Writing/Gaming: Character 101 - Part 1: Overview & 'The Sandbox'

Good morning. On this particularly sleety and craptastic morning (the ground and the sky are the same color. I'm not sure if that counts as a Lovecraft moment or not), I want to start the new series on this blog, Character 101.

This series will be in up to 8 parts....(definitely 6, but there are two additional components we can bring in later). Now some of you have heard me talk about the first 6 steps when I taught this as a workshop 2 years ago - but a lot has changed since then, so update your notes. And unlike those previous workshops I'm not going to cover the whole list up front and reference it in every post. (So pay attention, and ask questions/leave comments if you get lost)

Character 101 is a series of posts aimed at ANYONE doing ANYTHING involving characters. This applies to novelists, short story writers, screenwriters, game designers, module creators...even somewhat to board and card game people, (though not all parts would apply there).

Much like my previous post about characters not being awful, this is more a walk-through on how to specifically do that - and although I don't present the components in order of magnitude, every piece is an equal facet in making the gemstone that is your character.

Granted, if you're only making some secondary characters or NPCs or background fluff, you don't need to do all these steps. Maybe apply one or two. But if you want your main characters: your protagonists, antagonists, chief NPCs, mentors, sidekicks, love interests, bullies, your fan favorite characters to stand out and get some attention (like eye-popping, 'Wow' attention), then this whole series will benefit you.

Now, let's go make your characters better.

Character 101 - Part 1 - The Sandbox

The Sandbox rule can be written out as follows:

A set of boundaries and a playground within those boundaries that is at times limiting or limited, causing the character to be tested.

If you had to highlight the key parts for this rule, look at the beginning and end of the sentence:

• set of boundaries
• a playground
• at times limiting or limited
• causing the character to be tested

No character should exist in a vacuum. They don't just float aimlessly in Void-space, nor should they. They need to have some sort of area where they exist. Sometimes, this is a whole world, or on a more localized sense, this could just be the place(s) where the action occurs. 

If we're writing the classic Oscar the Grouch novel, then we're likely talking the trash can on Sesame Street and the surrounding areas. If you want to craft a game about masterless samurai in feudal Japan, then you'll probably want a province, a town or two and the surrounding forests. 

Basically, the 'playground' I'm talking about here is the world of the character. Even if that means the whole world, don't freak out and think that you have to create this monstrous real-time updating construct and deal with every living thing and every event on it all the time - you don't. You only need to concern yourself with the world of the character.

If I'm the character, then right now, all you'd be writing about is me in my immediate surroundings (the office in the house), my immediate goals (to write this post then go do laundry) and maybe my plans for later in the day (go out and meet new clients). Notice that you don't have to consider...the fate of a Sierra Leone diamond mine or the traffic in Acapulco when you're working with me as a character. Yes those things exist, but they're not in the scope of THIS character, and therefore not part of what you need to add to the recipe. 

Over time, you'll discover that the playground for a particular character doesn't have to be so large in order to be "good". 

Note: As I've said elsewhere, you're really going to do yourself a disservice the more you hang on to notions of "good" "right" "best" or "is it okay if..." as all those thoughts are subjective and contextual. Kill that doubt and move forward. If you need help, ask.

So, to build the best world for your character, think about their routine. Think about where they live. Think about what they do. Your set up here is to be concrete initially. Facts and statements are ideal right now. Those basic Who/What/When/Where questions come in handy here (we leave off Why and How for the moment) 

Yes, you can easily get a legal pad and make a chart. 

Let's suppose I was going to make a character called....Timmy, so my chart starts like this:

Timmy the Character

• Wakes up every morning at 8
• Is currently a 'salad technician' at a restaurant
• Is 18
• Lives with his parents in a condo on 16th Street

No, I didn't prioritize those facts, I just listed the things that came to mind as I sat here. There really isn't a best order of magnitude, as this first column is just to list some of the pieces of Timmy's world.

So those are Timmy's facts, and in turn they are also boundaries. Timmy is 18, so he won't have the experiences of a 90 year old war veteran. He's male, so he won't know anything about the struggles of being a girl in middle school. He wakes up at 8, so he isn't going to have the same experiences as the crackhead who sleeps all day. Facts are good, and facts are boundaries. (Without these boundaries, Timmy is essentially an omnipotent, omnipresent, limitless deity).

Because Timmy is limited we've now planted the seeds for desire. Think of your own life here as well, you may be reading this at a job you no longer love, you may be reading this late at night because you're afraid what your spouse will say if you tell them you want to be a writer, you may be reading this thinking, "I could do a better job..." Whatever the reason you provide, there is a desire you can tether to the fact. 

Let's go back to Timmy and see if we can find some desires for him based on the facts we gave. (If you're making a chart, these desires are a second column)

Timmy the Character

• Wakes up every morning at 8 >> Wants to sleep in longer
• Is currently a 'salad technician' at a restaurant >>Wants to be a professional sculptor
• Is 18 >> hates that people think he's a 'dumb kid'
• Lives with his parents in a condo on 16th Street >> wants to move into his own apartment downtown, nearer to where he's seen college-age girls

Whenever you create limits on a character, you also plant the seed to exceed or overcome those limits. And yes, the character should want to overcome those limits (those conflicts are plot points) and the method the character goes about moving from his limitation toward his goal is essentially a plot unto itself. 

