I don’t think that matters if they already have. Dungeons and Dragons is a great spot to borrow, steal, and ask the players to help create your story with you. I talk about this often, Dungeons and Dragons is a cooperative story telling game, and that means that you can tell whatever story you want. Even if you are ripping off something else, go for it.

But You Want It To Be Original?

I get that, I really do. When I say rip something off, I don’t mean fully do that. Stealing a whole story is not going to be nearly as interesting as stealing pieces that you like. But using pieces that you like, that makes it easier on you. You don’t need to come up with everything yourself. I use stuff that I’ve read all the time, because it is cool. If there is a giant set piece in a story that I like, I will use that to create a combat or encounter in my game.

Tower of the Gods is a great example of this, you can find what is happening in that in the Friday Night D&D Posts. What is stolen in there? Well, first off, the whole idea of the tower, that is 100% stolen from the LitRPG series Arcane Ascension and Towers of Heaven. Heck, I named my campaign Towers of the Gods, it’s a bit on the nose. But I didn’t steal the whole plot of either of them.

How Do You Keep the Balance?

That is the trickier part, keeping a balance so that you don’t rip off everything. I think it’d be easy to just try and create the beats from either of those stories and see what happens. However, if someone already knows the story, that isn’t going to be interesting to them. It would be like playing through the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If Frodo still needs to throw the ring into Mount Doom, that’s boring. And never give your players the One Ring, they will abuse the power.

Instead, pick and choose a few things. In Tower of the Gods, I took the leveling up or getting the class power from the tower from Arcane Ascension. In that book, you go into the power and you get a power of some sort and that is where it starts for the main character. But, I also took the idea of potentially fighting over the tower, but that was from Towers to Heaven. Two separate story ideas that I wove together.

Borrow Lightly

So, with that example, borrow lightly. From Arcane Ascension, I took the leveling and the school idea. The plot that I run is very different. On the flip side, Towers to Heaven, I introduced the idea of fighting over the tower. But how I run that is exceedingly different than how the author of that book wrote it.

Like I was saying, grab nuggets of things. A concept or a image that you really like from a story. Weave that into your game and it saves brain power for you. But just borrow a little bit, even if people don’t know what. Because I want to tell my own story, and most DM’s are going to want to tell something that is fairly well their own.

Steal Moments

This is basically the same thing as borrowing lightly. Don’t steal everything. But it is totally okay to steal things that stuck out to you. If there is an important moment in the story, such as the luck of the draw when getting your class in Arcane Ascension, steal that. I 100% just took that and put it into my story. They drink from a cup when they are about to exit the tower. My players picked a cup to drink from and that determined what class they got.

So that imagery, I really liked. It made sense to me for how you’d end up getting a class. Now, it totally went against how Dungeons and Dragons normally does it, but it was a fun way change things up for people who know D&D pretty well. I made it work different than it did in the book, though, giving the players more agency in potentially picking what class they ended up with.

Beg For Help

Now, this sounds silly, but asking the players to help will cause your story to verve at times towards story and tropes that have already been done. Most people who play Dungeons and Dragons know fantasy. You and I know all sorts of books, movies, and television shows that are fantasy. Whether we actively think about them all the time or not, that doesn’t matter, we know them. So when you ask for help in creating a location or character, you will find that tropes start to show up or ideas from books show up.

This is a good thing. Grounding your fantasy world and story into what people know is important. It means that you and the players are more connected to the world and can more easily understand what is going on. I get the idea to do something extremely out there and unique, but that isn’t always great. Sometimes it can take people out of the story, instead of keep them in.

Putting It All Together

So how much should you or shouldn’t you beg, borrow, and steal? That is a great question. For some stories, it might be a fair amount that is pulled in from other places. Or there might be chunks of the story that are and other chunks that aren’t.

In Tower of the Gods, the whole Dorin subplot, trust me, there is no way that is any published book. Or if it is, there is no way that I’d have made it to that part of a book, because it is just so weird. So while I borrow from Arcane Ascension and Towers to Heaven, there are other parts that you can blame the players for, or myself as the DM for letting it get there.

So don’t steal everything, people will know when you have the novel on the table with you. But borrowing a little bit, all of that is good. Stealing a memorable moment, that is amazing. And asking for help means that players will be even more engaged. Don’t be shy about it because what you do will never be exactly like that book, movie or television show.

