@DaniRose2143 I bet! I'm planning my second story right now, and it's like the polar opposite of my main one, which is refreshing. I like the idea of being able to bounce between both, so one doesn't get burnt out as easily on one. As long as you keep writing, that's what's important x)
@SnowBnuuy I'm the same way, I can't get enough of supernatural stories, fantasy all the way! Sometimes I just write short stories of the stories that really left a mark, to get some sort of closure. But it's not the same x)
River. Any pronouns are fine, but I mainly go by they/them. Neurodivergent, cat parent, tea addict. Occult and berry sim SimLit.
Woah, I've been lost in exams for a while, so there's a lot to catch up on here!
What do you think defines your personal storytelling style? What aspects of your work do you consider your personal 'trademarks' as a storyteller? (Can be in terms of writing style, characters, screenshots / style of screenshots, common tropes or themes that appear and whatever else comes to mind.)
Generational trauma. The main theme for the Duchellis is that each generation somehow inherits some trauma from their parents that they have to deal with.
Dumb jokes and snarky banter, characters being dorks.
Fourth wall breaking picture captions - which took a break and was brought back by popular demand from readers.
Chapter titles that are songs - this one is subtle, but each generation is tied to an artist and each chapter title is a song by that artist, and the title and lyrics has to fit the chapter so it's actually a huge amount of work to find titles (and pick an artist for the generation) considering few people notice, but I mostly do it because it's fun for myself. (This is also a more recent thing, Generation 1 was just random sayings that I rephrased, Generation 2 was Star Trek: TNG titles, Gen 3 is P!nk titles and Gen 4 is Taylor Swift titles.)
What is the most fun, well-made or memorable character you've ever written?
I obviously did not create Don Lothario, but I've gotten a lot of comments on the way I wrote him as a character. I've probably gotten the most comments on Eric Duchelli, heir of gen 3, who is also the only one who's gotten fan art (with Freya as a child).
I do wonder, do you write several SimLit stories at the same time, or do you just focus on one before moving on to the next? If you write several stories at the same time, how do you manage your time between them?
My main focus is The Duchelli Legacy, which is also my "serious" project. I also wrote a Christmas-themed fanfic about the characters from The Strauds by Feroshgirl as a gift to her, and I have a NSFW story about Don Lothario teaching Komei Tellerman and Goopy Gilscarbo how to get the ladies. I'm also in the middle of preparations for a huge project involving most of the premades, but this is mostly for fun and may not be published at all. I have severe ADHD so I like having different projects I can jump between since my brain doesn't like being forced to do anything.
That being said, The Duchellis are my main thing and I'm back to writing the next chapter now that exams are over.
I have a question to ask: how long does it usually take you to write a chapter? On average, as some are bigger than others. Sorry if this has been asked before.
I often get "in the zone" when I'm writing. How many times did I start my game only to blink and it's suddenly 3 am on a week night
So I've decided to keep track of the hours I'd spend writing my latest chapter, as in from the moment I open my game to the moment the chapter is fully written and illustrated (not necessarily published cause that's a whole other thing). I thought it would help me plan better.
The chapter in question is a big one so I expected 4-5 hours. Nope: turns out the session lasted 9 hours, a full work shift, and I couldn't even finish in one go. I don't usually like cutting up writing sessions. If I can get away with it, I'll write every chapter as a one shot but this is getting complicated I guess I should start cutting the different chapter in a smarter way.
how long does it usually take you to write a chapter?
It really depends on how much of the process we're calling "writing", as well as how well fleshed out my idea is when I start working on it, how much editing it needs after the first draft, whether or not I'm planning things that will definitely require making custom poses, and how focused I am.
If we're just talking about the specifically "writing" part, I usually do the whole scene in one sitting (though I will most likely edit it later) and if I already know what I want to write, it's pretty short (maybe an hour or two). But my written draft is just essentially dialogue, the character's thought narration and notes about what the screenshots will be. Almost more like an outline or play script. The time consuming part is getting all the screenshots, especially if I need poses or special items to carry out my vision for the scene. My guess is a total of around 60 hours is pretty common.
