Topic: The Creative Writing/Literature Topic

@Ralizah “There's no more satisfying feeling in the world than sitting down and just pounding out something complete”

Oo-err!

@Ralizah Hey, that passage is very introspective stuff. I really like it. I’m a little contemplative now after reading it, but that’s a good thing. I think that’s why you were going for. Thanks for sharing!

Oooph been a while since this topic was brought up! Suppose that's my fault since I made it after all 😅

I'm still writing/rping daily with my pal on another website.

In fact we finally got past the training/1st arc.

We finished the arc on the first of November... We started on August the 1st... LAST year! Took the two of us 15,031 posts over 15 months. I foolishly thought it'd take maybe two months max...

... Least I had plenty of time to come with a bunch of lore and events though! 😂

S'going pretty good though now! Unfoetunately I don't have a nice new descriptive post to share... But maybe in the future,

I will finally get to write as a villain soon... Looking forward to that...

Of course I'm not bringing this topic up just to self congratulate myself!

Firstly... I'm going to try (Emphasising try on the strongest of terms) adapting and writing our rp into a story format.

Might go horribly, might go great.

Who knows but writing the forum reviews has been great (even if a completely different format) and made me want to dabble even more in writing and really get stuck in the creative asoect that my reviews have lacked.

Going to take it at a VERY lesiurely pace though...

But the second reason I bring this topic up is I'm going to dabble writing out of my fantasy comfort zone too... Specifically I'm teaming up with @themcnoisy in Dreams!

We'll be forming NoisyFox productions or something I guess

I'll be attempting to provide Noisy with a story that he'll then translate and make into his latest creation in dreams of a sci-fi tale

Again it could go poorly, could go great. Might even end up asking for some assistance from you @RogerRoger!

I fancied pushing myself out my comfort zone a little and I can easily work on it in my spare time as I'll only be providing the story.

Plus thanks to writing apps on my phone (That I always have with me) it is very easy for me to put down an idea or three or work on a bit during my lunch break...

... All the reviews I write are done via mobile after all (...Yes I'm a madwoman)

@themcnoisy feel free to tell me here what you're after for this venture of ours! basic outline, how many characters etc... And I'll get to work on it!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy you need to get dreams!

OK so a love story set aboard a ship which has just come out of hyperdrive and was sent off course 14 months from its destination. They can't space jump anymore so the systems for cryosleep won't function for everyone due to nature of the craft (approximately only a quarter of the staff can cryo sleep whilst in this mode of travel). The couple fall in love in the first quarter of this journey having not known each other prior whilst fixing up various systems and having to team up. The first major obstacles can be that one of them is due for their turn in cryo at x point in the story, an object hits the ship putting the whole crew into alert so they are split up that way, x partner arrives on a rescue vessel etc etc.

It's going to be a visual novel. I will set it up after Death Stranding.

There won't be any branching story lines yet, whilst we set up but leave the story open so we can have some choices added further down the line!!

@RogerRoger I'm unsure how au fait you are with visual novels. Usually the backgrounds are static to showcase where they are with the characters interacting on either side with occasional focus on an object or control with the writing underneath.

Initially my main aim will be to design the lettering and backgrounds of the lettering. Also to work on how backgrounds will switch out and character models and how close ups of the characters will change.

I have some music already for use on a Sci fi game. Unfortunately that creator hasn't stayed in touch (maybe given up on his game). So I have sound effects for alien space craft and beam me up sounds as well as 3-4 music tracks suitable for the genre.

Genuinely wasn't expecting the love story angle @themcnoisy! How sweet 😁

And I told ya I tried with Little Big Planet and that I was terrible... Dreams is a game that's basically a development engine! It's too much for me!

anyway I got the info written down now so if you wanna edit it out your comment so it'll be a surprise to any of the other dream players here feel free to do so!

... That was Spock right @RogerRoger?

Right?

Oh gosh if I can't get right what have I got myself in for?! 😂

and thanks for the offer too

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy cool. Wherever you buy it or not I will still make it.

Dreams is complicated. However to change out text you are using 'text boxes' they have individual parameters, ours will be set to on screen taking up a 3rd of the screen at the bottom. I will set a bit of logic so the most recent entree goes on top. It would be easy to alter. I will be using piano roll to introduce new events based on a timer or button press.

There are a few tricks Visual novelists use which lead into various scenes. Don't forget we don't need too much description in the scenes themselves but feel free to write them down and I will endeavour that the visuals match the description.

The reason I want you or Rog to buy Dreams is so it takes the workload down. Even something as daft as writing a big 'smash' in comic writing takes an age as its not pre built into the game. But don't panic if you can't I can get a demo running and if it works we will take it further.

What I do have access to already is some amazing looking ships and some spaceship interiors made by other gamers. We can use them for sure.

So firstly I will make you a logo. What do you want to be called fox? My logo is Noisy which comes in from the left with the i as a microphone. It's pretty good.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oxjWDP5QWV8

Take a look it plays very early into starting this demo.

@Solea Cool. Is it autobiographical at all, or does it just reflect a preoccupation with a specific theme?

