Writers' Study Chat and Feedback - Ask all your questions here!

[Zeion]

I agree with what Alwyn wrote. I face similar challenges in my current AAR just because the game keeps throwing situations at me that don't really come to my liking. BUT that is, what I find, part of the fun of writing "campaign-driven narratives", as Alwyn put it in another thread. Your narrative is driven and steered by the events in the game - which might sometimes seem random, or not even matching with your ideas. But then you need to adapt, restructure, and just like real-life, things change. People change.

A guy who was insecure and pessimistic once, might become a proud, selfish ruler (still insecure, but in another sense).
A friendly, good, character might become hateful and despicable just because of what he's been trough.

Some campaigns span many, many years and people change over the course of such time spans, I think.
That is another thing I like about AARs: they can sometimes span such long times, whole dynasties basically, that you can see people changing. You are participating in their whole life's journey.

That being said, I know its still difficult. Even if you play narrative-driven campaigns (so you play in a way that matches with what story you want to tell), you still may face "random events" or RNG in your way (depends a bit on the game/mod you are using, but still).

I can only say: don't be afraid to embrace the things that happen in-game, even if they contradict with what you had planned before. Find a way to justify these things. Introduce new characters. Maybe your main guy more and more fell under the influence of another, evil, person. That might not be your "strong main character" you envisioned in the first place, but hell, what intense story could that be!? I can only say it again: I think one of the great aspects of AARs is that they DO NOT fall into the same clischees, same story arcs, as you often find them in the literature. "Oh the stern but good-hearted roman general, a bit mean, but he's the anti-hero everybody loves... he's such a fair ruler" *snore-fest* (I'm exaggerating a lot, I know.. but you get the idea). Maybe Flavius himself was shocked about himself, when he butchered yet another army. He realizes the necessities of war. And it corrupts him. Just one of the many ways to look at it I suppose.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

I think this is an issue of letting the writing to be tied to the game - it feel a bit daunting taking that 'leap', as it were, however it is blissful in being able to write what you want, how you want not having to the follow the events of game. Sure the game provides an inspiration for the characters, setting, context etc. but when you are past that learning to walk stage and your characters and setting are developed enough, I find it a lot easier to develop your story in your own way. I know many AARs where the authors have hardly used the game at all, resorting to custom battles for pictures or even externally found pictures if the game does not provide them - and they have been some of the most successful AARs I have read.

Do not let the story bind you, rise up and break free of its shackles.

EDIT: Kind of the opposite to what Zeion has said, but that too is sound advice. And listen to Alwyn as well, he know's his stuff.

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

This background sounds original to me, Lord of the Drunk Penguin. I imagine that writing about parasitical aliens who are good guys would be an interesting challenge for a writer - particularly if they get off on war. How will you make your Vods attractive, despite their warlike tendencies?

Well, they will feed off each other too. The idea is to get them juiced up and ready for the Reckoning, which is their Highlander Quickening equivalent, where only the strong survive.

The conclusion is that no matter how much energy they take for themselves, how many battles they survive, the Master comes and takes it all away. So, they're basically living, breathing, fighting batteries.

It's kinda like the idea of today's society, where a creative person gets stuck in a mindless desk job, no matter what he or she does, his/ hers work won't be noticed by a remorseless, uncaring Boss who just takes the glory for himself.

The Boss can be anything, really. The System, the Society, anything.
The underlying idea is that some chose to fight this predestined fate, some choose to accept it, but in general, all lose and gain something at the end.

Their true selves.

All my characters will find themselves trapped in this game, in which Good/ Evil aren't clearly defined.
You know, like in real life.

[Alwyn]

Zeion and Shankbot make good points (I'm honoured by Shankbot's kind words). Of course, you are free to follow Zeion's approach (embrace the unpredictability of what happens in the campaign; tell the story of how and why it happened) some of the time and Shankbot's advice (whatever happens in the game, write the story you want to write) for the rest of the time.