From start (planning the scene) to finish (it's ready to be posted), my chapters can take anywhere from a couple weeks (putting in about 10 - 15 hours a week) to a few months. But I'm usually working on several chapters at once, so it's hard to say exactly how much time I spend on each. The earlier chapters in my story were simpler and didn't take as long initially, but I've edited and re-done them so many times that probably they ended up taking about the same as the later more carefully planned chapters.
I'm not really sure - I never do it in one sitting. Maybe about three hours per chapter to write, but that's truly a rough guess. Screenshots maybe another hour, and another hour for editing and compiling it. It's truly hard to say, it's just fun for me so I don't mind
It really depends on how much of the process we're calling "writing", as well as how well fleshed out my idea is when I start working on it, how much editing it needs after the first draft, whether or not I'm planning things that will definitely require making custom poses, and how focused I am.
@GlacierSnow That's very true, I'm not doing my own poses or CC so I didn't really think about accounting for it in the process. I guess it's a pretty vague question that depends on each and everyone's way of writing. Some people have everything written in advance and only have to take pictures, some people do very little writing and focus on pictures first.
For me I have a baseline of things I want to happen in a chapter, nothing more elaborate than a bunch of post-it notes spread on a wall. And then when I open my game, I usually have an open word document on my second screen, and I write and screenshot pretty much at the same time. And that's only because the story I'm currently writing falls under the "improvised" category in my books. I've worked on stories in the past where I had everything planned and written in advance before switching to illustration. In that case I think it would take me much longer, but I also wouldn't be bothered by the fact that I need to cut chapters into several writing sessions since it would depend a lot less on my mood and random bursts of inspiration.
I start writing as much as a week ahead of posting a chapter. I'll do some while I'm at work too, on breaks or if it's quiet and I can sneak in a quick session. It's really hard to put a total to the whole process. When I sit down to finish putting everything together, it's something like 3 or 4 hours all the way up to 10 hours. All of it together for an average chapter as much as 15-20 hours, but that's just a guess.
I have a question to ask: how long does it usually take you to write a chapter? On average, as some are bigger than others.
For me, it's impossible to tell how long I spend on an individual chapter. I have ADHD and I find it helpful to let my brain do what it wants instead of forcing anything, so I have a 50+ page document with small scenes, snippets of dialogue, notes and ideas for all 12 generations, and then I post it into Wordpress drafts when I get to the relevant chapters. I also often work on the next 2-3 chapters at the same time, sometimes pushing scenes to a later chapter if I don't have the room, and making sure they flow together nicely. So whenever I write, my time is spread between the next chapter, the chapter after that, and possibly getting inspired and quickly writing a much later scene for like, generation 8 or something.
And then there's the screenshots. I usually write the chapter first, then take screenshots, but if the pictures I end up getting don't quite fit the written stuff, I'll rewrite it slightly, or add a new scene just because I got some great pictures that I want to use. If I know exactly what I want and what poses I plan to use it's quick, but if I'm not sure and test out a lot of poses and angles and lighting and locations it can take hours for a single scene of 5-15 pictures.
It depends on how focused I am. I’d say it takes me about an hour or so to write a chapter. But again, game-driven story. I also have ADHD and I’m rarely writing for a solid hour. I’ll write a bit and then go off and do something else… I also don’t edit my screenshots at all. I just go with the in-game camera. I don’t have GShade, and have zero idea how to use Photoshop or any similar photo-editing software.
I don’t really have any personal trademarks, unless you count having at least one pair of twin girls per story, often more than one I guess I’ve always been fascinated by multiples, and I find it easier to come up with girls’ names than boys’ ones!
I have a question to ask: how long does it usually take you to write a chapter? On average, as some are bigger than others. Sorry if this has been asked before.
Usually, on a good week, about three to four days. On a bad week, I don't really know. Right now I'm not as quick because of tiredness and mental health stuff, I was meant to start my chapter Saturday and I've done nothing. X_X My attention span is very bad right now, so it's hard to do anything story-wise even though my next chapter is planned out entirely!
