[Twilight Time] The Psychology of Freelancing in the RPG Industry

[Heather Grove]

August 5, 2002 - The Psychology of Freelancing in the Roleplaying Industry
Volume 3, Issue 11

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Good morning!

More and more material has appeared on the web regarding freelancing 
in general, the RPG industry, writing, and so on. But I haven't yet 
seen anything to help you figure out whether you'd actually *enjoy* 
freelancing for the RPG industry. This is a shame, since RPG 
freelancing requires an unusual sort of writer, and the wrong sort of 
writer will probably find the experience miserable.

If you're wondering what my perspective on things is - I loved it for 
5 or 6 years, spent a year or two liking it, and then disliked it over 
the last year. Not because of the specific contracts I worked on, but 
because the needs of the industry are not the needs of your average 
writer or person. Even someone who is reasonably well-suited to the 
industry can eventually find that they aren't well-suited *enough* - 
or that they've changed a bit over time.

So here you'll find a guide to figuring out whether you'd enjoy 
freelancing for the roleplaying industry. Hopefully it will help you 
decide whether you're perfect for the industry, a good enough fit that 
you can enjoy it for a while, or such a poor fit that you should flee 
before it's too late!

Have a great day,
Heather

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The Psychology of Freelancing for the RPG Industry

Many roleplayers entertain thoughts of getting into the roleplaying 
industry - some of them as freelance writers. Many of these people, 
however, aren't suited for the peculiarities of the industry. So they 
have a miserable time, the companies that hired them have a miserable 
time, and everyone goes home mad.

I've been researching writing and creativity lately. Add on top of 
that a slight background in psychology (I was working on getting a 
degree in it before we moved, and I'm certifiably nuts, which should 
count for something), roughly eight years of freelancing for 
roleplaying companies, some experience with writers' and roleplayers' 
burnout, and a tendency to just listen to and observe the writers 
around me. Somewhere in there I started coming to conclusions about 
what, exactly, made a writer suited to working in the RPG industry.


What Is Freelancing?

A freelancer takes odd contracts and jobs, doing what's needed where 
it's needed, whether for different game lines or different companies. 
Companies pay you by the job, not with a regular paycheck, and they 
hire you to write individual manuscripts (or pieces of manuscripts). 
There are several different ways that you might go about freelancing:

#1. You talk to a company that has books already chosen, planned out, 
and scheduled. You give them writing samples and whatever accompanying 
material they want. If they want you to write for them, they give you 
a contract and an outline. You write whatever that outline tells you 
to write - not something of your own devising.

#2. Thanks to the advent of the d20 phenomenon, there are now more 
companies willing to take a look at your own, pre-written manuscripts 
(or pieces of manuscripts) rather than hiring you to write up their 
ideas. While not everything in this article will apply to this kind of 
freelancing, you might find such sections as Redlines & Rewrites, 
Copyright & Contracts, and Critics & Reviews relevant to you if you 
want to do this sort of work. (For companies that take proposals 
instead of pre-written manuscripts, add in Deadlines, Word Counts & 
Ability Assessment, and Outlines.)

If you develop a heck of a reputation as a freelancer and game 
designer, you might get to the point where you can walk up to various 
companies, give them proposals for projects you want to write, and 
have them reliably agree to publish your projects. (Most freelancers 
don't ever get to this point.) This largely follows the pattern of #2, 
so you'll want to look at the same sections. Or you could decide to 
start up your own company and write your own material that way. This 
might seem like a quick way to avoid most of these issues, but the 
truth is that if you want to be successful, you'll still have to deal 
with things like deadlines and rewrites.


The Psychology of Outlines

When you write to a company's outline, someone else controls what you 
write. Outlines vary from vague, loose instructions to minutely 
detailed monstrosities that control nearly every level of what you write.

According to Susan Perry, PhD, many writers lose motivation when they 
believe that someone else controls their writing (through outlines, 
deadlines, or what have you). And many writers hate working with 
outlines in the first place; this removes the mystery for them, and 
mystery acts as a powerful motivator for many writers. Others just 
find that they don't consciously control where their writing takes 
them, so they simply can't follow an outline.

