format/style for Story Hours

[Desdichado]

In my case, it's all written after the fact, and I'm making up the dialogue. I think it's true to the characters as played by my players, but it's not their actual words.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

On a somewhat related note, how info do you "gather" during the actual session before you write a story hour entry? Do you do it off the top of your head?

I noticed a lot of stories use dialogue. Do you just remember what is said? Do you write it down during the session or is it just paraphrased?

With my story hour, we had recorded things with a tape as we went along, and then ended up writing it down. The writing I'm doing is a clearer and more to the point version of that original we had as a group. The dialogue is a mix of the actual things said and things I've made up to speed things along.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

On a somewhat related note, how info do you "gather" during the actual session before you write a story hour entry? Do you do it off the top of your head?

I noticed a lot of stories use dialogue. Do you just remember what is said? Do you write it down during the session or is it just paraphrased?

Paraphrased at best.
I focus more on the characters motives, style and the situation at hand to repeat dialogue. I could not for the life of me remember exactly what was said in a game session. However, sometimes something will be said that is so perfect, it deserves to be written down or explicitly remembered. Watch out for those quotes and write em' down. There's a few I wish I had of.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

PS: Looking forward to your story hour whenever it comes. [Settles down with popcorn and waits for the adds and promos to finish]

 

[GlassJaw]

PS: Looking forward to your story hour whenever it comes. [Settles down with popcorn and waits for the adds and promos to finish]

Uh oh, pressure.

Well it definitely won't start until after the holidays but maybe I'll post my campaign site soon to whet everyone's appetite. I'm hoping it will be the first campaign-length Grim Tales Story Hour.

 

[Silver Moon]

Writing in word and spell checking is a plus. I usually keep my posts to a single chapter of around two pages in word (plus or minus half a page to have it end at a good break point). Each chapter works out to around an hour of game time. I paraphrase rather than using exact wording although I make a point to write down the really good or really funny lines to get them into the Story Hour exactly as stated.

And don't get discouraged if there is fairly low readership and few reader comments. Most readers seem to prefer to just read instead of providing feedback to the author and new stories by new authors never seem to get the readership of the well established ones. As stated before, write for yourself.

 

[NTZ]

Writing in word and spell checking is a plus. I usually keep my posts to a single chapter of around two pages in word (plus or minus half a page to have it end at a good break point). Each chapter works out to around an hour of game time.

Thanks Silver Moon, you answered a question I was planning on asking - write it in Word. I always wondered if people type some of the longer entries with Word instead of typing directly into the message board.

I'm looking forward to GJ's story hour for the simple reason that I will be part of it!

NTZ

 

[Silver Moon]

A few more tips -

Feel free to play around a little with the chronology of what happened in the game if it will improve the flow of the story;

Omit the long rather dull sections that may crop up in the game, a sentence or two can usally cover that and keep things moving;

Begin the initial post with a short description of the characters;

Leave out the stray actions and subplots that go nowhere (most DM's toss those in but often the players decide to skip them - no reason to clutter up the Story Hour with something that doesn't move the story forward).

Feel free to add DM's notes, probably at the end of the post so as not to interrupt the flow of the story.