Writer’s Workshop

During your time at the academy, you were required to provide a short biography about your character, giving a brief overview of them and their history. This time we want to take things a step further, to help you create a living, breathing character that acts like a real, genuine person. To achieve this, it is important that you know as much as possible about them.

Today we are going to ask questions about our character and answer honestly from their point of view. Think of it as interviewing your character, which is a great way to get inside their head. Feel free to use as many or as a few as you want.

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What is token tagging?

Token tagging is a phrase that you probably have never heard of before, but have probably been taking part in without knowing it. Put simply, token tagging is when somebody is tagged in a scene, without fully engaging them. Let’s look at some examples:

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Ever sit down to write a sim and find yourself stuck for words? Read through what you’ve written and realise that you tend to use the same words over and over again?

Below you’ll find a list of alternatives to 25 common words to spice up your writing. Let us know how it goes in the Writing Improvement Forum.

Angry:
Irate, enraged, touchy, cross, resentful, indignant, infuriated, wound up, worked up, seething, raging, heated, bitter, bad tempered, offended, frustrated

Bad:
Awful, lousy, poor, unacceptable, crummy, dreadful, rough, inferior, substandard, atrocious, appalling, dreadful, defective

Beautiful:
Striking, stunning, magnificent, lovely, charming, gorgeous, radiant, dazzling

Big:
Massive, huge, giant, gigantic, enormous, large, colossal, immense, bulky, tremendous, hefty, sizeable, extensive, great, substantial

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If you’re new to simming you quickly learn that strong sims include description alongside dialogue to create a whole scene rather than just a threadbare script.  But how do you set a good scene?  What elements should you include?  And where in your sims should you put this description?  Today we try to answer those questions to help you practice this important writing skill.

If you’re working on strengthening your simming skills, a good rule to follow is to start every sim with description.  The start of a sim lets you set the scene moving forward – it’s a great place to draw your reader’s attention to the situation your character is in and a way to help other players understand where in the action your sim falls.  Another integral place to add scene setting and description is any time the scene changes or important action happens.  Even if your character is not part of the action, if your character is aware of the action you should describe how they sense the action and how they react.  This not only helps keep continuity in the sims, but it helps develop your character by allowing them to feel and act not just speak.

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Captain Kerk got up from his seat and headed out to the bridge. Kerk looked at the viewscreen where the ship was in orbit around planet Sigma Iotis. Kerk smiled, looking at the lush Class M landscape below. Kerk was hoping that it would be the perfect spot for shore leave.  “Let’s prepare an away team!” Kerk said.

The paragraph above shows a common issue that all writers struggle with, and that’s stagnancy in sentence structure. Many writers worry that their writing will boil down to a narrative of “My character said this, my character did that. My character went there and then my character did this other thing.” One of the reasons that this issue is a common struggle is because it is a fully functional way of writing, especially when you are focused on only one character’s point of view like we commonly do in our simming.

Because this is such a useful and functional form both for actions and dialogues, we can’t just get rid of it. No one wants to read paragraph after paragraph of needlessly complicated prose when the same thing could be said by writing “Captain Kerk was the first one to beam down.” So how can we keep the majority of writing straightforward while not feeling like every sentence is just a laundry list of things a character did, felt or said?

1. Think about what is around the character. What is the setting they are in? Who is around them and what are they doing? Adding in some description not only helps add variety to your writing, but it helps create a clearer picture of the whole scene for your readers. In the above example you might focus on the setting of the planet Kerk has just arrived on: “Sunlight spilled through thick palm fronds on a white sand beach making Captain Kerk glad that he was the first person to beam down and experience this.”
2. Focus on reasons why characters do actions, not just the actions. In the example above, if you put a reason why Kerk would be the first to beam down you might write “It was the job of a commanding officer to take lead, that’s why Captain Kerk always beamed down first.” This still describes the action, but gives us a little more insight into Kerk’s mindset.
3. Picture the character in action and describe that action. This technique helps bring the scene action to life in a very descriptive way. Again, with the above example this might look like “Running ahead with a bouncing excited step, the rest of the senior staff held back to let Captain Kerk beam down first.” This is particularly good for scenes where characters are engaged in combat or a similar sort of dramatic action.
4. Bring a ‘tight focus’ into the character and describe how they physically feel in a way that relates to the action or setting. Examples of this are feeling heat rise in the character’s cheeks from embarrassment or describing difficulty breathing from a alien poison. This puts the character front and center under a microscope, letting the audience know their inner workings before describing their actions. Working with the above example, you might get: “His heart was beating faster and faster, brimming with excitement – it had been too long since their last shore leave and Captain Kerk was absolutely itching to beam down first”
5. Don’t sweat it. After all is said and done, straightforward statements are fast easy ways to cover ‘down time’ or explain simple things that don’t really matter to the meat of the story. Beaming down to a planet might be a big deal for a character – or it might be something totally boring for that character and writing “Kerk beamed down first.” is an easy way to move into action that Kerk and his writer are really invested in.

