February 2023's Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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Welcome all to the support thread for February 2023!

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:spiral_calendar: :

:cupid:

:birthday: Happy Birthday to February babies.

Thank you, everyone who continues to participate in these threads – it helps others when you do participate, sometimes more than you think.

If anyone has specific questions or concerns I may help with, please let me know.

:open_book:

This month, I have three articles to share.

Before anything else, you need to be able to turn your story into an interactive game that your story takes place in.

Emily Short’s Plot-shaped Level Designs article will help you take your story and put it into an interactive game form:

Once you have your game world structured, you can use these tools to help make your writing feel more authentic to the setting and genre that your story takes place in:

It is wonderful to share everyone’s journey during the month; both highs and lows help each one of us realize that we are not alone in our journey.

If anyone has something special going on in February, please let us know!

For the second month in a row, I actually met my goals, so, once again, I am going to keep it simple and hope to continue the momentum.

February’s goal is to complete the chapter six rewrite of Patchworks.

February’s stretch goal is: complete chapter seven (the last of the common route) rewrite of Patchworks.

Happy writing this month everyone!

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I was really delighted to finish the Royal Affairs beta testing last month! It’s a massive milestone for me after three years’ work (not continuous work, but it was definitely strange looking at bits I wrote early on, having forgotten even writing it let alone what my intentions were). I realised that I haven’t really prepared anything in the way of self-promotion, but… I haven’t really had the time or energy, so I’m hoping it will go OK when launch arrives, and trying not to get too much in my head about it.

Unrelated to marketing, I would like to write up some sort of beta retrospective (partly for other people’s interest and partly for myself to refer to next time it comes around) but I’m not sure when to post it once it’s done. Perhaps after it comes out, so there’s more context for people who have played but didn’t test. I’d also like to post a Noblesse Oblige retrospective sometime in the month, as it’ll be 6 months since it released. I’ve written part of that already but it needs some more work.

The other day I wrote a small story about some of the adult Royal Affairs characters at their university graduation (the MC’s mother, their late father, and their family friend Fabien). I might share it at some point but it was very refreshing to write something spontaneous that was just for me; I recommend doing something like that if you’re in need of a palate cleanser.

Aside from all that, I’m doing some work on something secret related to CoG, on something else secret that isn’t CoG, and am also in conversation about a future CoG project. Which is all exciting and interesting for me, but not quite so interesting to share here. When I can share more details I will!

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This past month featured the start of the semester, and I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted. But I’m hoping to finish (or get close to finishing) chapter 1 to WIP 2. I have a title for it, but I want a second title to better explain the series (ex: “title: the second title”). Or maybe a title for the series overall that’s more descriptive

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My Feb goals are:

  • Update and finalize the numbers game of XoR.-- population, crops, blood, armies, how they’re going to change absent player intervention, and what broad approaches I’ll let the player take to affect them. This will apply to the whole rest of the series…with the plot finally moving in from the periphery toward the centers of power, I need to have all this down.

  • Add at least 20,000 words to G2 Ch2.

Let’s see how it goes!

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At the year’s beginning in January, I had 5,000 words; as we enter February, I have 21,000. When you subtract a trip to Edmonton and getting settled back in, I’m going to chalk that up as a win. In February, I hope to finish my first chapter or at least draw close to finishing it; ideally, I’d like to get the rewriting process started.

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Joining the party, my goal for this month is to finish Gloria AND Ziya’s dates for Chapter 6.

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Woah, how come I didn’t notice this earlier?

February goals:

I have realised my January goal of completing chapter 2 was too ambitous. Since the nature of my WIP is to allow the player a load of scenes, and they choose them in an order they like. It means i have to write all those scenes first before I can complete Chapter 2.

So, by the end of February, I am aiming to have around half of these scenes complete.

As a strectch, perhaps I could have all of them complete.

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February goals:

Figure out how to structure a functional space-faring society teetering on the brink of a civil war + military/insurgency movement. In other words, world building. The pantser in me isn’t particularly happy with this, but it can’t be helped.

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Will this writer succeed into finish a chapter started years ago? Will the reading flow smooth this time? Will the writer have the strong will to focus on the writing? Will the reading group actually have time to read?

Sidenote:
After a few email of doubt (or maybe it was just the stress taking) and changes on my writing I discovered that my girls are very attached to my first ideas.

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Finally got the fundamentals of my story down, expanded a lot from my original ideas of it and now I feel set to start really getting into the nitty gritty of writing it out :))

Heres to hoping all our goals are reached, because damn, I feel like they seldom are!

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February’s a bit of a short month, so there aren’t quite as many days to work with, which for a ‘daily word count’ style writer like me just means it’ll be a touch less productive.

That said it shouldn’t be that big a deal, and I’ve adjusted my goals accordingly:

  • I’d like 40k new words in Asphodel, and to hopefully be well into the Orpheus & Eurydice rendition the chapter contains as its central plot point.
  • And to keep working on Diaspora. The stretch goal for that one is to finally finish my half the final battle scene, which is getting there but still has some buildup, a death scene, and the important climactic triumph bit to go. To say I’m nervous about doing justice to all that is a bit of an understatement.

So we’ll see how I do! Good luck to everyone this month; may the words flow smoothly and the ideas all fit neatly into place. :slight_smile:

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Happy February everyone!

