Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Turning RP Worlds Into Novels

Hello everyone!

My best friend Eros_Calls and I have been writing together for five years. We started with a simple story, which has since expanded into a massive world.

We have decided to take this world and turn it into a series of books, but as it turns out, it has many, many difficulties involved!

Feel free to ask myself or Eros any questions!

It has always been a dream of mine to write a book. I tried many times to do it solo, but always found that I lost steam and ideas about the half way point. But by writing with TheCaffeineQueen we don't allow that to happen. We motivate each other. Challenge each other. And explore every twist and turn to see how it all links together.

Even with the difficulties of turning posts into a book, this has been the most rewarding experience.

So, What kind of difficulties have you faced with writing together? And how have you overcome them?

I would have to say learning curves. When we first began, we were trying so hard to impress each other while staying polite that we weren’t staying completely true to ourselves or our characters.

We had to break down that wall to figure each other out, which did take quite a bit of time. Now that we have, I believe that we are much more in the same place, which allows a much much easier communication.

Adding to the above.

I replied to an ad in the forums regarding a topic TheCaffeineQueen really wanted to make come to life. With the primary idea being hers, and honestly, I had little knowledge of the topic, I did everything in my power to move the story without changing the trajectory of her vision. I followed more than led, which was...not the easiest for me. My posts were much shorter than usual, but that was because I wanted to compliment her vision, not take it over.

Five years later, we have done the same amount of research. We have created and modified our characters around each other, so they make sense. We have discussed and agreed upon events that need to happen for the story to flow correctly and give us future points to write towards. The story can get as messy crazy as we want, as long as we are working towards the next goal.

I am writing a world I want to make into a published book series. Any tips?

Outlines, guidelines, bullet point your goals! Set small goals to write towards.

As things change in your mind and when you write, you must make sure that it stays consistent across the entire plot line, otherwise you’re going to wind up with inconsistencies everywhere.

The biggest advice I think we can give is outline the entire plot before you ever begin to write, because that is your basis. Make sure it’s the story you want to tell. That is what you always refer back to for beginning, middle and end.

Organization is the key to success.

Keep your plots, ideas, characters, and character connections in a clear and organized state and then all you have to do is follow the path you set for yourself.

1: I have an original setting myself, what is the best way to explain an original setting (mine or others) to a person interested in RPing in that universe?
2: What's your favorite book made so far?

1) Don’t rush it. A big mistake I often see, and have done, is not slowing down enough to truly make my audience or partner see the details of my vision. Describe everything they see in full at first, to make it easy to refer back to later. Also, be very clear on the rules of your world. If specific things or reactions happen while interacting with the world, make that very clear right from the start.

2) Honestly, it is so hard to pick a favourite. I love all of them. 🤣 but our first story, the one that sparked the entire book, will always live so deeply close to my heart.

1) 100% percent agree with my wonderful partner. But to add on to it, also be clear but flexible in your vision and your rules. What works in the beginning might not continue to work as the story grows and new characters are introduced. If you want your rules to be absolute, always have a loophole in case there are exceptions made.

2) I love our first book. It is a true labor of love because of how historically actuate we are being. But...I think my favorite book is either going to be our third book - we get to play with pirates - or (if I am counting correctly) our sixth book. Our sixth book is going to be incredibly sentimental to me and allow me to fully explore my favorite character to write.

I'm back! How do you keep all of your characters organized if you have multiple characters in one story? To keep the flow going but not leak into your story. Getting into one character is hard enough, but multiple characters in a story seems difficult.

This is very interesting!

I imagine that one of the difficulties in joining forces to write a novel based on roleplays between two distinct individuals is that each post probably has a lot of personality from one individual that makes it stand out. In my experience, each writer has a unique 'fingerprint' in their writing which can be very obvious.

How do you navigate this when turning a roleplay into a novel? Meaning, how do you avoid a novel having two distinct styles which could potentially disrupt the flow a reader is feeling?

