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Writing games - advice on motivation
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Bawylie
A very OK person
Things I've done: Watch the crappiest movie I can find and adapt it.
Stop and take a week off writing.
Reimagine popular tales from the experience of tertiary characters. (Started doing this after watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and it's been interesting).
Stop and take a week off writing.
Reimagine popular tales from the experience of tertiary characters. (Started doing this after watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and it's been interesting).
sgtscott658
First Post
I usually write a page a day and in between maybe take a walk to the store or something to get out an clear my head to think about what is next for my adventure I am designing.
Celebrim
Legend
The real answer is to write even when you don't have motivation.
Of course, that is much harder to do than say, but that is the real answer.
I'm hardly good at this in any way, but I find the solution that works for me is to change tasks. Granted, I never finish anything, but then again, I'm only writing for myself (well, and my players). However, when stuck for inspiration at some point, I often find its easier to get motivated to work on something else than to force yourself to face the thing you really don't want to face. This at least avoids feelings of low self-esteem because I feel my writing quality on one topic has suffered, which for me is often the true demotivator.
However, again, the solution to having no motivation to write is to write. Any time you don't want to write, the solution is to write. Get up, take a 5 minute break to get tea or a cookie or run a few laps around the building, then write. Write. Write. Write. Write.
Of course, that is much harder to do than say, but that is the real answer.
I'm hardly good at this in any way, but I find the solution that works for me is to change tasks. Granted, I never finish anything, but then again, I'm only writing for myself (well, and my players). However, when stuck for inspiration at some point, I often find its easier to get motivated to work on something else than to force yourself to face the thing you really don't want to face. This at least avoids feelings of low self-esteem because I feel my writing quality on one topic has suffered, which for me is often the true demotivator.
However, again, the solution to having no motivation to write is to write. Any time you don't want to write, the solution is to write. Get up, take a 5 minute break to get tea or a cookie or run a few laps around the building, then write. Write. Write. Write. Write.
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
I stop writing and start again when I get motivation. But I don't have deadlines set by anyone else, so there's that, too.
I've heard somewhere that WillPower doesn't really exist, so motivation might also not exist. But either way, you're having a hang-up.
There are times in my work, that I have to write large proposals, documents, etc. Usually with short deadlines like "get this done by Monday so we can get the client to sign off on it." i just do it. Cranking out 16-20 pages or more of contracts, proposals, specifications just happens I guess.
For myself, I usually have a pretty good mental roadmap of what I need to generate. Some time between high school when I sucked at writing papers and college when I got really good at it, I figured out the 5 paragraph model for a 3 page paper. Intro, 3 supporting points, Conclusion. Put that in my table of contents, and the section headers in Word and then fill in the white-space for each section.
From that pattern, bigger papers was just the same thing in larger scale. Build the outline as the Table of Contents/Word Sections (because Word generates the ToC from the section headings), then go back and fluff it up.
The root reason this method succeeds for me is very likely the core secret to project management:
How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time. Break the problem up into smaller pieces.
How do you manage a Project? Make a list of all the small pieces you have to do and check off when they are done.
That Table of Contents/section heading strategy was me breaking the problem down into small pieces and making a list of what they are so I could see what I needed to do (in my case, fill in the text for the remaining sections).
This method seems applicable to technical or business documents, which have to be organized and typically have many sub-sections. An RPG could probably work the same way (think about the Combat chapter in D&D, how many sections it has). I am not sure if this would work as well in fiction writing. I'd probably translate my ToC/Section strategy to a story outline instead (I've written fiction before, but not this way. I'm a prolific writer by nature). I guess there's no reason you couldn't do my section strategy of the Outline in the Word document, write the novel, and then erase the section headings in the editing process as they aren't needed anymore (novels have chapters, not sub-sections
.
There are times in my work, that I have to write large proposals, documents, etc. Usually with short deadlines like "get this done by Monday so we can get the client to sign off on it." i just do it. Cranking out 16-20 pages or more of contracts, proposals, specifications just happens I guess.
For myself, I usually have a pretty good mental roadmap of what I need to generate. Some time between high school when I sucked at writing papers and college when I got really good at it, I figured out the 5 paragraph model for a 3 page paper. Intro, 3 supporting points, Conclusion. Put that in my table of contents, and the section headers in Word and then fill in the white-space for each section.
From that pattern, bigger papers was just the same thing in larger scale. Build the outline as the Table of Contents/Word Sections (because Word generates the ToC from the section headings), then go back and fluff it up.
The root reason this method succeeds for me is very likely the core secret to project management:
How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time. Break the problem up into smaller pieces.
How do you manage a Project? Make a list of all the small pieces you have to do and check off when they are done.
That Table of Contents/section heading strategy was me breaking the problem down into small pieces and making a list of what they are so I could see what I needed to do (in my case, fill in the text for the remaining sections).
This method seems applicable to technical or business documents, which have to be organized and typically have many sub-sections. An RPG could probably work the same way (think about the Combat chapter in D&D, how many sections it has). I am not sure if this would work as well in fiction writing. I'd probably translate my ToC/Section strategy to a story outline instead (I've written fiction before, but not this way. I'm a prolific writer by nature). I guess there's no reason you couldn't do my section strategy of the Outline in the Word document, write the novel, and then erase the section headings in the editing process as they aren't needed anymore (novels have chapters, not sub-sections
.Neonchameleon
Legend
Are you having problems with fluff or crunch? For fluff, work through it. Crunch, I try to playtest.
You write badly. Basically you write the first thing you think of, then the next and the next. Doesn't matter if it's good or if ti even makes sense you can edit it latter. The idea is to get words out until your no longer stuck. I also find that long boring activities normally sprout a idea or two.
trancejeremy
Adventurer
This is what really makes a writer. Not so much the quality of the writing, but the ability to write on demand, not just when you feel like it.
One of the reasons I started writing reviews was because I wanted to become a more disciplined writer and actually finish a novel. Unfortunately, being able to write a review on demand doesn't translate into other areas of writing. I still haven't finished any of my novels, and the retro-clone I've been working on for two years is still unfinished.
One of the reasons I started writing reviews was because I wanted to become a more disciplined writer and actually finish a novel. Unfortunately, being able to write a review on demand doesn't translate into other areas of writing. I still haven't finished any of my novels, and the retro-clone I've been working on for two years is still unfinished.
