I wrote this some time ago for the people who was doing my Challenge.
Legacy Writers Helper
Write A Story Synopsis. I learned a long time ago that you can't develop your story until you know where it's supposed to go. Your objective? Write a one paragraph synopsis of your entire story, leaving out details and character specifics. Then take that paragraph and reduce it down to one sentence. For example, Dragon Ball Z might be "a group of friends battle strange enemies to protect the Earth." Does that really cover DBZ? No, but it sums up where the story will lead.
Create Character Profiles. In order to develop your story, you need to know who your characters are. Where did they come from? Do they have morals and values or none at all? A love interest? A best friend or an arch enemy? What makes them tick? Write a complete profile as if you were telling someone else about your guy or gal. Develop their strengths and weaknesses as these will come in handy when you begin to develop your storyline.
Write Your Story. For the moment, don't think about Pictures. Just write your story. What happens? Who does it happen to? Why did she leave or why did he come back? Will his powers ever return? Why did he lose them in the first place? Get all your questions answered on paper first. Then it's time to...
Think First Chapter. With the "bigger picture" in mind, think first chapter. You'll need to give some background to your story and you'll want enough current action to keep the reader intrigued for your next installment. Decide how much information you want to give in your first issue. Got it? Now you're ready to storyboard.
Layout Your Storyboard. "Storyboard" is a phrase that refers to the layout of your Legacy. Each panel conveys a certain amount of information and will also contain your Photos. Don't worry about the Photos right now. Just focus on the text. Who says what to whom? What action scenes will you include? What information will they provide? Break your story down into pieces that you can section off into individual panels.
Bring It All Together. It's time to pull your story together with the Photos. Either find yourself a good Simotagrapher to work with, or, if you're feeling adventurous, try your hand at Doing your own. There are several great books out there that teach Photography, as well as a few good online sources. Bring each character to life with various facial expressions and the dialogue you created in the storyboard.
Don't rush your masterpiece. Sometimes, great ideas can just come to you, but don't get frustrated if the development process takes longer than you imagined.
Don't try to push out too much work at one time and get burnt out. That is why there are so many pages that dont make it in the long run. space out chapters to twice a week or even once a week. The better the content the more people will like it. Quality over Quantity.
That's how I do it as well. I double-check for errors the day before I go to get pictures, before I get pictures, and then usually after I get pictures (when I add the lyrics and format it correctly and whatnot). At the beginning of gen six (when I was really starting to doubt myself/my writing abilities) I would re-read the chapters quite a lot before I could even think about going into the game to get pictures. That's actually a really good idea. I know that I had a major error in the past that somebody pointed out to me, but other than that...they don't really comment on the errors (I wish that meant that there were not any errors...but let's be honest: there were...somewhere).
That's exactly the way I do it. I'll want to do that too, or I would want to add in something that sounds better/would just add to the chapter. I usually give it a glance over too before I publish it (with that preview button on wordpress and the preview button on the forums), but on the forums I will definitely look it over in search of those **** words after I submit it. Those blocked out words(they aren't even swears so I'm not quite sure why they get star-ed out?) have definitely made people confused in the past if I didn't fix them.
Ahh my jeez no it's perfectly okay - I get behind in almost every story I read so I completely understand. Speaking of Patchwork...how do you keep up with all of your side legacies? I just have the one and I'm struggling to keep up with that O_O
Well when I read yours if I make notice of spelling errors I will let you know then, if you don't mind. I know it's been a tremendous help for me.
As for side legacies well it's been hard. Chance (gen six of Danevbies for those that don't know) reeeally sucked all my focus so that's why I haven't updated Dannings or Patchwork in ages. And yet I am undertaking another one. xD I just love writing too much I guess. Plus having multiple stories going on has helped some of my creativity problems. When I was SUPER stuck on the one chapter of Chance's I was recently stuck on, several readers suggested I go work on something else and I think it helped a little bit.
