My tools for writing.

When I'm writing, whether for TTRPGs or my fiction, I use a couple of simple tools in the early stages of building scenes and characters.

The first thing is something I stole from the FATE system. I define three aspects of the setting of each scene or for each character. The advantage here is you have these three touchpoints when you fill out the background or person to build on. These can be notable physical aspects, emotional drivers, or anything.

For example, the main character in my current work-in-progress, Senior Assault Leader Petros Makrakis, has the following three aspects.

• Devoted to duty but tired of being responsible for people's lives.
• Prone to PTSD nightmares.
• He wonders if he's even human anymore.

The same can be done with places and things. The biotech warsuits Makrakis and his team wear are:

• Crab-like in appearance.
• Intrusive into every orifice and the eyes.
• Can generate appropriate ammo on command.
• Users say it feels like being in the womb.

Yes, I did four. But the point is you can use the aspects to define broadly places, people, and things in your roughest drafts, so when the writing gets moving, you already know what the bartender at Elfedge is like or what the bridge of the ICV King Richard looks and sounds like.

For characters, I go one step further. I define their motivation in three questions. For Makrakis, it is:

• What does the character want? He wants to return to each and resume a peaceful life.
• Why do they want it? Petros left Earth thirty years ago and has been fighting ever since. He's exhausted. Done. He sees Earth as his place to live out his life.
• What's stopping them from getting it? The Chorus Directors have declared Makrakis and all the other personnel, as well as the rotating habitat they live in, surplus and to be destroyed if they don't leave. No official transport is being provided, so Petros and what's left of his team will have to find transportation and make the long journey back to a world, not even knowing where it is.

The working title for the book is The 13th Month, which any US Marines reading this should get.