Lately (or even not-so-lately) I've found myself stumbling over a creative impasse and whilst pondering it last night I realized that all this time I've had an untapped resource at my fingertips: you. There are certainly some creative types out there who read this from time to time. Lend me your ears (or eyes) for a moment--perhaps you can give me some advice.

For some time now I have been attempting to write an adventure for a game called Neverwinter Nights 2. The game, and its predecessor, are computer roleplaying games based on the Dungeons & Dragons rules. In addition to shipping with a lengthy single-player experience, each also came with a robust toolset and scripting language for creating your own adventures for the game that can then be distributed for others to play. The ability to create custom content was, for me, the most tantalizing aspect of the package. The community that has developed around the original and now the sequel is quite impressive. Even before Neverwinter Nights 2 was released, enterprising individuals had already developed some additional tools based on a pre-release beta toolset. The company (Bioware/Obsidian) has a good track record of supporting their community, to the point where they continue to patch the first game (adding features and functionality for builders) five years after its release.

I have really wanted to develop an adventure for the game to flex my creative muscle and storytelling abilities. For over a year I have, on and off, worked on the project, coming up with ideas for the story, trying to flesh out the world and characters that live in it, and attempting to put as much planning into as possible (instead of just rushing into the toolset like I so desperately want to). I have pages of notes now, and a head full of ideas, but I'm finding myself having difficulty putting the pieces together. I have a pretty good idea of how the entire story will be put together, but I can't seem to settle on how to get the players from point A to point B. It's been rather frustrating.

I'm sure not many of you out there are game developers, but certainly some of you have experience writing fiction, and many of you at least keep blogs. The question I put forth is: how does a writer connect the dots? How do I work through this block and figure out how to advance the story for my characters? The player in my case is analagous to the reader in the case of a novel or short story, and I'm struggling with having all the knowledge about what is going on but unable to determine how to deliver it unto the audience. Do I just have to force myself to make a decision and move on, knowing that I can always go back and change it if I need? I know that without the specifics of what I'm doing there isn't much one can give me in terms of advice, but if you creative WITFITS readers at least have a sense of what I'm asking and have any thoughts, I'm all ears.

In return I'll let you beta test it.