Hi gang!

Not much to report on the game at the moment. Once the release is out, it’s just time to get on with the graft of game development. Animations are coming in for the Theo NTR path. We are busy with a whole host of new characters for Randall’s new job. I can’t wait for you to meet them. Keep your eye open for a cameo when they audition for the club.

Other than that, we are pressing on with all the usual development tasks. Business as usual.

By the seat of my pants.

For my blog this week, I thought I’d talk about my writing style.

When I am doing my own thing, I am, what is lovingly referred to in the writing world, as a pantser. I write by the seat of my pants. I thrive on the loosest guidelines and feel things out as I go.

This causes some people massive anxiety. The idea that you can just find things along a path without knowing where it will fully lead you. I always feel, if you get lost, you can backtrack and find your way again.

When I wrote for myself, this was not an issue. I have an idea, I write, maybe half way through I realise what I want the end to be, and then I start steering it that way.

Now you’re in a team

I’m not writing for myself any more. I’m collaborating on plot, I need to have an idea of how many episodes we have to work with and what routes there are going to be. There is so much that can’t be left to my whim.

So, I have to plan and be organised… for the most part.

Thankfully I have an excuse…

You…

The audience

We release monthly and feedback comes in, people like or dislike particular characters more than I expected or we need to expand the scope of the plot to feed you smut hungry animals.

It’s a great excuse to not set everything in stone so there is room to respond to feedback.

This gives me enough wiggle room to keep being a pantser while still planning and organising enough to keep things running smoothly.

Planning is done in loose terms. We plan the key plot points, then it’s the scenes we want, then it’s the events in that scene. That’s enough. I know what needs to happen. I have my targets to hit on the way to hitting that big one right at the end of the story.

All the world’s a stage.

I’ve mentioned before that my training and background is in theatre. I still do occasional theatre work and one of my regular gigs is an improvised street act that basically involves going up and chatting to people as a funny character.

If I had to thank one area of my experience that has helped me with writing, it has been improvisation. The ability to talk with no script as a character who isn't you.

I once heard a game dev talking about dialogue writers and he said that improv performers and Dungeons & Dragons players made the best dialogue writers. So go and roll those d20 you budding writers.

The voices in my head

Writing, for me, is an act of improvisation. I have a character, I know what he or she is like and how they sound so they talk in my mind. Lucia - No hint of a Spanish accent but enough cultural influence that she can fall into the patterns of speech when she is triggered. Theo - From unsure, to enthusiastic. Not intellectual, but capable and dependable. Megan - High energy, prone to thinking out loud and getting carried away, but with the self confidence of a girl who has always been considered beautiful.I know what the scene is, where the characters are emotionally, what the objectives are, and… go. I may not be acting it out physically, but in my mind, the characters are having a conversation and I am writing that down.

I sometimes write the first draft just in my head. Close my eyes, lean back and play the scenes out. It can get quite distracting if it is a particularly spicy one.

It’s okay to be that guy

When I was in school, the idea that you can just write and create something from start to finish was never something that was taught. When I started to write I just wrote and it was incredibly freeing. Nobody to say it was wrong. It would be years later that I would hear the term pantser and that I wasn’t alone in writing that way. 

So, I’ve had to start organising a bit. I can cope. I get to leave just enough room in the gaps between the plans to write the way that I feel most comfortable.

Next time, maybe I’ll talk about editing. The antidote to out of control writing.

Have a good one.

Sinburn.