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Chases and other conflicts
Did I tell you guys about the idea that I came up with for writing conflicts in stories when you have no idea what should be happening? (If so, you're going to hear it again.) The way it works is that you list out the characters and the order that they will act in. Then, one at a time, you come up with a very short term plan (Anna tries to pick the lock), how hard the plan is on a scale of 1 to 12 (Anna has done this before and has the right tools. The lock is pretty standard. However, Jacob is watching, and he makes her nervous. Difficulty: 7), and how dangerous the plan is (The lock isn't dangerous, so Danger: 0). Then, I used the rules for a solo roleplaying game to determine if the plan succeeded and what the consequences are. Then, you just do this for each character from top to bottom of the list, over and over, until you get to the point where you know what happens.
For me, the characters were in a small ship trying to find a mysterious signal that is being sent out across the galaxy. They are pretty close to the signal when two patrolling fighters from the evil government that controls that solar system find them. What do they do?!?
Since I had no idea, except that they crash onto the asteroid that is the source of the signal at the end, I used this RPG idea. They do end up running away from the bad guys' fighters, some people get slightly injured (as you would expect), and the ship crashes, but I know exactly who is injured, why, and I can show all of the hiding, trying various techniques to trick the bad guys, temporarily boosts to some system on their ship, and changes in how characters feel about each other. I am so satisfied with this solution!! It wasn't fast, though. It took me several days to do all the planning. On the other hand, it would have taken me at least that long and given me a much worse result if I had tried to force myself to write it with no plan. Also, because of the dice rolling, I had way more unexpected results. That made it much more exciting to work on and will make the story more exciting too.
For me, the characters were in a small ship trying to find a mysterious signal that is being sent out across the galaxy. They are pretty close to the signal when two patrolling fighters from the evil government that controls that solar system find them. What do they do?!?
Since I had no idea, except that they crash onto the asteroid that is the source of the signal at the end, I used this RPG idea. They do end up running away from the bad guys' fighters, some people get slightly injured (as you would expect), and the ship crashes, but I know exactly who is injured, why, and I can show all of the hiding, trying various techniques to trick the bad guys, temporarily boosts to some system on their ship, and changes in how characters feel about each other. I am so satisfied with this solution!! It wasn't fast, though. It took me several days to do all the planning. On the other hand, it would have taken me at least that long and given me a much worse result if I had tried to force myself to write it with no plan. Also, because of the dice rolling, I had way more unexpected results. That made it much more exciting to work on and will make the story more exciting too.