@InkyRiver That's a really good question actually.
I used to enjoy gameplay back before I did SimLit, and then I started doing SimLit but with a challenge alongside it, so both gameplay + SimLit. Then it was Yimi who convinced me to try just narrative SimLit, since we were talking about the amount of things I couldn't cover in detail in one of my stories because I also had to bear the challenge progress in mind. And then she was saying she sometimes preferred reading narrative SimLit depending on mood (I think she said that anyway? Feel free to correct me Yimi XD) so I thought, well, maybe I can try a story without any challenge behind it. It was a bit harder since the challenge usually provided most of the plot, but now I can't go back to the old way.
I think part of it might be due to the fact that...I love writing my story, but also I think part of it is to do with the sharing and the validation, I'm not going to lie. I struggle to enjoy things privately for my own enjoyment now, and it's kind of a problem sometimes : P So part of the reason for me not doing gameplay anymore is because sharing the story is more enjoyable.
Do you have a save file just for playing, or do you mostly/entirely use the game for the purposes of SimLit?
@InkyRiver An interesting question.
I do both.
I often use the gameplay to inspire me for the development of my story. I have drawn up a loose script as the framework for the story and let the content depend on chance.
I love to seize what happens randomly in the game to develop my story. I often use the game's pre-made Sims in my stories, without being hampered by their backstory.
I have some test games I play for my own enjoyment without them ending up in a story. There are still so many challenges I have never tried in the game and I am constantly finding new ones.
There are both narrative stories and game-driven stories, which I enjoy with equal pleasure. It can be the author's joy of storytelling, a creative imagery or an alluring universe that makes me want to follow a story. I assume my tastes are pretty broad.
Another question! Do you have a save file just for playing, or do you mostly/entirely use the game for the purposes of SimLit?
I have other saved game files; one for my now abandoned machinima project, one legacy game and one game I call "Challenge World" where I try to complete the various scenarios and challenges with different characters. I almost never play them these days as I'm having way too much fun with the Sim 66 game save and I don't have time for the others. I haven't deleted them though.
Another question! Do you have a save file just for playing, or do you mostly/entirely use the game for the purposes of SimLit?
I have several save files that are "just for playing" saves. I'd say there are about 5 or 6 saves that I play a lot but don't write as stories. I still take a lot of screenshots though, because that's a big part of the fun for me, and I share some of those on the "what happened in your game" and various screenshot related threads, usually with only minimal context given. I also occasionally send screenshots and brief updates of those saves to one of my friends who enjoys them.
However, most of my Sims playing time is actually spent on my narrative-driven simlit stories (especially the main one, as I mentioned in an earlier post recently) using the game just as a creative studio for making my story. This is largely because I love writing stories and doing art, and I've never really been much of a "gamer". Even when I was a kid I mostly "played" by drawing, writing, and making up stories in my head. So that's just normal behavior for me.
Recently, I have gone into my "just playing" saves a lot less. This is partly due to the fact that I started posting my story in October, and I want to keep well ahead of what is posted. And partly because the bug that causes sims to keep moving while paused (which still isn't fixed for me after the patch where they said they fixed it) is so massively annoying to me that playing isn't fun right now. But I can endure it while getting screenshots for the story, since most of those are carefully staged.
If they actually get that bug properly fixed, I'll probably start playing in my "just for fun" saves a bit more again. I do miss them.
Do you have a save file just for playing, or do you mostly/entirely use the game for the purposes of SimLit?
@InkyRiver I have two saves set aside for just playing with no SimLit connections. I may share some funny or interesting screenshots from those but that's all. I haven't touched either one since early August. Once readers started leaving comments on the Under The Tartosan Sun thread saying how much they were enjoying it I put those non-SimLit saves on hiatus. Now I have a second SimLit story so those two saves aren't likely to get much play.