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We meet up again with the main characters of the first book, Lyr (Marcus in the real world) and his friends in their guild Virtus. Things are going pretty well for them, they have a large guild, Aldford is growing, and possibly the most fun news for them, their stream is doing really well and they are making a lot of money for the guild members in the real world. However, things can’t keep going smoothly for Virtus as they run into an old enemy and characters from Eberia make their way to Aldford bringing new challenges with them. Lyr has to decide who he can trust and figure out if he can save Aldford from problems growing below it.

If you look at my goodreads scores, I knock this book down to a three star as compared to the others that I had a four star books. I don’t think that this book is a massive drop off, just a little one. The biggest issues I have with the book are one of editing that I’ve mentioned before. It’s just using the same adjective or not reading something out loud so it has past and passed within a couple of words of each other. The editing is still rough, and it’s a shame because it doesn’t seem to be getting better. And now that might just because he doesn’t actually go to much of an editor or because the books are being rushed out, but they would be better, and possibly a full star better if they were well edited for content.

The other thing I had an issue with, and this was only for part of it, he tried to wrap too many storylines together. While the first book bounced around, the stories generally stayed separate, with just a few odd bits of tying things together, but it was done pretty simply. In the second book, and by that I do mean #1.5, the story is contained to a smaller area, and for that reason, Chmilenko does a solid job of tying various story elements together. In this one we’re back to the bigger world that surrounds Aldford, and we get too many storylines trying to tie together. I actually think that he does a good job tying them together at the end, but the rest of it, is chunky. That’s the best way to describe it, and it’s pretty obvious. You’re dealing with one thing, then that thing is completely dropped for another thing, and then you drop that other thing for another thing, and repeat. The characters have pretty one track minds. It could have been blended together better. Another way to put it would be in Dungeons and Dragons terms where the players get distracted by a seed you were laying for the future and leave the current main plot for a long time, so you feel like you have to tie it back in sooner than you would have. That’s how it feels like this story was written.

That said, I do think that in the end, it was tied together. There was some actual weight to what happened at the end. You got some of what you wanted as a fan and that had been hinted at earlier in the book, but the book isn’t without loss. In something like a game where you can respawn, Chmilenko makes sure that some things do have some real consequences. Though, I think the epilogue scene is kind of out of place, just because of how they are handling a future villain, again, probably too early.

I also think that the characters continue to develop. Not just the main five characters who were in the original book, but some of the added members of Virtus. While a few characters get less page time than in the first book, it doesn’t seem like they are being overlooked, and with a large cast of characters to draw from, that’s pretty impressive. I can see why he wrote the #1.5 book now as well so that you’d get to know some characters and some ideas of what is going on in Eberia and the larger world as Aldford is off by itself. But there are characters who show up in this book from #1.5 and they continue to be developed. Though, I feel like some of that is being handled poorly because of how forthcoming they are or aren’t with information sometimes. It seems a bit out of place for the character and it seems a bit like this book and characters were started before #1.5 was with those characters.

Overall, I still think that this is a good LitRPG series. I want to read/listen to the next book, but that probably won’t be until 2020 for the audio book, even if the book is published this year. I hope, eventually, that more content editing work will be done on the books, but even if there isn’t, I’m fairly used to it at this point. This book definitely doesn’t make me want to stop the series, even with a bit of a lower rating. And I care about the characters and what happens to them, which is always a good thing.

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The first is by duplicating description in the same sentence. or using too much description.

The second is by using large words for the sake of large words.

A couple of examples form books that I started reading and then quit, and one that I am actually continuing.

“The trials are our exegesis…” – A Warriors Path by Davis Ashura

“While thinking internally to myself…” – Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko

Let’s talk about why these are poor. First, using “exegesis” in a sentence, and I shared this with a co-worker who reads a lot, is not a common word that people know. Learning new words isn’t bad, but there weren’t context clues to provide the answer to what it means. So someone would have to stop reading your book to look it up if they don’t know the meaning. And why weren’t there context clues, because this was sentence number one in the book.

I know what “exegesis” means, and because it was the first sentence, I immediately stopped listening to the book. What the first sentence tells me about the book is that it’s going to be using a lot of big words for the sake of using big words. And it’s supposed to be an epic fantasy book, premise seemed interesting, but if, in one sentence, it feels like the writer is shooting for showing off their knowledge of the English language, it isn’t ideal.