You could stop here with the chart, but you can also go one step further to see how each plot develops. (This would be a third column on your chart)

Timmy the Character

• Wakes up every morning at 8 >> Wants to sleep in longer  >> Starts setting his alarm later and later, angering his mother
• Is currently a 'salad technician' at a restaurant >>Wants to be a professional sculptor  >> Applies for a class in sculpting at night school
• Is 18 >> hates that people think he's a 'dumb kid'  >> Spends all his free time reading college textbooks and trying to sound like a grad student.
• Lives with his parents in a condo on 16th Street >> wants to move into his own apartment downtown, nearer to where he's seen college-age girls  >> Intentionally gets off at the wrong subway and bus stops so he can be around girls, hoping they notice him

We've built Timmy up pretty quickly, and given him a lot of different qualities and possibilities for our stories, games and wherever else we want to deploy him.

The key to that third column is that the plan the character undertakes to make the second column happen SHOULD NOT BE EASY. If it were easy, the character would have done it already, and they wouldn't be limited by it not-being-done. The challenge for the character is critical for the audience to emotionally invest in the character - we want to see him succeed (or not, if he's an antagonist), and we will only get to do that if we see the actions taking time and being done over the course of pages/chapters/sessions/etc. 

If a character's desire (also called a motivation) goes untested, then it isn't important enough for us to hear about. Having said that, let me also say that you don't need to detail EVERY motivation and develop them all before advancing your story. 

Remember Rule #1 of Writing - Writing is the act of making decisions. You decide what motivations to pursue, when, and to what degree. You decide how to express the desires and the plans and their consequences. 

The short formula for today's lesson:

1. The world of the character is the immediate facts and desires they experience/want

2. The desires are goals they've not yet realized and they will have to work (change their current state) to achieve them.

3. The plan they develop and engage to sate these desires is material for plot. 

Welcome to Character 101. 

In part 2 (due out later this week) we'll talk about character descriptions. 

Happy writing. 

(If you have questions or comments about today's lesson, leave some comments below. I would love to hear from you.)

Pitch 101 - Part 5: Common Pitch Problems

This is part 5 of an on-going series.

You've come far in this series. We started off learning about the mindset and the basic building block of pitches, the USP (Unique Selling Point), we learned about pitch styles, then the velcro theory and last week we autopsied a pitch to see how one is built from the ground up.

I could end the series now, call it the most popular thing I've ever put on a blog and move on to talking about something else. And, yes, as some of you emailed me, maybe I should. But there's one more stretch of road to talk about, and if I'm going to end this series on the high note I think it deserves, then we have to talk about problems commonly found in pitches.

Yes, I know, there are TONS of variations on the ideas I'm exploring here, but I'm asking you to distill your problems down, concentrate them and strip out the subjective circumstantial material and find the flaw-nugget at the heart of the problem.

I believe there are 6 core problems with pitches, and that the majority of rejections, critiques and thumbs-down all stem from them. I'll outline each, give an example, and a solution.(Yeah this could be a long post, buckle up.)

Note: These problems are not offered in any order of common to least common, or easiest to hardest, they're just....six possible problems.

I. Not getting to the action fast enough. A good pitch uses an economy of words (we'll revisit this idea a lot today), usually between a range 200 and 300 (I like to aim for a sweet spot between 250 and 280), but you can always use fewer if your phrasing is tight (I've seen great pitches done in 60 words). Even with that range, which sounds like a lot (it isn't, it's about a page worth of text, 4 paragraphs maybe), if you don't engage the audience (either evocatively or dynamically), they're not going to want to keep reading or listening to whatever you're saying.

Example: In 1984, Sarah was adopted by Louise and Greg, who lived on a small farm outside Wichita, where they raised cows and grew wheat and lived well. Louise and Greg were a happy couple, never fighting too loud or feeling trapped under some big terrible bills. The farm was successful without being prosperous, and Sarah was very loved and popular and a good student at school. Everything is just great about Sarah, except that she's really a time-traveling death robot sent back in time to prevent the next American Civil War.

Okay, so it's 1984, and these two people adopt a girl, and they live on a farm. I'm already yawning but I'll keep reading, just one more sentence. Oh, they're a happy couple without flaws? That pitch is better than Nyquil. Chances are, the audience checks out about half-way into that second sentence. The fact that she's a death robot is lost. The fact that there will be a second Civil War is also lost.

Solution - Lead with a strong punch. If you have a lot of USPs, this isn't difficult, as you have a lot of options to plug in throughout your pitch. If you're a little thin on USPs, and you can't generate any more, then make sure they're front and center in the pitch. Hit the audience with them, hook them, and get out quickly, before people realize you've only got the two good bullets.

II. Not getting the audience to a character/vibe/POV fast enough. It's not enough to have action (otherwise most pitches would be like those action-sound-effect words from campy Batman), you need to tether the action to something else to make it matter. Who's doing the action? What's the tone caused by the action? What's the tone caused by the consequences of the action? If it's unclear, and leaves the audience scratching their head more than shaking it along with you, then you're going to face rejection.


Example: War! Two raging clans battle in post-apocalyptic Ohio, salvaging whatever raw materials they can to survive the cold nights, radioactive animal attacks and the on-going blood feud between their families that has gone on since before the first mushroom cloud bloomed. No one remembers what started the feud, but people suspect it had something to do with love.

Yeah, that's the whole pitch. If I had to describe with a single word, I'd call it "vague", because even though it's got some racy language (there's a war and a blooming cloud and love), it doesn't actually say anything.

Solution - A two-part strategy - Engage & Lead. Using a combination of USP and evocative language, get the audience's attention and steer them along the path that leads them progressively deeper into your creation and closer to saying 'yes'. Provoke them into thinking and feeling, and tie your actions to characters (and motivations), and make the conflict or goal feel real. Make it interesting! Make the audience care and want to be a part of the experience you're proposing. You can even go one step further and treat the pitch like a movie camera, zooming and racking us into hard focus with a character or scene to immediately connect the audience with a character or idea.

