Writers' Corner time!
I've had a couple of discussions with other players about getting stuck in a rut with their characters, not sure where to go next or what to do. It's something I run into a lot myself, and it's the cause of about 90% of occasions where I just lose interest in a character and drop from a game. To combat this, I've been reading up on a lot of blogs and watching videos on how to keep going when you've painted yourself into a corner or feel yourself running on fumes, with the intent of being maybe not the best writer in the group, but at least among the most dependable.
So with that, here are some Cheap Tricks to Keep Stuff Moving:
Blow Something Up
Seriously. The superhero genre is loud and flashy and full of twists and turns, and the biggest, loudest, and flashiest way to change directions in a story is to simply blow something up and see how your character deals with it. Figure out the details as you go, but the important thing is to just make something happen. While the best stories are usually about the people rather than the event, there still has to be an event in the first place.
Kill Someone Off
Yeah, it's cheap and you run the risk of being accused of refrigerator-stuffing, but cheap drama is still often effective. For all the high-minded pontificating about superheroes as 'modern mythology' and whatnot, comic books still have a lot more in common with soap operas and pro wrestling than they do with the Iliad or the Eddas, and that sort of pulp entertainment lives and dies by cheap drama. This is probably the well you want to visit the least often so you don't desensitize the audience, but it couldn't hurt to give the occasional reminder that 'safety' is a relative thing.
Switch the Point-of-View
Maybe your hero isn't doing something important or cool at the moment, but for the sake of pacing you don't want to just jump ahead. That's as good a time as any to see what someone else is doing, whether it's a villain scheming or a support character....supporting, whatever interesting thing might affect the people in your character's sphere of influence.
Just Jump Ahead
Conversely, maybe nobody's doing anything interesting in the immediate moment, so fast-forward to the next time something interesting happens. Maybe do a quick montage or recap to catch the audience up on what's been going on in the meantime.
Do a Run-In
Going back to superheroes having things in common with pro wrestling, you know what your average superhero has? A lot of enemies. This can be especially effective in these 'Year One' settings where everyone's got a bunch of different 'later-on' plotlines all in the oven at once. If you've already established an enmity with one bad guy, then you're not really sure where to go when developing the second one, have the first jump in again and raise the odds against your hero. Again, this shouldn't be something to use as a crutch, but it's a very handy tool to have.
Have a 'Relationship' Scene
This doesn't necessarily mean outright shipping (though it certainly can), but set some time to establish who is important to this character and what the nature of their relationship is. How do they act around their closest friend compared to their boss, or their love interest, or a family member, or their arch-rival?
Follow the advice of P.T. Barnum
Barnum had two simple steps to success in showbiz.
Step 1: find a guy with a great act.
Step 2: Steal it. Watch some movies or TV shows, read some books, find plot hooks or characters or relationships that you like, and put them into your own stuff. Nobody is a font of originality, spinning ideas out of whole cloth. Everything comes from something, and as long as you can scratch the serial numbers off of it and add your own voice to it, you can pretty much get away with whatever you want. Call it a "homage" if it helps ease your conscience.
Fuck 'Motivation,' Exercise Discipline
I'm a pretty fat guy, largely because my diet is mostly garbage, but also because for most of my life, every time I've ever started a workout routine, I end up finding excuses not to hit the gym because I'm not feeling "motivated" to go that day. I've only been able to keep up with my current one because my brother goes with me and gives me shit whenever I skip. As a result, I've lost twenty pounds since we started. Same thing happens with writing. Yeah, it's great when you get that lightning-bolt of inspiration and you just have to start typing, but those lightning-bolts are typically few and far between.
Motivation is a fickle mistress who comes and goes and usually leaves you feeling that much worse when she's gone. Discipline, on the other hand, gets you into practice, and you know what practice makes. It doesn't have to be some crazy unattainable goal, just one you can regularly meet with a little bit of concentration and effort. Right now my goal is a bare minimum of one post a week, shooting for two. And while my stuff isn't exactly brilliant, it's there and I feel just that little bit more confident every time I post. It's the emptiest-sounding platitude I can think of, but it's also the most true: you've just gotta
do it.
Anyway, those are the things that help me. Hopefully they can also help you become
a shameless hack better and more confident with your own posting.
