Reading Behind the Lines

I've developed a kind of secret language for recording my own story ideas. Part of running a roleplaying game is keeping everything adaptable, so I can't write actual scripts, rather I have to know the core principle behind that story point, and my notes are almost indecipherable to anyone but me, because I very rarely write out any actual detail, I simply have a phrase which is both the name, and the key reminding point of the story.

It makes for a bit of a sloppier continuity then could exist, but it allows me to be incredibly fluid with the story, and to terrorize my roommates who can often find a vast indecipherable web of these phrases diagrammed across my whiteboard.

Recently I've begun using a compliment to this system in the form of my iPod's "Vigilance" playlist. While many of the songs are simply catered to the feel of the setting, there are also some which are used as reminders of potential stories/monsters. The thing about this is the sheer variety of the songs, and the thing that makes it creepy is how innocnet some of the songs would be if you encountered them anywhere else.

The Horror game implications of "Shhh..." by the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, or "Isolated" by Chiasm are obvious. Some songs, like "Still" by the Ghetto Boys are already violent in nature. But if it wasn't in the Vigilance playlist would you ever think twice about the immortal Billie Holiday's "Crazy he calls me."