[Writing Tips] Focus Your Intent

Welcome to a Wombat's Writing Tips article. Check out the main page for more.

If you start a writing project without setting some boundaries, how do you know when you're done?

In other words, what belongs in a core rulebook and what should wait for a supplement?

Today's Problem: The Idea Cascade
I've seen this issue plenty of times, and I still struggle with it in my own writing. I start writing an article before I have a clear idea of what the heck it's about. More often than not one idea leads to another, and before I know it I have 3 or 4 ideas jammed into a piece in ways that make the editor in me cringe. Every idea can stand on its own, but I still decide to ram them together into one article.

An editing primer.
Recommended by
John Adamus.

With too many ideas in a single piece, two things happen. First, the word count gets blown out of the water. Articles slated for 3,000 words end up at 4,500 or more which makes publishers cranky. Second, when I trim words each idea gets so watered down or explained so briefly that none of them shine the way they could if they each became the central focus of their own article. In especially bad cases, none of the ideas even make sense any more, and I itch to toss the whole article and start over.

Your writing process may vary, but I tend to get lost down a maze of twisty passages all alike if I don't start with some sort of focus.

Solution: Focus on your Subject
Think about the intent behind what you're writing. The more thought you put into it before you start, the less rewriting and untangling of ideas you'll need to do later. I'm not advocating a written project plan for every article idea, but spending a few minutes to clarify your article's intent in your head will save you headaches down the road. Something as simple as "An overview of the Dwarven pantheon" will work. Just treat it like a Fate Aspect - it needs to have a negative edge so you don't keep adding topics that don't quite fit.

Here are a few things I keep telling myself to do. Maybe one of these days I'll actually listen.

1. What Project Parameters Do You Know?
Ideas don't come completely out of nowhere. Either you find an empty spot in the RPG Rulesverse that begs you to fill it, or you want to improve something that already exists, or you pitch a supplement to a publisher and get an assignment. In each of those cases, you can sense the rough shape of the project.

Check the current submission
guidelines for Dragon.

If you're working for a publisher, usually you have a leg up. Either you've spent the time developing a pitch for something you want to write, or the publisher has sent you a list of requirements. Usually you'll get a word count to shoot for: 1,000 (1K) words for quick articles, 5-20K words for adventures and supplements, up to 100K+ words for a large supplement or campaign guide. Usually you know the subject and a working title. I've overused "usually" above because publishers work in many different ways, so you may only get vague handwaving to start from.

If you have no direction from your publisher or if you're doing something on your own, spend a few minutes to come up with some goals and parameters. Is this for your home campaign or do you want to try to sell what you write? We'll get into this more in the next article entitled Know Your Audience. How long (word-wise and time-wise) do you think it will take to develop this idea? Would it make sense to write it as a one-page PDF, a new setting, a new system, or an ongoing series of blog posts?

Contrary to popular belief size is important, especially for anything someone else will publish.

2. Limit Your Subject.
Even if you already have a working title, always ask yourself, "What is this project about?" Your answer becomes your subject statement, and you can keep track of it on a scrap of paper or in your head. I recommend paper, because it's much more obvious and deliberate when I change my subject statement on paper than if I just keep it in my head and change it with a thought.

Don't overload your poor article.
Image spotted at Papers & Pencils.

When you think about what your project is about, always consider what it's NOT about as well. Consider it like a Fate Aspect or a Marvel Distinction: your article's subject should have a problematic side to tell you what the article won't cover as well as what it will. Even if you don't refer to it while writing, you'll need that negative boundary for the next tip. For example, if you write an article about the ecology of Shangri-La, steer clear of Shangri-La's political scene; put that idea in its own article or your readers will get confused.

Now you know where to draw the line between what your article should cover and what it shouldn't. You can refer to your subject statement while you write to make sure you stick to the plan, but please ignore it if it keeps you from writing. If you slow down and debate every sentence you write because you worry about fitting your subject, set your subject statement aside and just write for a while. I would rather have words flowing into a first draft document than let my internal editor yell at me all afternoon and end up with nothing written.

If you can juggle the subject statement and writing, great. If not, just get the draft done. Don't worry, we'll cut out what doesn't make sense after you finish your first stab at the article.

3. Enforce Your Subject Limits. Be Ruthless.
After you complete your first draft (emphasis on AFTER), read back through your article and cut anything that doesn't directly feed your chosen subject. Yes, you've moved from writing to self-editing, but I advise you to get used to rewriting and taking criticism. Even Shakespeare rewrote his plays because very rarely does anything leap out of anyone's brain fully-formed.

Make no mistake: This Is Hard. Taking your ideas and cutting them because they don't fit your article hurts, sometimes physically. Self-editing can feel very much like self-flagellation: you reject yourself to drive out the demons of mediocrity. To soften the blow, save everything you cut and tell yourself that you'll develop another article around that idea later. Don't debate the value of everything you cut now or that's all you'll do; just save your cuts for later and move on. Changing my internal self-editing dialogue from "NO!" to "We'll come back to this idea later" helps to keep me calm. We can debate "sane" later.

Beware of pun fallout.
Original by Phil Foglio.

If you find yourself falling short of your word count, congratulations! Over 90% of RPG writers suffer from run-on ideas, but not you! Also: Don't panic. Read your draft and figure out where you can add more details, or better yet add examples of whatever you're writing about in action. If you write about Gnomish Pun Dueling Jesters, make sure to include a sample exchange with the worst puns you've ever heard, for example.

Your readers will thank you for clear examples, if not for Gnomish Pun Dueling Jesters.

