I have been in a slump lately. In fact, it's been about two months now. Beyond these blog posts and a few flash-fiction stories I have not been able to write much of anything despite taking the radical move of dropping a shift at work so I can dedicate extra time to my writing. The motivation is waning.
Introducing: "Quill & Quest" the first real world role-playing game for writers. I am writing it as a fun way to quantitatively keep track of your writing progress, keeping you motivated to write and seek publication.
There are two different point systems within the game:
P - Publication points
SP - Style points
The more SP you have, the quicker you earn P. This is still a work in progress though.
Following is an excerpt.
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Quill & Quest RPG (The role-playing game for writers)
LEVELS TITLE CRITERIA
1. 200P None None
2. 400P Dilettante None
3. 800P Aspirant SP 30
4. 1,600P Novice Win a writing contest
5. 3,200P Ableman Sell 1 short story in a major market
6. 6,400P Writer Sell 1 Novella in a major market
7. 12,800P Wordsmith Sell 1 Novel
8. 25,600P Novelist Make best seller list
9. 52,000P Master Sell 1M+ copies, win literary award
10. ------P Grand Master Multi-Million sales, win several literary awards
P RATE
The base P(ublication) potential per word is (SP/1000). SP are (Style Points).
STYLE POINTS
SP are earned through tasks that improve your writing. The more SP you earn, the quicker
you level. However, SP are lost through time at a rate of 1 SP/Day, Although, you may
never fall below 10 SP. The SP cap/day is 3. The higher your SP, the harder it is to
earn SP. The total SP cap is 100.
For example: Reading 40 pages of a good book is worth (5/Your SP)SP
IF Your SP is 50 then the value of that activity is .1SP
To earn 1 SP doing this activity you must read 400 pages.
LEVEL 1
You have never written anything before, although you find it fascinating. You are an avid
reader and have probably thought to yourself "I can write a better story than this!" Your
book collection is huge and most likely you have read books at least a decade before they
were made into a movie. The book was always better.
You think you know what it takes to be a famous author and are ready to start being rich and
famous.
To start you on your road to fame and fortune, you need to choose a PEN NAME and a GENRE. This
is important because everything you write and publish will be under this name and genre for the
entirety of this game.
Just for reading so much, we are going to give you 10 SP. (Style Points) You will want to start
earning more SP as soon as possible, and to keep finishing your daily quests to increase your
SP, because you lose 1 SP every day. Don't worry. We will never take your initial 10SP from you.
Also, once you advance in levels your minimum will increase to your levelx10. For example; if
you are a Wordsmith with 80SP and you don't do any daily quests for a month, you will still have
70SP when you return.
SP is important because it will help you determine the value of your words. At 10SP, every word
you write is going to be worth (10SP/1000)=$0.01 [One cent]. Don't worry though, you will not
attempt to be published until you reach level 4 (Novice).
TOOLS
To begin all you need is something to write on, a notepad or a computer. Every time you write you
must begin with some basic information:
The Date
Title
Version (First draft, second, edit, polish, published)
Your Pen Name and real name
Your SP
Word count
LEVELLING
In order to level you must accomplish two things:
1. Earn the required P.
2. Meet the required criteria.
If you refer to the chart above, you will see that at level 1, the required P is 200 with no criteria
for levelling.
If you never do any daily quests, your SP will stay at 10. So, in order to earn 200P you must write:
200P/(10SP/1000) = 20,000 words.
However, if you do daily quests for a week and bring your SP up to 25:
200P/(25SP/1000) = 8,000 words.
Whichever way you want to do it, once you have written 200P worth of words you will graduate to
level 2.
LEVEL 1 - Daily quests
Keep a journal of your writing. Whenever you write, or do a quest keep a record.
QUEST REWARD/Your SP
Read 40 pages of a well written book. 5SP (.5 at 10SP)
Edit 1,000 words you have written. 10SP
Complete a game. (Crossword/search) 5SP
Read TEOS (The Elements Of Style) 10SP http://www.bartleby.com/141/
Write 1,000 words 10SP
Remember: You lose 1 SP per day and the maximum SP you can earn per day is 3.
LEVEL 2 - Dilettante
Congratulations on levelling! This is a great achievement. Ninety percent of people who attempt writing
give up before this. Perseverance is key.
The first rule you must learn in order to be a writer is this: You must write!
Now that you are level 2 you meet your first criteria for levelling to 3. Not only must you earn 400P, twice
that of level 1, but you must also raise your SP to 30. Remember, your minimum SP has been raised to 20.
At this level it is also required that you learn the elements of a short story.
ELEMENTS OF A SHORT STORY - http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/engramja/elements.html
SETTING
PLOT
CHARACTER
POINT OF VIEW
THEME
Research each of these equally important elements and learn how to identify them.
LEVEL 2 - Daily Quests
As you level you may continue to do all of the preceding quests. You will notice that writing 1,000 words now
is worth double of level 1. It will always be worth [(Your Level x 10SP)/Your SP].
QUEST REWARD/Your SP
Read a short story and identify all
of the short story elements. 20SP
Write a flash-fiction story <1k Words. 20SP
Write 1,000 words. 20SP
LEVELING
At 20SP you must write 20,000 words. Since you require 30SP to level you will only have to write 13,333 words. A
typical short story is between 2,000 - 5,000 words. By the time you level to 3, you should have written at least
three short stories. Be sure to edit and polish these stories, they may be good enough that by level 4 you may
want to submit them, because by then the only way to earn P is to be published.
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Well, there is what I have in mind so far. When Q&Q is complete I will publish it as a PDF file.
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