@Drazen
Fair enough, at least we’ll have some interesting debates later.
@Aquila
I would love to help with this game especially since it’s one of my favorite subjects. Unfortunately, I have enough projects on my plate already (both here and on other sites). If you need an opinion on something, don’t hesitate to ask me. If you need stuff edited, however, I can do that fairly quickly and easily. I only know basic Spanish though.
And for the record, I liked Shades of Grey. Some parts made my eyes widen, but for the most part, I found it a fun read.
I could try… but is so frustrating when you want to say something and you literally don’t find the correct words to use…
Maybe I have really high expectations, but I can’t help but notice how I always use the same verbs and nouns and so. And that would be detrimental to the game experience.
I’ll try to work on it. I am counting on your help, though. We’ll keep in touch through private messages. Thank you all.
Aquila, I’m a native English speaker and I do the exact same thing. I don’t have a vast vocabulary. Just consider it your writing style, there’s nothing wrong with not hitting up the thesaurus for every second word. My English is functional, I do find it frustrating too that I don’t have the words to describe what I want. I’m trying to make the most of the skills I do have though, and that’s what you should do too.
You sound like you’re passionate about this idea of a Romance game with BDSM themes, and you’re knowledgeable on how to do it right. There’s going to be few other writers here with that skill set. I’d suggest, if you desperately do want someone to help you write, go recruit from some forums dedicated to writing that sort of fiction, they’re going to be far better at writing BDSM than any of us.
But I don’t think your own abilities would be detrimental to the game experience.
@Aquila If it helps, I wouldn’t have guessed you weren’t a native English speaker, until you informed us. You may as well just give it a whirl, and post the outcome, - I’m sure we can point out any little quirks which arise, then.
Oh, wow. So many of you aren’t native speakers! Color me impressed! c:
@Aquila I think you’re very well written! However, if you ever need any help finding words, or anything like that, I’d be perfectly willing to help. I’m not very into BDSM, so I wouldn’t actually write it, but you seem nice so I can do this much!
@FairyGodfeather If you don’t mind me asking, what is your native language? :0 I know a lot of people speak Spanish and whatnot, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard what you speak.
@Aquila
Horrible secret: I’m technically not a native English speaker either.
Considering what you’ve already written on this thread (and others), I’d say you were fully qualified to write any kind of CoG you wanted. FairyGodFeather’s right; no matter how much vocabulary you actually know, you’ll always be wishing you knew more.
My native language is Scottish. Not gaelic mind you, just Scottish, which is different than English in so much as we have better accents and we need subtitles for people to understand us. So other than butchering the English language in the name of my local dialect, English is the only language I know. (Well I did French and German at school but that was so long ago I’ve forgotten it).
I too am marvelling at those who know multiple languages and are able to write in them far better than I can write English. I’m just frustrated at my own lack of vocabulary. I feel that my own English is functional, but not amazing.
I wouldn’t have guessed that Aquila was English Second Language.
@FairyGodfeather in Spain we have many other languages mine it’s gallician and Aquila has catalonian ; There are vasque and some other minions dialects.
Well, writing isn’t just about language. People can be perfectly fluent in a language, and still not feel comfortable writing in it.
Different languages have different tones, to to speak. English veers rather extremely from ‘like, totally, dude’ to ‘I concede the point’, in terms of level. So it can be difficult finding the right tone to use, even if you do have a rich vocabulary. Not to mention the different idioms and phrases (although there is a surprising amount of similarity across many languages).
Still, when it comes to a subject that is a sensitive as BDSM, I agree that it is best to let an inside man do the job. Write what you know, and all that jazz.
@Aquila
If it helps any, I’m almost certain your English is better than mine and I’ve been living in an English speaking country for over a decade.
A limited vocabulary can actually go pretty far if you know how to create variations in your sentance structure. Otherwise, I recommend a good thesaurus for word variation. Also, people on the forums are usually good with pointing out if you’ve phrased something oddly.
It’s a tedious process to begin with, but the more you write in English, the easier it will get.
Not gaelic mind you, just Scottish, which is different than English in so much as we have better accents and we need subtitles for people to understand us. So other than butchering the English language in the name of my local dialect, English is the only language I know. (Well I did French and German at school but that was so long ago I’ve forgotten it).
Living in a country with several official languages has its benefits!