✍️ Writing
A community for writers, like poems, fiction, non-fiction, short stories, long books, all those sorts of things, to discuss writing approaches and what's new in the writing world, and to help each other with writing.
Rules for now:
1. Try to be constructive and nice. When discussing approaches or giving feedback to excerpts, please try to be constructive and to maintain a positive vibe. For example, don't just vaguely say something is bad but try to list and explain downsides, and if you can, also find some upsides. However, this is not to say that you need to pretend you liked something or that you need to hide or embellish what you disliked.
2. Mention own work for purpose and not mainly for promo: Feel free to post asking for feedback on excerpts or worldbuilding advice, but please don't make posts purely for self promo like a released book. If you offer professional services like editing, this is not the community to openly advertise them either. (Mentioning your occupation on the side is okay.) Don't link your excerpts via your website when asking for advice, but e.g. Google Docs or similar is okay. Don't post entire manuscripts, focus on more manageable excerpts for people to give feedback on.
3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts: Basically, if you encounter someone you gave feedback to on their work in their post, try not to quote and argue against them based on their concrete writing elsewhere in other discussions unless invited. (As an example, if they discuss why they generally enjoy outlining novels, don't quote their excerpts to them to try to prove why their outlining is bad for them as a singled out person.) This is so that people aren't afraid to post things for critique.
4. All writing approaches are valid. If someone prefers outlining over pantsing for example, it's okay to discuss up- and downsides but don't tell someone that their approach is somehow objectively worse. All approaches are on some level subjective anyway.
5. Solarpunk rules still apply. The general rules of solarpunk of course still apply.
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Yes! I started out proofreading a series of four premade adventures/modules they were preparing for release as a playable campaign, and that got me thinking about trying to build one of my own out of some story and worldbuilding ideas that had been rattling around in my head. I really like the idea of making it available as a polished, finished product, through their channels - there's already a pretty wide range of modules but I don't think any really dig into the kinds of rural areas I'm from and some of the possibilities there. I've been having a lot of fun exploring themes around what makes a community sustainable (as in, practical, long-lasting, viable, and at what scale), deconstruction, rewilding, and other aspects of wildland conservation, the health of watersheds, and sort of the different way people interact with the habitats and species around them. There's also a lot of reuse and salvage happening because I think it's cool.
I'm honestly not sure if I'd have had trouble pouring this much work into something for a one-off game with friends, I think that's part of why I haven't GMed in the past? I am looking forward to running some games of this, but my main goal is to produce a module booklet, (hopefully a bookmarked PDF), and a zip file of all the maps, place art, and character portraits a GM might need.
The black outline is the old town border (since they know the 'treasure' was dumped somewhere inside). A lot of borders have sort of faded in importance, being replaced with watershed boundaries when it comes to managing shared resources, but the town is still incorporated and operational on paper at the moment (not unlike Centralia PA 50 years after the fire began). Towns have a way of lingering even when there are fewer residents than your average homeowner's association.
Thanks again for running this discussion, it's nice to get to chat about this stuff!