Talent Won’t Save You: Kobold Quarterly Chapter Review
Written by James on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 11:12 am
Gaming and writing go hand in hand. For those who love fiction, creative writing rpgs and writing stories about their characters, gaming offers a great chance for a fun career.
There are indeed opportunities to turn your nights of weaving tales, creating characters and leading them through amazing adventures into more than just a hobby. You can write a novel around your role-playing adventures. You can contribute to game rulebooks. You could even design a role-playing module.
But it takes more than talent. Getting published is a tough challenge, especially in the gaming niche. There is a guide to help you break into the industry, though: Kobold Quarterly Guide to Game Design Volume II: How to Pitch, Playtest and Publish.
One chapter title in the guide caught my attention. The advice is universal to anyone trying to write for a living: Talent won’t save you.
That’s right; talent isn’t enough. As a professional writer, you need discipline, dedication, and organization to do the job properly. Take on more than you can handle, bite off more than you can chew, and you’ll find yourself drowning without a lifeboat in sight.
The Kobold guide points out several potential pitfalls for overly enthusiastic writers ready to make their mark on the world:
Eyes Bigger Than Your Stomach
Be reasonable with your goals. A project to write 50,000 words might seem easy enough if you know you’re prolific with a keyboard and crank out 25,000 words a day without breaking a sweat.
The reality is that life gets in the way of all our goals. If you’re a freelancer, chances are this project won’t be the only one you have. You have other projects on the go in your life, like a family that needs attention or a day job that brings in good money.
Do you really want to burn the candle at both ends just to get published?
What Can Go Horribly Wrong, Will
You know it and I know it; whatever can go wrong, will. If you’re not serious about upholding every little responsibility of a contract and sticking with it if something goes sour, then don’t sign on the dotted line.
Test the waters first by completing smaller, personal projects of your own. See how you handle the issues that crop up. Build recognition on a blog or fan site and work your way up from there into bigger projects for large companies.
It’s Not the Deadline; It’s the Cover Up
Blow a deadline, and you’ll sink your freelancing career faster than if a torpedo hit through your hull. What’s even worse is trying to come up with an excuse to cover for your failure to meet expectations (ones that you said you could meet).
If you can’t deliver on your promises for whatever reason, take responsibility as soon as possible. Let your employer know well in advance, too. Don’t wait until the last minute and leave them scrambling to make up for lost time.
Take It Seriously or Don’t Take It At All
I know about how to write for a living. The chapter of Talent in Kobold Quarterly’s Guide to Game Design reinforces that knowledge, driving home the fact that writing as a professional for games isn’t a game.
It’s a business.
While you may be good at creating stories for characters, you need a great deal of business sense to make it in any business, including one that revolves around games, fun and adventure.
Want to read more about The Kobold Guide to Game Design, Volume II? Read on…
