Plotting - how do you do it?

[celebkiriedhel]

Drew - If I was writing about Lorcan... I'd be writing by the seat of my pants... and they'd all be... um... pervy.

[mdpthatsme]

I think I plot like an RPG game...which is funny because they're my favorite types of games.

[hrootbeer]

Jan 15, 2011 14:15:52 GMT -5 mdpthatsme said:

I think I plot like an RPG game...which is funny because they're my favorite types of games.

I'm not sure if you are referring to video RPGs or pen/paper RPGs. I am an old-school pen and paper player, and I think I plot this way, too.

That is to say that I only have a vague notion of the story until I play the game and/or write an update. Sometimes I do plan ahead a little bit, but honestly I really don't know what's going to happen until I play the game and even then, I don't always know what type of story the play session will turn into when I write.

However, when I write short stories and the attempts I've made at novels over the years, I do a lot more plotting. I am still not an extensive plotter, but I have more in mind than the general Sims 3 guidelines. Usually I start with conflict then character and let the story evolve from that.

[pinkfiend1]

I don't really plot things at all. Every so often I'll have a dream of what should happen and try to make the Sims want to do that for me. Otherwise I just write what they seem to do and see how it turns out.

[rad]

The challengey stories tend to partly go on gameplay and partly on what I want to happen. I deliberately engineered the order of restrictions in The Lazarus Dispatches, for example, because those that I lifted last felt like they were the best ones to lift last in the story rather than those that would ease game play. I've engineered several things in OP to fit where I want the story to go as well.

With both stories, though, sometimes things I have planned can't happen because of the game. The Kyoti Legacy was all about turning the gameplay into some kind of story but there was no plot outside of that - the characters were still real to me, though, and they still had a story in the way the Dayes don't have a 'story' given they're an experimental legacy - to me they're no less real as personalities but they're more reality TV than soap opera.

With Taken, it's a combination of knowing some of the big events that happen and some of the way certain characters will develop, and surprises that come my way as I write. For example, Emilie arrived in my head during the course of writing the series, but some other key characters and some minor ones you haven't met yet have been there since the story's inception. There are also some characters who may never enter the story because some of their storylines might end up being given to characters you do know, and some might not work in the storyline at all.

Naomi's storyline has changed quite a bit from the original plan I had for her, but that's not to say her original storyline won't still play out in a similar way, it just won't be exactly the same, as when I thought through some of the events that formed her storyline, they weren't believable enough.

So in terms of my plotting approach, some things are fixed, some things are very fluid, and some things are a total surprise.

[mdpthatsme]

Jan 15, 2011 15:25:50 GMT -5 hrootbeer said:

Jan 15, 2011 14:15:52 GMT -5 mdpthatsme said:

I think I plot like an RPG game...which is funny because they're my favorite types of games.

I'm not sure if you are referring to video RPGs or pen/paper RPGs. I am an old-school pen and paper player, and I think I plot this way, too.

Like Final Fantasy games...I've played them forever.

[infinitygoddess]

As a graphic novelist, I typically plot with pictures. I draw the pictures first, then decide where the story is headed from that one page. In the case of my Sim stories, I take the pictures in the game, sort the pictures into a particular chapter folder in a particular order as to where I think it'll all fit.

It works for me and keeps me somewhat focused, considering my ADD-like tendencies.

[hrootbeer]

Jan 15, 2011 19:59:19 GMT -5 infinitygoddess said:

As a graphic novelist, I typically plot with pictures. I draw the pictures first, then decide where the story is headed from that one page. In the case of my Sim stories, I take the pictures in the game, sort the pictures into a particular chapter folder in a particular order as to where I think it'll all fit.

It works for me and keeps me somewhat focused, considering my ADD-like tendencies.

I've often wondered how graphic novelists plot--picture or prose first. I'm currently reading "Girl Genius", a sort of Steampunk Online comic that is also in GN format. Those authors have quite an intricate story. I've long been curious whether they plan it with pictures first or with a prose outline or something like that. Other GNs that I've read have used the art to narrate. Personally, I like a more equal balance of prose and pictures, but I'm new to GNs. My husband has always read them. He forced me to try one and stop being such a book snob.

[Velvet]

I have to be honest and I'm not sure what this says about me but I don't plan anything. I just write. Sometimes I write manically for a bit (scenes, dialogue whatever) and then let it rest.

Now with sim writing, it's different. Sometimes the family history works as a prompt for me and as I play, stories form. But I don't write anything down. The story I'm working on now is like that. I go in, play and I'm steadily writing the story in my mind - not dialogue necessarily but actions, motives and possible consequences.

Next, I make a story board by arranging the images I like in front of me as I imagined them being played out while in-game. The dialogue comes and the motives are fleshed out once I have the story board in the right order. For the most part, I know the end of a chapter before I get there but not always. There are times when a portion of dialogue is written that takes me in a completely different direction from what I originally intended.

There is no true method to my madness. This is only true for sim related writing.

It's a whole different ball game with pure text writing. I tend to write in a "connect-the-dots" kind of way. Which to me, is not conducive to productive writing. I have a hard time connecting the dots. How to get from point A to B without losing interest or wandering off on a tangent? This is a constant wall that I run into and it's very irritating.

I think this is why I enjoy sim writing better. It's easier for me to visualize a story than to just write it. A crutch? Yes, I think so and it worries me to be honest.

[sb]

Velvet, if using images is a crutch, you have company. I'm kind of tired of apologizing for it.

[Stacy]

Jan 26, 2011 19:34:37 GMT -5 @sb said:

Velvet, if using images is a crutch, you have company. I'm kind of tired of apologizing for it.

