ah

oh

m for the last time my name is of and i'm not supposed to be

here whatever you say do whatever you say was busy working leather hide that he

and teschik had obtained from downing a large caribou it was a good find o

had been here for weeks oh he didn't know how he'd gotten here but for

some reason he was now in the far north i had a sinking suspicion that

this was not real but just a vision but at the same time it felt

so much more real than that everyone in the village called him the nook since

olive had no way of getting back to harley and he pump he'd just been

living in the village and to be honest olive wasn't really sure he wanted to

go back huger was dead jerry imprisoned the kingdom still under the rule of his

stepbrother oh had no idea what to do so he continued working on yeah so

he continued working on the leather hide you know you can't run from it forever

sick said froze did you say c looked at all and said i know you've

been thinking about the elders challenge village needs you de nook you have to join

the council have to attempt the trial this was the first had heard of that

tenue walked over to v and put his arm on his shoulder luke brother are

wise and strong like the bear trial is difficult yes but you can overcome it

you should not think of the task in front of you but the people behind

the task waiting for you to stand up and be a bonfire to us who

sit in darkness need you brother what would you like to do welcome back to

how to be a better d m i'm your host justin lewis and i'm here

to help you create better stories

as u d m sessions of dudon z d m sessions of dungeons and dragons

in one of my previous in one of my previous episodes i talked about tips

on improving your writing skills as a dungeon master you are one part writer one

part performer and all parts crazy you'll need to know how to craft story correctly

and that means writing so today i'm continuing my discussion on how to improve your

writing skills with these tips number one join a writing group co host tanner wayland

and i joined a writing group together in college and while we both met working

at papa murphy's before when we were younger we really developed our relationship by going

to this writing group together and at the time i didn't have any particular project

i was working on but being in the group forced me to write something and

that exercised both my ability to just put pen to paper and and also my

ability to think up creative things you should look at forming or joining a writing

group the culture of writing groups is generally one of constructive criticism that looks how

the story is written it is immensely helpful for those who have never shown their

work to as before it allows you to see how people perceive and accept your

writing thus giving you an understanding of what is or isn't clear and the simplest

way to join one is by starting one but to join or start a writing

group you need to know people who like writing so ask your friends and family

and if that doesn't work you can try as like meet up or try posting

it on social media number two is kill your darlings originally coined by arthur quiller

couch the term murder your darling means something

yeah

means that sometimes you need to kill your favorite part of the story character scene

or aspect of your story and i once worked with a colleague who loved to

draw his love animation and ignited in me a desire to try and draw as

well so i started and when i thought i had something spectacular i'd show him

and he'd end up saying try changing this or that on i naturally wouldn't because

i was too afraid of messing it up he eventually told me not to be

afraid of messing something up because my best work will always be in the future

and i couldn't draw and i could something always better i could always draw something

better well with my pitiful drawing career behind me the same rings true for writing

you need to sacrifice your favorite parts of your story so you can the best

part of the story and it may be a cool idea but does it fit

is it what your players really need right now take your writing and then as

an exercise aimagine what you would write if you took your favorite thing out number

three is right outlines this tip has helped me immensely in writing these podcast episodes

instagram reels and even dan d sessions you can think of it like the building

a house first is the foundation and the framing or the concept and the outlining

of the concept then all of the important details are filled in whole disclosure i've

never actually built a house and may not know what i'm talking about the point

being able to think on a macro scale and then slowly filling in what you

need allows you to make sure the timing works and you're hitting all the parts

of the story that you want to you don't necessarily need to think up every

detail but having an outline can really help one simple outline is the three act

play outline as defined in writing excuses a podcast all about writing better that i've

talked about lots of times act one is put your characters in a tree act

two throw rocks at them act three get them down this is a great way

to think about the story arks both in and out of dandy you can even

simplify it down to three part sessions each part in your dandy session will either

be an exploration part combat part puzzle part or rope in part and i got

that from rob who is a listener of the show but also we're working with

him on a collaboration so i've been learning lots from him he's also an english

teacher which is probably why he's so smart uh there's really not too much else

that d and d can be it can also be more fluid and less structive

but these these simple parts exploration combat puzzle and role playing can help you get

started number four write more than you think when it comes to character development right

more than you think you should when it comes to character development a good writer

generally creates much more for a specific story than what they publish and the audience

might only a quarter of all the content that the writer has prepared whether in

their mind or on paper for that story and i believe that this is because

that's what is necessary for something to feel real you have to feel like shopkeeper

on the edge of town has a fully fleshed out back story because in real

life that's really how it would be so with your main n p c s

make sure you prepare a whole lot more about their character and their back star

and there their mannerisms and how they would act then you think you should and

this means filling in their memories ending in character quirks and answering silly questions about

them like what's their favorite color that last question might not be actly permanent but

you get the point and and feel out more inflow about the character because if

your player ever asks you need to have an answer that makes sense and rounds

out the character in a complete way you want the player to feel like every

character is a real person next take a writing course there are thousands of writing

courses online and therefore thousands of options yeah oh

you could even find free utubevideos online that might do the trick and if you're

considering this option i would encourage you to consider a paid writing course because then

you've actually committed you will likely get far more out of it than if you

didn't pay i will also mention that not every writing course or writing instructor is

the same you like you you may like some more than you like others and

that's okay so try and vet them before you pay that with so try and

vent them before you pay that way there is less buyers remorse also taking writing

courses with friends can help you stay committed so buddy up next take an improve

class as a writing course can help you write better and improve class can help

you become more creative there are generally improve classes at comedy there are generally improve

classes at comedy venus but sometimes you may have to find a local group that

hosts it instead this will also push you out of your comfort zone and help

you get comfortable showing your creative work to other people as humans we are naturally

scared of what people might think of what we created it's almost like showing a

baby to someone who doesn't care taking an improve class can help you get comfortable

with that and be more self assured so you don't care about what people think

as much and you're more prepared showing what you have to other people so in

the end there are countless ways to improve your writing i only mentioned you more

on this list but i bet you can think up way more and i'd love

to hear your suggestion so email them to me at how to be a better

dem at g mail dot com the important thing is that you keep working at

it and you keep getting better because then you will be the world's greatest dem

we'll be back next week for another amazing episode but until then let's go ahead