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[matwek]

Long story short. I’ve been interested in the idea of writing good stories for games, so far I haven’t been involved with a game that requires too much of an in depth narrative, most of the time it’s just your standard back story or a simple story concept to give a purpose to the game.

Anyway I realized that if I ever did have the opportunity to come up with a more interesting story for a game, I have relatively little experience in actually doing it (unfortunately being interested in something rarely provides any practical experiences). So I decided to just bite the bullet and try and write something from scratch.

I decided to attempt to write a short story with a few chapters and see how things progress from there. This is where you guys come in. I want you to tear the idea and my writing ability to pieces and provide me with some much needed comments and criticisms seen as this is the first time I have ever attempted anything like this.

The sample I’m going to post takes place a short while into the start of the book. The story is about a little girl who has traveled out to a remote island with her father who is there doing scientific research. As the girl explores the island she meets strange and wonderful creatures who each perform a role within the world we live in, such as creating rain or helping the trees grow.
After each encounter the girl comes home and tells her father about what she’s learnt and he then provides her with the scientific reason for how things ‘actually’ work.
Within that set up I intend to build a story about the girl and her father, their relationship and how that might have been affected by events hinted at from their recent past.

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On dark cloudy nights like this Amy almost wished she was afraid of the dark, at least then she could provide herself with a reason for why she felt so on edge.
The blanket of night had crept in through the window and draped itself around Amy’s bed creating a darkness that extended deep beyond the walls of her empty room. The house itself slowly creaked and groaned as if quietly breathing in the night air whilst Amy lie wide awake with her eyes firmly fixed upon the cracks running across the off white ceiling, from here the cracks extended down the adjacent wall and towards the dusty wooden floorboards.
Small drafts blew up and down the corridors outside the room and with each passing gust the dust was gently lifted from the ground and transported to another area of the room. The sounds of the gentle gale outside eventually became soothing as Amy drew closer to sleep with each passing hour.

She was stirred from her sleep in the early hours of the morning after sensing something move below her, partially awake she spotted something tiny and dark creep from below the bed and noiselessly drift across the room, through the gap under the closed door and out into the hall beyond.
After sitting up in bed Amy and had the strange feeling that her surroundings were no longer as dark as they had once been, it felt like much of the darkness had retreated from the room and back into the night outside. With a clearer view of what was going on within the room Amy quickly realized that the walls and floors were crawling with these drifting creatures. Tiny black particles swarmed up and down the walls and spread out across the floor but with greater numbers congregating near the various nooks and crannies hidden about the room.
It was then that Amy decided that it was probably best to go and check on her father. Throwing her bed sheet to one side she hopped out of bed and quickly made her way down the hall, almost breaking into a run on the way.

With each step down the hall the darkness around her seemed to dissipate and it wasn’t long before she could clearly make out her dads bedroom door at the other end of the house. It was slightly open so Amy noiselessly maneuvered her head around the corner and peered inside.

The inside of her father’s room was the polar opposite of her own, whilst he had insisted on taking the smaller of the rooms he then proceeded to fill it with various pieces of equipment and stacks of books, much of the stuff Amy recognized but over the years her father often acquired new additions to what she liked to call ‘His Horde’.
There were scratches and marks on the floor where it was evident that he had dislodged and rearranged the layout of the room, moving the furniture to suite his needs. Strangely the double bed that once stood central to the room had been pushed far into the corner alongside the wall so that only one side was accessible for entry. It was here that her father was laying fast asleep, perched right on the edge of the otherwise empty bed with an open book on the floor directly below him
Amy was about to step fully into the room when she felt something soft bump up against her foot and give off a barely audible “oof”. She looked down to see one of the tiny creatures she had left in her room.

“Excuse me Miss, I didn’t see you there” The voice was quiet but gave the impression of a gruff and grumpy personality.
At this close proximity Amy was able to make out much more of the creatures appearance this time round. It looked like a small ball of black fluff, no taller than an inch, with two pairs of long thin legs barely supporting the body off the ground. An additional pair of appendages extended up above the body where they seemed to be carrying what could only be described as a wisp of dark black smoke. There were no visible features to suggest that the creature had eyes or a mouth but it did bob up and down as it spoke.

