Geardo Fobbit

A little over a year ago, I started playing my own homemade, text-based RPG where I pretended to be a future space traveler who found himself stranded on a bizarre alien world. My only lifeline was a stranger on the radio who was helping to guide my survival. This was a game played in spoken (or typed) dialogue, where I would write both sides of the conversation and just see where the story took me. After a few weeks of writing dialogue for both my character and the stranger on the line, I realized I had a pretty compelling story taking shape, and after some serious thought, I decided to expand the story and turn it into a proper novel. There was just one problem: I had never written a novel before. I had already written every line of the spoken character dialogue, but now it was time to write narrative prose (you know, the words that aren’t dialogue :P). I noticed early on that I tended to write prose in a visual way and often felt like a director who was trying to make sure the setting and visual staging was just right. In fact, I chose to label each chapter as a ‘scene’ because of my tendency towards “directing” each chapter visually. The result was excessive descriptions that actually detracted from the story I wanted to tell. I had to modify my approach and learn that it wasn’t just the (written) visual descriptions that set the scene, but it was also the dialogue (more specifically the individual character voices), the physical and behavioral cues from the characters, and the reader’s imagination that helped bring a scene to life. Having that realization and putting it into practice were two different things, and although I could visualize the story and play it as a movie in my head, I needed some help. I found that help in a variety of places, and for 4 months or so, I utilized various methods to help me turn this story into a real novel. I relied on research and inspiration from the styles of various authors whom I admire. I was lucky enough to have some amazing beta readers to help me identify the sections that worked well and those that needed more work. I even used A(or S)I tools to help me look for problems with structure and continuity in the story, and to coach me from time to time. Then... I read it. I found a lot of problems. So, I started the refinement and polishing process over again, and again... and again. I then took a few weeks off in the middle of it all, so I could come back with a fresh perspective. When I came back, I had decided this was a book that would be released by the fall of this year. I did all of this in an effort to turn my story, originally written entirely in dialogue, into a novel that I could be proud of. Today my story that started as a solo text-based RPG in notepad is available as a full-fledged novel on Amazon. It’s been a long road (apologies to my fellow Star Trek fans), but I couldn’t be prouder of the journey from there to here and of my book. It's called The Callisto Connection, and I hope you will give it a read. The novel is currently available for Kindle and included in Kindle+. Paperback and hardcover editions will be available soon.

Trying out the new "Post Photo" feature here. It allows you to share someone's posted photo without taking credit for it. I love this feature almost as much as I love this Starfield photographer.

I will releasing these every few days until I catch up! This was one of my favorites.

Missing Mass Effect this week? Here are three upcoming sci-fi RPGs worth getting excited about: 1️⃣Exodus 2️⃣Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic 3️⃣The Expanse: Osiris Reborn.