Introduction:
Sample text at the bottom
Hello! I have been working on a project for about two months now, juggling it with a full-time job and, well, life in general.
I consider myself a writer, but work as an engineer. Writing was my first passion and what I want to transition, if able.
I am currently working on this entirely by myself, though due to the scope of the project, I thought I might float the idea publicly and see if anybody had any interest in being a part of this project (large or small).
Right now I am focused almost entirely on the writing, though I have dabbled a bit in Sketch Up and the like to generate reference maps that I may end up using for the final project--depending on the availability of artist(s). They will obviously be used for references either way.
I have been focusing on the outline more than the actual final product, currently. So far my outline has swelled up to 63,500 words (exactly, as of the initial time of this post). The outline is fairly detailed, as you may expect from the word count, but only covers a small portion of the planned script. Currently it covers the first two weeks of content, out of four years. However, the first two weeks should be the most script intensive, afterward I will employ more frequent time-skipping, rather than planning out every part of every day.
This project will be long. I can do all of the writing myself, but I think it would lend to the project tremendously if I had some assistance and outside perspective.
Furthermore, I am an inadequate artist at best and have the music sense of a boiled peanut.
Story overview:
Without getting too detailed:
The story is written in first-person perspective from the main character at all times, which is a bit different than my usual writing style.
The setting is fantasy, however it is fundamentally a science fiction story and will have 'magic' elements to it. The story is themed as a 'discovery of magic', if you will. The magic system is based entirely on plausible (but unrealistic, honestly) catalysis to chemical reactions. The magic system will not come in to play until near the end of the common route of the game, but will be alluded to more often the closer the script reaches to that point.
The background history is that of a failed colonization attempt of an uncharted world, where humans survived (and eventually flourished) anyway, built upon the idea that technology advanced enough is indiscernible from magic. However, the chaos that ensued due primarily to food shortages after the colonist's initial botched landing led to a sharp decline in technology. I have a bit of explanation written for this, but it will not be the main focus of the story.
The story begins with a fairly short introduction (outline at approximately 12.5k of the 63.5k words) in which the main character is introduced and travels from his mountainous home to the capital to study as an adviser. The focus of this section is to show / allude to the size of the world and try to strengthen the reader's understanding of the difficult main character.
After the introduction, the story truly begins when the main character begins attending the academy, from there it is similar to a more technical slice-of-life, for the remainder of the common route. This time is spent fleshing out characters and slowly morphing the main character into someone the reader can relate to more directly (See main character section for more detail).
The world is fairly vast, revolving around seven nations (several of which in conflict, with one official declaration of war from an aggressive country on another, traditionally xenophobic but neutral nation). I have crude maps of the world and most of the cities of interest for consistent references. Several of the nations have strained relations and half of the heroines are political figures of their country, so while politics will not be the focus of the story, they will come in to play.
The characters, five character routes and one 'true' route, each hail from a different nation. The intent being upon the split at the end of the common route, the player will be able to explore different segments of the world. The characters have very different ways of speaking and obviously very different personalities, however that may not be consistently reflected in the outline, as that will be cleaned up more aggressively on a later edit.
I have very a rough outline completed for the entire common route, but I have not worked on the character-specific routes at all yet, as I want to 'get to know' the characters a bit better before I decide where they will go and what they will do. I do, however, have ideas as to the ultimate goals obtained in these routes, they just have yet to become my focus.
Main Character:
The main character has been instilled with the ability to directly interact with the 'magic' system of the world when he was a child, which gave him several side effects.
- He has a near-perfect memory.
- He has resistance to aging and disease.
- He (obviously) has the ability to interact with the 'magic' system.
- He has faster than normal reaction time.
- These traits are genetic and will be passed on to his children (should he have any).
- He has slower blood clotting.
- He has muscular problems and chronically very physically weak.
- He has an extremely sensitive nervous system (senses are keen to the point of discomfort, though I do not focus on this enough right now).
- He has trouble associating feeling with emotion.
- These traits are not genetic and cannot be passed on to his children (should he have any).
He can be difficult to write, as often I find myself going out of character for him, (I.E. making him feel too often and in the wrong places). He will slowly over the course of the common route become more 'normal', but up to that point, most of what the reader will experience will be self-imposed through his observations.
For example: He will not feel anxiety, but he will observe a quickening of heart-rate, increased rate of breathing, etc. The goal in the first draft of the script after the outline will be that the reader feels the emotions he cannot identify. The reader should be able to understand his feelings better than he will at first and the transition toward him experiencing emotion 'normally' should take place slowly enough that it will not be immediately noticeable to the reader.
Looking for:
Anyone that finds the story interesting enough to assist, but:
Co-writer.
I would love to have somebody to help and bounce ideas off of so I do not get too tied into my own ideas without exploring other, more interesting alternatives. Primarily I am looking for help with just outlining, but if that bleeds over to helping to write different character routes to help get a different feel from the choices, I would be more than happy to discuss keeping the writer on after the first draft is complete.
Writing an outline is, for me, much more difficult than writing quality product after the fact.
Artist.
My artistic ability consists entirely of drawing bodacious stick figures in MS. Paint. However, I am fairly picky with my art-style and will be very selective with the art in the final product, even if I have to spend months drawing each image pixel-by-pixel myself.
If anybody else is interested, PM me and we can discuss.
Payment:
This is most likely the most important detail. I do not expect anyone assisting me to work for free, but I also do not have a great deal of capital to invest in this endeavor, which is why I am doing it by myself currently. I will be willing to compensate you for your work, however with the amount of content I am producing, do not expect a great deal of "per word" offerings, or I will be unable to fill my car with gasoline.
Sample:
The first thing I did when I started the story was write a few pages to get a good feel for the character and how I wanted the writing to flow. It is early, rough (unedited) work, but it should give you an idea of the tone I am going for.
Click below to see the first few lines of the introduction (Written in RenPy script):
https://pastebin.com/g3wikrp4