If you have serious trouble following outlines, or hate the idea that 
someone else will be in control of your writing, then avoid the first 
type of freelancing. You might also dislike proposal-based 
freelancing, since most companies will want to see an outline before 
you write the manuscript. At least you get to write the outline 
yourself in this case, however.

[Note to companies: the implication here is that by using looser, less 
minutely-detailed outlines, you might attract some writers who would 
otherwise dislike this sort of work, because you'd give them more 
control over the writing. In particular, you might use this to hold 
onto long-time freelancers who are getting restless and want to start 
working on their own material. I don't know how well this theory holds 
up in practice, but it's something to think about.]


The Psychology of Co-Authors

For the first type of freelancing, a company will often assign you a 
co-author (or five) to work on a book with. Even people who agree to 
give up a certain measure of control to the person who pays them often 
have trouble giving up any control to a peer. Following your outline 
becomes particularly important here, because if you don't, you can 
screw over your co-author in various ways.

A good partnership with a co-author can work wonders. If you each 
accept feedback from each other and work closely together, it can 
result in a much better manuscript. If you don't, it can result in a 
manuscript with problems. Can you play well with others? Can you take 
criticism from a peer? If not, the first type of freelancing might 
cause problems for you.


The Psychology of Copyright & Contracts

Most RPG industry authors write on a work-for-hire basis (there are 
good legal reasons for this in most cases - I won't get into them 
here). This means that the company owns your work in its entirety, and 
all rights to it (including derivative rights). This goes up against 
that control issue mentioned earlier - many writers hate the idea of 
signing over their work. (Many writing industries also see a lot of 
misuse of the work-for-hire contract, and thus it has acquired a bad 
reputation.) If you can't handle signing over the rights to your work, 
then you might reconsider your desire to work in the RPG industry.


The Psychology of Deadlines

Some people find that externally-imposed deadlines motivate them and 
challenge them. Others see them as yet another restriction placed on 
their writing. Make sure you know your tendencies before you decide to 
freelance. Think back to high school or college. Did you procrastinate 
until the last minute and do hurried, shoddy work? Did you turn things 
in late all the time? Then reconsider any freelance career that 
involves deadlines. Do you find that you can only get yourself to 
write when a deadline looms? Then you might enjoy freelancing after all.


Word Counts & Ability Assessment

Agreeing to contracts you can't handle is a quick way to overwhelm 
yourself, burn yourself out, and annoy companies. Know what sort of 
word count you can write per day. Spend two weeks writing stories or 
adventures (you'll need a writing sample, after all); use your word 
processor's word count function and a spreadsheet to keep track of how 
many words a day you write. Think back to your *lowest* per-day output 
when deciding whether you have the time for a contract. If your output 
is so unreliable that you can't predict your writing rate at all, then 
you might not find freelancing to be your ideal job.

Know which sorts of material you write well and which you don't 
(adventures? Rules systems?). If you can only do one thing well, you 
might not want to become the first sort of freelancer - companies 
could get tired of offering you contracts only to have you say no all 
the time. Or worse, you take the contract, you hate what you're doing, 
and they hate the results. (There's nothing to say you can't try to 
widen the range of things you can do, of course - an openness to 
trying new things is a valuable trait in any writer.)


Working Hours

Many prolific writers maintain their energy level and enthusiasm by 
writing for half a day at a time, rather than all day every day. 
Figure out what works best for you and take that into account when 
assessing your ability to handle a project. Keep in mind that those 
few people who make a living freelancing usually do it by putting in 
very long hours. Do you enjoy writing all day every day? Then you 
might like freelancing.


Research

You'll almost always have some sort of research to do for your 
contracts. For one contract I read 8 background books from the game 
line. For another, several long fiction series. For another, I watched 
quite a few movies. If this sounds like too much work to you, then you 
probably weren't meant to be a freelancer, at least of the first 
variety. Sometimes for type 2 you can come up with projects that don't 
require as much in the way of research. By the way - remember to 
factor research time into your assessment of whether or not you can 
handle a contract.


