GURPS Publication Process

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Kromm

On writing:
On outlines: Publishers like these because they nail down what they're buying; as part of a legal contract, an outline is close to binding, and ensures that everybody is agreeing to something reasonably concrete. Which said, there's an argument to be made that outlines are less critical to the writing process than they once were, because writers today can globally search and replace in one fell swoop, use software to move words, sentences, paragraphs, and entire sections around, work from digital idea boards and word clouds, and restructure on the fly with various expert systems, assistants, and (dare I say it?) AI. I confess that when writing on the clock, and thus not to firm contract terms, I write my ideas down as they occur, move them around to make sense, and use searches at the end to verify consistent section titles, terminology, and whatnot.

Oh yeah, if I were a publisher it would be hard ot imagine accepting a contract without an outline, at least on the scale of a supplement.
I used to write for a newspaper, monthly column mostly announcements of upcoming events and local news. No outline there.
But when an author submits a proposal the outline helps define the project and catch missing pieces, as well as show overall flow and depth of content on each section. Really valuable. Also the earlier part about writing ahead of time and getting caught up on author bias or uncontracted goals can be a problem. Anyone thinking that SJG is going to accept anything or that the author is entitled to do whatever they want is forgetting this is a business activity and the publisher is effectively the boss and customer.
Further they have to satisfy their customers and business processes/costs.

Any work I do ahead of time is for my own processes and even entertainment. If it ends up on the cutting room floor or never even pitched, much less accepted? That is entirely on me. Any potential writer should understand and accept that. If you cannot then you should not be writing for hire. Try your hand at self publishing other material.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Which said, there's an argument to be made that outlines are less critical to the writing process than they once were, because writers today can globally search and replace in one fell swoop, use software to move words, sentences, paragraphs, and entire sections around, work from digital idea boards and word clouds, and restructure on the fly with various expert systems, assistants, and (dare I say it?) AI.

Handy hint for writers and wannabes: When you download the SJ Games template document, go in straight away and assign appropriate levels to all the heading styles. Anyone who uses the Word Navigation Pane will understand why, and anyone who doesn't (and who does use Word) should probably start.

I keep trying to tell the company that they should sort out heading levels themselves, but...

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Handy hint for writers and wannabes: When you download the SJ Games template document, go in straight away and assign appropriate levels to all the heading styles. Anyone who uses the Word Navigation Pane will understand why, and anyone who doesn't (and who does use Word) should probably start.

I keep trying to tell the company that they should sort out heading levels themselves, but...

So. Much. This.

Makes lives easier.

More importantly for newcomers, and for those evaluating what a book is gonna be a well crafted outline shows that the perspective, author both can structure their thoughts and also has put forward the thought ahead of time to ensure that any given topic is covered.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Handy hint for writers and wannabes: When you download the SJ Games template document, go in straight away and assign appropriate levels to all the heading styles. Anyone who uses the Word Navigation Pane will understand why, and anyone who doesn't (and who does use Word) should probably start.

I keep trying to tell the company that they should sort out heading levels themselves, but...

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

So. Much. This.

Makes lives easier.

More importantly for newcomers, and for those evaluating what a book is gonna be a well crafted outline shows that the perspective, author both can structure their thoughts and also has put forward the thought ahead of time to ensure that any given topic is covered.

Thirded!
It took me about half a year to get Christopher to start using it for his own game material and now he loves it.

I first saw this from a playtest and have hammered it ever since, both my supplements used a template that had the GURPS Headers reassigned (except the R headers) to they showed up by default with the nav pane.

Others use it, but not everyone. When used it saves a LOT of time navigating to a given section in a larger doc file. Thank you Mark for modifying the template for me!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

As it happens, I don't like following outlines.

[..]

So I cheated. In my next attempt at college English, I'd write the essay first. When that was done, then I'd create the outline and topic sentence. And not tell the professor I did it backwards. In that class, I got an A!

When healthy, my job involves a lot of technical writing. Legal briefs of 30+ pages usually come with subheaders, chapter division and firm structure. During my old job as, essentially, the clerk of an appellate committee, I would write 100+ pages decisions, addressing all the arguments made by both (or all) sides in a legal process in front of the Committee, both written arguments and any points made during the 'trial' (oral arguments before the Committee on that particular case).