III. Giving too much setup, not enough payoff. Pitches are a tricky balance between informing and intriguing the audience, no matter the media. And the more invested you might be in something, the harder it is for you to have a sense of what is or isn't working in a pitch.

Note: I did not say what's 'good' or 'right' in a pitch because you cannot think of a pitch in terms of the binary good/bad or acceptable/unacceptable or worst (and most vague) okay/not okay. Pitches are more variable and dynamic than that, and there are lots of ways to accomplish the goal - it's more a matter of efficacy and ease for the pitch-giver.

By giving a lot of extraneous detail, and not providing any hooks (remember your Velcro theory) gives the audience nothing to pay attention to or care about. The result is a lost audience.

Example - My board game, 57 Chances To Murder Your Spouse, is a collaborative story-telling game of alibis and plotting where players take turns crafting the best way to receive insurance money without the pesky court trial and corpse discovery. This game was created after my eleventh argument with my spouse, and if you're like me, you're probably wondering why they don't listen to a damned word I say either. I mean all the time, I just asked them for help. Would they swallow this pill and tell me what happens? Could they take this hair dryer into the bathroom with them? Where did they leave the keys? You know, spouse stuff. I've been trying for eight years to get this game produced and I'm sure my hard work has created a product that will absolutely revolutionize Family Game Night. 

Solution - Stick to what matters. What matters are the USPs and the emotions you want to instill in your audience. The path you took to reach the point where you could pitch may make for interesting anecdotes or great personal revelations, but it is not a factor for an audience, as nearly everyone can/does spin their story to be the most emotional. What should be emotional is the game (or product) experience itself.

IV. Expecting the audience to "get it" If you've developed something, it's assumed that you're telling interested parties. If you've got a script to sell, you're probably not telling the clown at your son's birthday party. If you've written a novel, the guy who puts the price tag on the pork chops is not going to publish your book. You know who your audience is, but there is a further assumption underneath that - that they will understand what you're talking about.

Specifically, you're not giving them the details relevant to your pitch's concept, because you're assuming they've heard it all before.

Example - My novel is 95,000 words, and has to do with a man, a shovel and his desire to own all the Twinkies. The lonely guy is going to do this because of love. And stuff.

Solution - Now, yes, maybe they have, but the big problem here is that you're doing the thinking for them. Stop assuming the audience has enough information to make the conclusions you need or want them to make, and guarantee they'll connect the dots the way you want by giving them crystal-clear and precise details, without preamble, fluff or excessive sentiment.

V. Beating the dead horse. If you've got few USPs, and even one or two USPs that are much stronger than rest, it is very tempting to use them over and over again to make multiple points. Even by stretching or altering the language, you're still trotting out the same idea to serve many masters.

Example - In my movie, Fisheyes McSweeney 2: Make Easter My Bitch, our hero Fisheyes is released from jail, two years after trying to murder Santa Claus at the suggestion of his black adoptive grandmother. Now Fisheyes is out, and he has to save his buddy Stu from a horrible fate - Easter Dinner. Fisheye's rollicking quest launches him back into action, better than the time he tried to kill Santa. In the end, you'll say, "Fisheyes, I believe in you."

Solution - Remember that there's more than facts to a pitch. Yes, (Dragnet-style) just the facts is a good approach, up to a point, but without emotion to guide and intention to lead, facts are bland and easily worn out. Your facts plus how you want people to feel plus how you feel crafts a good body for your pitch. There's no wrong way to do what you're doing, so feel free to includes facts of all sizes great and small to serve your ends.

VI. Sounding desperate - Pitching is tough and scary, I know. It gets worse when you start thinking about how little speaking experience you may have or just how important this pitch is or how long you may have to wait to get another opportunity and the next thing you know you'reracingthroughallyourwordsandtryingnottosayum.

Example - My novel, Arrow To The Knee, is the story of a man's adventure cut tragically short after an archery accident. It's available in 10 parts on my blog and it's a prequel to my upcoming series 'Now I Guard a Jarl' and I really think you'll enjoy it because it touches on themes we all like, like guarding and Jarls and knees. This is my first attempt at publication, because normally, in my day job, I'm a professional data processor, I process professional data, and my librarian friend said that I should totally talk to you about my book and writing because I'm a writer and you're someone who works with writers and I think this is a great relationship to have. 

Solution - Remember that you have more than one chance, ever. When trying to get things published or produced, or when trying to improve in whatever field you're in, you're going to face some adversity and get rejected. People are going to say no, not because you're a horrible person deserving punishment, but because your pitch didn't make them want to say yes. And if person A, B or C reject you, you still have D, E and F to talk to. Even if you run all the way through the list of people, you can always go back to your project, make changes and resubmit again. Remember Rule #3: You're never stuck/trapped, you always have options.

We've reached the end of Pitch 101, and if you go through this series and make good use of the material, you're prepared to tackle a lot of opportunities. Yes, for the curious, there is a Pitch 201, which will very likely end up on this blog eventually, but for now, I think I've drowned you in enough words. The real work begins now.

What are you going to do with this information? That's what matters. Will it help you? Will you shrug it off because it sounds complicated? Will you ignore it because ten other sources have said similar things?

I end today with a reminder of Rule #1 - Writing is the act of making decisions. That includes the decisions about whether to write or not or whether to pitch or not.

Make great decisions.

Happy writing.

The Beat Sheet Of Game Design

Oh man is today ever a great day to read a blog post. Now this is a long one, and it's dedicated entirely to game design, but I swear to you, this post is a gold mine for you designers out there.

