Try to think: “fewer praises, but better praises” the ones that count.
Unless of curse you enjoy being the Sokrates of this forum
@poison_mara You’re aren’t shit. You’ve been a massive support to a lot of people on the journey you’re going through.
Sorry to hear your heart has been broken.
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Sometimes I feel more like Diogenes, being treated like a dog nobody wants to keep as the truth they say is not welcomed anywhere.
I enjoy writing and I am too stubborn to stop no matter how much I get hurt in the process like with this last jam. I do my best, and I can’t do anything else than that.
But probably will be years before I try to organize something in this forum again.
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Mmm… Lets see
-
Unable to give birth to the truth
You claim to be unable to write -
Help others to give birth to the truth
You help others to write so… Check -
Question the established order
Check -
Really harsh and annoyng to common sense
Check -
A circle of disceples who are also friend
Check
All you miss are one (or two) annoyng wife/ves, an unfair trail and a death sentence
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I don’t really know you that well as a person, Mara, but I’ve noticed you quite a bit in the forums (I like to lurk a lot, as you can probably tell from my profile stats). I’d just like to say that I really admire you for your tenacity. I know English isn’t your native language, and that you had to improve yourself over the years, and that’s honestly an incredible endeavor. I also like how brutally honest you can be sometimes–it’s quite brave. Not many people are willing to bare their opinions so freely.
Please never stop doing what brings you joy and fulfilment! You’re one of a kind.
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I didn’t expect a lot of replies! Thanks a lot to everyone who chimed in with their thoughts. 
@Eiwynn Thank you for sharing your experiences and the advice. I’m feeling much better now. 
I didn’t realize you were working on a cross-genre story too. And wow, 300k words already!
@Lucid Ah yeah, unfortunately I don’t work that way. I started writing because of NaNoWriMo, and I can’t imagine not sharing my work with anyone. A lot of my ideas came from roleplaying and sharing ideas with others. I’d definitely be stuck!
@Lidell Oh yeah, I also know the feeling of not finding yourself in the recommendations. And speaking of shy people and surveys, my survey results show that there’s almost 80% who prefer to be the follower twin rather than be the leader, which is a little weird considering it’s an interactive story. 
@hustlertwo Yup, I’m mostly writing the story for myself, but especially after my rewrite and seeing all the activity in other WIPs, I guess I set my expectations higher than I should’ve.
I have all the story elements of the genres you mentioned, but I guess cross-genre stories doesn’t have the same appeal (It’s funny though, because superheroes is one of the least popular genres in my survey). Psst, I liked The Parenting Simulator a lot, by the way. Heehee.
@Jose_Garcia I appreciate the recommendation, but I’m not really “stuck” per se. I have more or less a complete outline of my story, and yes, online articles were a lot of help with that. I have the tracks laid out, I just need the extra fuel. 
@poison_mara That’s very kind of you to offer. And sure, if that won’t be too much trouble. I don’t mind unfiltered feedback.
Also, let me echo the sentiment that Shyranno said above—I also lurk a lot and you’ve been a wonderful and admirable member of the community.
@armadillidium Yup, as much as I like the dopamine, hearing criticisms means you know that the reader really cares. Praise isn’t really helpful aside from motivation.
@Ellery Yeah, I was planning on making a Tumblr and a Discord, but I was waiting for my WIP to be updated after I completed my latest chapter. I guess I could set it up a little earlier than I planned.
@Shyranno May I recommend you the Enneagram Personality Test? It focuses on the beliefs, fears, and motivations, and comes with a built in “character arc” for each type. MBTI is useful, but the Enneagram is more writer/character-oriented.
@SpokesWriter Oof, that’s rough. Now I feel a little bad. Yes, for now I’ll try looking for feedback in another platform and be more pro-active in following up. Cheers!
Anyway, good luck to everyone with their projects! 
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I hate to be confrontational, but I’m going to say this without any varnish on it: you are 100% wrong.
I cannot even begin to count the number of helpful (and true) comments you’ve made that have personally benefited me. In fact, I have a “rule of thumb” that if @poison_mara thinks it’s merely acceptable, it’ll be a smash hit with everybody else.
Never change who you are!
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This may seem odd, especially coming from a new user such as myself. But I’ve been lurking the forums for a long time too, prior to making this account.
And I recognize your name, Mara, from many threads here. I remember reading the advice, encouragement, feedback, and comments you have left for so many others - and that is also apparent here, on this very thread. Meeting someone who is truly honest and supportive is really rare. And definitely not something to sneeze at! 
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Oh you brilliant human being! I totally forgot about the Enneagram! Thank you so much! 
And also, I love how you’re responding to everyone individually! Just wonderful.
