Writing Pointers: Round One

* The "Broken Pride" event is the harder of these two. It has a minimum length of two pages, but that should not be of an issue since any story showing even a glimpse of the Vong attack will easily make that. It's action-filled writing and you should do your utmost to detail the combat and the frustration we will run into when we find that one of our capital ships can hardly take out one of their fighters. If you want good coverage, concentrate your efforts on just defeating one ship. We may succeed or fail at that task, but it is unrealistic that a CSP capital ship with its fighter squads will take out more than one Vong fighter and even that will come at heavy losses. Don't hesitate to kill off some NPCs, we have about 2000-2500 people we can lose just in this one round (the DB lost 20,000, but CSP got off light, we didn't yet lost a full ship). Don't forget to include the pursuit into the Shroud at the end.

* The "Holonet News" is one that can easily be done in the lunchbreak if you just want a so-so entry, but it is one event where everyone in CSP can submit an entry that is above average compared to the DB as a whole, netting us a nice lead. I encourage you to google for and read some 9/11 coverage as well as any wartime propaganda you can get a hold of. Then copy the style (but do NOT, repeat, NOT, just quote and slightly rewrite entire sentences) and tone of these newscasters. If you want more than average, go and illustrate your work with a single, quickly assembled image, but if you do, BE SURE TO CREDIT YOUR SOURCES. There is no official score benefit to doing so, but I am sure having your coverage laid out like a newspaper article and including a sketch or quick photoshop of Coruscant + Explosions + Vong ship(s) is not going to miss the mark of making a slightly better impression.

* Lastly, the run-on. You absolutely want to make two posts per week. Keep current on the events and once we have introduced who is aboard which ship, we do have options for people to go relatively solo, doing their job in a fighter, on a turret or on some planet. Braecen will tell you more about how to write good runon posts, for now, select a ship to be on (mind the CSP Order of Battle!!!) and then write yourself in.

As to your amount of participation, I really see four groups of members in CSP and I want you to choose one and stick with the plan:

1) The writing aces. We are talking people here who are trying to go for a podium placing in the writing division of the GJW overall. There's at best a handful of those in the Clan and you know who you are. Do EVERY event and do try to get at least a 10/15 in each. A 9 is a failure. Your goal is a CHAMPION title. Weekly priorities (in this order): Two runon posts, then grand stories. If you have additional time, game and play some ACC matches.
2) The decent writers and allrounders. This is the majority of those who enjoy writing but don't yet compete for the top 10 writers in the DB. Your target number is 8/15 on all the no-minimum and two-page minimum events. Pick one per week that you want to try a placing with (quite often the shorter one) and then do a solid middle-class entry on the other one first. Your goal is to ultimately wind up between 10th and 20th overall by sheer volume and nab us some lesser bonus points. Weekly priorities: Two runon posts, two decent stories, ACC and other events, making one story great.
3) The gamers and semi-active members. I'm grouping these together because from a writing standpoint, these are similar. Your mission is to stick with what you do best but pick up the easy points for writing on the way. Do the short events where there is no minimum as well as the easier two-page events. Try for decent, usually the effort per point is minimal until you get to a rating of 6 or 7 out of 15. Weekly priorities: Whatever you are best at, sticking with the runon if you have decided to join in.
4) The inactives. Your mission is not to be part of this group. Okay? Good.

So overhearing the DC chating, and a certain DGM was talking about a big thing for the main fiction to him is to be careful to not just do what is in the run-on. Frankly, I am having a bit of trouble. Only so much can go on in one time period, and as it is we seem to be stepping lightly into the future so we avoid future contradiction to story plot.

Are other people addressing this issue? And if so, how.

When you're doing the broken pride make sure and read up on the Day 1 / Part 3 update, where Muz goes into detail on which ships are destoryed and what all happens there. Once you've described the battles and kept it factual when compared with the official text you just need a bit of filling out with the emotions you're going through, and that kinda thing.

http://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/gjw/gjw...tory.asp?Part=3

Good call on the 9/11 stuff Natth - I'd never have thought of that. Think about the impending doom when doing the Holonet News story.

Run-on - get reading as soon as possible - the long you leave it, the harder it will be.