I have spent an inordinate amount of time writing Chapters 2-4, which deal with a fairly large battle sequence. There was something wrong that I couldn’t put my finger on. I kept scrolling back to reread and make sure my characters were all doing what they were supposed to do, were in the correct location, and moving through time in a linear fashion. Not that I have a beef with time-travel, I just don’t think I could handle future perfect tense.
A few weeks of that and I was completely lost, ready to scrap the whole thing and throw a massive tantrum. I ignored it for a few days, until I was doodling while in a meeting. It hit me like a wet sponge: startling, cold, and a slowly sliding opportunity to realize I should have seen it coming. I had the enemy attacking from two different places. One of which didn’t exist. Another of which was on top of a location that I had said was well defended. My lack of spacial reasoning had foiled me once again. What I needed – nay, required – was a map.
Behold, in all of it’s office-supply drawn glory: the Battle of Navi-2.
It helped me to keep everything moving along in non-space/time defying ways. And while hopefully you don’t need it to follow the action, it can’t hurt. Who says that you can’t learn marketable skills from D&D? To those skeptics I say, pshaw. I feel certain this will be marketable. Eventually.
Or maybe I’ll switch careers. Anyone know of any openings for apprentice cartographer?
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