When I started UtTS it was really gameplay driven. Now there are a lot of elements of the story that I have to stage or I won't have the screenshots I need. I feel like the story is getting to a point where it will be more of an even split. The other story, Schemes And Dreams that one is close to an even split. It does feature a lot of actresses, stand up comics, drag queens, and other assorted celebrities. There will always be those elements that have to be staged but I can also step back and just watch the chaos and take screenshots and write the dialogue around those.
Do you have a save file just for playing, or do you mostly/entirely use the game for the purposes of SimLit?
I generally only have one save file. It’s primarily for gameplay, which I later turn into SimLit. At first, I kept things simple, but the process has gradually become complicated and time consuming.
Creating SimLit requires so much time that I think it would be difficult for most people to maintain a separate gameplay save while also churning out SimLit regularly. Narrative-based SimLit tends to be more entertaining (for readers) and provides its creators with more options for creativity through poses and the staging of scenes, so people tend to transition away from gameplay.
As for me, I’m trying to do what I can with my gameplay-based SimLit, but I often consider abandoning SimLit completely because it’s a lot of work and I have no interest in creating something that’s narrative-based. I enjoy the challenge of making a narrative from actual gameplay and improving that skill as my SimLit progresses, but if it were to get too annoying, I would revert to playing the game without sharing anything.
Yeah I think for me I have more control over outcomes with writing narrative SimLit, whereas before I’d have to come up with weird excuses for challenge related things happening in challenge stories. (Funniest was me trying to justify a vampire getting alien-pregnant when, across all my stories, vampires can only get pregnant from other vampires…)
but I love challenge stories for the usually-comical value and the funny commentary /fourth wall breaks, and also some of the clever ways people blend in-game happenings into the storyline (if any of you’ve read anything of mightysprite’s they’re really good at doing this IMO.)
Do you have a save file just for playing, or do you mostly/entirely use the game for the purposes of SimLit?
The other story, Schemes And Dreams that one is close to an even split. It does feature a lot of actresses, stand up comics, drag queens, and other assorted celebrities. There will always be those elements that have to be staged but I can also step back and just watch the chaos and take screenshots and write the dialogue around those.
That reminds me, as I have a cross dressing Sim in my story I need to get some recommendations and bend your ear about what cc is good for that. I'm kind of relying on guesswork for my story as it's not something I know a great deal about irl.
Another question! Do you have a save file just for playing, or do you mostly/entirely use the game for the purposes of SimLit?
I have two saves - my simlit one and a second which I never share because it's just for me to play. Sometimes when I get tired of posing sims and making them do exactly what I want them to all the time I'll go and play the other. I've only had sims 4 since maybe July. I was massively behind the bandwagon because I hadn't had a computer strong enough to run it the way I wanted (with all graphics set to highest) until I invested in one last summer, so a lot of the gameplay is still new and exciting to me, and I'm constantly discovering new things.
I understand what others have said about getting bored of the game, it happens when you've played every possible scenario and there's nothing new to try, which thankfully, I'm not at that point yet. I don't play my second non simlit file too often because I'm obsessed with Lucky Girl and want to put them all in different outfits and decorate new lots for them all the time like they're little dolls I play with, but sometimes I just want to chill out and take a break from it all.
@Kellogg_J_Kellogg I'm looking through my old cc for some of my retro outfits. They are fairly old so I want to put them back in and see if they still work before I recommend anything. Give me about an hour or so and I will have some recommendations for you.🙂
@Kellogg_J_Kellogg Bummer. The creator that instantly came to mind was Colores Urbanos, but a lot of the outfits that I thought would be perfect for Beulah only work on feminine frames. Here is something a bit different from her modeled by Paxton, my Marilyn Monroe inspired queen, aka Marilyn Manroe...
This was the outfit I first thought of but I had to switch frames to make it work. It fits the period and has a Jackie O feel but I don't think you want to change George/Beulah that much just for an outfit
You probably already use TSR but if not there are some other creators who might have something that works for Beulah.
Dissia
Sifix <-They have some really nice dresses that would work for Beulah on a date night.
