Where do you start?

No, I don’t mean where do you start your preparations for the game. I mean where in your storyline do you bring in the player characters (aka the PCs; aka the protagonists)? I’ve already done one post about general advice for starting a story, but games have their own needs sometimes in conflict with general storytelling advice. So here are some considerations I ponder before starting up a game.

Length of Story

How long of a story you want to tell, or perhaps more pertinently how many sessions you want to spend telling it, is probably the single greatest consideration. If you plan to run a multi-year epic story that tracks the rise of the PCs from mere peasants to near demigods, you need to tie them in a lot earlier in the storyline than if you plan on just running one or two sessions.

Even for a one-shot game (one where you play a single session with no continuity with other sessions), where you can start much close to the end of the story, you probably need to do more than just start with rolling initiative for the climactic battle. I mean, you probably could do that, but you’re going to struggle with making that into a story that engages your players. I suppose that is the gaming equivalent of flash fiction (stories of about a thousand words or less).

How to Introduce the PCs

Tying in with the above point, how and when in their careers you bring in the characters matters as much as where in the storyline. What I mean is, do you bring in the characters at the start of their careers (at 1st level, if you’re playing a level-based game) or sometime after they have gained some experience?

In medias res: Yes, you can start a game in medias res. Be prepared to answer (or better, work with your players to answer) a lot of questions early, though.

It can be a lot trickier because you have to then work with your players to establish how they got into that situation. And I’ve seen some people complain about these kinds of starts as “railroading,” which I disagree with on the principle that railroading (that is, the GM exerting so much control over the game’s plot that the players can do nothing to change it) doesn’t exist–only poorly set expectations.

The classic way to start an adventure, “You’re standing outside the entrance to the dungeon,” is definitely a case of in medias res. Why the characters are at the entrance to the dungeon and how they got there are glossed over completely, if addressed at all; all that matters is they are there and they have a dungeon plunder. While that certainly worked just fine in the 70s and early 80s, and the method definitely still has its place and adherents, it seems these days that people expect more from their RPGs.

Starting a game in medias res might be with, “Roll for initiative,” but that doesn’t seem as common (although it was recommended as the beginning of choice in the gamemastering section of the old West End Star Wars RPG). Anyway, starting a game with combat can really get your players’ attention. (And although beginnings aren’t as important in games as in fiction having a memorable start doesn’t hurt.) The real trouble with starting with combat, though, is making the beginning so awesome you can’t maintain the same level of excitement throughout the rest of the game.

You look trustworthy!: Then there is the equally tried-and-true method of telling the party’s (that is, the group of player characters) coming together. This doesn’t have to be terribly creative or extensively roleplayed, but it’s a great way to start a long-term game. This is the equivalent of starting the story the day the main character’s life is thrown into upheaval. Except, since it’s an RPG, you’re talking about the day that several peoples’ lives changed and brought them together. This can be an in medias res opening, with all the PCs coming together to defend their home town from an invasion, or it can a much more laid-back start, where they are drawn together by some other, milder, method (posted announcement, town crier, contest, mutually witnessed event, or whatever). This method works perfectly well for characters just starting their careers (i.e., 1st-level), but it can also work for more experienced PCs who just happen to finally meet.

My Olde Friends: The other side of that coin, of course, is the “You’ve all known each other for several years” method. The main problem with this approach, though, is that the way people who have known each other act comfortably together takes time to develop both in real time and in the imaginary space of RPG characters. What I mean is, characters who have known each other for years are going to act a certain way around each other. It’s hard to capture that kind intimacy and trust with characters you just created ten minutes earlier. That said, this method opens up a lot of storytelling opportunities for both you as the gamemaster and for your players. It’s particularly good for characters who aren’t just starting out, but childhood friends who decide to band together to become adventurers also works.s

…

This post is quite long enough, I think, but there’s more to be said about starting out. I haven’t even gotten to the mysterious man in the darkened corner of the tavern!

