Hello Lovelies,
I wanted to address two questions that I received since my last posting of "Chronicles of Braum Stormforge". While, as normal when I'm doing this responses, I won't address the exact individuals, I will say that their questions pretty much equated to the same thing and so I figured I'd just answer it in one blast.
In short, your pacing seems strange in Braum's story
and different from any of your other work?
To acknowledge the critique, the simple answer is: Yep.
I touched on this early on, but it wouldn't surprise me if it had been forgotten by time or perhaps the blocks simply hadn't been put together. Braum and his story are based on my Dungeons and Dragons character (Pathfinder if you want to be really specific). While the original stories with his introduction were completely me, everything in 'Dragon's Maw' is actually FROM the game that we're playing with some minor clean-up/alteration to make the results more palatable within a written format. Just as I've touched on before how D&D serves as a collaborative story effort, now you actually get to see that effort translated to a real world piece.
So what does this mean?
Well. Two things.
First and foremost, the pacing. While I'm taking great effort to naturalize and alter the baseline of the game to feel more like an actual novel/tale, there are some elements that come off strangely. Checking random doors, walking this way or that, and, to use Part 3 as an example, traps. These are all gameplay elements from Dungeons and Dragons that make perfect sense within the context of a GAME but translate very oddly when put to paper. There's definitely a few more coming in the nearby future but I'm taking great pains to try and make those gameplay elements feel like they belong versus interrupting the readers' enjoyment. Hopefully I do a good job.
Secondly, and more to the point regarding it being 'Different' compared to my other works: it's not entirely my work. Once again, with D&D being a collaborative effort, the only actual influence that I really have is some minor touch up and Braum as a character. With that said, the real respect for the interesting and new story should be shown to author W. Doyle, a good friend of mine and rather talented storyteller in his own regard. I felt very lucky to be able to play under him as he tends to be a great deal more selective and prepared in the creation of his content/works versus my first-draft word vomit that I so often share with all of you. So, with that said, while I am controlling Braum specifically and doing some minor touchups to translate game mechanics into novelization, the real respect for the different storytelling should be directed at W. Doyle.
Now that I've cleared the air a bit, I hope to punch out the Part 4 in the next couple days and Part 5 soon after that. Both are going to be extremely exciting and provide payoff to the slinking, creeping warnings that you received in the earlier sections. I hope you'll join us and that you have yourself a wonderful day!
- RB