MysteriousOo
TrudieOpp
Pixelette
They have a whole collection, CAS and BB, called Retro Reboot also. I wish I had more for you but most of my drag queens are present day and more androgynous than Beulah. The other issue, I did not have as much 60s retro fashion as I thought I did. Most of my retro items are gothic/victorian/1940s.
Comments
@SnowBnuuy I'm the same way, I can't get enough of supernatural stories, fantasy all the way! Sometimes I just write short stories of the stories that really left a mark, to get some sort of closure. But it's not the same x)
Woah, I've been lost in exams for a while, so there's a lot to catch up on here!
I obviously did not create Don Lothario, but I've gotten a lot of comments on the way I wrote him as a character. I've probably gotten the most comments on Eric Duchelli, heir of gen 3, who is also the only one who's gotten fan art (with Freya as a child).
My main focus is The Duchelli Legacy, which is also my "serious" project. I also wrote a Christmas-themed fanfic about the characters from The Strauds by Feroshgirl as a gift to her, and I have a NSFW story about Don Lothario teaching Komei Tellerman and Goopy Gilscarbo how to get the ladies. I'm also in the middle of preparations for a huge project involving most of the premades, but this is mostly for fun and may not be published at all. I have severe ADHD so I like having different projects I can jump between since my brain doesn't like being forced to do anything.
That being said, The Duchellis are my main thing and I'm back to writing the next chapter now that exams are over.
So I've decided to keep track of the hours I'd spend writing my latest chapter, as in from the moment I open my game to the moment the chapter is fully written and illustrated (not necessarily published cause that's a whole other thing). I thought it would help me plan better.
The chapter in question is a big one so I expected 4-5 hours. Nope: turns out the session lasted 9 hours, a full work shift, and I couldn't even finish in one go. I don't usually like cutting up writing sessions. If I can get away with it, I'll write every chapter as a one shot but this is getting complicated
It really depends on how much of the process we're calling "writing", as well as how well fleshed out my idea is when I start working on it, how much editing it needs after the first draft, whether or not I'm planning things that will definitely require making custom poses, and how focused I am.
If we're just talking about the specifically "writing" part, I usually do the whole scene in one sitting (though I will most likely edit it later) and if I already know what I want to write, it's pretty short (maybe an hour or two). But my written draft is just essentially dialogue, the character's thought narration and notes about what the screenshots will be. Almost more like an outline or play script. The time consuming part is getting all the screenshots, especially if I need poses or special items to carry out my vision for the scene. My guess is a total of around 60 hours is pretty common.
From start (planning the scene) to finish (it's ready to be posted), my chapters can take anywhere from a couple weeks (putting in about 10 - 15 hours a week) to a few months. But I'm usually working on several chapters at once, so it's hard to say exactly how much time I spend on each. The earlier chapters in my story were simpler and didn't take as long initially, but I've edited and re-done them so many times that probably they ended up taking about the same as the later more carefully planned chapters.
Read Sim 66 here:https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/978195/sim-66/p1
https://kelloggjkellogg.blogspot.com/2020/10/sim-66-prologue.html
@GlacierSnow That's very true, I'm not doing my own poses or CC so I didn't really think about accounting for it in the process. I guess it's a pretty vague question that depends on each and everyone's way of writing. Some people have everything written in advance and only have to take pictures, some people do very little writing and focus on pictures first.
For me I have a baseline of things I want to happen in a chapter, nothing more elaborate than a bunch of post-it notes spread on a wall. And then when I open my game, I usually have an open word document on my second screen, and I write and screenshot pretty much at the same time. And that's only because the story I'm currently writing falls under the "improvised" category in my books. I've worked on stories in the past where I had everything planned and written in advance before switching to illustration. In that case I think it would take me much longer, but I also wouldn't be bothered by the fact that I need to cut chapters into several writing sessions since it would depend a lot less on my mood and random bursts of inspiration.
For me, it's impossible to tell how long I spend on an individual chapter. I have ADHD and I find it helpful to let my brain do what it wants instead of forcing anything, so I have a 50+ page document with small scenes, snippets of dialogue, notes and ideas for all 12 generations, and then I post it into Wordpress drafts when I get to the relevant chapters. I also often work on the next 2-3 chapters at the same time, sometimes pushing scenes to a later chapter if I don't have the room, and making sure they flow together nicely. So whenever I write, my time is spread between the next chapter, the chapter after that, and possibly getting inspired and quickly writing a much later scene for like, generation 8 or something.
