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Post by GlacierSnow on Aug 5, 2024 13:17:58 GMT
Well, I really like this forum's design. It's much more comfortable for someone like me to use than some of the other current options. I hope we can attract a few more simlit writers here.
To start with, I think we need a discussion thread for talking about writing. I didn't want to totally steal the "Art of Sims Storytelling" title from the official sims forum, but my hope is that this thread can have a similar feeling and interesting discussions about simlit story making, and writing in general. As well as a place for us to support and encourage each other in writing. I like the topic questions format of that thread, so let's try that here.
Feel free to bring up topics or questions about writing and simlit experiences at any time. Do you have some experience or question about writing stories with sims that you want to talk about? This is the place for it.
To start things off, here are my first questions:
What aspects of simlit creation do you most enjoy?
What aspects of simlit creation do you most commonly find yourself frustrated by?
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Post by HermioneSims on Aug 5, 2024 20:39:52 GMT
Ah, back to the basis! Let's see what I can say... What aspects of simlit creation do you most enjoy?For sure it's the elaboration of the story plot, closely followed by writing it down and sharing it with others. With the Millers this isn't very visible because it's not really a story/legacy I planned in advance, but for me planning and writing is usually the part that takes the most time/number of revisions. Actually, I've never written fiction in other forms (short stories or novels, for instance), so I can't tell if I find SimLit better than them in as a writing style. But we all know that SimLit isn't just writing, it starts with "sim" after all! And, thinking about it, the game part adds quite a lot of variety. We have to make a sim for each character in the story, find the best cc to better match our idea of them, play their relationships and families, build and decor their houses, etc... And, for gameplay-driven stories, just playing the game and see what happens is actually quite central. Out of these, I probably prefer the sims-making part and cc searching over the buy/build one (for the latter in particular I always end up using the gallery a lot), but I have to admit that to make the Millers Legacy I had a lot of fun just playing their everyday life (and following Nacho the cat ) I would also say that SimLit (can) also make good use of graphical and/or IT abilities. About the graphical part, I do have fun trying to find the right angle/moment for taking screenshots, but my aesthetic sense is so low that trying to toggle the lighting, contrast, blurriness etc to improve them doesn't even cross my mind. On the other hand, using Sims4Studio for making/modifying custom contents is something I generally have some more fun with, and even if the results are quite rough they often end up in my stories. I think that soon I'll try to modify poses too, we'll see how that goes... What aspects of simlit creation do you most commonly find yourself frustrated by?Right now, it's mostly the lack of time to advance with my stories! It's probably because now I'm spending a lot of time just translating the Millers, which occupy most of my "actual writing time". As for the Sims gameplay part instead (i.e. those days when I actually want to start the game and do something), I'm already setting up the save for the next story I have in mind (which has been set up two years ago!) If we also consider that this story is meant to be the revamp/update of a very old story I wrote in TS2, and that I have (more or less) planned its plot up to (almost) the end, you can probably see why I'm so frustrated by not having anything ready to share yet! In the last couple of weeks I managed to write down a first draft for the text of the first 2.5 chapters (text only, zero pictures), and for the moment it's all I have. My second main source of frustration is when the results are not as good as I had planned. A weaker story than it sounded initially in my mind, not finding the right cc, not finding the right sentence to express an idea (in English in particular), even not managing to have the right layout on my blog, these are all episodes that can leave me quite upset. That's when I usually remind myself this is just an amateur hobby. I usually move away from the source of frustration for some hours/days, cool down a bit (maybe find some partial solutions) and then move on following the motto: "It's just your hobby, focus on the funny part!" PS: Oh, yeah, I have another one: those weeks when I manage to keep one afternoon/evening telling myself: "That time is dedicate to advance with my story only!", and then when the planned time actually arrive I have zero inspiration and I just spend hours watching kittens on youtube. What a waste of time...
