I know I’m very much in the minority here, but writing the game mechanics and coding is my favorite part. Just so much fun!
I can spend 15 hours a day for a week, plotting, planning, making spreadsheets, design docs, character sheets, basic outlines, coding intricate character customization, scene picking subroutines, you name it, it’s absolutely no problem.
But having to actually write the necessary prose, without being super motivated and inspired? My brain just starts screaming, and it’s like plucking tiny hairs, having only my bare fingers for tools.
Putting words to paper is just difficult for me, my own personal, autistic, flavour of Executive Functions problems, I guess…
Once I get my earphones that I ordered online, I’m gonna start writing my novel whose progress didn’t improve for a year. I have written only the prologue, and I’m going to toss that one out and create a new one.
I also need to create a map for this fictional city and Island. It’s gonna be an urban fantasy novel set in my own country, where I will tackle my country’s social issues and mix it up with magic, mythological creatures, espionage and political intrigue to make it more fun. Those ideas seem fun to execute at first but it really isn’t.
I also need to be really careful with what I write or else in to the gulag I go lmao. My government recently passed a bill that can consider anyone criticizing the government as ‘terrorists’ then get hauled to jail for 12 years. I’m gonna publish it online so I better hope no 5-0 can see it.
I also need to research my country’s mythology extensively, which means going through a lot of documentaries and then reading them up on a local website.
Jesus, I really hope I can finish them all. I only realized that I have a loooot of shit to do after I wrote this comment. I hope I can handle this.
The last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing planning and coding, and over the weekend and next week I’ll get on with some writing. Thank you for making this thread @Eiwynn and thanks to @poison_mara for starting the original one! And good luck everyone who’s posted
I’m taking pretty much the entire month of June off from work to complete the final edits and revisions on my novel, after which it’ll go to typesetting and eventually publication next year. My editor’s suggested changes were surprisingly small and few, but I personally feel like the third act needs serious rehauling–hence why I need the whole month in order to meet my August deadline. This is my first time rewriting my own personal manuscript for publication, and it’s very daunting: I’m usually a speedy editor (it’s what I do as a day job), but the pressure of knowing this is final, that it will never change after this, that this is what people will see when people pick my book off the shelves… it’s close to paralyzing, but I’m trying to push through it. I’m analyzing every single word and letter, and it’s exhausting, lol.
I’m aiming to revise all 515 pages of the manuscript by the middle of July!
In addition, I’ll be working on the next parts of Shepherds of Haven while I can. A recent update put me at 190,000 words without code, and I’ve hit a good part in the story where I think I can go back and fill in some missing gaps and branches that I sort of just blazed past before in an effort to get the next chapters done. I’m hoping I can write enough to update it substantially again before the end of June, but that’s a stretch goal!
Due to finding it difficult to write a story featuring a plague during this pandemic, I put my wip on hiatus in March.
The project I started working on as ‘something to write so the time isn’t wasted’ has been going fairly smoothly, and I’ve fully fallen in love with it. So my goal for June is to get it into shape enough I’d feel comfortable showing it to the public.
I hope everyone gets what writing they want to be done done this month. No one needs me to tell them times are rough, so please be kind to yourselves if it turns out you just cant be as productive as you want though!
I want to give my thanks to @Eiwynn for her support today. I was about to abandon my project due to fear of failure and the lack of editing. But she helped me to maintain my vision for my project. Even if That means end with a 750k game. Think that for me is really scary to even think about it.
I am nearly 1,5 k words today so far and I probably reach 2k. So I am about 15k and I am in the prologue still. But I will try not to get anxious and so like Cdprojekt red and release when it is ready.
You are doing great, Mara – CDprojekt is an excellent example of following their vision.
Sometimes the back-end or under-the-hood stuff is needed to nail down, so it is not a shame to focus on that to allow yourself to move forward.
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For me,
June Totals (as of 6-6):
115,000 + words w/o code.
For graphical games, showcasing the graphics is a must. In text-based games, the equivalent is to showcase the type of writing that is done.