I’ll have to revisit starting your game again in the near future. And then I can move on to the most important part of your campaign: the end. Oh, and I guess I really should talk about why I think the idea of railroading is bunk. Lots to say, and with the excitement I have for D&D Next I’ll probably start talking about storytelling in games more often moving forward. :)

So what do you write in morning pages?  Anything.  Lists, rambling, rants, whatever is going through your mind.  The goal is to get out the junk and get your creative juices going in about 3 handwritten pages (or, in the online incarnation, 750 words).  In recent months, my practice of writing morning pages got me through a lot of jumbled thoughts regarding my day job, whether or not I wanted to move, and how I wanted to prioritize my life.  I also used it to get out my story bits that were running through my head, until I ran out for a particular story (and then I knew whether or not I had full stories going around my head, or just bits).

The hardest part about morning pages for me was being candid and honest to myself and not worrying about whether or not anyone else was going to read the blandest, ugliest, or most confused of my thoughts.  This in itself is a good practice, because in writing we can’t hit our readers the hardest if we can’t be honest with ourselves about the story.  (And, of course, the importance of being honest with ourselves–many of us lie to ourselves more than anyone else.)

Most days, my morning pages took about 15 minutes.  Sometimes more, rarely less.   I believe all of us have time for this, or should make time for it.  That said, (speaking of honesty) I fall off of doing mine for large chunks of time.  It’s not about the 15 minutes… well, really, I don’t know why I’m not doing it.  I think because of the concept of them being morning pages, I get busy in the morning and then forget until the evening.  And they are morning pages, right?

Still, if it’s a little thing that’s getting me hung up, then maybe I should just call it journaling, and say that I try to journal regularly.  Whatever it is you do, I recommend spending some time with your daily thoughts and recording them–brilliant or bland–in a private forum for which you are the only audience.  Many people blog publicly to do this, but I don’t feel it’s the same–blogging is a public forum with an audience that is not you.  Try going back to private diaries for a while–online or offline; morning or night–and see what happens.

Do you journal?  Do you feel it’s critical to your creativity?

This is a problem, though, and one I struggle with whenever I tell a story (in any medium, including games).

How is it a problem? According to all the advice I’ve ever seen, we should as storytellers prepare a lot more of our world than we share. I’ve seen various percentages and fractions and ratios thrown around, but the basic point is we should know a lot more than we show. It helps us add verisimilitude and consistency to our stories, and helps us reduce the chances of contradiction and logical fallacies.

But if you’re at all like me, you want to show off everything you’ve made, often at the expense of your story or the interest of your audience.

I think this is a natural inclination, but maybe not. It might come, especially among fantasy writers, by our introduction at impressionable ages to the works of Professor Tolkien. He is the master of oversharing, and indeed that seems to be the point of his works: to reveal a vibrant and living fantasy world. Character and plot take back seats to setting. Note that there is nothing at all wrong with this (see my article on The Three Foci for why I believe that), but even then, you can and should hold back something.

On the other hand, an author I believe who not only does incredible worldbuilding but also knows exactly how much to share and how much to hold back is the author of another popular fantasy series: JK Rowling. Ann and I have been re-”reading” the books (in audiobook format) and I’ve been struck by her excellent use of foreshadowing and subtle worldbuilding. It is clear, knowing what I know about the overall storyline, that she knew a lot about her universe and her storyline as early as… well… the first chapter of the first book! Yes, Rowling has revealed a lot more about her universe since she completed the books, but it is all superfluous. It might explain a few things, but none of it was needed for her story so, although she knew it, she left it out.

That takes discipline as a storyteller (I think… although maybe for some people it just comes naturally?), and it’s something I want to begin to emulate (say, for my recently mentioned NaNoWriMo story…).

How about you? Do you find it easy or difficult to hold back from sharing everything you’ve created? And if you do hold back, how easy is it for you to decide what to share and what not to?

But then I stopped making my word count goals. I tried again, on and off, but it didn’t stick.

What happened? I’ve been thinking about this for years, trying to find the answer, and I think that I’ve finally found it–the fuel ran out.

Daily word counts are a tool–and whether a good or bad one depends on the writer. They are a measuring stick designed to get us to make progress. We like quantifying and numbers and charts. We see them all the time, and in something like writing a story, it’s nice to be able to quantify it, isn’t it?