Good side of me writing multiple legacies: When I am writing a story I have about fifty million different ideas buzzing in my head so working on three (and now four oh jeez what am I doing) stories at once does usually help keep my busy mind reigned in a bit.
Bad side: It can be very difficult, I have so much writing to do and pictures to take that it does overwhelm me sometimes. I'm hoping to be able to deal with it. I want to because I WANT to do all this writing. It makes me happy.
Plus it's like... Dannings is so cute and romantic. It's very different from most of Danevbies. And Patchwork right now is HAARRVEEST MOOON so it's super fun to write and make sims for. xD I usually dislike making lots of sims for legacies but wow I love making sims for Harvest Moo--.... Patchwork gen one. -shifty eye look-
(also hoping my new years schedule thing I posted about on tumblr helps)
I remember once I posted a link to my legacy on my page and someone commented saying that I'd stolen their legacy. Bearing in mind their legacy was called Temple. I pointed this out to the person and they apologised and said how embarrassed they were. I think that's a lesson in the importance of making sure you read things clearly
Found something that might help some of you if you ever need to do a text conversation for part of your story, its very easy to use as well http://iphonetextgenerator.com/#
I love you.
This is GREAT!! this will come in super handy to add a picture or something where the sim is texting! Thank you so much!
I am soo glad that I came across this thread. It's such a coincidence that I saw this thread because I just decided today that I am going to write my first story. Thanks for all of the tips. I can't wait to put them to use
Glad we could help and good luck on your story! When you post it, you should leave the link here so we can check it out (or at least so I can, haha. I can't really speak for anyone else).
@puppyluvv, I sure will . I should have the first chapter done shortly.
@JMJphotostudio, your insights are informative and are helping me organize my writing.
Again this overall thread has been incredibly useful; I needed to stop over thinking things and just start writing. Thanks again everyone.
I have a TS2 story so I don't lose touch with my Sims and I still want to get back to TS3 when my computer is back with a new fan and Windows 7 upgraded to Pro version.
When I first started my legacy I wrote down what each generation was going to be like using a few phrases.
( ex. Gen 1- Commitment issues, politics, learn to trust Gen 2- Writer, travel etc.)
This helped me keep everything on track so I knew what needed to happen so the next generation would be able to do what I wanted them to. Of course, I let the readers vote on the heir so I usually have two scenarios and/or keep the number of children down to two or three.
Sometimes I write then capture pictures, if I know exactly what I want to happen, other times I'll play the game first and see which Sim flirts with who, etc. while following the loose outline I created and then write everything down. I use to type everything in a Word document, transfer it to Blogger, than add pictures. That became VERY time consuming so now I just type in Blogger and since I can never stand rereading my work I have to depend on spellcheck to help me out with errors. :-) If you use Blogger they have an app, allowing you to type things up whenever you get a sec.
And great tips from everyone! I love learning how I could make my legacy better.
Another tip I found useful was randomizing traits for each and every Sim, I know for myself that I always choose the same traits each time. With doing that it can help give an edge to your story. For instant an evil flirty Sim who dislikes children as a founder could lead to many different outcomes, she leaves her child to in the care of her parents and runs off. It's a new route I started to try and I'm loving it.
Also input, I deleted Lucky Palms my mistake when clearing out some CC in my launcher. When I noticed the mistake a re-downloaded it asap as it was where my legacy is taking place. Unlike when I uninstalled IP it left the family intact and when I installed it, it was still playable. That wasn't the case with my legacy. So now I'm at a crossed road on which route I should take. Any one ever go through this before?
Here is a helpful link I use: http://www.random.org/ - let's you randomize basically anything. Could be helpful if you write a story where readers "pick what happens/traits for a sim"
For the people that have trouble editing their own work:
If you're getting tired of reading it over and over that you aren't catching mistakes, try changing the font. I know this sounds stupid, but reading my work in different fonts really helps me catch more mistakes. For example, If you choose a really difficult font to read, it will take longer to get through it, so you will catch minor mistakes.
