All posts by Michael

Monthly Update

October 2026 Update

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My September update got lost in the events of Labor Day weekend. It happens. At least I’ve been making progress on my goals. In some cases, it’s been big strides towards the next step of the project. In other cases, it’s been frustratingly slow.

Projects

Even small, daily work on each project has kept things moving forward.

I’ve been tackling the big conflict of The Colonel Lieutenant, even if it’s just taking a single scene and working through a few paragraphs. It’s been particularly frustrating because this conflict has a lot of moving parts that move at different speeds (I’ve gamed it out twice) trying to find the right balance of strain, action, decision and consequences. I think I have a good balance now, but we’ll see how it looks when the draft comes to an end.

I’m taking a new tack with Orcfyre. First, I focused the scope on a narrow narrative, avoiding an epic backdrop to the story for a easily manageable tale. Second, I re-worked the planned character development for both main characters so it’s more realistic, and so it ends in a better place for book 2. And I made some adjustments to the world building so its more refined.

I reviewed my first draft of the 1st Minnesota story and confirmed it was really, really boring. The character going through the events of training without any conflict was just not any fun. He was passively experiencing things. So, I’ve brainstormed some ideas for how to make it interesting and I’m ready to take a second shot at it.

As for my other projects, there’s been significant work on the planning and world building, and more than 10K words written. Some of them have real potential. Others, I’m slowly sliding further down the scale of importance.

October Creative Goals

  • Write 1,000 words a day
  • One World Building Article a Day
  • Inktober Picture Each Day
  • Two Blog Posts

Books

By Brian McClellan – http://www.brianmcclellan.com/books/promiseofblood/,
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41904074
  • War and Peace (Fiction; Audiobook)
  • Seven Basic Plots (Research)
  • Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Non-Fiction)
  • The Measure of Magic (Fiction)
  • The First Volunteers (Research)
  • Second to None (Research)
  • Promise of Blood (Fiction)

I continue to be frustrated by how difficult it is to find time to read, even with a kindle by my bed, an app on my phone, and more than a few physical books. I have bursts of time where I get a lot of reading done. But I keep getting distracted. I want to read more, and I wonder if not reading more is why I’m having a hard time writing much.

Something to focus on in October.

That being said, I did manage to finish one book in October: Promise of Blood, the first book in the Powder Mage series. This book is set in a world with various levels of magic usage, including people who can use and manipulate gunpowder in mystical ways (for example, sniffing gunpowder to enhance their senses). This was a fascinating book that has a perfect first chapter I might write a blog post on. A few hiccups in that I think the writing and world building could be stronger, but still well worth reading. I’ll have to look into the next few books at some point.

October Goals

  • 20 Minutes Reading each day
  • Finish one research book
  • Finish one non-fiction book
  • Finish one fiction book

Movies and Shows

  • Modern Family Season 2 – 11
  • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4
  • Ted Lasso Season 4
  • Avatar: The Way of Water

I binged through Modern Family through August and September. This show was surprisingly funny, with a lot of good, memorable moments. The characters were varied, and grew over the course of the show, even the ones I thought were annoying. And, thankfully, there were only a handful of episodes I want to go back and re-watch, so I don’t feel the need to re-binge the entire show.

I’m trying to get through Strange New Worlds Season 4. I say trying because…its not very Star Trek. It’s got the interesting characters, but its not telling Star Trek stories. It’s telling weird and gimmicky stories because those can happen in Star Trek. And they’re not telling them very well. It’s very annoying, and I can’t really bring myself to get excited for them.

Ted Lasso Season 4 is, at the time of this writing, one episode shy of done. I’m very nervous. On the one hand, I’ve enjoyed most of this season. It was a rough start. Episode One was great, a good dedicated explanation of how Ted goes back to London. Two and Three were slow (I wish they could have been one episode), but then the series picked up. The problem is, they did not specify what the series victory goal was until Episode 9 of 10 (every other season said what it was in episode 1: avoid relegation, get promoted, win the championship), so it’s been hard to gauge how the team is doing. And the threat to the team has been ominous but nebulous, so it’s been hard to understand how much danger there is. Without those concrete backstops, the season just hasn’t had the same impact. I’m worried the last episode will upset me.

I watched one new movie these past few months, which was Avatar: the Way of Water. Similar to the first movie, it has a familiar story: an imperialist power has come to a land to ravage it for resources, provoking a response. The local leader (who used to be one of the imperialists) is an effective leader, but moves his family away for their protection. The imperialists send forces to hunt him down, using brutal tactics that lead to violence, unnecessary death, and a climactic confrontation. But the Avatar movies aren’t about the story. They’re about the beautiful world built and shot and displayed. It’s a wonder in 4K.

October Goals

  • Finish 3 Seasons of TV
  • Watch 3 Movies

Games

  • Horizon Forbidden West
  • Anno 1800
  • Terra Invicta
  • Dark Souls

Forbidden West continues to be a fun game, exploring the ruins of the world inhabited by giant machine beasts. It borders on having too many side missions and questions (like Farcry games tend to do), but also I only play two or three hours a week, so no surprise I’m still working my way through it.

I’m following a new strategy in Anno 1800 that should finally get me up to the highest levels of civilization. The strategy is to specialize each island as much as I can and use ships to transport goods between islands. It’s working so far; I’ve gotten much further, with a much stronger economy than I ever have before. And I’m slowly building it stronger. Maybe I can finally get it all done.

Terra Invicta? No idea what I’m doing. I’m still trying to figure this out. I think I need another hundred hours of YouTube videos before I’ll have any idea what I’m doing here. Similar (but opposite) thing with Dark Souls, which I started playing with a friend of mine as a way to spend time together. There the gameplay is relatively simple, but I don’t understand the world. At least I’m still having fun.

October Goals

  • Just keep playing, enjoy the games, and have fun. Don’t worry about it.

What’s Next?

I have some things I’ve applied for but haven’t heard back on, so nothing in the next few months. There is QuantumCon next year, for sure. And MiniCon, I think (I should check and make sure I’ve signed up for that).

