Well thank you very much! Adding your knowledge to my brain-trust



5,000 words of crunch in 6 hours? Wow, that seems crazy-fast. I'm going to imagine that this is because you have years studying under the great writing masters in Tibet (rather than what it probably really is; all that time working in the writing mines).



I feel like you answered that with the "I write 5,000 words an hour, with lunch in the middle"

Seriously though, I appreciate your taking the time to answer. It seems like a very different perspective from Patrick.



EDIT: Just mentioned this thread to my wife and she asked how big the average pitch document is? How quickly do you get a response on it?

Cheers for that, Patrick. I'll keep hoping something canon will be made of the "bloats" mentioned in the Shadowtech shadowtalk, then.

Note the Neo-anarchist Guide to North America wasn't to blame. As far as the book goes, Cord Mutual was supposed to be a big corporation then. It's just that, when FASA went on with Corporate Shadowfiles three years later, they decided corporations would be divided into AAA, AA and A, and there would be a Corporate Court and eight AAA (mostly the corporations introduced in Seattle Sourcebook, plus Yamatetsu from 2XS and Saeder-Krupp). First editions sourcebooks like the NAGNA and NAN really had a completely different take on megacorporations from what we're now used to (Yokogawa-Honeywell anyone? Hyundai-IBM ?).

That being said, I can only concur on the time requirement for research. I strictly have no idea of how many hours it took me to compile the Corporate Index, which originally was a resource for freelancers Rob Boyle started to put together.

Not all of it! I have many secrets! Muwahahaha-hack cough wheeze.

The Tibet thing isn't that far off. My every job for the last fifteen years or so has been either straight-up data entry (which is why typing speed doesn't really slow me down), or actual research and writing. Getting an MA in History and freelance game writing have a surprisingly similar core skill-set (and working on the one has certainly improved me in the other, and vice-versa). And, like I said, I tend to write stuff that doesn't need a lot of research. I know the Tir inside and out, so when I sit down to write something about it I get out Nigel's classic sourcebook and SoNA, sure, but really the odds are good I'll never need to open either of them. Why? Because my brain-space is full of the history of a pretend elf country and the imaginary statistics of make-believe teams playing a sport that doesn't exist (for instance), and I work very hard to make that sort of trivial information useful in what passes for a day to day life.

I also have a tendency to not think about things I'm supposed to be thinking about, and instead to just kind of daydream game stuff (or, for instance, to lie down and not-sleep, instead of lie down and sleep, because I'm tossing and turning and coming up with whole paragraphs or stories, word for word, while I should be sleeping); my wife has gotten used to me just getting out of bed sometimes to go type for a couple minutes, and then scurrying back to bed.

So often what happens is I just kind of half-assedly think about gaming stuff in my idle time (or in the car, or when I'm grading quizzes, or whatever), and when it's time to actually sit down and write, I type upwards of 130 wpm, so voila shit gets done. I have the luxury -- and it very much IS a luxury -- of also not having any kiddos, having a flexible work schedule, and having an awesome gamer wife who indulges me. So I can idly think about writing and research and stuff all the time, and then dive headfirst into a keyboard to furiously type it up on a whim, whenever I want to. I did three of the Elven Blood adventures, from conceptualization to completion, in about two weeks of casual work between semesters (while also working up syllabi and lectures and junk, just hopping from Word tab to PowerPoint tab or whatever).

I mean, the careers I have (freelance writing and adjunct faculty) don't exactly bring tremendous wealth, fame, job security, or benefits, but they do bring great flexibility, so that I can...keep doing them...and...and...dammit. Now I see how they've got me trapped.


Well, we see eye to eye on a lot of Shadowrun stuff (and we are both in each others' "inner circles" of freelancers we immediately send stuff to), and Patrick's a great buddy of mine, don't get me wrong...but aside from that, and the whole Texas thing, Patrick and I have way different outlooks in the gaming 'verse and responsibilities outside of it. The dude's juggling kiddos and a full-time regular job. I don't know how he gets anything done. It's all I can do to keep my three dogs alive, grade quizzes every now and then, and remember to pay a few bills on time. He's also been with the game a lot longer, so many of his experiences will have been with whole different groups of people. So even discounting that our lenses might be different, he's had different bosses than me, different crews to work with, etc, etc. A different perspective makes sense to me.


