Awesome snippet Lili … grabbed my attention right away.
Hi all. This is my first time posting in a writer’s thread here. My goals for Dec are to make progress on chapter 3 of my WIP for HC, plus do revisions on chapter 2 when I get those notes. This is my second IF game and wow is it ever easier than writing the first. Practice and all that.
Good luck to everyone with your writing goals (and life in general).
May the words be with us!
You’re writing another HC game? Awesome!
Maybe…
Best of luck with the new game!! I adore starting a new game after learning a ton from an earlier one - it’s a great feeling having built up practice and getting into the zone. Hope it’s going great!
Thank you! Yes, that’s such a good feeling. It’s going really well. I’m coming to this story with a ton of world building already done, which helps things flow. I think one of the best things about drafting is learning more about the characters as each section and scene unfolds.
I am happy you have decided to do so, so thank you for helping to make the support thread this month a success!
YES. I got feedback!
I have no idea what went wrong with the code, but now’s the time to cleverly add foreshadowing while I hunt bugs!
I once thought I was too obvious with my foreshadowing in a novel. On the level of “I am going to betray you in Chapter 5” and then they betray you in Chapter 5.
People still thought it came out of nowhere. Foreshadow more than you think.
I believe this is formally known as the “Illusion of Transparency” principle. And more commonly known as the “your readers think about the stuff you write far less than you do, don’t be a smartass” principle. Either way, it’s certainly something to keep in mind.
My classes end this week, for better or for worse ! So I’ll be able to do some writing over break. I’m hoping to get a chapter written for one of my projects this month, and then I can work on coding. I don’t like coding while writing, because it’s too distracting. One of my projects (my favorite one, at the moment), is kinda unconventional. Instead of one timeline with multiple ROs, I have two timelines with an RO each. Hopefully people like it, because it just came to me, and I really like it. And the endings are all kinda bittersweet. It’s based around a (debated) Greek myth, and there wasn’t a way for it to be totally happy
I still haven’t gotten past the “this sucks and is boring” part. I’m just writing and deleting stuff. I honestly wish people didn’t care about word count so much (or maybe I wish I didn’t want to let good be the enemy of great so much.)
How do you say “this is good enough, let’s continue” when you can always make it better?
Right now, there is too much “telling” and not enough “showing”.
Recognize that your first draft is just that. Completing the first draft is the hardest obstacle, and once it is done, you can work on everything else. Word count, editing, rewriting and everything else can all be addressed once your first draft is completed.
I am trying to figure out the don’t deleting part. I only ending things with a external deadline; as I have a forced schedule I know that I have to do the schedule.
Without that I am totally incapable of ending and I and in a erasing spiral.
So you are not alone on that. My advice is trying to get into a jam or small contest and starting from that to learn a pattern of respect schedules and cope with the fact that the scene is now like this I would edit if needed later
I’ll allow myself to tweak it a little as I’m writing, but as soon as I start getting urges to tinker with complete sentences and paragraphs I set it aside and move on.
That said I doubt I’m the best person here for drafting as that initial writing does have a lot of consideration for me.
I do this too but I came from the angle/experience of Game-Mastering ttrpgs that encourages more straightforward “telling” as much if not more than trying to show but not actually getting understood by the players. Granted, if the “showing” is well-written and does convey the meaning clearly, then that’s the best case. But as others have said, first draft first. Put down the details that must be understood, then can iteratively edit the “too much telling” part into something you would feel is more in line with the advice of “show don’t tell.” It’s good practice.
I really need to write down all today’s idea and story notes, before I fall asleep and end up forgetting.
But it’s so hard to concentrate, when I’m this tired.
Something that helps me get ideas stored when I am too tired:
Audio logs! I know, it probably sounds like I’m leaving collectibles for an open world rpg, but they take like 5 minutes to create. Just speak into your phone, or something that will record a voice clip. meaning you can rest easy, knowing your ideas can be replayed tommorow.
It didn’t before you mentioned it, but I guess I’ve been dealing with too much of text-to-speech lately
It’s a great idea!
Though I don’t know if it would work for me, personally. Both because I have even more trouble turning my thoughts into spoken language than written word, and because I’m hit very badly by the whole ‘absolutely can’t stand hearing your own voice’ problem.