Writing Clearly

[Anna B]

So I'm working on writing up a piece of the game I'm working on, with the goal of showing it to people and getting feed back. However,  I think what I've written is really unclear and fails at explaining the ideals. What can I do to write with more clarity?

Here's something I think is relatively clear but still not as clear as I would like it to be:
Motivations represent things that characters feel very strongly about, things that drive their actions. Some these things are goals, but some of them are just strong emotions. Characters can use their strong emotions to make some of their actions more effective. Characters do have other wishes and desires besides their Motivations. However Motivations are what drives them.

Here is a snippet of my unclear writing. It's out of context so it's even more unclear:
If two of a characters Motivations conflict the one with the most points is the one the character acts on. The player may chose to spend a point in the lower motivation to have act on that one instead. If the two Motivation have the same number of points the player must spend a point in one or the other to act on either Motivation.

Also I have too many things in my game called points. Does anyone have any ideas for alternative names?

P.S. I know this isn't directly about the design of the game,  so if it should be here I apologize.

[jerry]

Here is a snippet of my unclear writing. It's out of context so it's even more unclear:
If two of a characters Motivations conflict the one with the most points is the one the character acts on. The player may chose to spend a point in the lower motivation to have act on that one instead. If the two Motivation have the same number of points the player must spend a point in one or the other to act on either Motivation.

The first thing to do is to make sure it actually is grammatically correct. That will probably go a long way towards making it easier to understand. Use apostrophes, commas, and whatever "that" and "then" are. Use consistent capitalization.

If two of a character's Motivations conflict, then the one with the most points is the one that the character acts on. The player may chose to spend a point in the lower Motivation to act on that one instead. If the two Motivations have the same number of points, then the player must spend a point in one or the other to act on either Motivation.

Second, consider not ending in a preposition unless you really, really want to. DO NOT RE-ORDER WORDS. Find better words. I'm thinking here of "acts on". "Uses" might be a better word, or it might not, depending on what this paragraph is actually supposed to say. So might "is the one which motivates the character." But "on which the character acts" is not better, it's just more convoluted.

Finally, consider separating the confusing parts out to their own paragraph. In this case, I suspect the confusing part is, what happens when two Motivations have the same number of points:

If the character's Motivations each have the same number of points, the player must spend a Discretionary point if they want their character to act. The player may choose either of the character's Motivations.

Also I have too many things in my game called points. Does anyone have any ideas for alternative names?

In general, I think that a plethora of names for things that are really equivalent causes more confusion than it helps, and also serves to obscure relations. Without knowing what you use the term "points" for, it's hard to see if that's the case here, but if you think that, taken individually, the word "points" makes sense for that item, it may be that you should have lots of things called points. Just name them when you use them, as I did when I distinguished Motivation points from Discretionary points above. Assuming that I guessed correctly that the points that are being spent are different from Motivation points, it makes sense for both to be called points: they are at least somewhat interchangeable: you can add one to the other.

Jerry

[Michael S. Miller]

Chris Lehrich wrote up an excellent guide for revising one's writing in the thread Shooting the Sacred Cows. Ralph's post that starts off the thread is also gold for a game designer.

Personally, I found hiring an editor immensely helpful. For a game that you're going to publish and sell, the cost of an editor (maybe the sale price of a dozen or so copies, depending on length, price, etc.) is a great investor. An editor sees what you actually write, rather than just what you *think* you write, and brings a wealth of experience in shaping language to the table. I worked with Thor Olavsrud and would recommend him highly.

[Ron Edwards]

Reassurance post: this is a perfectly good topic for this forum because we are talking about design issues (which includes content-based presentation) for an actual game in progress.

I recommend providing more text examples to work with, especially a range: from the ones you are least comfortable with, to most.

Best,
Ron

[Frank T]

Hi Anna,

Here's some hints that might help you to write more clearly. This is what helps me, anyway.

- Structure your writing. If you want to explain game mechanics, maybe try to make a diagram/mind map of how those mechanics work. Figure out the crucial parts and a logical order in which to explain them. Write an outline for your text, and use different headline types to make clear which point is a sub-point to another. If you find yourself referencing to "below" or "explained later in this chapter", you should go back to your outline and look for a different order of explanation that avoids such cross-reference.

- Make short, simple phrases. Do not use words if you are not exactly sure of their meaning.

- Make good use of examples to illustrate your points. Examples are especially useful to show how different set pieces of rules fit together in actual play. Keep the examples short and to the point, though, at least for the first draft.

- Take a break and re-read your own work after a few days.

- If you can, get someone else to look over it thoroughly. Even if they're not professional editors, they can tell you what they don't understand.