“So are you going to move out of the way and let me do my job or are you just going to stand there and stare?”

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

[Writy]

Hey!

I rather liked that little text of yours, I think it is well-written, but then again I am not an English major and never lived in an English-speaking country! However, I think there would be some corrections to make (which is perfectly normal).

In my opinion "horde" is actually "hoard", though I might be wrong.

"Excuse me Miss" should be "Excuse me, Miss". A friendly joke somebody told me once was that "Punctuation saves lives." Indeed, the sentences "Let's eat, Mommy!" and "Let's eat Mommy!" have two very different meanings.

There might be other problems, however, I am not the best candidate when it comes to correcting English and I only read it once.

Now, what I personally liked was the fact that you took a commonplace (I mean this in a good way, believe it or not) : a child's bedroom, in order to exercise your writing. I believe that it is very important that someone that has little experience in writing starts with a subject they are well acquainted with. The fact is that most readers will also have an experience of being awake, alone, in their room, at night : this is a double-edged sword as it can be both considered as familiar and cliché. The crack on the ceiling, for instance, is almost always there in such contexts.

The same way, having a child interact with fantastic elements actually make it look like it could all just be her imagination, and most contemporary-fantasy texts dwell on the edge of reality, whether it is through childlike imagination or insanity. This is also a common device, but it is best to use such devices when first writing.

The painful truth that most writers encounter at some point - I did this quite recently - is to understand that what matters is not actually to have a good story, it is to have a good story-teller. I could recite some stanzas from the most literate writers there was, and be boring as hell, while Morgan Freeman could captivate an audience while reading a weather report. The medium is really important, one can be an amazing playwright while also being a lousy novelist.

You can write the most elaborate story, with the most precise details, and come off as being irrational if you didn't polish your communication skills.

In my opinion, in order to write a "successful story", the actual content of the story (the plot, that is) comes third in line. First, you have to work on "how" you tell the story. Here, that basically means "game design", but it also means character design. This is where the reader gets in touch with the story. If it easy to follow and easy to rely to, then the story can work. If the player struggles with the game mechanics and don't feel involved, there is no point in having a story.

Then, there is the ending... Of course, you are not going to write the ending separately from the plot, but you can make a lousy plot work with an amazing ending and get an "OK story" ; while writing a good plot with a lousy ending means that you'll have a disappointing story (the longer the piece, the most important the ending will be). What is the player accomplishing? Will he feel like he really made a difference in the game universe?

Then, finally there is the "plot". What are the characters doing? How are they doing it? This can be critical in some instances (spy stories, for example), or unessential in others (action game). You can have a great story that could be summarized as "the hero killed a lot of bad guys to get his daughter back".

Taken, in my opinion (I can't stress that enough), is a decent story though its plot is pretty lousy. It involves the viewer through some pretty transparent devices, commonplaces that is, but it delivers an expected yet intense ending and some likable characters. Taken 2 achieves nothing, on the other hand, since it is just the same lousy plot without the proper "embellishment".

On the other side of the spectrum, Primer (an independent film that, I'll admit, I only came across thanks to TvTropes), has an amazing plot. It truly does. Though it's messy for most viewers to watch, complicated, and the ending implications are difficult to grasp. The same way The Wire is an excellent police TV show, though it has too many characters and story arcs to follow for the common viewer who's used to shows that are way too vulgarized. The show doesn't erase all the red tape, it deals with it. You can have an amazing plot and deliver a story that isn't "selling".

Anyway, that was my opinion, I don't know if it's of any use, I hope nobody will start a debate other it (it's not its intention and I don't want to spoil your thread)... I hope I made clear that I am not an expert, merely a writer. Good luck, anyway!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

There are numerous punctuation problems, as the above poster mentioned. Nothing a good editor can't fix, but you really should have a much firmer grasp on it if you hope to write seriously.

