Author: Chris Camfield (---.sympatico.ca)
Date: 12-18-2003 21:27
Good game fiction evokes the game's setting and themes, just as you put it, and hooks players into the game.
Bad fiction pushes them away. :)
And quite aside from the thematic issues, good game fiction needs to be technically competent. This seems, evidently, to be a separate skill from writing about the game's background.
I wrote a review of a d20 book with generally very good game fiction, which I hope will show up here tomorrow. The very first piece of fiction in it, a pulp aviation story, was noticeably worse than the others - all the more galling for it being the most likely piece of fiction to be read by anyone perusing the book.
Run-on sentences, badly composed sentences, poor use of punctuation, some overdone words[1] and in one place a poor choice of phrase that could have been avoided by knowing the proper terminology.[2] (My hat's off to you for using "chase guns" properly, although I'm more familiar with the term "bow chasers".)
After submitting the review I talked with the author about it (as I'd been in touch with him in the past) - and it turned out that the aviation story was the one piece he hadn't written!
Chris
[1] A sentence describing an enemy pilot's parachute reads: "The alabaster silk opened like a blossom in spring as the feared enemy ace descended from the conflict still raging above him." "Alabaster"? Plus, the second half of the sentence seems awkward, and perhaps even redundant.
[2] "one of Wagner's companions... flew a tri-winged Fokker". In other words, a Fokker triplane?
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