I just submitted Do to Ryan Macklin's editorial wizardry. The writing portion of this project is now mostly out of my hands for the next few months. Here's the letter I sent out to the Evil Hat crew explaining the voice of the text and some other aspects of the sausage-making.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Hey fellas,

It's been a while since I last emailed you all as a group. It's been an eventful year for a lot of you, what with the babies and all. Mazel tov, Fred and Rob!

On the subject of newborns, I'm submitting the most recent, most complete draft of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple to Ryan for editing and midwifery. You're all now invited to access that document, too. (Actually, two documents, since Google Docs has an upper limit on file size.)

You've probably seen me tweet or blog about my progress on this draft the past few months, mostly concerning the word count. This beast is roughly 125,000 words at the moment. The reason for this absurd length is twofold:

1) Ryan pointed out numerous areas in the last draft that required further elaboration, tools, advice and examples of play. Because I've got a wedding coming up in a few months, I won't have time to do that degree of writing again soon, so I figured it would be better to get a "Delete This" edit than a "Write More Here" edit.

2) Secondly, and somewhat related to the first point, I am quite an inexperienced writer. Really quite bad, actually. That being the case, I took on this task assuming that every word that makes the final cut of the final game would probably have ten words that got left on the editing room floor. To spin a clunky metaphor: I'm trusting Ryan to be the sculptor, but I'm trying to provide the best marble I can.

If any of you besides Ryan are insane enough to try to read this whole thing, here are a couple notes on the voice of the text:

- The general setting and procedural text is meant to be friendly and conversational, as if I am speaking directly to the reader. In earlier drafts, I tried affecting the voice of a wise Miyagi-like mentor, but I couldn't pull it off. I thought it better to just do what I could to be clear.

- The examples of play that are within the procedural text are written in a third-person voice. Each describes players doing things at the table, but never describes individual characters acting out of context. So an example might say:

"Fred decides that Tordek will drink one more stein of mead for his fallen ally."

That example would not be phrased as:

"Tordek drinks one more stein of mead for his fallen ally."

The examples of play always follow the players at the table, not the characters in the story. That's to reinforce the very explicit focus on telling a story in the game, rather than necessarily playing a character.

- Also, those examples never show players saying things in their own words. An example would not be phrased as

"Lenny says, 'Hey Fred, what if Tordek has another stein of mead?'"

Instead, the example would be phrased as:

"Lenny suggests to Fred that Tordek would want another stein of mead."

Earlier drafts had examples of play that included table chatter, but that didn't flow as naturally with the procedural text.

- Instead, there are two whole chapters where a complete example of play is laid out as a transcript from an actual game. The first is "Example of Character Creation," in which example players Allie, Bebe, Cat and Dev follow the whole character creation process from scratch. The second is "Example of a Pilgrimage" in which the whole chapter shows them playing an entire campaign of four letters.

- That second chapter is unfinished. That's unfortunate, but the deadline's here and I gotta deliver this baby even if it's a week early.

There is another unfinished chapter, called "The Subtle Art of Gonzometry," which is kind of a grab bag of somewhat advanced play issues that would take up too much room to discuss in the main procedure. I bet Ryan's gonna edit down the bulk of this chapter and scatter it around as sidebars.

So that's the schpiel. Hopefully this overly long email is a sufficient guide through the overly long draft. Feel free to email or call me if there are any questions over the next several months.

Thanks so very, very much for your patience the past couple years. It's been a long flight, but I think we're coming in for a landing soon.

-- Daniel

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

And thank you, too, kind readers. Have a happy new year!

Remember that scene in Neverending Story where Atreyu's slogging through the swamp and his horse drowns from sadness? That's what my sinuses feel like right now.

I came down with some kind of sniffly bug during the holiday weekend. That means the four vacation days I scheduled for the end of the year to wrap up the draft's last chapters may be occupied with soup and bedrest. Nuts.

In case you didn't know, my fiancée's very kindly suggested I set writerly tasks aside after the New Year until we get married in June. Most of my evenings have been spent churning out a few thousand words here and there. It's about time for a break.

I think I'll just send off what I have to Ryan. The current draft is hovering around 125,802 words. All that's left to write is the tail end of Subtle Art of Gonzometry and the transcript of a full pilgrimage. Not essential stuff by any means. May even be able to sneak in some more work through February, but I ain't gonna push it.

After the new year, I'll return to the visual side of development. I'll post some layouts, colored art, and video updates on the cover.