The Art of Sims Storytelling
Hi guys! @CathyTea and I were talking, and we thought we'd try making a thread that would be focused solely on writing, especially Sims story writing. The writers' lounge thread is great for being ...
Forum Discussion
I'd answer my own questions except I didn't have any preconceptions because not having preconceptions in general is a life philosophy of mine that I cling to very very very tightly, and also I'm not terribly influenced by other people's stories.
I hope that doesn't make me a bad person.
Haha, though, oh man, I used to get so angry about the prejudice against legacies back in the Olden Times. Mine had a story! Sure, it was all funny and stuff and I didn't do SRS BSNS stories until, like, Valley with Sims 3 in 2009, but it had a story!!!!
I know one time I read a book and stuff KEPT happening, like the characters never got a moment to themselves and it was just constant constant bad stuff, and I stopped reading because it was so exhausting and frustrating.
About the preconceptions thing....like....
Fair warning, the spousal person poured more wine into the glass at dinner tonight than he usually does.
People have always told me that my Sims stories are unique and different and not like anything else they've seen before. People said that with Valley, and I've heard it a couple of times about Surreal Darkness. Less than I did with Valley, but that's because Surreal Darkness has less than a tenth of Valley's readers. Which I think is due to changes in the community more than Surreal Darkness not being a tenth as good as Valley.
And it's like....I can't win against those preconceptions. I can write my heart out and it won't matter to someone who's all "Eww this has Sims 4 pictures!" or "Ewww there aren't actual Sims in the story!" or "Ewww the Sims game is only for lighthearted fun silly stuff that takes at most five minutes to write!" or whatever. Which, you know, the usual disclaimer: I like to write humor and silly stories too, and there is nothing wrong with them. But on the flip side, I also like to write my deep existential stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that either.
But eh. Sometimes I want ALL the human connection and all the relationships, and other times I'm like "Those people aren't my audience and we'd have nothing to say to each other anyway."
After the Bad Times (which I've learned in the years since that if you write something "unique" and "different" with the new base game, and it gets a lot of attention, you're going to threaten people who are deeply attached to the old game and who are worried that people will stop reading their stuff, and they will attack you), I joined another writing community, one that was a competition with a new topic every week and that was text-only.
But, being me, I couldn't help but do the occasional Sims story for it. ;) And actually a lot of the other people in that competition who had never heard of them were fascinated, and since mine was the first they'd read they were completely open and they had no preconceptions, and it was pretty awesome. :) Which they are curious enough about it that they wanted me to write a treatise on Sims storytelling, which I will do one day when I feel like it. I'll use the title I was originally going to go with for this thread: "Word Bones, Picture Blood: Creating Sims Stories".
I just....
I don't think anyone should limit themselves. In what they read as well as in what they write. At least until you have the experience to make an informed judgement - like I've been reading Sims stories for over 10 years, so I know that if I click on a new one and it's a legacy founder on a bare lot talking to the player about how they hate having to live on the bare lot, I should probably go ahead and hit the x button. But even then, you know - another thing I've learned is to scan the latest chapter first to see if it's worth going back to the beginning, because the latest chapter is going to have the best writing.
I might not read a lot of legacies anymore, but I will say that after 10 years of observing the community around them, I think they serve a great purpose. So many people have learned so much about writing from them.
And I GOT to go take a shower now. Also, yeah, I do walls of text. I'm a writer. It's a thing. ;)
I hope that doesn't make me a bad person.
Haha, though, oh man, I used to get so angry about the prejudice against legacies back in the Olden Times. Mine had a story! Sure, it was all funny and stuff and I didn't do SRS BSNS stories until, like, Valley with Sims 3 in 2009, but it had a story!!!!
I know one time I read a book and stuff KEPT happening, like the characters never got a moment to themselves and it was just constant constant bad stuff, and I stopped reading because it was so exhausting and frustrating.
About the preconceptions thing....like....
Fair warning, the spousal person poured more wine into the glass at dinner tonight than he usually does.
People have always told me that my Sims stories are unique and different and not like anything else they've seen before. People said that with Valley, and I've heard it a couple of times about Surreal Darkness. Less than I did with Valley, but that's because Surreal Darkness has less than a tenth of Valley's readers. Which I think is due to changes in the community more than Surreal Darkness not being a tenth as good as Valley.
And it's like....I can't win against those preconceptions. I can write my heart out and it won't matter to someone who's all "Eww this has Sims 4 pictures!" or "Ewww there aren't actual Sims in the story!" or "Ewww the Sims game is only for lighthearted fun silly stuff that takes at most five minutes to write!" or whatever. Which, you know, the usual disclaimer: I like to write humor and silly stories too, and there is nothing wrong with them. But on the flip side, I also like to write my deep existential stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that either.
But eh. Sometimes I want ALL the human connection and all the relationships, and other times I'm like "Those people aren't my audience and we'd have nothing to say to each other anyway."
After the Bad Times (which I've learned in the years since that if you write something "unique" and "different" with the new base game, and it gets a lot of attention, you're going to threaten people who are deeply attached to the old game and who are worried that people will stop reading their stuff, and they will attack you), I joined another writing community, one that was a competition with a new topic every week and that was text-only.
But, being me, I couldn't help but do the occasional Sims story for it. ;) And actually a lot of the other people in that competition who had never heard of them were fascinated, and since mine was the first they'd read they were completely open and they had no preconceptions, and it was pretty awesome. :) Which they are curious enough about it that they wanted me to write a treatise on Sims storytelling, which I will do one day when I feel like it. I'll use the title I was originally going to go with for this thread: "Word Bones, Picture Blood: Creating Sims Stories".
I just....
I don't think anyone should limit themselves. In what they read as well as in what they write. At least until you have the experience to make an informed judgement - like I've been reading Sims stories for over 10 years, so I know that if I click on a new one and it's a legacy founder on a bare lot talking to the player about how they hate having to live on the bare lot, I should probably go ahead and hit the x button. But even then, you know - another thing I've learned is to scan the latest chapter first to see if it's worth going back to the beginning, because the latest chapter is going to have the best writing.
I might not read a lot of legacies anymore, but I will say that after 10 years of observing the community around them, I think they serve a great purpose. So many people have learned so much about writing from them.
And I GOT to go take a shower now. Also, yeah, I do walls of text. I'm a writer. It's a thing. ;)
