Playing through the scene a few times with different routes is a huge help for this - it will give you a sense of where additional breathing room is needed, and where, as @Havenstoneposted about recently, it’s a “nice-to-have” or “less-is-more” situation where you might want to move onto the next scene instead.
People playing will often say they would like a scene to be expanded which is a lovely compliment, but sometimes scenes need to be faster-paced! Playtesting your own game a lot will help develop your instincts for it.
I feel like this depends on the scene in question. Generally, you want action scenes to be shorter and ‘snappier’ (the whole ‘the description of an action shouldn’t take longer than said action’ rule), emotional scenes to be more drawn out to properly build emotional tension etc. I remember reading - regarding writing dialogue, at least - that like a story a (full) scene should have exposition, buildup, climax, which means a character (generally) shouldn’t jump from being calm to being mad with rage in .01 seconds - you show them getting annoyed, then irritated, then angry, then you get your climax (rage) and then it deflates again. Now this is just for a full scene with dialogue, but I found the idea helpful nonetheless for my own writing. It’s not about whether the scene is long or short in terms of wordcount (people have different writing styles anyway), but whether it is built properly, so to speak.
(ugh, this sounded way better in my head lol)
The only way to get a feeling for this is to write, write, write… For me personally, I like going back to my writing after a couple months of not touching it. Fresh eyes = easy to see where you need to improve
Make an outline for each scene you are writing and list out each element of the scene that allows your reader to:
feel around the scene,
explore within the scene, and
interact within the scene.
Once you have mapped this out for the scene, I feel you will have enough info to answer the question of “what is enough”.
Most of all, try to be flexible within your writing to change the ratios of the three emphases … if a scene is heavy on exploration, having less of the other elements are okay.
This flexibility will help you deal with the situations where “too much” is occurring.
Dev notes: After a brief break of development for several days, today finally sat into the chair like a regular work day.
When I was playing after first refactoring I decided that multiple career paths are distractive from the main theme. Btw this is a major change, but it was necessary to keep the pace and momentum of the game. (they will stay as the initial parts of the gamet)
I need to map different style of paths than the initial paths I planned. I was thinking about the possible paths and twists - partially found some but left to the flow.
Overall: Almost finished 3rd scene written after the 1st demo - which is a piece of a fork - with some sidepaths tought and noted for development.
Some fixes are again done.
During play testing I seen one value/variable that is not enough to go on so added some additional options, bit spicing up to keep player on track.
And 4th scene is also laid out in my mind.
Also a quick question: I am using spread sheet to check mapping or notebook to draw paths, are you using A3 size paper or something online to draw a big path tree/map ?
excalidraw or figma maybe?
I used to use StarUML back when it was free, but it’s not anymore and the old version isn’t maintained, so I don’t see it as a good option anymore. Currently I’m using DrawExpress Diagram (on tablet… screen space is limited, so having it on a different device can be beneficial), and I’m considering trying LibreOffice Draw as well.
I feel this is a real common part of the writing process. Taking a step back from a work grants you perspective on how far you still need to go. But it can also show how far you’ve come. You started at 0 words and now there’s so many more. I hope you don’t lose heart, rest as you need, and stay with the chat.
Good on you! Such an important question deserves a thoughtful answer. I hope your recovery continues, and the imposter syndrome fades away.
@The_Lady_Luck Congrats on disability/early retirement!!! You’ve performed a feat right there.
Dear diary, we created a plot hole uses sound, and I’m sure I’ve seen others, but I don’t remember what they were. I don’t know how it sounds though, I always turn it off if possible (and have my phone muted anyway).
In other news, last night’s best typo: “trainded”. Took me three hours to notice.
Also, imagine this from an earth-based supervillain
“One must always be prepared to be stranded in space. That’s just common sense.”
Thanks, all. So it can be done. I have a friend who has a great audiobook voice and has recorded audiobooks for me in the past. I just had a notion that he could record my story for me or something, but realistically it’s probably too much time to invest.
May was a lazy month for me, but this June I got my passion back
I keep thinking why most IFs always have multiple endings? because I cannot find any good reason / urgency to do that
aren’t a story with variety of choices with meaningful consequences fun enough to play? even if it will merge back to one ending?
or maybe the choices could somehow alter the story, but it won’t stray you apart too far and end up in a completely different settings
being interactive means letting readers interact with the story, unlike movies and other non-interactive works where we can only see as the story unfolds little by little without any ways to give our own input
but it still doesn’t give me a reason to have multiple endings in an interactive story
When talking of interactive stories, many people say they want to see the consequences of their actions, which naturally translates into different endings - also, implementing major changes in the endings/epilogues (aka creating different endings) is easier than creating majorly different story paths.
Yeah, I agree with @lliiraanna and add that IF readers will and do expect different endings. You can of course defy/subvert expectations. A very exciting prospect. If I was going to write something with one ending, I’d make determinism and fatalism major themes, as a way to prepare the reader for one ending. Put a heavy emphasis on “it was always going to end like this” sort of thing.
For some added context, having multiple endings is a bit of a “baseline” for choice-based media. Even games with mostly linear stories and limited interactivity (Bioshock, Dark Messiah, GTA V, InFamous, One Chance etc.) sometimes have multiple endings since it doesn’t usually cost much to put one in your game. People who play IFs, a genre where interactivity is the main selling point, will understandably see it as something of a bare minimum.
That’s not to say you can’t write an IF with a single ending, it’s your story and all… But it might be a tough sell.