BONUS TIP
I'll break the rules I talk about at least once in every article. To that end this tip fits more with self-editing rather than the overall topic, but I'm including it anyway.

4. Read Your Words Out Loud.
Speaking of Shakespeare, feel free to use the old playwright's trick: read what you wrote out loud. If nobody would ever say the words you wrote, change your words. If you repeatedly stumble when reading a specific spot, your brain can't comprehend how those particular words fit together, which means your readers will probably need to reread that passage a couple of times to understand it. Go back to the spots you stumbled and see if you can rework the text flow so your ideas come across more smoothly.

In Sum
Today's tips cover more planning and editing than actual writing, but that doesn't make them any less important.

1. Start with what you know about the writing project.
2. Write a Subject Statement to clearly define what it will cover and what it won't.
3. Self-edit your draft to remove everything that doesn't fit your Subject Statement.
4. Read your writing out loud to check for clumsy bits.

Now go out there and think about what you write before you drown in your writing assignment.

On Editing and Writing More Better

For tighter writing, weigh your words.

I could have written that sentence in a host of other ways with minor variations in meaning, such as...

• If you want to tighten your writing, word choice is monumentally important.
• If you want tighter writing, choose your words carefully.
• Deciding on what words to use is arguably the hardest part of writing concisely.
• Concise writing requires conscious word choices.
• Lingual efficiency forces you to consider each word to make sure every one carries its own weight.
• For tighter writing, weigh your words.

The open-endedness of language means we have infinite options for expressing a single idea. If they're all technically correct, how do we choose one combination of words over the rest? What does "good writing" or "concise writing" actually mean? How can I write more effectively?

Me. In a tie. A rare
enough occurrence
to photograph.

Hi. I'm Wombat, and I edit games. I don't claim to be the be-all and end-all of language usage. I have my writing quirks which fly in the face of Strunk & White, but I've learned a great deal since working as a newspaper proofreader back in high school.

I'll share my pet peeves and various advice I've received over the years to help you clean up your writing, focusing on one specific writing issue per article. I'll tailor most of the suggestions and examples to RPG writing, but many of the tips and tricks I give apply to any prose or technical writing. I may stray into some editing topics, but ultimately I want to make you a better writer. Why? Laziness. The better writing skills you have, the easier time I'll have editing your work.

Since I like cover pages which collect article links, I'll update this page as I publish new articles or come up with titles for future articles. If you have a topic you want me to write about, I'm all ears. Thanks for reading!

• Focus Your Intent
• Know Your Intended Audience
• Compulsively Using Adverbs
• Prose Au Poivre, Using Commas, Like Pepper
• On Editorial Scope

Focusing on the Positive

An unsolicited recommendation brightened my yesterday and touched off this post.

Everything outside the metaphysical construct of Me piles on the crap day in and day out. At least that's how it feels some days. The feeling that some deeper life exists just under the surface itches in the back of my head, and I feel powerless to capture the infinite possibilities passing me by. The unconscious conspiracy aligns the world against us, as if there's a universal Them tasked with making us miserable.

Perspective for one, no waiting...

But here's the Capital-T Truth:
Nobody conspires against us except us.

Nothing brings that into focus for me like getting unexpected good news on an otherwise bad day. That jarring bit of sunshine makes me look at the mire of the day and start singing along to the Indigo Girls, "It's only life after all." It provides perspective and offers a choice.

My life comes from my experiences, and experiences only happen through what I perceive. Therefore, my life comes through my perception of the world. Just as I can block someone on a social network or change the TV channel, I can choose what I perceive. "Perception Is Reality" lies at the heart of Schrodinger's Gun GMing, but it works in life as well as in games.

I watched "This Is Water" yesterday, which comes from a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace in 2005. It covers this idea in short film form quite well.



Do I want every tedious situation to sap my life in a stupid internal me vs. the world default setting? This is water. I need to remember that I have a choice. This is water. I can dwell on the negative and feed my life to the darkness, or I can focus on the positive and live in the sun while I can. This is water. This choice happens every moment of every day, and in the words of Rush, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." This is water.

Found at Healthy Blender Recipies.

I edit. I am an editor. I want to edit for a living, but right now it's a side job I use to improve myself while improving small corners of this RPG hobby I love. I fear jumping into it with both feet, mainly because I have a family that I need to provide for and with whom I want to spend time, and partly because the psychological and financial pain of past businesses failures still lingers. I don't know if I'll ever get past those fears, but I hope to. In the meantime, I'll work at it when I can.

Here's the thing: I'm good at editing. Sure, I'm still running on intuition at this point, but I notice my toolbox filling up with new skills on every gig. Part of me still fears the Fraud Squad, but that fear diminishes every time a creator wants me to work on a new project. I'm still working on ways to deliver criticism that don't make authors automatically reach for a pack of razor blades, but I'm learning with every new manuscript I read and piece of feedback I write. I can see the path I'm on rising up the mountain, and I'm looking forward to the climb.

An out-of-the-blue recommendation for my editing work tells me I'm doing something right, or at the very least that someone else thinks I'm doing something right. You can't pay for that kind of validation because asking for it cheapens it. These moments shine like gemstones in shale, and I am so thankful for them when they happen.

Thank you to Christina Stiles for thinking of me, for taking the time to respond to a G+ community thread, and for lifting yesterday out of the grey ooze of mundane drudgery with nothing more than four words and an acronym.

If you need more words of wisdom spurring you to do rather than just dream, I give you the "Make Good Art" commencement speech from Neil Gaiman.



I have a path. It's slow going, but I have a path.
Much as my mind resists the idea editing is art, and I make good art.

Now to continually steer my mind toward the light and keep walking my path.

This. This is water.