February 2024's Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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I think I’ve found one of my biggest writing frustrations; usually I’m pretty sanguine about writing stuff, but this particular one always ends up deeply annoying and time-consuming. Besides which I only have myself to blame because in my outline this was done more elegantly, but when it came to writing it didn’t quite work that way because I wanted more chances to get close with NPCs (romantically or otherwise) on a single playthrough.

It’s romance conflicts - where a character the PC is romancing has noticed that you’re in a romance with someone else too, and there’s the need for a discussion about where that’s going.

If it’s a potential polyamory situation, I’m fine with writing that - it seems right to have a straightforward multiple-person conversation about it. But if they’re incompatible, it’s always fiddly to figure out a) whether it makes sense for other characters actually know what the PC’s up to, b) how to make that conversation go, and c) whether I could justify both characters coming to the PC at once to discuss it (which seems like behaviour that won’t always work for every character! edit: Having said that… maybe I should just go for that for some of these cases…)

If character Q is asking the PC to check in about their feelings about character Z and the PC realises they’re more into character Q, the PC going off to tell Z this and then returning to Q for their heartfelt whatevers feels silly. But character Q being told by the PC “it’s OK, I don’t have feelings for Z”, being reassured, and then doing the heartfelt stuff will only work for some characters… and then where should the conversation with Z go? Should Z psychically understand that the romance has broken off? (probably not, if the PC and Z are actually dating rather than just having done some harmless flirting)

And then what about a PC who’s also romancing character G - how to deal with multiple instances of this kind of conversation without it being repetitive or weird? Not to mention giving space for players who want to start a romance late?

I’ve never been quite happy with how I’ve handled this; I don’t want to do what I did in Royal Affairs where you get nudged to have breakup talks with the people you don’t actually want to romance, because there isn’t an inbuilt structure about getting engaged etc, it’s more deciding how serious you want to be about your romance and whether you want to be exclusive; I feel like I’m going to end up doing something a bit more like Creme de la Creme where you can cheat on people if you want, but I do also want the characters who have strong feelings about not wanting to be in a V poly with the PC and certain other characters to have space to state as such, plus some of the characters’ feelings would be hurt if they found out that the PC was sneaking around and I want to allow for that to be shown onscreen.

Sooo, that’s where I am at the end of this week: in a bit of a tangle about how I want to do that, about 1000 words into Chapter 9, noodling around with a few early-game tweaks, hoping the weekend will freshen me up for next week, and being very excited about my new cover art.

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Well, I know what you’re reading. :joy:

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Technically, what I’ve read. I’m currently on Thud! :slight_smile:

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I’m having the weirdest issue with quicktest, where it freezes/brings up the ‘this page is slowing down firefox’ notice. After rearranging the scene list think I know which file is connected to the issue (it’s jobcheck), but when I force the test to look at it by only putting that file, the test passes. The only way to get to it in-game is through the main chapter files, and if I put only ch1 in the startup list, it’ll freeze after completing ch1… but if I put ch1, ch2, ch3, it’ll freeze after ch3.

What causes this? If I can’t figure this out in an hour, I might need to make a post, because randomtest passes it without trouble. :thinking:

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yeah… we don’t want others to “magically” know the PC’s romantic activities, what about having “flags” or “triggers” that reveal the PC’s involvement with others based on choices and actions? like leaving behind little bread crumbs :thinking:

unless Z has heartbreak-sensing powers, no.

Or maybe they could read minds (in which case, wouldn’t they have seen this coming a mile away)

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Can relate. I love writing romance but so many options makes it tricky to handle some of the issues that arise. Good luck with it!

Also, YAY for the cover art! :sparkling_heart:

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Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of variables that track who’s seen the PC flirting with who, it’s just complicated :sob:

Thank you!! :smiling_face_with_tear:

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170

Have you tried loading the project in CSIDE and seeing if that works better—or gives you a more specific error message? It might be getting caught in an infinite loop or something.

(ETA: Honestly I would recommend running tests in CSIDE anyway in most cases. The “load HTML files” thing is so time-consuming, and CSIDE lets you run the tests with the click of a button once you have things set up!)

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171

“I often just wing it” = the story of my life. :rofl:

Chapter 3 was ~37,000 words before revisions. I’ve added 6000 words and I’m not finished yet. Meanwhile, chapter 4 weighs in at less than 20,000 words. My approach to chapter length is whatever makes sense to fit in a certain time period or collection of experiences for the PC. Often each chapter is a day, or a week. I don’t worry about play-through length, I just write what needs to be written to make the story make sense and feel satisfying. But that’s just me, and I am definitely winging it.

Back to revisions I go. :herb:

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It helped!! (Or at least, I think so – I had to remove the checkpoint system temporarily because CSIDE doesn’t work with that yet, but I don’t think that was the cause anyway.)

It turns out that at the start of a few of the scenes (the culprit was, in fact, jobcheck, and it had accomplices!) , there was a space that doesn’t even show up in notepad. Before I fixed it, trying to play through in CSIDE brought up a “lines not defined” error, which must have been the problem.

Now that that’s done, the goal for the rest of February:
Figure out what birthday gifts the characters will give you. I’ll have to make it fair to the player, since a March 1 birthday starts right at the start of the story when you know no one, while a February 9 birthday happens at the end when you might have multiple positive relationships with the other characters. I’m thinking the earlier birthday gifts will be more “stat boost” heavy while the later ones more narrative driven.

