Campaign Creations

Coming up with a small story is usually a simple task.  But one may be wondering how do you write an epic - something that extends far beyond a single piece of work.  How do you keep it flowing together.  How do those clever writers introduce characters or put in symbolism into a piece of work, and then refer back to it years later in some spectacular fashion which makes our jaws drop?

Writing a storyline, filling it with characters, and making those characters speak dialogue is easy enough for any monkey with a typewriter.  However, the laws of nature tells us that everything works in balance.  Disrupting balance leads to disbelief and doubt.  If something isn't right, your audience won't believe it and the sum of your story will lose credibility.  If you want to harness the power of unlimited creativity, you must start small and feed your 'baby' creativity slowly.  Don't try to stuff your creative baby with everything at once, cause then you only end up with a misshapen horrid looking mess.

STORYLINE (First Draft)
This is going to be the easiest step.  When most people think storyline, they think about a book from beginning to end.  But a book is usually a completed combination of multiple storylines, a who's who list of characters, and various dialogue filled with personality.  Intertwining this can seem like a monumental task.  But approached correctly, it's actually just an exercise in a combination of patience and creativity.  First of all, decide what kind of story you are trying to tell.  You'll need a point of interest, something which attracts your target audience.  That may be something which interests you personally, like slavery, revolution, romance, or a combination of various themes.  Creating something completely original is a fantasy however.  If you fall into the trap that "your creation cannot be inspired, based, or themed after an existing work or collection of various works - or else it will be considered plagiarism", you will end up creating something so foreign to the audience that there may not be an audience for your piece of work.  Always look to your teachers, which in the case of a storyline, is going to be every single story, TV show, movie, and idea you have ever perceived.  Creativity flows from inspiration.

I guarantee you that even if a work seems entirely original, there are always sources that you can trace many of its elements back to.  It's just the nature of the beast, humanity has been writing and creating stories, refining them with minor improvements throughout the ages, and inspiring future authors for generations.  Nothing you do will ever be completely original.  Lose that delusion right away and you'll find that it is a much easier task to allow yourself to be inspired rather than try to create a raw piece of complete originality.  We all have to cook using the ingredients of past creative discoveries.  Look at it from a metaphorical perspective.  Artists paint whatever inspires them.  If you try to paint without inspiration, just randomly brushing until something appears, you'll have something that will be alien to anyone who views it except you.  People might be able to see something in it, patterns based on their own inspiration.  But it'll never be widely regarded as anything beyond smattering.  If you enjoy smattering however, feel free.  I know one or two who would rather pursue complete originality then give into the 'conformity' of the rest of the world.

If you have trouble coming up with something, think back to the greatest stories you have perceived.  What appealed to you about them?  What made them speak to your soul?  The more sources of inspiration you pull from, the more original your story seems.  Eventually you may have something that appears original in every sense.  It is in fact original in the sense that it is a culmination of experiences and inspirations coming entirely from your point of view in life.

When you first start constructing your storyline, try to make it as simple as possible.  Complexity comes later after long and careful planning.  "A group of adventurers travel across the lands with the ultimate goal of receiving the favor of the Grand Boss Dragon."  That's relatively simple enough for anyone to understand.  Most storylines can be summed up like this, and most are usually much more than that simple collection of words.  Let's start with this simple storyline for our epic and make this our first draft.  It's a single sentence you might think, how are we going to turn that into an epic story?

CHARACTERS (first draft)
After you have your first draft, start thinking about your initial starting characters.  First, who is absolutely essential to the storyline?  The characters you write first may not necessarily end up being your main characters, but everyone needs a starting point, a foothold for their creativity.  Our storyline, "A group of adventurers travel across the lands with the ultimate goal of receiving the favor of the Grand Boss Dragon."  We obviously first need a group of adventurers.  At least one of these will be your protagonist - someone who stands for an ideal, the story hero.  This doesn't have to be a morally correct ideal, nor does the hero need to be morally aligned to your other characters.  Of course, it has to be believable, so you better have a good reason if you have a Priest of God traveling with a Servant of Satan.  Multiple protagonists is possible too.  But I recommend focusing on a single person if you're just starting out.  Once creativity begins to flow, then you can add more later.  That's good though, we've come up with an interesting combination, so let's make the Priest of God and the Servant of Satan our main characters.