It is, but at the same time, I think setting word count goals need to be combined with other motivations. In my past prolific novelist life, when I could write nearly as long as you’d let me, it gave me a stopping mark. A place to say, “Okay, I’ve done it. Time to fold the laundry.” However, without the fuel of passion, word counts became a grind. During past NaNoWriMos, I’d heard people telling others that if they got stuck on their words to (literally) throw non-sequitor ninjas into the story or an explosion. And if that works, that’s fabulous. But it also impressed on me that when you’re doing that, you might just be writing for the numbers, not the story. In that case, I think it’s more valuable to not worry about your word count and spend some time figuring out what happens next, or why you’ve hit the stumbling block you have.

Storytelling is an art, and art can be difficult to formulate into numbers because numbers are far easier to grasp and understand than your imagination. Word counts are made with good intentions–a goal post to make deadlines–a sign of progress–but they aren’t the end all of storytelling.

So if you aren’t writing to word count, what is the alternatives?
1) Writing until you feel done (or you run out of time).
2) Writing to the end of the scene.
3) Writing until the end of the chapter.
4) Writing until you reach the end of the event in the story (which may or may not fall under 2 or 3).
5) Timed writing.

Options 2-5 still have a feeling of “word count” goal writing, and while Option 1 is my preference, I recognize that it’s vague. Yet I still think of the days when I set 1,000-word goals, and regularly got 2,000-3,000 words in a sitting–on those days, I simply wrote until I was done, and I was satisfied–and satisfied with what I got. Nothing felt forced or invented just to keep the words coming.

Not all parts of storytelling are activities we look forward to–revising seems to cause a common procrastination malady and needing to set goals to gain progress (which I also found hard–if I do 10 pages a day and those 10 pages are clean, does that mean I get the day off?). At the same time, many of us are telling stories simply because we want to tell stories. I want to believe that if we are truly excited enough about this story that’s in our minds, we won’t need number goals to get us through the story. Idealistic? Yes. I’m not saying that word count goals are, in themselves, terrible, but they can be a crutch to be aware of. In recent years, a hard goal of X words a day hasn’t worked, and neither has something vague like “write when I want to.”

Yet, I remember those days–those days when I had word counts, but they weren’t the point. Telling the story was. I haven’t found the path back there yet, but maybe when the right idea steals me away again….

What is in medias res? It is Latin for “into the middle of things” and is the concept of starting your story somewhere other than the beginning. Some stories jump right into the middle and a few of the more daring ones come in right at the end. When a story begins in medias res, it provides no context and the audience is left trusting to the storyteller to fill in who the people are and why they are acting in a dramatic manner. As the storyteller, then, it falls on you to provide that explanation. How is up to you, but there are several tried-and-true ways.

One of the easiest but least interesting ways of providing context is through flashbacks. Better is through conversation. You can go Homer’s route in the Odyssey and combine the two: much of that story is Odysseus telling how he got to the start of the story in the first place! You can also provide backstory through exposition, preferably in small chunks; think about how mystery stories slowly reveal all the clues you and the protagonists need to uncover the who, how, and why behind the crime. If you’re feeling really bold you can just not explain what led up to your starting scene at all, although I think that’s probably best done rarely (although you can get away with it more, I suspect, if your opening scene is a fight of some kind).

So what is the major benefit of in medias res? Instant conflict means instant interest from your audience. If you do it right (and this part, at least, is hard to do wrong), you’ll hook your audience without a lot of effort or risk. I think that must be one reason in medias res is so popular with storytellers.

“Without a lot of risk” isn’t the same as “without risk,” though. I think the biggest danger you run into as a storyteller using in medias res is to not follow through well with the rest of your story. Yes, you’ve captured your audience with your opening scene, but if you can’t keep your audience engaged you can still lose it. How many stories have you started because they had such amazing beginnings but that you later abandoned or thought about abandoning because the rest of the story was dull and lifeless? It does happen! Fortunately, I think it’s a pretty rare occurrence, but it does happen.

But don’t let that risk discourage you! I do heartily believe it’s pretty hard to mess up by starting a story in the middle! If you can write a strong opening scene there’s a really good chance you can write a strong everything-else. Storytellers and readers of a story seem to really like in medias res and I think most audiences are more than willing to trust that you’ll explain what’s going on—assuming that’s even necessary.

So when should you use in medias res? I’d say pretty much whenever you think it appropriate. You can use it in any genre or with any medium. Starting off with a dramatic, high-conflict scene doesn’t have to mean violence (although that’s certainly appropriate for multiple genres). A simple conversation can be in medias res if it carries high stakes with it and the rest of the story is affected by it.