Today I'm going to show you a complete system of game development, so that you can take your game, whatever it is, and work it through what I'm describing below so you can see where your holes and gaps are...and then fill them.

Before we get started, we have to go over the three rules I'll be referencing.

The Rules

Rule 1: Writing is the act of making decisions
Rule 2: Be easy on yourself
Rule 3: You always have options, there is always a way out, you're never trapped.

Critical here are Rule #1 and Rule #3. Rule #2 is there to remind you that you're not a failure or bad or stupid or wrong for not being perfect the first time, every time.

(Side note: You're also amazing, if you didn't know)

Before we get into the meat of this system, I have a little questionnaire for you, to help sort out the finer points of your game. Answers to these questions will be USPs (Unique Selling Points) that you can immediately use in your pitches. If you can't answer the question, or if your answer isn't one of the options listed, that's okay, it just means that your game is a little more niche and/or atypical.

Yes, absolutely, you should be writing the answers to these questions down, perhaps on a legal pad or in your 'Game Development Notebook' or wherever you store your ideas.

Question 1: Is this game about Character or about Plot? (Are you creating a linear game where people go from one place to another and do a single task to 'win', or is this a game where you create a character and they're pretty free to do whatever, within the confines of the world, and this game is their biography?)

Question 2: Is this game a single serving or can this be a long-term game? (Is this a game I can get into for a few hours on a rainy evening with a few friends, or is this game something that I can play over the course of many weeks and months?)

Question 3: Does this game get easier/better/more enjoyable by using previous knowledge or can anyone pick this up? (Is this a game where I have to know about something else going in, or can someone whose never seen a particular show, read a certain book or had a certain game experience still get the same level of enjoyment as someone who is better read/experienced?)

Question 4: Do the characters matter in this world? (If players eliminate or disempower a major quest-giver or chain of events, do their actions resonate 'locally' or'globally' or not at all? Or are the characters fighting a Sisyphean battle, with huge odds stacked against them?)

Question 5: Is this game about the experience or about winning and losing? (Does this game have specific 'winning conditions' or is this game to be played just to play and enjoy the company of your friends and have a specific experience along the way?)

Got your answers? Lets go meet the driving force of this design system.

Beats!

Previously, I talked a little about "Beats", the moments and particular scenes that act as signposts from your project's Point A to wherever you end up at Point B or Q or F or whatever. Now, some types of beat-layout and even some beats are optional, but in game design, there are three unavoidable beats, and they act as large umbrellas for sections of the game.

The Opening
The Mid-Game
The End Game

The Opening introduces the players to their characters and the world, as well as gives them a baseline of mechanics to operate within the world. Near the end of the Opening, you introduce them to the plot, as you'll see and play intensifies from there.

The Mid-Game (or mid-Session, if your game is a long-play) develops and expands on what the players and
characters already know. They discover and use more mechanics, they receive more information about plot, and they advance themselves experientially. Near the end of the mid-game/session, they propel forward into end-game/session which is generally a moment of significance for them.

The End Game/Session is where the experience and development accomplished so far pays off. Armed with
material and knowledge, the characters and players are able to take significant actions and headway for or
against the plot, resolving it in some cases (situationally) and either concluding their development, or launching them forward toward another cycle of the same beats.

Now under those three big umbrellas sit a host of other smaller beats. Let's break them down, one umbrella at a time. I should point out that although I'm expressing these beats numerically, your game doesn't have to. You can adjust the order of these beats within these umbrellas as you like or need to. Further, you may omit
or relocate a beat to serve your purposes.

The Opening

I. The Introduction of Characters - Sometimes this includes character creation, sometimes this doesn't (and
therefore considers that creation to be separate from play), but this beat commences the minute the first character does something in-character in-game. In older games, this is the 'you all meet in a tavern' moment, where suddenly and randomly a fighter, a healer, a thief and a wizard just happen to sit together at their local
restaurant. In plot-driven games, the reason this is done is because the plot gets explained here. "You're sitting at the tavern, having answered the summons for adventurers..." In more open-ended plot games, possible plots are teased here, by way of what characters see (this is where flavor text helps develop and enrich the world, by showing the players what's possible).

II. The Introduction of Conflict - For the more structured (read: less flexible) gamer, this is the beat that answers, "Why are we doing this?" This beat comes most often as a box of prepared module-esque text that
somehow you've asked your GM to make interesting, without a lot of dice rolling or random inflection. Here the characters learn about the conflict they face within the world. It may be pretty straight forward (Mario, go rescue the princess) or it can be far more layered (resolve the conspiracy, defeat the terrorists, save the hostages).

Time and experience pass and the characters learn more about the conflict and themselves. There are a few simpler beats to hit in the Opening:

III. First Combat/Mechanical Trial - Thanks to a particular circumstance (bandits in the road, a locked
door, etc), the characters must make use of the mechanics to resolve problems. Key in this beat are the 'ease of play' (how straightforward the experience is) and 'depth of play' (how this trial and resolution feel...not so much in terms of accuracy, but in terms of enjoyment). In some games, this trial is expressed as a mini-game (game within a game) and other times as a series of contested rolls and expressed actions (you rolled a 15 against a 3, you hit).

IV. The Disbelief Point - Up until this moment, what the players have done is fairly elementary statistical exercise: roll some dice, record the numbers in little boxes on a sheet, tell a shared fairy tale. But there comes a point within the opening third of the game where the story and character(s) grabs them, and involves them. Going forward from this point, the player is immersed. Now, yes, every player has a different disbelief point, acting via free will to suspend their disbelief and engage their imagination at whatever point they like. Perhaps Player 3 got involved during combat when she totally shot that guy in the face, and perhaps player 8 really liked the way the setting was described when he sat down at the table. Every player has one, and while no game can specifically address every player, a game designer can put together the best components within the product and remember Rule #2.