When writing characters, its important to remember that all of their present actions have to flow from who they were in the past, as well as their aspirations for the future.  You must in essence give each of your characters a soul, and a moral compass.  It might be a good idea to create a summary of past events which may have helped to sculpt your character into the person they are today.  All of their actions have to make sense from their perspective or else they cease to appear real.  For that reason, I like to apply 'The Sweet Science' to each of my characters - which basically means all people are predictable if you have enough information about them.  And as the author, you will always know everything there is to know about your creations.  It's practically a law of nature, everything is in balance and so any force which appears 'out of balance' can be traced back to something which tips the scales in the other direction.  If your Servant of Satan gives $5 to the charity for the disabled, even though he's one evil dude, maybe he was a disabled child as a kid.  Maybe being disabled is what led him down his path to darkness.  These ultimately gives your readers vital clues to your characters past.  You don't necessarily have to explain the past.  If your audience gets the sense that your characters are carefully crafted they can make their own assumptions, which for me, means I got them creatively thinking.  In my opinion, there is no greater compliment to an author.


Since they are your characters, you should be able to know who they are and how they'll react.  You don't necessarily have to write their past down, just remember what is important to them.  Every time they act, ask yourself, is this how this person will react?  A Priest of God will not pull out his 9mm Gun and shoot the Grand Boss Dragon because of a disagreement.  If the Priest of God and the Grand Boss Dragon have a disagreement, think of how a typical priest reacts to adversity.  This is the characters moral compass.  North will always be north.  The exception to this is if something occurs in your story to change the morals of your character, then the poles shift and north may now be south.  

We'll go with the three characters of 'Priest of God', 'Servant of Satan', and 'Grand Boss Dragon' for our first draft.

What we are and what we say sometimes contradict each other.  For this reason, dialogue does not always have to have same restrictions that are bound to the core of our characters being.  Always ask yourself, "Why is my character saying what he is saying?"  If he's lying, why?  If his words don't match his actions, why?  Always know the reason, even if you never write it.  As long as you can come up with a logical reason, likely so will your audience.  Think about yourself and how you talk to different people in real life.    Always think about the motivation behind your characters words.

How does your character talk?  Why does he (or she, obviously) speak in that manner?  The Servant of Satan may have a sarcastic wit and a flare for the dramatic, after having to put up with Satan's shit for all the time.  The Priest of God will almost certainly speak with a reverence for all things he believes morally important.  He may be inclined to speak motivationally, or using the same kind of tones found in his book of worship.  Then again, he may be a worldly Priest of God, identifying strongly with his childhood friends and family rather than the God he serves.  Maybe he feels betrayed by his God, so he speaks lowly of him.  It doesn't matter, just have a good reason.


PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
You didn't have to write anything yet besides   "A group of adventurers travel across the lands with the ultimate goal of receiving the favor of the Grand Boss Dragon."  Your characters can be kept in your imagination, or written, depending on your preference.  Now you know those adventurers consist of a Priest of God, a Servant of Satan, and a Grand Boss Dragon.  Why are a Priest of God and a Servant of Satan traveling together first of all?  That in itself can be an interesting point which can be expanded upon greatly.  Who is this, 'Grand Boss Dragon', and what compels two men of entirely different moral character to seek them?  These are the questions which already merit exploration.  The exploration of those points become your journey.

