Ask the Author: Leonard Wilson
Answered Questions (2)
Leonard Wilson
I don't really run into writer's block since I merged the storytelling improv techniques I learned as a game master for tabletop role-playing games with my written storytelling processes.
When you're sitting at a game table and with your storytelling collaborators constantly staring at you expectantly with the unspoken question, "What happens next?" then writer's block is not an option.AM
When my stories start to grind gears, it's always because of insufficient conflict. That insufficient conflict is due to either one or more characters is underdeveloped or an unrealistic lack of unanticipated complications arising. So I pause and either get to know my characters better or I look at my existing elements and search for weak links in my expectations for them that Murphy's Law should really be exploiting.
A combination of solidly motivated characters and derailed plans can always keep a story rolling forward.
When you're sitting at a game table and with your storytelling collaborators constantly staring at you expectantly with the unspoken question, "What happens next?" then writer's block is not an option.AM
When my stories start to grind gears, it's always because of insufficient conflict. That insufficient conflict is due to either one or more characters is underdeveloped or an unrealistic lack of unanticipated complications arising. So I pause and either get to know my characters better or I look at my existing elements and search for weak links in my expectations for them that Murphy's Law should really be exploiting.
A combination of solidly motivated characters and derailed plans can always keep a story rolling forward.
Leonard Wilson
Lethal Red Riding Hood started out years ago as an attempt to get back into writing adventures for Dungeons & Dragons. Back when I was a freelance writer for role-playing games, my habit for inspiration was to pick up the rule books and leaf through them at random until I'd spy some element I'd never seen put to good use, then I'd challenge myself to come up with a compelling story about it.
That time my eye lit on the Monster Manual entry for "hags". It got me to thinking about the faerie-tale origins of the archetype, and about how the game tried to bring in specific examples of deadly wild women from legend as different varieties of hag. That led me to reflecting on how many of those specific examples were nursery bogies--cautionary tales to scare children away from unsafe places with a simple, direct narrative they could understand.
I've always loved nursery bogies and found them some of the most compelling creatures in faerie tales, so the matter was decided. I sat down to write a series of adventures about them. Only I was barely past the introductory scenes of the first adventure when it dawned on me I no longer wanted to write game adventures. So I shelved the idea and forgot about it, but the core concept kept tickling at the back of my mind.
When I finally decided what I wanted was get back to my childhood plan of writing traditional fiction, the little collection of nursery bogies I'd invented for those adventures came bubbling back up, begging to have their stories told. Bloody Scarlet won the honor of going first, and my lovely writing partner helped me bring her story into vivid focus.
That time my eye lit on the Monster Manual entry for "hags". It got me to thinking about the faerie-tale origins of the archetype, and about how the game tried to bring in specific examples of deadly wild women from legend as different varieties of hag. That led me to reflecting on how many of those specific examples were nursery bogies--cautionary tales to scare children away from unsafe places with a simple, direct narrative they could understand.
I've always loved nursery bogies and found them some of the most compelling creatures in faerie tales, so the matter was decided. I sat down to write a series of adventures about them. Only I was barely past the introductory scenes of the first adventure when it dawned on me I no longer wanted to write game adventures. So I shelved the idea and forgot about it, but the core concept kept tickling at the back of my mind.
When I finally decided what I wanted was get back to my childhood plan of writing traditional fiction, the little collection of nursery bogies I'd invented for those adventures came bubbling back up, begging to have their stories told. Bloody Scarlet won the honor of going first, and my lovely writing partner helped me bring her story into vivid focus.
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