How to Write a Good Dynasty

Boy, that's a tough question. It's sort of like asking, "boy, how do I become as popular as Ronald Reagan?"

If someone were to ask me the question as to how to attain Ronald Reagan's facility with people, my first answer would probably be "don't imitate Ronald Reagan". Imitation is something that needs to be broken -- the people who were really "great" sort of found a way to be comfortable in their own skin.

So, if you want to write a good dynasty, the first answer would be "be comfortable". Find a format that interests you. If you want to report day-by-day, do that. If you want to make your reports weekly, monthly, or even yearly, do that as well. You decide how often you care to report on what's going on.

The next step is to answer the question, "what interests you about baseball?" Because if you center on the part of baseball you find interesting, you'll write interesting stories. You won't be able to help writing interesting stories, your enthusiasm will bubble over and it will be contagious.

My interest is in baseball history, and history in general. So my dynasties tend to be rich on background. It's what I like writing about. Another good historical dynasty is CatKnight's "Cardinal Sins" and there are plenty of good historical dynasties on OOTP.

If you like the idea of being a GM more than writing about baseball history, you might choose the format from abben's "Moneyball 1988 Brewers Style" that I heartily recommend -- you write up your dynasty from that point of view. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your team? What decisions should you (as GM) make? Who is hot? Who is cold? What were you thinking when you made that decision? If you're taking the role of GM, people want to know those things.

If you like players a lot more, then you might just want to follow a player. "A-Rod's Incredible Dynasty" could be an idea -- follow Alex Rodriguez through his development as a player, starting with the first season and continuing until his retirement. Can he break The Bighead's record?

If you like the idea of being a player a lot more, you might like the idea of Big Six's "The Base Ball Life of Patrick O'Farrell" which is an OOTP dynasty. He created a player called Patrick O'Farrell in 1904, and told his story through letters O'Farrell writes, newspaper articles, and omnipotent "third person" posts. You could create a player, name him after yourself (or someone else) and tell his story -- and of course, report how he's doing. A modern dynasty might really be cool, because pro baseball players lead lives that make the orgies of Rome look tame.

If you like the idea of being GOD a lot more, you might want to write a dynasty like legendsports's, "The Completely Fictional History of Baseball". You would start the league in 1901, use entirely imaginary players, and tell the story of the league from then on. What teams and players dominated? Which teams and player turned out to be real disappointments?

So I suppose the hints for writing a good dynasty are:

1. Don't imitate anyone, unless you like their formats a lot -- I get all kinds of inspiration reading other people's posts.

2. Write about the aspect of baseball that interests you.

3. Use the spellchecker -- don't let bad grammar give the reader displeasure.

4. Stick with it, even when no one is reading or commenting -- it takes time to build a readership.

The Dynasty Writers Manual (Unofficial), from OOTP

On the OOTP boards, darkcloud4579 started a thread called The Dynasty Writers Manual (Unofficial). I felt it was definitely worth writing about.

Too many times have I read dynasties that weren't that great, and I wanted to give advice to people as to how they could make their dynasties better. However, I don't give that kind of advice because people might be offended. ("How dare you suggest my dynasty needs improvement!") Furthermore, I've also read fantastic dynasties that just dropped off the face of the earth.

Reading this thread, I was surprised at how great and to-the-point the following ideas were. Therefore, I have copied and pasted all across the thread, unfortunately, without point-by-point attribution. If you're an OOTP writer, and you see your stuff here...well, I'll let it be known to what few readers I have that aside from minor edits, I wrote none of what follows below. If you're interested in commenting, go to the hyperlink thread above, join the OOTP board, and talk to those that crafted the rules below....

1. Keep the ideas small.

There isn't a point in listing absolute mundane details. Find a key story, that gives folks something easy to wrap their minds into and get engrossed into quickly. Then dive right in.

2. Stat dumps...probably won't work here.

Unless it's presented in an interesting way, dropping a bombshell of stats on people early on, is a surefire way to generally bore most of a reading audience. And more important, who the heck wants to write something that bores them as a WRITER?