The storyline is important, but it isn't anywhere as important as the journey.  The journey is why people read epics.  Anyone can create a story where some big important thing happens.  Let's use a different example.  "A fleet of 2 billion battlecruisers descend upon Char and destroy it."  Epic.  But without knowing the events that lead up to that epic scene, it's worthless.  It's merely an epic event, not an 'epic' in itself.  Your storyline isn't your epic.  It's the journey toward the resolution of your storyline which is the meat and bones.  It's everything.  It is purpose.  It's the journey that inspires people, appeals to them, and allows them to apply aspects of the story to their own lives - even if that story is entirely based on fantasy or fiction

Back to our example, lets flesh out our journey.  We can start with a single question.  From that question, an entirely new storyline will be born, with new characters and dialogue.  Our question will be, "Why are a Priest of God and a Servant of Satan traveling together to meet a Grand Boss Dragon?"  Behold, you have now grasps the entire process needed to unlock unlimited creativity.  By repeating these steps, you will be able to add to your story to your hearts content.  Let's go through it again, but this time, with the question as our basis.


STORYLINE (second draft)
After you ask your question, you may now add the answer to your existing storyline.  Refine it.  Think of it now as an entirely new entity.  Work with the old storyline, but revise it.  After you've thought about your question and come up with an answer, think about your storyline.  Your new storyline could be something like this:  "A Priest of God and a Servant of Satan, ancient foes of distant lands have been forced to come together, ordered by their respective masters, in order to travel the path of ordeals.  They learn that in order for balance in heaven and hell to be restored, they must curry the favor of the Grand Boss Dragon, an ancient soul more powerful than the Gods themselves."

By asking a single question, suddenly your storyline has become a lot more intricate.  You now have a lot more to work with.  Your world has grown exponentially.  It now inspires many more questions, each of which may continue to contribute to the epic.  You aren't working backwards.  You aren't working forwards.  Trying to create a epic story in a linear fashion will only lead to writers block.  You'll always have to be asking yourself, "what happens next".  In my opinion, this is a terrible way to write an epic, and puts an incredible strain on your creativity.  Instead, just keep asking yourself questions, keep answering them, and allow your storyline to grow organically.  We learned how to live our life in the same way.  When we were kids, we asked questions, which we then used to fill in the gaps using our own creativity.  I'm sure your childhood view of sex turned out to be different than your teenage view of sex even before you may have experienced it for yourself.  We just kept questioning it until we understood more and more.  Creating a storyline is no different.  Using this method, creativity becomes a process where you continually question your own creation.


CHARACTERS (second draft)
"A Priest of God and a Servant of Satan, ancient foes of distant lands have been forced to come together, ordered by their respective masters, in order to travel the path of ordeals.  They learn that in order for balance in heaven and hell to be restored, they must curry the favor of the Grand Boss Dragon, an ancient soul more powerful than the Gods themselves."  Now again, if you wish to expand your story, look at your storyline, and then decide if you need to add a character to make it more real, to make the journey more than it is.  You may not wish to do this every time you expand the story, but the more characters there are, ultimately the more questions you may ask, which in turn helps to create your epic.  Let's add another character to the storyline.  We will add the characters 'God' and 'Satan'.  Obviously if our Priest and our Servant were sent on a mission, someone would of sent them.  Maybe it would be these two, but regardless, we'll add these characters, as the storyline now seems to imply that something important is at stake, something that might affect the gods themselves.  Obviously they would concern themselves with this matter.  While they might not necessarily make an appearance, for the sake of this article, we'll say that they will.

We'll give these characters their own unique personality.  Their moral compasses may seem pretty obvious to any audience member.  You might want to take advantage of this fact though and give them certain quirks that you would not expect to see in a typical 'God' or 'Satan' visualization.  Don't go crazy, but know that surprise and intrigue are some of the best gifts you can give your audience.  If you engage them and stimulate their minds, chances are they'll appreciate your work even more, as long as your characters motives and actions are still rooted in their core beliefs.



PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER (2)
During this round, you've revised your storyline to include more details and added two characters.  It's pretty easy at this point to think of a few more interesting questions you may wish to answer.  "What purpose could compel both God and Satan to send their servants to a distant land?"  "Why would they send their servants, instead of going themselves?"  "Why is this 'Grand Boss Dragon' so important to the fate of Heaven and Hell?"  With a little curiosity, you could probably come up with 20 new questions for this revision alone.  And thus, your creativity spawns from your own curiosity, expanding to potentially unlimited reaches, only to be stopped by your final decision to finally write out your epic, in full, guided by your storyline, and the personalities of each of your characters.  You soon find yourself with a story that may too big to tell, which is good.  It's better to have too much to work with than not enough.  Writers block shouldn't be a problem.  By the time you're finished, you should know your storyline.  Your characters will write themselves using their own 'rulebook', their souls, their moral compass.  Their dialogue will flow from their established personalities, all you will have to do is figure out logically what they would say as each situation arises.  

Ultimately, I hope this helps people not just for epics, but for any story they may wish to tell.  I'm sure this non-linear writing style is defined somehow in an official sense somewhere, although I intuitively came up with it based on my personality in order to write a most complex epic of my own.  That epic has now grown way beyond the bounds of what I could possibly hope to create in a single lifetime, and its a fluid creation that grows simply by analyzing any aspect of it in greater detail.   In the end, when I finally do put 'pen to paper', I'll be able to pick and choose which parts of the story are most relevant and display them for my target audience to revel in.  Having too much material to work with, I find the term 'writers block' non existent for every aspect except witty banter, as sometimes the personalities or intelligence of the characters exceed my ability to personally grasp, since you can only grasp what you have experienced.  But with a little patience, that too is easily conquered with creativity, but moreso with a classic linear approach.

I'd attempt to convey my thought processes when writing TOA but to be honest that would take forever to do.

What is most difficult to me is conveying what I have in my head into English in a coherent and fresh fashion. My vocabulary is extremely limited at best. I have not been able to improve my writing prose for an extremely long time, and even in doing so I find myself inferior to far younger writers in terms of vocabulary.

Marco wrote: I'm sure your childhood view of sex turned out to be different than your teenage view of sex even before you may have experienced it for yourself.  We just kept questioning it until we understood more and more.

i found this to be most interesting piece in your post and i'm not kidding and i'm not trying to be funny. i'd continue the discussion from this point on, as it probably touches on the single most enduring quest of our earthly lives, but that would totally not fit here.

very interesting article, des, even though it now stands in the shadow of your seemingly casual remark.

Doctor Mesk:  This thought process is similar to my own when it comes to dialogue.  If I write a character who is a genius, then how do I, a non-genius, represent that character?  It's the same as not knowing vocabulary that you feel is required for writing.  It's easy to do this in a linear fashion, giving it long and careful thought.  Sometimes I will study geniuses, read about them, try to find videos of them speaking in casual situations.  What makes them tick?  It usually isn't the same pursuits as a You or I.  I suppose you could use the same methods I describe here, approach it from a non-linear perspective, and instead ask your characters for answers.  Since those answers come from creativity though, and that creativity is bound to your own intelligence, the answers you receive come only from your perspective and may not reflect the actual thought process of someone on that level.

There are ways to feel smart though.  Communicate with people who you might consider below your intelligence level.  Analyze your own thought patterns when speaking to them.  Then imagine someone smarter talking to you.  How would they 'dumb things down' for you?  It's hard, but my point is, there are many ways to approach it.  The sum of these efforts will hopefully yield a realistic character for your audience to relate to.


Legion:  Feel free to analyze.  I love analyzing interesting points in peoples conversations.  That's why so many of my posts end up derailing the original conversations.  I've quickly come to discover that this is my passion in life, even when I was a kid.  I even analyze my life straight into both misery and happiness at times.  Although I've seriously tried to correct this behavior when it comes to analyzing and eventually perceiving a miserable reality for myself.

My friend tells me its better to live a happy lie than a miserable truth.  I prefer to live in clarity however rather than delusion.  Instead of creating a miserable truth, I can find the counter balance in the truth and instead perceive happiness where it is truthfully evident.  This is because I know at the end of a happy lie is true misery.  See?  I derailed my own topic.  Feel free.

Your name is Desler not Marco <_<

Why write an epic to begin with?  Writer's block should never be an issue at all, you're not getting paid to produce this, and there's no real deadline.  So why should it be better to have more material to work with than you can handle?