The second example is really about that first one, giving too much description. “Thinking internally” is a redundant statement. Besides that, the Ascend Online book, which isn’t bad thus far, spends too much time going through the fine details of the RPG aspect of a LitRPG. That can be done at the start, but then needs to fade to the background and that’s another way it is overwritten. It doesn’t just imply some things that the writer knows are happening in the background, but instead spells them out in great detail. This is something that happened in the Arcane Ascension series, where the writer would spend too much time explaining something that the characters already know for the sake of the reader.

So how can you avoid overwriting a story?

I think the biggest thing you can do is be a harsh critic of your own work. Not of yourself, but taking a step back from the work, look at it and ask yourself, is this part needed, or is this from a different story that I just haven’t written yet. Just because you’re cutting something, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t good, it just might not be for this story.

Along with that, ask yourself if you need to spell that out for the reader or how easily the reader can understand it. If you feel like a reader can infer what is being written about, for example, when leveling up in a LitRPG, if you’re in a video game, like Ascend Online is, have there be a noise, like a ding, when a skill levels up. As a reader, I’ll know that whatever skill was used immediately prior to the “ding” leveled up, the author doesn’t need to tell me that metal working leveled up when you were just working with metal, that should be obvious to any reader, and if the reader missed if, they know from the “ding” to look back at the previous action to see what it was. Doing something as simple as that will make the story flow better.

Ask yourself, is all this backstory/world building needed at the beginning? That’s another piece of overwriting that I see very often. It falls into the camp of too much description, but ask yourself where and when you need the backstory and world building. Too much of it is front loaded, instead, put it in when it is needed. I suspect what you’ll find, even if you had it front loaded before, is that when you reach the end of the story, there will be world details that still haven’t been put into the story, and that’s awesome. That means you’ve found the parts that were overwritten and don’t matter to your story. Also, by interweaving the backstory and world building into the main body of the story, I, as a reader, am more apt to remember them as if they are all at the beginning, I might just skim over them to get to the action.

The other thing that is often forgotten in LitRPG or with self published writing, is use an editor and copy-editor. The copy-editor is going to cut down on grammar and spelling issues, so not as important for overwriting, but the editor is the person who is going to track down those overwritten bits, question why there is so much detail or why you are using a word. They are going to be harsher on your writing than you will be able to ever be. With that, it’s important that, even if you have a friend who likes to read and is good with English, don’t use them as your editor. They aren’t going to be able to be as harsh on the work as it might need to be, because they know you. I feel like I’ve read several books where they had some editing work done, but the author either refused to trust their editor, or the editor was a friend. So there’s another thing, the editor wants you book to succeed, even if you don’t know them, because they want more work from you. When they suggest cutting something that you really liked, it isn’t because they hate you or what you wrote, it’s because they genuinely should care about helping you make the best book. So find an editor that you can trust who isn’t your friend.

Obviously, there is more that you can do, but let’s spend a little bit of time looking at some books that I really do like.

The Dresden Files – I don’t think these are overwritten. My reasoning for that is because Jim Butcher gives you enough detail but not too much and he doesn’t spend any time at the start of any books explaining something about his world that is going to show up later. There are points where as a reader, I feel like between books he’s repeating himself, but if someone was reading them once and as they came out, they probably would need that reminder. Since I’m reading them after the fact and in a row, I wish it wasn’t there, but it is smart that it is there.

Lord of the Rings – Tom Bombadil. That’s all that I need to say, JRR Tolkien had some stuff that he wanted to get into the book and added to the book that is most certainly not needed. Tom Bombadil was cut from the movies for a reason, and probably should have been cut from the book. I’ll give him some slack for the time frame, but Tolkien does overwrite, and when you think about The Silmarillion, you can see how much he cut and had in backstory that he decided to publish separately, thankfully.

Chronicles of Narnia – I think that this is another example of something that isn’t overwritten. CS Lewis does a good job keeping his series short and to the point in each book. There are a few bits that haven’t always aged the best, but that isn’t an overwriting problem, so not an issue for here. From The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, through The Last Battle, you get the information you need when you need it and the stories are on point. You could argue that The Magician’s Nephew is simply a book of backstory, but it is fairly important backstory for the world, and the book reads as a novel onto itself with plenty of action and interesting moments versus just an explanation of how the world works.

What are some book series that you think are overwritten? Are there some sentences that are really poorly written, if so, share them below, please, I love weird stuff like that.

