DM tip: write fiction

I started writing little scenes about the locations keyed in my hex map and it's transformed my game for the better.

The player-facing map

While preparing my campaign's hex map, I decided separately after a series of strange synchronicities—things said to me in passing, posts surfacing on the timeline, the rediscovery of a book on writing I was gifted but never read—I ought to write more fiction. 

I don’t think of myself as a "writer" but I'm capable of good writing if the weather's favorable and I put in the hours. Still, there's much to improve and I wish to exert myself creatively. Most of the writing I do is nonfiction; whenever I write a story I feel like a clumsy child trying desperately to mash the square peg through the circular hole.

I decided three hand-written pages a day, because that’s what my friend who’s doing Artist’s Way (another synchronicity) recommends. I’ve never read the book but I hear it’s very useful. No finished stories, just scenes and dialogue. We're sketching, not painting.

Seeking subject matter I figured: why not write about the hexcrawl? What would a scene of adventures coming to this town here on the corner of the map look like? 

And so from my pen flowed a trio of wanderers sharing thoughts as they pass through unfamiliar streets, making their way to a tavern where the barkeeper shares a story about an old festival. 

Now, questions of quality aside: the piece was fun to write and it gave me time and space to explore each idea in the hex map more thoroughly. I find externalizing thoughts as a story switches your brain into a sort of generative state, where you suddenly start generating the "next" idea as you write out the last one. I had only the briefest notion of a festival, but as the story unwound I arrived at what it celebrated, why it stopped, and how to bring it back. I would have missed this had I just written a list of bullet-point list of facts about the town, as is my typical prep method. Not only that, but I found language to describe the town and what the players see—a sort of first-draft for putting images to words, which saves me from verbally groping about at the table as I attempt to convey the images in my head with language

I did this approximately every day for two weeks, writing scenes relating to a dozen keyed hexes. The characters, conflicts, and locations within the hexcrawl are more vivid to me than anything else I have ever created for my games. Writing the scenes makes each hex more true; the stories expand the palette of language and ideas I work with as I prep and run the game. This depth of understanding far exceeds what is necessary to run a good campaign, but once you develop it, everything from generating NPCs on the fly to describing the frog demon's splattering boils becomes easier.

I do not suggest you write fiction based on your campaign if you're not doing it for the sake of writing. It takes a substantial amount of time, you won’t use most of what you write, and it could lead to a maladaptive overprotectiveness of your setting. This is writing practice, not campaign prep.

But, if you do wish to improve your writing, and are looking for subject matter, consider: you are an RPG person. You think about adventure games and related topics all the time, even when you're not trying to. You can channel all that energy into your games, or discussions about games, or god forbid discussions about discussions about games, but you can also use it to propel progress in a different craft and help both passions flourish. 

Writing is like fitness. It’s healthy. It gives you a better handle on your thoughts, improves your insight, and deepens your appreciation of the richness of life. Not to mention if you get good at it, you may create something beautiful.