Failed promises

[billd91]

Saying "Yuck!" to a book is like saying, "I didn't like it A LOT!" This doesn't seem to insult the writer....but it actually does. "Yuck!" is usally exclaimed by children whenever something distasteful is applied to their tongue. Therefore, saying "Yuck!" to a book is like calling the book "a brussel sprout in the mouth of a 4-year-old." Which is much like calling the writer a torturer of small children.

It's not torture. It's building character.

 

[diaglo]

Brussel Sprout AND OD&D? Wow. You are quite the strange fellow. (And I mean that in the best way possible)

somebody else must've had Bubble and Squeak as a kid.

i'm not the only one in this world with an English Mum.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

My description is not strained, at all, in fact. Do you work in this industry?

Yes.

Have you ever?

Currently do.

I've done freelance work for a dozen or more publishers, worked on staff for one, and been the owner of two....and you?

I've done freelance work in this industry and in sports journalism, and used to own, operate and edit submissions to a major electronic RPG website.

Do you even know how much a writer in this business makes?

$600 a month in a good month, for me. Usually less. Of course, I'm fairly new and hope that will become the low rather than high end, or else I'm in a pickle down the line.

I'll reiterate. Out of about a half-dozen fan complaints I've received about my work in this industry, only one was due to an editor's change. All the rest targeted my own authorial vision. About 75% of my freelance work has appeared in print in basically unedited form - I'm excluding only those works where content rather than presentation changed after I sent it in. Most of the complaints in this thread are about content, not presentation, content, not writing.

 

[Henry]

Hey, Back off Brussels Sprouts! Some awesome food.

And for that matter, let's try and get back to topic, if we can? The Universe, Gomez, and several others are trying admirably, but it keeps seeming to slide into "are not!" "is too!" waters. Any return to the original concept of books that you felt disappointed with after buying, and reasons why other than "because it sucked", would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

What GMSkarka said.

When a person calls a book an abomination, he is insulting the writer, IMO. After all, no writer would write an abomination on purpose. Saying a book is an abomination is much like saying the writer is a "miserable failure as a writer."

Calling a book crap is like he is calling the writer a "crap-maker," and that is also insulting, IMO.

Saying "Yuck!" to a book is like saying, "I didn't like it A LOT!" This doesn't seem to insult the writer....but it actually does. "Yuck!" is usally exclaimed by children whenever something distasteful is applied to their tongue. Therefore, saying "Yuck!" to a book is like calling the book "a brussel sprout in the mouth of a 4-year-old." Which is much like calling the writer a torturer of small children.

My 2 cp.

Tony M

While writing about electronic RPGs, I received death threats over innocuous writing. I've been called a "F'ing retard" over innocuous writing. I've been accused of "catering to fanboys," of lying, of cheating, of intentionally shooting childhood memories in the face (possibly with a hammer, for WotC boardgoers), of being ignorant, uneducated, stupid, mendacious, arrogant, cruel, tyrannical, brutal and generally unsociable.

Aside from the death threats, I never much cared; to tell you the truth, those weren't terribly worrying, either.

I certainly don't care if somebody goes "yuck" about something I write, or calls it "crap" or an "abomination" - unless it impacts sales for my publisher and hence, possible future work for me. That seems somehow unlikely. I mean, come on. How can someone possibly give a rat's posterior about this?! :\

 

[Belen]

My description is not strained, at all, in fact. Do you work in this industry? Have you ever? I've done freelance work for a dozen or more publishers, worked on staff for one, and been the owner of two....and you? Do you even know how much a writer in this business makes?

May I ask why you do it? If the editors constrain you that badly, you get paid crap, and hate to hear it when people do not enjoy what you have written, then why write?

I worked for a 3rd party publishers for 18 months. It sucked and I was happier just developing my campaign world for my players and my own enjoyment. As for writing, I prefer my short stories and novel, which I am steadily getting finished.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Actually, his position is quite clear on the more-than-casual "fans" -- they're bad for the industry, because their willingness to buy crap sight unseen means that more crap is published than would otherwise be the case, and this crap services a market which is ever-shrinking by definition (since the crap drives away all but the hardcore). If there were fewer of these "fans" then products would have to sink or swim on merit. He's already expressed this position in this thread, and I agree with Eyebeams on it. I don't agree with his position on expectation though, and particularly where a legacy brand like GW is concerned (notwithstanding that I personally liked GWd20).

(Incidentally, such fans can in extreme cases be bad for professional sports as well; taking your baseball example, a team with a fanbase that will sell out the park and snap up merchandise regardless of on-field results encourages a non-competitive owner to deliberately lowball the on-field product because, hey, why pay big dollars for a good roster when you can make the same cash fielding a bunch of bums on the cheap? And yes, this does actually happen in the pro sports world and it's not good for the game(s).)

