Hello Mr. Greenwood, I am a beginner writer of fantasy universes, but always while I am creating some scenery or city, I deviate and lose my focus on the main story a little which ends up affecting the quality of the adventure. How did you stay focused during your creations, even with so many details?
You have always been a great reference!
Thank you very much for all your work!@TheEdVerse— Patonieri 🇧🇷 (@patobfr) May 30, 2020
1/Happy to! The problem is: we’re all different; any advice I give might not work for you.
But borrow the old TSR approach: what is the core ethos of your setting, or your adventure, or your story?
Meaning: boil what’s going on/what you want to achieve down to a sentence or so 2/So it might be "We need to go into this war-torn kingdom and find the woman who invented this new wagon suspension, and get her out of there alive and unharmed before the invaders kill her. But we don't know who she is, or how to convince her to come with us."
So, rescue…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 30, 2020
3/…mission is the core, and the identifying and convincing are two hurdles/subplots.
Write it down. Then consider format (RPG adventure? film? prose fiction? computer game?) and how that will shape/limit the project.
Then, what tone/flavor do you want to predominate? Fighting.. 4/…to the fore? Solving a mystery? Decide that, and your target audience (players you know? characters of what class/level? How big a party?)
Those are your goalposts.
They determine the big encounters/scenes. Think about what scenes you want to have, and in what order.
Get…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 30, 2020
5/…some sticky-notes, or recipe/index cards, or same-sized pieces of paper, and a large flat surface (table or even floor). Write down each scene you want on a separate card/page/note. Arrange them in desired order. Put blank cards/pages/notes between them. Draw arrows on… 6/…these "between" surfaces to join the desired scenes.
Then sit down, look at the chain/sequence you've created, and on each "arrow card" write what the MINIMUM info you need to tell the reader/viewer/players between the scene before that arrow, and the scene it points to, …— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 30, 2020
7)
…make the story make sense (so those entering a scene understand and appreciate the stakes in that scene). Here’s where you think about pacing, and challenges (monsters to fight, puzzles to solve).
When you’ve got a shape you like for your adventure/story, record the… 8)
…whole thing in whatever way works for you (so you can give the table or floor back to general use). It might be taping everything together into a chain and pinning it onto a wall, or putting it on a shelf. This is your spine for the whole project. Refer back to it…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 30, 2020
9)
…whenever your creative focus starts to sidetrack. Maybe you don’t need to detail every shop or inn or tavern in that city. Maybe we don’t need to know all the noble families and their feuds. Maybe you can build urgency into the pacing so players won’t have time to explore.. 10)
…the city or the nobles, and have to hurry to get to a particular innkeeper before he flees, because the city is burning down. Source of excitement can be used to narrow/sharpen the focus of the project AND yours while crafting it.
And as I said, we're all different; …— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 30, 2020
11)
…this might not work for you. But give it a try, and see; it might!— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 30, 2020
