I personally don’t believe that’s too late for them to pop up at all (depending on how late in Act II), but if this person is important enough to be an ex-nemesis, I would personally include small details here and there alluding to them or events, locations, etc. related to them in the story before they appear so that the player is primed for the character’s eventual introduction. You don’t need a flashback or any mulling. In fact, the protagonist can be intentionally avoiding thinking about this ex-nemesis, but because they played such an important role in their life in the past, things would probably inevitably pop up here and there as they go about their business. I don’t know how well that would work with your story, but that’s how I would approach it, at least.
Summary
“You know what this reminds me of?” [A] doesn’t wait for an answer. “[K]. This is exactly the type of nonsense [K] would pull.”
In theory. Only in theory. Whatever nonsense [K] would pull, it would be done in a so much more sophisticated way than this. You have half the mind to protest, but hold your tongue in the end; [A] suspects you enough as it is.
As I return back to writing. I constantly find myself questioning why I feel so sullen writing what I should very much have fun with. Beyond the normals specifics of “Thinking” and “Attention span”. I’ve come to notice a notable correlation. These long slumps seem to always appear whenever I am writing a large section. But not necessarily the size of it that is the issue (I dont have trouble writing stuff dwarfing that in other projects). But rather, that much like a reader, the way I flow my writing process is one that leaves me too far into one side of writing and doesn’t open me to the other until finished.
Much how in action games, it is recommended to space out your action so there are sections of lull and sections of chaos, to both give time for calm and to set a routine. Novels and IF also share such, namely the Infinity saga, where you swap from planning and warfighting portions with downtime with your squad and politicking. Dialogue and Combat, lull and action.
But in my goal to achieve that type of flow for my own IF, where of the 85k words, there are 40k words in a run, for which the reader may involve 25k of action spread out near the start and end, and 15k of hangout if they choose to in between.
This works fine for the reader but in writing thay 85k. It ends up looking more like 30k straight of action and their paths. 30k straight of downtime and that path along with the hangouts. Then back to 30k of action. Where I as a writer am not switching in that lull to action but am forced to dig into one for an extended period of time. And I believe that may be a cause of the slumps that I didnt notice when I first originally planned to “Write it as it goes”. As opposed to separating to chapters and moving between them where interest is.
I am not quite sure if I will manage to switch to the latter, helpful as it may be for the slumps. Given that I tend to struggle with sorting in the back end of what I am already writing, let alone actually placing 10k words into a chapter thats rather far ahead to ever see the light of day soon.
I don’t really know. Outlining has never really been my strong suit. I’m more of an Improv gal. Am I overthinking it or is this something I should actually take note of and maybe buckle down and actually outline like my university keeps trying to teach me.
i totally, totally feel you. i do so much better mentally and like motivation-wise when i get to write by bouncing around, following my gut instinct on what bits i want to write at any given time. i used to “improv” a lot more in traditional/non-game writing, but i’m finding out that i LOVE creating a super super super detailed “skeleton”/outline for any given chapter, accounting for code and text in these games. once i’ve done that, i can look at the overall structure, make sure it works, then i just go in and fill in whatever i haven’t written yet. that way i can bounce around as much as i want, without worrying that i’ll mess up the structure or coding somehow.
BASICALLY i like prepping extensively for the actual draft bc i like the straight-up writing to be as fun as possible. i almost like think of it like working in a kitchen: 80% of the actual job as a “cook” is prep, cleaning, ordering, organizing, etc. the actual hours where youre making orders is only like 20% of the job, even though thats what people think of as “cooking.” really, making the food is just assembly; all the preparation is the actual cooking (cutting veg, making sauces, etc.). a good kitchen minimizes the time where things are missing from the line as much as possible, so they can just GO when its time for service.
god. im on mobile rn and i cannot figure out this freaking formatting but BASICALLY i make the whole chapter in this type of very rough skeletal formal:
*label start
blah blah blah
*choice
#Stay longer
*goto stay
#Head out
*goto leavetimely
*label stay
blah blah blah
*goto leavelate
*label leavetimely
blah
*finish
*label leavelate
blahh
*finish
then i go in and whenever there’s anything rhat isn’t drafted (where it says “blah,” usually) i fill in. its really fun playtesting too, because when i fill in a new section i get to see it change from a placeholder text (ex: “angry manager yells at MC here, its crazy af”) to the actual draft (where the previous example will become somethine like: “As you prepare to leave the break room, delighted that nobody has caught how late you are, your manager’s voice rings out. ‘{nickname}! GET YOUR SORRY ASS OVER HERE!’ Ah, well. It was bound to happen eventually.” or whatever)
I like the kitchen analogy - I feel similarly, and prefer to focus on one kind of brain-creativity at a time rather than swapping between planning/coding/writing.
Often though, when I’m coding will be when I come up with ideas for how scenes might play out, so it’s not a strict thing and the results vary! But it’s generally in service of making the writing part feel good to write.