Examples of in medias res abound. It seems to be a favorite of Homer and of war movies, and of course a lot of mysteries begin with the commission of crime, but perhaps the most famous modern example is Star Wars: A New Hope. You know how that begins, right? Two spaceships fly in across the screen, clearly in the middle of a battle. Minus the word scroll at the front of the movie there is precious little context to define who the opposing sides are and why they are shooting at each other in space. That comes a little later. You can find a bunch of other examples at the Wikipedia page.

I started doing NaNoWriMo in 2002, and continued on steadily until about 2007, “winning” each year and setting new challenges. Over the next couple of years following, I tried it and stalled out, and then eventually decided that NaNoWriMo wasn’t a good practice for me anymore and I haven’t even attempted for the last three years.

Being a chronic overachiever, I wanted to do more than just 50,000 words; I wanted to write a whole novel–usually in the 80-100k range for me. In my second winning year I achieved 50,000 words in about 10 days, and finished the novel at 100k words in 22 days. It was a rush, and a lot of fun and I’m glad I did it, because it taught me what I could do when I put my mind to it. (Even if I never touched it again.)

During Novembers, I always went in with a plan–some kind of outline. Unlike Mike, I didn’t start thinking too hard about it several months ahead (I was working on other novels the rest of the year). I like to write while the fire is hot–if I’m feeling passionate enough about a story that I can write 50k in a month, then if I start planning it in May, it’s going to be written long before November rolls around. I’m fickle and when I’m invested in a story, I turn out the first draft quickly. Any story I started planning now, well, honestly, I would probably be bored of by the time November rolled around, and I’d start on a new idea instead.

That said, the years I faltered, I didn’t have much of a plan, and I’m certain that’s one of the reasons I didn’t complete. (Another reason was burn-out, and that’s what fed into lack of planning.)

So, I agree with Mike in that a plan is going to make your trip through November easier. I usually started digging into my planning and research in September or October, and inevitably during November, I would make changes to my outline as I ran into issues or had new ideas. But I had something going in, and that’s important. My outlines ran anywhere from 2 pages to 20 pages, and some stories worked well that way and others didn’t.

As we get nearer, I’ll talk about varying story-survival techniques that have (and haven’t) worked for me, and maybe you’ll find something that sparks an idea for you.

***

So the question, of course, is do I plan on doing NaNoWrimo this year? Truthfully, I haven’t decided. I don’t have any burning stories that scream “write me in November” at the moment. If I do between now and then, I may dive in. If I don’t then I’ll cheer on Mike and the rest of you from the sidelines.

“But Mike, that’s still five months away. It’s way too early to think about it for now.”

If you’re really considering writing a novel (and more power to you if you pull it off), you probably know by now that it’s not something most can just sit down and do on a whim. Think about the novels you read and the time investment you must put into them (even if you’re a fast reader). Now think about how much harder it is to compose than to consume.

Short stories are relatively easy to read and significantly easier to write. Yes, you probably need to do a bit of research and planning for a short story, but when you consider that most are a sixth to a tenth as long as the average novel you can get an appreciation for the added complexity of novel writing.

So why am I suddenly talking about NaNo here at the end of May?

Well, as you might have guessed, I’m considering throwing my hat into the novel-writing challenge again this year. Unlike my first foray into NaNoWriMo in 2009, where I went into the challenge with minimal preparation–I wasn’t even exactly sure of where I wanted to set the story until I was already writing it!–if I’m going to do a massive writing project this November I want to be really ready for it.

Yes, I completed the challenge in 2009 and wrote my 50,000 words, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a success. I’ve not looked at those words since. They weren’t a complete waste, though, as I generated some ideas for other stories out of them. For this year, I’d like to get a stronger result.

If you feel the same way and you’re considering doing NaNoWriMo this or any year, it behooves you to put in the work before you put in November’s work, whether it a be a month or five months. Writing a novel isn’t something most people can just up and do in a month on a lark.

I’m sure Ann and I will talk more about NaNoWriMo before, during, and after November, but let this column be a reminder that it’s going to be here sooner than you anticipate. Start preparing for it now and you’ll undoubtedly find it easier to succeed in November. That’s my plan, anyway!