The Opening Ends with...

V. Launch Into Mid-Game/Session - Here, the players have completed whatever basics need be done, and they have discovered some element(s) of the plot. They may be suitably armed (physically, mentally and otherwise) and they often are (thanks to flavor text) relocated from one place to another, a physical migration to start this movement (they leave the tavern, they board the train, they go somewhere else, etc). Further, the characters have a purpose, a mission to do and a reason to do it.

The Mid-Game/Session

The Mid-Game is characterized by expansion. Everything gets bigger here, quantifiably more than qualitatively. Characters advance in level(s), gain more material and knowledge and the playing "field" (perhaps a board or the collaborative environment) is impacted by their growth and decisions (yes, Rule #1 is in effect even for players)

The Mid Beats all focus on moving things (people/places/plot) forward.

VI. Setback/Obstacle, Smaller - At some point, as the characters advance, the GM will want to add a wrinkle to the best laid plans. This is done through obstacles. Granted, some obstacles are opponents in combat, but Obstacles are not only combat constructs. Any impediment to some type of advancement (combat, social, plot, in-party) counts here.

Obstacles are designed to improve the character(s) involved without sidelining them too long from the actual
objective. The locked door, the puzzle in the room, the guard that needs to be persuaded, these are at best speed bumps on the road.

Now this isn't to say the GM shouldn't take delight in letting players overthink, but from a design level,
remember Rule #3 and plan for what they do after the obstacle. An obstacle is only as good as the action that follows it. It means less if it's just a passing idea.

VII. Setback/Obstacle, Larger - These are the obstacles that will really teach two things: 1. Some character advancement or ability (in video games, these are the side quests that unlock new gear) 2. That the antagonists are bigger badasses than first realized. This is done because the larger setbacks run parallel and
concurrent to the main plot, without actually being the plot. Consider them practically sub-plots if you like, as
they can be involved and consume quite a lot of design/creation space.

A note about setbacks: They have to matter, and they have to provide knowledge. The bigger something is, the more steps involved and the more the pay-off should be.

Get out of the dungeon by picking a lock? Small success
Uncover the plot to smuggle a bomb in the fuel tanks of the plane before the peace treaty? Bigger success.

The bigger they are, the more open-ended they should be. If it's a subplot, or something that adds context to the game world (an RP seed), then it doesn't need anything more than a hook to snare players and a start of the path to head them on. Let the players resolve the issue in their own way, everyone will feel more rewarded.

VIII. Things In Danger - There comes a point in play where the characters are suitably powered and capable to defeat plenty of challenges, and the only way to up that scale is to raise the intensity of challenges. And while following a scalar model is a good thing in most games, sometimes you can't race the players forward too quickly (often for the sake of plot). So what can you do?

Just before you launch them forward towards the end-game, give them one more reason or reminder to help galvanize them towards resolution (because it's likely at this point they've spent a lot of time away from the reason that brought them this far).

Challenging the safety of something they care about shows the extent the antagonists/opposition will go, as well as remind the players that what they're doing matters.

IX. Reconfirmation - This beat can be as short as a shared group look and nod, or as long as a Normandy
invasion planning session. Here, the players apply what they've learned to date, with what they hope to
experience to create their strategy for the endgame. The benefit here is that they're not actually IN the endgame yet, and the GM is free to raid their ideas as well as ideas provided in the design to work with and against (a good measure of each) the players in the actual endgame.

Good design hinges on this beat by offering a lot of options that all converge towards resolution, in sort of
a "no matter how you got here, this is where things stand" moment.

From here we launch into the third act...End Game!

End Game

X. The Big Huge Setup and Execution - Carrying forward from the previous beat, here's where the planning of Act 2 goes forward and begins to be resolved. If there's a fight to be had, this is getting all the pieces in place before the fight begins. This is also the last chance for the game to make offerings outside the plot for a while, as what follows will be more strictly tied to the plot than at any other time in the game's progression.

XI. The Loss is a Gain - As things ramp up towards the Big Battle, along the way there can and should be casualties. It's difficult to avoid telegraphing this, but a good game can obfuscate it by creating options (which can be reinforced as being likely or unlikely in Act 2 with subplots). The goal here is to take away a key asset from the players but not deprive them of whatever knowledge or power it offered (Before you fight the guy in the black suit, your vaunted British actor has to get chopped in half by the lightsaber).

In one regard, the asset was just a tangible item or person, but as a teaching tool, RP element, magical device or wisdom, the asset can flourish to deeper levels (the wise teacher killed in Season 1 had a warehouse of material for Season 2....) and at this point, it's time you remove any and all crutches you've given the players to date.

Of course, removing too many crutches too quickly does not have the impact of a systematic and deliberately tense extinction of resources, but it does have the benefit of strongly marking lines between pro- and antagonists.

XII. The Big Huge Battle (Climax!) - So, at some point, the players have done all they can and the only bridge to advancement is battle. (We can look at this in a micro level as a battle on an immediate scale or in the macro as part of the overall campaign/game design)

Here, the players should have to risk everything to gain the largest rewards available at the moment. And likewise, the opposition should be as strong or even a hair stronger for the fight to feel satisfying to everyone involved.

When it's over, there should be quantifiable consequences and results.