Through all of it, I would invent structure afterwards, as well as making Word create a table of contents. I went through law school, and if I wasn't on medical leave just now, this year would be the 19th year I work in the legal field, from, essentially, paralegal to associate, through sole practisioner, to partner. I have undoubtedly written well over a hundred documents that form the basis for a court case, and will no doubt write hundreds more.

I really doubt I would ever be able to decide on chapters and subheadings before I've written the entire thing. I don't necessarily know ahead of time which subjects justify a whole chapter and which amount to no more than a footnote, really.

And this is in a field that is considerably more stuffy and structured than RPG writing. I just happen to type about as fast I can compose legal arguments, so my way of thinking through a case is writing up the whole thing, generally breaking it up into chapters and maybe numbered or bullet points occasionally, or subsections, but all the formatting, chapter and subheading names and organization are really placeholders, until I'm done writing. And then I have to move some parts around, upon reading it, and finally, when it's done, I can assign chapter names, subheadings and such things.

If I had to write an outline beforehand, I have no idea how I'd stick with it. Research into precedents and all the evidence (and all kinds of case files, official documents and investigative paperwork if it's a criminal case) is part of the writing process for me, so I don't even know how I'm going to argue my client's case before I start writing, and I keep changing the order and chapter divisions until it's time to submit the thing to the court.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Icelander

When healthy, my job involves a lot of technical writing.

I hope you're feeling well soon!

Originally Posted by Icelander

And this is in a field that is considerably more stuffy and structured than RPG writing.

Most of my professional writing has been as a journalist. That's pretty much somewhere in between legal/technical writing and RPG writing.

I have done a little legal/technical writing. But some of that was mostly "fill in the blanks."

[Anders]

Kromm, you said writing should be done using whatever method the writer prefers. What about generative AI? I know Steve has... opinions on that. Will there be a clause that says "no AI" in the future?

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Anders

Kromm, you said writing should be done using whatever method the writer prefers. What about generative AI? I know Steve has... opinions on that. Will there be a clause that says "no AI" in the future?

As it happens, I just published an article that deals with AIs writing and mentions Steve Jackson Games and GURPS:

https://scifi.radio/2025/02/08/is-deepseek-a-deep-six/

The concept of AIs writing goes back almost 300 years.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anders

Kromm, you said writing should be done using whatever method the writer prefers. What about generative AI? I know Steve has... opinions on that. Will there be a clause that says "no AI" in the future?

SJ Games has strong opinions on AI that have not yet made it into the contracting process. I would caution writers against using it, though. "Writing should be done using whatever method the writer prefers" still means actual writing . . . part of the opinions to which you referred include "Using AI is something other than writing." My intention was to say that we don't ask writers to write full chapters and submit them one at a time, write a specific number of rough drafts before submitting their first draft, use or avoid using friends or peers as sounding boards, and so on; if someone prefers to write in fountain pen on paper, give it to their uncle to mark up with a Sharpie, and then type it into Word, rearrange it, and let it age 33 days before coming back for a final pass with a clear mind, that's their process and not SJ Games' business.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

SJ Games has strong opinions on AI that have not yet made it into the contracting process. I would caution writers against using it, though. "Writing should be done using whatever method the writer prefers" still means actual writing . . . part of the opinions to which you referred include "Using AI is something other than writing." My intention was to say that we don't ask writers to write full chapters and submit them one at a time, write a specific number of rough drafts before submitting their first draft, use or avoid using friends or peers as sounding boards, and so on; if someone prefers to write in fountain pen on paper, give it to their uncle to mark up with a Sharpie, and then type it into Word, rearrange it, and let it age 33 days before coming back for a final pass with a clear mind, that's their process and not SJ Games' business.

Speaking both as a writer and as a professional editor, I'm baffled that anyone would think of using AI. I can imagine why someone who is not by inclination a writer, and who thinks of writing as a chore that has to be gotten out of the way to get a job done, might think of making use of AI for that purpose—though even there I would be concerned about the risk of confabulation producing unusable material. But when I write, I care about exact word choice, and given how it is trained, AI can be expected to make the word choices that are the average of how a large sample of people would express something. I've never been impressed by the prose style of AI products when I've experimented with them. And perhaps more importantly for this kind of enterprise, average word choices are likely to convey average thoughts, rather than the words being chosen specifically to express the exact idea the writer wants to convey.

But above all, I want to have the pleasure of working with word choice and word order myself; that's the big reward of writing for me.