But for now, I write, and plan, and dream.

Cheers!

Michael

Writing

Writing Process 12 – The Game

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As we ended the last post, I had the game ready to go. Pieces were set. Rules established. Now to see how the Sur-Marais invasion of the Valle del Cielo progresses.

Note: I may have mentioned in an earlier post or two that it is important to save your work. Well, I have the list of town names. And I have the map. But if I ever had a key that showed which names went to which town, I have since misplaced it. So, I’m going to proceed and do my best with what I’ve got.
The game map at the start of the game.

Turn 1

Turn one is fairly simple. The Sur-Marais army corps begins marching east out of Santa Catrina. In one day, their infantry can only march two hexes, but their cavalry contingent can march three. Their cavalry marches on Santa Lucia and attacks the scouts based there; pushing them back.

The battle occurs later in the evening, causing a delay in any warning being sent east.

Turn 2

The Campilesian scouting elements fall back east. A message (the yellow line) is sent ahead, but only makes it halfway to San Martin before night fall.

The Sur-Marais corps stops in Santa Lucia to consolidate and rest. Afterall, they haven’t come across any noticeable opposition.

Turn 3

I stretched the messenger to represent a major effort for the rider to get to San Martin by the end of the day (Stealing or buying more horses, multiple riders, etc). The main characters are now aware of the invasion and are making preparations.

The Sur-Marias corps pushes its cavalry up to skirmish with the enemy cavalry outside of San Miguel. The brigade there is fortifying their positions, but they’re about to be attacked by ten times their number, and by professional soldiers. Everyone is nervous. Their general is a fine man, but he’s not an experienced soldier. Civilians begin fleeing east.

One allied scouting element stays to the north. The southern element drops further south to watch the forest road.

Turn 4

The Sur-Marais corps advances east, marking to Santa Isabella, only a few hours march from San Miguel. Their cavalry is skirmishing heavily with the cavalry between the two settlements. The corps does leave behind some troops to secure the town, but given its size, it’s a battalion of a few hundred troops.

The brigade in San Martin has started to march west, but due their inexperience, most units don’t march more than a miles or so out of town. The brigade doesn’t march out of its starting hex (this represents the difficulty of early American Civil War armies in marching anywhere).

Turn 5

The Sur-Marais corps attacks San Miguel. The battle is short; the Campilesian troops are inexperienced, and between enemy artillery and their mass of troops advancing, they run and fleet east. What remains of the brigade falls back east to Santa Margarita.

The brigade out of San Martin managed to march several miles westward. The main characters are still in San Martin, but they will be leaving soon. There are messages being traded with higher commanders outside the valley for reinforcements and aid. Maybe it will come, maybe it won’t.

Where are we?

Five turns in and I’m already facing a different story than I expected. The enemy corps has advanced halfway up the valley in five days and taken the central settlement. The first battles have been won easily by the more professional force. And the main characters are slowly advancing.

What I had expected was the first battle to occur with both Campilesian brigades on hand, instead of only one. But with what I built, there was no real reason to expect the Sur-Marais corps to hold back at all. An experienced, aggressive general with an easy victory within grasp? Why not attack?

Now, I have two options for how to proceed.

Option One: Rework to match my initial thoughts

Maybe I like my original plan. I need to either slow down the Sur-Marais corps, or speed up the Campilesian response. Of the two, I would slow down the corps. Perhaps weather comes into play, making the roads mud and impassible.

Or the general in charge becomes lazy. Perhaps he chooses to march one day and rest and secure for two or three days, consolidating his lines of communication or interrogating the locals. Maybe he’s scouting more. Or using engineers to build brigdes and improve roads.

The point is, if I want to slow them down, I have many external forces or interna decisions I can use to change their intertia.

Option Two: Consider the story as it would proceed from here

Putting the enemy halfway up the valley in less than a week puts the pressure on the protagonists to throw everything into the next battle to keep the enemy from taking San Martin. Perhaps they’re desperate enough to do something crazy.

With the forest road, there is a chance to get some troops behind the enemy lines. Maybe the characters leave a small skeleton force to hold the line and march around? Doubtful, and militarily stupid given the force disparity, but an option. Sending a cavalry raid is much more likely.

But, let’s also not forget that there are none combat options here to be utilized. They could resort to theatrics (quaker guns or repetitive marches) to convince the enemy there are more troops around than there actually are. Counter operatives could spread false rumors of troop movements. they could burn bridges.

If they want to buy time, there are options. Buying time for reinforcements to come in and fortifications to be built.

The point is, the speed of the first five days can add a strong motivation to the characters to think outside the box and act with conviction. And that can make for a good story.

Conclusion

In only five turns, this game has already shown how my original plan for the story did not take into consideration how quickly the situation could change. I shouldn’t have been too surprised; I know many stories where such things happen in military history. But at least now I know; I have a framework with which to build a timeline for the decisions and their consequences.

The game isn’t meant to tell the story. It’s meant to help me keep it realistic, and to help me track of complex systems that can be easily mixed up. Through this example, I believe I’ve shown how such a game works in the PBRG process.

I’ll see you again for the next Writing Process Post; a review of the PBRG process.

Monthly Update

August 2026 Update

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This update covers three full months. The reason is explained below.

May was a fun month, with Quantumcon taking up a weekend, and the rest filled with work, writing and goals. The suggestion schedule continued to work well, but as I said the previous update, I need a better way to focus on the important projects and make sure I hit deadlines. Particularly with the major projects and the blog posts.

June was a difficult month. It started with the sudden loss of a close friend of mine. That knocked me off my schedule, and turned June into a month of grief, recovery and meditation. I got some things done, but I wasn’t following my schedule at all.

July I was getting back to normalcy, or at least trying to. I revamped the suggestion schedule to make it more efficient, focusing on reducing the number of suggestions each day and organizing them in a better fashion. It helped me get back into some semblance of productivity. I’m writing again.

