Seven Deadly Misconceptions: What they are and why they shouldn't stop you from taking the plunge and writing your first (and hopefully subsequent) AARs.
By Tanzhang
The new product of almost any creative pursuit: be it painting a new portrait, shooting a new film, creating a new piece of music, composing a new poem, or even the formation of a brand new, left of centre political party, is rather like an experimental plane: it could well spontaneously combust shortly after takeoff, or alternatively it could soar into the stratosphere. In other words, your new artistic creation
could be an abysmal failure, but there's an almost equal chance that it could be a great success, or at the very least lie somewhere in between those two extremes. You will never really know where your creation will end up however, until you create it and set it upon an unsuspecting public.
Writing an AAR however is a little bit different from the pursuits listed above, because the odds are definitely stacked in the author's favour. In my three-and-a-bit years here at AARland, I must have read and commented in hundreds upon hundreds of AARs and yet of those hundreds upon hundreds I can only remember one – and only one – AAR which was truly awful, one so abysmal in fact I dare not speak its name, for the very utterance of its title will surely burst open the gates of hell and unleash all sorts of evils and horrors upon AARland. (And I don't know about you, but I for one am not all that keen on sacrificing my hypothetical first born son to close those gates up again...) With odds like that, I daresay that is near impossible to write a truly abysmal AAR unless you deliberately set out to write one.
And yet despite all that, there are surely a great many people out there in the Paradox forums reading this article whom – for whatever reason – have not written an AAR yet. I know in my own case, I dithered for about a year before setting my nose to the grindstone and taking the plunge, and in retrospect dithering for so long was rather silly of me. From the outside writing your first AAR may look and sound daunting, even intimidating but once you start you'll be shocked at how easy it can be. If you need further convincing then look no further than this article:
”I can't write an AAR because...”
[1] I wouldn't know where to begin!
Have no fear then, since starting an AAR can be broken down into a quick and easy five-step process: Firstly, you need to choose a Paradox game (because obviously, it isn't an AAR unless it uses a game for reference.) then you need to choose a nation or dynasty (depending on which Paradox game you choose.) to play as. Thirdly, you need to decide upon the style (the four most common being: gameplay, historybook, comedy or narrative, but you can always create a hybrid of styles or even your own style.) of the AAR you wish to write, and how much of the game you're willing to describe/integrate into your AAR (there's a wonderful
AARlander article by Loki which deals with this very subject.)
Fourthly – and this step isn't compulsory but it is highly recommended – you should find yourself an image host such as Photobucket or Imageshack to host your screenshots. (if any) I'll elaborate on step four a little later. Fifthly and finally – and here comes the fun bit – you have to actually play the game, take screenshots and write up your AAR! You'll want to use your word-processor of choice (Word or OpenOffice Writer) to write your updates, since writing an entire update as a forum post can lead to.. unfortunate and demoralising consequences. (like losing your entire update because your session window has timed out.)
Now that doesn't sound all that daunting now does it? I didn't think so, but just in case you have other concerns let's move on.
[2] I can't draw or make fancy images! Hell, I can't even get images to show up in my regular forum posts!
Okay, I'll level with you: If you're planning on becoming the next Svip or Selzro than not being able to draw well is a likely deal-breaker. However if you're not planning on writing the next
Glory for Ulm or
Subcontinental Subtleties than a lack of artistic talent shouldn't deter you from writing. I'm no artist myself, so I cannot actually teach you how to draw better (such impartment of knowledge is well beyond the scope of this humble article anyway) but posting screenshots or other images is rather easy to do once you know how, and there are a few extra and easy-to-use tricks which will help you to improve your images and the presentation of your AAR.
Most importantly, and I simply cannot stress this enough is to
Know your Forum Tags! Typing [b*][/b*] like so (without adding the asterisks) will embolden any text you place in-between
like so while [i*][/i*] (again, without adding the asterisks) will
italicise any text placed in-between. By the same principle, typing
and placing a link to your hosted images in-between instead of text will allow you to display images in your AAR or post, and images are an absolutely
crucial companion to any AAR.
But what about those images themselves? What shall we do with them? You will likely need an image editor, and in lieu of an expensive program like Photoshop or a substandard one like Microsoft Paint I heartily recommend Paint.Net (Google it. If you're familiar with modding you may already have heard of it.) as an easy-to-use alternative. With your image editor, you can crop your images to help emphasise important details while cutting out the “fat,” or irrelevant information, while adding a nice, simple border to the edges of your images with the rectangle tool is an easy and hassle-free way to really improve the look of your AAR.
Remember our old friends the forum tags? Well they can help you improve the look of your AAR too! Typing [center*][/center*] (without adding those asterisks) will centre any text placed in-between, and if you place image tags in-between it will centre your images too! You may also like to change the font or size of your text from the default using the font or size tags.
If you'd like to know a bit more about AAR presentation or why it matters, there's
a wonderful AARlander article by Saithis which deals with the subject from a
Hearts of Iron point of view (but much of it can be easily applied to your AAR regardless of which game it is based upon) while a
much older AARlander article by AlexanderPrimus deals with more advanced presentation topics like music and video.
[3] I can't play a Paradox game to save my life!
Let me let you in on a little secret... I'm not exactly a “power-gamer” myself. In fact, there are plenty of successful AAR writers who aren't all that great at playing Paradox games either! How well you play any given game often has little impact on how good your AAR will be: granted, everyone loves to read those “world conquest game as an one-province minor (likely Ryukyu)”AARs but they aren't the be all and end all of AARland. It is possible to write a riveting Narrative and Historybook without actually mentioning the game at all, and a comedy AAR may actually be
improved by some poor gameplay on the part of its author!