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Sounds weird, but I’m glad CSIDE helped! (I have just been commenting out my checkpoint stuff in mine so far, because yeah, that doesn’t work. But I hate the default testing methods so much that I’m not sure I’d survive without CSIDE for that. :joy:)

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I wish I could find a really good program that’s easy to use to design flowcharts. TAT And Free. It’s gotta be free.

Oh it is AMAZING when shit like that falls into place. Your future fandom is going to wonder if you did it on purpose.

YOU CAN DO IT! You’ve got this!

We’ll be waiting! (that said, if it doesn’t happen, no worries. I’ve been working on the first draft of the first chapter of Phoenix Rising for like, six months now)

This sheer number of Parenthesis in one place made me giggle, I don’t know why.

VSCode codes the same. Visual Studio Code, with the Choicescript Add-On.

Hooooly shit, you just literally outlined EXACTLY why I don’t want to write Polyamory into Phoenix Rising (properly anyway, there’ll always be a polyamory element if you romance anyone but the emperor/empress as a concubine). It’s so complicated. Like, IRL, it’s not so hard, just frickin communicate, but in game there are so many variables to take into account! I’m sorry you’re having so much mess. XD

(Also, your cover is AMAZING.)

Well, time to sit down to my weekly work-session on the game! I hope I get more done this time. Because quite honestly, I feel like I’m crawling along at a snails pace and I hate it. But whatcha gonna do. XD

Edit: Also, now that I’m watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNbrMPXqHDI&t=494s

I’m trying to figure out what the theme of Phoenix Rising is… and I have NO IDEA.

EditEdit: I…I think I’ve figured it out. I think the Thematic question I want to ask with Phoenix Rising is this:

Is sacrificing Love for Safety worth it?

I am so glad I listened to this video, holy shit, it’s amazing.

THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH FOR SHOWING ME THIS VIDEO.

editeditedit: I think I’m having a lot of fun leaning into the “Fan Translated Novel” approach to my footnotes/translations. It’s really making me nostalgic for all the times I had fun going down rabbit holes after reading the footnotes on amateur translation websites.

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Finished chapter 5 of Pushed. :grin:

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Don’t you love it when you fix one issue you’ve got with the story in your game which ends up fixing a different issue without you realising it fixes it?

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I have more experience with fixing one issue snowballing a hundred new ones…

Unfortunately I’ve scrapped that story. :slightly_frowning_face:

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Yeowch. I know that feeling. I have two WHOLE NOVELS that will probably never see the light of day that I’ve written, just beccause they’re… honestly kinda shit. XD

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It is for sure a ton of work, so props to you for that first and foremost! Honestly, stuff like that is what I like writing the best. It captures real life awkwardness and heartbreak so much, and it draws out emotions of guilt and relief and it’s just such good angst. Like, there’s angst that isn’t good, then there’s this kind of angst that is. Even going as far as to write different reactions and the RO who doesn’t get chosen treating the PC differently (even though, again, a lot of work) then having a second talk once emotions have settled a little bit, and have that be the talk where they decide whether or not they stay close, or whether that would just be too hard for the RO/PC to do.

Or for an even messier story, during the second talk, have a choice for, “One last ‘memorable’ goodbye.” Then later on have the RO they are in a relationship with learn about it and create a whole other pile of angst and confusion through that where they have to work out stuff from there. So many possibilities with messy romances :relieved:

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At the beginning of this second week, I am reminded I would share a couple of writing templates with everyone. Sorry for letting this slip @Niki_Christopherson .

Here are a couple of basic templates (format did not transfer over well, sorry):

First the character sketch:

Character Name –

  • Role in Story:

  • Occupation:

  • Physical Description:

  • Personality:

  • Habits/Mannerisms:

  • Background:

  • Internal Conflicts:

  • External Conflicts:

  • Notes:

And next the setting sketch (again the formatting did not transfer over well):

Name of Setting –

  • Role in Story:

  • Related Characters:

  • Season:

  • Unique Features:

  • Description:

  • Sights:

  • Sounds:

  • Smells:

  • Notes:

These are the core “sketch sheets” I start with on all my writing projects and as I outline both my narrative and my code-skeleton, I iterate more custom versions.

For example, in Patchwerks, “physical description” has been refined to the following list:

Physical Characteristics
Height:
Build:
Accent:
Species:
Skin color:
Hair color:
Hair length:
Eyes:
1. Eye color:
2. Eye shape:

These type of changes are unique to each of my projects, so in Emigre, I also have an entry for “nationality” because in a story about immigrants and their journey, a background nationality can impact the story.

Something I do that others do not do is to make setting sheets. To me, a setting and its details are important to key in on and have call-backs to. Some authors may be able to keep everything straight in their heads, but I need reminders and prompts to keep everything neat and tidy while writing.

Now, back to my Sunday brunch. Fresh baked corn bread and gathered honey from the local hives.

. :revolving_hearts:

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May 2024's Writer Support Thread
181

No worries, hun!

Yknow, as of right now I’ve not really put any thought into the setting of the story, other than that it’s the stereotypical Chinese Palace in my head… So maybe it’d be a good idea for me to do some setting sheets for the various PARTS of the palace, if only to make sure they’re consistent and memorable.

mumblemumbleluckymumble

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It wasn’t free, but I’m actually using a whiteboard. I consider it an investment! I’m sure there is software out there but I prefer the physical alternative.

One thing to note is that this isn’t the only method of determining a central theme for a story, but it is still a fun exercise to go through with some of your favourite stories. Death of the Author and all that.

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