Projects

I added little bits and pieces to all my projects, adding a few thousand words here, working out some world building there. Some projects I advanced more than others, and it wasn’t always the major projects. So, for August, I’m adding a single goal for each project. if and when I knock one of the goals out, I can set it aside (except for the major projects, in bold. Those ones I keep working on.

August Goals

ProjectGoal
BlogPublish two blog posts
The Colonel LieutenantBreak 120,000 words
OcrfyreBreak 30,000 words
1st MinnesotaRewrite and Revise First Day
Dress RedsBreak 30,000 words
ResurrectionBreak 25,000 words
ContritionBreak 25,000 words
RetirementWork out overall plot and timeline
Light Star Short StoriesEach short story to 5,000 work
Tales of the TemplarsOverviews for each Story
CommonwealthWrite one battle scene
SAFPlot out the story arcs
Light Star Conarth StoryOutline and plot the story
Sasha 4Outline and plot the story
Champion ImpactFinish getting responses from backers

Books

  • War and Peace (Fiction; Audiobook)
  • Seven Basic Plots (Research)
  • Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Non-Fiction)
  • The Measure of Magic (Fiction)
  • The First Volunteers (Research)
  • Second to None (Research)
  • The Paradox of Choice (Non-Fiction)
  • Promise of Blood (Fiction)

I’ve been advancing through the books. A few chapters here and there. Reading continues to be a frustrating thing to carve time out for. But I did just change my sleeping setup, so my phone charger is not next to my bed. What is close by is a kindle and my pile of books. I’m hoping by reducing the amount of time I spend phone surfing before and after sleep, I can read more.

August Goals

  • Finish one research book
  • Finish one non-fiction book
  • Finish one fiction book

Movies and Shows

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
  • Stargate SG1 Season 1
  • Stargate SG1 Season 2
  • Starfleet Academy Season 1
  • Project Hail Mary
  • This is Spinal Tap
  • Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
  • Chernobyl
  • The Odessey
  • Sinners
  • Modern Family Season 1

Get ready, because I watched a lot of things this summer so far.

Movies

I managed to get out to the theater to see Project Hail Mary on the big screen. I’d read the book and was excited to see it as a movie. It did not disappoint. It was beautiful, and it caught the big dramatic points of the story. The changes from the book were acceptable, and they even added a scene that I wish had been in the book.

Fourth of July weekend I did a double header: This is Spinal Tap, and Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. I loved both films, both for the movie and for the soundtrack. I enjoyed the characters, and the story was hilarious. I’m glad I finally watched it.

I made it out to the theaters a second time to see The Odessey. Now, it has been a while since I’ve read the text, but I remembered enough to follow the story and catch most of what was changed. The film incorporated history in a way I wasn’t anticipating but greatly appreciated. A fantastic film. Eager to watch again and start nitpicking things.

I also sat down to watch Sinners, the gothic horror, semi-musical period piece. This movie was a surprise; it was not a horror film in the sense that I thought it was. Plus, everything I thought had been spoiled was either wrong, or in the context of the film, meant something different. Very enjoyable.

TV Shows

TV show wise, I marked several seasons off my list. I finished the first season of Stargate SG1 and moved into Season 2. This show is a lot of fun, and I can see why it lasted for so long.

I finally finished Starfleet Academy. I have mixed feelings about this. The show started and ended pissing me off, but the middle-bits, when the characters were students, resonated with me. It felt like Star Trek, as the characters challenge themselves to be better than they are, rather than exploring the galaxy. But, again, the show begins and ends in ways that upset me. We’ll see how Season 2 goes.

Finally I started and finished the miniseries Chernobyl. I’d heard a lot of good things about this show, and it did not disappoint. From the great acting to the intense storytelling, it delved deep into the story of the disaster I knew very little about. No, it was not historically 100% accurate, but it was still worth watching.

August Goals

  • Watch three movies
  • Finish three seasons

Games

  • Humankind
  • Horizon Forbidden West
  • Anno 1800
  • Terra Invicta

I added to my play throughs for several games. Managed to loose a game of Anno 1800, which I didn’t know you could do. I’ve ended up researching how to play it better; my goal is to get to the highest levels of the civilization.

I’m also getting further into Horizon Forbidden West; the story has picked up a bit, and I’m really enjoying how the game challenges me to play it better. But how far am I into it? Unclear. I think a quarter to a third.

Finally, I started trying to learn Terra Invicta. This game is one of those ones that looks amazing, but has a steep learning curve and is further hindered by a poor tutorial. I’ve taken to YouTube for how-to-play videos. But I’m hoping to figure this game out.

August Goals

  • Advance games.
  • Have fun.
  • Don’t stress

What’s Next?

I don’t have anything on the books right now. I’ve got some applications in. We’ll see what, if anything, comes of it. For now, I’m focusing on self care and learning to write again.

Take care. And cheers!

Michael

Writing

Writing Process 11 – Gaming a Story

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To show the narrative game process, I’m going to game out the campaign in the Valle del Cielo, between the Campilesia Independent Forces and the invading Sur-Marais Army. This post will set up the game. The next post will play it out.

The Map

I took the map I had previously created for The General of the Pen and I added a hex overlay. It’s thicker than I would have liked, but it’s what I could do quickly. Clearly, the map is not set up for the hex overlay, as cities and villages are not quite centered, but again, I did this pretty quickly.

Each hex is roughly ten miles from center to center.

The Rules

This game is going to track how fast units move about the valley. Each round is one day.

Units

Every unit on the map is going to represent one independent formation, moving under by the decisions of one commanding officer. This could be as small as a squadron of 300 soldiers, or an entire army corps of 30,000.

Each unit has a movement speed, which represents how fast the unit can move about in one day. This speed will be limited to the slowest formation in its order of battle, either infantry (foot and wagon speed) or cavalry (mounted horse speed).

The units will not have the same speed necessarily. The well-drilled Sur-Marais infantry can pack up and march quicker than the newly raised Campilesian volunteers. On the other hand, while the Campilesian cavalry is not well-drilled, they are all expert horsemen, so they will move the same speed as their professional counterparts.