The best thing about us is that our writing styles are actually so similar that it makes it incredibly easy to blend the characters and the scenes together. There’s no arrogance or selfishness when it comes to the scenes, so it’s not specifically his scene, or my scene, but instead it’s both of our scene.

The hardest part is actually dialogue, which we tend to skip a lot of when we’re just regularly RPing. Bringing dialogue back into the book is what’s been probably the hardest part of the flow, but even that has been helped by the fact that we are incredibly similar when it comes to our writing styles. We are also patient with each other, and the process. We talk over and over again about the scenes to see if there is anything that might fit better than what we initially thought. We are also not afraid to point out to the other if something does start to over take the scene, and work together to correct it.

When we first talked about turning our roleplays into books, we had a very different perspective on how it was going to work.

Originally, we had thought that we would be telling the exact same story from two completely different perspectives. For example, we originally talked about her writing a chapter from her character's perspective (pretty much like a chapter long post) and then I would follow up with a chapter from my character's point of view. After a dozen chapters of that we scratched that idea completely. Most of the text was repetitive and, though worded differently, we feared it would cause a reader to become disenchanted over the course of an entire novel.

What we have ended up doing is taking the best parts of each of our posts and combining them, that way it is a constant collective voice. Rather than two strong voices battling to be heard over the other. We have both agreed that the decisions we make are for what's best for the story and best for our readers.

We have come together in a way I don't think I could with anyone else on this planet to blend and create an incredible (hopefully) page turner.

Hey there, Payton

We have so many intersecting characters that we had to create a "family tree" type of chart.

So, how the books are organized is very much like how Disney has organized the Marvel Universe. There is the main story, then we have break offs of all these other books that are the stories of characters that are essential to the main story, but because so much is happening in the main story, not all the characters are getting the full attention they deserve.

Our "tree" starts with our two main characters from our first book. Most of the characters that are important for book one, will only be in book one, so we don't necessarily focus on them. Same with book two. But, the main characters in book two are essential for the continuation of the main story so they are mapped.

Then, in book three, we merge two separate worlds we have created into one. And this is where the mapping really becomes important because the characters in book three are essential to the main storyline, even if they weave in and out without constantly being mentioned or active in the story. So forth and so on.

I really hope this explanation makes sense. It makes sense in my head because we have a very twisty, turny, complicated arrangement of characters. However, we are writing these books with enough explanation regarding situations that each book should still be able to be a standalone read. Well, all except the very last book. Kind of like Marvel's End Game, if you didn't watch all the Marvel movies there were characters that you didn't know or understand what was happening. Our final book will be something like that as we will bring potentially five standalone worlds together into one final scene to end the series.

...I feel the need to go create now 🤣

Hi Eros and Cat, I actually read both your stories on your group and actually enjoys it very much. I just want to ask, would someday any of you consider to sell out of your books internationally? I'm hooked! lol

Hey Jenna! Thanks for your question

I think I can speak for both of us here when I say, We would LOVE to be able to sell internationally. I’d personally love to see our book everywhere it possibly could be!

It’s quite a lengthy process, but yes, someday, I would love, love, love to see our book sold across the world.

Hello Jenna,

We pray every day that once we officially publish, we will be able to gain the popularity and funding it will take to have the books translated to different languages and distributed internationally. Truthfully, that would probably be something we would require a mainstream publisher to do, as I may be incredibly versed in law and business here in the US, I am ignorant to the business dealings, taxes, etc of other countries.

And if you like our writings, we have a collection of stories we are actively working on. They are all in progress, call them 'living stories'. Some will end up as a part of the book series, others are just for fun. If you want to check it out Eros and Cats Labyrinth.

Ooo, the link! Yes, I hope everyone checks that out if they want to see what we can really do!

If you do read it, and there is a story or stories that you want us to focus on a little more, or move along, please feel free to let us know!! 🥰