Last year at this time I was writing a story for/with a great group of people as a staff member for a local LARP. For reasons that aren’t relevant I lost that opportunity.
It made me sad for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest being that I felt I’d just hit my stride with this story and was very excited to see how it played out and where it went and find the joy a writer gets when people respond well to what they have created. I’d put a lot of effort in already and it actually ached to let it go.
Over the year I worked out various scenarios where I didn’t have to, eventually realizing I could JUST WRITE IT. Release it like Dickens did back in the day – in installments. Let people, if they wanted to, read it.
I stripped out all references to the world it originated in as I no longer have any connection to it, roughly sketching out a new mostly Urban Fantasy one where people with Magick live alongside those without. And I peopled it with the players I knew/know. Some started this story with me, some I wanted to draw in but never got the chance.
I picked six and inserted myself because I “needed” a narrator. Not to say maybe others might not be included eventually – if I need a Bard I know exactly who is getting drawn into my fantasy world; its their damn fault for singing so good they make my soul radiate joy – but a party of seven already is challenging my ability to write as I prefer a more intimate, single pov style and fight to not head hop.
Every character is a person I know. And, yes, my friends are really this amazing, witty, and smart. And sometimes ridiculous. It’s why I have to be a character – to make dumb choices and be an object lesson. But these are also characters. I established at the start that I was writing “them” but it was a *story*. Some things would change. I’d assume some things or just invent them.
Does Ben have a problem with mice? I don’t know. But that detail works for the story so My Ben has a thing about mice. I try my best to show who I see them as but it’s possible I’ll get some things wrong. I’ve asked them to let me know if I do something egregious and I will edit. So if you’re reading this and something is different, that’s why. I messed up and fixed it.
On that subject, this is largely unedited. I wanted to retain the feeling of LARP writing where you get One Chance to tell your story and if you miss something or mess up then you fix it later in the story.
It is based on events that happened but with *heavy* edits to add people who weren’t there but should have been in my mind and also to streamline the action.
Writing for a LARP you are always aware that if you insert the chance for a quiet moment for one person then you risk the others in the group being disengaged so you throw in some razzle dazzle and some extra monsters to keep them entertained. I didn’t want to do that in a written work because I *want* that quiet, personal, growth moment to shine.
You may also notice it reads as Episodic. That was intentional. It follows a structure of LARP storytelling where discovery is made through interaction with NPCs – sometimes in quiet roleplay moments in common areas but most often on modules (called mods). Right now I’ve posted what I’m calling Parts 1, 2, & 3. More will come.
Part 1 was a mod that ran – sort of.
The basic premise is there but the action changed IMMENSELY. I did ‘die’ – as an NPC that was my role, to teach the players (PCs) the consequences of a specific action. An action which in reality they continued to do anyways and many a PC was wiped from the mod because of it.
Yes, Ivan did get wiped. And, yes, Dan was smart enough to stealth the mission.
As a friend who runs tabletop remarked, “Kim, the players are always going to attack the giant.”
That’s the thing with running games – you make the skeleton of the story, the players flesh it. And they can take it places you never would have taken it. But, when I wrote this I got to tell the story the way it would have gone if I had been the sole storyteller.
Part 2 played out a *little* like I wrote here but, if I am recalling correctly, the only person from *this* story that went on the mod was Siobhan. It was written specifically with Dan in mind but he didn’t go for scheduling reasons. I have to give credit to the PC who played a medium, name of Alyx, who wanted to go back to do a seance. It added to the mod. It also gave this Part real punch as written here.
Part 3 was never realized at the LARP. It is the beginning of me going completely off-road. I’d written all the “Interludes” with the intention of using them as a driving element of the story at the game, but that didn’t happen. Everything else from Chapter 13 on is new territory that I will be exploring fresh with whoever reads this.
I started writing this as a way to finish what I’d started. Since then it’s become so much more. A creative outlet in a time when escape seems alternately appealing and impossible. A way to inject new and fresh into days that blend together in an autopilot life. As the story has unfolded I’ve found more and more delight in the experience. It’s an expression of who I am, who I’ve been; it is also an expression of the hope I have that things don’t end, they only change.
I called this Enter The Woods. So many fairy tales involve entering a woods. Or take place in a woods. Jung would probably point out this is an archetypal concept – perhaps a representation of the unknown or the subconscious or whatever resonance it has with you (Jung’s symbolism is like that). So, for me, The Woods is an archetype and gets capitalized.
Anyhow, enough blahblahblah. Enter The Woods. I dare you.
Enter The Woods 