Secret Asshole's Secret Techniques to Storytelling - For my Master's Class, please pay me $600 in ETH. No Refunds.

[BrunoMattei]

So I would like to write things, however I think my main issue is that I have a nasty perfectionistic streak. Every time I try and make a setting/world I grow to dislike it and scrap it. Then I find everything I planned out for stories to be cringe after the fact or when I do set down to write something I can't go further than a paragraph or two. Is there a way to break out of this rut?

Just write. At least complete a skeleton of what you're trying to create. Then self-critique. Failing that, just have a vomit page where you can write whatever and see what might fit with what.

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

So I would like to write things, however I think my main issue is that I have a nasty perfectionistic streak. Every time I try and make a setting/world I grow to dislike it and scrap it. Then I find everything I planned out for stories to be cringe after the fact or when I do set down to write something I can't go further than a paragraph or two. Is there a way to break out of this rut?

One of the things that you find out while writing a manuscript from the start (my powerlevel: three books for a big 5 publisher, another on the way) is that there are certain points where you WILL experience the “this is fucked and a waste of time” and need to review everything you have previously written. This does not mean it requires scrapping, only your instincts telling you that you need to approach in a different way.

The first roadblock is around 5k in, and that’s usually because there’s not enough story there, and at this point you know. At 15-20k it’s because there IS a story but somehow you haven’t entered on the right spot (ie: You needed a prologue, began too late or early) and need to go back to fix this. At 30-50k is the middle-sag, and here you need to lay the threads for the end, but it has to be intricately bound to the beginning in a thematic way.

At around 75k you need to wrap it up - most trad publishing contracts will also include a word count. I’m at 80-100k.

I found after a shitty first draft and honest beta/editor feedback I can really pull it all together by round 2. The only way to fully know how your mind works is to write fully fleshed novels. Then you can see the psychological “bump” coming.

 

[whitepumpkin]

So I would like to write things, however I think my main issue is that I have a nasty perfectionistic streak. Every time I try and make a setting/world I grow to dislike it and scrap it. Then I find everything I planned out for stories to be cringe after the fact or when I do set down to write something I can't go further than a paragraph or two. Is there a way to break out of this rut?

You could start with writing "drabbles". Usually 100 words or more small vignettes, and if you find you really don't like what you're doing, then you probably need to retool either your worldbuilding/planning or characterization.

Also, a good few writers started their craft by writing short stories. And even writing 100 words a day is better than doing nothing and scrapping any ideas because they're not popping out like a Sanderson novel within a month. Writing is a combination of experience and time - not only in doing the craft, but also the wisdom that comes as you age. Having a "cringe" foundation to build yourself up on is better than not having one at all.

Take time in the morning or evening, whenever you work best, to just write. Even if it's not up to your standards, just do it. Write an entire story just using sentences. Or with no dialogue at all. Describe something you have no interest in just to force you to research something and utilize the information you gathered.

 

[mrpatapon]

Any advice on how to write a story for a video game?
I know that video games are notorious for their bad writing so I've been searching for advice or ideas on how one can write better stories for games.
I also know that the ones that have good stories like Undertale usually have elements that can't be replicated in other mediums (e.g. the save mechanic).

I have some story ideas for a game that I am trying to make and I want to hear some thoughts on it.

 

[Rezza]

Any advice on how to write a story for a video game?
I know that video games are notorious for their bad writing so I've been searching for advice or ideas on how one can write better stories for games.
I also know that the ones that have good stories like Undertale usually have elements that can't be replicated in other mediums (e.g. the save mechanic).

I have some story ideas for a game that I am trying to make and I want to hear some thoughts on it.

Video games' story is an entirely different thing than your usual writing, because of the need for player's feedback in the form of gameplay and such. It can't stand on its own for it needs synergy with the other elements such as gameplay (obviously), music, and so on. You're probably going to need to focus more on immersion than traditional fictions, with atmosphere, mood, and setting as your priorities

 

[Secret Asshole]

I don't have much to contribute. I write in a very different way, I'm very anti-characterization not out of contrarianism but I like the reader to imagine that they are the main character. But this thread has a lot of solid and realistic advice.

