Jen Telling Stories

 I mentioned that I was working on a second murder mystery party for the Steampunk Society. And then I dropped off the face of the earth because it turns out working a full time job and writing a murder mystery party for 18 people takes up all my time management skills. But I hosted the event on Saturday so now things are slowing down a bit. The event was... well, chaotic. I shouldn't call it a failure because the players had a good time, but things were a lot messier than my previous mystery party. All in all, it was a good learning experience. I'm glad that editing my first mystery party has been taking so long because this second party taught me some valuable lessons that will improve the first one.  Still, it's always disappointing when something you plan doesn't go as planned. As I've mentioned before , I struggle with that perfectionistic streak that makes me want to get things right the first time. To make a perfect experience for the readers or players, so t...

A while ago I found myself stuck on a scene in a novel I'm working on. I’m somewhere in that spectrum between planner and pantser, so I had written an outline; but somehow my outlines rarely survive contact with my drafts. It’s like my characters get stage fright; they freeze in place until I can give them the right cues. But this time I couldn’t get them to budge. I have a few strategies for when the wheels get stuck: rethinking the scene from scratch, changing up which characters are in the room, cutting the scene out entirely, etc. But I had recently encountered a piece of writing advice on Tumblr that seemed worth a try. “Let your story be bad for a day. Aggressively bad.” I hoped writing a terrible draft would help me get past that unreasonable desire to write the scene perfectly the first time. Or at least serve as a placeholder so I could move on with the book and come back later. So, I decided to give it a try. And it was horribly, horrendously, nail-bitingly, gloriously ba...

So, I've been working hard on editing my Steampunk Murder Mystery Party, "Death in the Skies!" I'm hoping to release it for sale in the next two months, fingers crossed. I'll definitely keep you updated on that. But I also have committed to write another Murder Mystery Party for the Utah Steampunk Society this fall. I've been thinking that maybe sharing my process on here could help me stay focused on both projects, and maybe even be useful information for some of you; I've had a few people asking me lately about how to write a project like this.  This blog post series is meant to be me sharing the things that I've learned so far in this process, as well as the things I'm continuing to learn as I go. I'll be breaking down different elements that go into making one of these games--many of which are elements that also go into writing other projects, like a more traditional mystery story.  For both of my parties, I've found that I started with...

A few weeks ago I ran a beta test on my Murder Mystery Party. It was a good test; I got a lot of useful feedback from it. The players had a great time and correctly solved the mystery. But I think it’s worth acknowledging that sometimes “got a lot of useful feedback” feels like failing. I do value the critiques I get on my writing, I really do! Feedback is vital in trying to improve at any skill, particularly writing. And I am always grateful when people are willing to give me the time and effort to look at something I’ve made and tell me honestly what they think of it, what I’ve done right, and where I can improve. But—I’m also a very sensitive person. In a lot of ways; I have sensitive skin, I have sensitive teeth, I have sensory defensiveness as a symptom of sensory processing disorder, etc. And like many artists and writers, I’m emotionally sensitive. This comes with pros and cons. For example, it helps me to be empathetic and to appreciate beauty. But it also means that I’m sens...