I've got a thread that might be useful for anybody trying to do town legacy stories or doing a pioneer legacy where you have to control all of the households in town and the link is HERE.It connects to links for the things that would help me with my town legacy challenge and the story so it's not getting ruined by EA's glitchy SP.
Also input, I deleted Lucky Palms my mistake when clearing out some CC in my launcher. When I noticed the mistake a re-downloaded it asap as it was where my legacy is taking place. Unlike when I uninstalled IP it left the family intact and when I installed it, it was still playable. That wasn't the case with my legacy. So now I'm at a crossed road on which route I should take. Any one ever go through this before?
I should have responded to this sooner!
In the third gen of my legacy, my game got ruined. I tried installing pets and well it was a HUGE mess and I uninstalled things and lost literally EVERYTHING! I was going to quit but decided not to.
What I did was redownload my family members that I had put up on the exchange, and try to recreate the characters that I hadn't as best I could. I apologized to my readers, but they understood. I gave everyone new houses and just did a "time skip" in my legacy (like I opened it up with a small scene of my heiress and her now-husband getting ready for something, and then I wrote: "It was hard to believe how much had changed in just that amount of time. Sixteen months! It seemed like a lot longer and yet… a lot shorter. All that emotion, all that change."
So they moved to a new house (you could say yours burned down if you need to be on the same lot?) and that their parents had to move, and one sim I couldn't recreate very well (the husband of her brother) I had die in an accident... etc, etc.
So as long as YOU want to keep going, I say just download if you can, recreate if you can't, or remake the family if you have them in the bin, and make up a story for why their house might look different.
If you decide to continue, good luck with everything, it can be annoying to get the ball rolling again but personally I found it worth it
I've had to recreate my legacy before. I was forced to reset my computer to factory defaults and even though I had backed up my saves, a couple of them were unplayable due to the town (non-EA) not being correct. This was after ten generations, but since it was my main legacy story, I had to recreate the family tree. Thank goodness for FamilyEcho as well as my taking notes on characters and keeping a back up of my story line. I've dropped one story for the moment from that episode because I don't want spend the time recreating the sims...
Yeah, I suppose my techniques are a little odd, but I've learned it's how I work best, even if it doesn't work for other people ^^; I agree though, comments absolutely make my day just to know that someone is enjoying and taking time out of their day to read something that I worked hard to put together. It's a fantastic feeling
I've heard that too, about reading out loud and it's something I often recommend to people, though I find it hard to do myself in my house. One of my brothers or my parents are always hovering around, which makes me a little too self conscious to be reading anything out loud.
Hey, if it works best for you, it works best for you. I have plenty of writing habits/rituals that are...extremely odd...but they work for me, so -shrugs-. Oh jeez I absolutely love comments. Even if there is only one it will make my day :]. It really is a fantastic feeling.
I find it rather difficult to do in my house as well. There is always people around, and they always happen to be in the room that I'm in, and I feel awkward reading my writing out loud when they're around. Reading in my head is perfectly fine because I can pronounce the words perfectly, but sometimes its like my brain doesn't connect to my mouth when I read out loud.
Well when I read yours if I make notice of spelling errors I will let you know then, if you don't mind. I know it's been a tremendous help for me.
As for side legacies well it's been hard. Chance (gen six of Danevbies for those that don't know) reeeally sucked all my focus so that's why I haven't updated Dannings or Patchwork in ages. And yet I am undertaking another one. xD I just love writing too much I guess. Plus having multiple stories going on has helped some of my creativity problems. When I was SUPER stuck on the one chapter of Chance's I was recently stuck on, several readers suggested I go work on something else and I think it helped a little bit.
Good side of me writing multiple legacies: When I am writing a story I have about fifty million different ideas buzzing in my head so working on three (and now four oh jeez what am I doing) stories at once does usually help keep my busy mind reigned in a bit.
Bad side: It can be very difficult, I have so much writing to do and pictures to take that it does overwhelm me sometimes. I'm hoping to be able to deal with it. I want to because I WANT to do all this writing. It makes me happy.