3. Meat and potatoes.

I think that it's got to be something that fills people up on the cheap. It needs to be catchy and maybe it'll have some flaws here and there or be a little rough around the edges. But...I think if you can basically transmit the idea that 'here's who the dynasty is about or this is what team we're talking about...here's the main idea, let's go on a little trip.' I think that it'll leave people wanting more...and begging for more detail or more of "this" and less "of that."

4. Planning.

One thing that separates a decent dynasty from a great one is planning. When a dynasty writer has plotted out the path (in at least general terms, if not specific) of the story, the main characters, the focus, and has given some thought as to how/when the story will end, it clearly shows. I'm not saying that a good dynasty can't be written "on the fly", but when the time is put in up front, I believe the dynasty turns out better.

What sorts of posts are you going to make? Is it going to be mostly a stat dump? Mostly story? A hybrid? Like Dagrims said, have some things planned out in advance. Having the bones of the story planned in advance makes it a lot easier for you in the future, but leave room to take new directions as they suggest themselves. OOTP is great at giving you story lines.

5. Spelling, punctuation and grammar ALL COUNT.

Yes, I know you're not professional writers (though some of you are good enough to be), but if a reader has to wade his way through endlessly long paragraphs, incorrect use of 'you're', your' and 'yore'/ 'to', 'too' and 'two', no (or incorrect) capitalization, or a mysterious lack of periods, you're going to lose them.

Spell checkers, grammar and reasonable sentence/paragraph length are your friends. Moreover, they're your readers' friends. You don't have to be perfect. Some great dynasties are written by people who aren't spelling and grammar whizzes. But sloppy spelling, structure and grammar make you look sloppy, and it's not much fun to have to work at reading something.

6. Do your research.

When I read a story set in the 1920s, and the writer's talking about wondering what round he'll be selected in the amateur draft, mentioning teammates with Hispanic surnames or watching games on television, he's lost me.

7. Write about a story that interests you.

Yeah, the goal is to get lots of people interested and posting lots of comments and raving about how fantastic your work is, but the first rule should almost certainly be: write about a story that interests you. Why? Even the most fantastic dynasties/stories/novels/whatever ever written were, at some point, hard to write. You need that nagging feeling at the back of your mind, telling you to get back to writing, when times get tough. The initial rush of excitement is great, and you get through a lot of writing in a hurry, but it ain't gonna last. Believe me.

8. Dole out your posts.

That brings me to my next point: don't blow through an entire 10 posts at once when you first post your thread, even if you've got them written in advance. Dole them out. Let people read and get started before they're confronted with 10 posts at once. Don't take too long, of course, because that'll make people think you never intend to update it again, but take a day or two between posts for a little while. It'll save you from getting to the burnout point too quickly, and it'll allow you to build a readership.

9. Know how much you can bite off.

If you're just getting into dynasty writing, I can tell you that a dynasty trying to track all of a 30-team league, complete with standings, player reports, stories, so on and so forth, is going to be too much, unless you're independently wealthy and have nothing else to do but sit at the computer.

10. Don't try and be fancy.

Images are nice, but don't make them the focal point. If you try and make your posts look visually unusual, a lot of times it's just going to be distracting for the reader and hard for you to keep up. There are exceptions to that, but they're the exceptions.

11. Read those dynasties, and make comments.

To write a good dynasty, read a lot of dynasties, and comment on them. If you want people to read yours, you should be reading theirs.

Try to comment! Not getting comments can be extremely discouraging to new writers - even to vets. What do you say? Anything you want, from "Good job" through "I'm reading" to "Wow, what just happened?" Speculate on what will happen next. Offer suggestions. I can't speak for anyone else, but personally I listen very closely to what my readers say...and if it makes sense and won't wreck the story I'll try to fit it in.

12. Write your posts offline and save copies.

Because if the Baseball Mogul or OOTP boards crash, you're going to be very, very angry when all that hard work disappears.

13. Ask the readers questions.

Is your league facing a crisis? Does a team have to move? Did the game manage to give your team a roster that MIGHT win one game in ten? Get their feedback. Readers like to feel involved. It gives them a personal stake. I suspect that's why "add a player" dynasties are so popular.