And then there's the screenshots. I usually write the chapter first, then take screenshots, but if the pictures I end up getting don't quite fit the written stuff, I'll rewrite it slightly, or add a new scene just because I got some great pictures that I want to use. If I know exactly what I want and what poses I plan to use it's quick, but if I'm not sure and test out a lot of poses and angles and lighting and locations it can take hours for a single scene of 5-15 pictures.
I don’t really have any personal trademarks, unless you count having at least one pair of twin girls per story, often more than one
Usually, on a good week, about three to four days. On a bad week, I don't really know. Right now I'm not as quick because of tiredness and mental health stuff, I was meant to start my chapter Saturday and I've done nothing. X_X My attention span is very bad right now, so it's hard to do anything story-wise even though my next chapter is planned out entirely!
That's fair, what exactly made you lose interest in playing the game as a whole?
I used to enjoy gameplay back before I did SimLit, and then I started doing SimLit but with a challenge alongside it, so both gameplay + SimLit. Then it was Yimi who convinced me to try just narrative SimLit, since we were talking about the amount of things I couldn't cover in detail in one of my stories because I also had to bear the challenge progress in mind. And then she was saying she sometimes preferred reading narrative SimLit depending on mood (I think she said that anyway? Feel free to correct me Yimi XD) so I thought, well, maybe I can try a story without any challenge behind it. It was a bit harder since the challenge usually provided most of the plot, but now I can't go back to the old way.
I think part of it might be due to the fact that...I love writing my story, but also I think part of it is to do with the sharing and the validation, I'm not going to lie. I struggle to enjoy things privately for my own enjoyment now, and it's kind of a problem sometimes : P So part of the reason for me not doing gameplay anymore is because sharing the story is more enjoyable.
I do both.
I often use the gameplay to inspire me for the development of my story. I have drawn up a loose script as the framework for the story and let the content depend on chance.
I love to seize what happens randomly in the game to develop my story. I often use the game's pre-made Sims in my stories, without being hampered by their backstory.
I have some test games I play for my own enjoyment without them ending up in a story. There are still so many challenges I have never tried in the game and I am constantly finding new ones.
There are both narrative stories and game-driven stories, which I enjoy with equal pleasure. It can be the author's joy of storytelling, a creative imagery or an alluring universe that makes me want to follow a story. I assume my tastes are pretty broad.
I have other saved game files; one for my now abandoned machinima project, one legacy game and one game I call "Challenge World" where I try to complete the various scenarios and challenges with different characters. I almost never play them these days as I'm having way too much fun with the Sim 66 game save and I don't have time for the others. I haven't deleted them though.
Read Sim 66 here:https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/978195/sim-66/p1
https://kelloggjkellogg.blogspot.com/2020/10/sim-66-prologue.html
I have several save files that are "just for playing" saves. I'd say there are about 5 or 6 saves that I play a lot but don't write as stories. I still take a lot of screenshots though, because that's a big part of the fun for me, and I share some of those on the "what happened in your game" and various screenshot related threads, usually with only minimal context given. I also occasionally send screenshots and brief updates of those saves to one of my friends who enjoys them.
However, most of my Sims playing time is actually spent on my narrative-driven simlit stories (especially the main one, as I mentioned in an earlier post recently) using the game just as a creative studio for making my story. This is largely because I love writing stories and doing art, and I've never really been much of a "gamer". Even when I was a kid I mostly "played" by drawing, writing, and making up stories in my head. So that's just normal behavior for me.
Recently, I have gone into my "just playing" saves a lot less. This is partly due to the fact that I started posting my story in October, and I want to keep well ahead of what is posted. And partly because the bug that causes sims to keep moving while paused (which still isn't fixed for me after the patch where they said they fixed it) is so massively annoying to me that playing isn't fun right now. But I can endure it while getting screenshots for the story, since most of those are carefully staged.
