Brood. Do whatever I feel like on any given day. And sleep way too much.
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(But do you feel fine?)
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Downright joyous, actually!
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Same! And the most annoying yet complementing part is them reading your work and thinking it’s AI made 
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Ha, one does worry about that. I think AI’s love of using some of the same words that I like (i.e. whisper) really doesn’t help either, although at least for me I’d need some sort of poor dysfunctional AI that loves grammar and spelling errors to adequately simulate my own writing 
Nearly to the finish line on my monthly goals now, though both will be a bit shorter and more abrupt than what I had hoped. That’s the nice thing about having another month and year coming up - plenty of time to write and code what I haven’t yet then.
Ha, for one of my new year’s resolutions, I pledge to read other WIPs and games more, as I have so fallen behind on all that. Which is a shame as there are so many good works in progress and recently completed by the looks of things.
For those that celebrate, merry christmas y’all!
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My friends, I have two questions. I’ve read a few books on how to outline a story, and while most of them present the same format, just with different names or stages (change in the status quo > reluctance to accept > forced to accept > small victories mixed with small defeats > big defeat right after a big victory > all is lost > light at the end of the tunnel > the hero wins i.e. Aragorn’s arc in LOTR.) Having said that, how do you adapt this to the protagonist of an IF? Unlike Aragorn, he’s a blank slate. You can create a background of dreams, fears, and goals, but at a certain point, it’s out of your hands. How do you balance the customization of an IF protagonist without taking away the reader’s autonomy, or at least, how do you maintain the illusion when it’s not possible to extend that autonomy in the first place?
Furthermore, I think we can agree that IFs have two types of stories: one in which the protagonist is in stasis waiting for you, the reader, to “put on” his mask and be “him”, and another in which the protagonist has a life “off the page”, and your story is just you puppeteering the strings of a specific part of his life, which will continue after the story. In the first case, it’s much easier for you to “be” the protagonist than in the second, where there’s a distance between you, the human, and him, the character. Blank slate/semi blank slate IF protagonists have a serious problem with being outshined by the other characters in their own story. To create more vague protagonists, how do you make them more interesting without having to give up or compromise the opportunity for the reader to shape them in their own image? How do you make the reader feel like an Aragorn, rather than just a parasitic intruder controlling their mind temporarily?
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I wanted to pop back in with an update, after being quiet for a while. I got a surgery two weeks ago that was supposed to have done the week before Thanksgiving, but kept getting pushed back.
I’ve barely written anything after, and I feel really bad that I’m not writing. (Even though I have a completely valid reason for not doing it.) I was making such good progress the first week of the month that I’d hoped I could push out an update by January. I just hate feeling behind, even when the deadline are self imposed and completely arbitrary.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I’ve been telling my family that I write for a job since I’ve been home for the holidays, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised how supportive everyone has been. (I was prepared for people to say I can’t write for a job since I haven’t published anything yet, but nobody has.)
I don’t know. I’ve been think about this a lot myself recently, but the best I’ve come up with so far is to tie the MC character arc to an aspect of the plot that is unchangeable. But that’s all I’ve got so far. Sorry, it’s not more helpful.
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@Cat-Toes I hope things went smoothly and your recovery goes well. I’m glad to hear about your family being supportive about your work!
I don’t use a structure like the Hero’s Journey etc, but I like to give the PC a variety of goals. Some in line with the game’s premise, some that are against it - but that you can’t access on every playthrough. This helps me put the various plots together and figure out different ways of navigating each plotline.
As for agency, I try to keep the following in mind:
(This ended up being a very long post so I’ve edited with the details tag)
Read more
- Respect player’s choices: don’t do things like “you start to think you want to go through that door, then realise you should actually talk to the dragon instead”
- Be very sparing when overriding player preferences, especially if it can result in player failure or looking silly (eg “you automatically offend the visiting dragon dignitary because you didn’t know that offering meat was a faux pas” is very unlikely to be received well)
- Don’t assume what the PC is feeling about a situation; giving self-expressive choices will help a player feel like the PC is their own.
By making a game and story that doesn’t feel like it would work with another protagonist. That doesn’t mean the PC has to be the most powerful or influential in the story. But if the PC, premise, and storyline mesh together well, few players will be thinking “why aren’t I playing as that other guy”.
And by allowing the player to shape their character within certain bounds of scope. I love hearing about people’s PC’s journeys through my games and how they can be different: for me that’s a big part of what makes them interesting and it’s a lot of fun writing responsively to player decisions about their character.
The things I keep in mind with that is:
- again, not assuming that the PC has an opinion or feeling about something. This can be softened by writing something like “you were always brought up to see dragons as scary and horrifying” and giving the player the chance to think “… And I see that they’re just as horrifying as the stories said” or “…but now I’m getting to know one, I wonder if that’s true” and some things in between
- not assuming that a particular relationship exists between a PC and NPC. If there’s a longstanding friendship that feels necessary, allow for even a little friction - players will be much happier seeing a choice like “they’re being a bit clingy, I’d like to spend time with other people too” even if they don’t choose it rather than being told “you’ve continued to be inseparable forever”.
