Every Session Tells a Story: Colin Moulder-McComb on Gaming & Writing

Colin Moulder-McComb writes Now, the Twist, a regular column for Kobold Quarterly.  He recently contributed an essay on the game Hive to James Lowder’s Family Games: The 100 Best.  Moulder-McComb is also the founding CEO of 3lb Games.  I’ve been thinking a lot about 3lb Games’ mission statement this holiday season as my family and I spend many glorious hours playing games, writing, drawing, and reading.  The first paragraph reads as follows:

When learning is fun–and learning should be fun–it awakens in us our natural curiosity. With computers at our fingertips and our daily pace moving faster all the time, we have a unique opportunity to transform learning into a lifelong journey of joy and wonder.


Not a bad way to look at life, I’d say.  Below, Moulder-McComb talks about clarity, precision, and finding meaning through playing games and writing.

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What has playing games taught you about writing?

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Colin Moulder-McComb:  There is a time and place for flowery writing. That time is not when you are crafting rules. At that time, you need to hit the facts with clarity and precision–if you err, you could ruin your game. It’s important to know when to use the prose, when to move to clarity, and when to focus on facts.

An additional lesson: Every session of play tells a story.

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Is there a game every writer should try?

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Colin Moulder-McComb:  I love Cosmic Encounter, in part because its possibilities and combinations seem limitless, and while every game begins with the basic structure, it is in the particular alien races that the whole game goes wildly awry. It’s a fantastic, fun experience.

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In what ways does playing games enhance your creativity?

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Colin Moulder-McComb:  I started playing Dungeons & Dragons around age 10, and while I had enjoyed many other games, none of them caught my imagination quite like AD&D. It opened many doors to me, and it formed a lens through which I viewed much of my early years. From there, other games became not just about moving pieces around the board, but about telling stories, and I learned to find meaning in other parts of life as well… and at its heart, isn’t that what writing is about?

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Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher.  He is the staff Interviewer for Clarkesworld Magazine and a frequent contributor to Kobold Quarterly.  He teaches at Wofford College and Montessori Academy in Spartanburg, SC.  He is also the director of Shared Worlds, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and Jeff VanderMeer designed in 2006.