Plus it's like... Dannings is so cute and romantic. It's very different from most of Danevbies. And Patchwork right now is HAARRVEEST MOOON so it's super fun to write and make sims for. xD I usually dislike making lots of sims for legacies but wow I love making sims for Harvest Moo--.... Patchwork gen one. -shifty eye look-
(also hoping my new years schedule thing I posted about on tumblr helps)
No, no I do not mind at all. I thank you ahead of time .
That's actually a really good idea, if your stuck on one piece of writing to move onto another one for a while. I should probably start doing that...but my fear is that if I get another idea and start working on that one, I'll get so pumped about the new idea that I'll forget that I have a chapter sitting there waiting for me to come back to it. :oops:
I absolutely love to write as well...but...the thing that really puts me off about doing a second legacy (or story...or something else sims related in general) is because of all those pictures. I have trouble getting the pictures now...just...man. I applaud you and your ability to take on four legacies at once. My mind is just exploding at the thought of it.
Haha...I see what you did there ;D.
I absolutely love to write as well...but...the thing that really puts me off about doing a second legacy (or story...or something else sims related in general) is because of all those pictures. I have trouble getting the pictures now...just...man. I applaud you and your ability to take on four legacies at once. My mind is just exploding at the thought of it.
Taking pictures is the worst part. :thumbdown: it's definitely a chore for me. T_T
On a side note, I've removed my sims 3 folder and started the game up so I have a new one. I hope this prevents me from doing a full uninstall/reinstall. Plus after I add my store content in, my neighborhoods, binned sims, and binned families I am gonna weed out my CC since some of it was bad. I'm keeping about half the CC (the stuff that isn't merged) and then find some new CC (or CC that I had merged previously to add back in) I'm gonna need to go looking for feminine male clothing again but other than that, I won't be putting a whole lot more in. I want to try to keep my game as clean as possible.
That being said, I already have all my NRass mods ready and waiting to be plopped down into my game again
Hey, if it works best for you, it works best for you. I have plenty of writing habits/rituals that are...extremely odd...but they work for me, so -shrugs-. Oh jeez I absolutely love comments. Even if there is only one it will make my day :]. It really is a fantastic feeling.
I find it rather difficult to do in my house as well. There is always people around, and they always happen to be in the room that I'm in, and I feel awkward reading my writing out loud when they're around. Reading in my head is perfectly fine because I can pronounce the words perfectly, but sometimes its like my brain doesn't connect to my mouth when I read out loud.
Every time I get a nice comment I swear I just sit there for a while just
It's such a great feeling
Ah, I know, haha. I swear, my family likes to hang out wherever I am. Even if I'm in my room, my brother'll come and play lego in the hallway just outside my door. It's like, okay I guess I won't sing along to my radio either then... I feel you about reading out loud vs. reading in your head. A lot of the times when I read out loud, especially in front of people, my voice gets shaky and people are like, "Oh my god are you okay are you going to cry?" but it's just what happens when I read out loud It doesn't help when I stumble over words either.
I've started legacies before, but I kinda got fizzled out on them really quick. What's a good way to keep myself interested in writing the legacy?
I personally help keep myself interested by choosing a plot I know I will be interested in. Adding in a lot of elements that you personally enjoy writing will help. I love writing drama/tragedies/intense scenes so most my generations have that. I also love the sci-fi/fantasy things and my legacy has had some of that, with the more recent gens having a lot more. Introduce a character that you'll have a ton of fun writing. A friend, a villain... etc, etc. Think up wacky plot lines even if you don't implement them. One of my friends (who also writes sims), we often have weird scenarios with our characters that will honestly never be put in any of our stories but it's a lot of fun to think of our characters in new/unusual situations!
Don't be afraid to do some time skipping if you're finding the moment stale or dull. I've skipped months in mine. Forcing yourself when you're just not in the mood to write can have a negative impact.
