Chel
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Messages
- 368
First a bit of history to put the conundrum into perspective:
A while ago (a year or so) a friend ran a complicated, multilayered roleplaying campaign for me and my husband. I wanted to write it down, but the gamemaster is lazy in providing his detailed notes, so while waiting I decided to write a story in the same world, where the original story is told by someone loosely involved, a bystander.
I created my main characters and got to it, fleshing out the idea with a proper plot for the main characters, in line with the original RP-campaign. I wrote about 8000 words before even getting to a point where I was able to present the original story and the whole base idea behind my MCs even existing.
This is where I've arrived at currently. My MCs have come to life in their own story, and now one of them is telling the other what happened in the RP-campaign.
As you can understand I want to make this good. Not only should this scene give very subtle hints at the main plot of the current story, but also portray something the bystander experienced some ten years ago. Is it considered info dumping to tell someone else's story in this context? If so, how much can I get away with without the reader falling asleep and wondering how long this history lesson will last? How can I spice it up (and wake the drowsy reader up?)
A while ago (a year or so) a friend ran a complicated, multilayered roleplaying campaign for me and my husband. I wanted to write it down, but the gamemaster is lazy in providing his detailed notes, so while waiting I decided to write a story in the same world, where the original story is told by someone loosely involved, a bystander.
I created my main characters and got to it, fleshing out the idea with a proper plot for the main characters, in line with the original RP-campaign. I wrote about 8000 words before even getting to a point where I was able to present the original story and the whole base idea behind my MCs even existing.
This is where I've arrived at currently. My MCs have come to life in their own story, and now one of them is telling the other what happened in the RP-campaign.
As you can understand I want to make this good. Not only should this scene give very subtle hints at the main plot of the current story, but also portray something the bystander experienced some ten years ago. Is it considered info dumping to tell someone else's story in this context? If so, how much can I get away with without the reader falling asleep and wondering how long this history lesson will last? How can I spice it up (and wake the drowsy reader up?)
