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
And for topics I didn't discuss:
Re-Writing: I'm freakin' infamous for this, because I took my blog down back in August because so much of my original writing for Eight Cicadas was chock full of cringe. I don't see anything wrong with re-writing older work, especially beginning chapters. First chapters are what hooks your audience in, and I'll admit to giving up on a lot of stories because I didn't want to slog through endless mediocre chapters to get to the good stuff. Not to mention, my idea for the plot of the story evolved a lot since starting, and I had to either clarify or outright change things because of what fit better as a story idea in the future.
Plus, I did take notes on what I changed (and made them public for transparency's sake), so that I could better pinpoint what to look out for writing in the future. It takes a lot of effort for me to write chapters that are logical and sharp, instead of rambling and throwing out ideas haphazardly.
No one's complained to me about it so far. :p
Writing for Legacies/Challenges: I'll admit...I love a good challenge. I think they're great at providing some sort of framework for playing a game, so I don't have to do it myself. I do like breaking rules too (funny thing is, I actually do have some sort of "partial ownership" of the Immortal Dynasty Challenge rules, for both TS3 and TS4, but it's just so fun to break them!), but I like the structure underneath a lot of challenges. I love writing a "deeper lore" behind the need to follow rules.
But no one should feel pressure to conform to the "norm" of that either.
Granted, I never noticed much of a difference between the popularity of legacies/challenges versus "free-written" stories. I think those in the latter category tended to have to be really stellar in order to get a lot of attention, but I think that's generally true for legacies as well.
Re-Writing: I'm freakin' infamous for this, because I took my blog down back in August because so much of my original writing for Eight Cicadas was chock full of cringe. I don't see anything wrong with re-writing older work, especially beginning chapters. First chapters are what hooks your audience in, and I'll admit to giving up on a lot of stories because I didn't want to slog through endless mediocre chapters to get to the good stuff. Not to mention, my idea for the plot of the story evolved a lot since starting, and I had to either clarify or outright change things because of what fit better as a story idea in the future.
Plus, I did take notes on what I changed (and made them public for transparency's sake), so that I could better pinpoint what to look out for writing in the future. It takes a lot of effort for me to write chapters that are logical and sharp, instead of rambling and throwing out ideas haphazardly.
No one's complained to me about it so far. :p
Writing for Legacies/Challenges: I'll admit...I love a good challenge. I think they're great at providing some sort of framework for playing a game, so I don't have to do it myself. I do like breaking rules too (funny thing is, I actually do have some sort of "partial ownership" of the Immortal Dynasty Challenge rules, for both TS3 and TS4, but it's just so fun to break them!), but I like the structure underneath a lot of challenges. I love writing a "deeper lore" behind the need to follow rules.
But no one should feel pressure to conform to the "norm" of that either.
Granted, I never noticed much of a difference between the popularity of legacies/challenges versus "free-written" stories. I think those in the latter category tended to have to be really stellar in order to get a lot of attention, but I think that's generally true for legacies as well.