Some unsolicited advice:

Your writing style is dense, so I'd recommend reading every line out loud to make sure their structure doesn't become too twisted or self-indulgent.

Also, nothing wrong with allowing your writing to adopt the form that is natural to it. While it's maybe not the most marketable form of prose in the world, there's nothing wrong with fragmentary writing so long as it maintains an internal logic and is accomplishing what you want it to do.

"Sometimes I'd sprout wings (in my head) to fly her outside the school's perimeter wall."

IN their head or from it? Also, is this meant to be metaphorical, as in: "Sometimes, in my imaginings, I'd sprout wings so that I could fly her outside the school's perimeter wall"? Or literal magical realism, as in: "Sometimes, wings would sprout from my head so that I could fly her outside the school's perimeter wall"?

@Solea Well, writers often defer to life experience, and your premise was pretty specific.

Another thing: writing that skirts, but never crosses, the line of magical realism is also a thing, so don't take my literalism too seriously. My brain is a bit too analytical to get truly lost in poetic fancies, but you clearly don't have that problem. @RogerRoger said it best: your style is your style, and that's what you need to work with. I'm glad you seem so keen on passing over it again, as it demonstrates a great attitude and lack of attachment to your work. In general, good prose isn't written: it's rewritten. Some geniuses can scrawl out perfect work in one go, but they're probably not hanging around on video game forums, y'know?

Definitely keep at it, friend. Literature is one of the oldest mechanisms we have for imposing order and significance on the meaninglessness of the world around us.

@Solea Forgot to mention, but, based on your posts, your English vocabulary is pretty large. Pretty surprising if you truly "aren't well-read."

@RogerRoger Nice post. All good writing is, to some extent, reaching beyond the limits of our current capabilities so as to increase the range of our mastery. Of course, it's messy and uncomfortable until we become accustomed to it. It's how we grow as artists as well as people.

@Solea
I've gifted copies of Finnegans Wake... as a joke. I still keep a copy on my desk at work, so that, when unwary passersby ask me what it's about, I can tell them: "Just read a paragraph... any page," and then watch their increasingly puzzled faces with an adolescent prankster's sense of self-amusement.

@Ralizah Have you read Ulysses? If so, what did you think? (Apart from it being readable obviously)

Any Henry Miller fans on here? I've read most of Tropic of Capricorn and I've read Nexus, Plexus etc. and I think he was a very talented writer, his attitude towards women aside, I think he was very interested in creativity and art. Two things I am very interested in, as well.

@Draco_V_Ecliptic Sorry. I didn't get a notification about your post, for whatever reason. I wasn't just ignoring you.

When it comes to Ulysses... it's another book you don't really 'read.' Not in the conventional way. While it's actually comprehensible (for the most part; that chapter that's pages and pages of two or three giant, run-on sentences without spacing or punctuation can go burn in a fire), it's so overwritten that it can't really be enjoyed in any conventional sense. Literature nerds often love it, of course, because it gives them the opportunity to show off their range of knowledge about the various allusions to mythology and modernist motifs that permeate the work, but I think it's an aggressively pretentious work of fiction that is basically only remarkable because of the obscenity trial that popped up around it.

IMO, the best work of fiction Joyce ever turned out was his short fiction collection Dubliners, which avoids pretentious literary experimentation in favor of clever writing that alludes to inner realizations and transformations that we never really see.

I don't know if this is the right forum to post this in, but I just thought it would be nice to announce that I am currently working on the first rough draft of my first screenplay called Family Ties!

Films are my biggest passion alongside writing my own stories, so have decided to put two and two together and am currently writing a deep drama/thriller which I am taking heavy inspiration off the vibes of films such as Good Time, The Departed and Blue Story.

I will post updates when available on this thread and will post up short sections of scenes.

@Ralizah Yeah, I am a bit of a literature nerd I must confess so the deft craftsmanship of Ulysses impresses me. However, you say Dubliners is better, so, I'll give it a go.
I'm currently reading Hidden Faces by Dali, a literature nerd's best novel of the year (Literature nerd on Youtube). It's the only novel he wrote, based on what I've read, it's really good, artistic, just as much as you'd expect.

@Draco_V_Ecliptic If you haven't already, I'd recommend looking into Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson's interesting analysis of Finnegans Wake. It doesn't improve the novel as a piece of entertainment, but it does provide valuable insight into the mythic themes and symbolism employed throughout it.

I actually had no idea that Salvador Dali every wrote a novel! Thanks for the heads up. Probably haven't thought about the man since a low-res rip of Un Chien Andalou that I downloaded from Napster as a teenager introduced me to the world of surrealist cinema.

@Ralizah I just finished Hidden Faces (Dali's novel). Hope you enjoy it if you do pick it up. I especially liked the character of the Count de Grandsailles, detestable though he proved himself to be. Is Un Chien Andalou any good? I might watch it. I am just starting The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series of books as I've never read them, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Campbell is also on my to-read list. Thanks for the Finnegans Wake recommendation.

Any D.H Lawrence fans on here?