I’m super happy to share that I met my goals for January and finally completed the chapter that I’ve been struggling through for months. I’m finally back in my element and am really proud of how the story is progressing so far.

Given my 12-hour work days between school and my jobs, I don’t have any specific word count goals as I unfortunately just can’t find the time to write during weekdays; still, I hope to be able to get a good amount of writing/planning done for Chapter 4. I have a lot of ideas about what I’d like for this chapter, so I’m hoping that it’ll go smoothly!

Best wishes to all of my fellow writers this month! I hope all of your goals are met and may all of your code be error-free!

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Gonna try and finish part 4 of my third chapter and hopefully make some headway on the last part (which is more like two parts, since it will consist of two separate branches).

Having some trouble depicting a character’s not-so-gradual descent into madness - have a feeling I might be better off focusing on writing that, and then later inserting it into the scene file. It’ll probably flow better that way.

In the meantime, I wish all my fellow writers out there much luck and prosperity in their endeavors this month. :four_leaf_clover:

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My Goal For February

There is only one. It is, as follows:

  • Finish the first half of all branches (Chapter One) by the end of February
  • Write 25k this month (5k more than last month)
    • The 25k is a secondary goal

I learned a lot about how extensive branching a chapter can be, and the way I tend to write makes it a bit harder than it has to be. I enjoy it, so I’m good with it.

Right now, I have 21,493 Words written for The Eden Project.

When I started, the portion available to read was rough 7,000 Words.

That’s almost a 15k jump. While I haven’t been able to write every day, this is a big deal for me. I’ve had a hard time writing, so I’m getting that old spark back. And I couldn’t ask for anything better.

Last Month's Recap

For January, I had a few goals.

  • Finish the first half of Chapter One by the middle of the month
  • Finish Chapter One by the end of the month
  • Get a bit of Chapter Two done

I failed on all accounts. Knowing where I was coming in as I started writing, that I didn’t meet my goal isn’t that surprising. I was aiming for Chapter One to be somewhere between 5,000 Words and 7,000 Words. For me, this sounded reasonable. In a normal chapter, in a more traditional format, 3,000 Words was often as large as a chapter would go.

Now that I’m trying interactive fiction with branching paths, I’ve realized that is going to be much larger than what I’m used to writing for a single chapter. Which, okay, lesson learned. I did upload a bit of Chapter One, mainly to test it myself and for a friend of mine to read.

With everything I learned last month, I think I can plan a bit better.

Some Insecurities

I’m generally confident in my writing.

While I’m writing this story for myself because this is something I want to do (I find the process to be therapeutic), part of me tells me to stop. While my friend enjoys the story, part of me thinks most people who play IF won’t like what I write. There aren’t many stats, not much customization, and it’s (kind of) slow at the start.

Imposter Syndrome, anyone?

As someone who writes for me (and for those who do enjoy the stories I make up), I know these worries are in my head. I’m overthinking. I’m tense because I haven’t finished Chapter One, I’m being harsh to myself for lack of “progress” despite nearing 30k, and the more critical side of my mind is chewing out the creative side.

So, yeah, sometimes we’re all a bit insecure.

Trust the process, keep going, and have fun. That’s what I tell myself.

For the entirety of this month, however, I can say that I wish us all the best of luck. Writing can often be a long, lonely road. We spend a great deal of time in our heads. For me, I need to get out on occasion for a walk. Breathe in fresh air, eat something that isn’t sugar or plant-based (no flare-ups for me, thank you very much), and trust myself as I go.

To us all, today, tomorrow, and every day after!

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I didnt meet my goal last month of an hour everday so I’ve decided to try a smaller goal this month, to write for 30min every day.

In better news, I was able to post the first chapter of my WIP last month! My life is starting to get very busy though, so I’m not sure how much I’ll get done.

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After smashing out my new project’s ch1 in 1 month back in September, I have been squeezing ch2 out drip by drip and am desperate to get it finished.

It is so hard to maintain a steady working pace with 1. a child, 2. a separate full time job, 3. friggin ADHD, man. I’ll end up being able to write 2-3k words a day for a week to catch up with myself, but then struggle to put pen to paper at all for a fortnight. Ugh :tired_face:

BUT! I am 1 1/2 sex scenes away from finishing it, so I can do this!!!

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I am trying to focus on my Master’s Thesis on this month.

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I am really excited because I’ve started an outline for the new project that I mentioned a couple of days ago! I’m realising how much I’ve learned over the last few years from all the projects I’ve done - I have a lot more clarity in my mind about design, themes, mood etc, and setting up and delivering on player expectations. My document is very… deranged at the moment with a lot of absurd placeholder stuff but it feels really nice to be exploring something new and shiny.

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Today and tomorrow are dedicated to school work (papers take a lot of time away from other classes, let me tell you), but I’m hoping to get some good progress done on Sunday

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February Goal

  • Finish Chapters 6 and 7
  • Open up the WIP thread

Today

  • Roughly 6500 words written (it was a lazy Saturday with no other obligations)
  • Wrote an unjustifiably complex set of scenarios for one single choice (do you ignore the poor couple with a broken wheel on the side of the road, help them out, or rob them?) which ballooned out into a set of if statements like 8 or 9 tabs deep and like 3000 words long, and then ran the tests and it worked perfectly the first time with no typos or adjustments needing to be made at all so that was pretty great

Tomorrow

  • ORCS
  • gonna get those orcs
  • writin about ORCS
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