The Art of Filling White Space

[Resonantg]

I'm going to provide the advice given me by Peter David (Marvel Comics, Star Trek Novels....)

"If you want to write well, you've gotta start reading.  A lot!"

He went on to elaborate in an article I found years later that you write what you read.  If you don't know how the genre is supposed to be written, or what has been done, you're going to have problems writing about it.  So my recommendation is a variant of that.  Borrow or buy gaming books and start reading them and analyzing them in how they were written, organized and formatted.  Do you like the Palladium "Two Column" style that had taken over the industry, or the single column AD&D / GURPs method?  Which chapters go where?  Do you use sidebars?  And of course, what kinds of anecdotes and flavor text do you use to add interest to your game?

So that's my amateur advice with a bit of advice I got from a pro.  So take it for what it's worth. ;c)

[Thededine]

I have to agree with whoever cited the outlining thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=9546.msg99870#msg99870.  As is later noted in that thread, this can work with headers just dandy.  In fact, that's one of the primary planning steps that we do here at my "real job" at McGraw-Hill (textbooks and RPG books have lots of similarities).  Make a gigantic outline of every part, chapter, section, segment, and heading.  Anything that you feel it important to set of with a different typestyle should be included.  This will (a) allow you to normalize your typestyles, which is about ten times more important than anybody thinks it is, and (b) recognize the holistic structure of the entire affair.  Note, though, that the outline will change -- many many times.

If you haven't started writing yet, try and block out that outline as detailed as you can from where you are now (it will change -- many, many times).  Double-space it and print it out, and use this as a checklist of sections to be written.  You do not have to do them in order.  You do not need to write the chapter opener before you write the sections within it.  They do not even need to work together yet -- you just need to get them down on paper.  As you write the sections, check off or grey-out or strike them off your outline.  As you go, you will think of new sections that need to be added to support the sections you are writing; you will find that some sections aren't really important after all.  The outline will change -- many many times (catch a theme, here?).  What's important is that you have a list of bits and pieces to write; usually it's a simple matter to write bits and pieces; it's writing an entire book that nobody can do all at once.  The other important thing that this does is give you a tangible and relatively accurate sense of progress, which is key in any long writing project.

(I find -- and this is totally idiosyncratic and anecdotal -- that it's useful to name the files with their outline numbering, so that they will line up in order in their directory -- filenames like "2.1.4 Solagraphy" and "3.2 Thematic Batteries".  Then, badda bing badda boom, you have the listing in order in your window, which makes manipulating the pieces easy, especially when the outline changes the order of things (and it will change -- many, many times).  You just change numbering in the filename, and the directory sorts it where it's supposed to go.)

Once you have most of the sections written, you might start to slap them together in larger files in the order the outline has them.  Writing in transitions and making sure the elements are explained in order (Die Promotions aren't explained until four pages later, I can't use them as part of this example here...) will entail some healthy edits, but once you are done and have plugged the holes of the last segments that remain to be written, you will finally have... a first draft.  Editing said draft is a whole nother thread. :)