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If I may, I’d also recommend trying out the Cube personality test and its variants (I believe there’s also the Forest, Oasis, and Castle). Though a little more abstract, it can hopefully shed a little more light on a character’s motivations!
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Thanks everyone for your nice supportive comments, between the last contest results, the terrible fail that is the saint valentine’s jam and the covid jail at home I am not in a happy place right now. So the encouragement is really welcome to make my day better.
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I don’t think I know about those tests! Thank you so much! These will be supremely useful! 
Ugh man. The people here are so great. Like, it fills me with such joy to be here.
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This is going to sound super mean, but yes. Everyone’s writing is absolute shit the first time, the second time, the thirty-fourth time, ect. they write. I think my writing is absolute shit and have to rewrite every scene 47 times before I find one I’m okay with. The issue isn’t “being shit”. The issue is not getting your heart broken at every minor setback. Maybe don’t post the WiP until you’ve had several betas go through and fix everything grammatical (which seems to be an issue of yours, and I’m sure tonnes of people might want to help). Maybe try taking an online creative writing class for fun or something. I spent a lot of time reading and writing to improve my own skills, and I think that that’s helped tremendously. Also, I spent a lot of time comparing the “likes” on my post to the number of likes on posts like OFNA and AoS. And I realised that I was so much happier just… not doing that. I’m gonna write my story, whether others like it or not, you know? Even if it is shit right now, the only way to go is upward.
Okay, this is my truth: self-pity isn’t getting anyone anywhere, but into a state of mind that’s not healthy. Maybe it’s the teenage girl that wants the world to be rainbows and butterflies and thinks that words of affirmation do everything in me, but I firmly believe that rephrasing your sentences might help.
“Each time I have posted a wip or something similar, I learned a lot for next time though the heart break I experienced in the moment.”
“I could’ve done X, X, and X to make my writing better.” – rather than just “I’m shit”.
“I’m going to take some time to reflect and work on myself before I feel comfortable sharing a jam with this forum again.”
It might not seem like a lot, and sure, for some people it doesn’t work, but no matter what it’ll make you feel a little better. Also, this is just my two cents and my more “negative” feedback in comparison to all the positive feedback (which I agree with, having a strong editor imo is even more important than a strong writer), please don’t be offended by any of it. I, just like everyone else in the forum (i’d hope) believe in you, and will be with you in any of your future endeavors (I especially admire your tenacity).
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Self-affirmation is just a pretty lie to tell oneself and really a very harmful way to act in my opinion. My game jam has failed so miserably that I don’t even have one single entry. There is nothing to reflect, there is nothing to will make it better. I did my best and I failed miserably.
I am as brutally honest with myself as I am brutally honest with everyone else.
And when there is nothing positive from a fact, I don’t go sweet the bitter pill to myself. I screwed, I will wake up again to screw it again in the future.
I appreciate your sentiment, but it is something that doesn’t go with me really. I am too sincere to believe those half truths.
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In fairness, Diogenes wanted to be treated like a dog. That’s what “Cynic” means - “dog-like”!
But fearless truth-tellers are precious commodities and should be valued. There’s a difference between being blunt and being rude: I’ve seen you being blunt, but I’ve never seen you being rude. This forum is a much better place for having you on it!
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Thanks for the shout out @AChubbyBlackCat I’ve been posting all of my updates on there too, it’s been pretty difficult trying to get over scope creep! I come up with an idea then I have another idea I want to try, it’s pretty maddening!
I’ve started to write a short prologue for my story and I want to post something to the interest check thread but I’m trying to come up with a good synopsis and details about all the characters. But I hope to have something soon!
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Last Friday I sent a copy of my story to a English teacher - who also happens to be my mentor group/home room teacher. I somewhat desperately want his feedback on my story thus far. Although I’ve done some work on it since then, but not a lot. I’ve mostly been brain storming ideas for chapters beyond chapter 4! And interludes. There will be one between chapter 3 and 4 for example. (Although said interludes are slightly spoiler stacked!)
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Happy to talk on collaborations if anyone wants me to, but I’d argue @adrao and @Felicity_Banks have more experience again in this area 
I got very lucky with the collaboration HG I worked on here. We ended up with a core group of people keen to get the story done and stayed interested the whole way through with no real artistic or personality clashes. Really good experience overall, was fun. (Maybe not quite as much for Felicity who had to put it all together? )
The set up and testing of the game was quite different to what I’d usually do in a solo written game.
We went with a modular approach where everyone wrote one section of the story as a stand alone episode and then joined it all up at the end. This had the benefit of meaning anyone who signed up for the collab could drop out without it scuttling the project, but the downside of having to flatten out differences in variable use and make sure there weren’t conflicts in the storyline. If you’re writing with people you don’t yet know well though, I’d recommend this approach. (Lost in the pages also went with a similar modular approach and got finished.)
