many people on the forums appreciate everything you do- don’t let those black sheep ruin it; You can take your time, but don’t let them bring you down.
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Okay, well, I was going to write tonight, but my electricity decided to
sooooo I guess I can post an slight update here. I pushed an update for my story the past few days, and it has been relatively well received, from the feedback I’ve gotten, so I’m happy about that. A big chunk of the update was concerning fight scenes, which I had technically never written before, so the fact I didn’t get any “pls change” makes me happy.
That aside, I’ve also begun setting up some hints about what the plot will eventually expand into, though I don’t think it’s something anyone will figure out quite yet (which I am glad for, of course. nfufufufu. 
).
Anyway! It’s been somewhat of a productive month for me, which I’m glad for.
My biggest struggle is deciding whether or not I will add a shy-version for the MC when choosing which to RO to fall for. It’s a legitimate request, and although I’m glad to have it be brought up, it slightly clashes with some stuff that I had planned regarding the MC. That and I don’t really feel comfortable writing shy romances, it’s something that makes me feel uncomfortable. I get enough shyness in the real world as is.
For March, I have a few plans, but I’ll keep those for the appropiate thread.
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Welp. One of my routes got slightly more complicated than I intended it to be. I want to focus on getting all the varying narratives for the options done (look around, call police, call dad, head straight home) before I have each of them branch out into three possible routes.
I feel like that will be a lot easier since there won’t be an issue with continuity but it’s also very disjointed since I stop writing when the tension spikes and go back to the beginning of each option and build up the tension for that particular route again.
I’m also conflicted on whether or not have the tension spike earlier in certain routes… which basically means I would be ‘punishing’ the player for choosing the option.
For instance, if you take the option to look behind you to try and get a good look at what’s chasing you, you stand less of a chance of being caught off guard than if you just went straight home without looking behind you.
Although I think I can mitigate this by having an invisible skill check happen (invisible in that I’m not telling the player that they’re going to be tested by giving them the indicator in an option) and go from there.
Hopefully it doesn’t suck.
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I think you should go back and examine why, exactly, the tension exists.
Tension for tension alone will create many more problems than you see currently.
Linking tension back to the reasons that tension exist should help you figure a way forward … one that fits your story and game, both.
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As lame as it sounds, it exists because the little voice in the back of your head is ringing the alarm bell that ‘something is watching you’. And in this case, something is definitely watching you.
Subtract the fantasy elements and it’s basically a Friday night on the town gone horribly wrong.
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Well, I managed the first, minus a day or two here or there, and the third. The second was about 2k short, but still quite close! In general, I’m quite pleased with this month’s progress! If I can carry it forward into next month, I should be on the cusp of a chapter release for each project by the end of March, which is very exciting!
How’d everyone else do overall this month?
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So, important note-- i did not do this! And that’s okay. It is going to be my March goal to finish the draft, tho
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I did it! I just reached 30,000 words for this month. And there was no crying!
Well, on another note, I wasn’t able to keep my promise to upload chapter 1 at the end of February. A lot of variations happened, and although I’m almost done with it, I still want to glance over my own work first. It’s quite bigger than the prologue was so the delay might be for 1 or 2 days.
While the prologue showed the setting, this one will show the overall mood and how different the place is compared to a common city.
It has been a challenge to do that while making sure that every character I introduced shows depth and realistic reactions. But it was an exciting one.
And I’m looking forward to uploading it.
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Congratulations!
30k is amazing!
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A mixed month here. A slow start and a slow middle didn’t help.
I also realised there were more intricate complexities required to make the overall game design hang together (and not yet convinced that I have cracked it).
So no WiP posted and no immediate sign of it either - but I think I have a path forward to achieving it. I’m up to about 6,000 words and expect to need 10-15,000 to have a WiP ready.
The one other problem is that I’m fairly sure that this idea doesn’t pan out into a full game or story (or at least, not one people want to read or play). But I am determined to get a WiP out before I consider abandoning ship. I’ve never written properly before or put any work out there for public comment, so I think its invaluable that I show this off and see what people think. But it has made it hard to progress when I’m not 100% convinced by what I’m writing.
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Did slow at the beginning of the month, then gangbusters in the middle, then majorly slowed up with some sleep issues and other distractions. Had some prayers answered the last couple days, managed to hit both my main goal (which is to do 10k every month this year, currently 2/2) and my secondary goal (if possible to also increase the amount by 1,000 each month, meaning 11k for February, 12k for March, and so on). Final month’s tally was 11,125 words. Celebrating a bit by taking the rest of the night off and watching Fargo while enjoying a bit of guilt-free Gemp. Glad to hear some other folks have hit goals, especially @Shai_Manahan with that massive 30k! Hope everyone has a solid March as well.
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Well, February is over in 2 hours. I’m not getting my goal reached this month.
On a side note, I’m thinking of hosting a writing competition very similar to CScomp.
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February was… weird: I actually wrote somethhig and was not much, but I don’t remember what aside a couple of things.
My major progress:
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Thank you to @Shai_Manahan for the help with the “chosen ones” tropes;
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I shared one of my “original” fantasy races with my readers group, two of them had different views about them but they liked them;
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On other one (one of my 3 Elven races) has been officially demoted to extra: at first they had to have one major character joining the protagints’ fellowship, but I realized that they were just a nerfed version of another race (more relevant plotwise) with a different culture. So now their role is reduced to the political subplot and the science vs magic subplot
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Well, I sort of finished interlude number 1. (although the end is a bit messy)
wrote a bunch of stuff for chapter 3 - although it’s not done, my goodness chapter 3 is going to be the writing hill I die on, finishing it is hard. and since I did not get that done, I did not start chapter 4. 
But on the plus side, Character Profiles!!! The back story for my primary antagonist alone, Extinction, is over 1000 words and that’s not even getting into other spoilerific things about him… that I have touched on in his back story document but I won’t go into detail with. I am also not done with said backstory document, so I’ll be writing that now!
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Didn’t set a goal for February but I’ve got my story premise laid out and I’ve got a short prologue written, so I’ll take that as a win. I’ll set myself a proper daily writing goal and the goal to get at least a chapter done by the end of next month perhaps. Feels like I can make progress now that I have a set goal in mind which is a good feeling to have. Hope everybody is doing okay with their writing too. 
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I’ve not met this goal - but I have about 5k words written this far, with an additional 2k to be inserted in a later part. Ended up throwing out about 3k words, which was a painful but necessary decision.
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On a side note, I’m thinking of hosting a writing competition very similar to CScomp.
Please do!
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My February ended and my March began with Quicktest being buggy and causing an “error” when it should not have.
This caused me to try to solve an “error” in my game which did not exist in reality and kept me up as February turned into March.
Despite this red herring of a false positive, I ended the month better than it began.
My February goals will roll over into March…
With that I will go open the March thread.
Thank you everyone who is participating in these. Your time and effort in doing so is appreciated, even if not directly called out as such.
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I realized when I saw the new thread that I never actually posted my February goals. This was mostly because I got caught up in some personal goals that I’d rather not discuss (health-related), and that took up a bulk of my time and especially mental energy. I recall opening the thread in a tab and meaning to post an update, but I somehow never came around to it.
Progress remains steady and slow, but nothing to write home about. I realize now that I created a set list of goals for the week, but not for the month, so I think I’ll get on that today. It’s good to have some accountability. It helps me not to get mired in chores.
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