A very specific IF struggle for me, is that I have a systemizer type brain, so while I would like to write the prose and get the story going, my brain would much rather do problem solving, and play around with the code.
Stupid brain.
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Ignore them, or swallow your distaste for genderflips. Don’t write characters you’d not otherwise put in the game.
Pleasing everyone is straight up impossible, even if you were happy to shrug off whatever vision you had for the game and its characters. So let people’s feedback and requests sit with you; you might find it inspires you to add something new or write something cool. But if it doesn’t excite you, stick with what does. That’s the only way you’ll finish a game.
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Since it’s really eating me up I can’t just ‘fix’ it, somehow…without making a crowd, without making a mess…just someone please tell me how I can ‘FIX’ it, so that everyone will be happy!!! XD
Okay. First thing first. People are going to ask you for things. They are going to tell you that you are being unfair. They are going to tell you that they want more, better… well, you know it. The thing is… don’t.
Looking at what you’ve told us so far, you have a lot of RO’s. Maybe too many to have meaningful storylines. We have different views about genderlocking or not, but that is all author preference. I have always had issues even understanding how to gender stuff, and you seem to feel that gender is at the heart of things when you create a character. Neither of those two approaches are wrong, just different ways our brains work.
The thing is, you have to get ready to owe up to your own preferences. A single RO storyline written well, is better than three that are brief and just there to fill numbers and provide variety. I know that the urge to make people happy is strong, but you’re never going to manage that.
I have just two RO’s in Fallen Hero. Got so many requests for more during the playtesting, but there simply wasn’t room for more in the story I was telling. So I said no, and probably made a lot of people disappointed. So be it.
I think what you should focus on is to make the characters you choose to include (6 RO’s sounds a LOT) as interesting and cool as you can. People are going to be a lot more pleased with a single, well written RO with different paths and a lot of depth, than with three sketches that just gets one scene each to separate them from each other.
You’re the writer. It’s your vision. Make your readers love what you do, and don’t try to do what you think they will like. It will be a better story for it.
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Does anyone else struggle with writing an mc fro the opposite sex, or non-binary? If anyone has any pointer for that I would be eternally greatful.
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After a certain point you just need to ignore them. If you change your game based on every opinion people have, it’s not going to be the same game at the end.
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I’m going to be a little blunt and ask you what it is that you imagine that separates sexes or nb’s from each other? And if these are things that would come up when you are writing inside someones head instead of looking at their physical characteristics?
One thing you can try is to take a scene from a book that you like. Let’s say Harry Potter since that’s one that a lot of people have read. What in that scene would change if Harry was Harriet? Why would it change? What if Hermione was a boy? Would their role in the story have changed? And now, for the last experiment… imagine instead that you switched their personalities. If Harry had Ron’s personality and the other way around. What would have changed about the book then? More than when you did the gender switch?
Quite often people are confusing personalities with gender. Gender can inform personality, sure, but I don’t think that it is in the top five defining traits for any well-balanced character. Focus on that and try to ignore what goes on in their pants.
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Anyone here struggled with ‘writing one true sentence’ - constantly rewriting the very first sentence until you find one that sparks a light of further inspiration?
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Right now my biggest struggle is getting my crappy PC to work again. Good thing my friend has been looking over it but at least I’m using whatever free time I have on outlining the rough drafts of the chapters I want to write. Second biggest struggle is pretty much figuring out what would seem to be natural to the plot without messing up too much or giving away some potential spoilers in a foreshadowing lol
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Comedy is one of my strengths and I believe it is one of the things that make me successful when writing. I do think my biggest struggle writing is keeping due dates (aka, getting around to it at all) or perhaps making my story too ambitious (too many RO’s, 5 different plotlines, extended sequences etc)
I also suck at romance writing, especially… certain scenes 
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Also, coding, especially stats, sucks
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I apologize, the question could probably also be worded better on my part, I’ll think of what you said and work from there.
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Sorry if I sounded harsh, that was not intended. Sometimes I can be a little too blunt.
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You weren’t, I just wanted to make sure I didn’t offend you. I was curious about writing for a character that is a gender different from my own. I’ll use what you said when developing characters in the future.Thank you.
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I found myself getting inspired and exited over quite a bit of suggestions!
For example, someone mentioned I could add in another female (RO), describing a bit what she’d be like…While the cannon now isn’t exactly as they suggested, I added in a female that was inspired by the original post. Also made her a RO, since I have an actual great idea on how to fit her into the story. She’s a battle strategist that works for your side of the army (until you - if you - decide to switch sides), and I needed a planner anyways. ^^ And I love the fact that she’s female, since 1. Not too many war-oriented females in fiction and 2. It’s a fantasy setting…and it totally works in this world!