The descriptions felt too slow to me, and contained numerous cliches (e.g. you should avoid phrases like "blanket of darkness" that have been overused in favor of fresher writing, in general avoid combinations of words or set phrases that have been used before).

But really it's too short to judge anything by. Good writing can't really be judged using small snippets like that, it arises out of the creation of characters, setting up and resolving conflicts, and so on; an incomplete story can't be called good or bad, just like an incomplete game can't be.

If you want to become a better writer here are three and a half recommendations:

- Read more; this should fix your issues with grammar through becoming more familiar with language. especially read 'the classics', like find a list (or lists) of the top 100 novels (or, if you like a genre, like sci-fi, find a list of the top 100 sci-fi books) and read them all -- not necessarily every single book on such a list, but at least start them all, read the first few chapters of them, and continue if you enjoy them (nobody's asking you to slog through remembrance of things past or Ulysses if you start them and hate them).

- Find writer friends and meet up regularly and do writing exercises together (like someone picks a topic and they all write a story about it in half and hour and then read their stories to one another and talk about them). It's very very hard to learn writing if you do not have one or two friends who are writers and if you don't meet together and do writing exercises together and talk about writing with one another. It can be informal or formal (e.g. you could join a creative writing class or group online (there are legions of them) and meet writer friends through those).

- Read some books on writing; there are tons of them, and many of them are quite good. Some I enjoyed include "Bird by Bird", "If You Want to Write", "On Becoming a Novelist", "Ernest Hemingway on Writing", "The Writer's Idea Book", and Stephen King's book “On Writing” and Orson Scott Card's book on writing, and "How Fiction Works". Those are all dated though (most are from the 80s or 90s, cause I'm in my 30s and those were the ones I used in my teenage years and early 20s to learn about writing) so I'm sure there are better ones by now; check amazon.com and read the reviews of how to write books and pick the ones that you feel have reviews that resonate with you.

If you are especially interested in games stories, find a list of the best stories in games and play all those games. Offhand, here are some of my favorite stories in games: Alpha Centauri, Planescape: Torment, Xenogears. It's hard to find a list everyone will agree on because things like this are contentious, but again just find a huge list of good stories in games, especially if they include the classics and don't just focus on games from the last 10 years, and play a bit of each and if you like them finish the whole game.

[matwek]

Now, what I personally liked was the fact that you took a commonplace (I mean this in a good way, believe it or not) : a child's bedroom, in order to exercise your writing. I believe that it is very important that someone that has little experience in writing starts with a subject they are well acquainted with. The fact is that most readers will also have an experience of being awake, alone, in their room, at night : this is a double-edged sword as it can be both considered as familiar and cliché. The crack on the ceiling, for instance, is almost always there in such contexts.

Thanks, I was always taught to write about what I know.
I don't think that means to take things literally (Surprisingly I have no experiences of being an 8 year old girl) but I thought it was best to at least start with something I'm familiar with, such as being young, scared and trying not to show it.

there are numerous punctuation problems, as the above poster mentioned. nothing a good editor can't fix, but you really should have a much firmer grasp on it if you hope to write seriously

This is where I was mainly looking for help, I've always struggled with spelling and grammar. Spelling is something I can check for in Word but catching bad punctuation is much harder.
I mean I have a degree and everything (In geography) and even after studying for years I still found that side of writing essays very difficult. Any advice in addition to 'read more books' would be greatly apperciated.

the descriptions felt too slow to me, and contained numerous cliches (e.g. you should avoid phrases like "blanket of darkness" that have been overused in favor of fresher writing, in general avoid combinations of words or set phrases that have been used before)

So far my method of wiriting is to just type out a stream of consciousness and list off ideas as I go.
Then I streamline that by removing all the stuff that doesn't fit.
Then I scan through again and add more description/detail or remove stuff that I don't like or has been done before.
Then I attempt to neaten up the grammar.
I guess I could do with a second scan for cliches and to get more people to read it and offer an opinion (which is why I'm posting here).

but really it's too short to judge anything by. good writing can't really be judged using small snippets like that, it arises out of the creation of characters, setting up and resolving conflicts, and so on; an incomplete story can't be called good or bad, just like an incomplete game can't be

As I tidy up each new chapter I was hoping to post it here as well. I know a few chapters won't be the same as a full story but I hope it sets the scene a bit more.