You should only tell an epic if the story forces you to tell an epic.  I think you went around explaining this the opposite of how you actually do it.  The reason you write epics is because you keep asking questions, and in the process of asking questions about the story you realize that you need to tell more of it, need to explore new dimensions. 

But then whether you then turn that in to an epic changes how you want your audience to feel.  You only tell the epic if you want your audience to be lost in this world with you, to ask questions as well.  What if you don't want to make them feel lost? 

Thanks for reminding me Whiplash.  I decided to use my real name from now on simply because I didn't feel like using a psuedo name any longer.  It's just a personal choice, you can call me whatever you'd like.

Krazy, in general I wrote this small culmination of my thoughts to help people comprehend a different way of thinking.  Maybe it's obvious to them, or maybe they're oblivious to it.  Either way, it can be helpful to the creative process to think on things differently once in a while.  No, there's no pay, no deadlines, no real sense of urgency or responsibility to write something like this.  But my motivations are probably different then yours, and if you can't comprehend why someone would do something like this or take something this seriously when there is no real 'reward' waiting for them at the end of the tunnel, its probably something I wouldn't be able to explain to you.

You have an interesting way of looking at things.  But I've always imagine not only writing an epic, but presenting it to the world at large.  Even if ultimately, it's only a minuscule chunk of our worldly population.  Of more relevance to me, I also put a lot of my soul into my epic.  The main character has the same belief system as me.  And as the main character, he'll be in a great position to share that belief system with the audience.  Rather than preach this, I prefer simply to share it.  To let the audience glimpse possibilities and then make their own choice on whether to consider it an ideal, a fascination, or bullshit.

I never said stories should be epics.  But after having developed my very own epic, and realizing what a monumental and nearly impossible task it may seem to someone just starting out, I thought I'd share my collective experiences in the hope that others would use this knowledge to make it an attainable goal for themselves as well, if they choose.  When people experience my story, they may be curious as to how I put it all together.  If it's merely a passive collection of thoughts, or just how carefully planned it was.  This writeup is for that anticipated future as much as it is to help people genuinely interested in their own creations.  There may come a point where I'd love for people to understand what all went into this, but would otherwise not have an excess of time to explain it to them.  If that point comes, I'll be able to point to this writeup as reference.

Marco wrote: Legion:  Feel free to analyze.  I love analyzing interesting points in peoples conversations.  That's why so many of my posts end up derailing the original conversations.  I've quickly come to discover that this is my passion in life, even when I was a kid.  I even analyze my life straight into both misery and happiness at times.  Although I've seriously tried to correct this behavior when it comes to analyzing and eventually perceiving a miserable reality for myself.

My friend tells me its better to live a happy lie than a miserable truth.  I prefer to live in clarity however rather than delusion.  Instead of creating a miserable truth, I can find the counter balance in the truth and instead perceive happiness where it is truthfully evident.  This is because I know at the end of a happy lie is true misery.  See?  I derailed my own topic.  Feel free.

thanks.

your original post stated something that really hit home with me for some reason. it's not so much about actual sexuality as it is about the psychological connection everybody has to sexuality. you said that when you're young, you have this perception of sex that is only there for a couple of years. in those years, it may be viewed as something foreign - a distant land that we'll visit one when we're prepared for it. but as you grow older, this perception changes, as you said. it changes, it morphs into this instrumental thing that becomes mixed and mingled with everything you do, and you're experiencing it when you're least prepared. instead, you're afraid and ashamed. it's a leap of faith; dreaming of kissing the girl of your dreams is the safety zone, kissing her is putting everything on the line. am i doing it right? is she bored or is she enjoying it? now you know it's there: from this moment on, sex is going to be wonderful and full of doubt and twists and turns.

what you said, desler, about understanding more and more... that's exactly right. you know you're never going to understand it completely, and that the best you can do is learn from what you thought you understood but in fact didn't.

living a happy lie is something i'd always prefer, if i weren't so damn persisent in trying to prove my happy lies wrong. i believe that nobody has that ability, that power to truly fool themselves completely, and that's what kills. if there was a cure for this truth-seeking, i'm absolutely sure that people would be standing in line for it.