So yeah, I have no problem applying the ideas that excite and/or inspire me…but when I’m ‘unsure’, it’s usually because 1. I don’t think it would work with the story, will crowd it, will mess with it too much etc , or as I found out yesterday…2. It’s because I have my own visions of how certain pre made characters ‘ARE’, and I’d hate to change them. Even their gender. Heck, I even took my time to remove all gender locks…because I imagined them having a certain sexuality; - but what I did here - removing the locks - was a great idea I’d say. When it comes to PC or NPC’s sexuality, it should be left to the player’s imagination. Plus, only had 1 female for everyone back then (was pan, as we’d call it, for both classes), then had 1 lesbian character (if you pick rouge class), one bisexual male (if you pick warrior class) , one heterosexual male (both classes) and…that was it I think…so my main romance option was the female who was pan. She was supposed to be the Liara from Mass Effect (not literally, just in terms of - superior romance lol .) But yeah, that wasn’t really fair at all considering PC’s preferences. XD
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That sounds like really great advice.
Tbh, I’m not used to people telling me what do add or remove in my story. Well…besides in fanfiction.net, but back, I was a teen and could say ‘Nah’ without feeling bad about it lol.
By the way, I think I have 5 RO’s per class, it’s true (since you gain a rouge male while playing a warrior, and a warrior female while playing a rouge. Just something I added for more replay value etc…)
Anyways, I think I can pull out these RO’s. Some are main, some are semi-main characters. It’s a long story/game after all, with at least one sequal to it. However, if I added in at least one more…I just can’t do that. All the main/semi main spots are taken. If I wanted to add another such character to my game, I’d have to change the story.
PS: And I have the thing outlined. I know more or less how I want it to go to be “perfect” for me.
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So, am I correct in thinking that you’ll only ever encounter one of these guys if you’re a warrior? That’s a pretty poor balance; I mean, at least they’re both bi now, but that’s still pretty limiting for a rogue. (Plus doesn’t the warrior start off with a preset SO, so they’re not necessarily going to even want to romance anyone…?)
Hey. I’m actually sometimes wondering if I can write up a male or a non binary character as well as a female one.
I don’t think it’s offensive - well…I mean, it depends on your reasoning? xD
Mine for example is, I’ve RPed a lot. On star was the old republic more then anything (SWTOR ot simply TOR), and I noticed some guys there trying to RP as girls…epic. fail. xD
And that’s my actual reasoning for it. XDDD Or the ‘biggest’ reasoning anyways…
While I write up male and nonB chars, I at least think I have no problem with it, but when I think about those guys…well, you know. 
I wonder if, they honestly think they sound ‘alright’ as well. XDDD
Sorry if that sounded…mean. xDDD
I also wonder if gender …gives out a different ‘feel’? Now, this one’s a bit hard to explain…it’s just the general feeling you get from a person. Plus, your attraction…is it just looks (Oh hey, she’s a female i’m in!)? Or is it more?
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This was my old setting… 
And I agree, it was a bad one. And I’m glad I fixed it.
When the characters were gender locked.
The warrior starts out with …how do I add in spoilers to my text?
I’ll respond to you in a bit. 
Okay, that’s better then.
You can add spoilers using: [spoiler]Spoilered text here.[/spoiler]
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The warrior starts out with a… spouse, or a family member that they love. It can be a wife, husband, nonB spouse,a brother or a female cousin (this was added in a bit later, for those who don’t want any romance, or if their character is aromantic.) Let’s assume the warrior starts out with a spouse tho: It was a tragic tale. And if you read the Warrior’s chapter 1 fully, you’d know they were no longer among the living, and reading on, you’d also found out this happened 5 years ago, and since that time, the warrior self-exiles themselves before the rogue (Uross) comes to bring them out of exile in chapter II.
So …It’s not really even a must for the warrior to have a romance option (an ex spouse) in the first place…And even if they did pick that, it’s been 5 years since the relationship…though, I completely plan on adding in the warrior’s possible struggle with romance if they picked they had a spouse instead of a family member they loved (family like lol)…Hope this answers your question. ^^
Long story short: I made quite a few changes to my game thus far. And I’m (so far)happy for all of them. Since they all added something new in and/or fitted at the very least and pleased. ^^
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