Wait a minute, y'all.
I think papa_laz has given us a valid critique, even if it is lacking in diplomacy! Sometimes the voices that are the most blunt and critical are the most useful, if not the most pleasant.
Unfortunately, this isn't one of those times.
You missed the boat, papa-- in fact you missed the whole ocean, and I'll tell you why.
I distilled papa_laz's major specific critiques to the following:
For a start, nearly every Story hour writer insists on defining the history and personality of the characters involved before the story even begins . . .
. . . The same applies to the history/geography/politics of the campaign setting.
. . . the story is nearly always told in a linear form, and thus it takes several pages to get to the good stuff.
Why do you all (sorry about the generalisation) insist on doing this? The key rule to any short story is to start off with the action to draw in the readers and then introduce the plot and intrigue to keep them reading.
For the record, your suggestion above is generally accepted as good advice. Got it. If we were writing a short story anthology set around a game world, like the Wild Cards anthology, for example, we would certainly want to follow your advice.
But our stories have a different format, because they are arising from a different condition and are written for a different audience.
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1. The stories are about D&D games.
2. The audience plays D&D games.
3. D&D games operate on a set of assumptions and conditions that must be taken into account:
3a. Those conditions are: The players bring pre-created characters to the table. The DM brings a campaign world to the table, about which there is supposed to be a "level playing field" of knowledge.
3b. The stories do not unfold within the crative say-so of a single individual, but are a group effort.
3c. There is no way to 'revise' plot elements once they have taken place. If you're a writer, ask yourself, how great are your first drafts? In D&D, it's all a first draft, and there's up to five writers!
3d. D&D games are almost always linear.
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Story hour posts should reflect all of these things, in order to keep the context of the game in place. I guarantee the reason that most of us read these stories is because we are intimately familiar with the challenges and limitations of my points above. We love to see what other creative people do with the same sets of challenges and limitations.
So while your criticisms are valid for more traditional stories, they don't really apply to this forum. Or rather, they are trumped by more central concerns.
But I’m preaching to the choir, right? You said:
papa_laz:
I know that the reason for the untraditional method of storytelling is due to the fact that you are for the most part narrating a DnD game. But I dont (sic) see that as any reason for not making it interesting and exciting by telling a proper tale.
I think you are confusing “interesting and exciting” with more traditional short-story formats. You say as much here, by suggesting that turning the D&D story-log into a “proper tale” is what will remedy the story hour’s problems.
I disagree. I don’t read this forum to find great fiction (although I agree with Piratecat that there is some great fiction to be had here), I read this forum to see what my peers are doing with a hobby that I love. A story-telling hobby, yes, but one with its own sets of limitations and opportunities.
I am actually less interested in a “proper” story, because I want to know how
the game went, not how well the author can tell a tale. Does that make sense?
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I hope that makes sense to you, and thanks for the critique. Feel free to check out any of my story hour threads (listed below). If you don't think that I've managed to tell an interesting story within the context of this format, I'd be very interested to hear why you think I missed the mark.
The TOEE2, a retro story hour
The Liberation of Tenh (the TOEE2 continues)
The Risen Goddess
