resources, and education, training, and skill are scarce. Therefore, action would emphasize protecting one's usage of time, ensuring one's safety, while prioritizing the attainment of education and training.Originally Posted by MasterCrew
In a superhero world, however, all of those things are secondary. Time and safety are more or less expendable (plot armor), while education and training are abundant (therefore, less time should be spent on them). What does Bruce Wayne spend his time doing? Acting the playboy, and social networking. How safe is Bruce Wayne? He spends his free time beating the living shit out of bad guys. What is Bruce Wayne's education and training? He happens to have like a dozen PhDs from top universities, as well as top-of-the-class special forces training. But hey, in his universe, getting such education and training appears to be fairly straight forward. One might suppose that Bruce Wayne is a genius, and as such it is easier for him, but as a matter of pure education a dozen PhD's is something that would require two decades straight of textbook reading, no breaks. Unless Bruce Wayne can assimilate knowledge instantly from books, he still doesn't have enough time to get a dozen PhDs in the real world even if he is the greatest intellect ever to exist.
Thus, Bruce Wayne's universe has some way to allow one person to grab two dozen PhDs. One of two options presents itself, a) the value of a PhD has severely diminished, or b) there is some method to quickly and easily grant knowledge to a student. Either way, education and training are significantly more abundant in Wayne's universe.
What's the point of bringing this up? Well, imagine how a character would behave in real life as opposed to Wayne's universe. In real life, there's no plot armor. Time is spent no matter what you do with it, and safety is never guaranteed. (You could say this is what makes A Song of Ice and Fire a very good series, that it incorporates the feelings of time and danger.) In real life, education and training are things considered a very good investment of time. In Wayne's world, however, time spent outside of drama and action is of very little consequence, while safety is guaranteed so long as there's no utility in death. In Wayne's world, education and training are worth lesser investments of time than their real world counterparts, mainly due to how easy it is to gain knowledge.
In terms of roleplaying, this affects the story by an incredible amount. How a player interprets the action economy influences what kind of agency s/he exerts.
Worst case scenario, you have one player whose idea of gritty is some dark fantasy Batman comic, while another player whose idea of gritty is real life.
That is astute statement martingale! Thank you for bringing it up!
You are correct in that it's difficult to calibrate a sense of action economy when writers interpret plot elements or character's contrastingly. It is something that all writers, especially role playing writers, need to look to now and again to remind themselves that they don't see the story's universe the same way another writer sees it.
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Now on to our Brainstorming Session #1
Topic 1
Fantasy Role Play
Are there any story ideas, under the fantasy umbrella, that we could discuss and possibly turn into a treatment? (In other words, what to you sounds like an engaging story)
In my spare time, I create fantasy worlds/maps and try to write a story off of them. There is one story in particular that I enjoyed writing, but as I passed it by multiple authors, they turned their heads and said it would work better as a role play. Here are the key elements for the role player:
- Medieval Time Period (think Lord of the Rings but more real life like, Melee and Bow are really the only weapons)
- Picture of World
- Your character is a soldier in a lesser dominating, middle map country's military (Lesser Countries: Eulor, Bolitor, L'Baia, Hedland)
- Character can be a number of humanoid species (I can post the species if you would like)
- Character sent to fight dominating country in major conflict (Dominating Countries: Amalas, Tasmantis, Rhodondor, Ceypunthos)
- Outcome is left up to the writing team
Just on the world itself and on the humanoid species, I have pages and pages of information. If you would like to know more, I can easily provide it!
Does this idea sound interesting?
Any ideas for the discussion topic?
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