Jun 2025 Writer Support Thread

Everyone seems to be sharing their progress. Is this a 10th of every month event?

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All the media I’ve consumed, which is not the same as all the media that exists. Mybe I’m just reading the wrong books.

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Trying to get back into the swing of things after taking about a month or more off.

I’ve been doing 5 min writing prompts as an exercise every morning for a couple of weeks, and it’s been surprisingly helpful.

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Not that I know of. I think people are just sharing because they have stuff they want to share.

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Me: “Which idiot had the idea to write EIGHTEEN different days that you can choose to spend in the town, approachable in any order?”

Me, I was the idiot. Anyway this has taken up the bulk of BY FAR the longest chapter of Westbound Travel to date, and I am so very glad it is nearly done and I can get to both fun things like writing a couple of nice romantic dance scenes and also really boring things like changing one of the ROs names

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My mistake. I misread your original post! My apologies. I also assumed you meant more than books, too. I’d still keep my advice the same: write what feels correct for the story and characters. I know plenty of characters and real people who cry without sobbing.

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I’m currently working on tying up some paths into this bottleneck/convergence scene and at times it feels like herding kittens. One moment I think I got it, and the next I realize I have yet another variable to account for that’s wandered off into the ether… I did this to myself. I will keep doing this to myself because I don’t learn. :yellow_heart:

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Ain’t that a mood lol. I try to alternate between big branching chapters and converging chapter and each converging chapter is always an exercise in remembering what exactly happened, was discussed, not discussed, skipped over, changed, in each possible route.

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Right!! :joy: I try to keep like… a list of all the ways things can go, but it rarely is comprehensive and I don’t realize it until I’m actually there, trying to find all the strings to tie lol. I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be like DONE! PERFECT! And then two days later at 3:27a.m. I’ll wake up suddenly and be like OH NO BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHOICE TO NOT MENTION THE THING! I FORGOT ABOUT IT! Even though the variable for it has been staring me in the face for the last week.

HAHA! I fear this is me. It’s definitely improved since I started back in Feb, but it’s nowhere near pretty, that’s for sure. :joy:

I’ve found that the more meticulous I get, the more stressed I become! I think it’s more of a writing style issue in that I feel like I need breathing room in order to be creative, but also I change my mind a lot and usually on the fly. Although I do try and write smaller scale code skeletons, usually for scenes with a lot of choices/moving pieces like conversations and action scenes, which helps immensely, even if it’s just short term.

Some day I will master myself. I might need a decade or so though…

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I’m recoding Trial of the Demon Hunter and I want to slap my 17 year old self. I had bare minimum Choicescript knowledge and experience and the code looks like a squirrel on caffeine got ahold of my code “structure”

Nowadays, like for Meteoric, I plan everything out very meticulously so it’s all even and simple. I even made the code skeleton for each chapter before writing the narrative. I felt it was much less daunting and confusing than winging it and coding as I went, which inevitably lead to me coding myself into corners, or quagmires, or dense thorny woods

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Super excited to finally get in today and begin coding some of the more interesting Traits that can impact gameplay within The Frontier.

As I’m going for a deep RPG experience, I drew inspiration from a mixture of factors (D&D, Fallout: New Vegas, ect) in how I’m styling and whipping up deep Traits. These are split into a mixture of permanent and temporary factors.

One of the most extensive traits in terms of sheer gameplay impact is the Roid Rage trait, applied to the Ripped Weight Class.

In-Game Glossary Page

While these options are complex, I’m also going to provide settings during a New Game that allow players to turn certain functions (hunger, thirst ect) off and customize their playthroughs! That way those who’re more there for the narrative than deeper simulation systems can enjoy things too.

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It’s ironic that before losing Merlin, I used to get so annoyed that one of his favourite times to want extra love and cuddles was the moment I settled down to write. He’d bother me for some fuss before settling down, curled in my lap or watching me from the armrest of the computer chair.

I’d sometimes tell him to let me work, and I’d fuss with him after wanting not to be disturbed. Yet, now that he can no longer do that, I actually want him to be there.

I won’t write until he is home. I’ve got a shelf reserved for him, and I intend to have him on my table when I start to write again so he can keep being where he loved to be.

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I decided, for my game, that I wanted to make the ROs feel like they were reacting to the MCs gender, but I get why a bunch of games simplify it now.

I have this one character who is from a homophobic culture, who is romanceable by all genders but has some intense internalized bigotries. And now I am having to make variations across so many romance scenes for if the MC is a man, if they are a knight or, heaven forbid, if they are both a knight and a man.

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I was just thinking about how I don’t like picking up after Ms Poop Factory (Izzy) on our walks. But she is 12, so in a couple years I may be wishing I could pick up 4 dog doodies a walk instead of 2 if I could have her back. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone :smiling_face_with_tear:

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Yeah, that’s a lesson I’m trying to instill in my sons. The older I get the truer it becomes.

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I’m really close to finishing my game, (like 3-4 choices and their consequences left to write) and I’m at around 238K. I know that wordcount is really important for sales. Do you think it’s worth it to try to push and get over the 250K hump? Just looking back at past games, I see a really big jump in number of ratings for games at 200K, and I’ve heard many people cite 300K as a target, but I’m not sure if 250K is important enough to try to reach.

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Not if you’re story doesn’t need it. If there are scenes/choices you can add to make the story better, go for it, but if you’ve said all you need to say don’t force yourself to write more.

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I think he would love that. :heart:

My dog Siri, who went missing last year, was a very bitey guy. It wasn’t so bad after he finished teething, but when I would go to spend time with him and my husband in our bed, Siri would take my hand in his mouth and try to pull me onto the bed faster. It hurt. He also loved to attack my pillow because he was just so happy to see me, and there was no point in replacing the pillow even after he’d eaten half of it, because we knew he’d just eat the new one.

It was only a couple months ago that I stopped sleeping on that pillow, and I still didn’t throw it away, I use it as a cushion instead. And there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t give to feel those teeth in my hand just one more time.

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Btw, cool shirt

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I’ve been struggling to get back into this last loop of edits before submission. After having a month off from Dawn of Heroes, and going into something I wasn’t looking forward to, it has been a struggle to get moving on opening the files to get to work. Instead, I keep distracting myself with shows and video games.

Only in the last two days have I slowly been moving on doing some work. I’ve done no writing yet, just making a lot of notes of minor edits. I was expecting bigger changes or additions over a word or two or punctuation issues.

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