This week has been me focusing on writing stylistic differences that will be part of the design – this is something that normally is not seen in these demos – so to pull this off is something that will be an accomplishment in its own right.
Experiencing such paralysis myself, I think it took me a long time to proccess this and to realize the following:
Especially with actual written material, such as a book, you can revisit the material later, reimagining it and reissue a new take on it. Look forward to growing and then revisiting your work and reinterpreting it in the new light of wherever you are in that later moment.
I have been making a lot of progress with my work lately however, I just can’t help but feel very anxious and paranoid of the themes and events shown in my game.
Because my game is focused around discrimination, my paranoia mainly stems from the recent BLM protests, which have really made me reflect on my story’s content. I’m genuinely scared that I’m going to screw up by oversimplifying things, misrepresenting minorities, the possibility that I may be virtue-signalling, and so much more.
I am especially troubled because I made some decent progress in the story. I just reached the 25K (without code) word mark (and going through 1K-3K words a day) and these reflections have really made me consider restarting, but I also don’t want to restart because this is my thirteenth draft (my work went through two massive revisions).
Basically the story takes place in a grounded, modern-day society that has superhuman culture full of superheroes and superhuman movie stars. However, the player is in a minority mostly composed of people powers that the society deems undesirable. The player takes on a job as a superhero is a group that advocates for greater equality in their society.
The game is meant to tackle how the misery and financial difficulties caused by discrimination is what ultimately leads to crime. The team the player is in will face off against members of a criminal syndicate who are a part of their minority, whose their constant defeats in the hands of major hero groups have reinforced negative stereotypes.
(Note: this is a major point is the story)The team ultimately finds out that the major hero groups, who discriminate against the minority, anonymously fund the criminal syndicate they were fighting to create a cycle.
The hero groups fund the criminals and allow them to grow, and once they’re a big threat, they swoop in, defeat them, then they get press coverage and promote anti-minority sentiment, then the cycle repeats itself.
I guess you all can understand my anxiety. Feel free to give me feedback regarding this concept and ask for additional pieces of information.
Props to @Eiwynn for posting in this thread. I always wanted to get these concerns off my chest and godspeed to all the writers here!
I understand your struggle due I am in a similar situation. With Racism and directly sexual trade and slavery. It is in a sci-fi media with Sexual robots and Androids. You are just a new created Android with your companion just created after you in the same machine. No human treating you as an equal. etc…
Yours Is even more problematic than mine because superheroes are basically humans so people can get angry for a misrepresentation easier.
My advice is to go to the page of one minorities page and ask for anyone to be a sensitive reader
EDIT: @M.J.Lotto if you have any Hispanic or Spanish group or something I can help you with that.
I know I can’t speak for all minorities, but I think the majority would agree as long as you try your best to be as respectful as possible and to represent the many sides as humanly as anyone else with all the failings and strengths which that entails, then you have done all that anyone can ask of you. Taking feedback with an open heart before and after the process from as many people within minority groups as you can and working to improve your writing and yourself–that’s all most expect. It’s always great to assess how you will impact people, but also assess how worrying about what you cannot change will impact you. Take care of yourself too! I know it can be tempting to think indefinitely that it’s not good enough. I genuinely do not believe that it could be so egregious you’d need to restart for the 14th time. And the fact that you care at all means you are definitely not virtue signalling! Virtue signallers only put on a show without any actual regard for who they might affect, whether helpful or harmful.
As far as BLM goes, while race will always be relevant and it will always be important to be sensitive and compassionate, the enormous amounts of tension will have calmed by the time your work is published more than likely. Even if it hasn’t, while I understand the anxiety, I personally believe it is important to strive forward anyways. We all need more diversity and more stories that reflect the complexity of the human condition. We will never stop needing those stories. Even when they’re difficult, especially when they’re difficult. No one can be perfect, but receiving feedback on direct issues like that can help you target biases you didn’t even realize you had sometimes. And it can help the audience too. So, my advice is keep using your writing to start those conversations. If there is something you get wrong, well, no one can be perfect. I at least only ask that you acknowledge criticism rather than dismiss completely, even if you do not or are not ready to agree. I hope that can comfort you in some way. Regardless, best of luck for you and your project!