And sometimes you just have to take a hiatus. If you're really just frizzled out on your story then let your readers know you need a short break and step away from writing for a couple days, a week, or even a couple weeks if you need.
I don't know if any of that helped, though I am sure the others will have other ideas as well.
Addition: I thought your name was familiar! I remember reading something of yours, and it was pretty good... I must have lost the bookmark or something though cause I'm not seeing your legacy in my bookmarks list, unless the Tarrow legacy isn't the one I read... I am pretty sure I read some chapters of yours... -scratches head-
The Tarrows was going to be my attempt at a Supernatural legacy. Before them was the Sewards, who never got past gen 1 cause compy issues. But, I got a new laptop for Christmas!
The Tarrows was going to be my attempt at a Supernatural legacy. Before them was the Sewards, who never got past gen 1 cause compy issues. But, I got a new laptop for Christmas!
Also Dragon Valley is amazing, just fyi.
EDIT!: You think my writing is good? :shock:
I'm like 99 percent sure I read something of yours cause your name looks so familiar !_! and it's not a negative memory, so I probably enjoyed your legacy, whatever it was I read. I feel awful I don't remember for sure though my memory is bad.
Comments
I wrote this some time ago for the people who was doing my Challenge.
Legacy Writers Helper
Write A Story Synopsis. I learned a long time ago that you can't develop your story until you know where it's supposed to go. Your objective? Write a one paragraph synopsis of your entire story, leaving out details and character specifics. Then take that paragraph and reduce it down to one sentence. For example, Dragon Ball Z might be "a group of friends battle strange enemies to protect the Earth." Does that really cover DBZ? No, but it sums up where the story will lead.
Create Character Profiles. In order to develop your story, you need to know who your characters are. Where did they come from? Do they have morals and values or none at all? A love interest? A best friend or an arch enemy? What makes them tick? Write a complete profile as if you were telling someone else about your guy or gal. Develop their strengths and weaknesses as these will come in handy when you begin to develop your storyline.
Write Your Story. For the moment, don't think about Pictures. Just write your story. What happens? Who does it happen to? Why did she leave or why did he come back? Will his powers ever return? Why did he lose them in the first place? Get all your questions answered on paper first. Then it's time to...
Think First Chapter. With the "bigger picture" in mind, think first chapter. You'll need to give some background to your story and you'll want enough current action to keep the reader intrigued for your next installment. Decide how much information you want to give in your first issue. Got it? Now you're ready to storyboard.
Layout Your Storyboard. "Storyboard" is a phrase that refers to the layout of your Legacy. Each panel conveys a certain amount of information and will also contain your Photos. Don't worry about the Photos right now. Just focus on the text. Who says what to whom? What action scenes will you include? What information will they provide? Break your story down into pieces that you can section off into individual panels.
Bring It All Together. It's time to pull your story together with the Photos. Either find yourself a good Simotagrapher to work with, or, if you're feeling adventurous, try your hand at Doing your own. There are several great books out there that teach Photography, as well as a few good online sources. Bring each character to life with various facial expressions and the dialogue you created in the storyboard.
Don't rush your masterpiece. Sometimes, great ideas can just come to you, but don't get frustrated if the development process takes longer than you imagined.
Don't try to push out too much work at one time and get burnt out. That is why there are so many pages that dont make it in the long run. space out chapters to twice a week or even once a week. The better the content the more people will like it. Quality over Quantity.
Have fun.
Well when I read yours if I make notice of spelling errors I will let you know then, if you don't mind. I know it's been a tremendous help for me.
As for side legacies well it's been hard. Chance (gen six of Danevbies for those that don't know) reeeally sucked all my focus so that's why I haven't updated Dannings or Patchwork in ages. And yet I am undertaking another one. xD I just love writing too much I guess. Plus having multiple stories going on has helped some of my creativity problems. When I was SUPER stuck on the one chapter of Chance's I was recently stuck on, several readers suggested I go work on something else and I think it helped a little bit.