Now I hear you shout, “but what about Gameplay AARs!?” Well this may seem like a contradiction in terms, but there have been some exceptional gameplay and tutorial AARs written by some pretty unexceptional players. Let's use
Victoria II as an example. Two of the most popular authors of Gameplay AARs for
Victoria II are badger_ken and Avindian: both authors have written some superb tutorial AARs, and a great deal of what I personally know about the game can be attributed to something I first read in one of their various works. Both authors would I'm sure be the first to admit that they aren't exactly “power-gamers” either (in fact Avindian couldn't colonise Africa with The Netherlands if his life depended on it – but don't tell him I told you that... ) and yet, both badger_ken and Avindian's AARs are in addition to being well-written and very fun to read, also highly educational. Why?
The key lies in an
article the great Prawnstar himself wrote for the last issue of the AARlander: AARs are in fact, a form of conversation between the author and his or her readers. The author plays the game and writes up a fun little story and the readers, like the good little backseat drivers they usually are, post helpful comments. In this way, the AAR becomes like a Socratic dialogue whereby both the author (or “teacher”) and the readers (or “students”) learn together through the process of conversation.
Now say for example you're really keen on chess, but you're also not very good at it. Would you let this little tidbit stop you from
talking about chess with say, Kasparov? Or the members of your local chess club? Or even some distant uncle of yours who also happens to be a chess obsessive? No, and neither should your (real or perceived ) ineptitude at playing Paradox games stop you from writing your AAR. Who knows, not only may you may learn something to improve your “game” but likely you'll help your readers improve theirs also!
[4] English is my second/third/fifteenth language!
Believe it or not, but one of the most
well-written AARs I've ever read was written by a guy who was learning English as a second (possibly third if you count dialects as languages) language. Just as writing an AAR may help you to improve your gameplay skills by attracting helpful comments and tips from your readers, writing one may also help you improve your English skills by attracting helpful comments from readers fluent in English. The same can likewise be true for budding authors learning French or Spanish who write an AAR in those languages.
[5] I'll never be able to get anyone to comment!
Remember when you were a little kid at primary/elementary school and some other kid in your class whom you didn't really know or get along with invited you to his/her sixth or seventh birthday party? And remember how your parents would insist that you go?, and that when your next birthday came round they'd insist that you invite that same child to your party out of reciprocity? Well AARland is built upon that same principle; reciprocity. The best way to attract commentators is to comment on other people's AARs; (the more the better!) The best way to keep commentators is to respond to their comments and to comment in their AARs. In AARland persistence counts; if you keep on commenting, keep on interacting with your readership and keep on updating the comments will eventually flow.
And, if all else fails, here's a little tip: Start your next AAR as The Netherlands! There's hardly a more zealous group in AARland than the Dutchies, and these guys will comment religiously on any AAR to do with their homeland, take it from me!
[6] Everyone will hate on what I've written!
One of the truly wonderful things about AARland is the friendly ethos of the place. Non-constructive criticism is not only actively discouraged, it is also rare, especially when compared with most other similar fora. No matter how dull or uninspiring your first update turns out to be, there will be always – literally always – someone who will turn up and offer you a few words of encouragement. This is one of the ways in which writing an AAR is so different from the other creative pursuits mentioned in the introduction. Think about the last time you saw or played a really hyped-up yet ultimately disappointing movie or game: “I can't believe I actually paid money to see/play that crap!” you may have said in reaction to wasting an hour and a half of your life on such a disappointing product. Unlike hyped-up “blockbusters” AARs don't actually cost anything to write (unless you pay for your image host) and nor do they cost anything to read, so even on the highly unlikely probability you do come up with a shocker of an AAR, nobody is going to complain about it, or rubbish you in the press, or follow you around the neighbourhood/internet denouncing your every word/post solely because of some shocker of an AAR you happened to write. Writing an AAR is therefore a win-win situation: you have nothing to lose (except perhaps a few hours of your free time) and everything to gain. (except money, because AARland is a not-for-profit society.)
[7] I'll never find the time to finish one!
Of all the misconceptions, this is probably the least “misconceptiony”. AAR writing is what you make of it, and the amount of effort you're willing to put into it is totally up to you. There are some people (Gameplay AAR writers mostly) who do nothing more than write up a few sentences describing their gameplay actions and post a few screenshots, there are others who do a little bit of historical research and others who go to seemingly extreme lengths to make their AARs historically accurate: there was this one guy who once spent 75 minutes trawling through the Dutch-language Wikipedia (a language he doesn't understand) searching for obscure 19th century conservative Dutch politicians to lead a fictional political party which he need not have mentioned in his AAR in the first place! (in the end he couldn't find one so he cheated and used the anti-imperialist author Eduard Dekker as a pro-imperialist conservative-turned-social democrat instead.) And then of course there is Mr. C, who is in a class of his own.
Adjust your AAR to your own wants and needs: if you want to create your own Mr. C-esque world with Saxons invading wherever and have the time to do so, then do so. (if this is the case, you may want to read
this fantastic article by Mr. C on world-building and the AAR.) If however your life demands little time for writing, or if an evening of in-depth historical research doesn't exactly sound like an enjoyable way to spend your Friday night off then by all means feel free to scrimp on the details a little bit, it isn't like your readers will impale you on a stake for a few historical inaccuracies. And don't worry if you never actually finish your AAR, you're in good company! (I have as yet to finish one either..) Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination, and I find that phrase especially true when it comes to writing anything, including an AAR.