- Conversely, when there are elements that are inherent to the PC, so write them mindfully. eg: If you want to write the PC being a confident flirt no matter what, don’t include a “shy” personality stat/option because players will go “how come my PC is charming everyone at the dragon party when I said earlier on that I always prefer to stay at the edge of things?” Or, still with that example, give the player the option to choose nuances within a band of flirtiness-levels.
Personally, I enjoy games with set or quasi-set protagonists very much but I think they work best when the writer leans into the narrative voice enough to feel that you’re inhabiting the character. When that happens, it can be great; if it doesn’t go hard enough it can feel like a bit of a limbo between customisable and set, where fewer people will be satisfied.
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It’s almost the end of december…
Does anyone know if the January thread has been set up yet?
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I don’t think anything has been set in stone, though @AletheiaKnights mentioned she would like to contribute - Aletheia, would you like to create the thread for January? Or if someone else would like to, please put up a metaphorical hand and folks can take it turns month to month.
I will post it if no one has volunteered by New Year’s Eve, but have no sense of ownership about it or anything of that sort; just to let people know that there’s a backup if needed.
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Sure, I can create the new thread, if y’all don’t mind that I’m not, y’know, actually a writer myself.
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Honestly, I think you’re the perfect ambassador for the writer’s thread. You have a deep appreciation of writing in general and IF specifically. You’ve read most of the games out there, and it’s almost more fair if you create the threads so it’s not one specific author taking the helm. (Though I think it’s very kind of @HarrisPS to offer!) My thoughts, anyway. 
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Agreed, I was thinking exactly along those lines and you’ve put it better than I could myself 
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Thank you!!!
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I’m feeling cautiously optimistic for the new year. I’ve got a writing plan in mind which I hope will both let me focus and prevent me from writers block.
I am setting myself a word goal each month similar to NaMoWriMo of 1,666 words a day. However, I am going to split that goal between two projects; UnNatural Season Three and Quiver. So each day I will write 833 words for each project which I believe is both manageable and will help me not get too bogged down with a project.
I also got myself a brand new PC to help me in this endeavour.
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Then unless anyone else objects or volunteers, I guess it’ll be me. I’ll plan on having a post up late Tuesday evening, my time. (My time zone is adjacent to Eiwynn’s, so there shouldn’t be too big a change in that regard.)
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If you feel this as a reader, then I’d nudge you toward writing a more defined protagonist. Writing what satisfies you is pretty much always the best policy…it doesn’t guarantee sales, but then nothing does, and it does markedly increase your chances of finishing your WIP.
If you’re personally on the fence in your taste in protagonists, though…I’m not sure most readers find it a “serious problem.” There’s clearly a big audience who are happy to experience a game protagonist as the window through which they see the world/story, and as long as they’re given agency, they don’t mind that they’re not given much in the way of character detail.
A contingent of that audience actually prefer blanker slates because the protagonist they care about lives in their imagination, and the author inserting reactions, history, etc can get in the way of that.
The pitfall to avoid, in my book, is a story that doesn’t feel meaningfully affected by the protagonist’s choices. Big shares of our audience want quite different things from characters, but very, very few of them are here for a plot where the MC is a bystander/ observer rather than an agent of change.
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@Nocturnal_Stillness The setup looks gorgeous! Love the Tali figures 
I hope your plan proves positive - it can be useful to have a structure in mind to push onward.
@AletheiaKnights That’s lovely - thank you so much.
@Havenstone I totally agree, especially this good advice which covers all the bases no matter where the PC sits on the defined/blank spectrum:
Having not written for six days, I’m suddenly bubbling over with ideas, haha!
The novel(la) idea I have is good, I think, but it needs more cooking to flesh out the protagonist; it would also work very well as a game. Then there’s something else I’m outlining. Then I have two different ideas knocking around that are both probably Heart’s Choice concepts - one male-MC-locked, one variable - which are very interesting to me although either would be something to do on the side (of all the other things I’m doing, heh).
And related to the thing I’m actually currently working on, I’m raring to push onward with my Project Amble project, as I’m maybe a week or two away from drafting the chapter and I’m keen to see how the transition into the second chapter feels when I get there.
…is this what feeling more refreshed is like? 
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Thanks Harris. Yes I’m a proud Talimancer so she gets center place in my setup. Also got my Shepard and Garrus Funkos with the Tali one as that was my preferred squad.
Also not in the picture is the Tali romance bundle I got for Christmas
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I was so excited to tell you I posted my monthly update to CoGDemos but it is breaking on the NEXT to last page. Grr. I posted about it here. I hope to get it working soon and posted before the new year - wish me luck!
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