Tuesday 13 April 2010

Planned Writer Change

Their Fated Travels...is a great way for me to express writing some amazing characters. The feedback I've received from them is astounding. Of course, because it's a Fantasy story not as many people read it compared to a 40k story of the same calibre. that's a shame really. But as I say, the feedback I have been getting is worldwide and consistently supporting the project.

Now the emphasis has shifted to the book adventures for a lot of it. This had to happen because the concept for TFT is to follow the adventures of what happens in the RPG sessions, to inspire story.
Because story can't be just copied straight from a book in those cases, the characters have instead been having to commit much of what happens to diary, to keep the character points of view at the forefront, the one controllable element within it that isn't in the book, because the characters are of course our own.

I personally find it a challenge to write and be creative on a book's framework that is already set in place. I've done quite well up 'til now I know (where applicable) but even when it's not the book's own framework, it's instead something the GM (I'm not the GM, I'm a player) has cooked up, plot-wise. Then I'm having to write his story. While I'm putting it down, I'm then encountering issues because perhaps he hasn't plotted a thing out to make sense for my liking, or a character has been allowed to do something at the table that I don't think they would have done in actual realistic terms, i.e. when it comes to putting them into the readable story properly, which is of course another headache, because I'm then trying to work out a lot of other people's mistakes, ones that I didn't make.

All of this gets a creative mind like me down, after a while. We're quite a bit behind the actual events at the table so I've come up with a challenge for two of the others from the table. I want them both to write, to contribute to TFT as well! Yeah!
Neither one of them feels they could do as good a job as I have done. I'm not boasting, I'm saying what they told me, so as and when you read anything they write as updated chapters, please bear with them. They're not me and they're not trying to be.

So what's happening next?
Well, you've probably already read chapter 12. I have chapter 13 finished, waiting in hand. It contains a serious flashback for one of our characters too. After that, I have nothing written. So the sourcebook is currently in the hands of the GM, one Lory Cozens. It is his challenge to contribute to this project, a project intended to document the adventures of our characters throughout their entire adventuring careers!
He said he'd been looking for something to write so this is a chance for him to give it a crack and contribute to all of my hard work. I think I deserve a break - I've written well over 40,000 words so far!
Chapter 13 will come out soon. If Lory gets his groove on (hopefully he'll respond well to public anticipation of my announcement here), then he will in theory write chapter 14 and the few other chapters that continue and end this current Middenheim story arc.

My hope is that I will also manage to encourage Peter Davies-Parker (the fellow who plays Dieter De'ath) to contribute towards it too. I'd love to see two different takes on the accepted writing styles of TFT. Some prose and some character diary form, alternating.
That's not to say I won't be writing for TFT again. I'm just saying, for what is effectively a group fun project that is being shared with you so you can enjoy it too, one that is never intended to be pitched professionally, I think the others should pull their weight as well.

As always, you don't know if characters will live or die at any given moment, but the adventure will go on, for it must. Therefore I can tell you that the next major story arc, book 3 if you like, will be a return to Altdorf! We left the city back in chapter 5, if you recall. But the characters have grown now. How will this change things?

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