Marco wrote: You have an interesting way of looking at things.  But I've always imagine not only writing an epic, but presenting it to the world at large.  Even if ultimately, it's only a minuscule chunk of our worldly population.  Of more relevance to me, I also put a lot of my soul into my epic.  The main character has the same belief system as me.  And as the main character, he'll be in a great position to share that belief system with the audience.  Rather than preach this, I prefer simply to share it.  To let the audience glimpse possibilities and then make their own choice on whether to consider it an ideal, a fascination, or bullshit.

I never said stories should be epics.  But after having developed my very own epic, and realizing what a monumental and nearly impossible task it may seem to someone just starting out, I thought I'd share my collective experiences in the hope that others would use this knowledge to make it an attainable goal for themselves as well, if they choose.  When people experience my story, they may be curious as to how I put it all together.  If it's merely a passive collection of thoughts, or just how carefully planned it was.  This writeup is for that anticipated future as much as it is to help people genuinely interested in their own creations.  There may come a point where I'd love for people to understand what all went into this, but would otherwise not have an excess of time to explain it to them.  If that point comes, I'll be able to point to this writeup as reference.

your work in this community is beyond reproach. i've always wondered what it must feel like having a number of successful stories/works of entertainment out. what surprises is that people who march in here and start building their own campaigns, they look to your (and anyone's) latest works for inspiration. all those million times i tried to start a story/campaign of my own, i'd look at the first steps you (and anyone) took. those doodad-less terrains of EDAST and that almost too corny storyline of FFG (i truly mean no offense) are what you started out with. i guess it's what it always comes down to: all great journeys start with a single step.

i think the very reason people want to hear/read/talk about those who contributed (small) pieces of art and entertainment to our world is because we want to know what moves them and what got them started. for who knows what that information could inspire us to do?

Marco wrote: You have an interesting way of looking at things.  But I've always imagine not only writing an epic, but presenting it to the world at large.  Even if ultimately, it's only a minuscule chunk of our worldly population.  Of more relevance to me, I also put a lot of my soul into my epic.  The main character has the same belief system as me.  And as the main character, he'll be in a great position to share that belief system with the audience.  Rather than preach this, I prefer simply to share it.  To let the audience glimpse possibilities and then make their own choice on whether to consider it an ideal, a fascination, or bullshit.

Your view of characters are another interesting point of consideration.  This is another point where I wonder which order things actually happen in--you say that you put a lot of your soul into your epic, and that you strongly identify with your protagonist.  Yet in your original post, you seem to suggest that in the early creative process the characters emerge out of the plot.  Might it not be the other way around?  Perhaps you might say that the Iliad is "how Troy was conquered" which would make the characters a function of the plot, but if you look at the Odyssey you might as easily say it's "how Odyssey got home."

And this relates back to the original question of "why an epic?"  It seems like an epic almost by definition will focus heavily on one character, and that part of the point of an epic is to explore an individual and how they relate to the world around them.  Whereas, a shorter story might very likely be more focused on a fragment of life, or perhaps a series of events where the characters might really be a function of the story, or a function of the setting.  Yet in an epic, doesn't it sometimes seem that the plot and the world is a function of the character?

Legion:  The funny part about sex to me is how some people are in the mindset that the more of it you have, the more successful you are at your life.  While it may be a strong indicator of happiness, I usually see it planting the seeds of unhappiness when its power isn't respected.  The modern notions of monogamy bring out strong feelings of betrayal when it's performed with others.  Besides having the extremely necessary importance of procreation, it also seems to bring out desire.  From that desire comes jealousy and anger.  Some handle it better than others, but for most its just a way to make themselves miserable again.  We seek out the truth (even when it brings us misery) for a very important reason.  To discover something inside ourselves we forgot, something very important.  Once we remember and grasp this concept, we never have to live in misery again.  It's the way my main character lives his live, and the way I aspire to live mine.  Being fictional, he obviously gets a free pass as far as difficulty goes (although the struggle is eventually brought to the forefront).  Those of us trying to live this truth have to struggle against our own egos constantly until we grasp what we forgot.

