I think I'll write a story...

Sul sul, everyone.

It’s been a long time since I wrote any Simlit.  My last “slice of life” story was fun to write, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to create a plot line for every Sim my main character met.  I had lots of fun coming up with the stories-within-a-story, but the result was a sprawling tale on which I couldn’t focus.  No wonder it fizzled out.

I think I’d like to try again, with a story I plan to keep very simple.  I won’t let it spawn a half-dozen spinoffs…or if I do, I’ll give each its own story.

I keep saying “I,” but truthfully, my Simworld is a collaborative project involving my daughter, Z, and me.  Z loves a good story as much as I do, and she is also a very talented creator of Sims. This afternoon, Z mentioned how much fun she’d had creating our last story together.  Now we’ve decided to tell another tale from our Simworld.  (We thought about doing a story last winter, but we decided to wait until after the new forum opened.)

Our heroine will be a Sim Z created when she was filling our Gallery with Young Adults whom we hoped our game would cast as Foxbury and Britechester students.   Instead, this Sim was assigned to a food stall in Newcrest, and the game rolled a particularly unfortunate set of traits for her:  Squeamish, Kleptomaniac, and Snob.  The thought of a stuck-up young woman hawking burgers from a stall, stealing from the till, and shrieking when she encountered an insect amused us, but Z pointed out that she couldn’t wrap her head around the thought of the sweet Sim she created turning into a villain or a wacky source of comic relief.

So, we went back to our Gallery version of her, and we’re happy to cast her in the lead role of our new story. We’ve created a simple setting and a basic backstory for her:  a “here she is, and here’s how she got here” sort of thing.  I’ll share that with you in the opening chapters of her story.  For now, I’ll just tell you her name:  Beth Ellicott.

Z and I have a basic idea of what Beth might like to do with her life, but as you well know, the game often directs Sims on other paths.  So I have no idea how her story will turn out.  We’re placing her in a world populated with Sims Z created, along with a few we found in the Gallery.  You won’t encounter Landgraabs or Goths or Pancakes here.  The setting is the save file created by the wonderfully talented SweetieWright84, with a few other buildings we’ve found sprinkled in.  

I also decided I’m not about to try writing a Simlit story on this forum.   I don’t think it’s well-suited for that type of thread.  So, I’ll post it on the Answers HQ forum, which is set up much more like the “old” Sims forum.  Once I write my first post there, I’ll link it to this thread, and I'll stop back in to let you know when a new chapter has been posted.  Hopefully some of you will want to follow the story. 😊

Some of the Simlit authors I’ve read create story arcs worthy of professional writers.  That is absolutely not me.  I don’t have a plot outline in my head, and neither does Z.  So Beth might not do anything exciting at all. Or, she might live a life full of adventure.  We’ll all find out together.