From Tabletop to Paperback – Prolegamena Part 3

Previously, I'd spent two posts walking the gamemaster (or self-aware career player) through the bare minimum steps of pre-writing and comparing to the prep work one usually does for a game. I'd left two items untouched, the Climax and Resolution. I'll elaborate on them now, then hopefully tie a bow of optimism on the whole thing.

The Climax

So if there's a Big Event at the beginning of your story or game that kicks everything off and lays out the Story Question, and the middle is all about refining that Question and denying the protagonist(s) any closure on it, then the Climax is where you finally answer the question.

Luke throws away his lightsaber and insists he'll never join the Emperor. The Ghostbusters commit to crossing the streams to save the world at the (theoretical) expense of their own lives. Jake and Elwood play a set and get the cash advance to bail out the orphanage. Marlowe figures out what happened to Regan, but he refuses to tell the General.

When planning game sessions, most GMs have a Climax in mind. Again, part of this is just prepping for the night's session of gaming. But additionally, if you've gone to all the effort of setting up this long chain of interconnected events, there needs to be a satisfying win, loss, or draw that says to the players, "that's it, you solved it or survived it, that part of the story is over."

Take a Chance on Me

Thanks to the whims of chance (that is, rolling dice), there are two main lessons that gaming can teach a GM about the Climax. One is, in my opinion, more positive and the other is more negative. We'll start with the happier but more difficult of the two.

Sometimes, players don't roll well enough, or the GM rolls very well, or some linchpin of the plan just goes south, and the heroes don't succeed. They might die, they might get captured, the person they're meant to save could flip to the dark side or get sacrificed or whatever.

I prefer stories where the answer to the Question is No. Or, even better, a "Yes, but..." that makes you wish it had just been a No. Years of experience at the gaming table combined with reams of Noir reading material left me with a firm grasp on how to answer No or Yes, but... in a way that others would find satisfying.

They may not be happy about it, but my players will be satisfied. That might mean the loss leads into the next adventure, or they might just recognize that their heroes went out in a blaze of glory. Whatever it is, when the dice force you to tell your players No or Yes, but... and you manage to do it in a particularly compelling way, then dissect it to see exactly what you did right. When you figure it out, take it to heart and do it again.

Game of (un)Chance

The more negative lesson -- although much easier to fix as a writer -- is when chance screws your table out of the chance at a Climax. In what the GM considers the middle of the story, the heroes have a mishap, or a random encounter table generates a bit too robust of a monster, or somebody fails a skill check in a way that leaves death or imprisonment as the only reasonable outcomes and you score the dreaded Total Party Kill (TPK).

There are ways to make this work at the table, but they take a lot of tapdancing for me if I want to leave the game's teeth in. I can hand wave it, I can fudge the damage, but if I do that and the players catch me, then they feel the game will just gum them but never bite.

The reason this is easy to fix as a writer is that you aren't rolling dice to see what happens in your story. Oh, you should make it difficult, painful, and all around terrible on your protagonists, but they don't die, aren't maimed, and don't piss in the king's favorite wine cup unless you want them to. And if you want them to, then it's easier to figure out how they're going to get out of it to progress towards that Climax.

The Resolution

As exciting and important as the Climax is, it doesn't really work without a Resolution. Blowing the Death Star up is great, but rolling the credits right away without the celebratory hugs and medals would just be weird and unsatisfying. Same thing in a different way when the Story Question's answer is in the negative. Double Indemnity doesn't work nearly as well without Keyes finding Neff recording his confession.

This can be tough at the game table. I can't tell you how many nights I am scrambling against the end of the night to get an action scene finished before everyone has to leave for the night. The last foe is vanquished and everyone starts to stand up and gather their books and dice. They had fun, but they're ready to go even though the storyteller in me wants have a moment to appreciate the victory.

This can be doubly difficult at the end of an arc. Everybody wants to know how much XP they get or what loot the Big Bad had upon her person or in her stronghold. For an RPG, these mechanical concerns are very, very important. But if part of what we're doing is telling a story together, so is the Resolution.

There aren't a lot of dice to roll, but it's still important for the city to throw a parade for the heroes, or for the kidnapped princess to kiss the hero that saved her, or for M to tell the 00s they kept the world from slipping over the brink. Sometimes I'll even write this section out in advance. I try not to read it verbatim, but a few choice phrases down on paper can give the moment just as much gravitas as when they rolled the final to-hit on the evil mastermind.

Same thing goes for your story or novel. You have to work very, very hard to write yourself to a spot where you don't need some kind of denouement. I did it once with my Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall, but even after all that work for the big punch ending, I felt the need for a very brief epilogue to bring it home. In fact, a good rule of thumb is allow one chapter as Resolution. Even if you use part of it to lead into a sequel, your readers will thank you with a warm feeling of a satisfyingly finished story.

Bringing It Home

So you've plotted your course and gone on the long, scenic drive of writing a story. It probably felt a lot like prepping for six months of games at a one go, but you've done it. Do you think it's time to sit down at the keyboard and start typing words?

Almost. We need to talk a bit about one more core concept (and a few bits of friendly advice after that. That core concept is Story Structure. Honestly, this can be a bit problematic to map to your gaming experience. Or rather, you do it in microcosm over and over, but now you're going to have to do it in macrocosm (sorta like your prep versus your pre-writing). Sound complicated? It is...a little. But it's nothing gamers don't already do, they just do it differently.

Come back next time and we'll talk about Story Structure. See you then!