I aim for a page, in that I feel like it's my job to sell them on something quickly instead of rambling on. There are times that is an absolute nightmare for me. It took me the better part of three days or so to finish the pitch for Neat, because I was just so worried about explaining every nuance of the pseudo-mystery, how cool individual characters were and why they were important to Kincaid and the story, etc, etc, and I was trying to cram it all into one page. It was absolutely stupid of me, but it's my self-imposed pitch length, and for some moronic reason I decided to stick to it for a novella. There are whole chapters of that piece, and many whole fiction projects, that have taken me less time than just that pitch did.

I figure I can pitch Jason something pretty brief and answer questions later if he needs them. So far it's mostly been "Okay, I trust you, type it up," and I increasingly suspect it's because he knows that an additional pitch is often going to actually take me longer than just writing and submitting whatever I have in mind. The intro fictions to several recent sourcebooks have been, start to finish, one hour jobs for me; if I'd had to stop and keep explaining ideas and stuff to get the okay ahead of time, it likely would have tripled or quadrupled that, easily.

@Patrick, Bull, and Critias: Thanks for answering that. Honestly, it's been one of my biggest peeves about SR4 books as a whole. Patrick, if you could convince Jason to make the move to a uniform stat block for SR5, I (and I'm sure pretty much every other GM out there) would be forever in your debt.

What's the real difference between proofing and editing?
Is editing more of a big picture thing?

I can add that proofreaders are paid in product. Generally, they receive one free copy of whatever it is they worked on.

I would think that proof reading is making sure the words are spelled correctly and the grammar is correct, whereas editing is altering things to make sure they fit word-count limits or restructuring sections of text (like X Health and X Abilities being swapped and so forth).

The terms are sometimes interchanged a bit more than they should be, but Neraph more or less has it.

Proofers are there to check things: to look at stat blocks and numbers, to make sure spellings are correct and consistent (and that spell check didn't miss something because the wrong word was used, but it was spelled correctly), and to check facts, dates, etc. They can (and should) suggest changes when they catch problems, but they generally don't make any changes themselves.

Editing involves all of the above, plus modifying the text based on a variety of reasons, from proofer suggestions to the need to modify the story to adding/subtracting text for length. Writers get the ideas down on paper, but it's an editor's job to make the writer look good.

Bull

Rage against the dying of the light. I'm all for that. I'm just not too hip on them being playable characters, especially Type I Infected (vampires et al). I'm a little less obnoxious about ghoul PCs, but I'm not wild about them, either. There's enough to worry about being a shadowrunner without worrying about finding a corpse to chow down upon.

I'm not winning that particular argument, by the way, at least about ghouls. Other Infected are still being argued about, but....


I actually think this would work well. All sorts of shadow opportunities there.

Questions no one asks, or which might not have been answered. Hmmmm.

Why the Infected? And why the hate for them?
It just sort of happened. I pitched a full-blown critter book for SR3 after FanPro picked up the license, and was approached by Rob Boyle sometime later to do a portion of Running Wild, which was at that time a 3rd edition project. He threw two chunks of RW at me, "The Infected," (originally called "Children of the Night" but he didn't like that) and "Playing God." Then SR4 happened, I stopped freelancing for a while, and then Peter Taylor emailed me out of the blue asking if I wanted to do the Infected in the resurrected Running Wild. I started doing some research, and realized once again that a lot of what happened with the Infected in SR was a real cluster, even worse than back in the day with SR3.

And I don't hate them, I just don't think they have any place as PCs in this game. I'm not alone, and mine is not the only opinion on the subject. But I don't hate the Infected; I just love them more in their appropriate place as bad guys.

Where do you get your ideas?
This one actually gets asked of famous writers a lot more. My favorite answer at the moment is, "Hot Topic." This is subject to change.

When are you going to do something with Texas?
Where do you think the ghoul apocalypse is going to start?

Patrick as I got Running wild today, I'll take the opportunity to give you a virtual hug, so many goodies!

Not arguing with you, BUT ... we had a game where two characters were ghoul-bitten and didn't have a chance to get cured. For one character, it was a real struggle, resulting in great party dynamics and lots of thought. The other character was a psycho, and it served as an excuse for him to continue doing what he was doing anyway, until another party member 'accidentally' blew him up.

(Not saying that 'playing a ghoul' is a great thing, but having rules available for two players to explore that story really made for fun sessions for them.)

Gonna be eating there on Thursday, but not the challenge thanks. I'll buy ya lunch if ya want

I'm down for that. PM with details.

If it wouldn't take me about six hours to get down there, I'd invite myself and surprise y'all.

6 hours? Where from?

Cleburne. It's a bit of a drive for lunch.

Well it will be more like a late lunch if you change your mind

Yeah, Rusty, bring it on!