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Post by MonaSolstraale on Aug 5, 2024 21:57:34 GMT
It is very nice of you to pick up the thread again GlacierSnowI am actually in the process of gathering pictures for a new chapter. I have some ideas that have taken shape during my involuntary absence. Right now my biggest obstacle is actually that I'm flitting between my game and the new EA Forum where I tag frustrated players to steer them in the direction of this new Forum here. I think it's really good what you did with your messages in the Forum. I've started decorating a house to support the AlJay2000 August Challenge, but I'm going on vacation for a week on September 9th 😬 At the same time, I also feel I should set up a thread here with Tusnelda's Story. I don't think many people have noticed that I posted a new chapter 14 days ago 😅 I want too much at once and that is a bad basis for writing and telling stories. I don't think that answers what you're asking at all, so I'll come back when I can collect my brain a bit more. But thanks for the questions 🥰
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Post by GlacierSnow on Aug 5, 2024 22:11:20 GMT
HermioneSims Thanks for your interesting answers to my questions. I'll reply to them in more detail in a bit (from the smells upstairs, I think my husband is about to tell me dinner is ready, so I don't want to get in to deep). MonaSolstraale I think it would be great if you set up a thread for Tusnelda's story here. I also didn't realize that you had posted a new chapter! That other forum is so hard to find things. I'm really hoping this forum can become another place where we can all meet in a quieter atmosphere for talking about stories or other creative things we do with the sims games. Not a replacement for the EA forum, just a more specialized meeting spot. Like that forum is the huge carnival, and this one is a nice cozy cafe.
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Post by GlacierSnow on Aug 6, 2024 2:45:00 GMT
{SPOILER}Your story is so good. It must be a lot of work and time consuming to translate it all into English, but I'm so glad you have been doing that!
I also enjoy making all the sims to be characters in my story. Even background characters, I spend a lot of time creating a sense of personality for them through how they look and dress. I think this really is one of the things I like about using the Sims for telling my story. If I were doing it all in words like a novel, I would never out so much detail into the side characters like that. I remember being impressed in one of your story generations when your characters went to a university in New Sixam, and you actually had all the background characters as aliens. It was so immersive and cool.
I can so relate to the difficulty finding time (simlit is so time consuming, even if you are using the gallery to find builds or sims, it still can take a long time to find what you need). And I also have that problem, when I have time set aside, sometimes I just can't get myself inspired.
I think your story is well written and a lot of fun. But I know what it feels like when things don't turn out as well as I had imagined them in my story. I definitely have parts like that, where I'm just like "well, that's not what I really wanted, but it's going to have to do." I think you're right, it's best to step away for a bit. Sometimes when I do that, when I come back, it's better than I remembered. Like some little gnome came and fixed what I was frustrated about while I was gone. Or I think of a better way to do it. Or I just let it go.
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Post by lizzielilyy on Aug 6, 2024 18:56:55 GMT
To start things off, here are my first questions:
What aspects of simlit creation do you most enjoy?
What aspects of simlit creation do you most commonly find yourself frustrated by? I also really love this forum, it feels like we've gone back to the good old days 💖 The aspects I most enjoy are writing the story itself, coming up with the plot, the twists and turns, the hows and whys of things that unfold, and getting to know my characters' motivations in doing that. I had a eureka moment just last night when trying to answer one of the biggest questions of Evergreen that will be answered in Gen VIII. I just love that tingly excited heart-skip I get when I posit a theory and know that it's the one. The aspect I'm most commonly frustrated by is the game 😂 I've hit the classic Save File Error in my Evergreen save and nothing pains me more than having to play out the game over and over and over because it couldn't save and then it crashed. It caused me to take a six month hiatus from writing between Generation VII and Generation VIII (luckily I'd got super ahead of myself) and even now I'm still holding my breath every time I save 😂 I love keeping the game as accurate to the story as possible i.e. maintaining the family tree, playing out the events like marriages and babies for real, and seeing the town evolve, so it makes me sad to think I'll probably have to do a hard reset at some point to keep the story alive. I wanted to ask what is something you've previously learned about your writing process that's had a positive impact on your writing moving forwards?
