January 2023's Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
62

Happy New Year everyone!

I was incredibly happy to finish off 2022 strong, and to keep in line with my goals for last month! I was (finally) able to deliver a pretty big public update for my demo and am feeling really excited heading into the new year to continue this project.

I did take about a week off from writing just to relax ahead of this semester but am eager to get back to writing. My main goal for this month is to finish Chapter 3 and at least get a more detailed outline for what I plan to write in Chapter 4.

All in all, Iā€™m really happy with my progress so far and excited to continue it in the new year!

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I hope everyone is doing well this second week of January.

Iā€™ve reached a point in my rewrite where I need to revise my goal and stretch goal for the month.

As January began, I started with the following goal and stretch goal:

The rewrite of this fourth chapter is going really well. However, Iā€™ve reached the point in the chapter where there are two distinct paths going forward for the rest of the chapter.

Originally, I was going to try to use multireplace to keep the chapter one big whole, but Iā€™ve come to the conclusion that I am not skilled enough to do this properly. So I had to come up with an alternative.

One option which I originally used was to incorporate *if *else structures. This makes the back-end more complicated and less edit/rewrite friendly than I want.

So I have decided to make each branch a separated chapter of its own. Perhaps in a future pass or rewrite, I will be able to rejoin everything using multireplace, but either way, this new structure will improve on what was there before.

I am sharing this because I am sure my struggles to streamline and restructure might help others in the future.

My new goal for this month is to finish the three derivative chapters that were once called chapter four.

My stretch goal remains the same, although instead of completing an additional chapter, I will be happy to just begin work on it, by the end of the month.

If anyone is interested, this is the structure of Patchworkā€™s ā€œCommon Routeā€ as it stands today.

  • Chapter One
  • Chapter Two
    • Chapter Two A
    • Chapter Two B
    • Chapter Two C
  • Chapter Three
  • Chapter Four
    • Chapter Four A
    • Chapter Four B
    • Chapter Four C
  • Chapter Five
  • Chapter Six
  • Chapter Seven

In the future, the structure may change for chapters five through seven. Only time will tell.

This is just the common route; the romance/friendship routes will all branch off from chapter seven.

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Secret new project.

  • Chapter 1: Done
  • Chapter 2: Done
  • Chapter 3: Done
  • Chapter 4: Done
  • Chapter 5: In progress
  • Chapter 6: Pending
  • Chapter 7: Pending

After Chapter 7 Iā€™ll put up the demo. Might be this month, might be February.

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everyone saying they write at least 1k words a day had me gagging. my first chapter is 5k words so far, and iā€™m worried about it being too fast paced. what time do you usually allocate for those 1k words a day? iā€™m trying to make it a daily habit and i havenā€™t got a clue.

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66

I understand that struggle and feelingā€¦ Holly shit, why everyone else has chapters twice as long half of my story?

But in my experience, each story is its own island. Look at choice of the dragon. How important it is even today and how many people has been moved by it. Then dare to see the word account. For today standards is minuscule!

That about size doesnā€™t matter is true. Only matters if you are looking only popular here on forum. No wip less 250k gains popularity. But beyond here size doesnā€™t matter. Focus on plot rithm and characters being engaging and charming then size will arrange by itself in the edition and polishing. Now only matters the step in the process you are know in.

I am guilty of trying to see far the point I amā€¦ And my experience is I fail to see what is under my feet lol.

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This may sound corny, but writing is a process that happens step-by-step.

I started building up my writing by beginning with a goal of writing two sentences a day.

Each milestone reached is helping you establish a habit. After I was consistently writing two sentences a day (I did this for 7 days straight before increasing it) I made my goal two paragraphs a day.

Each time I made a milestone, I took my next step.

Do you have a person you can share your chapter with to help you decide if the pacing is okay?

Sometimes fresh eyes help figure out pacing questions.

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I recommend this program: StimuWrite by Eve Harms for setting a wordcount to strive for.
Iā€™m also trying to train myself to produce at least 1k words a day and Iā€™m experimenting with just throwing words on the page. The first draft is always rough anyway.

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Everyoneā€™s writing process is different, and our writing styles can be drastically different.

I am an exceptionally flowery writer; a singular scene and its variations might take many thousands of words where another could communicate the same in a tenth of the same words. My prologue and introduction are longer than the entirety of some CoGs but basically nothing ā€˜of substanceā€™ happens excluding first entering a city and finding out the news.

