Juspera's Good Ole GS4 Page / Guides

Welcome to Vignette Club

What is a vignette?

Vignettes are increasingly popular in the GS community. What is a vignette, though? The word "vignette" has many definitions, but for our purposes, it's a brief scene or episode that gives insight into a character and their situation.

These mini-stories or slices of life, usually posted on the boards, can accomplish several things. A vignette can:

1. Let a GM know you'd like to play a certain role in their storyline
2. Explain what your character is doing during "off-screen" times in a storyline
3. Provide an end note to a story or event, letting the GM and other players know how your character may have changed from the occurrence
4. Flesh out your character, independent of any storyline or other in-game occurrence

You don't need a "good" reason to write something about your character, or any reason at all. Writing can be fulfilling in itself, and if you're working on developing your character or their background, the insights you come up with will inform how you play your character from there on out. This means there's no such thing as wasted writing.

Should you post your vignette? If you want to, you should. If your story relates to town events, post in the forum for that town; otherwise, you can post in the Elanthian Lore > Character Histories folder. Be sure to let people know you've posted, so you can get some readers and feedback! The official Discord is a good place for this.

What makes a good vignette?

Since we're all here to have fun, I'm going to say that no vignette is a bad vignette. However, I'd like to focus on four key things that help make vignettes more enjoyable for readers.

Description

One of the great things about these stories is that they allow us to flesh out, and even create, parts of the game world that we wouldn't otherwise get to see. In your vignette, you get to decide (within reason!) what the racket in the blacksmith's shop sounds like, what Erebor Square smells like on a spring day, or how Liabo's light glistens on the glacier at midnight. Take advantage of this! Bring our world to life with these details.

Not only can you describe what's already present or hinted at in the game world, you can invent entirely new things and people, as long as it makes sense for your character's location. Have your character speak with the hilarious owner of a secondhand wand shop in a Solhaven back alley, or a flirtatious clerk in the constable's office.

And don't forget, your character can also travel to places we can't in the game, such as Ta'Nalfein or New Ta'Faendryl, Nydds or Sharath. When you can make Elanthia more real in this way, you're bringing a gift to your readers.

Your character's inner world

Normally, only GMs get to see what your character is thinking and feeling--and that's only if you use MYCHAR. A vignette is a great chance to show what's going on in your character's head and heart.

Since a story with nothing but thoughts and feelings can be a little dull, be sure to have some action to bookend these insights. Perhaps something unexpected happens to your character to cause them to start thinking about their situation, and that thinking leads to them taking action on a problem.

Another way to show your character's thoughts or feelings is to have them write a letter. The letter could be to a friend or family member, an enemy, a town official or an NPC--even to their future self! Choose a target that will allow you to express what you want about your character, whether that's regret, grief, outrage, humor, fear, or any of the other thousand and one shades of emotion.

Emotion

As I've hinted above, the most engaging stories have a basis in emotion. The events in your character's life must be affecting them, or you wouldn't have chosen to write about them. Emphasize the emotions and the stakes that are involved. Why does the cave entrance scare your character so much? What are the consequences if they can't get up their courage to go in? Why does your character love her husband so much, and how would she feel if she lost him?

Supporting characters

Not only can you create characters out of thin air to populate your vignettes, but you can also include actual PCs. This can be great fun, and will increase your reader base since everyone likes to see their own name in print. There are a few ways to do this:

You can show your character thinking or talking about another PC. This is a great way to acknowledge other RPers by showing how their character has made an impression on yours.

You can choose to write a vignette that is an account of something that happened in the game.

You can meet with another character in the game for an interaction that will go into your vignette, and then quasi-transcribe the meeting, "storifying it" or putting it into narrative form.

You can collaborate with another player or players on writing a vignette from scratch.

You can approach another player about writing their character into a vignette, write it up yourself, then get that player's approval of how their character is depicted before you post.

None of these is better than the others, and which you choose depends on your own style and that of the people you're working with.

Ideas

If you find yourself struggling with ideas, here are a few:

Your character is walking through town, thinking about recent events as they pass landmarks and purchase goods and chat with shopkeepers. By the end of their walk, they have reached a decision.

Your character remembers something difficult that happened in the past, and thinks about how it will prepare them for the upcoming invasion.

Your character is talking with a friend, saying what they really think about the latest NPC, and what they'd like to do about her.

Your character is speaking with children in town, trying to find out if they have seen or heard anything about the body snatchers. (Perhaps the GM will pass on some information as a result of your vignette.)

The story is about what your character was up to while you were taking a break from GS--perhaps a trip home, business venture or love affair.

The story takes place in the distant past, and tells how your character developed her one phobia.

Final writing tips

Before I go, I'd like to mention three things that can help make reading your vignette a more enjoyable experience for your audience:

Use paragraphs. This eye-friendly invention will keep readers from abandoning your story out of frustration.

Keep everything in the same tense. If you start in the past tense, the story should (in almost all cases) remain in the past tense.

Trim the adjectives and adverbs. Vignettes are short, and it's tempting to cram as much description as possible into each sentence so that nothing gets left behind. However, this makes for difficult reading. Challenge yourself to remove as many adjectives and adverbs from your story as possible, and convert your nouns and verbs into stronger ones.

Instead of "he quickly went," use "he dashed" or "he jogged."
Instead of "a long unrelenting attack," use "a barrage."
Instead of "she frowned angrily," use "she scowled" or "she glowered."
Instead of "a horribly ill-fated event," use "a catastrophe."

You are now ready to join Vignette Club.

Rules of Vignette Club

1. Do not talk about Vignette Club.
2. Do not talk about Vignette Club. Seriously, people will think you're a major dorkus.
3. Vignettes should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order.
4. Vignettes should gift readers with some insight into what your character is thinking, unless your character is Darcena. In this case we would rather not know.
5. Vignettes should raise as many questions as they answer. One of the questions should always be, "What is this person smoking?"
6. Play fair. No one wants to read about earwax alchemy, halfling mating rituals, or wizards.
7. Never bring OOC knowledge from vignettes into the game. Actually, that rule is incomplete. A complete rule would be: Never bring OOC knowledge from vignettes into the game, unless it helps you make fun of Juspera.
8. Never read your vignette after you post it. Each act of rereading causes more typos to generate spontaneously.
9. Always give other authors feedback on what you liked about their vignette. This rule isn't funny, because Post-Vignette Feedback Deficiency Syndrome isn't funny.

Time to get writing!

Back to:

Juspera's Good Ole GS4 Page / Guides