XIV. Consequences! - If the climax was large enough, and the battle ferocious enough, and the danger great enough, the players should have really pushed themselves, the mechanics and their abilities to the limit here. But they're not off the hook just for defeating the opponent - now there are ramifications for what happened. Did they just blow up a building? Look at the victims. Did they just crash a ship into a spaceport? Won't someone go after them? Did one just use godlike powers to unmake something? I'm not sure a god would be pleased about that....

The point here is that in order to keep the players grounded, you have to provide consequences with tangible results that counterbalance the size and scale of the climax. Big tense climax? Big intense consequence. Don't judge this solely by the specifical literal action, do consider the impact on the created world. Since the characters don't live and operate in a vacuum, consequences should lead to a change in action, which springs us forward further...

XV. What's Next? - Following the consequences, players should have more questions than answers. Yes, they should have answers for what they asked initially (did the badguy kidnap the girl, did the supervillain almost blow up Time?) but there should be other questions being asked. You can plant these seeds as early as Act 2 subplots if you want, or more traditionally lace them into the framework leading up to and throughout Act 3.

This is a cycle, don't forget. Even at its most linear, this is a parabolic curve, arcing slightly towards more questions, more buildups and more payoffs.

In this system, even if the book ends, play and potential play shouldn't. At worst the book is a self-contained experience, at best, it is a launching point for further cycles of development and character expression.

* * *

Now what I want you to do is take your game, and lay it out over this template. Adjust both until you get a snug fit (move some beats around, fatten up your game as needed, etc) and then tell me about it. Leave a comment below, send me an email...but let's talk about your game. Nothing fancy, nothing forcibly professional, just some conversation.

You can do this, you're awesome, and I most definitely wish you,

Happy writing.

Pitch 101 - Part 4: Pitch Autopsy

This was actually part of Part 3, which you can read here. It got its own section when I realized how long that post would be.

Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series are also worth your time.

Note: What follows are sample pitches I created for this post - they ARE NOT actual client pitches.
Note 2: They may be pitches I wished actual clients had used.
Note 3: Yes, I got their permission.

If you've been following along, you should be aware of and comfortable with USPs (Unique Selling Points), pitch styles and Velcro Theory (which was just introduced in the last section, but operates on the idea that a pitch hooks into particular interests of the audience).

Previously, we talked about our Eskimo Tim (Assassin who has to kill a senator) property. Let's look at a sample pitch for the novel. (You may recognize this as a query letter, which is a pitch, written down.)

The corrupt senator Aloysius Fedora is about to engineer his largest political coup to date - an oil pipeline from Alaska all the way to Arizona, with all the contracts going to his company, EvilDoucheCorp. This pipe will run from the frozen north to the scorching desert, bringing black liquid wealth thousands of miles. 


But that pipe ran into a problem. A small village of Eskimos sits where a critical part of the pipe goes. And in the village, there is one Eskimo not ready to move.


Eskimo Assassin Tim is about to run muckluck first into EvilDoucheCorp and slice it to ribbons.

Yeah, that's a rotten pitch. Let's make it not suck. Drag that bloated word-corpse to the table, and get ready to learn how to dissect your pitch.

Step 1: Write your pitch down. In full sentences. And paragraphs. As if it counted.
Step 2: Don't judge it, just write it down.

I combine these two steps because you're not going anywhere until you can get them both accomplished. You may need to refer back to Step 2 often to get Step 1 done, which is okay. This isn't the part where you edit the pitch as you write, this is where you just lay it out, all messy and not-how-you-want-it, so that we can in subsequent steps, make it better.

Bring our pitch back. And hand me a knife.

The corrupt senator Aloysius Fedora is about to engineer his largest political coup to date - an oil pipeline from Alaska all the way to Arizona, with all the contracts going to his company, EvilDoucheCorp. This is a great establishing, expositive sentence. 

 This pipe will run from the frozen north to the scorching desert, bringing black liquid wealth thousands of miles. This is still good, and even has a little cute turn of phrase.


But that pipe ran into a problem. Red flag #1 - This is a cliche. And it's a poor bridge to whatever comes next, as most cliches are.

A small village of Eskimos sits where a critical part of the pipe goes. And in the village, there is one Eskimo not ready to move. While these two statements are true, and good, they're also incredibly boring ways to relay this information. If I wanted to sleep, I'd go watch War Horse or listen to parade commentary. Boring sentences, especially when words count, the way they do in a query, will kill your pitch.


Eskimo Assassin Tim is about to run muckluck first into EvilDoucheCorp and slice it to ribbons. I like this sentence. I also like the idea about running muckluck first. Not happy with the dull 'slice it to ribbons' bit, but we can rewrite it.

I know, I'm basically asking you to be objective about your own work so as to dissect it. And I know you're going to be blind to a lot of the red flags, errors, weak spots and loose connections in your pitch. This is why we get step 3.

Step 3: Get someone else to read your pitch. Get someone who knows pitches. Sales professionals, consultants, editors, writers...people in the industry you're pitching to - that's who you need to chat with for step 3.

If you can't find anyone, email me. Put 'Pitch 101' in the subject of the email, and we'll talk your pitch through. Seriously.

Now, wait, maybe you're going to tell me that you did find people who knew pitches, but they didn't help you. And I'll ask you, who did you talk to about your novel (for example), and you'll tell me you talked to a librarian.

And when I'm done laughing, I'll say that a librarian knows books the way a consumer knows books - via popularity or similarity. They don't know how to take your idea and make it excel or how to amplify it so that it can then become popular or super-successful.