I never got the people who used to be all "You shouldn't have to look at the pictures in a Sims story!!!!111"

It's like - okay, why the hell are you using the game for your story then? If you hate pictures, no one's stopping you from writing full text and, you know, not using a story element that you despise so much.

I never could get the psychology there, why they were freely choosing something that they then spent all their time insulting.

Pictures aren't a crutch. They're a significant part of using the Sims game as a medium. And they should never be apologized for.

[Velvet]

Thanks for your words of encouragement SB and Stacy. I have no good reason for why I've been feeling guilty lately for reverting back to sim pics for my stories. It's idiotic. I like sim stories, especially when the images truly line up with the action. A well thought out 'story board' makes a story twice as interesting to me. If the images are put together in a slap-shod fashion I lose interest. Perhaps that's not fair but if I want to read just prose then that's what I actively look for. I don't want to search for a good sim story and skip the pictures. You're right Stacy, they are a significant part of using the sims game as a medium.

[thelunarfox]

Jan 25, 2011 16:49:09 GMT -5 Velvet said:

I think this is why I enjoy sim writing better. It's easier for me to visualize a story than to just write it. A crutch? Yes, I think so and it worries me to be honest.

Don't let it worry you. It's the same thing with any other art, right? I mean an artist has a picture in their head, but that doesn't mean it's easy to put down in whatever medium they're working in. They frequently get frustrated even when other people are astounded by the work they've done.

[Velvet]

I've decided to just go with the flow and enjoy myself. I can write prose and enjoy sim stories too! One doesn't take away from the other. Like I said, it was an idiotic thought that I let dwell too long in my head. *Poof* it's out. Silly me, thinking waaay too much.

[pinkfiend1]

I love using pictures in my story. I hate taking them, but I know full well that I need the pictures. My narrational skills in proper stories aren't there enough to not have them to support it.

I'm really worried though, I've started plotting a Legacy story I've restarted it so many times, it's actually beginning to bore me. I thought I'd start it one way, then I thought that actually I so and so would fit really well here, and wouldn't fit in further down the story, and just when I'd gotten that all kind of roughly plotted and starting to kind of write it, I realised that in order to do that something had to happen before and now I've realised what that is the problem is trying to find a way to write it so that it makes sense and is readable whilst still leaving the bits I want later on seem a surprise. It's a nightmare. I hate plotting it's so hard and complicated to do.
You know who I blame for this whole madness. Verlaine Pink. If he hadn't wanted to sleep around he wouldn't have had Heather and Brannon Goldbeard, and then Lyle Chapman wouldn't have had drove into Brannon and Kidd as they were crossing the road. And if Heather hadn't started dating the murderer's son none of this would have happenned, as I wouldn't have felt a need to write it, then I wouldn't have needed to create a best friend for her, who just happenned to fit into a legacy basis I had been half thinking of, so I wouldn't have needed to start a legacy so that this character could be born and then I wouldn't need to worry about what her parents would be like, and I wouldn't have started plotting this whole blasted legacy which will delay everything immensly.

But then again why am I letting myself get so worked up about something which ultimatly in the long run doeasn't matter. Why have I actually let myself get so involved in what is ultimatly just a game, that doesn't really matter? I've really been wasting my time all these years. To acheive what? Nothing, kust to know a few people on the internet who real names we don't knowm What have I been doing to myself?

[hrootbeer]

Feb 1, 2011 22:37:41 GMT -5 pinkfiend1 said:

But then again why am I letting myself get so worked up about something which ultimatly in the long run doeasn't matter. Why have I actually let myself get so involved in what is ultimatly just a game, that doesn't really matter? I've really been wasting my time all these years. To acheive what? Nothing, kust to know a few people on the internet who real names we don't knowm What have I been doing to myself?

I hope you've been enjoying yourself up to the part about plotting. That's what all of this should be...enjoyment.

As for the plotting part, you've just described the main reason I don't do it for my Sims' stories that much. It takes so much effort to set situations up. That's what has me so slowed on my story. I decided on what was going to happen before I played, so now I have to set the scenes. Takes a lot longer and isn't as much fun.

However, I don't have a seriously concrete plot I'm trying to follow, so I can pretty much go with the flow if some of my plans don't work. I like having a little more looseness in my playing so that if the Sims do something interesting, I can incorporate it into what I write.

Sounds like you need to play more after you finish with your plot so that you can get the fun back. I hope you find the joy again.

[rad]

Pink - just a suggestion - maybe she's not cut out to be a legacy founder. Maybe there's a different kind of story you can tell with her?

[Velvet]

That's a good suggestion Rad.

Pink I have a suggestion as well that may work for you. It has for me so I thought I'd share.

I don't necessarily plot my stories but I do have a pretty good idea of where I want to go with a story ahead of time but still there are those moments when I stumble into a brick wall.

Here's the trick, ignore the wall, plotting devices, red herrings etc. Just write. Go back after you've finished and then add in the foreshadowing, the red herrings etc. You know that saying, 20-20 is always better in hind-sight? It works in writing too. Instead of pre-planning, just write what you want and go back later after you've had time to decompress, give yourself time to clear the palette, so to speak. It helps to relieve the pressure and allows you to enjoy the process.

It also keeps you from feeling a failure because you haven't reached some self-imposed goals. I hope this helps.

[pinkfiend1]

Your a genius velvet! I know exactly how I need to do it now. Don't ask me what you said to make it all make sense though.

[Velvet]

Well glory be Pink! I'm just glad I was able to help!