January 2026 Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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Happy New Year!

I’m setting myself some very limited goals at the start of the year because I am not a particularly experienced writer, nor am I great at productivity.

First up, the base goal for 2026 is to complete what I’ve designated as “part 1” of my planned story - with the story broken into five rough pieces of varying length just for my own sanity more than anything else.

The stretch goal for 2026 is to complete roughly 50% of part 2. I have no idea if that’s practical or not because I’m not sure how long anything’s going to be as far as words go.

For January, I just want to make a start on chapter 1 - completing 5,000 words in total. That should be a decent start, and I can hopefully scale up from there.

I also need to settle on names and descriptions for each of the ROs. So far, one of them has a surname. I’ve got their personalities set, but it’s like having 4 books without covers to judge them by :smiley:

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So cool to see my book mentioned here! Thank you for the support. I’m working hard to make this story something special, and I really hope it manages to resonate with people as I continue to develop it. Happy new year ppl!

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Crawling out of bed to say happy n̶e̶w̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶ jan 2nd

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Happy New Year to all who celebrate! I haven’t been to a proper NYE party in many years, but the 1st is my mother’s birthday, so we usually do something to celebrate. This year, it was high tea. We made cupcakes and scones and tiny crustless sandwiches. And my sister got some fancy celebratory tea.

In 2025, I completed the outline for “Project Ghoul” (working title), and started working on the game itself. It’s exciting to be an author under contract. I can’t be certain that I’ll complete a draft of the game this year, but I am hopeful of being able to share the first few chapters, at least. Optimistically, this coming spring.

Meanwhile, I’m having great fun with both the writing and the research, especially the worldbuilding. It’ll be fun to share it with everyone. When I’m ready.

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All these project games are gonna make it seem like a collaboration. We just need a project werewolf, witch or whatever else. I already took vampire.

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Happy New Year. Less than a year to go to the next one already!

Goal 1: Finish A Shriek of Ash and Fire Book 1 before the first half of the year.

Goal 2: Finish, or be well on my way to finishing, a DLC for Green, a shorter project I plan to be about 250K, before the year’s end.

I’ve skimmed through this thread and seen talk about series. Originally, I planned a series of disconnected stories, millennia apart, detailing a whole historical arc for the world I put together in Green. I didn’t want to do direct sequels for the problems already discussed.

Ash and Fire has grown beyond anything I intended. I am officially drowning in it, though I can see the shore. Originally, it was to be 1 book. Now, it will be 2. But book 2 will have a very different structure from the first, after the opening scenes. Old variables will be important, but not require massive divergences. Book 2 will focus more on hubs as we build an army and alliances, leading to many different endings. The choices from Book 1 will often dictate which allies we might get and how we can get them, though not need to cater for huge branching.

I hope book 2 will be shorter than book 1, though result in a similar length, if not longer, typical playthrough. But then, whenever I state my plans, it always invites fate to mock me and smash them.

Once I submit Ash and Fire to HG, I imagine it will take a good while to get it back to me. If I can put a well-received DLC together quickly, for Green, I might even do another one before working on Ash and Fire 2. Of course, if stuff is hated, then I will retreat and reconsider my plans.

As long as I achieve goal 1, though, then I won’t be too harsh on myself.

Hope everyone learns stuff, achieves stuff, and is able to be creatively satisfied this year, along with wishes for health, wealth, and happiness- at least health and happiness!

Wæs þu hál

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I’m starting to think I should, in fact, actually dub this space conflict a “lukewarm war”. I was originally intending to make it a cold war, but it now seems more heated than that. But it’s still too cool to be actually hot.

(With which I mean that they are occasionally openly shooting at each other, but nobody’s actually interested in the other’s territory.)

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Let’s see… Where’m I at? Last month I broke 200k words on my game’s story draft. I never thought it would be as long as it’s turned out to be. When I began writing this game back in May, I foresaw it being maybe 50k to 70k words tops. My initial story framework just wasn’t cohesive enough with the story beats I’d come up with in the beginning, so I’ve added numerous scenes, and everything seems to make a lot more sense now (at least to me, as the author). I’ve also cut a lot of stuff out that had begun to feel extraneous.

At this point, I estimate I’m three-quarters of the way through my first draft. Once I finish that, my plan is to do an initial editing pass, write a lot more branching paths, and start coding up a WIP.

Thanks to everyone who keeps these Writer Support Threads going. I don’t comment in them very often, but I definitely stop by and read them, and it helps keep me motivated seeing what everyone’s working on and thinking about.

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I just want to say one thing.

You have one of the most spectacular work ethics I have ever seen, and of course while I hope for your mental health, you are an inspiration.

Your work is incredible, and I eagerly await the full book of Ash!

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On a note, I forgot to put in my New Year’s Resolution, which is split into two parts.

Part 1. Launch Estheria: A Realm Divided’s updated demo and then successfully release Updates 1 & 2. (300k+ words total added.)