FactionUnitSpeed
Sur-MaraisInfantry2 hexes
Sur-MaraisCavalry3 hexes
CampilesianInfantry1 hex
CampilesianCavalry3 hexes

Unit composition

Other than changing the movement, the composition of any unit on the field will have several other influeces.

  • The unit commander’s knowledge of strength will inform their deicisons.
  • A unit with cavalry can ‘scout’ the nearby hexes to find out what is nearby.
  • Larger units will eat up supply quicker. While I’m not tracking supply by numbers, it will something to keep under consideration for narrative purposes.

Messengers

It’ll be important to remember that in this world, there are no radios or telephones. There are telegraphs, but they exist only between major cities, so they won’t have much of an impact on this game. Narratively, that any information known in San Martin (the capital city of the valley) is known to the greater Campilesian movement beyond, which may have an impact. I’m giving myself that options.

A message dispatched by an officer will move up to 50 miles (5 hexes) in one day. This is a bit messier to track, but important to know when certain officers know about events further down the valley. And it’ll be one more reason to have the character try to build a telegraph down the valley.

Commander Choices

Finally, I need to make the choices for each unit from the viewpoint of the commander of that unit, at that time an place. I want to take into account:

  • Their education and training
  • Their skill and talent (or lack thereof)
  • What they know
  • Their mission
  • Their biases and personality.

Starting Positions

In this step, I set units about the battlefield and decide what their current composition it. I figured out most of this in earlier blog posts where I built the armies, but now I get to see it on the map.

The Sur-Marais force is in the west, at the large town / small city of Santa Catrina. Here, I’m going to place two markers. One represents the force sent to pacify the valley. An army corps, supplemented by two additional cavalry brigades. Around 20,000 men at arms, all told. The second marker represents the garrison force of Santa Catrina, to guard the supplies. I’ll say this is a brigade of infantry, some artillery, and a lot of supply clerks. Maybe 4,000 men, all counted. They won’t do much, except represent the enemy ‘base.’

The Campilesians are spread out. They have a brigade at San Martin in the east (three battalions of infantry and an artillery battery, 2,600 men). And a brigade I will put at the crossroads (also three battalions and a battery, but only at 1,800 men). There are also about seven hundred scouting the west. I will put three tokens down, for each of the three scouting units, representing where they’re focused on looking.

I’m also going to add markers for the main characters of the story, at least as far as they make it into the game. One for the allied commander, Major General Alonso de Mendoza, and one for the POV character, Gerhard Van Rumm.

The red enemy forces in the west stand ready to advance down the valley. Three markers indicate where scouts focus their efforts. Blue forces sit near the crossroads and the city to the east. The gold and silver circles represent the two main characters of the story.

Beginning the Game

I’ve got the tables for each unit on the board, with their subordinate units and some notes on their commanders.

I have the starting places for the units.

I have the established rules.

Starting the next blog post, I will begin playing the game.

Monthly Update

May 2026 Update

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April had many good, even great, things about it. One convention (Minicon) and one book fair (Rewind Bookfair). More progress on all my projects with the suggestion schedule. Drawings and educational videos. Lots of research.

But at the same time, while the suggestion schedule keeps me doing work on projects each day, I feel I need to make an effort to ensure that my major projects get major effort in a day. Every day, I need to spend time on the big projects and get big work done on them, and spend little time on the smaller projects. Especially on the days when I don’t have a lot of time to spare.

Projects

I’m at the point with The Colonel Lieutenant where I need to stop outlining and picking at it and get to writing. I’ve worked out the big and medium details, but I can’t fix the minor stuff until I start writing and the details get brought to the surface. So, I need to just buckle down and write, write, trip, fall over, stand up, and write some more.

The new draft of Orcfyre has a much fresher feel to it. The outline is tighter, and I’ve got some better world building behind it. What I’ve written so far is better focused and feels more like an adventure novel.

My first run at the 1st Minnesota project showed a number of issues I have to deal with. This is a much different monster than anything I’ve ever dealt with before; historical fiction needs so much more research behind it. And trying to get into the first scenes I had so many questions pop up I had to stop to research. So, I’m writing and researching and progressing. That, and I need to work on the character some; his first draft iteration was far too passive.

Other projects are going well; the suggestion schedule has me working on everything at least once a week. This means I’m actually working on each project, which leads to some unexpected progress in both directions. Several projects have raised in my estimation: I’ve worked out world details or plot points that mean I’m more likely to focus on them as viable projects for publication. Others, I’ve come to the conclusion they’re more difficult or less likely to bring out, at least right now, without a significant amount of work.

April Goals

The Colonel LieutenantOrcfyre1st Minnesota
Break 120K wordsBreak 20K wordsBreak 20K words
Project Bible Ch 1-20Act 1 Project BiblePlot Out Book 1
Start Book MapsStart Maps and ImagesGood draft 1st Chapter
Dress RedsMinor – Write/Add WordsMinor – World Build/PBRG Process
Break 25K wordsResurrectionCommonwealth
Plot Out Book 1ContritionSAF
Book 1 Project BibleRetirementConarth Story
Light Star Short StoriesSasha 4
Tales of the TemplarsChampion Impact

Books

Image courtesy of Amazon.com
  • War and Peace (Fiction, Audiobook)
  • Seven Basic Plots (Research)
  • Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Non-Fiction)
  • The Measure of Magic (Fiction)
  • The First Volunteers (Research)
  • Second to None (Research)

I did some reading in April, but not enough to finish any of my books. It happens, especially when I’ve got so many research books at one time, and my audiobook is 6.3 million words.

I’ve had some success with reading before turning off my lights to sleep, and with the weather turning warm, I’ll have a chance to read on the deck. And, with some library books and ‘please read this we need to talk about it’, I’m going to have to read more anyway.