Am I the only one who has the problem of looking at the planning of a scene saying "Oh this has to be a short scene, then found that has already written 2k of it and is half done?
I mean I am really having fun with the scene and the dynamics of player and the companion.
I’m looking at “Flight” which I planned to enter in the IF Comp last year. It’s another tale set in my magical steampunk universe, but chronologically before all the rest. The main character is a mad scientist, and a lot of fun. It starts in late 1700s France, because drama
I was just checking the first post of my WIP thread to update it, and I discovered that I’ve been describing the game as “3/4 done” for about a year, now. And that the game has nearly doubled in size since then. Flying Spaghetti Monster help me.
I had modest writing goals for May, and only met one (…and a half?) of the three. My goals for June are equally modest, but I have higher hopes for them – so far. I had a good first week, working on my second WIP and updating my first WIP’s public demo.
What a great idea for a thread! Good to know so many other authors suffer with the same problems as I do.
I want to take June off to finish the first chapter of my second WIP, though I’m thinking of updating it as often as I can. I’ll probably update it as soon as a branch is done or such, so updates are frequent.
If I’m super lucky, I’ll get the chapter done before the end of June so I can focus a little on my first WIP. I’ve spent the last few months ignoring it, and I miss my child
Started to write this month and i feel like i have all the some of the story down, I’m just not sure what the overall goal of the story should be or the ending. But so far i have the city where some of the story takes place I have a good idea of how i want to write the main character as well. But im stuck on the magic of the world i have a lot of idea that i would like to put in the story but ik not all of them would fit. Should i just narrow down the options of magic or try and incorporate all of it but spread out through the world?
It is hard to believe a week has gone by since I started the thread.
Project – “Make a Vertical Slice Demo” - Update"
June Totals (as of 6-10/11):
115,000 + words without code.
It seems like I made no progress with the word count staying the same from the last update. In reality, I’ve done a lot of rewriting of the writing styles showcased in the demo.
As I said last time, this is something not really done normally, so I’m pushing myself out of my normal boundaries, and in order to get this showcase up to par with the rest of the demo, it is requiring more work per word…
There is an efficiency standard I thought I’d never be using: work hour per word.
In the end, I feel this is worth the effort and time, because I will be able to use this same model for all my future projects and it should be faster each time I deploy it in the demo.
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Everyone, please give props to @poison_mara as well … her original thread for May started it all, I’ve just taken her good idea and ran with it. Hopefully more writers will use the thread as the month goes on. Support is the one thing we all can use more of.
No, Mara – scene creep is one of the hardest faults we all experience. I know you don’t like hearing this, and that I repeat it to you at least three times a week, but there is only two ways to fight this: write and plan.
If you plan, and keep planning, your ability to write what you plan for will grow. If you are one of those writers that only learn by writing, then it should be obvious… write more.
This sounds wonderful. It also sounds like you have a start on the project already, with the work you did to prep it for the competition.
This sounds like a cross between my situation and Mara’s this week. On the one hand, you know you put a lot of work into your project, but on the other, it seems you are experiencing writing creep!
This is great @Hazel !! Progress during the first week can set the positive tone for the rest of the month. Let’s hope this is the case.
While I have several projects started, I still find it very difficult to work on more than one at a time. I don’t know how people do it and do it well.
Hey Koda! Thanks for joining us here.
Each writer is different in what works for them, but if I were where you are at, this is what I would do:
I’d make a list of the ideas I want to use (regarding magic) to get a better idea of what function I want magic to perform in my game.
Then I’d break that list into categories and figure out where I want each category of magic to appear in my story.
At that point, you should both have a clearer picture of what you want to do with magic and where you want to go with it next.
I was once working on an existentially-terrifying R-rated body-horror story about The Teleporter Problem and a Harry Potter RPG for kids at the same time. It’s good to have two projects that are different. Keeps you from falling into one headspace for too long.
