https://mwomercs.com/news/2016/03/1509-phoenix-hawk-lore-blueprint



It’s been a joy to work with Piranha Games over the last few years in a variety of ways. But nothing comes close to the sheer fun of creating these Hero ’Mech Lore stories: and this time around, for the Phoenix Hawk, they just published two!

As always, one of the things I enjoy most about BattleTech is working with all of the continuity and then finding a new, cool tidbit to create and insert. There’s plenty of authors I’ve met that dislike the constraints, but I love working within the constraints and finding a way to interweave it all into something new. (Not that it isn’t frustrating now and then as that one line from that one book kills X amount of work…but on the whole, love it.)

With two lore releasing simultaneously, thought I’d share a look at my process.

The first element in this process is to know which MechWarrior to profile. In some instances that’s come from Piranha. In others, they’ve decided which BattleMech they wish to do and then I suggest the best pilot to fill that role.

Once we’ve determine the pilot and BattleMech, then I dive into re-acquiant myself with a given MechWarrior. There was a time, many years in the past, when I had a truly, freakish encyclopedic knowledge of BattleTech. (Most people would still absolutely consider me in that category, but I’m a far cry from what I was.) However, one of the best skills I learned over the years is not necessarily instantly to recall some data point, but to know where to go and find the data points I need. (Bryan Nystul taught me right from the get go that even if you think you know the answer, always look it up to be sure.)

For example, here’s my desk after writing the Shin Yodama’s lore. After all, Shin is a pretty major character that appears in a lot of different sources; I’m a big believer in using both PDFs and the physical books–creates a great synergy for me that way.

After I’ve reviewed all the pertinent data, then it’s a case of determining where I want to set the story. I never want to re-tell a scene from a previous story or novel. First, there’s an unwritten rule in working in a shared universe you simply don’t do that. Second, it’s been done before…I want to show something new.

Second is to determine if I want to show a known scene, or come up with something completely new. For example, for Morgan Kell, a POV scene directly from his fight with Yorinaga had never been written, even though that scene has been described many times. So that felt like a great story to write.

For Shin, however, I felt after reading his data, I wanted to fill in some holes. For example, there’s details of him fighting in the Ronin Wars (found in his write-up in the Luthien scenario pack), then the next thing that’s mentioned is his joining the Legion of Vega and meeting Theodore around fifteen years later. Absolutely nothing in between that. Well that doesn’t make sense. What did he do during that time?

That’s especially true since his time on Najha is totally ignored in the Ronin War portion of Historical: Brush Wars. So there’s a little tidbit in the lore story to help explain that. Then, if that occurred on Najha, what are the closest worlds with military forces and how might he have interacted with those and did he get involved in the War of 3039? Checking maps and force listing, that lead me to Buckminster and the Eighth Alshain Regulars and a battle unfolding during the counterattack of the War of 3039.

At that point I just start writing and see where it takes me. In this instance, I was trying a slightly different format to ensure that the lore is both enjoyable but mixed up to keep it feeling fresh. So the story wrote itself at that point.

Then, as you can see in the photo of my desktop, I send the lore off to an editor, who bleeds red all over it and I go through and determine what I want to keep and what should be geared towards their comments. Vast majority of the time I accept their edits.

At this point, giant shout-out to Phil Lee (and all my editors over the years) who absolutely up-notch-kick my words every time, making each story that much better.

So there ya go…a behind the scenes look at my process…hope you enjoyed it!

Randall