July 2022's Writer Support Thread

Do it and you’ll pass the rest of your life asking yourself “What If had I done It?”

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@poison_mara Do you have some WIP threads we can check out?

Also, @everyone, this is me with your monthly reminder that you’ll NEVER hate any of your works as much as Tolkien absolutely LOATHED The Lord of the Rings.

Seriously, a month doesn’t go by that it doesn’t look like I have cause to remind people of this.

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I have been here since 2011. It is 2022. And I doubt I will even achieve anything I have lot of finished stories I join jam and contests but nothing work, I am just so frustrated.

And no actual works here in Cog as none of my works have waifus and
husbandos so I dont bother to put links here to something nobody will play.

Sorry for the tanttrum. It is a bad day for me. But due the fact I dont write romances I doubt I have future

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I can only speak for myself, of course, but I wouldn’t not play, say, Community College Hero, Pon Para, Jolly Good, or Relics of a Lost Age if they didn’t have ROs (though now that they do, you’ll have to pry Fitzie and Dominique out of my cold, dead, bone-shattered hands).

That was the second time in a row that I’ve used a double negative, I’m beginning to worry. :grimacing:

“Providing a space to vent” counts as support, which is what this thread is for. :slight_smile:

I hope your day improves. It’s Friday, so I guess it’s a bit late to wish your week improves, but I hope the next one goes better.

I like my morale-boosting attempts to be supported by facts (facts are great, I love facts), so I went to wikipedia to find out what are the best selling books of all time. OF ALL TIME! And those arrrre… (drumroll please):

A Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens, which HAS romance but it isn’t the focus.
The Little Prince, by Saint-Exupery. No romance.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by Rowling, another piece of evidence that we really live in the darkest timeline. But no romance.
And Then There Were None, by Christie (now with a less racist title). No romance.
Dream of the Red Chamber, by Xueqin. No idea.
The Hobbit, by Tolkien. No romance, unless you count the fact that Thorin REALLY wanted to bang the Arkenstone.
Don Quixote, by Cervantes. There’s romance, I guess, if you look at it sideways, but since the entire work is satire, I’m not sure it counts? But sure, let it count.

So, out of the 7 top best-sellers of the world in history, 4 have no romance, 2 have romances but they aren’t the focus, and 1 I have no idea (and I’m not going to read a classical Chinese novel to find out for this post, sorry; I’d say I don’t like you that much, but I don’t like ANYBODY that much).

I’m not suggesting you should type out a The Hobbit or anything, but this is clear indication that romance is not a sine qua non for a novel’s popularity or success.

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Thaks for the support. But it is easy to negate all that as I want to do a hosted game not a traditional book.

You only have to go the rest of forum only people cares or talks about is romances and why x should be romanceable. Only public talks, only what peoples try out first question is always IS There a romance?

A>nyone saying no is screwed forever. But I will stop being a downer you can pm if you want

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It surprised me to discover the Hobbit actually doesn’t have female characters.

Honesty is important. These types of games advertise romance as one perk their story offers. As long as you clarify that there will be no romance, there will be no issues with the public. Naturally romance is popular, however you are under no obligation to write romance if you don’t want to.

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Of course no obligation, simply nobody will tested it or read it at all and less of it buy it.

FOOL! You have fallen into my trap!
image
I have pre-empted your argument at the start of that post!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-
cough cough cough cough
Ahem. Sorry, where was I? Ah, yes.
-HAHAHAHAHA.

Look, Smaug and Gheer were on a break, alright? She’ll go back to him. Or so Smaug kept telling me.

all of those have romances and the most talked topic on they threads and reviews are all romance related.

I will not lie to you and say your number of readers won’t be diminished due to lack of romance. It will be the handicap you will have to bear if that is your choice.

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Yeah, that is my situation write something I dont like or care and I will certainly hate to have a publish chance or never been published.

But we are derailing the thread so no more messages. I want support all of you and I want people in the shadows not commit the same mistakes I did so follow your dreams and I am sure you all will achieve your goals but just add romances. It is a must do if you dont want end like me.

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And after Tolkien went through EXACTLY that with The Lord of the Rings, he got to publish The Silmarillion, which is what he wanted all along. Not gonna lie, The Silmarillion sucks so hard it makes all other Middle-Earth books worse, but at least it gave us the only elf whose name I never mix up with another’s.

Of course, first he published The Hobbit, which he presumably liked.

Realistically, I see two paths for you. The first is compromise: write romance into your story. Maybe a shorter path than usual, enough to leave readers satisfied with it. The other would be going forward with no romance at all, but then you will have to accept the burden that will come with it. It’s your call.

There’s always the chance that you are the next George Orwell and your book is a masterpiece, in which case you can disregard the above. Regardless, don’t give up. You will regret doing that.

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A prophetic genius whose warnings and historical metaphors people constantly ignore?

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Being ignored would be an improvement. His message is being misused and subverted to further political agendas. “Everything I don’t like is 1984” and other delusional statements.

As for poison_mara, I will try to write a novel as well. It’s going to be so bad, that hopefully it will give them a boost in confidence to continue.

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Ah, the “why not try, you couldn’t possibly do any worse than THIS” tactic.

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While it might be true that a lot of people are into romance, there are also a few games that got published, both under the hosted game label and the choice of games label, where there either isn’t any romance or it’s at least not the focus of the story. For hosted games, there would be “The Shadow Horror” and “My Day off Work” and for choice of games, there would be “Choice of the Star Captain” and “The Last Monster Master” just to name a few of the top of my head. Granted, except for “The Shadow Horror” I haven’t played these games in a while, so someone correct me please if I am wrong, but I really don’t remember there being any romance.

Edit: The “The Parenting Simulator” also doesn’t have romance!

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I have more than 2 millions of words done in more that 20 finished and public stories lol. I am not someone that has never write or made stuff public. My problem is different is do the extra step to publishing commercially something.

the question is really what do you want? if it’s to publish through HG, they’re not going to reject you because there isn’t enough romance. You might not hit lofty sales numbers, but you’ll survive as a writer (trust me). the COG forum represents a tiny sliver of the people who will experience your finished game, don’t take an apparent lack of interest here as a sign that you can’t do what you want.

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yeah, this has been my dilemma back and forth during months. What story to tell and all that. I don’t write for money I have a job. It is something I need to my own personal experience and self-esteem.

But if everyone hates it or nobody read it; then I will end in a Worst depression that the one I currently have. This is a situation of damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

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