All that said, I need to practice what I preach and get myself ready for November, and I’ll be sharing my experiences in the process with you as I go.

Right now, this is what I think I need to have ready before November 1st. This list is subject to grow over time:

• Research (mostly 17th-19th century France)
• Outline (I’ve never been any good at this, but it will help)

That’s not a very helpful list, is it? Well, I’ll keep revising it and, as I said, expanding it.

Are you anticipating NaNoWrimo?  How far in advance do you want to start your planning?

That’s pretty decent advice for storytellers (although it precludes more experimental narrative structures, like in the movie Memento) but if you’re struggling with where to start your story it doesn’t actually help. “Where do I start?” “At the beginning.” “But what is the beginning?” “Um…”

In real life, a person’s story begins at birth and ends at death. Or does it? Even for most of us, whose tales will likely not extend beyond our own personal terminal points, the beginning of our stories are not so clear. Is it at birth? Conception? When our parents met? What about the other direction? High school graduation? Military enlistment? The day we met our long-term partner?

A story, an artificial narrative, should be easier to define. Right? Maybe. Just like the question of where our personal narratives begin, we must ask when the story of our protagonist actually starts. Is it the birth of our main character? Probably not. Yes, a story about a person’s life can work (just look at Forrest Gump or The World According to Garp, but it’s a risky proposition. Maybe I’m just not exposing myself to the right stories, but the “person’s life as a story” seems to be a pretty rare narrative. Most people are simply not interesting until at least their mid-teens, anime and manga protagonists notwithstanding.

So, okay, I’ve established when we shouldn’t begin our story, but I haven’t really helped with advice for when we actually should.

One consideration to determine the start of your story is medium. Simply put, what form are you going to use to tell your story?

Let’s start short. For a short story, you want to begin your story as close to the end as possible. A general rule of thumb I was taught in my fiction writing class is to keep your short story all in the same day (or, you know, 24-hour period, if it happens at night). Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”–an amazing story, by the way, that seems to have at least partially inspired The Hunger Games–occurs over the course of a few hours. But what a few hours those are!

For a longer narrative, say a novel or ongoing webcomic or serial, you want to start at the point the primary protagonist’s life changes in and intersects with the presumably longer narrative. Often, a longer narrative begins when someone enters or exits the primary protagonist’s life. If you’re going to make your main character an orphan, the day he or she becomes one works pretty well for this: it worked for the stories of Harry Potter and for Nobody Owens. On the other hand, if you want your protagonist’s life to change because something (or someone) entered it, the day that person (or thing) is introduced is also an excellent place to start. That’s what happened to Frodo Baggins and Antimony Carver, for example.

This, of course, is a very broad bit of advice, but it should help you at least conceptualize where in the narrative you start your story. If you’d like, we can revisit this topic in the future and look at more specific advice for starting out. I already plan on revisiting the topic at least thrice more: once to talk about the pros and cons of starting in medias res, once to talk generally about starting out in games, and once more to talk about starting games in medias res.

The start of your story is an important topic, after all, since in traditional print storytelling (short stories and novels) the beginning is absolutely the most important part. Without a good, solid beginning, you won’t be able to pull in an audience.

So definitely let me know where you’d like me to go with this idea in the future. And maybe I’ll share some of my own struggles with starting stories.

Come back next week when I look at the start of game narratives.

LARPs are an art form all their own and nothing I say here should be taken as a criticism of it, but it got me to thinking about story media in which there are singular–or at least smaller sets–of stars in the show, and how we define them.

One of my particular weaknesses in building characters is that I like to make plain Janes who have interesting people they support around them. I think this tends to be because I, personally, prefer to be in the role of a supporting cast and crew (which I’ll talk more about next week). That’s all fine and good in life, but when you’re building a star for a particular story, you’re looking at a different spectrum of qualities.

For example, one of my first LARP character ideas for this game was a young woman who had basically been raised on an salvage/mercenary airship, who had an eccentric godfather as the captain and lead of this crew. She was a sometimes adventurer, and otherwise jill-of-all-trades support. I mulled over this idea for a few weeks, but knew it was missing a spark. Ultimately, I realized she was a support member for a cast of more interesting NPCs who would not appear in the game.

