Sidebar in which I express solely my own opinions on a topic I have not yet raised with the other QMs:
Lately, I've noticed an attitude developing of "Forget the word limits on plans, it is important that we fit all this stuff in!" This results in y'all not getting the bonus XP you should have gotten, or actually getting
negative XP. What's actually happening, however, is that there's more stuff being put in the plan than the QMs can write in one update, so it was all wasted. We are left sad at not finishing the plan, you are left frustrated at not having the plan finished, you lose XP, and no one wins.
This concerns me a great deal.
I strongly request that when making the next plan you really focus on getting that bonus XP. It's fine to have only one or two scenes in the update instead of a dozen.
To show what I'm talking about, let's dissect
the latest plan. It's 399 words -- for which I applaud y'all, since that one last word that you saved had a lot of marginal value! -- but let's review what it covers. I've labeled things as 'Scene', meaning they require significant wordcount, or 'Vignette', which is something that can be breezed over quickly or even offscreened.
Vignette: Talk to the family about adopting Akane and Tenten.
Scene 1: Talk to Akane (assuming she's alive) and offer adoption.
Scene/Vignette: Talk to Tenten, offer adoption. (This could easily be a full scene.)
Scene 2: Discuss Lee. Keiko feels strongly enough on the subject that it's definitely a scene, not a vignette and definitely not offscreenable.
Vignette: Discuss inter-village adoption.
Scenes: 2.5
Vignettes: 2.5
Scenes: 3.5
Vignettes: 2.5
S: 4.5
V: 2.5
The appointment and Toad scroll bits could be V but talking to Kabuto about adoption is definitely an S. On the other hand, the above does not explicitly state that you're making the offer, just that you're considering it, so let's be generous and call all of this a V.
S: 4.5
V: 3.5
This is logically all one conversation, but it's huge. I'm calling it 1.5 scenes.
S: 6
V: 3.5
S: 7
V: 3.5
This could easily be two separate scenes, but I'm being generous and assuming that the entire Tower part could be offscreened and rolled into the Kagome conversation.
S: 8
V: 3.5
Some of this could be offscreened, some of it could be combined. Let's call it 1 scene.
S: 9
V: 3.5
S: 10.5
V: 3.5
Another absolutely enormous chunk, counting as 1.5 scenes.
Grand total: 10.5 scenes and 3.5 vignettes.
I haven't actually done the math, but let's say that my updates average 3,000 words and 3 scenes, meaning that a scene is about 1k words.
[1] I think that's actually generous -- I suspect I actually average more like 2.5 scenes, but let's round up to make the math easy. We'll also assume that a vignette averages 250 words (about 500 if it's half a scene, or 0 if it can be offscreened).
This plan requires almost
12,000 words. To put that in perspective, a short novel is about 60,000 words and there's very roughly 300 words on a paperback-book page. Most authors, me among them, average about 500 words of writing per hour, so this plan is looking for a solid 24 hours of writing, or roughly a part-time job worth. That's leaving out questions of "How much time will the QMs need to spend on worldbuilding in order to write this?" Assume that everything to do with the 7th Path will require worldbuilding time, as will anything that would have game mechanics associated with it. Call that an extra hour (and I'm being generous -- it's likely more) for discussion in QM chat, assuming that we're all available and compos mentis and that things go smoothly.
Regardless, this plan covers AT LEAST 4 updates. That means you could have left out 3/4 of what was in here, AND given more detail if you'd wanted to, AND still gotten yourself a bonus XP.
Please. There's a reason that we offer bonus XP for short plans. If you're not getting that XP and there's more than one scene in the plan then you're doing it wrong. Just cut down the number of things you're trying to do instead of copyediting the plan to use fewer words.
[1] Note that 3k words is about 6-8 hours of writing once editing is taken into account. Add another 3 hours (average) if there's combat, since it takes a while to figure out all the best tactics and then do the mechanics, and then there is inevitably some mistake that forces me to go back and redo a whole bunch of stuff.
EDIT: I didn't allow for the idea that some vigenettes could be offscreened. Fixed.