Oh, and then you'll say you've taken your script and given it to your three friends who go to the movies all the time, and that one time about fifteen years ago they all wanted to be Kevin Smith, so they know. Oh sure they know. They know what not to do, they know where the potholes were in the road forward. But if you want to get past the potholes, find the people who found the potholes, patched them (or are patching them) and kept driving. Yes, such people exist. And you should go seek them out.

Step 4: Rebuild/Rewrite your pitch to make the USPs stand out, while remembering your velcro.

The success of your pitch isn't only the charisma you have, you need to back it up with substance. That substance is your USPs. If you're more formula minded, try this:

Good pitch = USPs + Charisma + Hooks + Receptive Awareness

We'll talk more about that formula in Part 5 of the series, but for now, understand that you can immediately control what the USPs are and how they're presented to the audience. Do you build tension in your voice when talking about the tense parts? Do you race through way too quickly because you're nervous? Do you skip around all over the place because, 'you're so ADD, lol'? (Please don't ever write a professional email and use 'lol' in it. PLEASE.)

Let's rebuild Eskimo Tim's pitch:


In two days, EvilDoucheCorp will run a pipeline right through Eskimo Tim's village. In two days, the ancient Eskimo ways will be gone, replaced by gallons of liquid wealth, fattening the pockets of Senator Aloysius Fedora. 


All that culture, gone. And it's not just mucklucks and seal clubbing. Eskimos are also Assassins. And Tim is one of a long line of proud killers for hire. 


In two days, the village will be destroyed. In three days, EvilDoucheCorp will come to know that Eskimos have 40 words for snow and 41 words for murder.


BLOOD OF THE SNOWMAN is a novel of 92,000 words.

See how much more compelling that is? We added a time element (the two/three days bit), toyed with Eskimo knowledge (40 words for snow) and kept the mucklucks.

We made the product matter for our audience. We gave them a reason to keep their eyes moving down through the pitch. We made the story engage them, not just lie flat on its back like a bad date.

Pitches aren't just for novels. Your game pitch (here's a great one from Rob Donoghue) is built the same way, and can benefit from the same reconstruction. The same is true for your script.

But it all starts with writing SOMETHING, some kind of pitch down. And then getting eyes on it. And hopefully those are objective eyes. Then the rebuilding can begin.

Once the pitch is rebuilt, trust me, you won't want to wait to show it off.

In Part 5 of the series, we'll talk about that formula for making a good pitch.

Happy writing.

Pitch 101: Step 1 - The Mindset & Selling Points

What follows is the start of a series on how to pitch your product to other people. It doesn't matter if that product is a book, a game, a film script or your business, pitching is a critical skill and knowing how to do it can easily separate you from the rest of the competition.

Before we get into the first component of Pitching, there are some ground rules. Not many, don't panic.

I. You're not always 'on'. One of the big hurdles for people, especially when they're new, is that they think anytime someone asks about what they're doing, they have to launch into some well-rehearsed and stiffly-acted presentation, with broad gestures to invisible powerpoint slides. You don't. You don't. I repeat: You don't.

There is a valuable skill in knowing when you have to give a formal description, and when you're just explaining your material over a burrito to a bunch of friends. To better determine when you have to be on, ask yourself two questions:

a.) Do the results of this situation lead my product one step closer toward publication, or is this just chat?
b.) Did this situation arise because it's organized to be about my product, or did we come to the topic of my product through conversation?

If you answered "yes" to the first half of either question, then you're on. If not, be cool and relax, and talk in more relaxed ways.

II. There isn't a 'perfect', just 'moving forward'. Many people freeze when they think about talking about their product because they often want to give the 'perfect' answer to whatever question they just heard, as answers are like Highlander or the One Ring and there's a definite top to some pyramid. There isn't. And every time you think so, you're hurting your own cause in major way.

You didn't get asked questions because people are testing your sense of perfection - you got asked questions because the book/game/script/whatever interests someone else.

All you have to do in those moments is move the conversation forward. Just like flirting. Just like a job interview. Just like the weird conversations you have waiting in lines. Move things forward, keep the momentum alive.

Each of your answers, as long as it's positive and/or constructive in somewhat about the question, moves things along. Hopefully to the next question. Hopefully forward to other questions that maybe the interviewer didn't prepare in advance. It should be, at its best, organic, just like conversation.

Which leads to the third rule of pitching.

III. It's a conversation, not rocket science. A good pitch is talking. A bad pitch is silence. A good conversation is talking. A bad conversation is silence. A good time is talking. A bad time is silence. See the point I'm making here? If you're still talking, you're doing it right. And it's only ever talking.

Sometimes yes, it's talking while standing or while sitting or while in front of a room, but it's only ever talking. They're not going to ask you to describe a part of your product while performing brain surgery using celery and a spatula. You aren't going to have to calculate re-entry velocities for a Martian space probe, you won't have to defuse a bomb in the basement of Fort Knox. You're having a conversation about something you're passionate and knowledgeable about.

Load those three rules into your brain, digest them completely and practice them often. Yes, often. At whatever stage of development you're at. Just started writing today? Then this is what you have to look forward to. Did you just write 'The End' on it? Then this is the next step.

This is the Pitch Mindset. Well, technically, this is my pitch mindset and I'm hoping it becomes your pitch mindset too. It can be, with some practice. Not always easy practice, if you're like me and you catch yourself kicking your own ass or you go into a situation with the expectation of epic failure, but with practice, you can change that, and lubricate those creative ideas in this special I-can-do-it-sauce.

Just like GI Joe, this was half the battle.

For the next half, we better take a look at some of the actual words you can use, unless you're pitching telepathically. (If you are, we should talk, or mind meld or use the Force or whatever) The other stumbling block for people is what to actually say.