April Goals

  • Finish one research book
  • Finish one non-fiction book
  • Finish two fiction books

Movies and Shows

  • Stargate SG1 Season 1
  • Starfleet Academy Season 1

I didn’t watch a whole lot this month (or at least a whole lot of new stuff). This is frustrating for two reasons. First, (and my common complaint) I have a long list of things to watch, and if I want to knock things off my list, I have to watch stuff. And two, Stargate is my gym show, so the fact I haven’t finished the first season means I haven’t been going to the gym.

April Goals

  • Finish three seasons of TV shows
  • Watch three movies

Games

Image courtesy of Wikipedia
  • Humankind
  • Mechwarrior 5
  • Horizon Forbidden West

I tried a few new games this month. One was Humankind, a Civilization-style game that I found very enjoyable. I’m already on my second playthrough, trying a conquest run this time. It has the feel and base rules of a Civ game, adding its own unique twists on how civilizations are chosen and advance, and how cities and territories work. I believe I will enjoy playing this game for a while.

I also started playing Mechwarrior 5, but I haven’t gotten far enough into it to really have a response other than it looks cool so far.

April Goals

  • Finish one game

What’s Next

I will be at QuantumCon in May, but I’m not sure in what capacity. I haven’t confirmed if I’ll have a table there, or if I’ll be visiting and enjoying the con as a guest.

Writing

Writing Process 10: Gaming

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Writing a story comes from a place of plot, building something for the characters to experience that the readers will enjoy. But when it comes to complex scenarios that occur during such stories, the initial rough draft will often be more plot oriented and inconsistent. To work out those scenarios, iron out the inconsistencies and retain the exciting plot, I’ve found it helpful to game out the scenarios.

Please note: a game can represent any scenario, but so far, I've dealt mostly with military battles and campaigns. Therefore, this blog post will speak mostly about gaming out battles. There are some games I have set up for non-campaign projects, but I'm still working through them, and I want to keep them secret for now.

What is a Game?

First, let’s establish what I mean by a game.

A game is a physical representation of a complex scenario from one of my books. This representation allows me to process the scenario, watching all its component parts.

To do this, I need:

A star map for a science fiction project.

A map of a geographical area. In some cases, I might make an organizational relationship. It largely depends on what I need to track. But so far, it’s been geography.

I need tokens to represent units, characters, locations. And participant in the game that I want to track. This may come with a key or stat card for the tokens.

A set of rules to guide the game. These rules will tell me how much time passes each turn, how far units can move, how terrain impacts movement, and things such as that.

A timeline to track the passage of time and events that occur each turn. One game I took pictures of the board each round and tracked everything. Another game, it was just notebook pages. At some point, spreadsheets will be involved.

There are also aspects which might be unique, or at least not universal, to particular games. Maybe one game I need to worry about supplies. Another game, the political relationship between factions. Most games might not require their own specific rulesets, but I should be open to building them if necessary. It all depends on what I’m trying to build.

Which leads us to….

Why ‘play’ a Game?

To be clear, the purpose of a game is not to roll dice and see who wins a contest. I’m not putting the plot of the story into question. But what I can do is use the game to watch and consider the complex situations and check them for common errors and opportunities.

A good battle scene may require both the bird-eye (strategic) or authorial and the ground-level (tactical) or character points of view.

1. Keep units moving realistically

It’s a very common error on my part in early drafts: people and ships move at the speed of plot. At the end of one rough draft, I realized an entire company of characters had moved thirty miles in an hour by horseback. It’s something I’ve become aware I need to pay attention to.

Since most of the games I’ve played so far have been military campaigns, movement rules are important. The general in charge of the dramatic campaign would know how to stagger his orders so all the units would — or at least should — arrive at their attack points at the correct time. Yes, things could get in the way, but orders are written with the best of intentions. Until I get in the way (see #3, below).

2. To notice bad decisions (for characters or author)

This works hand in hand with reason 1; my initial campaign idea is usually plot driven. When I lay it down on a map and start moving units around, I notice things that the decision-makers in the story would notice. For example:

  • This company captured this village early, which means this road was cut. I can’t use the road later. Either the company can’t capture it early, or I have to find other ways to move things around.
  • This officer made a decision that doesn’t make sense on the read through; she would have to trust that an enemy unit wouldn’t attack or move, and there’s no way she would know that. She has to make a better decision, or I have to explain a more flawed on.
  • This unit spends much of its time in action without running out of ammo. How is it resupplying? Or is it resupplying at all? I’ll need to address this.

3. To see from unnamed character’s eyes

If early drafts of a battle are plot driven, they’re usually from the viewpoint of one or two characters. Units and other characters will appear and disappear as needed, and events will flow from their POVs.

But a battle involves dozens, hundreds or even thousands (or more) people, and many of them can influence its course through their decisions. By looking at the game from the top-down POV, I can see a dozen such decision points each turn of the game, with characters making choices based off incorrect decisions seen through personal biases.

Things happen behind the scenes that may not even be mentioned in the book, but they can influence how and where people and groups show up in the story. I may even think of entirely different ways to fight, flow or end the battle.

Influence on the Story

The influence is on subsequent drafts is pretty clear (at least to me, the one who has to read all the drafts, over and over again). Battles flow more realistically. Units deal with supply issues, casualties and travel times. Characters make better or worse decisions of incomplete information, and the impact of those decisions ripples across the battlefield, and the story.

Now, all I have to do is take my rough draft and incorporate the lessons of the game into the next draft. In some ways this is easy, as I have a wealth of new information to add to the story to tell the important parts better. On the other hand, there’s also a lot of extraneous information I may feel like flooding the reader with. And I don’t want to do that. Yes, I gamed everything out, but the reader doesn’t want to read about every decision 30 officers made over three days of battle.

Does that mean a lot of effort was made, recorded and wasted?

Not at all. It’s just hidden behind the curtain.

Gaming the General of the Pen

Here is where I would normally do a section on gaming a part of General of the Pen, but I realized pretty early that a good game would take too long to put as a section of blog post. So, I’ll make that the 11th chapter of this series.