Good side of me writing multiple legacies: When I am writing a story I have about fifty million different ideas buzzing in my head so working on three (and now four oh jeez what am I doing) stories at once does usually help keep my busy mind reigned in a bit.
Bad side: It can be very difficult, I have so much writing to do and pictures to take that it does overwhelm me sometimes. I'm hoping to be able to deal with it. I want to because I WANT to do all this writing. It makes me happy.
Plus it's like... Dannings is so cute and romantic. It's very different from most of Danevbies. And Patchwork right now is HAARRVEEST MOOON so it's super fun to write and make sims for. xD I usually dislike making lots of sims for legacies but wow I love making sims for Harvest Moo--.... Patchwork gen one. -shifty eye look-
(also hoping my new years schedule thing I posted about on tumblr helps)
Danevbie Legacy 8.24
I love you.
This is GREAT!! this will come in super handy to add a picture or something where the sim is texting! Thank you so much!
Danevbie Legacy 8.24
@puppyluvv, I sure will
@JMJphotostudio, your insights are informative and are helping me organize my writing.
Again this overall thread has been incredibly useful; I needed to stop over thinking things and just start writing. Thanks again everyone.
Good luck with the writing and everything and yeah drop a link in here when you get it started up!
Danevbie Legacy 8.24
( ex. Gen 1- Commitment issues, politics, learn to trust Gen 2- Writer, travel etc.)
This helped me keep everything on track so I knew what needed to happen so the next generation would be able to do what I wanted them to. Of course, I let the readers vote on the heir so I usually have two scenarios and/or keep the number of children down to two or three.
Sometimes I write then capture pictures, if I know exactly what I want to happen, other times I'll play the game first and see which Sim flirts with who, etc. while following the loose outline I created and then write everything down. I use to type everything in a Word document, transfer it to Blogger, than add pictures. That became VERY time consuming so now I just type in Blogger and since I can never stand rereading my work I have to depend on spellcheck to help me out with errors. :-) If you use Blogger they have an app, allowing you to type things up whenever you get a sec.
And great tips from everyone!
@shiba306 thank you, I got this pointed out to me mid way through my first gen I think, but its always good to know for new writers
I'm adding a "useful links" section to the first post because I've found some interesting resources, including the text generator xD
Also input, I deleted Lucky Palms my mistake when clearing out some CC in my launcher. When I noticed the mistake a re-downloaded it asap as it was where my legacy is taking place. Unlike when I uninstalled IP it left the family intact and when I installed it, it was still playable. That wasn't the case with my legacy. So now I'm at a crossed road on which route I should take. Any one ever go through this before?
http://www.random.org/ - let's you randomize basically anything. Could be helpful if you write a story where readers "pick what happens/traits for a sim"
For the people that have trouble editing their own work:
If you're getting tired of reading it over and over that you aren't catching mistakes, try changing the font. I know this sounds stupid, but reading my work in different fonts really helps me catch more mistakes. For example, If you choose a really difficult font to read, it will take longer to get through it, so you will catch minor mistakes.
This color names place is a good one for people doing rainbowcies. I use it allllll the time for my rainbowcy!
Danevbie Legacy 8.24
I should have responded to this sooner!
In the third gen of my legacy, my game got ruined. I tried installing pets and well it was a HUGE mess and I uninstalled things and lost literally EVERYTHING! I was going to quit but decided not to.
What I did was redownload my family members that I had put up on the exchange, and try to recreate the characters that I hadn't as best I could. I apologized to my readers, but they understood. I gave everyone new houses and just did a "time skip" in my legacy (like I opened it up with a small scene of my heiress and her now-husband getting ready for something, and then I wrote: "It was hard to believe how much had changed in just that amount of time. Sixteen months! It seemed like a lot longer and yet… a lot shorter. All that emotion, all that change."
So they moved to a new house (you could say yours burned down if you need to be on the same lot?) and that their parents had to move, and one sim I couldn't recreate very well (the husband of her brother) I had die in an accident... etc, etc.
