Others A Lost Returnee in need of some guidance.

[3n1gm@]

Hi. I'm an artist who used to be active years back, but had to stop for health related issues, and have had a difficult time wanting to step back in. Please don't bother asking who I was. My style has changed quite a bit since then, and I wasn't popular enough for everyone to recognize. I don't like looking back, so I'd rather start fresh.

Despite not being publicly active, I've been writing a lot of stories and doing a lot of doodling on the side, as well as better learning programs like Blender and Ren'Py. I don't often do 3D works, but I often found it fun to practice every now and then.

I think the biggest problem I'm having here is the drive to see my projects through. I touch on the various things I have going, but I'm a bit exhausted on creative efforts, relying more on spontaneous needs rather than true motivation. I just work when the urge hits, y'know?

I find that working on visual novels are much more difficult to lay out, and I get put off by the idea of creating variants of decisive points in a story arc. Any tips on workflow and general ideas on how to make the process flow a bit easier? Due to life, I'm running on fumes, but it hasn't all gone out. I genuinely want to put something out there for people to enjoy. The stories I have rolling along are fun when I write about them and think them over, but how I think and how I convey are two different things, as you all know.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[osanaiko]

Have you considered making short comics? An outlet for art, no need to worry about plot branching, no need to deal with "game programming". And a good way to share your horny ideas with grateful fans.

 

[3n1gm@]

Have you considered making short comics? An outlet for art, no need to worry about plot branching, no need to deal with "game programming". And a good way to share your horny ideas with grateful fans.

You're not wrong. Short comics most certainly make the flow a bit easier in comparison. I think I'm having a hard time gravitating towards this because I used to draw a lot of 2d comics, and those are what led to burn out.

It'd be easier with something like DAZ or Honey Select, but I'll be honest when I say I'd rather not resort to that. I'm kind of anal retentive about making things by hand.

You do give me a few ideas though. Might make stage scenes in Blender with stand-in models, fleshing out the story itself in whichever format I'm working with, then spend my creative efforts on refining the scenes with decent lighting, backdrops, cam angles and custom models.

I'm still open to ideas, but this sparks an interest for me for sure. Thanks.

Edit: Thinking on it further, maybe I just need to collab with one or a few others. Baby-step it so I can get used to it all again. I dunno, I'm spitballing here.

 

[aereton]

I think the biggest problem I'm having here is the drive to see my projects through. I touch on the various things I have going, but I'm a bit exhausted on creative efforts, relying more on spontaneous needs rather than true motivation. I just work when the urge hits, y'know?

I know that feeling. It's a treadmill that's difficult to get out of. What works for some people doesn't for others, so I can only give you my perspective:
I've found that when I'm working on something and keep it to myself, I'll likely never finish it. But if I share work-in-progress with others, get feedback and so on, I have way more motivation to see things to the end.

I find that working on visual novels are much more difficult to lay out, and I get put off by the idea of creating variants of decisive points in a story arc. Any tips on workflow and general ideas on how to make the process flow a bit easier?

Maybe it helps you to go for one single-threaded storyline kinda KN like, write that out enough to have some sort of basis to go off of. Then, you can go through it and ask yourself: "What if in XY situation, the player/MC decided to act differently than what I wrote? Maybe that'll help in constructing a branching narrative.

Due to life, I'm running on fumes, but it hasn't all gone out.

I'd urgently suggest to get your life in a decent place. Doesn't have to be perfect but comfy enough to have some headspace for your creative output. If you're concerned with your life as it is, why would you put all the stress of game development on top of it?

 

[3n1gm@]

Thanks for the input, Aereton. It was quite insightful, and while some of those are loaded questions, I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities....

-While I often obtained feedback from previous works, my experience taught me to give up on asking on WIP feedback (for my work specifically) and just see how people prefer the finished product and improve from there. I have the tough luck of being lost in translation during the working phase, and people finally get what I'm trying to say when it's done. I don't know if it's because my progression methods are abstract, of if my thinking is just all over the place, but this was a problem I had for quite a few years, and still do if I'm being honest.

-Your method for writing up alt timelines branching from the base timeline is pretty common sense, and also exactly the point I'm making with the previous statement. I am a bit embarrassed that I didn't even think to try a whole "What if" mentality for scenario branching outside of what would give someone a "Game Over" screen. That's me thinking too hard, so yeah, thanks. Sometimes I just need to hear it from someone else.

-Getting my life in a decent place is a bit of a... well let's just say that my life won't be getting any better any time soon. I'm on auto-pilot due to familial circumstances that aren't only mine to get into, so I'll just say that it can be summed up that I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The irony is that me working on these projects is really the only "me time" I get, and if anything, it's what distracts me from the ins and outs of my monotonous daily life. (Fortunately I'm incapable of getting bored, so my patience is assured on that front.)

That said, while I'm not a fan of putting my unfinished pieces out there, I do enjoy proper collab'd efforts and general teamwork, and I would gladly share my material if I thought it would help me finish it. Life and its circumstances have just been a little demanding, is all.

 

[Purple Nurple08]

Breaking a story up into arcs may help. So for example there can be like a pirate arc, where the main character is on the sea and becomes a pirate, then maybe they land somewhere and there's another arc where they, I don't know, become the town thief or something. But if you're having trouble with a more long form story, making small arcs might be a solution. That way it could be more episodic and self contained, and if you wanted you could string them along to make a bigger narrative. It might be a good way of doing things in more bite sized chunks.

Regarding player choices, it depends on what your goal is, you don't have to create variants of major plot points, depending on what effect you're going for, you could make variation in less substantial ways, like just being able to pick different flavours of dialogue, or a different love interest or something. You can make the variations as big or as small as you want.

 

[3n1gm@]

Thanks Purple Nurple08.
Ah, I've actually done something similar within a noir I have on the back-burner. I had established a beginning and an end, but couldn't figure out how to work the middle. So I decided to have it sectioned off into case files, while having lore plot-points placed as a bit of a side-story or intertwined events so that none of it is filler.

That said, I like the idea. Bullet-pointing a story into sections so that it can later become episodic or chapters is definitely a way to go, and would definitely help with organization.

You also brought up something I struggle with; I get very conscious about dialogue, cuz I'm always afraid it's too lifeless or unnatural. It's because of this my comics stuck with one-liners and full use of body-language rather than any word-bubbles. Thanks for mentioning it, cuz I really do need to practice it more.

 

[Purple Nurple08]

My advice for writing dialogue is that you're trying to convey information, there's the basic information of things like, this object is blue, or the bad guy is over there, but there's also the information of who the characters are. The more information you can give the more efficient and engaging it can be.

So let's say for example we have a character that dislikes the color blue.
"Oh great, it's blue."

Versus a character that likes blue.
"Oh great! It's Blue!"

The different perspectives change the dialogue in different ways, and the dialogue becomes more valuable because you gain more out of it. Likewise if you can inject more things that you want to convey into the dialogue, like people's relationships, mood or other information, it can be pretty useful and flexible. So for example let's say I want to establish the dynamic between two characters.

"Oh great, it's blue."

"Well if you don't want it, I'll take it."

Because of this it's possible to turn simple exchanges into ones that reveal something about the characters, situation, or that just over all just contribute more to the reader's understanding. I hope this helps!