Conclusion

The word game is not meant to leave the fate of the story to rolls of the dice. It is meant to add structure to the world and keep my storytelling realistic, or at least consistent. By using a map, tokens, and a set of rules, I can make sure the characters go through events that meet the needs of the story, but don’t take the reader out of it with ridiculous movement jumps, stupid decisions, or forgotten units.

Join me next time when I show you how this works by taking my original plot for General of the Pen and setting a game to it.

Until the, cheers!

Michael

Monthly Update

April 2026 Update

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March was productive. I continue to work on my projects, advance each of them as they come up (some more than others). I knocked out quite a few shows and movies. Overall, it was a good month.

Projects

I’ve added several thousand words to The Colonel Lieutenant, and solved several plot issues that I’d been worried about. The big challenge now: to get the big end-of-book campaign done in a short enough word count. My goal is to get the book done in under (or close to) 150,000 words. If it looks to exceed that by too much, I’ll look at cutting it into two books. But I’m hoping I don’t have to do that.

I did something with Orcfyre I probably should have done a while ago: I ripped it apart. I took what I had from the several drafts I’ve done through and ask myself three questions: What do I want to keep? What do I want to get rid of? And what do I want to add? Then I threw out the outline and came up with a new one, something considerably shorter and easier to write. This new story will be much easier to process, but hit all the same points I want it to to set up Book 2. Will it work? I don’t know. But I feel much better about it than I did the previous outline.

My other projects are working well. I got some new book recommendations to add to my 1st Minnesota research collection and they’re adding a lot of valuable information. Dress Reds and Resurrection are both coming along nicely. And I came up with some solutions to issues with Contrition and Retirement that give me a better idea of how to write those stories.

So, a very good month.

April Goals

  • The Colonel Lieutenant: Get to 100,000 words
  • Orcfyre: Get to 10,000 words in new outline
  • 1st Minnesota: Outline 1st Book, get to 10,000 words
  • Other projects: Keep working and writing

Books

  • War and Peace (Fiction, Audiobook)
  • Seven Basic Plots (Research)
  • Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Non-Fiction)
  • The Measure of Magic (Fiction)
  • The First Volunteers (Research)
  • Second to None (Research)
  • Ashen Light (Fiction)

I sat down to read Ashen Light, the second book by Ian Young, a friend of mine from local conventions. This book was great; a science fiction detective novel, with elements of space exploration, corporate BS, and system hackery. It was even better than his first book. If you liked Blade Runner or Asimov’s robot detective novels, you’ll like this one.

I added several research books to my pile, all regarding the 1st Minnesota. They’re going to be very helpful in writing that book, but it also means I’ve added several new titles without having finished the previous ones. Oh, well, it happens.

April Goals

  • Finish Two Books (any type)

Movies and Shows

Image courtesy of Wikipedia
  • Starfleet Academy Season 1
  • Stargate SG1 Season 1
  • Foundation Season 1
  • How to Train Your Dragon (Live Action)
  • The Naked Gun (2025)
  • Wake Up Dead Man

I finally sat down and finished Season 1 of Foundation. The show ended on a strong note. It took a while to get there; an enjoyable route, to be sure, but one where all the twists kept me from finding my footing. By the end of season 1 I was there. I’m liking the show; the aesthetic, the casting, and the story. I’m excited to see where it goes.

The first of three movies I watched this month was the live action How to Train Your Dragon movie. This was a decent movie. Not a great departure from the animated film. The only big difference was the world building; it gave more history and lore to the background and characters. So, glad I watched it, not missing too much by not watching it again.

Then I watched The Naked Gun remake from 2025, with Liam Neeson. I was worried, because the original trilogy was something I grew up watching, so it’s very dear to me. This new edition held up. It was hilarious, almost the entire way through. Almost. The ending wobbled a bit for me, but not enough to detract from my enjoyment. I ended up watching it again the next day.

And finally I saw Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out murder mystery movie. This one follows the murder of a priest in rural New York, and it is probably the best of the three movies (though maybe not my favorite). This movie continues to switch up the type of mystery, bring out a stellar cast, and keep me guessing as to the truth of the killer until it’s revealed.

April Goals

  • Watch three movies
  • Finish three seasons
  • Start a TV Show that isn’t science fiction

Games

  • Surviving Mars: Relaunched
  • Star Trek Voyager – Across the Unknown
  • Horizon: Forbidden West
  • Hogwarts: Legacy

Did not finish any games or goals this month. Did play some, but when I had time to sit down, I was usually writing. I’m playing a second game of Across the Unknown to see what I can do differently. Picking through the rest.

April Goals

  • Finish one game
  • Start another game

Coming Up Next

I have a table at Minicon, April 2 to 5, though the authors are only there the 3rd to 5th. I’m taking the 2nd off to recover from a rough few weeks at work. Then I’ll be at Quantum-Com 4, May 15th through 17th.

Minicon 59 – April 2 to 5, 2026

Doubletree Bloomington.

https://mnstf.org/minicon59

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Quantum-Con 4 – May 15 to 17, 2026

Crowne Plaza Minneapolis, Plymouth

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Gaming

RPGs – Three Lessons for a Game Master

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Several years ago I had the change to take over one of our groups’ game nights as Game Master (the one who runs the game). This allowed me to run a home-brew campaign from start to finish. I’ve never done this before. I’ve run games, but they were irregular, coming every couple of months. This time, I could gain some real experience with running a regular game end to end, dealing with the long-term planning, short-term reactions, and player-game master interactions that all RPG’s involve.

That game ended on a high point, and I got to start a second campaign a short while later. That campaign is moving along at a nice clip, with the players — some of whom were in the first campaign — still enjoying themselves.

If you’re ever thought about running a game, or are just curious about what it’s like, here are three lessons that I learned from my time as a GM.

1. Make every choice awesome

There are times in most campaigns when you will give your party a choice to do A or B (or even more, but let’s stick with two choices for now). But maybe you really want to do one of those choices more for whatever reason. You have a cool map, or a good sequence in mind, or whatever. So you tilt the choice.

