About

Fiction is rife with inconsistencies. Even the best stories have them. This shouldn't surprise, nor should it trouble you. Nobody can think of everything. That's why when something doesn't make sense people often answer questions with "A wizard did it." They're not just being snide, they're telling you to accept it and move on because when it comes right down to it, the entire thing is made up anyway. No sense in letting a little bump in the rug keep you from enjoying the rest.

But to make your writing (any writing, though this blog mostly focuses on role play) as strong as possible, you should really avoid as many inconsistencies as you can. You should make sure you don't have very many wizards lurking around. If you read a lot and have been writing for a while, you've probably stumbled onto a few pieces of narrative that would have been improved immensely if only this one thing made more sense! And after seeing that, you'll make sure that you don't repeat the mistake.

While I hope this blog will be helpful for any writer who stumbles onto it, it's aimed at role players because quite a few of them are new writers. Many don't read vast quantities of decent literature (or in the cases of some, ANY decent literature). They haven't had the opportunity to learn by experience, at least not yet. Role playing has a steep learning curve and a dwindling number of experienced participants who are willing to help. If you accidentally godmode, people are more likely to chew your head off than tell you what you did wrong. This is not the way to improve anyone's ability to do anything.

So what I'm doing here instead of attacking defenseless newbies is posting every easily bypassed concept that I can think of, as well as how to work with it and how to avoid screwing it up. These are things that a lot of people don't think about on a regular basis because they take them for granted and forget about them, which leads to inconsistencies later (sure Lord Feeblesworth can swim, but wouldn't that armor he's wearing sink him?). You don't have to follow all of my instructions - that would make for a mammoth of a short story - but you might want to consider them if problems should arise or you're trying to add some more depth to whatever you're writing. In other words, if you want to avoid all those pesky wizards.

And you really should. The dang things breed faster than rabbits and they eat your plot from within.