Hopefully this will help you consider new ways to describe scenes and actions, while also reminding everyone that sometimes just writing things out in a straightforward way to move the plot forward is the best way to go.

July 15, 2016 a new television premiered on Netflix. Written by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things has become of the the streaming services most watched and best reviewed series, due in no small part to its excellent characterisation and writing.

Karsten Runquist has devised the term “the character bounce effect” to describe the technique the Duffer Brothers used to introduce the characters and their roles in the story. Simply put, character bounce is placing characters into opposite sides in their initial scenes, highlighting the traits of each character and their beliefs, as people often show their true colours when something they disagree with is brought up.

Check out Karsten’s YouTube video titled “Stranger Things: How to Introduce a Character,” where he explains this technique and how it is used on the show.

Whilst you’re there, why not check out the rest of his channel where he has some fantastic video essays that talk about characters?

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything” Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

How many times have you gotten halfway into a mission or a story or a roleplaying encounter and started to feel frustrated because you didn’t have a sense of direction or your team wasn’t working together as a cohesive whole?  It can happen even to the most experienced players and best COs.  Once a story starts to go off the rails problems tend to increase as more players get frustrated and start reacting to what’s being thrown out in the plot; and reactions often prompt bad decisions and the situation can easily snowball.

A lot of things can derail a mission.  Maybe one team was more clever than expected and they solved a part of the story too fast so the player portraying the adversaries tossed out some unexpected new opposition to entertain that group while the other teams catch up.  Maybe too many players decide to escalate a situation until it becomes ridiculously tough to handle or maybe the mission leaders decide to spring a surprise on unwary players who react badly.  Derailing doesn’t have to be solely the fault of poor mission planning and it can happen to anyone.  But the good news is there’s some ways you can deal with it when it happens and plan to stop it before it starts.

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The word ‘powersimming’ comes from the term ‘powergaming,’ a term which came out of tabletop roleplaying.  Powergaming is when a player focuses on the mechanics of the game so heavily that they stop thinking about the story that the game is trying to tell, the appropriateness of what elements they are placing on their character and the balance of the character in the party so that everyone is having fun.  But what does it mean in a script-style sim that doesn’t have game mechanics or dice rolls?

Powersimming is where one player dictates the actions of another player or players by “writing them into a corner.”  The tags in a powersimming exchange do not open up the action for all players to contribute equally, but instead drive the other players into following the ideas and decisions of the writer.

No matter what the game’s rules are, powergaming or powersimming both have the same root problem – they give a dominating amount of control to one player while the other players feel sidelined.  Unfortunately in a script style game it can be difficult to know how to advance a story without powersimming.  But it also tends to be much easier to correct powersimming than powergaming – you don’t have to re-roll your character, you just need to adjust your tags.

So, how do you get your ideas across without pushing other characters in a controlling fashion?

Limit your tags.  There is a reason that 4-5 tags is considered the ‘sweet spot’ for most posts.  That tends to be the right number of tags to get your ideas through without forcing a scene to go in a certain direction.  While sometimes you’ll have a bit less or a bit more, if you’re routinely leaving 8 or more tags you should re-read your posts and see if you can cut down the number of tags to allow your fellow players more agency in collaborating with the action.

Don’t assume answers to important questions.  If you ask another character ‘would you like anything to drink?’ unless they have a history of never accepting hospitality (or not drinking liquids) you can safely assume the answer is yes and continue on with your tags.  But if you reach a critical moment in a scene and have to ask an important question it’s always good to leave that as your final tag and let the other player respond.  No matter how common sense your character might think their decision is, the other characters in the scene may have a completely different point of view.  A Kelpian officer might think “we should run away!” is the most sensible advice ever, while a Klingon officer would think that was the most dishonorable idea possible.

Get excited at your fellow player’s answers.  Sometimes it can be scary giving up the control of the scene to other players.  But that’s also one of the best things about simming.  If you were writing fiction you would never get the ideas and feedback from other writers like you do in simming.  That element of waiting for replies and seeing what new direction a scene goes in is a special thrill.  The more you appreciate it the more you’ll start leaving open-ended tags and have the fun of a collaborative ride and a story that go where no one expected it to go!

When in doubt ask your mentor or CO.  Sometimes learning how to leave tags that collaborate well with your fellow players is a matter of experience.  And the experienced staff on your ship are there to help any players – new or old – with playing better and writing better.  If you have questions about a scene, tags or maybe you feel that another player pushed your character into a corner and took away your agency, talk it out with your staff.  Communication help solve problems and makes every game stronger and every player better.

Tired of listening to the same dull radio stations on the tiresome commutes? Perhaps you have an upcoming vacation and you want something to do other than reading all the way there? Well, why not check out one of these fantastic writing related podcasts?

Brianne Bell over at The Write Life has put together a comprehensive list of 20 inspiring podcasts, to help alleviate the boredom.

And if you happen to come across a helpful tip or three, why not share it on the forums?