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Visit my portfolio (and check out my projects):
http://Jestermax.googlepages.com/

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The time for speaking comes rarely, the time for being never departs.
George Macdonald

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Never Forget to Pray!

"...prayer itself is an art which only the Holy Ghost can teach us. He is the giver of all prayer. Pray for prayer---pray till you can pray; pray to be helped to pray, and give not up praying because you cannot pray, for it is when you think you cannot pray that you are most praying. Sometimes when you have no sort of comfort in your supplications, it is then that your heart---all broken and cast down---is really wrestling and truly prevailing with the Most High."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, from the pamphlet, "Effective Prayer"

Back to the subject though. The only thing out their that teaches anything about writing is little rule books for formating, editing out overused words, and so forth. The way a person writes often has to do with what subject the are covering, how well they know it, and their target audiance.

You're better off writing out what you want to write while you have the ideas in your head. Then going back and cleaing up. Still you can try the snowflake concept. Start with a small outline of the full story, fill in gaps that the outline dosn't cover, then fill in more untill you have your full story.

If you really let the story flow you'll find yourself skipping a lot of your old notes and finding yourself writing in other directions.

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A new world awaits you at www.vailion.com .

quote:

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Originally posted by jestermax:
Hey, this is for all you writers on CCN
Does anyone know of any "good" guides/resources for creative writing? It's a bit out of my element but i think that it'll help me with my current game designs (and future ones too ). I know writing is more of an art then a science but then again i've always been better with art then science (personal opinion).

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I have this book called Now Write! It has a cover that looks like a sheet of lined paper, and it has several small exercises from top authors---google the book it is really good--it explains to you how to get into the story and make a deeper connection with your intended audience

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I don't have a problem writing down the ideas generally (hence my bookshelf packed with my game idea notebooks ), my issue is learning how to properly tell my stories in a way that is a bit better then "fanfic" (i'm still not even at THAT level i don't think). In my opinion gaming is an amazing way to tell a story to an audience but i think that it would be beneficial to be able to write it as a literal story before trying to force it into a game.

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Visit my portfolio (and check out my projects):
http://Jestermax.googlepages.com/

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The time for speaking comes rarely, the time for being never departs.
George Macdonald

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Here's a synopsis of my writing process:

The 5 questions:
1.) Who is your Protagonist?
2.) What is the protagonist's fear, limitation, inner/psychological block, spiritual wound, Achille's heel that keeps him/her from LEADING HIS FULLEST LIFE?
3.) What is the goal of the protagonist's quest, stated as a PHOTOGRAPHABLE OBJECT or EVENT?
4.) Who is the antagonist or force against the protagonist, who's goal is also #3 above.
5.) What is the genre?

The 10 commandments:
1.) What is your photographable KEY IMAGE. (In Star Wars, it's stars and warships; in The Matrix, it's a computer screen.) It's the first
thing you see in the movie. (edit... I guess this would translate to graphics)
2.) On page 3 (3 minutes into the movie), what is the CENTRAL QUESTION the movie supposes? (This would translate into an explorable world, where the player of the video game is discovering what to do.)
3.) On page 10, What is the story? What character did you choose to explore the central question in what way? Write a line of dialogue that says WHO WANTS WHAT. (After the player discovers what to do, give him/her some time to do it ... stab demons or shoot robbers or whatever... and then intro the main bad guy)
4.) Page 10-15 What photographable event inspires, pushes, pulls the protagonist to go out on a quest? (in Mario, its the kidnapping of the girl)
5.) Page 25-30 First Act turning point. What photographable ACTION does the protagonist take to break free from his normal life and go out on a limb? The protagonist is thrown a CURVE and forced to respond, make a plan, PUTTING HIMSELF AT EXTREME RISK to go after the object/goal. (This would be the meat of the game. Usually, a game crams all of the above into a paragraph, and then launches you straight into the action. Possibly, a developer could use the above formula to create a tutorial which isn't so disjointed from the game, but actually a part of the game.)
6.) Page 45. Second Act turning point. The start of the Protagonist's growth. (Now he has some better weapons and upgrades)
7.) Page 60. MID POINT. What is the CRISIS and subsequent REALIZATION that enables the protagonist to change and improve how he goes after his goal, quest? (This would be very tricky to do in a video game. Usually, it's done very cheaply with another line of dialog saying something like "The evil lord isn't in the dungeon--it's just been one big set up! Moo hoo hoo ha ha." If a mind-blowing plot twist could be done in a game, it would have to be programmed from the beginning and possibly have something to do with game mechanics. You almost drown and discover you can breathe underwater, or something.)
8.) Check to make sure all the subplots are heading together. (Quests?)
9.) Page 85-90 What ACTION does the Antagonist do to the Protagonist for having the gaul to come after the Antagonist's goal (which is the same as the protagonist's) Plays out in 1 of 2 ways:
A.) Antagonist nails Protagonist to the wall. (All your stuff is gone and you're left to fight with your fists, or something.)
B.) Protagonist crosses the Point of No Return. (You have to leave all your stuff to follow the evil lord through the time portal.)
10.) What is the exciting, photographable event or process through which the protagonist engages and usually ULTIMATELY DEFEATS the antagonist in the BIg-Deal, Apocalyptic, Grand FInale, Visually supercharged ending? (Insert explosion here.)

The Character Diamond
The character diamond is simply a diamond with the character's name in it. There are four points on the diamond, each one representing a quality of the character. A good character will have 3 very compatible qualities, and 1 that is out-of-synch, which for the protagonist hero is his Achille's heel, and for the antagonist is the thing that makes him evil or bad. Depending on the mood of the movie, the 4th quality makes for very evil characters, very funny characters, very identifiable characters, etc. A story will visit one of these qualities every ten minutes or so, which means you show each quality about twice in the whole movie. (This would need to be translated into AI and graphics. Say, you are travelling with a guide who gives you supplies and leads you to the evil dungeon, only to find out that he has been hexing you the whole time.)

[This message has been edited by JeTSpice (edited April 11, 2007).]

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Visit my portfolio (and check out my projects):
http://Jestermax.googlepages.com/