All I can say is, my ego has helped me destroy everything I always found precious in my life.  This much is obvious, this site is a living example of something I valued which I tried to destroy in a moment of weakness.  Like I said before, I hate getting preachy, so I'll stop there.  EDIT:  It just occurred to me that we're doing exactly what I wrote about, taking a small part of the 'storyline' and questioning it, thus expanding our understanding and making for a better discussion (epic).  I guess I subconsciously do this all the time.

Thanks for your compliments.  I too see my own youth and inexperience within my early creations.  But I also see my own potential to look inside myself.  Without even realizing it, I think the story of Fall from Grace echoed my youth.  I was outcast from society by ignorance.  And I spent many years living in my own personal exile as a result.  I always dreamed of being something more - but not to get revenge on those I felt wronged me, but rather to help them, as I have always wanted to do.



Krazy:  All ideas are built on something you are passionate about.  I wanted to convey an ideal in my epic, and I always believed that since I understood it best, 'I' was the best person to do that.  Therefore, I put an ideal and perfect version of 'myself' in the epic to communicate what I had to say to the audience, using the storyline as a guide.  This process is a dynamic one.  I could write another article entirely about how important inspiration is to creativity.  This however, is more of a technical manual.  Here's a metaphor.  I can teach someone to use a computer so they can use the Internet.  And indeed, most people only care to use a computer for the Internet.  But they should also know that its capable of so much more besides this premium feature.  If they choose to go beyond the bounds of this rather technical outlook using their own ambitions, that's their prerogative.  I chose not to outline the entire process of story telling, but rather, glimpse at a method that will open up their universe to them by questioning it. 

I really think an epic is anything that has to tell a tale beyond the average standard time limit usually associated with your creative medium.  If an artist painted 12 paintings but called them all the same painting even though each one appeared distinct, in my mind, this would qualify as an epic.  It's a series of related but distinct stories, and stories within stories.  I'll refrain any further from the old semantic / subjective thing, although it seems to be very popular here for some reason.

Krazy wrote: Why write an epic to begin with?  Writer's block should never be an issue at all, you're not getting paid to produce this, and there's no real deadline.  So why should it be better to have more material to work with than you can handle?

This is such a terrible way to look at things. I have never, and will never, do anything I do for money in any shape or form. If people want to give me money, by all means, but I will never publish, release public content, or work in industry. If this is how you think then you clearly misunderstand the purpose of writing at its heart, just as many people misunderstand why I mod (I've been asked quite a few times on youtube why I do so much work when I'm not getting paid, the answer is the same - I don't work for money, I work for myself).

Throne of Armageddon is my life's work. I have worked on the universe it's built in since I was a child, 15 years past. The novel itself has been in production for 8 years and surely I will die before it reaches total completion, yet as I continue I realize that more questions need answering, more life awaits us in this world, and I have planned out not only the second novel but also envision a third novel. I have no doubt they would all equate to 2500 pages a piece. As it is, TOA is ~1320 pages and nearing 600k words. I have selected an audience of 10 readers and maybe 4 have read the mere 200 page version 0.1 of the revision. See how this works?

It is pointless to put this much work into something that you're getting paid for because that is overdoing it. You can get money with far less, and anything over is wasted. That is why gaming companies like Blizzard cut corners and skirt boundaries, because they know they can put the least amount of effort needed and still get what they want. Writers are the same way - hell, look at Avatar, Transformers, 99% of what Hollywood has spewed out in the past ten years. Those writers are still making a lot of money and they're putting absolutely no effort into doing so, and those that do are celebrated by a niche crowd of fans and it has no bearing on their overall success.

I do this, and I do this much, because I am doing it for myself.

