Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

I blogged about the differences:

http://marycatelli.livejournal.com/74...

Interesting little article. You bring up good points. I think it is worthy to note is that they are two different entities of writing, and while they have some major differences, there is also some overlap, you can learn from one to enhance the other (in both directions).

Being a DM and creating a campaign, is not the same as writing novel. However you can learn, through trial and error, about world building. An aspect that is seemingly more and more important in modern fantasy. You can also, perhaps, develop basic ideas or characters, even if they are ultimately altered, or completely discarded, for writing a fantasy story, you can still learn from these experiences.

Alternatively the works you read can influence your ability to DM. Instead of being stuck in the D&D manual box, it's easier to imagine different scenarios and creations. Not every encounter has to be battle, a riddle or just an eerie experience can add to the enjoyment of a game. There are many days in my current campaign when we do not even have a monster encounter, instead our DM awards experience for various things, like role-playing well, answering riddles, negotiating situations.

Of course like you said, one does not directly translate from one form to the other, but nor are they mutually exclusive nor need be detrimental for ones experience in either aspect of creative writing.

D&D and writing fantasy are neither mutually inclusive nor exclusive. They don't translate one to the other in any kind of direct sense, but they can provide raw energy in the form of inspiration to each other. I get a lot of writing energy and inspiration from D&D, but it's extremely rare when something that happens in a D&D game makes it into my fantasy prose.

There is one exception, and it's not something that can be planned out or manufactured. I ran my family through a single session of D&D, using 1st edition Basic rules, during a holiday get-together a few years ago. Only two people in the group had ever played before, the rest were just good sports and gave it an honest effort. I was astounded at how naturally they took to the roleplaying aspect of the game, and how good they were at problem solving. After the session, I was inspired by how certain players roleplayed their characters, and I was also inspired by the events that took place in their session.

When it came time to write the third book in The Taesian Chronicles trilogy, Paragon's Call, I tapped into that D&D experience for some inspiration of particular events in the book. Although it ended up being just one chapter's worth of content, I was able to use a lot of that D&D game's events to come up with events in the book.

Of most importance, I created two main characters in the book based on how my family members had roleplayed their characters in the D&D game. Keep in mind, these were played by two individuals that had never played an RPG before, and knew nothing about how RPGs worked.

This is an example of how one can inspire the other, to various degrees, even though it wasn't intended to work out that way.

When writing, inspiration can occur when you least expect it.