I've got a bit of a problem when it comes to writing... well... pretty much any long-er stories, and my game in particular. I have this annoying habit of skipping around, writing scenes in a pretty much random order. It's just that I find I write better when I write what I'm in the proper mindset to write, rather than forcing myself into the next scene. Anyway, the result so far has been a frustrating collection of scenes that have yet to be linked together. So here's my question- Any tips on forcing myself to write the other stuff? Should I just give someone a bull-whip and tell them to give me a few lashes everytime I wander off track? Maybe it'd be better put this way: How do you get yourself to write the rest of the story? The stuff between the dramatic scenes, but which seem equally critical for building up to the dramatic scenes? Nothing I can't work out on my own, but I was wondering if anyone could help out. I'm a bit of a perfectionist in that I hate it when I feel like even one of my scenes is forced. -Arek the Absolute [EDIT] - I mean writing OUT the scenes, with all the details 'n such. I don't mean to say I have no idea what's going on between the dramatic scenes. [edited by - Arek the Absolute on August 24, 2002 10:32:18 PM]

Just make yourself sit down and write out the VERY basic plot.
Star important scenes that you don''t want to compromise on.
Work from there.
You should end up with some choppy places, and some well-thought out places. Remember which is which...

Go back, and try and smooth the choppy parts into something consistent; you may have to delete stuff or maybe not

Anyways, get some paper out...

Re-write it again - add more details. Work on making it even more flowing. Cull some more. Add some more, etc.

Re-write AGAIN with pretty nit-picky detail. You shouldn''t have to take away or add anything this time, just decide EXACTLY what you want to happen. Of course, if you have multiple paths, this can start getting VERY long.

This is how I have to do things: it may take you more re-writes, or less. You may be able to sit down and do it at once, but more than likely you will find yourself with some problems when you start trying to write the detail.

About the guy with the whip: it helps if you can have somebody else to look at the script when you do each draft. They can look at it from an unbiased perspective and say, "That''s great!" or, "What the ----!"

But, you can avoid this if you let yourself sleep on problems for a night or two... You can come back and see how well the extra stuff actually fits in. It may not. Otherwise, just try not to let yourself get off track on paper - you may start wandering in your head - just don''t write it down until you are sure it fits.

Anyways, good luck!

-geo-

There''s a possibility that I wrote an article that you might find useful, in the Game Design section, entitled ''Creative Writing 101.'' Remote, but a possibility.

Have you ever seen Bryce render an image? It does it''s first scan at a low resolution, so you get a vague idea of what''s where and which colours things are. The second iteration is at double the resolution - the blocks from the first pass each get split into 4, and so on. This is repeated until you get a high-quality image.

Forgive the analogy, but that''s what I''m hearing from you. At the moment, your stories are still first/second pass - although the overall shape is there, it''s blocky and disjointed, and doesn''t look great. You need to rescan things a couple of times.

Try this. Write out a list of all the main plot events, like the AP suggested. They should all be the critical events - if there''s something in there which the story would still work without, then take it out. That''s your ''skeleton'' story.

Now, between each skeleton event, come up with another event - not as important, and not vital to the storyline - and make sure you do all of them. No need for significant detail, just ''Smith goes to the baker''s.''

Now, between each event on that list, add another event. If you started with a skeleton story of 10 plot events, you should have 34 now.

Repeat until you''re getting down to stuff that you don''t think you need. When you reach that stage, repeat the process two more times, and then stop. You should have a full storyline. Then, you use that storyline as the basis for the actual writing. Feel free to cut bits out, sculpt it, and so on and so forth - as you''re bound to have more than you need there - but when you''re done, you should have a complete, high-resolution story on your hands.

Using this approach, you can ensure that your ''critical'' events are evenly spaced - they won''t come too fast at the player, but (provided you don''t repeat too many times) they won''t come too slowly either. If you were to draw a graph of tension in your story, it should look like a suspension bridge (pun unintentional). That''s the amount of variation you need to keep the player interested but not overwhelmed.

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates
- sleeps in a ham-mock at www.thebinaryrefinery.cjb.net

I am a writer...though not professional or any good.

After the substantial lectures upstairs from some experienced people, all I want to say is one thing.

Writing is not just about inspiration. Inspiration is necessary but they come with short temper. Many times, you have to push yourself in writing something out of your inspiration. When you have edited something for more than 10 times, it will be nearly impossible to feel "spirited," but you know that's what you need to do to make the story better. It's like sports. Everyone likes to play matches...but there is a boring part called conditioning, this is where you need to endure.

[edited by - skybrother on August 26, 2002 9:57:32 AM]