[PPV_Jimmy]

I feel like I'm spamming up the place, the boards don't seem to be all that active here. I have further freespace questions though if you don't mind.

I've been coming up with a storyline for a rather short campaign. I have a rather broad idea of what the story is going to be, and am in the process of filling in the details as I go. I actually have most of the first mission done in FRED2 right now, but I wasn't sure how the story was going to develop so I decided that I would write out the storylines mission by mission. Then build them into a campaign with FRED2. Now that I have some good detailed ideas about the storyline, I'm not sure how to break it up into the different missions.  ("Should I put this idea into mission 2 or wait till mission 3?".... and so on) When you developed your campaigns did you write out the entire story first? And then try and divide it into parts that would make up good missions? Since my story isn't fully developed I'm not really sure how I should break it up yet, and I keep adding new ideas. Any advice for the beginning aspects of building a campaign?

Thanks

PPV

[pyro-manic]

Get it planned out in detail on paper first, otherwise you'll keep adding stuff and it'll either never be finished, or you'll end up with something very different to your original idea. Get your plot down on paper. Then get a list of key events. Base your missions on these events. If they happen close enough together, then you can have a few in one mission, otherwise split them up. All the other stuff from your plan (ie. the background details, and minor occurences away from the action) can be put into dialogue during the missions, or into the briefings and command briefings between missions.

On the other hand, if you have a really good idea when you've already started FREDding, you can just bend events in your campaign to fit around it. Good luck with it.

[Unknown Target]

I have the same problem you do
Try thinking of the most important events that happen in the campaign, and write them out in mission form.

[Thor]

I personally just right a general synopsis of what the story is going to be.  Then I write a mission storyline, which contains the major points of each mission, so that a FREDer can take it, then expand upon the important plot pieces.  the only thing you have to watch out for is trying to cram too much into a single mission.  I try to keep it down to no more than 3 important plot items per mission.

[Dark_4ce]

Yeah, I had the same problem too, but what I did was write a timeline of the campaign. And basically wrote a short one sentence synopsis of each mission. Then after that, I'd have to whole plot and flow adjusted, and once I'm happy, I'd go into each mission individually. Here's an old Timeline I made for the now defunct "Full Circle" campaign as well as a bit of in detail deconstruction of each mission that was going to be in it, just to show you what I mean...


Full Circle Timeline

Full Cricle: Mission Detail

Hope it helps...

[Knight Templar]

Apparently it isn't dead . Although I wonder who vadar is planning on playing it...

[Killfrenzy]

I agree with Thor.

Write yourself a synopsis with the key events that need to occur. You can write it almost like a history book (that's what I sometimes do) and it'll flow nicely.

Then split it down into missions. Decide how much of the story you want each mission to cover. A simple escort mission, for example, may not cover very much, but a desperate attempt to stop a rampant foe will cover far more.