I'm well aware that I'm never going to be a great writer and I'm ok with that, it would just be nice to get a few of my story ideas out there in a form of writing that people don't find offensive to the eyes and struggle to read.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't think you should take the attitude that you'll never be a good writer. Even if it's true, I don't see why it's necessary to believe such a thing, it's only self-limiting.

Anyway, if you want more specific grammar points, here are a couple more:

Your passage needs many more commas; you tend to have really long sentences with no breaks, as if you were speaking without catching your breath. Most of your errors are places where there should be a comma, but isn't one.

Another example: you can't just do stuff like:

“Excuse me Miss, I didn’t see you there” The voice was quiet but gave the impression of a gruff and grumpy personality.

After "there" there needs to be a period. Why would you capitalize the T in 'the' if it's the same sentence as the previous sentence? A " doesn't end a sentence.

Same thing with the Miss; it should not be capitalized.

Corrected, it would read:

"Excuse me, miss, I didn't see you there." The voice was quiet, but gave the impression of a gruff and grumpy personality.

This is just one example, there are a lot more. I don't want to go through every single one though, cause then this post would be 3x longer than it already is.

If you really are having problems with basic stuff like that (I assumed they were typos and that you weren't being careful, rather than you not actually knowing the rules) I'd suggest just finding a good textbook on grammar and going through all the examples; any 8th grade textbook on grammar (the kind they give kids for English class in elementary school) would work fine.

(Though I do want to emphasize again that reading more books will also fix this, in a more entertaining manner. People who have read thousands of books usually have good grammar, without ever having gone through a class in grammar at all. Exposure matters a lot.)

Still, an editor can fix most of this stuff; a good number of writers actually have fairly poor grammar, they just have really good editors. Editors are expensive though (especially for self-publishing and doing freelance writing or writing for games, etc.) so it's probably preferable to learn it yourself.

[Writy]

Any advice in addition to 'read more books' would be greatly apperciated.

http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/

This is where I learned most of the things I know about punctuation mistakes (as opposed to punctuation rules) in English. It's entertaining, so you should be OK reading through it.

I guess I could do with a second scan for cliches and to get more people to read it and offer an opinion (which is why I'm posting here).

In my opinion, clichés are nice training wheels for a beginner, you shouldn't keep them too long, for sure, but you don't have to start without them. Paul Eres and I seem to have very different opinions on the subject, maybe one of us is more "academic" while the other is more "vulgar" ("popular"?). I have some academic training in French Literature, though I would never recommend reading the classics as a way to improve your writing skills.

In fact, if you're willing to write for games, you should probably play games with a story (adventure games, some RPGs too).

still, an editor can fix most of this stuff; a good number of writers actually have fairly poor grammar, they just have really good editors. editors are expensive though (especially for self-publishing and doing freelance writing or writing for games, etc.) so it's probably preferable to learn it yourself

Very true, there are also spell checkers that are far better than the one Word uses and that are perfectly compatible with it. I know a few in French, since that's the language I mostly write. They can be quite expensive (they are professional software after all and some of them are quite powerful), but I'm sure you can find one that's better than Word's and still pretty decently priced.

Also, if you join a writing community over the internet, you might get a beta-reader. When someone corrects your grammar, don't just take the corrected file as it is, take the time to manually correct everything in your original file. After some time, you'll see some critical improvement in your "neatening up". [Correcting other people can also help a bit.]

[matwek]

I don't think you should take the attitude that you'll never be a good writer. Even if it's true, I don't see why it's necessary to believe such a thing, it's only self-limiting.

I think that was a bad choice of words, I didn't mean I woudn't be able to write anything of worth. I meant more along the lines that I would never be considered a good tecnical writer and that would always be something I would have to contend with. I never really believed much in the idea of "you can do anything if you put your mind to it" but I do firmly believed that if you want to do something hard enough then you can always find a work around, someway to navigate the issues you have by using other skills.

