How We Do What We Do. [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting, News

This week, due to popular demand from both our community and the Onyx Path gang in our meeting today, I’m going to explain a little bit about how we go from a pitched idea for a project through writing and development to layout and ending up with a book. I’m not going to give you a set in stone, this MUST be done like this, kind of explanation, though. Instead, I’ll cover the steps you see below all my chatter each week in the Updates as a process that we generally cover for each book. Obviously, if you’ve been following the updates you’ll have noticed that some steps take longer on one project than they do on another. We like to keep that flexible so that any process we use doesn’t become more important that the book itself.

We’ve talked about Pitch Season before. That magical time at the end of a year when our developers and writers send in their ideas for what new projects they’d like to add to the schedule. I take a look at the ideas and consider each one based on plans for the line in the next couple of years to come, and assemble a schedule of projects we’d like to do the coming year and send that to CCP for their OK. That way, they don’t get surprised when we send them a book for approval before we publish it.

Based on that schedule, the line developer (like Eddy Webb is the developer who oversees the creation of all Vampire 20th Anniversary books) will put together an outline and some a more extended version of their pitch if I need to see their intended direction for the project. Usually, the bigger or more important the book, the more need for documents explaining the intentions, coverage, themes, etc. After I’m OK with the doc, along with Rollickin’ Rose who helps the devs keep all the projects we’ve got going not smash into each other ether thematically or in time, the devs send out as much info to our freelance writers that they think they’ll need in order to do their part of the writing. Different devs provide different amounts of preliminary information, and so a writer might already be starting on their ideas, or might be awaiting the outline and/or their contracts to start writing. Some have also communicated with their writers either singly or the whole team via Skype or Goggle+, or whatever.

Our Updates List below starts showing progress once that writing has started with the First Draft. This is when the writers are taking their part of the outline and letting loose with their ideas within the word count they were assigned and which is on their contracts. Usually. As we’ve stated before, the process is structured so that the developer can be a bit flexible when a writer needs a bit more room to say what they are trying to get across, or more rarely, when they communicate their points in fewer words than assigned. Thus, this stage is an important one for the writers and the developer to stay in communication, especially as something written in one chapter may impact another writer’s work in a different chapter. Generally, most developers seem to encourage their team to go wild with their ideas during this longest of the writing stages knowing that the next stage is their chance to directly impact the text and pull things together.

This would be the Redlines stage, where the first drafts are handed in. The developer has given their team a deadline for the first drafts, so they expect to be ready for this stage according to those dates, even though not all the writers deliver exactly on the due date. Some hand their first drafts in early, some late, but having them in means the developer can now go through the text with an eye towards both technical issues, and towards making sure their vision of the themes and content of the project is being met. Named after the marks left back in the day by the developer’s red pen, Redlines are essentially notes back to the writers from the developer as to how they can improve their section of the book. Some developers really wade into this and send back “bleeding” pages because the red notes are so thick. Despite how soul-crushing such notes may seem, I have heard from more than a few writers that getting Redlines back from developers and using them to improve their writing in their section of that book’s text has improved their writing overall. Below, Satyros Phil Brucato’s red pen and stack o’ manuscript:

After the developer sends their notes back to the writers, the writers begin work on the Second Draft to incorporate those notes, or to argue with the dev as to why something should stay the same. As developed by White Wolf and continued to be used by Onyx Path, the Second Draft is generally the Final Draft in terms of the work done by a writer. I don’t have studies for why this pacing works, and I’m sure other companies may have a different set up to the stages, but after hundreds and hundreds of books done this way, it seems to combine raw writing and clean-up writing in the right amounts in general. In some cases, there might be a reason for an additional draft, although that is pretty rare in this stage of the process. But brainstorms occur, or something might be cut from a different chapter after Second Drafts that requires a writer to revisit their text to keep it in synch with the changes, but more times than not the developer will do that in the next phase.

Development! A single word, but it covers so many responsibilities. The developer during this time must review the text to make sure that the changes noted were made, and to be sure that the pieces work together as a whole as intended. That might mean seamlessly regardless of the writer, so the dev goes in and makes sure the “voice” of the text reads consistently. Or, the book might be set up so that each writer should be writing differently, in which case the dev makes sure that each “voice” is distinct. If not, or if sections are missing, then they usually write that themselves. They need to make sure the formatting is consistent throughout, so if Chapter One has a quote starting out, so should the other chapters. There is also the text formatting that needs to be in there so that the layout program reads it and puts in the right fonts where needed; a section head or a bold paragraph, or whatever.

While getting the text together and cleaned up and formatted is a large part of the devs’ responsibilities to the text, they are also at this stage pulling together their ideas for art notes for the interior illustrations (the cover has either already been discussed and bought, or will be pulled out of the interior art). Some developers write very detailed scene descriptions for each illustration, and some simply cut a paragraph or two from the text to show what they are looking for and leave the details to the Art Director and artist. Most devs do a combination of both methods of creating art notes. They let the AD know if there are portraits, character templates, maps, or other images needed as well as the half and full-page pieces. The art notes ideally should be delivered to the AD at the same time as the text is delivered to the Editor so that both Editor and the artists have about a month to do their respective things.

In that month, the Editor goes through the text with an eye towards grammatical issues, and if we are lucky we will also have an Editor who understands the line and can be double-checking game terms and setting consistency. We generally try and work with Editors who are skilled in the grammatical and copy-editing for mistakes areas, and hope to get them trained up in the games. When they are finished, we try and give the Developer a chance to review and approve the changes, which is that phase of Development (Post Editing) in the Update list below. We have had Editors add problems by correcting vernacular language into “proper” English, or whose process added errors to cleanly developed text, but those examples are rare. After that the text heads to layout.