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Post by GlacierSnow on Aug 7, 2024 11:48:02 GMT
lizzielilyy I love this forum too! It feels a lot like the forum we were used to before "The Move".
Having those eureka moments when something you've been pondering for your story or characters suddenly makes sense or hits an inspiration is one of the best feelings in writing! I love it when that happens.
I hear you on the game technical frustrations. I'm sorry to hear you are having crashing issues with your story save. That's frustrating and heartbreaking after putting in so much work. I also live in fear of this happening with my story saves, because they are getting huge and old.
You ask a really interesting question! I think one of the biggest things I've learned about my writing process is that when I hit really bad writer's block and can't seem to get motivated at all to write, it is almost always because something about what I have already written, or what I have planned, is subconsciously bothering me. I have to figure out what it is that's not working for me and fix it, and then I will almost immediately be able to start writing again. Realizing this has made my unmotivated blocked periods much, much shorter. I used to sometimes be unable to write for months, but now that I know what causes my writer's block, I can start trying to figure out what's bugging me about the story, and get back to work. And here are my own responses to my earlier questions.
What aspects of simlit creation do you most enjoy?
I've always enjoyed writing, but in trying simlit I discovered that I really love telling a story through pictures. I don't really like writing action or visual descriptions. But I love building lots, making sims, making custom poses (especially action poses), and taking screenshots. So with the screenshots doing most of the visual and action heavy lifting in my story, I can focus the written text on what I actually like to write, which is dialogue and characters' thoughts and feelings.
What aspects of simlit creation do you most commonly find yourself frustrated by?
I prefer to do conversation screenshots with actual in-game conversation interactions, rather than making a lot of talking poses, and the most frustrating part of that is when I want the conversation to be serious, but the sims won't stop grinning from ear to ear every time they speak. Even when their mood is the (supposedly neutral) "fine", they grin so much! Sometimes they really just make me want to tear my hair out! I often end up using screenshots that are actually of them listening (just catching them with mouth slightly open) instead of talking, because their expression is usually less "grinning like a fool" when listening. In story context, the listening screenshot can be made to look like a talking screenshot. Putting them in "confident" mood also helps, though sometimes that also just makes them smirk a lot.
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Post by HermioneSims on Aug 7, 2024 16:55:07 GMT
With the premise that I'm not totally focused because of the heat, let me try answer the new question! what is something you've previously learned about your writing process that's had a positive impact on your writing moving forwards? lizzielilyy , let me think... This is a difficult one for me, because I'm not really writing with a very precise method in mind, nor I really know much about the theory behind it. Back in school I was told a few times that I write "like a textbook", and we don't really have creative writing as a subject anyway. I started SimLit because, after reading stories written by others for so long, I wanted to share my own stories too, but I didn't have high expectations about what I could write at the time. Up to now I've written three SimLit stories, so I think to have found my dimension with this medium specifically. On the other hand, however, I know that writing SimLit can be easier than writing novels or short stories as a lot of the tricky parts are replaced with pictures. All things considered, I think I am a very beginner when it comes to writing in the technical sense of the term. Considering all these premises, I think that the main thing I learnt about my (very simple) writing process is that I instinctively want to plan story events in advance. On the other hand, however, I also learnt that planning too much in advance (i.e. having all the chapters ready before starting posting them) is way more stressful than writing a chapter at a time and immediately posting it. Thus, now I'm trying to find a balance between the two, and hopefully this will have a positive effect on my writing and on the enjoyment of my hobby
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EvilBnuuy
Member
evil
Posts: 23
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Post by EvilBnuuy on Aug 7, 2024 16:56:12 GMT
I currently have 0 energy to engage in actual discussion about this, sorry folks, but I will give a jokey reply for now:
What aspects of simlit creation do you most enjoy?
- Writing.
What aspects of simlit creation do you most commonly find yourself frustrated by?