Also, since Secret Asshole doxxed himself as a teacher I now have this mental image of him unleashing his inner Sam Kinison on the job:

Yeah....I wish. I really need to shut up more, especially since I have new writing project opportunities that may or may not yield something. If I suddenly have to poof and DFE, that's probably why.

So I would like to write things, however I think my main issue is that I have a nasty perfectionistic streak. Every time I try and make a setting/world I grow to dislike it and scrap it. Then I find everything I planned out for stories to be cringe after the fact or when I do set down to write something I can't go further than a paragraph or two. Is there a way to break out of this rut?

The best way to rid yourself of it is to fail and fail a lot. I'm in STEM. In science, its a long string of failures punctuated by successes. So just keep fucking up. Keep writing and hating and hating until you habituate to it and can ignore it.

Any advice on how to write a story for a video game?
I know that video games are notorious for their bad writing so I've been searching for advice or ideas on how one can write better stories for games.
I also know that the ones that have good stories like Undertale usually have elements that can't be replicated in other mediums (e.g. the save mechanic).

I have some story ideas for a game that I am trying to make and I want to hear some thoughts on it.

Vidya is a whole different ball game.

 

[MysticLord]

Vidya is a whole different ball game.

Any advice on how to write a story for a video game?
I know that video games are notorious for their bad writing so I've been searching for advice or ideas on how one can write better stories for games.
I also know that the ones that have good stories like Undertale usually have elements that can't be replicated in other mediums (e.g. the save mechanic).

I have some story ideas for a game that I am trying to make and I want to hear some thoughts on it.

If you're doing voice acting, then you basically write a synapsis, add some lines you like and general gist of each beat and let the voice actors figure it out. If you're doing FMVs or need to match up lips to speech, you're more constrained and your VAs and video/sound editors will need to fiddle with the FMVs. It's more like screenwriting than writing. Storyboarding or putting a journalist-mode into your game for the VAs is very helpful.

If you're doing text-only, or text-mostly, then you need to do as little explaining as possible and as much showing, both fast so the player can get into the game. Structure the game so you can play through it and add text as you go along via a debug mode and debug text asset reload function, and have some sort of revision control for the entire script so you can undo shit that doesn't work.

For making characters: steal shit from other people, real life, books, movies, TV, etc. The best dialog I ever wrote was when I literally stole characters from stuff I saw and liked, got their characterization and voice down, then let them bounce off each other.

Also make a goddamn manual and include it with the game, fuck your tutorials faggot. Let me skip them and make a big fat "Tutorials" section in your game menu. If you need to, structure them as a flashback or something with the text, "Hey, I remember this (push button to see tutorial)" to see the flashback.

 

[TurdFondler]

Any advice on how to write a story for a video game?
I know that video games are notorious for their bad writing so I've been searching for advice or ideas on how one can write better stories for games.
I also know that the ones that have good stories like Undertale usually have elements that can't be replicated in other mediums (e.g. the save mechanic).

I have some story ideas for a game that I am trying to make and I want to hear some thoughts on it.

I think we expect different things from stories and games, and not all good stories translate to good game stories.

The first Half Life had few narrative elements, it used the medium and turned an okay story into a great experience. Whereas something like Max Payne used comic book exposition to drive fairly monotonous gameplay.

XIII told a neat story in a neat way.

I think the first step is writing out your plot entirely and then taking it apart to see how best to convey it.

 

[WULULULULU]

Any advice on how to write a story for a video game?
I know that video games are notorious for their bad writing so I've been searching for advice or ideas on how one can write better stories for games.
I also know that the ones that have good stories like Undertale usually have elements that can't be replicated in other mediums (e.g. the save mechanic).

I have some story ideas for a game that I am trying to make and I want to hear some thoughts on it.

Already shown on the first post: show don't tell. Use the environment and the medium's interactivity to your advantage. Half-Life is the most obvious example.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Already shown on the first post: show don't tell. Use the environment and the medium's interactivity to your advantage. Half-Life is the most obvious example.

Yeah, thinking on it, if you're going for a story-based game, then you use the mechanics to tell the story. Good examples of this are Silent Hill 2, Spec Ops: The Line, Death Stranding, Pathologic, The Void, Tale of Obra Din, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Sunless Sea, Darkest Dungeon, Dark Souls, Bloodborne...I can go on. All of them tell stories through their gameplay elements. But as @WULULULULU said, show don't tell.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Question: what is the minimum word count to qualify as a novel? I've read all kinds of numbers and it seems to be between 30K and 50K. Possibly more depending on genre. For some reason, fantasy novels absolutely need to be as thick as a phone book.

