{"id":542,"date":"2017-02-23T01:47:36","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T01:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/idea-to-thing-5-showing-it-to-people\/"},"modified":"2024-01-15T15:27:19","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T21:27:19","slug":"idea-to-thing-5-showing-it-to-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/idea-to-thing-5-showing-it-to-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Idea to Thing 5: Showing It To People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aversion to criticism is probably the number one thing that turns things into Bad Idea Debt rather than Actual Products. You all know that person. The one who always wants to tell you about their novel or screenplay or game or whatever, but who doesn\u2019t want to show it to anyone until it\u2019s done. If you ask to see the thing, they\u2019ll tell you that it\u2019s not ready yet. Sometimes the reality is that it\u2019s still pure Idea Debt. The creator has big plans for the thing, but hasn\u2019t done any real work on it (except maybe putting some things in his or her Book of Lore). Other times, it\u2019s that the creator isn\u2019t ready for criticism.<\/p>\n

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When you\u2019re just telling people about something, you\u2019re telling them about the thing you want to make, and usually there\u2019s a gap in talent, effort, time, and execution between the ideal form that you wanted to create and the thing you actually created. Once you show the thing to someone, there\u2019s a chance they\u2019ll point out the problems. Some people would rather stick with the fantasy, insisting that they can\u2019t possibly show anyone their precious little mind turd until it\u2019s perfect, than face the possibility that someone won\u2019t like it. Or worse, that someone will have the nerve to say that they don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, without criticism the thing is never going to get made. For one thing, you\u2019re a terrible judge of your own work. Since you know your intent, it\u2019s impossible for you to know whether the message is clear to someone who doesn\u2019t know what you were trying to communicate. You\u2019re also blind to your own flaws until someone points them out enough times that you learn to be aware of them. On top of that, after you spend a certain amount of time on a project, you lose all ability to judge what\u2019s good or bad. If you wait around for the thing to magically become perfect on its own, you\u2019re going to be waiting forever. If you want to clear the thing out of your Idea Debt ledger, you\u2019re going to have to let someone tell you it sucks. If you\u2019re afraid to run the risk that a few people (probably people you consider your friends, at least early on) won\u2019t like the thing, how do you expect to ever expose it to criticism from the masses (or as close to \u201cthe masses\u201d as exists for your particular audience and distribution capabilities), who have no affection for you that might give them an incentive to be diplomatic?<\/p>\n

If you ever want to be able to share the thing with people, first you\u2019re going to have to show it to people, and you\u2019re going to have to show it to people who are willing to tell you where you fucked up. The people who will say something like \u201cI liked it\u201d or \u201cit was good\u201d aren\u2019t the people you want here. Vague praise may be good for your ego, but it doesn\u2019t do anything for the project. You want people who will tell you what they think works, what they think is broken, and why they think that, in as much detail as possible. The only way to find out what doesn\u2019t work is to let someone tear it apart, and listen to them.<\/p>\n

When someone criticizes your work, you\u2019ll be tempted to rationalize the criticism as a difference of opinion or a misunderstanding on the part of the critic. Sometimes that\u2019s a fair assessment, but not as often as you\u2019ll want it to be. Instead of trying to defend, correct, or explain the issues being criticized, you\u2019ve got to listen to what the critic is actually saying, ask questions, and try to find out where the critic\u2019s reading of the material differs from your intended message. Then you\u2019re going to have to do it again with progressively harsher critics. The more people who bring up the same issue, the more likely it is that you\u2019ve got a problem that needs to be fixed. Then you\u2019re going to have to revise the thing and go through the whole process again. Keep repeating until you get down to criticisms you can live with or until you hate the project so much you just give up.<\/p>\n

The more the thing differs from projects you\u2019ve successfully completed before, the more rounds of criticism and revision it will require. For example, I\u2019ve written a bunch of QAGS supplements, so at this point most new QAGS games go through a few \u201cproof of concept\u201d game sessions at conventions (to gauge interest and test out any new rules), comments from the Hex peanut gallery while I\u2019m writing, a read-through from an editor to catch any missing parts, bad organization, and other big picture problems, then a round or two of final editing to cut out all my weasel words, clarify things, and correct my spelling and grammar. With Cinemechanix, on the other hand, I\u2019m writing a whole new game systems that\u2019s more comprehensive than anything I\u2019ve done before, so we\u2019re now in something like year 3 of active development (after probably at least that long of the project sitting around as bad idea debt) and year 2 of playtesting, and right now I\u2019m (hopefully) getting close to finishing up at least the 3rd major rewrite since playtesting started. I\u2019m hoping this time we move from \u201crules need major revision\u201d to \u201cthere are still some problems,\u201d but I won\u2019t know for sure until I let some other people look at it and tell me why it sucks. If I hadn\u2019t subjected it to criticism, I would have either already released a bad game or I\u2019d still be telling people about this great game idea I\u2019m working on but can\u2019t show anyone yet.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aversion to criticism is probably the number one thing that turns things into Bad Idea Debt rather than Actual Products. You all know that person. The one who always wants to tell you about their novel or screenplay or game or whatever, but who doesn\u2019t want to show it to anyone until it\u2019s done. If…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2000],"tags":[62,1749,1750,1791,1793,1795,2127],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-design-ramblings","tag-game-design","tag-writing","tag-publishing","tag-creativity","tag-idea-debt","tag-criticism","tag-creative-process"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3332,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/3332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}