Plotting with Fiasco

I will now go through the process I used to create the circumstances for my next story; a sci fi story that takes place on a space station in the future (think Babylon 5 or Deep Space 9).

I didn't know anything about this station before I started - nothing about the people who live there, who work there, nor who runs the station. I don't know anything about the Alien situation nor do I know anything about the technology level. All I know is that it's a space station. Luckily for me, there is a free Play Set for Fiasco called Freeport 2717 that supports this exact situation.

So lets get started. The rules for Fiasco state that I should roll four regular six-sided dice for each character involved. This gave me a total of 12 rolled dice, i.e. 12 random numbers between 1 and 6. These numbers are to be picked one by one, but you determine which one to pick, knowing that once you pick number, that dice is removed from the pile of dice. While this may seem inconsequential in the beginning, you'll notice that it matters at the end when you're left with a character's needs and you only have a "6" left (for example).

So, back to the story. I had my three characters and I had a bunch of random numbers, so I start with establishing the relationship between my characters.

For the relationship between Character A and B, I picked a sexy one. Crime. They have some sort of criminal relationship. Between B and C I checked my dice and picked out "Community", they're both involved in some sort of community together. Then for the relationship between C and A, I picked "Work". After determining the bigger picture, and having used up three of my dice, I looked at the pile to see what was left. Some sixes and ones, and then one of each of the remaining numbers. Hmm.. A quick glance at the Crime-relationship, and I picked out Assassin/Client as the more specific relationship. Interesting. Moving on, the community relationship was specified as "Elected Official" and the final relationship, the one between Character A and C, was defined as "Doctor/Patient". So I already have an interesting mixture to work with here.

Character A is an assassin of some sort, who has an elected official as client. Character B, an elected official of some sort, together with Character C, a doctor, who in turn has Character A as a patient at some part in the story.

I was now left with half my dice - six random numbers and all of a sudden my options were running out.

Moving on to needs, I decided that my assassin needed to leave the station somehow. That's his driving force in this particular story, so I picked one of my remaining "ones" among the dice. At this point I went straight for the more detailed description of having to leave, and picked number five, "because two contracts on my life is more than enough".

This is where the story truly started to form in my mind. Here we have an assassin with a contract on his head (and not just one, two in fact), but why? That's a story in itself. My mind immediately said, he received a contract to kill himself and the client is the "elected official". I'm imagining that the assassin is actually working with two identities, one he's an assassin, akin to Superman, and another one he's a "Clark Kent". Is it perhaps possible that he's on the same council as the elected official, on opposing political sides, and his assassin alter ego receives the contract to kill "the real him"?

Basically, my mind was racing at this point and that's simply from following the guidelines of establishing relationships. I won't go into further detail here, but I hope you can see how not only does Fiasco help with coming up with plot ideas, the game also helps with constructing interesting characters!

I'm sold. :)

Writer's Block - Plot generation

One of my bigger struggles has always been trying to come up with WHAT to write. Since I was a wee lad, I've sought out comic books and non fiction book in genres that I would like to write about - hoping to find plot seeds. I've looked at the discount shelves at Barnes & Noble in hopes of finding that one title of conspiracies, historical mysteries, spy biographies or any other book that can generate an idea for me; an idea great enough to weave a fictional yarn around.

Lately, I've realized that the plot seed is not enough, and that there's so much more to a great story than just the plot. There are characters and conflicts and no to mention good structure to keep your readers on their toes. All in all, there's a truck load of things that factor into a good story.

However, the plot IS important, and this post is about helping you come up with good plats without losing what's still left of your hair. To achieve this, I won't be talking about the usual stuff - the "newspaper headlines" etc that you read about in various other books, but instead I want to point you in some other directions. I will be mentioning some tools that really opened up a few of my eyes.

I have a decent little random plot generator that I created in Excel based on the Lester Dent formula. Using this formula is a simple way to get a starting point, a way to give me that first indication of what the story could be about, but I have never really followed it to the letter. What starts out as a stolen jewel could end up as a USB-stick with video footage and I'm still happy. I've been given a start and it has helped spur my creativity enough to start writing.

The Lester Dent formula, however, is event driven. It focuses on story and gives you the job of creating the protagonist. A few weeks ago, I found a tool that helps me come up with character driven stories. The tool is actually a pen and paper role playing game called Fiasco, and is unconventional even by role playing game standards. To start with, there is no Game Master directing the players, nor is there a set adventure kit that the players will be following. Instead the entire game is based on the relationship between the characters; a relationship built using dice and tables. The tables come from a so called "Play Set", a setting description if you will. The description, however, is only a couple of sentences long. The tables are what's important. They're the ones creating the relationships and the needs of your characters. I immediately noticed that from more or less "nothing", I managed to come up with a brilliant little story seed by following the rules lined out in the game.

In my next post, I will go through the steps I followed one by one.