Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

[kzoz21]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

yeah. Looking back on Mikko, I like your method a lot more, which is why I figured it was worth mentioning your name in this guide, because it really is a very good idea. It's probably not completely original, no offense, as I'm sure there have been other sports video game stories where that has happened, but at least on the hockey dynasty hq, it was a first....for as long that i've been around .

yay me

[shinderhizzle84]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

STEP 2: DELIVERY:


RIGHT!!


So now that we've pretty much finished basic supporting characters, lets move onto the actual story progression. Just so you know, the same tactics as I first mentioned in this thread still apply: Proper grammar and spelling, and make sure to structure your paragraphs well.


Delivery is all in word choice. As you noticed in my first lesson, with “Matilda and the Barkeep”, a word can completely change the way a sentence is perceived.

Throwing in different adjectives to the great bubbling cauldron that is your sentence will allow it to stew differently, and thus take on a different taste, or function, depending on if you're brewing a stew or a potion.


The best advice I can offer to you is to use a thesaurus. You can go to thesaurus.com and simply search in your word of choice.

Whether it be “good” or “Bad” or “evil” or “daft”, or “vexatious”, you can search in a word on thesaurus.com and not only will it list it's more common definition(s), but it will also give on average about 10 words or so that mean basically the exact same thing.


So, take “annoying”, and change it to “vexatious”. Makes you seem a lot smarter than you really are, eh? However, don't change it to a word that nobody understands, like “vexatious”. The last thing you want is for your readers to say, “Wait a second. I don't get it. This story is too intimidating for me. I can't read it!”


So, take the word GOOD for example and plug it into thesaurus.com and we get:



Now, words like recherche may be too ridiculous to use (even I don't know what it means!). But could you change the sentence, “The pie was good,” with “The Pie was wonderful”? Or with “gratifying.” Or “pleasing”. Or “Worthy”? The list goes on and on.

See what I mean, now?


ANYWAYS, back to story development:


There are many ways for your player to take his allotted position on the team:

he could be a former franchise QB who busted his leg in the combine and had to wait 7 years to sign as a FA as a third-string QB. Or, he could be slightly shorter than Muggsy Bogues, with twice the speed.

Want to do something out of the usual? Create a paintball BAP, as per Kessthemess. Or, you could tackle the most coveted and difficult position in pro sports:


A hockey goaltender


**PS: I'm not trying to brag, but I'm a hockey goaltender? Are any of you pretty ladies still plotting to kill me interested NOW? No! Ugh...I didn't think so....


The list seems endless, yet it really isn't. As I've said before, NOTHING IS ORIGINAL!!! Read tons of Matt Christopher and other children's sports novels. They're the best for thinking of different scenarios: near-career-ending injuries, big mountains to climb (such as the topics of race, or beliefs, or whatever) or even relationships over sports, or the other way around.

[shinderhizzle84]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

Unfortunately, my time for this guide has come to an end (or fortunately, depending on how much you want to shank me now), as I simply can't think of anything else to write about.


AH! There it is!!


WRITER'S BLOCK!


It's God's way of saying “you need to have a regular life again”.


But now, I've found a way of TOPPING GOD!!!


The only way to get rid of writer's block, I find, is to...


HAVE A REGULAR LIFE AGAIN.


That's the best I can think of. I'm dead serious.

Now, I don't necessarily mean go out and start ballin with your pals.


I understand if you'd think that as too much to ask. It's OK, just breathe.


What I mean is that spend absolutely as little time as possible worrying, or even THINKING about your creative piece. Does the dog look bored? Take the pooch for a run.


Garbage needs tending? Go get your sister or brother (or wife, hehe) to take out the trash.


Haha, I caught you that time!


It doesn't matter whether you're doing regular every day chores, hanging out with your real life friends, or playing an entirely different video game, or type of game mode in the same video game.


I often find that running a couple of dynasties in my xbox 360's hard drive at the same time is really good for my BAP's. Often, if I'm struggling to think of something interesting, I simply sim a few months of one of my franchises. I try not to play out the games, as that's when I get too into the game to think freely.


While simming, I let my mind wander. BE CAREFUL! There is a big difference in “Letting your mind wander” and “forcing the thoughts to come.” The former is an incredibly peaceful, half-assed thing to do, and can be incredibly beneficial to the lazy-man.

However, the latter may cause brain farts, increased frustration, dizziness, fatigue, and an increased desire to smash yourself over the head with a large frying pan multiple times.


I can't really describe what's the difference between letting your mind wander and forcing it. The best that I can do is to get into the bath, and, I know it seems kind of feminine, but baths are soo much better to do this with than showers, and relax.

Close your eyes and inhale through your nose, and slowly and calmly exhale through your mouth. Focus solely on your breathing, just like as if you were meditating.


Then, slowly open your mind, still breathing just so. But DO NOT think about your story.


DO NOT think about OS, or any other site you're sharing the story on. DO NOT Think about ANY VIDEOGAMES!