"Non-competitive owners" are the problem, not dedicated fans - at least in the sport I'm most familiar with, pro basketball.

Frankly, in most pro sports, it doesn't much matter if the fans are loyal or not. Revenue sharing keeps teams like the NBA's Atlanta Hawks afloat even when, in the immortal words of then Denver Nugget Jon Barry, playing in Atlanta is like "playing in a morgue" because so few people attend the games. Yet the Hawks keep on chugging along (and putting a terrible product on the court, last I checked).

On the flip side, who doesn't think that the LA Lakers would sell out every game regardless on-court product? Yet the Lakers are reliably a top franchise. The Sacramento Kings sold out every game even when there team hadn't made the Playoffs in about a decade. Yet when the current ownership came in, they put together an elite team. That didn't pack one more fan in, and it cost a lot more than having a loser - but that's what a competitive owner does.

I for one don't believe that many RPG publishers would intentionally lowball a product or throw it together just because they expect dedicated fans to buy it. If nothing else, the fierce competition for WotC's scraps keeps companies on their toes - not to mention TSR's eventual collapse. This isn't a successful enough industry to keep the RPG equivalent of the Hawks afloat, and even if it were as successful as the NBA, it doesn't do revenue-sharing.

 

[Einan]

The way Midnight is set up, the standard PC goal is "defeat Izrador."

It's a reasonable point of view that in Midnight the standard goal of the PCs is effectively unattainable by the PCs. Hence "unwinnable" by the PCs. Normally in most settings the default goals of the PCs (eg "get money & treasure" or "defeat the Scarlet Brotherhood") are potentially achievable by the PCs.

Edit: I'm talking about the internal aspect of the Player Characters, what their primary goal in life is. Not the goal of the players, or the goal of the campaign or the GM. The players' goal may be "experience what it's like to live in a world without hope" but the character generation rules for Midnight PCs are designed to create Heroes whose goal is "defeat the Shadow", not ordinary guys just trying to exist, or minions of the Shadow (can be done, but not much challenge there). Hence the game is built on this tension - you are expected to play people whose overriding goal in life is not attainable. Some people like this, some don't.

I think that Midnight is fun precisely because the players have to alter their view that the goal is "Defeat Izrador." When I introduce players to it, I tell them that their PCs need to alter their views to a more survival oriented modality. Goals go from defeating the Great Evil to helping my family to move to a safer area or avenging my father's death at the hands of the orcs. It bring the epic nature of the game down to a more personal scale and provides a grittier motivation for playing. It's no longer "we're out to storm the castle," it's "we're out to survive."

Just my two cents. I dig the Midnight, I do.

Einan

 

[GMSkarka]

It is my intention to follow Henry's request and get back on topic, but I wanted to respond to this direct question:

May I ask why you do it? If the editors constrain you that badly, you get paid crap, and hate to hear it when people do not enjoy what you have written, then why write?

One, because that's what writers do. As an author friend of mine once said to me, writers write because they can't imagine NOT writing. They have to.

Two...I don't really write for others any more. I own my own company, produce the stuff I want, and get paid much better than I was as a freelancer. The freelance work that I do nowadays falls under two categories: writing for properties that I'm a fan of, and (more commonly), writing for friends in the industry, because they're friends.

 

[GVDammerung]

Unbelievable. . . .

ROFL! Reminds me of the movie, The Princess Bride . . . "Inconcievable!"

For your reading pleasure, I give you MoogleEmpMog -

I've done freelance work in this industry and in sports journalism, and used to own, operate and edit submissions to a major electronic RPG website. . . .

I'll reiterate. Out of about a half-dozen fan complaints I've received about my work in this industry, only one was due to an editor's change. All the rest targeted my own authorial vision. About 75% of my freelance work has appeared in print in basically unedited form - I'm excluding only those works where content rather than presentation changed after I sent it in. Most of the complaints in this thread are about content, not presentation, content, not writing.

Not as black and white as you seem to imagine, now is it?

You err by imagining your experience is a microcosm of all experience.

You want to whip out your "experience" and me whip out mine and see whose is "bigger?" I'm a shy fellow and I do not denigrate a person's opinion because they haven't "lived the life." In any event, I have little cause to stoop to your level of argumentation and prefer to let you twist in the proverbial wind with your superior attitude and condescention wrapped tightly around your neck for all to see. The merits of your argument are fully evident in how you choose to present them.

We're done, I think.

I'm done. With your attitude, you're finished. I can imagine no publisher listening to you describe your experiences who would want their name associated with yours lest you "defend" your work by blaming the publisher. But that may be just me.

No hard feelings otherwise.

And I'll see your de rigueur "apology" and raise one "But I'm just a newbie to EN World! Please forgive my trespasses!"

Now, what was the topic again?