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The premise of the books is that on the continent of Kaldwyn there are several nations, all of which have a spire in them. These spires, put there by the goddess, grant amazing powers to those who can afford to go into them, but those powers need to be honed. Corin Cadence, comes from a noble family, so he can afford to go into the tower at the proper time to get his attunement. He really wants to get an attunement that will be able to help him find his brother who disappeared in the tower during his test five years ago. Most likely, his brother is dead, but Corin hopes to find him, or if not, eventually become strong enough to climb to the top so he can entreat the goddess to bring his brother back. Things don’t go as Corin expected in the tower, but he does leave with an attunement, just not the one he had hoped for. We then get to follow him and some old friends and they go through school and unravel the mysteries that the spires have to offer.

The story has an interesting premise and a solid execution on the premise. The main character is actually quite strong, too often not the case in books that seem targeted towards a younger audience, and the supporting characters really shine. I wouldn’t call this a very complex story, but it doesn’t need to be, and the concept of these spires that give you power and that you can basically level up your power is strong direct tie to LitRPG writing. This is also where I’ve seen some reviews say that it isn’t, because it doesn’t do the classic RPG thing of giving you XP and leveling you up, however, attunements become stronger the more mana you get, it’s a very obvious one for one comparison.

I also have to give some props to the author for his writing of the series. I’ve done several LitRPG books, I guess just these two plus one other that I’ve finished and have started a fourth one now and tried to start a few more, but fairly often LitRPG is self published and you can really tell. I don’t know if Andrew Rowe self published, but his work is much more polished than other LitRPG writing. I also have to give him credit for being able to write action with emotion extremely well. While I never truly believe that he’ll kill off one of the side characters, though I do suspect it’ll happen at some point in time, you still tension surrounding it, and the tertiary characters you know aren’t safe, and they are named characters. And when it comes to plot, Rowe does a good job of not over plotting it or leaning into making too many twists, which can often be the folly of younger writers.

With all of that said, there are a few glaring flaws in the writing. Rowe sets up Corin Cadence to be a character who really dislikes being touched, who has major troubles with relationships and trusting anyone. And then he throws him into a romance or some sort of a romance with another character just because that character is mysterious for the reason why Corin is interested. It’s sloppy and forced, which is really annoying, because you have a harem (yes, that is why I said LitJRPG, it’s basically a platonic harem feel) style story, but one that has a strong protagonist that is never written like he’d rush into a romance. Also, why does there even have to be a romance. This issue with writing those romantic style relationships is then exacerbated when the Corin is betrayed by someone he cares about, and we’ve just been listening to how he doesn’t trust people, but somehow in book two he’s starting to trust the character who betrayed him, without anything more than a few throw away lines.

The other major flaw is handling of bisexual, gay, and gender fluid character introductions in the books. This is supposed to be something that is normal on the continent, but the author, treats it like it is 2000. There’s a lot of explaining of what is going on, which doesn’t make a ton of sense, because we’re getting this from first person perspective. The main character who has lived in this society his whole life doesn’t need to think about why someone is gender fluid. Someone who has been in the country for over a year, and if this is common, won’t be wondering about this. It should just be stated and treated as normal. We need more authors to do that in their writing, treating something as if it’s normal in their world so that we understand it as normal there and we don’t break the immersion into the story. It also helps make those things feel more natural in the real world when they are treated as expected in what we read, not called out because the author doesn’t think the readers will get it somehow?

All of that said about the negatives, those parts of the book are small. They are just jarring because the rest of it, like I said, is solidly written and the best example of LitRPG that I’ve read thus far. The first one was basically the writers dream of being an edgelord (someone who want to seem edgy by saying or doing risque or offensive things) and the newest one leans too heavily into the stat block side of RPG’s. This one hides what it is behind the curtain well. I would compare it to Is It Wrong to Try to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon with the tower aspect and a character who is always looking to get stronger to try and prove something. In some ways, this book might actually be better as a manga and anime than it is as a novel, and I mean that as a compliment as I think it would work extremely well in those forms, and it works well as a novel.

If you are interested in trying a LitRPG, I would recommend the Arcane Ascension series. I have hopes that it will end up interestingly, and even if it is a pretty straight forward plot thus far, the characters are strong and make the series very enjoyable. It even has a bit of a slice of life feel about it at times. I don’t know that the series will be for everyone because generally LitRPG does tend to be self published, and have more editing flaws in it than your normal novel. Again, though, this one is cleaner than most that way, and work well.

Have you heard of this series and given it a chance? What are your thoughts on it, and does it sound interesting to you? Have you read any LitRPG that you like?

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