The Psychology of Redlines & Rewrites

After you turn in your first draft, the line developer or line editor 
will read the manuscript, mark up everything he wants you to change, 
and send it back to you. If you can't stand the idea of changing your 
words to suit someone else's sensibility, don't become a freelancer. 
If you can't stand any kind of criticism, then find a different line 
of work.

You will find this process gets easier the more self-confidence you 
gain. This doesn't mean that you need to be immune to criticism or 
perfectly self-confident to work in the industry - almost every writer 
finds criticism difficult to deal with. But you do need to be able to 
handle your negative reaction in a positive way. Our suggestions for 
making the rewrite process easier on yourself can be found in the 
following article:
http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/writing/ms/essay/redlines.html

[For companies: if you don't want to drive away writers, then don't go 
overboard when writing comments on manuscripts. There's a difference 
between being straightforward and being nasty. You might find our 
article on "Redlines that Get Better Rewrites" useful:
http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/roleplaying/Essays/editing.html ]


The Psychology of Creativity & Criticism

Mari Messer's experience, as well as that of many others, has shown 
that criticism, when given too harshly and too early in the writing 
process, can squash creativity. Writers need to feel free to screw up 
in the very early drafts or they become afraid to take risks.

Make sure you can accept early criticism, or at least make sure that 
you have enough time on your contracts for you to do a rewrite or two 
before you turn in your first draft. That should give you the buffer 
time you need to be able to handle the criticism you get. If you can't 
handle criticism until you've had quite a while to work on a 
manuscript, then the deadlines the first sort of freelancer will face 
might prove too difficult for you.


Handling Critics & Reviews

After a company publishes your work, someone will inevitably say rude 
things about it in a review. Someone will say "it sucked!" on a 
newsgroup, mailing list, or forum. The wide variety of roleplaying 
products in existence proves that different people want very different 
things out of their RPGs. So no matter how good your work, someone 
somewhere will dislike it. If you can't handle this with equanimity, 
think twice about freelancing as a career.

It's normal for writers to feel hurt by such things, but that's 
different from not being able to handle it. You can feel hurt or angry 
and yet move on anyway. Many writers simply ignore such reviews and 
criticisms so that they don't get discouraged by them. Others 
cultivate the ability to act in a polite (professional) manner, and 
move on.


The Psychology of Motivation

Susan Perry's work shows that most writers have a much easier time 
writing if internal factors motivate them - the pleasure they get from 
writing, giving life to their ideas, challenging themselves, and so 
on. External motivators, such as other people's deadlines and 
outlines, feedback from editors, and so on, *can* end up demotivating 
writers if they outweigh the internal motivators.

This means that if you can't find enough joy and motivation from the 
simple act of writing, or if deadlines and outlines sap your 
enthusiasm, freelancing could potentially burn you out.

While you certainly don't need all of the following personality traits 
and abilities in order to become a freelancer, it helps to have at 
least a few. Some items (such as a desire to try new things) tend to 
be common among writers. Others (such as a lack of need to write about 
your own ideas) are not common among writers.

*   Professionalism
*   A sense of responsibility
*   Being a "workaholic" who enjoys writing long hours
*   Being the type of person who finds deadlines, word counts, and 
outlines challenging rather than restricting
*   An ability to write whenever you want, rather than needing to wait 
for inspiration to strike out of the blue
*   A good sense of your abilities and limitations
*   A desire to try new things
*   An enjoyment of research
*   Self-confidence, resilience, or at least equanimity
*   A lack of need to write about your own ideas (most freelancers I 
know find that they don't have extra time to write their own material)
*   An ability to enjoy writing for its own sake, no matter what 
outside concerns (like deadlines and outlines) may exist

Keep in mind that there are no hard-and-fast rules where personality 
is concerned, so these are rough guidelines, not regulations by any 
stretch of the imagination. Also keep in mind that with effort, people 
can often *learn* such attitudes and skills, if they really want to. 
So even if you don't see yourself in the above list, that doesn't mean 
you'll never be able to work in the industry. It just means it would 
take a little more work for you.