How many words a writer chooses to use is entirely dependent on the type of story you are telling too.

I think my prose fits my story, but if you were telling a fast-paced modern superhero story the same way I am writing my own introspective character-based narrative, it might feel exceptionally slow paced. Knowing your strengths and playing into them (or learning how to address your weaknesses) is important.

I write about 2k words a day because I do little else except draw, read about history, and write for my story. I still check out other IF stories and new WIPs but I find little motivation to do anything else because of my own joy from accomplishing good progress.

If everyone doesnā€™t mind me posing a query - I was wondering what you tend to do compositionally when writing?
(When laying out a new chapter, I mean)

I am currently testing something new by laying out all of the choices along with the generally planned branching. Iā€™m unsure if I prefer it over my original approach, even if it allowed me to easily test bugs since the text was much shorter at the start.

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January is private beta month! Iā€™ve already gotten so much good feedback that I have to sort through. In fact, Iā€™m due to upload the first fix version to the private version of Turncoat Chronicle. Itā€™s exciting, and a little nerve-wracking.

Lately, Iā€™m having second thoughts about my first chapter, so one of my tasks for January, concurrently with working on beta fixes, is to read chapter 1 with unbiased eyes. I want to see if I can put together a plan to update the prose and enrich the dialogue with meaningful choices. Preferably, without getting lost in a downward spiral of always editing and never finishing.

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I found this and want to write a magical girl story based on it: Floral Knights

For the Green Knight, I want to take inspiration from the story of Sir Gawain. Maybe I can give her a helmet that has antlers (though that might be weird if I they others donā€™t have helmets) or have her pixie be a deer.

Andā€¦ so far thatā€™s all I have.

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Ok, that sounds super cute and super interesting

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Thanks

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74

Does anyone else ever get ideas while trying to sleep that are so good you have to get out of bed and write them down? (Asking because I totally did this last night.)

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Not exactlyā€¦ But insomnia and sleep deprivation have some stimulation effect in my case

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76

Good news (finally!)!

A talented artist played Last Dream (the WIP game Iā€™m working on) and was so enthralled that he asked me to draw the cover and some pics of it. It would become a game like the COGs, with more pics than just the cover.

What do you say? Would you like the idea of having pics, or would you instead stick with your imagination alone?

  • I want pics!
  • No, I want to use my imagination alone.

0 voters

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You could make it a setting in the game. Or create a page in the stat screen for them. Then it can be a choice for the player whether or not to look at them

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Thank you, @Anna_B, for your reply.

IMHO the problem is: I donā€™t want an artist to make such an extensive work only for 50% (hopefully!) of the people. It looks like a big waste of time and effort to me. And it would require quite an amount of time to code it.

Thatā€™s why Iā€™m asking :slight_smile:

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Honestly, if this person is offering to do it for free, it can only help your game. The suggestion to make them optional is also good, though, as some people do not like illustrations interfering with their own imagination of what the game world looks like, especially considering that their art seems relatively stylized.

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As an artist myself I understand, but I think the majority would opt for seeing the illustrations so long as the integration of the imagery is conducive to the experience. I think still including an option for the people who it would ruin the experience of would be for the best, you can also ask the artist themself if it bothers them.

If it bothers the artistā€™s wishes, then you could vouch for not including an option to turn them off, just make sure to include a warning about the imagery being in the game and I would contact when getting it published since the default Bio wouldnā€™t make sense (text based game without imagery or music, or whatever terms they specifically use).

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Iā€™m a chronic insomniac, and this happens to me regularly.

Sometimes, an idea for a scene or a way to write it comes to me when Iā€™m lying down. If it persists, Iā€™ll get up and spend three or four hours writing whatever pops into my brain. Itā€™s usually a bit after that sudden writing frenzy that Iā€™ll be so exhausted that falling asleep is more like passing out.

Case-in-Point ā†’ I did this last night. While I was working at my night job, I was thinking about having a scene shift Iā€™m currently working on reflect prior choices in that scene. That way it would be more organic where each choice does change how things play out.

Once I got home, around midnight, I began coding for it. Four in the morning, I passed out.

I now have a scene in my WIP where there are four locations the MC can visit, and you can visit all of them. To further illustrate: if you go to Location 1 first, all the following locations that come after it will have entirely different text. So if you go to Location 1 first, then go to Location 3, youā€™ll have entirely different text than you would if you went to Location 3 first and then Location 1.

More work for me? Sure as hell, it is!

And I adore it!

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