Hope this helps.

- Frank

[Tony Irwin]

Hi Anna,

I think you've started a great thread here. I look forward to reading all the advice people are going to give. Here's a small tip I want to add. A creative writing teacher gave me this tip and I've used it in writing rules for my games.

Have someone read over your work and ask them to asterisk every point where they feel confused, or their eyes start to glaze over with boredom. Make it clear that that's all the feedback you're asking from them; you're not asking them for an assessment of your rules.

When they give you back your document, resist the temptation to explain for them the bits they didn't understand. Accept that they don't understand those parts of your writing. You can ignore their feedback (perhaps because they're not into roleplaying games and aren't your target audience anyway), or use it to adjust your text. Don't try and give them feedback on their feedback. If you do adjust your text, show them the changes you made and ask if they think it's improved. 

I've found this very useful in helping me to write clear texts. We ask a lot from people when we ask them to review our writing, this method keeps it all pretty simple.

Tony

[Ron Edwards]

It is a great thread, but I strongly recommend that it focuses on Anna's game texts, not on general or basic writing lessons in the abstract.

Best,
Ron

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Well, your choice of words is consistent and concise. I think you are very close to having a very easy to read and understand rules text. However, I notice from your example that you use the words "some" and "thing" often.
  The thing to remember about rules text that is different from most creative writing is that game terms must be repreated. That means that we, as game designers, need to take extra care not to over use non-game terms.
  In your example you can use the words "idea" or "concept" in the place of "thing" to make it flow more naturally.
  Please don't be too hard on yourself, you are very close to concise text. A good read and edit ought to push you really close to your goal.

[Arpie]

Also I have too many things in my game called points. Does anyone have any ideas for alternative names?

P.S. I know this isn't directly about the design of the game,  so if it should be here I apologize.

Sorry to be lazy, but could your provide a link to your game? I've got a pile of thesauri here just itching for a good airing.

[Julian]

So I'm working on writing up a piece of the game I'm working on, with the goal of showing it to people and getting feed back. However,  I think what I've written is really unclear and fails at explaining the ideals. What can I do to write with more clarity?

Since this is an early draft, and you're giving it to people to get feedback, one possibility is: don't worry about it too much. Ask your readers to note bits they found unclear.

Writing clear rules is harder than it looks. It feels like writing plain English, but it isn't.

Some general advice:

Give examples. Lots and lots of examples.

You don't know how confusing it actually is, because you already know what it means. You need other people to look at it. (This also means that if you think it's confusing, it is.)

Distance helps a lot when rereading. Let it sit untouched for several days, then go back to it with editing in mind.

When editing, edit. If you come up with a new idea, make a note about it and keep editing.

Be prepared to throw away and rewrite huge chunks of text that you've written, but don't actually delete the old text until you've checked that everything is in the new text.

Put the most important thing first.

Simplify. Break things down. Turn long sentences into several short ones, long paragraphs into several shorter ones. Use lists when appropriate - instead of 'you can do X, Y, or Z', say:

You can do:
X
Y
Z

It's easier to read, avoids the nasty interpretation problems that can come with 'or', and it lets you attach the explanations of X, Y, and Z to their first appearance.

Keep all the bits and pieces of one concept together.

Divide into sections and subsections. Finding things is easier when there are helpful headers.

Here's something I think is relatively clear but still not as clear as I would like it to be:
Motivations represent things that characters feel very strongly about, things that drive their actions. Some these things are goals, but some of them are just strong emotions. Characters can use their strong emotions to make some of their actions more effective. Characters do have other wishes and desires besides their Motivations. However Motivations are what drives them.

I'd rewrite it more or less as follows. (This is my style, not yours. It's not right or wrong. Your text is reasonable, but I'm attempting to illustrate some of what I was talking about above.)

Motivations are what drive characters' actions. A Motivation could be a goal, a strong emotion, or something else, but whatever it is, the character feels very strongly about it.

Not everything a character wants should be a Motivation - Motivations are the things that truly matter to the character. When push comes to shove, everything else gets put aside.

Because of their importance to the character, Motivations can be used to make the character's actions more effective... (insert actual rules here)

Here is a snippet of my unclear writing. It's out of context so it's even more unclear:
If two of a characters Motivations conflict the one with the most points is the one the character acts on. The player may chose to spend a point in the lower motivation to have act on that one instead. If the two Motivation have the same number of points the player must spend a point in one or the other to act on either Motivation.

I get it fine. However, I'm a rules weenie, so maybe I don't count. Here's my rewrite:

Motivation Conflicts

Sometimes two or more of a character's Motivations will push the character in different directions.