An example would be JK Rowling, shes never going to go down as a great writer but she was able to tell a story that people enjoyed, and she seems to be doing ok for herself.

I assumed they were typos and that you weren't being careful, rather than you not actually knowing the rules

Its not that I don't know the rules, having read back your corrections I'm always like "Shit, why didn't I notice that", I think its more that I just don't look for mistakes hard enough or simply don't notice them. I guess because I know what the sentence is supposed to say I just read it how I want to rather than reading whats actually there... does that make sense?

But yeah I guess the main way to solve that is to read more books. Or maybe even try and read some badly written self published stuff and try and spot the mistakes myself.

http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/

This is where I learned most of the things I know about punctuation mistakes (as opposed to punctuation rules) in English. It's entertaining, so you should be OK reading through it.

Cheers, maybe I should approach learning the basics as if I was learning a second language. Might help me get out of bad habits

[Sved]

The voice was quiet but gave the impression of a gruff and grumpy personality.

I think that line sums up the whole issue with your text. I should understand myself that a character is gruff and grumpy from the way you made them look, talk and behave, not because you said so.

Remove all assumptions, feels and thoughts. Describe things to us. If you do your job right, we'll experience it the way you planned.

[matwek]

The voice was quiet but gave the impression of a gruff and grumpy personality.

I think that line sums up the whole issue with your text. I should understand myself that a character is gruff and grumpy from the way you made them look, talk and behave, not because you said so.

Do you have any ideas of how I could get that information across with such a short sentence? I understand what you're saying but its tricky to get that across with an inital meeting of the character.

---
I've had a go at rewording some sections to make the scene a little shorter and to the point, hopefully removing some cliches in the process. I also hope I fixed a few of the grammatical errors but I'm sure there are still a few there.

Again Comments and critique would be great. if I can get this one scene sounding good then I can use it as a basis for changing the rest of the work.
---

On dark cloudy nights like this Amy almost wished she was afraid of the dark, at least then she could provide herself with a reason for why she felt so on edge.
The cool night air crept through gaps in the old window, dragging with it silhouettes of the large birch tree outside. The shadows arranged themselves around Amy’s bed creating a dark forest that extended deep beyond the walls of her empty room.

The house itself slowly creaked and groaned, quietly breathing in the night air. Small drafts blew up and down the adjacent corridor and with each passing breath, thick dust gently lifted from the wooden floor and glided about the room.
As the sounds of the light gale outside began to intensify Amy decided it would be best to pull the sheets up over her head. How did anyone expect her to get some sleep with all that racket going on outside?


Having been gently stirred from her sleep in the early hours of the morning, Amy sensed something move below her. Partially awake she leant over the side of the mattress to investigate. Something tiny and dark creep from below the bed and noiselessly drifted across the room, through the gap under the closed door and out into the hall beyond.

Amy sat straight up in bed.

Fully awake Amy noticed that her surroundings were no longer as dark as they had once been. It felt like much of the darkness had retreated from the room, leaving behind a dim, pale blue light.

With a clearer view of what was going on within her room Amy quickly realized that the walls and floors were crawling with these drifting creatures. Tiny black particles swarmed up and down the flaky wallpaper and spread out across the wooden floorboards, with larger numbers congregating near the various nooks and crannies hidden about the room.

It was then that Amy decided that it was probably best to go and check on her father. Throwing her duvet to one side, she hopped out of bed and quickly made her way down the hall, almost breaking into a run on the way.
With each step down the hall the night seemed to pool back around her. Luckily it wasn’t long before she could make out her dads bedroom door at the other end of the house. It was slightly open so Amy maneuvered her head around the corner and peered inside.