Marco wrote: Legion:  The funny part about sex to me is how some people are in the mindset that the more of it you have, the more successful you are at your life.  While it may be a strong indicator of happiness, I usually see it planting the seeds of unhappiness when its power isn't respected.  The modern notions of monogamy bring out strong feelings of betrayal when it's performed with others.  Besides having the extremely necessary importance of procreation, it also seems to bring out desire.  From that desire comes jealousy and anger.  Some handle it better than others, but for most its just a way to make themselves miserable again.  We seek out the truth (even when it brings us misery) for a very important reason.  To discover something inside ourselves we forgot, something very important.  Once we remember and grasp this concept, we never have to live in misery again.  It's the way my main character lives his live, and the way I aspire to live mine.  Being fictional, he obviously gets a free pass as far as difficulty goes (although the struggle is eventually brought to the forefront).  Those of us trying to live this truth have to struggle against our own egos constantly until we grasp what we forgot.

All I can say is, my ego has helped me destroy everything I always found precious in my life.  This much is obvious, this site is a living example of something I valued which I tried to destroy in a moment of weakness.  Like I said before, I hate getting preachy, so I'll stop there.  EDIT:  It just occurred to me that we're doing exactly what I wrote about, taking a small part of the 'storyline' and questioning it, thus expanding our understanding and making for a better discussion (epic).  I guess I subconsciously do this all the time.

Thanks for your compliments.  I too see my own youth and inexperience within my early creations.  But I also see my own potential to look inside myself.  Without even realizing it, I think the story of Fall from Grace echoed my youth.  I was outcast from society by ignorance.  And I spent many years living in my own personal exile as a result.  I always dreamed of being something more - but not to get revenge on those I felt wronged me, but rather to help them, as I have always wanted to do.

i too have known my share of people who believe that sex equals success, and i too have been one. be it flat out boasting or subtle jokes, people always seek to display their 'success' in this fashion. sex is a concept by which we measure our success, as john lennon might have worded it. i think this betrayal you speak of springs from insecurity and the knowledge we have that sexuality is not exclusive and that everybody is expendable in that way. for most (if not all) people, realizing that the other person is just as real and human and wanting as you is too much to ask. we have our own minds to worry about, and that's more than a full-time job. betrayal is maybe the result of not reading the signs properly. or maybe we just can't read the signs at all, and it all comes down to chance. you just get lucky sometimes. and other times, you're living life as it was meant to be: cold and lonely but without anything worthwhile to lose. but i don't know.

it's interesting what you said about FFG. it's not surprising, though. you can't write about what you don't know. when i play The Sweet Science i can easily see the connection it has to your earlier works. it's the same guy. it's rond all over again. it's koe lence. and this is true for all artists/creators. it's always them. it's never 'just fiction'.

I'm still stuck at the part where you're somehow correlating sex to writing.

I guess I must just think completely differently than you guys.

IskatuMesk wrote:
This is such a terrible way to look at things. I have never, and will never, do anything I do for money in any shape or form. If people want to give me money, by all means, but I will never publish, release public content, or work in industry. If this is how you think then you clearly misunderstand the purpose of writing at its heart, just as many people misunderstand why I mod (I've been asked quite a few times on youtube why I do so much work when I'm not getting paid, the answer is the same - I don't work for money, I work for myself).

I didn't really think my point was that nuanced but I guess it needs further elaboration.

I was not saying you should not write unless you expect to get paid--I was questioning the rationale behind trying to overcome 'writer's block' for a project that is a pet project.  Overcoming 'writer's block' seems like something to contest with more when you have a deadline, or some sort of exterior motivation for writing.  Writer's block when you're just writing for fun usually just reflects your need probably to do more thinking about the story, and often should just be accepted. 

Well, consider it this way.

I get "writer's block" sometimes when I run into unexpected areas in TOA, and this is what really screws over momentum. As in, it's responsible for many of the months-long periods of no activity and some of the year-long sleeping ages.

Energy must definitely be put into surpassing them if you really want your project to succeed, regardless of the project's overarching purpose.