So as long as YOU want to keep going, I say just download if you can, recreate if you can't, or remake the family if you have them in the bin, and make up a story for why their house might look different.
If you decide to continue, good luck with everything, it can be annoying to get the ball rolling again but personally I found it worth it
Danevbie Legacy 8.24
I find it rather difficult to do in my house as well. There is always people around, and they always happen to be in the room that I'm in, and I feel awkward reading my writing out loud when they're around. Reading in my head is perfectly fine because I can pronounce the words perfectly, but sometimes its like my brain doesn't connect to my mouth when I read out loud.
No, no I do not mind at all. I thank you ahead of time
That's actually a really good idea, if your stuck on one piece of writing to move onto another one for a while. I should probably start doing that...but my fear is that if I get another idea and start working on that one, I'll get so pumped about the new idea that I'll forget that I have a chapter sitting there waiting for me to come back to it. :oops:
I absolutely love to write as well...but...the thing that really puts me off about doing a second legacy (or story...or something else sims related in general) is because of all those pictures. I have trouble getting the pictures now...just...man. I applaud you and your ability to take on four legacies at once. My mind is just exploding at the thought of it.
Haha...I see what you did there ;D.
On a side note, I've removed my sims 3 folder and started the game up so I have a new one. I hope this prevents me from doing a full uninstall/reinstall. Plus after I add my store content in, my neighborhoods, binned sims, and binned families I am gonna weed out my CC since some of it was bad. I'm keeping about half the CC (the stuff that isn't merged) and then find some new CC (or CC that I had merged previously to add back in) I'm gonna need to go looking for feminine male clothing again but other than that, I won't be putting a whole lot more in. I want to try to keep my game as clean as possible.
That being said, I already have all my NRass mods ready and waiting to be plopped down into my game again
Danevbie Legacy 8.24
Every time I get a nice comment I swear I just sit there for a while just
It's such a great feeling
Ah, I know, haha. I swear, my family likes to hang out wherever I am. Even if I'm in my room, my brother'll come and play lego in the hallway just outside my door. It's like, okay I guess I won't sing along to my radio either then... I feel you about reading out loud vs. reading in your head. A lot of the times when I read out loud, especially in front of people, my voice gets shaky and people are like, "Oh my god are you okay are you going to cry?" but it's just what happens when I read out loud
Our Lives are Better Left to Chance - A Legacy
I personally help keep myself interested by choosing a plot I know I will be interested in. Adding in a lot of elements that you personally enjoy writing will help. I love writing drama/tragedies/intense scenes so most my generations have that. I also love the sci-fi/fantasy things and my legacy has had some of that, with the more recent gens having a lot more. Introduce a character that you'll have a ton of fun writing. A friend, a villain... etc, etc. Think up wacky plot lines even if you don't implement them. One of my friends (who also writes sims), we often have weird scenarios with our characters that will honestly never be put in any of our stories but it's a lot of fun to think of our characters in new/unusual situations!
Don't be afraid to do some time skipping if you're finding the moment stale or dull. I've skipped months in mine. Forcing yourself when you're just not in the mood to write can have a negative impact.
And sometimes you just have to take a hiatus. If you're really just frizzled out on your story then let your readers know you need a short break and step away from writing for a couple days, a week, or even a couple weeks if you need.
I don't know if any of that helped, though I am sure the others will have other ideas as well.
Addition: I thought your name was familiar! I remember reading something of yours, and it was pretty good... I must have lost the bookmark or something though cause I'm not seeing your legacy in my bookmarks list, unless the Tarrow legacy isn't the one I read... I am pretty sure I read some chapters of yours... -scratches head-
Danevbie Legacy 8.24
Also Dragon Valley is amazing, just fyi.
EDIT!: You think my writing is good? :shock:
I'm like 99 percent sure I read something of yours cause your name looks so familiar !_! and it's not a negative memory, so I probably enjoyed your legacy, whatever it was I read. I feel awful I don't remember for sure though
Danevbie Legacy 8.24