In RPG Storytime, the Game is Like the Writers’ Room

 For my series RPG Storytime, I take stories generated out of role playing games, and I make narrated videos and podcasts out of them.  The finished videos tell the stories like audio books or radio dramas.  I tried to tape the games live, but some of my players were shy, and ultimately I’m just not good at improv, so I don’t think they would have come out very good.  I’ve also fixed some dramatic elements before telling the story, so they wind up better.

As a result, an interesting thing has come to my attention.  This method I use makes the role playing game itself the writers’ room.  Rather than the players being performers, like they are in other RPG shows, they are my fellow writers.

Building the Benefits of a Writers Group & Keeping it Afloat

Earlier this year a writers group I belonged to basically fell apart.  I usually don't go to writers groups as I don't need incentive to write, the travel time to and from them is time I could be writing, and most people use them as excuses to talk about writing rather than actually writing.

However I did notice a number of benefits to having a writers group, and they're not always completely evident.  There's the obvious aid it provides by being able to read what you're working on and getting feedback from others.  This can be laborious as you also have to listen to everyone else's and give them feedback; but you don't want to be selfish, and you can always learn from what others are doing.

But there are some other things to make one's writing group beneficial.  For one, having a central location to communicate between the group meetings is invaluable.  With our group what I suggested was to post on the Facebook group we already had.  It had been set up just for communicating who was coming, but when we started using it to post what we were working on, it became beneficial for members to post both what they were working on, and what they had already finished.  The current work could be critiqued and people could come to the meetings with advice already to give.

The earlier work was especially beneficial online because the members could share it.  Online resources are the best way to spread the word of your work, and one of the best uses of a writers group can be for everyone to help spread each other's work, and to post reviews for one another.  This latter action is one of the most important commodities for independent writers.

Another great benefit for writers groups can be for everyone to swap suggestions on where they can take their work to be seen by those who need to see it.  Screenplays need to be seen by producers.  Short stories need to be seen by magazines.  Traditional works need to be seen by publishers.  Independent works need audiences.  And everyone could use a good agent.

Some of these suggestions may seem obvious, but so many writers groups are all about people writing off of a prompt and fishing for compliments.  The group pats each other on the backs and everyone goes away feeling good, but they gain nothing.  Regardless of how good they feel in the moment, though, eventually they'll realize that they're going nowhere in their careers, and going to the writers group isn't paying off, so the group will slowly dissolve.

So the best way to make one's writers group thrive is to provide elements that will help the members in the long run.  It may not be as much fun, and it may be uncomfortable even when you give suggestions rather than just say, "that's great," but ultimately it will keep people coming back as they'll see it as indispensable.

Writing While Holding a Job

In LA, when someone asks what you do, you either tell them about the job you do to pay the rent, or the job you do as your passion. I love writing. That's my job. Unfortunately, it's not the job that pays the rent. I guess that makes it my "passion job." There are some people who pay their rent with their writing work. Most of them write things they don't care as much about; that's why they're able to make a living at it. They're more malleable because it doesn't mean much to them, so they're able to do the work that needs to be done. There are others who get to make money writing what they really love. Those people are called the luckiest people on Earth. The rest of us need to find some sort of work that pays the rent, allows us to live a life, and doesn't get too much in the way of our writing. For me that's been transcribing. The main thing about transcribing that gives me the freedom to write is that I can do it at home. I get up, go to my computer, transcribe, then I switch over to my writing without much effort. No hour-long commute, and I don't get so exhausted at work that I can't write. Also, I can travel and still work from wherever I am; so when I want to write in another area where I'll get more inspired for the specific story I'm writing, I can do that. I'll be writing a very personal story this August in Nebraska this year. I don't believe I could write this story anywhere but Nebraska. Having my transcription job allows me to continue doing my day job while I do my passion job where I need to do it. The down side is that, as a transcriber, I'm at the mercy of the industry. sometimes it slows down and we have no work. At the time of this writing, for instance, we've hardly had any work for seven weeks. Without my girlfriend supporting us right now, I'm not sure how I'd pay rent, let alone take care of other bills. However, had I planned better during the months when it was busy, I could have done more work and made more money. So it can pay off if you do a better job than I have planning. Plus, while a lot of my books don't do great, some of them make a little bit of money. So I often let their profits pile up on their bank account until these desperate times in which I withdraw them to carry me through these rough patches. Thus the life of a writer.