The Writers and Translators of Skyrim

[Boombro]

When I write, I usually don't have any idea of what's going to appear on the paper, besides the overall theme. Sometimes, I surprise myself! It seems like you analyze everything thoroughly, and try to control too much. So yes, we have fundamentally different styles. Also, that's why writing misc lines and follower dialogue is harder for me; quests write themselves.

Did you try basic outlining? Works wonders for me to.

[mlee3141]

Never used one in my life. I organize ideas in my head instead.

Edited September 14, 2014 by mlee3141

[Joedpa]

When I write, I usually don't have any idea of what's going to appear on the paper, besides the overall theme. Sometimes, I surprise myself! It seems like you analyze everything thoroughly, and try to control too much. So yes, we have fundamentally different styles. Also, that's why writing misc lines and follower dialogue is harder for me; quests write themselves.

 

Control too much huh? Hmm... maybe... although I'm not pretty sure what you mean too much.

 

(Oh, and I also organize in my head too, lol, almost only thing in common in styles :P)

Edited September 14, 2014 by Joedpa

[Boombro]

Never used one in my life. I organize ideas in my head instead.

A tactic that is most vivid and free, and easy to change :). But I found when I write mine down, I try to explain them and that make them clearer and I answer

my own questions, since my ideas are quite messy and hard to organize in raw form.

[mlee3141]

Well, to each their own. If it helps you to organize your ideas, then go for it! I don't use outlines because they hamper my ideas. Sometimes, I change a story/ quest in the middle of writing it out, and head in a completely different direction instead. Outlines are too rigid.

[Boombro]

Well, to each their own. If it helps you to organize your ideas, then go for it! I don't use outlines because they hamper my ideas. Sometimes, I change a story/ quest in the middle of writing it out, and head in a completely different direction instead. Outlines are too rigid.

Oh yes, they are. I recall when i first started writing years ago, I would write very detailed outlines about everything and they used to drain so much out of me before I even start writing anything.

 

Now I only need it for skyrim to make sure what every npc would say about enemy type, place, what players wears and you know what the rest is.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Boombro

[mlee3141]

I just about memorized every single line in the game, so I don't need that. Here, I'll send you one example of Follower and Marriage dialogue via PM, and you can use that as a base, if you're interested. Just don't copy my lines! It should save you a lot of time.

Edited September 14, 2014 by mlee3141

[Boombro]

I just about memorized every single line in the game, so I don't need that. Here, I'll send you one example of Follower and Marriage dialogue via PM, and you can use that as a base, if you're interested. Just don't copy my lines! It should save you a lot of time.

Thanks for your great kindness and trust :smile: but I had no problem with my npc expect that hes is doesn't say any greetings (he has only voiceless greetings topics.) but that is all I have done. I guess I can keep the pm until if in case if I faced any problem with him.

 

And I would not copy! I want my npc to have their own sayings :^)

Edited September 14, 2014 by Boombro

[mlee3141]

Sent. Enjoy!

[Nassens]

Organizing your ideas is important but not essential. It depends a lot on the person itself and what you are about to write. As you say, quests and dialogs, probably don't need if you have good control over your mind, to have premade texts; but even if you were a genius, some other kind of problems NEED some previous work. For example, right now I am in a mid-lenght personal project, on writing a philosophy treatise (I have recently finished the philosophy degree), so for something as complex, you need to do lots of previous work, if you want it to be professional, specially because in philosophy everything must be as clear as possible, and you need to have a perfect picture about the whole you are going to talk about and ensure that everything is related as it should be, and explained as needed, and that nothing are "free words", but everything is logically derivated from other previous statements. You can have some brainstorm and let the thinking flow at early stages, it is even adviceable, but later you must organice it all.

 

This also aplies to huge and complex novels, not every book need to be organiced from the begining, but if you are going to write something of over 500 pages in which there is going to be complex relations between characters and some dynamic plot, you'll get into troubles if you haven't done some previous work about what it is going to happen. That doesn't means that you can't let some parts simply flow, or that you can't decide to change your original plan in the middle if you feel it is better some other way; but you will thank a lot yourself later if you have done some previous notes before starting a huge project. This also helps to avoid the "blank page disease". When you just let your creativity develop itself you cand easily end into some narrow close corridors, and have to chose between letting it at blank until you have inspiration agian, which usually leads to abandon the project at all, or to do a very quick and messy fix. With an organiced plan you know what is leading to what so you don't get into narrow places; also, even if you get stuck at a point of your novel, you can keep writing the rest and go back to the tricky part at the end, which probably would also give you ideas on how to solve your problem. As I said, it depends a lot in what are you about to write. For the fantasy books I wrote I did pretty little previous work, just some guidelines about the porpouse of the plot and the novel itself. But for realistic novels, for example, in which I pretend to focus on relationships between characters and a plot that also have philosophical intentions, I have come to the conclusion that planification is essential to reach a good quality in writing. But this is not a master key; for example, the last fantasy book I wrote was just about 200 pages, but since more than a fantasy book it was a very symbolical and psicologiocal novel I found myself needing also lots of notes about the meaning of everything and having to plan nearly every step to give it the consistency I wanted to give it.

 

Also there is another resource I find pretty useful, when plots grow and you have to manage lots of paralel situations and characters you can't imagine how useful it is. I call it the "book of the present". In it I constaly update any present situation as quick notes, like what are all the characters wearing at the moment, how many money do they carry, where they exacly are, have they died their hair, is there a trafic collapse in some relevant street for the novel etc... and some future and past information directly related, are they heading to somewhere, do they know what it is happening somewhere else, have them some incoming bills to pay, etc... As an example, being much younger, I found myself using a death character 15 chapters later just because I forgot I killed him; well, obviously this kind of things don't need to be writen at all once you get skilled at writing; some lots of minor "bugs" can happen if you don't keep track of what's going on in the present. For example, imagine you do a young character that goes to a party with some money, and you said in your book that he spent it all in drinking; then later he gets involved into some harsh situation which keep him away from home. Then you go to the story of another character for a couple of chapters, and later on you go back and after he have solved the problems he had you say he comes into a bar and ask for a coffee to indulge himself some time. Well, how did he pay the coffee if he have already spent all the money he carried. And that kind of "bugs" may happen everywhere; about clothing, about places (didn't you say 10 chapters before that the window was broken, then why do they close it now?), and everything. In some novels details are very important and in those cases, you need to have some good way to get rid of them, and even if you are a genius, some details will disapear from your mind if you don't write them.