ATTENTION: Story Hour in Print? (Authors and Readers, come in!)

[evildmguy]

As a SH author, I find the notion of seeing my opus in print to be pretty intriguing, but I have a number of caveats and opinions. (And please, do recognize that these are just opinions; I’m not trying to present them as facts!)

For one, if I were ever to have my own SH published, I’d want to finish it first. The campaign, that is. Whether or not a SH is published as a novel or a gaming product, I think it should have narrative closure. So count me out personally for at least another couple of years.

For another, I don’t think most Story Hours (mine included), even the well-written ones (mine not necessarily included ))) would make very good novels. That’s because the pacing of a good novel is much different than the pacing of a good D&D campaign. Almost any story hour would need some serious revision, in terms of going back and including foreshadowing, character development, breaks in the action, etc. I know mine would. Just recently I rewrote my original two-paragraph opening as an 18-page character introduction. I’d want to do something like that for the whole dang thing.

Side-adventures not connected to the main plot would want to be culled out of a novelization, but included if you were writing a gaming supplement.

In many cases, descriptions of combats would be problematic in the “novel vs. game supplement” debate. When I’m reading as a gamer, I want a sense of the action-by-action flow, so I can imagine how the combat played out at the table, get ideas about gaming tactics, etc. But If I’m reading as a novel-reader, that’s not at all how I want to read about combat. Good fight-scenes in novels tend to follow one character over several “rounds,” as it were, to give the reader a better sense of their perspective and emotions during a battle. Skipping to a new character every six seconds would make a true novel too choppy to read well.

Similarly, the way in which PCs come and go in many campaigns would seem weird in a novel format. I imagine it’s not unusual to have (for instance) a beloved character whose player moves away or drops out of the game 2/3 of the way through the story. If this were a novel, there would have be a damn good reason, from a story perspective, why that character dropped out or faded away. If in-game the DM just quietly retired the character, or had them suddenly go off to pursue some extra-campaign agenda, that wouldn’t work in a novel.

Finally, there’s the problem of the dangling plot thread. Recently Piratecat let us know that he had found no less than 30 still-dangling plots, even after the recent tumultuous conclusion of the current arc. It would not be terribly surprising if in a few years time his campaign will end without us players having followed up on every last one of these. In a game, that’s not a big deal. In a novel, if you’re going to set something up, you’d better follow it up, too. That means that when a campaign ends, it would behoove an author-to-be to go back and remove references to plots that never went anywhere.

Despite my misgivings, I think there are Story Hours out there that would make great novels, if the authors had the time to address these points. I’m thinking of Piratecat’s and Sepulchrave’s in particular, though there are certainly others.

I can imagine rewriting my Story Hour to be a pure novel someday (assuming I come across a magical djinn who grants me a life of 50 hour days so I can go back and rewrite most of it). I can also imagine writing it as a gaming supplement, with constant footnotes and annotations explaining the goings-on in the DM’s head concurrent with the action. I don’t have a good enough sense of the publishing business to know which would be more saleable, or have more demand. But I’d enjoy writing either.

-Sagiro

Hey! I thought I said that in my own response when I said I wanted a beginning, middle and end with no serialization and no Jordan!

Kidding. I was thinking of the these things but had too many other things going on at the moment I was replying to say it as well as you did here, Sagiro. So, thanks!

Have a good one!

edg

 

[el-remmen]

I think all of Sagiro's questions/comments/concerns (save the one about the campaign not being completed) can be laid to rest by marketing them as the novelization (narrativization?) of D&D campaigns.

All the dangling plots, coming and goings of "main" characters, disappearances of NPCs and minor characters, etc . . . could all be excused that way.

And as for combat, I already try to write mine the way he described, that is describing several rounds from one PC's point of view and then either skipping "back" in time to explain what anotehr character was doing, or ifd not immediately important simply showing the result. . .

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Let me emphasize strongly that I do not want the Story Hours rewritten to "novel" style. I can understand the appeal of doing so, but these stories are, and should be marketed as, the narratives of actual campaigns. Going back and erasing significant parts, or reworking things to make them more like a regular novel, would make them of little interest to me.

There are enough fantasy novels out there. These are not fantasy novels. They are something else: a record of a collaborative universe. They are almost documentary in nature. I don't believe significant alterations should be made; some will be necessary in the editing process, but I think they should be published more or less as they are.

