The beach is wonderful, even when it is as cold as it is today and only one other soul dares to sit and stare off shore. There are plenty of walkers and plenty of dogs racing across the sands. The waves lazily slap the shore as I warm my hands between words. It would be a wonderful place to share a morning coffee with a loved one.
I am not doing that. I haven’t done that. The beach has become a separator—a place of work for me as I transition through projects. Presently I am writing 1,000 words on a Shadowrun corporation of my own design, pushing its plot forward into the future. I am trying not to be rote here. I need to be daring and do something that is both interesting and engaging in terms of developing a future ideal for this corp that sets it apart from others and ultimately will get it noticed in an extremely negative way that will trigger a decision to either let it into the ten corp collective that rules the world, or destroy it and its proponents outright. So, the question is: what rises to that level of tomfoolery? More importantly, what is going to be fun and interesting for players.
Writing for RPGs is not quite the same as writing stories—especially in a shared world where other writers will take some control of the thing you created. This has often resulted in characters I am working to develop being murdered (merc’d as I say). This happens all too often. None of these characters are in the process of dying and at least a few aren’t even my characters. Somehow this all feels like training for an eventual run at Marvel (or perhaps DC).
In the meanwhile, I need to do more with plot and creativity. I have yet to push the boundaries of what this genre can be, so these 1000 words is my opportunity to do that. Hold on, fans, it is about to get buck wild.