Lord of the Drunk Penguin, your ideas sound brilliant, I like the connections you're making between your aliens and real life. You've identified some powerful themes - how we maintain our energy (do we take from others? Perhaps some of your characters will willingly sacrifice energy to help others survive)? How can we be creative in a world with many repetitive jobs and in which people don't always get the credit/recognition they deserve? Do we face a predetermined fate and how do we respond to that? There are the themes of our true selves and freedom/escaping from a trap - which might be related to each other - as well as ambiguity over good and evil. These look like rich resources for a story.

[Alwyn]

Zeion made a thoughtful comment on the 'We Want to Hear From You' thread and I think that it deserves discussion here.

AARs certainly often suffer from bad readability, due to screenshots interrupting the "reading flow".. but that's a tough one to solve, as AARs at the same time thrive from these screenshots.

Merchant of Venice said:-

I think sometimes screenshots interrupt the flow but good ones add lots to the story and just look great. I don't think that is the cause of readability issues.

What do you say, writers and readers of TWC? Do screenshots interrupt the reading flow? Does it depend on something, such as the size of the shots, the number of them or something else? When do screenshots distract from the story and when do they add to the story?

[Lortano]

Personally I always found the main issue with readability in AARs was with poor paragraph spacing. In my mind, images don't add much unless it's about a battle where context is all important in helping the description.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

They don't bother me at all, I like seeing screenshots if I'm reading an AAR - heck I expect them. AARs don't have to be pieces of strictly creative writing, they are (traditionally) reports of the campaign in-game, and pictures help a lot with that. If it is a more cw-focused piece, as AARs have evolved into, I don't see the harm in them.

[McScottish]

As someone who - not trying to blow my own horn...ooo, matron - helped to bring about 'pure narrative' AARs, and since it's how I've always written, I prefer them; does this mean that I mind screenshots? Not at all, in fact I now use them myself, whereas before I simply used related illustrations and so on. So, in answer to the question, it's all good.

[SanyuXV]

I don't mind screenshots in an AAR, sometimes writers aren't able to capture the scene and put it into words for us to read so instead they do the next best thing and that's to have us interpret it ourselves. What is that saying again, a picture is worth a thousand words?

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Everyone looking forward to Christmas?

[IneptCmdr]

Everyone looking forward to Christmas?

Family, friends, good food and two weeks off from work. Yep, I'm looking forward to it.

[Zeion]

Visiting family in the UK, so that's going to be cool. No time for Total War though, and probably not much time for writing/my AAR. So that's not so great.
@All: have a great christmas holiday time!

[Alwyn]

Yes I am looking forward to it! Have a great Christmas (or holiday season), everybody! (I like your festive sig picture, Shankbot! )

[SanyuXV]

Have a happy holidays everyone!

Cheers!

[Merchant of Venice]

On one hand I'm looking forward to Dragon Age Inquisition alongside all the other steam games I'm about to buy, but on the other hand I need to write and write a lot. Urghhhh tough decisions.

[waveman]

Happy holidays everyone! I'm certainly enjoying my time to relax, and I'm hoping everyone else is too

[waveman]

*gasp*

It's like He was never here

[Maximinus Thrax]

People who lost their updates should know they can still recover those posts by simply following Frunk's instructions from his excellent post.

[Dude with the Food]

*gasp*

It's like He was never here

You were dreaming. Ssh.

[Alwyn]

If you are looking for missing chapters (or missing AARs, stories and competitions) and wondering where they went, I have some bad news.

The TWC forums suffered a significant loss of data. Everything between Christmas Day and January 12 was lost. Sadly, it seems that the lost data cannot be recovered. I know that, unfortunately, many writers here have lost updates - I am very sorry. More information is here.

Behind the scenes, the Writers' Study and Critic's Quill team are working on getting the Writers' Study Yearly Awards and the MAARC back into action.