Description...

I was watching Hero again last night, one of my
favorite movies, and mulling over the gorgeous scenes
in my head and how to describe them if I were running
a role-playing game. Basically, I was exercising my
description. As I'm watching, I realized something:
the way I would describe those scenes, if running,
would be a whole lot of work and would take a long
time. I began to think. How could I cut down on my
descriptions and make them more exciting? I thought
back to my high-school days in creative writing. Cut
everything down to the bones. Ok, but I can only do so
much in a medium where I can't go back and correct
what I said and refine it. That won't work. Then I
thought about most books and writings. Finally, I knew
what I was doing wrong. I never make use of the most
powerful descriptive tools, similes and metaphors.
There is a reason these are used in writing, and I
think if I can master these ideas, my descriptions
will be more real, and I will be able to describe more quickly.

Also, something else that will help, I have been
talking to my friend Cobalt about running (he is my
mentor after all) and I have been realizing that a
story is made up of the interactions of people and
that is what the focus of running should be. I should
run interesting NPCs and interactions with people.

I think these new ideas will help greatly and I am
excited to run my next game to try them out.