Here is a digest of October’s releases and WIP updates (on average, more than two per day!). If I’ve missed anything, or anyone would like their link removed, please let me know. Congratulations to everyone who’s created something this month, whether or not they’ve shared it!
Oh wow, thank you for taking the time to compile all of this! Really gives perspective on how active the community here still is after all these years.
I knew about all the new Cog and HG releases, but I have no idea how I missed so many new WIPs created just this month…
So… I didn’t end up getting the epilogue finished. It turns out, when you have as many variations as I ended up with, what you need is closer to 50k words than the 15k I was initially expecting. However! I have 35,000 new words done, and I suspect I have about 20k more or so to go, which should be quite doable in November, so I will simply be pushing this goal forward into next month.
Sometimes, you just have to adjust, I guess.
As for the Diaspora goal, I actually got more work done on it than I thought I was going to this month. I won’t say that one will be out in November as well, but I think we might be able to manage it in December, so all of this is very exciting, to say the least. I’m also in the process of getting the covers done for both of them, so it’s starting to feel real, even if I suspect both of them will be due for a lot of edits before they’re properly ready for submission.
I hope to join that list Hannah. I will be putting out a big update in the next couple of days. I have been struggling lately to get through a complex dialogue thread. I finally found the light-- so to speak.
On another note: What style guides do you all use? Do you even use style guides? Due to my background, I hang around the Chicago style. Some things I have to change do to the structure of choice script. After reviewing the dialogue section, I have some corrections to make---- But overall not bad. Over the years I have found layout on these games to be really important. Right now, I am going through and checking for consistency.
Is this something you all fuss about? When I watch online lectures, they heavily emphasize nailing punctuation style down. Publishers demand this and readers expect it unconsciously and will put your story down often without really knowing why---- or maybe they do…
Anyhow, I am shoulder deep in the muck of this. I need to spread my weight or sink.
Congratulations to all those who posted stories this month. I think you will find your journey just beginning rather than ending.
A style guide is essential for any work to maintain consistency, especially when there are multiple correct ways of doing things. Every newspaper and media outlet will have their own way.
For example: is it 3, or three? 1%, 1 percent, or 1 per cent? Do you write 21 September, or 21/9, or 9/21? Is it 2pm or 14.00? When do you capitalise? Which spellings do you use when two are acceptable? Do you indicate a word is foreign by italicising, or not? Do you use full titles of people, or not?
Choice of Games staff had shared a style guide a few years back.
This has changed for official games and Heart’s Choice has their own style guide (if I recall correctly) but for Hosted Games, this style guide should help maintain consistency and provide guard rails that show what works.
My big push has been getting all of the assets submitted for Daria: A Kingdom Simulator, which I did.
This was a busy month for me to wrap up a game. Everything is handed in, except for the actual game.
I’m going to extend beta testing until the moment they need the files. Every bug found now is one less that would have existed in the released version.
@dumpling-clouds@CC_Hill aww thanks! It was fun doing it (I did it more methodically than last month when I just did it all spontaneously on 30th September, heh) and I like seeing how much writing has been going on over the month!
@DrewWolf2 I follow the CoG Style Guide which is similar to the document @Eiwynn linked to. As Eiwynn mentions it has shifted over time but the spelling and grammatical stuff is largely the same. For me, I don’t find it easy to read something that has a lot of errors or is inconsistent - it gets in the way of comprehension and enjoyment. Of course a WIP is not going to be fully polished though.
Small update today thanks to Stefano:
A couple of publishers refused it because I went beyond the 25 000/30 000 typing spaces included (mine is 53 ,417).
Now I understand pages, words not so much but I can see why… But why on Earth put a max typing space included?
Thanks for doing this Hannah, gives an extra incentive to make your monthly list now and unlock the secret achievement. Appreciate how much you encourage us all.
Choice of Games and Hosted Games really seems to be in a healthy place in regards to future stories and games, not to mention what is already out there.
I have about 1500 words to go to finish my short story and still have four scenes to write. Might have to do some trimming at the end to keep it to the 6,000 limit.
Edit: now less than a 1000 words left and three scenes still to write. Starting to cut it close now!
This is a wonderful list.