Seriously, it's like the words evaporate from the folds of your brain or something. I know. Your palms get all sweaty and your stomach gets all queasy, just like that time in eighth grade when you saw Karen in Home Ec (I may have said too much there), and then when you try to talk, your brain makes the jump to lightspeed and you end up runningallthewordstogetherlikeyou'regoingtorunoutofairortimeorsomething. And then you stand there exhausted and panting like you just performed in a bad musical.

Remember this sentence --  

When in doubt, talk about the shiny.

The "shiny" is what makes your game unique. It could be mechanics you use (no one else uses seven-sided die like this), it could be your plot (epic battle as a robot version of Duran Duran!) or it could be the way you're going to distribute copies (When you buy a six pack of Suddso Beer, you get a free download!)

Now, this means you have to find your shiny. So break out the legal pad, and let's get to work. Here's the Shiny Detection Questionnaire:

1. What are you most excited to talk about when you're asked about your product?
2. What do you think is the best part (so far) of the development process?
3. Where did you struggle, and how did you overcome it? (The overcoming part is CRITICAL)
4. What are you excited to do next with your product?
5. Name up to 3 things/scenes/beats/moments your game/book/script has that you're proud of.

Write down all your answers. Try to get them into sentences, but if you can't, phrases are good too.

The answers to those questions are called "Unique Selling Points" (USPs), and you can reward yourself for receiving the same amount of knowledge as one semester of marketing in college! Hooray college credit!

You're going to want to cobble together a TON of Unique Selling Points. You shouldn't repeat information, but they don't always need to be cookie cutter sentences. Here are some USPs for a script I wrote last year.

• I coined the euphemism "cunty deposit box"
• You actually meet two cat burglars who burgle cats.
• For ninety minutes, you practically drown in a weekend with the main character, Jared.
• It's a movie about drug dealers that isn't inherently racist. 

USPs are the currency you spend in your pitch to entice people to buy your product. You give them USPs, they give you currency. It's a wonderful economy.

I strongly strongly recommend you practice USP development as often as possible, at least until you exhaust all your shiny resources (go back to your Feel Document and Note Cards, don't forget). Strip mine the idea...because you never know when the little scribble you had on the bottom of a card is going to turn into the big hook for a consumer. 

Before I end this post, let me just tell you, remind you, and convince you that you can do this. It's just talking about what you love. Throw on some blinders until you soak that idea into your genes. No, don't start telling me some bullshit about how this proves you're successful, don't be silly - you were successful the minute you started the product. Don't you dare tell me this is too complicated - it's just a conversation and all you have to do is move it forward. 

You can do this. For realsies.

In Part 2, we'll construct some sample pitches. Look for it later in the week. 

Beats! (Sorry Blake Snyder...), part 1

I mentioned previously that there are these things called 'beats'. Here now is a better breakdown of some them.

Opening Gambit - This is a scene different from the main thrust of the story, but that gives the reader/viewer an opportunity to see the protagonist in action. This is a mini-serving of the character or context of the world, and is often done in media res, meaning we join the action in the middle of it occurring.

Opening Gambits have three parts
                A. Observation - We (and/or the protagonist) sees the world by way of a specific problem - We meet Batman on the roof of bank being broken into, for example. And that tells us something about the character (They fight crime, they're heroic, etc) and about the world (it has criminals, it's dangers, etc).
                B. Operation - Here we see how the protagonist does whatever they do. Batman fights the bad guys, Macgyver builds something with string, celery and a dime, something that demonstrates WHAT the character does and HOW they do it.
                 C. Resolution/Praise - Having navigated the challenges of the opening conflict, the protagonist gets a reward. How they handle the reward provides more information about the character. Do they sigh when a rescued hostage thanks them? Do they escape before the police or publicity finds them? Do they talk about apple pie and democracy? The response to a completed (or failed) gambit educates the reader/viewer more about the nature of the character.

Instigator - This is a scene or character that leads the protagonist towards the conflict. They often introduce us to the plot as a concept, without actually breaking down the specifics of the plot. In a movie about treasure hunting, this is the character who tells the explorer about the existence of the map being found, for example.

Challenge Set-up - Just after the plot is introduced, most writers leave the protagonist for a moment and cut/wipe away to the antagonist to show them in a similar, albeit more evil situation. (Indiana Jones meets with the wise sage, the Nazis gather together to dig more holes) This is done to show that the desired Mcguffin is sought by multiple parties, to create tension.

The flaw here is the assumption that without the cut-away, the audience wouldn't know that this should be tense.

If the object is important, and the potential danger is illustrated (if the Russian guy gets the missiles, he can blow up the world!), then we don't need to cutaway to prove it -- the potential can be SHOWN to us in the characterizations.

McGuffin Tease - If your movie, novel, or play and it has a McGuffin, then you're going to want to show us that the object is powerful. The Ark of Covenant kills a few rats, the cursed Cthulhu statue leads to someone dying,  the piece of kryptonite weakens Superman.

By showing the audience what the McGuffin can do when it's not even actively being used, you show how dangerous the plot is and how important the good guys win should be.

Sidekick Conversation Hour - Do you have time to kill between the B-plot romance and before you get back to the main plot, generally just before things look really bad for our intrepid protagonists? Then you're likely due to have 'Sidekick Conversation Hour'. This is that scene, or portion of a scene where the two stoner friends reference pop culture or allow you the writer to express your personal inside jokes that the audience will only tangentially understand. (Note - this is like the second beat cut out of a film, just after those scenes where multiple characters bring the audience up to speed on the plot as if we haven't been following along.)

Stay tuned for part 2, screenwriters.