Originally posted by Storey
Bismarck I think this answers your question about if there is a difference on how I wrote the Alliance and murder mystery. How about you? Do you use the same method in all your AARs?
Well, the tendencies I had while writing the BotSE have been more fully realized.
Generally, I play about 50-100 years ahead of what I am writing, and I can't play more until I am in that range(so it is sometimes weeks between times I play), so that I have a general idea of where things are going, but there is still so much that could happen, and there is mystery at the end of it. I generally know where chapters are going to begin and end the day I write them, and I use those arbitrary yet fuzzy dates to build the chapter... like let's look at my chapter "Goodnight Jack", I literally only had one event to talk about for that period... the treaty of access, which in terms of playing terms, I allowed as a warning of impending war with Russia.
The rest I made up on the fly. I had it in my mind that Vadim II would be the "Law Maker" and it was a time without war, so I added that subplot, and I was listening to a song by Saint Etienne called "Goodnight Jack", and I thought, well, that'd be a cool reference, so there goes Jacob Lomsky... and now I have a nice rift between the descendants of Matysek, which I may or may not build on... depends on if it works with what I have down.
The chess thing with Vadim I... well, searching for Bobby Fischer was on right before I sat down to write about him, and it stuck with me, and I just went with it. I get lucky sometimes because some of the stuff I wrote two or three chapters ago, or longer sometimes just lets me just slide into a situation. Again, the Goodnight Jack chapter... when I had the war with the Ukraine, well, I wanted to introduce Ivan IV, so I had an international incident in the Black Sea, and earlier, I wanted to talk about the expansion of Russia, so I put it in, not realizing that it would be useful later.
With fictional monarchs, I have to sort of figure out where people go... when they are born and such, but I generally just figure things out as they are about to happen... like I don't know how the future monarchs are going to come up... I just play it by ear... but with the rulers of Cyprus now in the save file, I can use treedom's parser to figure out when people should be born, so I can add that information when need.
I also don't write a chapter straight through, rather, I flesh in incidences and then connect the sections later....
And I understand exactly what you are talking about with minor characters ending up stealing the show... my minor characters ended up starting dynasties... I mean, I never forsaw the Rabicans, Lomskys, Sapeletos, and others taking prominent roles in the drama until the moment when it came to me to wind back to them. There was no premeditation there... just one thing led to another.
Cliffhangers: Well, that just sort of happened... people commented on a few, so now I try to use it... and if I go to PDF form, I will probably leave them in.