 

[Erwin Rotten]

Any advice on how to write a story for a video game?
I know that video games are notorious for their bad writing so I've been searching for advice or ideas on how one can write better stories for games.
I also know that the ones that have good stories like Undertale usually have elements that can't be replicated in other mediums (e.g. the save mechanic).

I have some story ideas for a game that I am trying to make and I want to hear some thoughts on it.

Video games have horrible writing because they do it ass backwards. The game level is made first and then the script is made to fit the mission/level design. If a level doesn't work or needs to be taken out, they need the script to easily remove segments in order to keep the main plot consistent. This is why side-quests have nothing to do with the main story.

One game to really look into for writing a game is Bioshock. Every level holds a theme, the level speaks for the script more than the script itself, the objects in the level speak for the story more than anything, and all the script does is hammer in points that most people would miss if they are flying by, or to give the player the mission goal.

This does depend on the game. Something that's going to take after Dark Souls doesn't need much of a script, but rather characer interactions, bosses, background explainations (how did this level become the way it is), and the ability to connect the locations together.

If you do something like an RPG, remember that the main character is meant to be given choices, because it's a role playing game. A JRPG has a set character with a set narrative that doesn't really change and this is very narrative heavy and written pretty much like how an anime would with all the drama and chained events and stuff.

To say it again in a different way: you're going to have to plan the game part first, and THEN you can add the story in after, but your story might not get the exact locations or events that you want, so make sure that you focus on theme and a level by level mentality.

Feel free to ask more if you need anything more specific. I simply don't know what genre you're going for.

Question: what is the minimum word count to qualify as a novel? I've read all kinds of numbers and it seems to be between 30K and 50K. Possibly more depending on genre. For some reason, fantasy novels absolutely need to be as thick as a phone book.

Fantasy books are thicc now because of the world building and because fantasy readers these days think that the bigger the book then the more stuff that will happen in the book. It's mostly due to Game of Thrones doing it and all the publishers are trend-chasers. Before it was YA dystopia for everything and now it's something they call New Adult(college kids) mixed with diversity and representation in fantasy worlds. It's as gay as it sounds, so don't aim for such a trend, just do your thing and have your own audience in mind.

As for the size, between 300 and 400 pages (meaning around 90k - 120k words) but that also depends on the genre because each publisher has a different idea of what people read. Sci-fi has a focus on novellas and shorter end novels that are more like 300 pages long, so use that for a rule of thumb and just check out the genre you're going into and if you're going to submit to a publisher.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

Something I tend to struggle with is naming characters. Sometimes I think every name has to be meaningful or invoke something, but that just causes me to sit and ponder forever instead of actually doing something productive. How do you decide the names for characters, and at what point do you just go "Okay your name is just going to be Steve."?

 

[McMitch]

Something I tend to struggle with is naming characters. Sometimes I think every name has to be meaningful or invoke something, but that just causes me to sit and ponder forever instead of actually doing something productive. How do you decide the names for characters, and at what point do you just go "Okay your name is just going to be Steve."?

If it’s going to come up in your story, then go ahead and agonize over a character’s name. Otherwise, going at it completely arbitrarily is fine. Murder mysteries typically use initials starting with A.A., B.B. etc during drafts and fills in the names later.

 

[TurdFondler]

The most poignant thing on naming I've ever read were the translator's notes to Battle Angel Alita. He delved into why the Japanese names transliterated wouldn't evoke the same feeling or images, and spent time researching the source of the name to find an equivalent.

Names are rooted in a time and place, names can evoke feelings to works of a similar tone, and even the sound of a name is important.

That being said, all my names end up being dogshit because naming is hard.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Fantasy books are thicc now because of the world building and because fantasy readers these days think that the bigger the book then the more stuff that will happen in the book. It's mostly due to Game of Thrones doing it and all the publishers are trend-chasers. Before it was YA dystopia for everything and now it's something they call New Adult(college kids) mixed with diversity and representation in fantasy worlds. It's as gay as it sounds, so don't aim for such a trend, just do your thing and have your own audience in mind.