- If one of the Motivations has more points in it than any other, it is dominant, and the character acts upon it.
- The dominant Motivation can be overridden by spending a point on one of the other applicable Motivations.
- If no single Motivation is dominant, the player must spend a point on one of the Motivations. (Question that should be answered here - what if he has no points? Does he sit there and dither?)

Also I have too many things in my game called points. Does anyone have any ideas for alternative names?

It's hard to do without context. levels, tokens, counters...

Try labeling them. (character points, action points, etc. points.) You may then discover that you can turn the label into the new term. ('action points' become 'actions')

[Anna B]

Well here's the second snippet revised:
If two of a character's Motivations conflict then the one with the most points is the one that motivates the character. The player may chose to spend a point of the lower motivation to have the character be motivated by that Motivation instead. If the two Motivations that are in conflict have the same number of points the player must spend a point of one or the other to be motivated by either.

I think it's a little better but still not great.

Arpie: I can't provide you with a link because the game is currently just a jumbled word document on my computer.

I'm having some trouble outlining because the game still has some pretty big gaps in it.  At the moment I'm trying not worry about it and hope my backbrain comes up with something.

Ron, there's not that much text at the moment. I was really trying to get the motivations section presentable so I could post it here and get feedback.

Anyways here's the my attempt at writing what the game is about from the intro section:
This an RPG about Dramatic tea. It's about choices and character development.  It's about what happens to people when they make choices. The characters will have the worst possible thing happen to them. The they will have to make important choices that address the theme throughout the game.

This a good example of one of my bigest writing problems: leaving information in my head. I know what I mean by dramtic tea, but I'm having trouble defining it better. I want to say "You know like Jane Austen, or Bujold" but I think that's pretty useless to most people.

And here's a bit more of the Motivation text that I think is just very vague:
A character may refresh one Motivation point by spending about 15 min. doing some that centers them. It doesn't have to me the same thing every time, but it should be something thematically appropriate. They may only do so once per day of in game time.

[Valamir]

For my part I've found converting confusing paragraphs to bullet points and then back to text really helps solidify concepts and point out vaguaries.

For instance when I read

If two of a character's Motivations conflict then the one with the most points is the one that motivates the character. The player may chose to spend a point of the lower motivation to have the character be motivated by that Motivation instead. If the two Motivations that are in conflict have the same number of points the player must spend a point of one or the other to be motivated by either.

I see

* Motivations motivate characters
* Highest applicable Motivation wins
* If tied Player can choose which Motivation applies by spending one point of that Motivation
* Player can spend a point out of another applicable Motivation to have that motivate instead

This immediately points out a big vaguary.  What does "motivates the character" mean in game mechanics terms?  It could mean "players are encouraged to take this aspect of their character into account when narrating their character's actions".  It could mean "players are required to [do so] and GM's may veto narration that does not".  It could mean "The GM takes control of the character temporarily to play out being siezed by this Motivation" or really anything in between.  Since I don't know I'm just going to use the phrase <act in accordance> where this phrase should be replaced by whatever the real phrase would be.

So converting back to text I see. 

"Characters normally must <act in accordance> with the highest Motivation which applies to the current situation <as determined by some process>.  This is free.  Instead, players may choose to have the Character <act in accordance> with any other applicable Motivation by spending one point from the chosen Motivation.  In the event the highest applicable Motivations are tied, the player must choose a Motivation by spending a point."

The other key to clear rules is to always be clear about who is deciding or passing judgement.  In the sample text quoted above the phrase "if two of a character's Motivations conflict" is problematic because it leaves open who gets to judge that and what standards they are to use.  This may be clarified in other parts of your text, but if not you'll wan't to make that clear.  There is a big difference in play between "The GM judges when Motivations conflict" and "Any player can identify Motivations they feel are conflicting" and "Motivations are judged to be in conflict according to the strict criteria on Table 3.1"

Similiarly in my revised text who determines which Motivations apply would need to be elucidated.

[Chris Peterson]

The following books were a great inspiration to me:

• Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200696/
• William Zinsser's "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060006641/

[Alex F]

Hey - free Strunk here - I find it very useful.

[darrick]

hi Anna,

how do i say this without sounding like an A-hole...?  i just don't think writing is where your expertise lies.  writing is more than just knowing how to put words in a logical order.  it is an art.  you either have it or you don't.  and you don't.  not only is your writing confusing, but it utterly lacks... inspiration, warmth, and purpose.  sure, you could spend a few years mastering the art/technique of , but is it worth it?  if you love, love, love language and the process of writing, then go for it.  if you don't, then come up with the idea and give it to a writer.

DDD 666
http://www.cultofcthulhu.net