Reaching for originality
Filed under Writing Journal on March 15, 2005
Tagged: Dungeons & Dragons, races
The world of Chronicles of Arunda, the world in which my own series of novels are set, was originally created as a homebrew campaign for my D&D group back in Second Edition. I updated it when 3rd Edition came out and had a new group of players to run through it.
However, as I returned to work on the writing, I felt strongly about finding a way to distance it from its RPG roots, specifically the elements incorporated from the Dungeons & Dragons material. This was my world, and I didn’t want it readily associated with anyone else’s (even moreso now that I write for the Forgotten Realms). I started to do this with the d20 OGL when I converted the setting. I created a gnome/halfling hybrid race and made some cosmetic changes to elves and dwarves. There were other changes, but they affected game mechanics that wouldn’t have a visible presence when novelized.
One thing I have flopped back and forth on were the names used for some of the monstrous races in the world. When I had first come up with the world, I had a single race that served as the cannon fodder for the forces of evil, and I gave them an original name. As the world and its complexity grew, that race became two then three. I was also more focused on gaming than writing around this time, so I decided to just use creatures from the Monster Manual to fill the roles. That was fine, for a while.
Over the weekend, I finally came up with original names for the monstrous races. The decision was based upon multiple goals. The first was distance. The second had to do with the actual storytelling. Ultimately, nothing is original: themes and plots have all been done before. In genre writing, there are certain story elements that have become staples, cliches. This can be good and bad. Genre cliches give the reader a common point of reference by which they can orient themselves. Unfortunately, it easily becomes a crutch for the writer to gloss over details. Instead of describing the advesary, I could write “orc” and assume that everyone will know what I mean. It can also be a distraction, however, if I want to do something with that “orc” that contradicts the reader’s frame of reference.
I chose to cast that all aside and go with something original.
