General Writing FAQs and Resources

Questions, skill improvement, and respectful critique involving game writing.
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Obscura
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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#16 Post by Obscura »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5evEMUr_Irk

Here's a link to an excellent lectures series about writing popular fantasy/scifi novels, which can be applied to visual novel writing, for most genres.

Brandon Sanderson, the lecturer, wrote the fantasy series Mistborn as well as books for the Wheel of Time.

I've never seen a better breakdown of the abstract and often mysterious process that professional writers tackle from a novel's beginning to end.

This stuff is gold. I certainly wish I had stumbled across something like this as a fledgling writer!
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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#17 Post by rabcor »

(Very) surprisingly, the basics all came to me naturally, everything in the OP was something i just knew from the start :o (Including the "What message do you want your story to deliver" part)
Honestly it's a huge surprise for me, last time i tried to write anything i was 13 and i didn't even finish up the introduction part of that story. The other surprise is that i actually enjoy it, which i'd argue is the most important part.

But i did learn some useful things here from later posts. By reading the OP i got confirmation that i'm not doing anything wrong so far 8)

Thanks for this thread, remember the importance of pacing your story. You usually shouldn't jump from a very sad scene to a very happy scene all in one page flip, it can knock out the reader's immersion in your story if you're not careful with things like that.

Btw instead of the 250+ pages of "Learn to write with uncle jim" i think this should do nicely.

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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#18 Post by Akai85 »

This website: sevencamels.blogspot.com.au is maintained by a storyboard artist at Disney and is a really good resource for artists/writers. I read through the whole thing and it helped me so much - and I don't even plan on getting into animation! Srsly guys it so good, pls read :mrgreen:
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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#19 Post by mineraloid »

My favorite writing book of all time is Screenwriting 101, by FILM CRIT HULK. It's aimed mostly at TV and feature writing, but with frequent references to game or comics writing as well. In general, I've found that film or play scripting theory has been more informative to me in approaching VN writing than novel theory.

The principles in building a story are covered thoroughly throughout, but I've found it's an especially useful resource for those out there who feel like they've read everything out there for writing and need a new perspective. Hulk critiques the 3-act/5-act structures and the hero's journey in a way that makes a lot of sense and was pretty formative in my approach to story plotting. Hulk warns against over-reliance on pre-existing structures like that, while acknowledging their usefulness in many situations. It's a pretty good take, in my opinion.

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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#20 Post by Caveat Lector »

I'd like to propose adding another site to the resource list: Springhole.net. It has some great generators, tips for writing, world building, etc.
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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#21 Post by Alte »

Writing Resources have finally been updated! Let me know if there's any more that would benefit writers.
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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#22 Post by Alte »

Added a small section called Adaptable Literature.
Play (theatre) | Poetry | Reference | Stories

Anyone's free to adapt the list, however they like, whether it's resources for a game jam or help out.
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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#23 Post by Neeka »

Another good website is Hey, Writers! They have a tumblr https://heywriters.tumblr.com/ as well as a Pinterest account where they collect imagery like characters, scenes, dialogue, etc.

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Re: General Writing FAQs and Resources

#24 Post by Abelius »

Edit: OK, I've found an alternative page:

Resource Dump: Creating Characters!

You may want to change the link in the OP.

And thanks for this great post. I'm learning so much! :)

----------------------------------------------

I've got a problem...

"Resource Dump: Creating Characters!" seems awesome to the extreme, but when I reach the page none of the articles are 'clickable', as if they don't have links embedded.

If that is the case, that would be the greatest act of evilness that I've ever seen. :roll:

Could you guys tell me if that great list is available from other sites?

Thanks!

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