Think instead about all of the occurrences of your day. Early in the day still??? Try and remember every little detail of your dreams from previous nights, if you had any.


Still stumped???!!


Try and think about conversations you can recall with people you know from over the past few days.


Try and remember every single word or phrase both you and they uttered.


Sometimes it is even good to remember arguments, or conversations that generally “made your day”.

[shinderhizzle84]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

Anyways, I think that is TRUTHFULLY all that there is for me to tell you. If any of you at all need help for your BAP, whether it is creating story ideas, or devising a new character, or even basic spelling or gramer halp (haha, I couldn't resist), don't be afraid to friend and talk to me either through meebo or PM via OS.


If I'm not online, you could stalk me, find out my phone number and address, as well as the name of the dorms I'm staying at in NYU, my floor and room number, my middle name, and my roomate's dog's name (I don't even know if he has a dog yet), and contact me every waking moment of my life, until I wished I had never written this guide....


but let's hope for all of our sake's, then, that I'm online




Also, if you're all for it, I'd like to open up this thread now, to the public.


My hope is that it will kind of be like the HTML hints and tips thread, only for stories instead of HTML.


Would anyone find that beneficial? This way, you could have a collective brainstorm for other users to find ideas for their stories, or if they're stuck in writer's block and can't seem to get out (trust me, it happens the farther in you go), they can get some ideas to get the wheels spinning once again.

[kzoz21]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

i will take your suggestion and run with it.


as far as writer's block goes. sometimes its easy to get out of. just look at the date of the year in your game.

is it christmas? then write about a party the team had or how you went back home or anything of that nature.

or just keep playing games until you think of something. you are by no mean obligated to have written updates.

bjf is a great example. i'm pretty sure he's had like ten in 60 pages but has thousands of views because its still a good bap.

shinder thinks this is blasphemy however and refuses to acknowledge that stories aren't always necessary.

i myself like to average one per two games, which i have so far.

and if you have a creative streak and think of five to do in row,

*ehem* *cough* shinder *cough* *hack*

that's cool too.

its your story do whatever you want with it

[shinderhizzle84]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

nicely put, kzoz. Good suggestion about the date.

In the beginning of Mikko, I only tried to make written updates whenever something interesting happened in-game. Did my team blow a big lead? or did the opposing team blow a big league? was a star injured? Did I get a shutout, or did I royally fail? These things prompted me to write most of my written updates in the beginning, when I was with Atlanta.

More towards the end was when I began updating a lot more than usual.

Also, I completely agree with you. Cbjfan had a great BAP, and didn't write an insane amount of updates. It's entirely up to you, the writer. After all, it's YOUR story, not anybody else's.

Also, one thing I'd like to suggest on top of that is to make sure you are in a right state to write (haha). If you're dead tired and can barely make a coherent post, I'd rather wait until the following day to see a much better, more organized and all that good stuff, written update.

[hockeyplaya2724]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

Hey thanks a lot! I just read the whole thing and I think it will be a big help for my future updates on BAP.

[kessthemess]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

STEP 2: DELIVERY:

There are many ways for your player to take his allotted position on the team:

he could be a former franchise QB who busted his leg in the combine and had to wait 7 years to sign as a FA as a third-string QB. Or, he could be slightly shorter than Muggsy Bogues, with twice the speed.

Want to do something out of the usual? Create a paintball BAP, as per Kessthemess. Or, you could tackle the most coveted and difficult position in pro sports:


A hockey goaltender


**PS: I'm not trying to brag, but I'm a hockey goaltender? Are any of you pretty ladies still plotting to kill me interested NOW? No! Ugh...I didn't think so....


The list seems endless, yet it really isn't. As I've said before, NOTHING IS ORIGINAL!!! Read tons of Matt Christopher and other children's sports novels. They're the best for thinking of different scenarios: near-career-ending injuries, big mountains to climb (such as the topics of race, or beliefs, or whatever) or even relationships over sports, or the other way around.

Thanks for mentioning my BAP, I'm unusual!!

Great guide, this will help a lot.

[onlybygrace]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

Another thing I think that helps is to not start something with a style that is too hard to keep up with...

EXAMPLE:

Someone started a baseball chise on OS within the last few months that was really awesome. He did it in Video style in the style of NFL 2k5...cool stuff...but he only did like 1 or 2 episodes before it was dead.

Personally, I do my game updates with scores and stats...real stream-line so that its never to over-bearing to keep up with. If, for instance, I was going to do every game of the 82 game season as an article style recap...I would burn out rather quick. So instead, I save the articles for the playoffs.

Don't get in over your head is what I guess I'm trying to say.

[sryubri]

Re: Writing and You: The Beginninngs of a Healthy Relationship

Is it bear, I always thought it was bare. Well I don't need to spell the cuddly beast a lot where I'm from.

Yup, it's all about the moose, geese and the government here in Canada.

That's pretty good.