Meanwhile, the Art Director, which is usually Mirthful Mike Chaney these days, is breaking down the art notes into his “art buy”. The AD confirms the number of pieces based on the size of the book. We try for a median level of one piece of art for every six pages, although we’d love one every three or four and can sometimes do that. Portraits don’t count into that breakdown in the same way as the AD usually has less control over which characters get them. The AD will then contact our freelance illustrators with an eye towards hiring artists whose styles are appropriate for the project. Depending on the book, we may want very similar styles, or as is often the case with core rulebooks, I prefer widely different styles to give the best chance that everyone in our community will find something that inspires them in the art. The artists, like the writers, are given due dates and contracts that have those agreed-upon dates, pay rates, and number of pieces within them.

Ideally, like I said, the edited text and the art all come in together to the Graphic Designer for Layout. Every one of our established lines has a format already created in InDesign (or the GD has been creating a new one prior to this for new lines or unique projects) and the text is flowed into that format chapter by chapter. Each chapter is a separate file that are combined into a book by InDesign. If the text formatting works, the bolds and italics and section headers are all the right fonts and sizes and look like they should for that game line. But that never happens perfectly, so the GD fixes those things while going through and dropping in the illustrations. If a sidebar needs a special font or parchment background, the GD makes those up or stays consistent with earlier books by digging up previously saved graphics files. The GD also uses this layout stage to confirm the book is coming in near or at page count, or warns us if it isn’t.

An Initial Proof is generated at this point and sent to the developer. Their work is never done, as this is one of the last stages to make sure the book is coming out as they intended. Here they can catch text errors, or formatting errors, or errors introduced by the graphic designer. Generally, the developer shouldn’t be doing the kind of development work like rewriting whole sections at this point unless serious errors are in there because those sorts of large changes can throw off many parts of the GD’s work. Meanwhile, the GD is creating the cover logo and file, and creating, or arranging for the creation of, any special items like character sheets. The Initial Proof of Mage 20th Anniversary Edition output by Satyros Phil Brucato in preparation for commenting:

Much like with the writing drafts, we’ve established over the years that most books benefit from a Second Proof after the GD adds in everything and makes any corrections marked on the First Proof by the dev. Depending on the project, I might also have marked up the Initial Proof, although I prefer to notate and approve the 2nd. If we do things as preferred, the Second Proof is really the Final in-house proof and should contain everything we intended. But if not, or there are just tons of changes to it, we can do a third or fourth proof as needed. The first edition of Vampire: the Requiem had eighteen proofs and almost killed Pauline, our GD on the project. We don’t want that to happen again. Either here or after the next stage, we submit the PDF to CCP for approval as the licensor.

After the PDF is ready, we’ve added our Backer PDF or Advance PDF stage to the process to allow our community to be yet a final proofing stage so that a LOT of fresh news eyes can review the book before we set up the physical book printer files. As for that process, that’s a blog for another time! Hope this look at “how a book becomes a law” was helpful for ya’ll. (And if not, I know you’ll be grilling me in the comments!)

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And now, the BLURBS!

Our own Fast Eddy Webb will host an AMA (ask me anything) tomorrow on the White Wolf subreddit. He’ll be answering questions starting at 6pm EST, but the thread will be available all day for anybody who wants to put in a question but can’t be around live, so swing by and ask any questions you have about V20, Lore of the Clans, Pugmire, or anything else Eddy-related!

The link to the subreddit is http://www.reddit.com/r/ WhiteWolfRPG

There will be a specific AMA link tomorrow we’ll be posting across our social media.

We have been reviewing our shipper’s copies and discovered that we have a few, and only a few, extras from a couple of our Kickstarters, so please email lisat.onyxpath@gmail.com and our lovely office manager Lisa will help you. We have Prestige Edition Mummy: the Curse, and theMummy Screen. Deluxe V20 Children of the Revolution, and theDeluxe Hunters Hunted 2, and the V20 Screen. We’ll have to do this on a first come, first serve basis, so let us know asap. Lisa has been working away through your emails and getting back to everyone- wow there was sure a big interest in this- thanks! If you are interested but haven’t yet contacted Lisa, there are still some books left, so give her a yell.

The Deluxe V20 Lore of the Clans Kickstarter passed 200% of the funding goal just at the two week mark last week, and has passed goals that will add Appendixes to the book itself and Bloodlines to a separate extra book called, logically enough, Lore of the Bloodlines. But the Stretch Goals are just one part of the fun, as backers have been sending in selfies and liking our Facebook page in order to boost the Achievements counters and get some extra rewards! If you want to see how the V20 Clans and Bloodlines are given more depth and expanded on to the present day, check it out at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-v20-lore-of-the-clans

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And now, new project status updates!:

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (Projects in bold have changed listings)

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition) (In open development for backers.)

M20 Book of Secrets (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition) – In Open Development

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Anthology (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

nWoD Hurt Locker (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)

Pugmire (Be a Good Dog.)

CtL anthology (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

WoD nWoD 2e core (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scarred Lands Player’s Guide: Ghelspad

Redlines

Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)

Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent)

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

Demon Translation Guide (Demon: the Fallen and Demon: the Descent)

Second Draft

V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development

Development

Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created) Being playtested.

“Sardonyx” System Rules (Base rules set for Scion and the Trinity Continuum)

Editing

M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

MtC Dreams of Avarice

V20 Red List (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

Beast: the Primordial core book (Beast: The Primordial)

Development (post-editing)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE

In Art Direction