The Psychology of Burnout

There are many things that can lead to burnout for a writer. Since 
burnout consists of a lack of motivation, enthusiasm, and desire to 
engage in an activity that once felt good, all of the information in 
this article about motivation applies. Here you'll find a number of 
things that can contribute to burnout, depending on your personality:

*   That feeling of lack of control.
*   Harsh criticism (particularly too early in the process, or 
criticism directed at *you* rather than your writing).
*   Since freelancing almost never seems to leave much time for 
writing your own things, the fact that you don't get to write what you 
want.
*   Having to meet a deadline.
*   Knowing you don't own any of your published writing.
*   Having to do research you hate.
*   Realizing you've taken on more work than you can handle
*   Feeling that your work no longer challenges you, or provides you 
with anything new and interesting to do.
*   Having to work with a co-author (particularly one you can't get 
along with).
*   Having to work long hours.

Odds are that no one of these things would lead to burnout, but 
gradually add in one after another over a period of years, and before 
you know it you're sick of writing RPG material. Keep in mind that 
things do change. What works for you this year might feel tiresome and 
annoying five years from now, and what sounds annoying now might seem 
easy five years from now.

I've noticed a very high burnout rate among RPG freelancers. So many 
of them end up feeling grumpy and trapped, or simply move on to other 
things. Many people start out being ideal freelancers, but after 10 
years they're more than ready to move on, to write their own material 
for a change. Given how much RPG freelancing violates all of the 
research-supported ideas of what motivates writers, this doesn't 
surprise me at all.

It seems to me that the writers who stay in the industry the longest 
are the ones who find ways to gain greater autonomy and control over 
their writing - by starting their own companies, or gaining a great 
enough reputation that companies will often publish whatever the 
author wants to write.


Is It For You?

If you can't decide after reading this whether you can handle it, then 
try a small contract and see how it goes. Or give the second type of 
freelancing a try, and leave the first alone until you see how you 
like it. Just keep in mind that ten years from now you might want to 
give a different sort of writing (or other work) a try if you're 
burned out on freelancing; leave that option open to yourself so you 
don't feel trapped. There's nothing that says you have to *remain* a 
freelancer if you decide to go that route for now.

Don't do something you aren't suited for and will hate. This leads to 
many of the "horror stories" you'll hear about freelancers who 
disappear in the middle of a job, fail to turn anything in, turn in 
something that bears no resemblance to what was contracted for, refuse 
to rewrite a manuscript, and so on. After all, if you hate what you're 
doing, then you probably won't want to stick around and finish it.

Many people simply shouldn't freelance for the roleplaying industry; 
the average writer isn't suited to it. I don't think of the ideal 
freelancer as a lesser or greater sort of writer than others - just 
different, and oddly suited to an unusual sort of job. Judging by all 
the research on what makes writers tick, in fact, I think it's pretty 
safe to say that the ideal RPG industry freelancer is an aberration, a 
very peculiar sort of writer. So don't push yourself to write in a way 
that you won't like. Don't become another horror story - do the kind 
of writing that's right for you, whether that's freelancing - or not.


Bibliography

*  Susan K. Perry, PhD, "Writing in Flow: Keys to Enhanced 
Creativity," Writers Digest Books (Ohio), 1999.
*  Mari Messer, "Pencil Dancing: new ways to free your creative 
spirit," Walking Stick Press (Ohio), 2001.
*  Todd Walton and Mindy Toomay, "The Writer's Path: A Guidebook for 
Your Creative Journey," Ten Speed Press (Toronto), 2000.
*  Ray Bradbury, "Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity," 
Joshua Odell Editions (Santa Barbara), 1994.
*  Eric Maisel, PhD, "Living the Writer's Life: A Complete Self-Help 
Guide," Watson-Guptill Publications (New York), 1999.


What's Your Opinion?:

Comments on this issue's topic? Suggestions? Tips? Special topic 
requests? Drop me a line at (heather at burningvoid.com). If I pass any 
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The next issue is coming in just a few weeks (late August).

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