Part 2. Launch the WiP for The Frontier, alongside Update 1. (750k+ words.)

With a rotating update schedule, it’ll be interesting to see if I can maintain both projects for the long-term. My hope is that one is high-fantasy and the other is sci-fi, that it’ll keep my writing juices flowing without burnout!

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My resolution is to survive until GTA6.

And be halfway done if not complete Era of Archdemon i guess.

Its the year of ths Orcs. Actually Fire Horse but same theme really. So plan to spend significant time writing them this year within era of A.

Other than that, maybe work on Project Vampire. I mean it’s not like there’s any vampire MC like specimen 48 (I checked) so I feel like I need to finish it eventually. Just havent figured out act 2 yet.

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I think my only writing-related goal is that I would like to feel proud of the progress I make overall on Pactbinder come year-end, and I would like to feel that I’ve worked on the project consistently. What that means will depend on how much time I’ve had to actively dedicate to writing!

Not going to bind myself to any more quantifiable long-term goals, life is too chaotic and at this point I feel like I’m as likely to write 100k words over the course of the year as I am 500k (notwithstanding the broader question of whether any of those words are any good!)…

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Wrote 79,000 words in 2025. Aiming for 50,000 words in 2026. That seems like a good amount. I don’t want to write too many words, that sounds hard.

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Happy New Years, writers! Just trying to get caught up with everything I’ve missed in just a couple of weeks!

Last year was a productive year of writing because most of it I spent very, very sick. I wrote an estimated 175000 words between my fangame, my WIP, countless other smaller games, and writing to challenge myself in just six months.

For this year, my goal is to be mindful that I shouldn’t hold myself to such a high average now that I’m less sick.

My goal for January is to complete “chapter 1” of my WIP, which should be done in 10000 or so words. Ideally, 600 words a day for 25 days.

I also eventually want to get caught back up with feedback.

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Thanks, mate. In the writing process of both Green and Ash, I have found that when I am nearly at the end but still have a significant way to go, I begin to flag. Discipline and routine crack, and anxiety seeps in. Ignoring disparaging thoughts, I need to go all in and power through at this stage. I think, when writing the concluding segments, I will bounce back into full enthusiasm mode. This has been more wearying than the latter stages of Green due to fully developed diverging paths, whereas in Green, some of the paths were more like side missions. Also, as for us all, life and other work are more likely to intrude during large projects.

I have mentioned before how I admire your ambition (maybe on reddit). I have read lots about your other projects on these writer threads, the systems you have coded. Man, I envy this and the thorough planning – the things I could do!!! Maybe… haha! I think you easily have the imagination and work ethic, and what you are building sounds fantastic.

For what it is worth, I gradually settle into disciplined habits, setting aside regular time to write almost every day. Once I settle into a routine, I devote more time. Importantly, I ensure I get the old endorphin exercise rush before writing by running, lifting weights, biking, boxing, or doing anything, really. This is the best thing to maintain mood. Oh, and too much coffee.

I set myself a minimum of 1000 words a day and usually do far more. But even if I just hit 1000, I can take it as a win. For those starting out, I’d say it’s fine to even set this minimum at 250, or whatever, something you know you can do without forcing yourself.

I have learnt from many past failures, long before I found ChoiceScript. But what do I know? These ‘firm’ habits are good for a few months before something knocks me for 6, and then I have to begin the process all over again.

I shouldn’t advise; I listened to nobody and found out how to, sort of, cope from years of bullying myself to unlearn the art of procrastination. One size doesn’t fit all, but burning those endorphins is massive, as far as mental health goes.

Nice one, @Zaxwlyde and right back at you, mate.

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Another thing I’m intentionally working on this year is that I will lean harder into my writing strengths of sensory immersion and nuanced interiority. I will deliberately not work on my weaknesses of flimsy plot, weak dialogue, and lack of branching. It’s not yet time to shore up weaknesses.

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The books finally arrived! @HarrisPS Started to read Steering the Craft today between making a cake from a box that I forgot in the back of the cupboard… (oops)

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So, I’m doing the visual design for the UI on Shadow of the Eagles right now and…

It has been years since I designed a UI for a game, but I think a lot of the basic principles remain the same. Obviously, whether it’s actually any good is something which will have to wait until it’s implemented and the playtesters get their hands on it, but I think I’ve still got it.

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Hey all. I have a rather specific writing advice request.

Is there any decent literature or blog posting on writing effective / flexible scene transitions specifically for interactive fiction, particularly when you’re trying to cover a decent passage of time (e.g. if a story spans a year, you’re going to need to fast-forward through weeks quite often)?

Writing has been going well on Pactbinder, in terms of sheer words written I’m comfortably on schedule, but something that worries me a bit is that technically I’ve written about 82.5k words total covering the span of, err, about 2 days and one night. Which is fine for the start of the story, I think, the first week at a university is always going to be content-dense and full of first experiences, but I need to be able to cleanly transition away from that once this chapter ends and I need to start spanning a month or two per chapter rather than a day or week…

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