Alright, so your choices are to go and raid the orc encampment built into the skull of the dead god, or to decorate the town for the ‘We Love Hay’ Festival.

Not that a festival can’t be fun, but you get the idea. One of those options is clearly the more adventurous choice, while the other is meant to be ignored by the players as it won’t result in fun, experienced or treasure.

So, if your story is coming to a point where you will be giving your party a choice of what to do, make both choices awesome. Sure, maybe they won’t go for the amazing idea, but you know what? That just means you can come bac to it later.

Alright, so your choices are to go and raid the orc encampment built into the skull of the dead god, or to break into the tomb of the Wasp Queen.

See, much better choices. And whatever they don’t do, you can refine and use in a later adventure.

2. Don’t say no unless you have to

There are times when your players will want to do something that will, at first, seem wrong. A good example is building a character that is outside the normal trope of the game (a comedic-based character for a horror game). Or maybe they want to use a spell for something it isn’t normally used for. Creativity is an amazing thing, and it’ll come at you from surprising angles.

Now, as a GM, your first thought may be to say no. That character doesn’t fit the trope. That spell isn’t supposed to be used like that. But, I’ve found it’s better to take a moment and ask: do I NEED to say no?

RPGs involve a fair amount of creativity from everyone involved. You create problems and challenges. The players create solutions. And if they create a solution you didn’t think of, the more power to them.

Now, don’t be afraid to say no if you really don’t think what is being suggested will work. But I recommend that if you do say no, explain why. ‘I see where you’re going, but I don’t think that’ll work here because….’ Turning this into a discussion instead of a decision keeps the players part of the game.

3. Work with your players

It’s one thing for a player to show up with a character who hunting the man who murdered his father. It’s another thing for the man to be a villain in the campaign. It’s so much more personal a game for the players when their characters have a stake in the game.

But this can’t be something that just happens. You and the player need to communicate. The player provides the basic outline and some plot points for you to follow, and tells you what you can or cannot do. And within those guidelines, you have the freedom to incorporate their stories into yours.

Yes, it can be difficult and there will be missteps. But when you pull it off, you will experience some great scenes for the players and the characters.

Are there more?

Absolutely. But I wanted to start with three simple but important ones that I’ve found separate an amateur GM from an experienced one.

I’ll be doing more RPG posts from now on, covering some different topics about RPG from the perspective of design, playing and gaming. But this felt like a good topic to start on.

Cheers!

-Michael

Writing

Writing Process 9: Research

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Any writing project is going to involve research. The topics can range from how clothes were made in ancient Greece to debates over the best way to colonize Venus, and a thousand points in-between. Creativity is always important, but the wrong mistake in how things actually work can snap a reader out of the story.

I believe we should all have a good idea of how research works, so I’m not going to spend time on the concept. What I will do it touch base on a few research-related topics that I’ve found important during my writing projects. They are to not let research interfere with writing, check your sources, and keep track of your data.

‘I know research is important, but…LET’S GO ALREADY!’ ‘Hold on, I need to know six recipes for Roman soap.’

Research Before and After Writing

I have a problem with stopping mid-scene to conduct research. It’s very annoying to have a lunch hour to write, and to spend forty minutes of it trying to figure out what I need for a riverboat scene to be realistic.

If I know something is going to be important ahead of time, I research ahead of time. These topics tend to be the larger topics that are important across much of the story. For example, in Templar Scholar I had to know how many troops a train could carry in 1880, and how long it would take for troops to move from A to B. So, I did a lot of research on that topic.

The other issue is when something pricks at me while I’m writing. These are small topics that I usually find myself wanting to check or learn about only because they came up in a scene. This happens a lot in the Renaissance Army series with daily life events, like researching what clothes and food were common to frontier settlements. With these topics, I’ve had to put in a place holder, usually an astrix, and come back later to research and fix.

The main point is that I try not to stop writing unless I absolutely have to stop.

Check Your Sources

This is important. There are few topics that don’t have fan or enthusiast pages, and these pages can pop up early and often when you’re trying to research a topic. Try researching a WW2 topic and avoiding getting some Call of Duty information, or the British system of purchasing officer’s commissions without hitting fan pages for Jayne Austen books or the Sharpe series. Knowing where they got their info — or bypassing them entirely for professional or primary sources — will keep you from making a ridiculous mistake.

This is becoming even more important as AI gets more and more involved with internet searches. Even if you don’t use AI programs as they come and go, AI is becoming a staple of internet searches. Check what sources they use, and then check that those sources exist. Nothing quite so annoying and thinking ‘this title could be a great find!’ and then finding out the AI generated the title for you.

Keep your Data

Seriously.

It is — or was — a constant problem with many projects of mine. I would research something, then forget where I put the info. And that assumed that I even wrote it down; sometimes, I would enter what I needed into the story and fail to record what I had looked up and where I got the info.

This would come back to bite me when I wanted to change details, and suddenly I’m reaching to re-research what I’ve already gone through. Which website did I visit that had the answer? Six of the first page of the Google results are purple. so it’s probably one of those.

I’ve taken to having a subfolder within each project folder dedicated to research topics. It’s filled with notes, scans, maps, pdfs, basically everything I used to research a topic. It’s better than restarting from scratch every time I have to revisit a question.

Example: General of the Pen

Accounting for what I know about 1860’s era armies and their maneuvers, I wanted to focus on what I didn’t know. And a lot of that had to do with their logistical trains (that is, the wagons needed to carry their supplies and how much supplies were needed) and their spacing (how much space a unit would take up.

I lucked out and found a report that addresses both these topics; I believe it’s a school paper, and at 400+ pages, I’m guessing a higher-level thesis of some kind. It gets into Civil War Logistics and manages to provide me with several charts and equations regarding these topics. So much that I can answer most of my questions from this one document.

