Building a Scenario: Part #1 Sewing the field, planting the seeds
*An important note: There is no “big reveal” coming. Ryan and I don’t know yet what will happen with our scenario proposal to ASP. We’re not experts in these ventures, and we’re not attempting to hold ourselves out as such. This series of posts is as much about helping ourselves discover the why and how of our collaborative efforts, as it is about helping other would-be submitters. Please keep in mind that we won’t be sharing any content in these posts, and the outcome of our proposal, while important personally, probably won’t ever be discussed within. Content and outcome are simply not the reasons for the posts; read on for process.*
How does one begin a beginning?
Where does the initial burst of inspiration come from to create a story? Perhaps this question/problem is what keeps more people from attempting to create their own content for pen & paper role-playing games like Artesia: Adventures in the Known World.
During our creative process, it was my impression that simply coming up with “Point A” was more difficult than connecting “Point A” to “Point B” to “Point C”, etc. What I took from that little lesson was that working with the first idea you dream up might not be the “best” idea you write, but it might “get the ball rolling” in the right direction, faster than you might otherwise come to that “right” idea. This process also has left Ryan and I with a lot of ideas (more about that below).
At this stage of development, Ryan and I were working more or less independently, with the intention of direct collaboration once we had a few ideas that we both thought were dynamite. I began my search for a scenario topic by re-reading the sourcebook’s text about the Middle Kingdoms (per the submission guidelines’ call for MK-related scenarios). I jotted down notes about different areas/topics that were relatively unexplored by the sourcebook, while crafting characters in my head that I thought would be fun to write about at some length.
“But Mooom, what if they don’t like me?”
I have no idea what ASP wants from writers, beyond what the submission guidelines suggest. Also, I’m a self-conscious writer. I’ve done my share of pen work, but never for public consumption. Therefore, the notion that I may get a rejection letter is scary. It’s probably scary for everyone, including seasoned writing professionals. I had, and have, to keep in my head that my reasons for writing and submitting a pitch were internal: I want to improve as a writer, I want to maintain a collaborative relationship with my long-time friend Ryan, I want to improve my abilities as an A:AKW Guide. As long as these are my goals, I don’t think I can fail, regardless of whether the proposal is successful or not.
What do we do with all this junk?
Eventually Ryan and I began comparing notes. Ideas that shared mutual elements were given special attention, those that were adverse, offensive, or unwieldy were discarded or put aside. We discovered that there is a happy unintended result to our process: Ryan and I have a small library of ideas for future scenario proposals.
What makes a complementary scenario element? We tried to pick smaller ideas that co-exist in a scenario setting that could create multiple facets of a story, but wouldn’t result in two separate storylines. This was harder than it sounds; If you, as a hard working writer think you’ve struck adventure gold, only to have your partner say it will overwhelm the other plot line(s), it can be a disappointment! I think the end result of this process is that all of our plot elements lead to and compliment each other, rather than splitting off into tangents.
Next: Part #2: Putting Pen to Paper, or How to Annoy One’s Self.