Advice on writing race reports and are pictures good for adding to race report?

[mynameissport]

Hi forum and all the people who are reading this......

I just wanted to know, after writing two race reports and geting some feedback, I am asking the GTP forum and the people what makes a good race report, what should be included and how can you go around writing a good report. What makes a good race report interesting compared to a normal race report.

Also I am just asking, is it good to put pictures in your race report i.e. saving a replay then use photo drive mode and save it via usb stick so you can use it to the net. I have tried looking around on what resolution to save the images on the forum but have had no luck. So I was asking you guys what resolution should you save the images for race reports and what is the best place to put images on. I am sure it is located somewhere in the forum but after spending an hour looking for it I have had no luck, so if you find the advice let me know.

Also how many pictures should be the limit, because I am thinking of writing the Grand Turismo World Championship and there are 10 races which will make a long long race report and was thinking of adding images into the report to make it interesting. So what are your thoughts about it.

Anyway feedback and comments welcome

MYNAMEISSPORT

 

[-Dell-]

I think pictures brighten it up a bit and add to the more professional feel of it all. When I get my pictures for race reports, I go onto ImageShack and resize them to 640x480 resolution, and then center the picture when posting.

 

[Moloch_horridus]

Smallhorses writes the best race reports imho - have a look at a few of his. Old Geezer and Greycap are also among the best.

I am not a great fan of the "I got a phone call from Joe Bloggs who wanted me to drive his car so I packed my bags..." style of report, but many others are. If you are going to go down this route try and make it different somehow.

The two most important things are a good writing style and inclusion of sufficient relevant detail. A brief summary at the start is also nice - I get a bit annoyed when I have read several paragraphs assuming the race was run in a-spec only to find it is being run in b-spec (I personally think a race report on a b-speced event is absurd unless there is a very good reason to write it).

 

[dylansan]

I'm thinking of doing more reports, and the best advice I can give is to make sure people understand what's happening early on. I like to give details about the lineup, including color of the cars, HP, etc. as well as A or B-spec, and (if A-spec, which it usually is) the A-spec points. I also write the report, then take pictures of the most important parts during the event. That way I can match the pictures with the report instead of stay pictures of unrelated things.

Also try and get a race that was interesting in the first place. Nobody wants to read a 10 paragraph story of how you won/lost by 20+ seconds. Try to keep it very close with similar if not outclassed cars. Read my "Alfa vs. Renault" report for an idea.

If you want a story line, don't go into huge detail about tyhe plot. Try and keep most of the story about the actual race(s).

Good luck! 👍 Hope this helps!

 

[Tornado]

A main reccomendation? Finish them. I've written two, niether of which were finished. I still wanna go back and finish one of them, though, as it hasn't been done since and I'm still kinda interested on the subject.

 

[Duke]

Smallhorses writes the best race reports imho - have a look at a few of his. Old Geezer and Greycap are also among the best.

Agreed! They're great.

In my own race reports - most of which were for GT3 - I tried to give a concise but detailed account of how each race went so it could be used for information about what to expect. That's always what I look for in other people's race reports - a very good idea of what the race is like before I decide how to run it myself.

I always tried to use good, factual information, such as:

• Field, and my qualifying position (usually don't qualify)
• What I was driving, including tire choice and mods
• Unsuccessful cars I audition before selecting one (too fast or too slow)
• My total time and MOV
• My fast lap and average lap times
• My pit interval, and pit inervals of major competitors
• My settings

Along with that, I include a subjective decision of how the AI field behaves; who are hooked up and who are loose cannons. I'll also include any changes I make to the car, and why.

Between all that, my reports got plenty long on their own - I didn't need to add a lot of fake 'race career' jazz to pad them out. As mentioned above, some people really like that, and it's fine if you do. I just prefer to get as much information across as possible while still making it readable and not too dry.

 

[dylansan]

• Unsuccessful cars I audition before selecting one (too fast or too slow)
• My total time and MOV
• My fast lap and average lap times
• My pit interval, and pit inervals of major competitors
• My settings

I'm actually learning something from this thread. I'll try to keep those in mind (I usually already do the other ones)

 

[Smallhorses]

Hi mynameissport,

Use coloured or bold text to make the grid format, and the title stand out, as you did really well in your RUF 3400S reports. 👍

I like to use a variety of smileys at appropriate junctures to highlight moments of skillfullness, scariness or stupidity!