 

[Old Drew Id]

As an author, I would love to get anything into print, just for the sake of having my writing in print (not just in PDF form.) As a reader, I would be interested in something like an Anthology, sort of a "Tales from the Gaming Table" kind of thing. I think my SH, and some of the others as well, would have to be either expanded to go full-length, or else trimmed down to short-story length. Eliminate the excess plot lines, etc. and just take the "best of" from each SH and turn it into a short story. Then include a few maps or stats from each SH for game content.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like that concept. You could break out the anthology into genres. Start with the fantasy genre, for instance, and have a section intro that outlines the genre, plus the different rules sets, books, gaming aids, etc. that were used in each of these stories. Then give the stories themselves, then follow them with an appendix of stats. Then do the same thing for section 2 "d20 modern", then section 3, "pulp adventures", etc.

As a reader, I would be interested in that, to see not only what the stories were, but also what the different rules sets were, and what products everyone used, etc. I imagine there could be a good deal available there wherein the different publishers might help out if they got a good plug in there.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'd like to echo Sagiro's point about a story hour working as a straight narrative -- I don't think, in the long run, they'll work. A D&D campaign is not the same thing as a novel -- the structure is very diffent, character motivations will be very different, and there is far too much focus on things like combat that really take a back seat in most decent fantasy novels because, frankly, it's hard to make physical action interesting for long stretches on the page.

Hard? I am not afraid to say I think I did a fine job with the action in my own SH. I can't speak for other authors here, though I can point to many of my own inspirations from the genre who handled physical action quite well, thank you.

Read any Elric, lately? Conan?

As SH readers we're interested because we know the rules of the game, how it works, and we appreciate a level of complexity that a non-gamer reader won't, and can't hope to get.

I don't know the first thing about Dark*Matter, but it has never hindered my enjoyment of jonrog's story hour. Not once during a read have I ever thought, "This is a game."

Some of the writing in the SHs that are out there is very good, compelling writing. But they don't have enough narrative shape and variety to work as a stand-alone novel, and pretending that they do is asking to be disappointed with the final product.

I don't believe I ever used the word "novel." On this we agree: I am not suggesting the publication of "novels." I'm talking about publishing some entertaining stories. Damn fine stories.

Folks used to be satisfied with that, once. REH wasn't writing novels. Lovecraft wasn't writing novels. I'll take REH over Jordan any day, thanks.

These Story Hours are not examples of the novel art form, nor do they strive to be, as far as I can tell; neither does that diminish them in any way.

This is a new genre and a completely different art form (the writing is not collaborative though the genesis is).

I don't think it's necessary to be a gamer to enjoy these tales.

I think "Tales from the Gaming Table" is an excellent descriptor.

Wulf

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Would the one author (the first, at least) who voted "no way" care to elaborate?

I don't ask to marginalize, merely to understand; if you are not comfortable posting here, please private message me.


Wulf

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Ah . . . there's nothing that warms a Peck's heart like riling up Wulf .

And you do a damn fine job describing the action in your SHs, no question, and you are one of my favorite SH authors because of it. And I've read plenty of Conan, Elric, Gemmel, Cook, and many more to make excellent examples of action writing. But even those examples don't spend as much time in detailed combat as a gaming group does -- and by extension most story hours. And that's why I think trying to pretend that a story hour is anything other than a gripping story from the gaming table is a mistake.

-rg

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

And that's why I think trying to pretend that a story hour is anything other than a gripping story from the gaming table is a mistake.

Great!

So who's pretending that?

(Not to mention that I dispute the premise that most SH's focus extensively on the combat...)


Wulf

 

[MTR]

I lurk on enough story hours I should speak up here.

While I regularly follow six story hours and have read parts of a number of others, I believe only two of the authors write well enough I would buy a novel of theirs. The rest of them are good "war stories" of the kind gamers always swap when they get together. They're entertaining without professional quality writing. You're really talking about a new type of work, between a dungeon and a novel.

I don't know any law but I could see some potential snags. Wizards has a copywrite on a bunch of material the authors would have to use. I don't know if a player in the campaign could complain that the author was using his character/dialog/ideas without permission.

I didn't vote in the poll above because my opinion is a little more complicated. The more material I could use in my personal campaign, the more I'd be willing to pay. There is a definate disincentive because this board has more story hour stuff than I can possibly read.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Great!

So who's pretending that?

(Not to mention that I dispute the premise that most SH's focus extensively on the combat...)


Wulf

I guess no one is.

Actually, I thought that people were moving in that direction, and I was just heading that idea off at the pass. Because, as a woefully, ruefully, sadly failed SH author with a following of 0, my opinions and ideas are the MOST important on this thread.

-rg