The interior of her father’s room was the polar opposite of her own. Whilst he had insisted on taking the smaller of the rooms, he then proceeded to fill it with various pieces of equipment and stacks of books. Much of the stuff Amy recognized but over the years her father often acquired new additions to what she liked to call ‘His Hoard’.
There were scratches and marks on the floor where it was evident that he had dislodged and rearranged the layout of the room, moving the furniture to suite his needs. Strangely the double bed that once stood central to the room had been pushed far into the corner alongside the wall, so that only one side was accessible for entry. It was here that her father was laying fast asleep, perched right on the edge of the otherwise empty bed, with an open book on the floor directly below him. The old photograph he used as a bookmark had slipped from its page and was lying face down beside him.
Amy was about to step fully into the room when she felt something soft bump up against her foot and give off a barely audible “oof”. She looked down to see one of the tiny creatures she had left in her room.

“Excuse me Miss, I didn’t see you there” grumbled the creature.
At this close proximity Amy was able to make out much more of the creatures appearance. It looked like a small ball of black fluff, no taller than an inch, with two pairs of long thin legs barely supporting the body off the ground. An additional pair of appendages extended up above the body where they seemed to be carrying what could only be described as a wisp of dark black smoke. There were no visible features to suggest that the creature had eyes or a mouth but it did bob up and down as it spoke.

“So are you going to move out of the way and let me do my job or are you just going to stand there and stare?”

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

show the gruffness and grumpiness *through action*

for example, something like:

"f- you", he said to the rain

that would work fine to show that he's gruff and grumpy, through an action

(if you don't want to curse use some equivalent of course)

if it's not raining, that's easily adapted; sun gets in his eyes, sand in his shoes, snow on his car, something like that

[matwek]

show the gruffness and grumpiness *through action*

for example, something like:

"f- you", he said to the rain

that would work fine to show that he's gruff and grumpy, through an action

(if you don't want to curse use some equivalent of course)

if it's not raining, that's easily adapted; sun gets in his eyes, sand in his shoes, snow on his car, something like that

I understand the concept, I like to think I've used it well with the little girl (She often gets afraid at but tries her best to hide it, even to herself). I'm just struggling to make this conversation work within the context of my story.
It's the first time these two characters have met and the first thing that happens it one greets the other, yet it should be obvious that the little creature is annoyed with the girl for getting in his way.

The "excuse me Miss" is supposed to sound sarcastic, but that's something notoriously difficult to do with text (as users of forums, that's something we've all come across at some point).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i don't know why that'd be hard to do with text, couldn't you just do something like:

"excuse me miss", the miss was sarcastic

this would depend on who the point of view character is though

[Sved]

You can remove all the parts that insist on Amy's point of view. We assume that we are going through her eyes, so whatever is described is already what she sees and feels. For example:

At this close proximity Amy was able to make out much more of the creatures appearance. It looked like a small ball of black fluff, no taller than an inch, with two pairs of long thin legs barely supporting the body off the ground.

Can become

The creature looked like a small ball of black fluff, no taller than an inch, with two pairs of long thin legs barely supporting the body off the ground.

It would make most of your text much lighter, without impacting the content.

[matwek]

i don't know why that'd be hard to do with text, couldn't you just do something like:

"excuse me miss", the miss was sarcastic

this would depend on who the point of view character is though

Wouldn't that then be going against the idea of "show the -adjective- *through action*"

Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to get you to write this for me, I do apreciate the help so far.

You can remove all the parts that insist on Amy's point of view. We assume that we are going through her eyes, so whatever is described is already what she sees and feels.

It would make most of your text much lighter, without impacting the content.

That might be a good idea. I think I do need to condence the text a lot more.

The sort of style I'm going for is similar to the Discworld books (although minus the often sureal narrative and for a slightly younger audience). I don't know if you're familiar with them?
Its always obvious who the protagonist is, as you often get an insight to what they're thinking, but then sometimes he'll branch out and start following one of the side chracters instead, where again you get an insight into how they're feeling and what they're thinking.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

no, because sarcasm is a tone of voice. it's not an abstraction, it's a specific tone. if you want to make it even more specific, you could write 'with a sarcastic tone'

the thing is to recognize the difference between an abstraction and a particular; a sarcastic tone of voice is something particular, even though "sarcasm" is an abstraction

saying "he is a sarcastic person" is abstract

saying "he said x, in a sarcastic way" is specific

in the former, you are describing what he is. in the latter, you are having him perform a specific action