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04-19-2020, 03:25 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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How to write outlines for a game supplement
All the members on the GURPS panel agreed that writing from an outline is essential to writing a good supplement. But I don't know how to write a good outline!
Can the good people of the community give me tips and tricks - or at least point me in the direction of a good source. I have read the editorial style, but I'm more thinking about how to organize a project. I think.
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04-19-2020, 09:02 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: How to write outlines for a game supplement
For Meltdown and Fallout I had the standard Disasters outline to work from.
For Will to Live my original outline idea was basically: - How to Fight Robots - IFF (the robot template conversions) - Equipment and Diseases plus front and back matter and approximate page counts. "How to Fight Robots" morphed into a section within the Resistance chapter, which also grew templates for non-robot characters. IFF stayed more or less as I'd thought of it (all those template conversions were the core idea of the book, which I'd originally pitched as a Pyramid article). The front half of E&D turned into Technology and Equipment, and expanded to a full run through Ultra-Tech/4e including where you can find the nice toys. More generally I would say: think of all the things you want to include, group them hierarchically, and then (the bit I find hardest) try to work out how many pages you'll want for each.
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04-19-2020, 10:45 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: How to write outlines for a game supplement
I find outlines a good exercise, but not a straight jacket. You will find when writing the text things that don't work, that are longer or shorter than you expected, and/or good ideas that hadn't come to you early.
Keep in touch with your editor if things are going in a new direction. |
04-20-2020, 05:55 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: How to write outlines for a game supplement
Giving advice on this is a little difficult; I tend to think of "do an outline" as the solution to a problem, not as a problem in its own right. (My sister tells me that i was giving her advice on how to structure a paper when she was in high school!) But let me try to reflect on how I go about outlining.
I look for major issues that have to be addressed in treating a question. This usually includes an overview of the general subject, with discussion of preliminary issues, which serves as an introduction. Then I break the subject up into general areas; for example, I broke "electricity and electronics" up into laboratory equipment and tools, electrical devices, analog electronic devices, and digital electronic devices. There may be a subtopic that's convenient to split off into its own chapter, such as military and adventuring electronics, or the transition between social interaction and combat. I start listing all the subtopics I can think of for each major topic. If possible, I group several narrow subtopics into one broad subtopic; for example, in Template Toolkit 2, I had a subsection on physical traits of races, with subsubsections on things like movement, manipulation, attack, and defense. Sometimes I may decide that a subtopic belongs in a different chapter; occasionally this may even mean reconceiving what a chapter is properly about. Once in a while, I may even change the order of the chapters; the current first chapter of Social Engineering started out as the final chapter, but I decided that a guide to how social mechanics fits into play style would be more helpful as an introductory section. I look for incidental issues that aren't part of the main flow of a chapter, but are relevant to it, and give them boxes. Once the list of topics is stabilized, I count how many there are, and divide that number into the number of pages to get a page length per topic. Then I go through and assign estimate page lengths to major sections and then to chapters. I go over this a few times, thinking about whether a section needs to be longer than average or can be shorter than average. This is a hard part, and you'll probably misjudge the first few times you do it; after you've written a few books you'll have a better feel for how long sections will be. If I'm writing for SJ Games, I send the outline to Kromm, and revise according to his comments. You won't have that option if you're self-publishing, but I encourage you to find a volunteer with a good sense for document structure, if you can. Remember, no one can edit their own writing! I hope this is some help.
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04-20-2020, 09:52 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: How to write outlines for a game supplement
Thank y'all. I also notice that if I want to write for SJG I need to buy five books. This may need to wait until I have more money (and Amazon starts delivering books again).
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
04-20-2020, 09:56 AM | #6 |
Aluminated
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: How to write outlines for a game supplement
OK, what now?
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Tags |
outlines, writing for gurps |
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