We also put a strict time limit on getting at least part of a draft in for the project. It was really a fun, low pressure community writing prompt/jam kind of project to get it kickstarted. I think Lost in the pages ran over a much longer time for draft submissions though. But like a lot of people have seen with WIPs, it’s important to keep people motivated and moving. The longer projects go on for, the slower they can often get as people lose motivation, life happens etc.
We got together initially and decided on the main characters, variables and general scenario, and then let everyone have at it and get back with drafts which were compiled into a working game and the introduction/conclusion sections added (Thank you Felicity!) All the writers beta tested and we discussed everything from story points to variables and then went away and made some more edits. We also put in some little bits and pieces to help join the stories together and keep the characters more consistant. We then opened it up for community beta testing once the project was semi-finished. I think some of our discussions were put in the extras for Starship adventures if you’re interested (which is now free #plug #ShamelessPromotion )
If you’re thinking about a published collab, bear in mind everyone who has work included in the finished game needs to sign a contract with COG even if it’s free. If anyone cannot or will not do that (including anyone who disappears mid project), you need to know in advance or it could prevent your game’s release. I caused some major delays myself trying to get some paperwork I needed from the gov which took me a while in order to be able to sign the contract. That’s one of the reasons why discussing this early and a modular approach is great for new collaborations.
Anyways, not sure if anyone else on either Lost in the pages or Starship adventures has anything to add on setting up and testing collabs
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I think I put in about a hundred hours of just editing, and another 20 of chasing/nagging people. On both “Lost in the Pages” and “Starship Adventures” (both of which have done very poorly financially). The “Lost in the Pages” crew had been pootling along for a while without things coming together. When they saw that “Starship Adventures” had managed to actually come into being they asked me to help them out. They had a private thread that was several hundred messages long, and I read through it all and took notes before coming up with a plan.
So, I’ll be honest… I think the key to completing a group game is to have someone who is like me in the following ways:
*Completely obsessed with the entire project for at least a year, even when some parts don’t work as well as others or other things go wrong (which they will).
*Very goal oriented.
*Willing to say to someone, “I’m sorry, your section just doesn’t work and we have to drop you from the whole project”… or to hurt feelings or do major compromises in other ways. (I HATE hurting feelings for ANY reason—think many hours of crying—but unfortunately that was part of the process.)
*An excellent proofreader (doesn’t have to be the same person but it helps).
*Someone who can set up a story system that is flexible enough for everyone to join in (starting with style things—spaces or tabs is a crucial question to settle up front, plus the stats). I recommend a modular system, of course, because that’s (relatively!) easy.
*Is willing to be the casting vote in any major decisions (and to accept the majority decision and still be enthusiastic even if it doesn’t fit the original vision).
*Considers the story their personal responsibility.
*Can drop a writer if they can’t finish in time.
*Can very quickly write entire scenes that turn out to be needed at the last minute.
*Can run autotests a bazillion times and sort out any issues that come up.
*Probably someone that’s already published at least one ChoiceScript game (because that involves certain useful skills).
*Can handle writing a blurb, designing a cover, etc etc (about 5-10 hours’ work).
*Has a “the buck stops here” attitude—if no one else wants to do a job, they do it.
*Has the time, including no major personal or work dramas like having a baby or cancer (two things that don’t have much in common except they’re expensive, physically painful, and time-consuming).
A group project with only 2 people would be simpler, but I think you still need one of the people to be the ‘boss’ so you don’t get stuck.
Feel free to PM me… but I won’t be running any more collaborations any time soon! I loved doing them, but that energy doesn’t exist any more.
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Anybody thinking of writing a story with multiple people, please make sure you re-read post #99 by @Felicity_Banks MULTIPLE times. Everything she says is absolutely correct and, for example, she was the one that did all these things in Starship Adventures. While this is a “financial flop” (I guess overall we went for some themes that are not necessarily trendy, such as sci-fi, and what is worse, 50s style, with a lot of humor thrown in, etc), it is a finished game, that I (and I hope everybody else) still feel very proud of. And, it would have never been finished if Felicity hadn’t at various points did every one of those bullet points up there. And, not everybody is able to do all those bullet points (for whatever reasons… some people don’t want to cast votes in major decisions, or chop people off a project when they aren’t performing…).
While Starship (and Lost in the Pages) haven’t been best-sellers, I think the games are wonderful (but I would say so, as I was involved in making them). Yes, they turned out to be a bit quirky, and pretty unique and different to other games. Also, they put me in touch with a great gang of people, including many of authors around here (@Eric_Moser , Feliciy, @Jacic). That, in itself, is reason enough to do one of those games. Though, anybody embarking on them must make sure they have a real captain at the helm!
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