As far as pictures go, I save them in super high quality to the USB drive, and then use Microsoft Picture editor to resize them to 384 x 288 pixels (can't remember whether that's 30% or 35% of their original size! ) which is a perfect size for fitting 2 images across a standard sized GT Planet report on my browser, with a single space between them. It's something I only got into recently after seeing some of AMG.'s excellent reports, prior to that I'd shunned photomode, like B-Spec, for being a waste of GT4 diskspace!

My collected works are here, to save you searching! Smallhorses' Race Report Link Dump.

I've used that format for my Polyphony Digital Cup report, and a few others since then. The pictures shouldn't be so large as to overshadow the text, but can be used to illustrate critical points of your story. I personally like to try and illustrate overtaking manouevers, but in an endurance race where you only get the first 40 minutes of the race replay to play with it's sometimes not possible to catch them all. Good scenery or race events not even involving your own car are sometimes a nice inclusion.
There's really not a limit to number of pictures, (actually there is, 100 per post, but you don't want to go there! ) but I used about 11 per race, for PD Cup, and 20 or so for some endurance races. Don't just use pictures for pictures sake though. Having said that, I used 20 or more in a 3 lap race report in the Ford Taurus SHO! Have a read and let me know whether you think it's too much, or adds to the excitement.

Smallhorses writes the best race reports imho - have a look at a few of his. Old Geezer and Greycap are also among the best.

Agreed! They're great.

Thanks guys! I must add that AMG. set a precedent with some of his pictorials, niky with his "Road & Track" articles, and more recently Snyp has produced some great work, to name but a few! Sadly Old Geezer doesn't visit us here anymore, but his reports were what got me hooked back in the GT3 days! 👍

 

[AMG.]

Ive just quickly reviewed my race reports and find that I’m rather consistent in the way I put the start middle and end together.
Usually something along the lines of
Start
Event
Points
Lineup
Mods used in the race
Middle
The race
Pics
More race
Pics
End
Results

I also add my motivation for running this race. In my case that’s still to obtain 200 points. I haven’t yet progressed to close racing for the fun of it.
Emoticons are used moderately. I’ve always enjoyed Old Geezer’s reports and emoticons were his trademark. Imho too many can distract from the actual story.
I try to inject a bit fantasy in to the story but not too much. I don’t consider myself a good story writer. Reading only dry facts I find quite boring.

Now that we have track maps available I will be using those in my next story/ies to make it a bit easier for readers to visualise where something happens.
On occasion someone will write “and in corner X of track Y we collided ….” And I’m trying my hardest to figure out where corner X is.

I think we all take inspiration from each other, I’ve always enjoyed Smallhorses reports. He’s quite fond of the word lap and I’ve in a playful way been teasing him about it . But there’s no avoiding this word in a race-report.

Greycap’s fantasy stories I find quite enjoyable too. There’s a lot of work involved and he puts real effort in to his pictures too. There are more people out there that I admire so don't feel left out if you’re reading this.

W.r.t. picture usage. I believed my 3 next-to-each-other pictures were well within the width of a 17inch 1024 pixel screen but just found out that I still need to right scroll to see them. And I did calculate widths to ensure this would not happen.
My own screen setting is 1280pix / 19inch screen.
So in future I will not do that again and will limit it to 2 next to each other and not wider than 350 pixels, or keep my current layout which is 2 large pics underneath each other. If the pictures complement the story it makes a story stronger too. E.g. https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=81068 El Capitan Picture #6.

Layout is also an important factor. If it is pleasing to the eye it is more of a joy to read a report.
Good example https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=90149
Bad example https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=81068 because of the layout of the pictures; it is a mix and match threes & fours. It was my first report.

Most important: Don’t let you audience hanging. Finish your story, always. If you don’t your credibility will be shot sooner than you can say “ but I ”.

1 I have tried looking around on what resolution to save the images
2 what is the best place to put images on.
3 Also how many pictures should be the limit, because I am thinking of writing the Grand Turismo World Championship and there are 10 races which will make a long long race report

1. On a 17 inch monitor at 1024 resolution approx 200 pixels are used for the ‘avatar’ area where you seen your name. That leaves 1000 pixels for the post.
I would suggest to limit the width of a single picture 600 - 750 pixels. If you’re putting 2 pics next to each other then 750/2. If you have some decent photosoftware a file size of not more than 100-120 Kb jpg should be more than sufficient for the web / GTP. Please don't upload 3Mb 700 pixel wide pics to the web. 1 a monitor will not show a better quality. 2 Dial up users will ‘hate’ you for it.

2. Imageshack (create a free account so you can keep track of your images)

3. I’d suggest you break up your report in to multiple posts. E.g. 2 posts - 5races or 5 posts - 2races. Try and find a balance between text and pics.

That's my 2 cents worth.

AMG.