Some good examples of info I can use from this document:

  • A regiment of 1000-men would nominaly have six wagons
  • 1000-men marching in fours takes up 625 feet on the road
  • A 6-mule wagon team takes up 60 feet of road space
  • Men and Wagons for one regiment would come to 925 feet
  • I’ll round to 1,000 feet to account for spacing between regiments

Checking the sources, I see a lot of primary documents (the orders and guidelines of the 1860’s) and books written by the people who were there. So I have little reason to doubt its veracity. But I will take each individual point and search for it, to see what comes up and if that point is challenges.

And I will save the notes in at least a project research folder, and possibly in the scrivener file itself.

Conclusion

Research is a part of writing, pretty much regardless of what genre you’re writing in. What’s important is that you make research a part of your process without letting it disrupt your flow. That you check your sources to make sure your accurate. And that you keep your research and data so you can refer to it later without having to re-research.

Next up on our PBRG process is Gaming, where I explain what a game is and how I use them to improve the writing process. I do anticipate coming back to Research in the future when I explore how different it is to research a Historical Fiction novel than anything else I’ve ever done.

Until then. Keep on writing.

Cheers!

Monthly Update

March 2026 Update

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I revised my Suggestion Schedule to account for some problems my initial iteration had. Throughout February I got so much more done, wrote many more scenes, worked out a greater number of world building articles. It wasn’t perfect, and it did suffer from a few days of ‘I just need a break’ where I did almost nothing off my list, but it was one of my most productive months in a long time.

It’s not perfect. I didn’t publish any blog posts or watch any movies. So I’m still tweaking and revising the process as I’m continuing.

Projects

My focus on The Colonel Lieutenant paid off, as I’ve worked out a lot of the issues and sequence of events that have been plaguing me and added a few key scenes. Now I’m at the point where I’m sitting down to write out the rest of the scenes and see if they work. The same with Orcfyre.

I’ve been writing scenes for the 1st Minnesota book, and it’s fun to finally get this one to the page. It’s also a bit nerve racking. I’ve had this project on my mind for over a decade, and I’ve researched it and investigated, yet I also know how much more I could research. To finally get words down and start seeing things take shape is to challenge the perfect story I’ve had in my head.

Other projects are coming along. With the suggestion schedule, I’ve advanced everything, and figured out a number of stories that I’d been stuck on or indecisive about.

March Goals

  • The Colonel Lieutenant: Write Ten Scenes
  • Orcfyre: Finish One Act
  • 1st Minnesota: Finish One Act
  • Other Projects: Finish One World Building / One Scene Each
  • Publish One Blog Post

Books

  • The Bearer of the Black Staff (Fiction)
  • The Great ‘What Ifs’ of the American Civil War’ (Non-Fiction)
  • War and Peace (Fiction, Audiobook)
  • Seven Basic Plots (Research)
  • Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Non-Fiction)
Image courtesy of Wikipedia

I finished two books in February.

The Bearer of the Black Staff was okay. It was several centuries after the last section of books in this series, and it’s more of a fantasy novel than post-Apocalyptic. But it just wasn’t very exciting. I’m really hoping when I get back into the Shannara books that I read back in Middle School that they’re better than I remember.

The other, The Great ‘What If’s’ of the American Civil War, I found really disappointing. It brought up a lot of interesting questions and possibilities, but the discussion about what could have happened fell really flat. There were only a handful of bits of information I thought were interesting enough to remember; the rest wasn’t enough to record. Oh well, I can’t love every book I read.

Still plugging away at War and Peace and Seven Basic Plots, which are both large books (and remember, I’m taking notes on Research books like Seven Basic Plots, so it’s slow going). On the plus side, I’m over halfway done with both, so downward slope.

March Goals

  • Finish one fiction book
  • Finish one non-fiction book
  • Ten chapters of Seven Basic Plots

Movies/Shows

Image courtesy of HBO
  • A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
  • Starfleet Academy
  • Stargate SG1
  • Foundation Season 1
  • Star Trek Discovery (Rewatch)

To start with, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is fantastic. I loved it. A short-scope story of a knight making a name for himself at a tournament, with great supporting characters and amazing drama. The first GOT show I really got into and look forward to rewatching. I recommend this show to everyone.

I continued through several episodes of Starfleet Academy, which I continue to enjoy. It’s not the greatest Star Trek show, but it could be a lot worse. I also re-watched the first four-seasons of Discovery so I can knock Season 5 out and finish that show off.

To my surprise, I didn’t watch any movies this month. I thought I would get down for one or two, but time and other projects got away from me. Oh, well.

March Goals

  • Watch Three Movies
    • – One Missing Best Picture Winner
    • – One ‘Background’ Movie
  • Finish Three Seasons of TV Shows
  • – One Season I’ve started and Haven’t Finished
  • – One of a Series I want to Finish

Games

  • Surviving Mars: Relaunched
  • Star Trek Voyager – Across the Unknown
  • Horizon: Forbidden West
  • Hogwarts: Legacy
Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Star Trek Voyager – Across the Unknown is inspired by the 90’s television show of the same name. It is a procedural game where you command the starship USS Voyager as it travels thousands of light years across the galaxy to return home. I really like this game. Not only does it take from various storylines of the show, but it gives you ways to experience the storylines differently, to see different outcomes and different endings. And since the game generates different maps and sequences, you’re never going to play the same game twice.

RPG-wise, I recently ran a playtest of Delta Green as a World War 2 Commando game, with heavy combat. It went really well. The players all had fun, and though there were casualties, it felt like a World War 2 battle. Well, at least like a movie of a WW2 battle. Maybe I’ll revisit the system in the future.

March Goals

  • Don’t worry about playing more or less. Just enjoy the games you play.

What’s Next

I’ve got two events coming up in the next few months. I have a table at Minicon 59, and I should have a table at Quantum-Con 4, I’m just waiting for confirmation. Even if I don’t have a table at Quantum-Con, I’ll be heading there for at least some of the convention as an attendee.

Minicon 59 – April 2 to 5, 2026

Doubletree Bloomington.

https://mnstf.org/minicon59

Minicon 59 logo
Image courtesy of mnstf.org

Quantum-Con 4 – May 15 to 17, 2026

Crowne Plaza Minneapolis, Plymouth

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