As for the size, between 300 and 400 pages (meaning around 90k - 120k words) but that also depends on the genre because each publisher has a different idea of what people read. Sci-fi has a focus on novellas and shorter end novels that are more like 300 pages long, so use that for a rule of thumb and just check out the genre you're going into and if you're going to submit to a publisher.

I'm a proponent of the "novella" length of 20-30K. Somewhere in that range is good. Brevity is the soul of wit and all that. I think part of the reason for the decline in reading is that people have so much shit they can do and not enough hours in a day. To me, a shorter book has more appeal than a 100K tome that will take you a month or more to read.

The most poignant thing on naming I've ever read were the translator's notes to Battle Angel Alita. He delved into why the Japanese names transliterated wouldn't evoke the same feeling or images, and spent time researching the source of the name to find an equivalent.

Names are rooted in a time and place, names can evoke feelings to works of a similar tone, and even the sound of a name is important.

That being said, all my names end up being dogshit because naming is hard.

You could always spin that. Take a protagonist who has an uninteresting name and use that as something adds depth to the character or is the spring board for shit to happen. I.E. a name like John implies John Doe and they feel unremarkable.

 

[TurdFondler]

I'm a proponent of the "novella" length of 20-30K.

Agreed. William Gibson got worse as the books got longer. His style wasn't suited for it. I can reread Neuromancer ad nauseam but I've read Idoru once and I'm good. Condensing the facts and leaning into prose is better than exposition.

 

[Rezza]

I'm a proponent of the "novella" length of 20-30K. Somewhere in that range is good. Brevity is the soul of wit and all that. I think part of the reason for the decline in reading is that people have so much shit they can do and not enough hours in a day. To me, a shorter book has more appeal than a 100K tome that will take you a month or more to read.


You could always spin that. Take a protagonist who has an uninteresting name and use that as something adds depth to the character or is the spring board for shit to happen. I.E. a name like John implies John Doe and they feel unremarkable.

I actually read an interview by one of the The Expanse writers about how they wrote the books' chapters. They found out that most people only tend to read 4-5k words in one sitting. So they wrote their chapters length into usually 3k words, so the readers are going to be "forced" to continue reading more than they usually are. The books are structured that way

And I think he's not wrong, when I tried to read some fics in places like Wattpad or Royal Road, the chapters tend to be shorter than printed books. Not only because it fits the mobile apps better, but because it encourages the readers to keep reading. And I think that's what made reading lots of Fantasy or SF books a daunting task, because their chapters tend to be longer

 

[Erwin Rotten]

Something I tend to struggle with is naming characters. Sometimes I think every name has to be meaningful or invoke something, but that just causes me to sit and ponder forever instead of actually doing something productive. How do you decide the names for characters, and at what point do you just go "Okay your name is just going to be Steve."?

This is going to sound like a bunch of bullshit, but trust me with this one when it comes to naming: find out if your story is pre-modernist, modernist, or postmodernist first.

If you're going with pre-modernist, the names would be biblical and mean something about their theme, but in another language.

If it's modernist, their names would relate to their desires or perhaps as a generality that sound pleasant or beautiful, especially in relation to their country or national theme.

Postmodernist just throws it all in the gutter and goes "make it whatever fits their culture or time period and leave it as that."

So, really, if you're going for something modernist or postmodernist, don't sweat and just name them whatever fits their character and the narrative. Go by feeling.

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

Question: what is the minimum word count to qualify as a novel? I've read all kinds of numbers and it seems to be between 30K and 50K. Possibly more depending on genre. For some reason, fantasy novels absolutely need to be as thick as a phone book.

You are correct in that it tends to change depending on genre. 50k is the standard - between 20-50k is a novella, 10-20k is a novellete and under that is the short story.

So anyway, mysteries are traditionally 80-100k, Fantasy usually goes over 120k, YA is 60-80k, Horror is around 80k

These numbers are hugely flexible though, you’ll hear of 150k YA novels and 75k Fantasy novels. But for a new writer wanting to publish traditionally, it’s usually best to hit the word count or break up long books into series.

All the Game of Thrones books are close to over 300k each, as an example of how big you can go!