Today I will bore you guys with a post about writing.

Back in 2014 I did a piece on how I use a spreadsheet to plan my action scenes.
And of course there is the good practice of keeping track of word count and time spent writing to improve productivity¹.
Today I found out another interesting application for spreadsheets: explore an ongoing series of stories, trace character arcs and keep the new material fresh.
And maybe I’m re-inventing the wheel, but…

Writing a series, especially if we are writing the different episodes out of chronological order, presents a number of pitfalls.
How many sword & sorcery stories – not to mention roleplaying scenarios! – start in a tavern? How many times did our old friend Conan fight a giant snake? How many times the bad guys motivation boiled down to “evil”? Continue reading →