- Writing.
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Post by MonaSolstraale on Aug 7, 2024 17:53:05 GMT
Take care of yourself EvilBnuuy 🥰 Sometimes life just takes more than it gives. I'm glad you found your way here anyway.
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Post by GlacierSnow on Aug 7, 2024 22:25:58 GMT
I second MonaSolstraale 's concern, EvilBnuuy. Please take care. It really is good to see you here though. And I also think that your answer is perfect. Very much sums up the whole thing, doesn't it?
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Post by MonaSolstraale on Aug 10, 2024 10:47:51 GMT
I'm struggling with Tusnelda's Story right now. The many characters mean that the chapters will contain a lot of pictures. As readers, do you prefer that I try to split the chapters into several sections or should I just continue as I am doing? I sometimes have a hard time finding an appropriate place to split them up because I'm trying to connect the sections with a common thread. On the other hand, I fear that the massive amount of images will deter people from reading.
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Post by GlacierSnow on Aug 10, 2024 11:15:13 GMT
MonaSolstraale Massive amounts of text will sometimes deter me (though only until I have more time if it's a story I'm already reading) but usually massive amounts of pictures won't. It can be a problem though if the pictures are loading slowly. But if you keep you convert them to jpg to keep their size small, this helps. I try to limit my chapters size and keep them fairly consistent length, but I agree it can sometimes be hard to find a good spot to break. Thinking of it as a way to create suspense rather than just needing to cut the chapter in half for size reasons has really helped.
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Post by HermioneSims on Aug 10, 2024 19:44:53 GMT
I'm struggling with Tusnelda's Story right now. The many characters mean that the chapters will contain a lot of pictures. As readers, do you prefer that I try to split the chapters into several sections or should I just continue as I am doing? I sometimes have a hard time finding an appropriate place to split them up because I'm trying to connect the sections with a common thread. On the other hand, I fear that the massive amount of images will deter people from reading. This is indeed a difficult question. I find it particular difficult to decide this myself with game-driven stories in particular, my instinct in this case would really be to just throw in the chapter all the stuff I did in my last gaming session, but then I often ended up deciding that it wasn't the best idea. In general, I think that the most important element to keep in mind is the number of topics in a chapter. When my draft starts to be very long and it contains more than one topic/theme, then I usually decide to split it. If, instead, it's just very long but the topic is just one I usually don't. I tend to evaluate the length of a chapter more with the number of words than the number of pictures, but it's also true that I write more than you usually do in between the pictures. I try to keep the words count below 2000 to keep the reading time within what I consider reasonable, early on in the legacy I was always very far from that but in the latter generations I was constantly just above it instead. People like very different reading times, anyways, so I wouldn't worry too much about adapting to a specific number because I don't think there is a real rule about it. In general, I would worry about the number of pictures only when it's so high to make it hard to load the page. Right now I would not call my connection as "very fast" (12 Mbits/s download, 20Mbits/s upload) yet your latest chapters loaded quite quickly for me, so I would say their number of pictures is fine. How much longer do you plan to make your next chapters? If it was twice as long or longer, I would indeed consider it a bit long for a single blog post (but I would read it anyway).
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Post by kelloggjkellogg on Aug 10, 2024 20:14:36 GMT
What aspects of simlit creation do you most enjoy?
Two things spring to mind...getting an interesting idea and running with it. When the creative juices start to flow, it's exhilarating. The other is the CAS makeovers. As my story is set in the 1960s every character and townie has to have the right period look. That's a lot of fun to do.
What aspects of simlit creation do you most commonly find yourself frustrated by?
Finding time to write and the grind when the creativity isn't flowing.
what is something you've previously learned about your writing process that's had a positive impact on your writing moving forwards?
Re-reading my story from the beginning I've noticed how I've moved from very simplistic storytelling to writing fast paced dialogue. Some people are good at writing long stretches of prose but my preferred method is to show the characters when they're interacting with other characters.
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