Now, in her own story, she could emerge as the star of the show, or perhaps I could take a deeper look at the cast and have someone else emerge as the star of the show and let her remain as support, but none of this would have worked well in a LARP, in which there are 25 stars of the show–each with their own wildly divergent personal storylines. So I’ve kept the idea for a later story.

In an archaeological fantasy novel I was plotting some time ago, the main character was a concubine who had a secret an archaeologist very much needed. I puttered on this story for a while as well, and eventually when talking to a friend, she succinctly said, “So your main character is basically just a plot device?” and I realized I needed to take a deeper look. In that case, I decided she would make better support cast to the archaeologist, who had more at stake in this story.

Even in an ensemble cast, such as the trio from the Harry Potter books, there is a primary character, even if the supporting characters are just half a step away. Harry, in those books, has the most going on, and he has the highest personal stakes among the trio. In the Lord of the Rings, there is a huge cast, but eventually they are broken into smaller groups with their own emerging leaders. I’d say Samwise Gamgee and Aragorn emerge as the stars of the show when all is said and done. (And I suspect others have convincing arguments for other characters in the lead.)

It’s possible to have multiple stars of the show, but I believe one is likely to be slightly brighter than the others, and the star is not always the Point of View character. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are classic examples of this: Watson is the point of view because he is someone the readers can identify with, whereas Sherlock is not.

All that said, how do you find the star of your show?

Consider:
1. Which protagonist has the most stakes or personal investment in the story?
2. Could story/end result happen without that protagonist?
3. Are there specific, important things that character does in the story that can’t easily be replaced by or delegated to someone else?

These might not be the only litmus tests to define your star of the show, but they should help you get on your way. Do none of your characters “pass” the test? Or one specific one you want to be your star? Consider the star qualities, and rework that character so he or she can shine.

Now, this post isn’t actually a deconstruction or review of that movie, and I’m somewhat picking on the writers, but it gives me a launching point for today’s topic. And that is this: When you’re getting ready to tell your story, make sure you know what it is. Said another way: If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?

I don’t mean you can’t have subplots or multiple weaving main plots. You most certainly can, as long as you know what the story is you’re trying to tell, you remain primarily focused on it, and you communicate it to your audience. This doesn’t mean you can’t throw your audience a curve ball and change what you present as being the story, as long as it’s a natural evolution in the narrative, you planned for it all along, and you provide a proper conclusion for your actual story. China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun is a perfect example of what I mean.

And if you’re telling a multi-part story, or think you might be, you need two main stories to tell for each part: the overarching one and the individual one of each piece. If you’ve ever considered writing a series of novels (for example) you might have heard the suggestion to make each book stand by itself, because you can’t control how a reader discovers your series. Assume that I’m echoing that advice here, because discovering an ongoing series in the middle (without realizing it) and not being able to follow along is extremely frustrating. I think the Harry Potter and Star Wars series do this well; conversely, Lord of the Rings, the Matrix trilogy, and The Hunger Games series do it poorly (although I thought Catching Fire did this a little better than Mockingjay).

Depending on the length of your story, you might need or want subplots to feed into the main story, and that’s not only fine it’s probably desirable. But keep in mind that these subplots really do need to feed into the main story and not detract—or distract—from it. A short story, for example, has no room for subplots. Anything longer needs them. Usually, these subplots will come from supporting characters (because, presumably, the primary plot is about the focus character) and will often expose their backstories and be a part of why they become a part of the main story. And, really, the most important subplot in a longer piece, at least in genre fiction, and if it’s not already the primary plot, will almost always be the motivations of the primary antagonist.

This is a problem that even I run into with some of my story ideas. For example, off and on over the past few years a friend and I have been developing a webcomic; the characters are designed, the world is mostly built, and the subplots are largely lined up. I even have some story arcs to take the characters through (my friend is the artist; I’m in charge of writing). What I lack as the storyteller, though, is an overarching story. Sure, since it’s a webcomic I could just string along a bunch of unrelated story arcs, and for a while I think our audience would be okay with that. But at some point everyone, especially I, would want to see the story go somewhere. So since I haven’t figured out yet what my story is I’m not ready yet to begin it. Once I do figure it out, though, you’ll be among the first to know.