If they actually get that bug properly fixed, I'll probably start playing in my "just for fun" saves a bit more again. I do miss them.
@InkyRiver I have two saves set aside for just playing with no SimLit connections. I may share some funny or interesting screenshots from those but that's all. I haven't touched either one since early August. Once readers started leaving comments on the Under The Tartosan Sun thread saying how much they were enjoying it I put those non-SimLit saves on hiatus. Now I have a second SimLit story so those two saves aren't likely to get much play.
When I started UtTS it was really gameplay driven. Now there are a lot of elements of the story that I have to stage or I won't have the screenshots I need. I feel like the story is getting to a point where it will be more of an even split. The other story, Schemes And Dreams that one is close to an even split. It does feature a lot of actresses, stand up comics, drag queens, and other assorted celebrities. There will always be those elements that have to be staged but I can also step back and just watch the chaos and take screenshots and write the dialogue around those.
I generally only have one save file. It’s primarily for gameplay, which I later turn into SimLit. At first, I kept things simple, but the process has gradually become complicated and time consuming.
Creating SimLit requires so much time that I think it would be difficult for most people to maintain a separate gameplay save while also churning out SimLit regularly. Narrative-based SimLit tends to be more entertaining (for readers) and provides its creators with more options for creativity through poses and the staging of scenes, so people tend to transition away from gameplay.
As for me, I’m trying to do what I can with my gameplay-based SimLit, but I often consider abandoning SimLit completely because it’s a lot of work and I have no interest in creating something that’s narrative-based. I enjoy the challenge of making a narrative from actual gameplay and improving that skill as my SimLit progresses, but if it were to get too annoying, I would revert to playing the game without sharing anything.
Yeah I think for me I have more control over outcomes with writing narrative SimLit, whereas before I’d have to come up with weird excuses for challenge related things happening in challenge stories. (Funniest was me trying to justify a vampire getting alien-pregnant when, across all my stories, vampires can only get pregnant from other vampires…)
but I love challenge stories for the usually-comical value and the funny commentary /fourth wall breaks, and also some of the clever ways people blend in-game happenings into the storyline (if any of you’ve read anything of mightysprite’s they’re really good at doing this IMO.)
That reminds me, as I have a cross dressing Sim in my story I need to get some recommendations and bend your ear about what cc is good for that. I'm kind of relying on guesswork for my story as it's not something I know a great deal about irl.
Read Sim 66 here:https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/978195/sim-66/p1
https://kelloggjkellogg.blogspot.com/2020/10/sim-66-prologue.html
I have two saves - my simlit one and a second which I never share because it's just for me to play. Sometimes when I get tired of posing sims and making them do exactly what I want them to all the time I'll go and play the other. I've only had sims 4 since maybe July. I was massively behind the bandwagon because I hadn't had a computer strong enough to run it the way I wanted (with all graphics set to highest) until I invested in one last summer, so a lot of the gameplay is still new and exciting to me, and I'm constantly discovering new things.
I understand what others have said about getting bored of the game, it happens when you've played every possible scenario and there's nothing new to try, which thankfully, I'm not at that point yet. I don't play my second non simlit file too often because I'm obsessed with Lucky Girl and want to put them all in different outfits and decorate new lots for them all the time like they're little dolls I play with, but sometimes I just want to chill out and take a break from it all.
This was the outfit I first thought of but I had to switch frames to make it work. It fits the period and has a Jackie O feel but I don't think you want to change George/Beulah that much just for an outfit
You probably already use TSR but if not there are some other creators who might have something that works for Beulah.
Dissia
Sifix <-They have some really nice dresses that would work for Beulah on a date night.
MysteriousOo
TrudieOpp
Pixelette
They have a whole collection, CAS and BB, called Retro Reboot also. I wish I had more for you but most of my drag queens are present day and more androgynous than Beulah. The other issue, I did not have as much 60s retro fashion as I thought I did. Most of my retro items are gothic/victorian/1940s.