i had always seen legacies in sims 3 because a few friends had done them. so when 4 came out i camped out over in the legacy mega thread. which caused 3 things to happens , increased intrest in writing a bunch of sopratic updates on what my current family was up too. note they died a lot too.
and the best thing i met cathtea .so now not only do i write but because my intrest stuck i have the lounge.
i had always seen legacies in sims 3 because a few friends had done them. so when 4 came out i camped out over in the legacy mega thread. which caused 3 things to happens , increased intrest in writing a bunch of sopratic updates on what my current family was up too. note they died a lot too.
and the best thing i met cathtea .so now not only do i write but because my intrest stuck i have the lounge.
Got a new chapter! (This is that Sim I absolutely love... and did you know that she, her sister and her two moms are game-generated? They're Townies! I fell in love with Sierra first, then I noticed that she and Savannah had the same last name, but I didn't know how they were related, and then I discovered when I moved the family into a house that they're married and that Leigh and Elaine are their daughters! I love that Savannah is so much older than Sierra, and I love that it looks like Leigh is Savannah's birth child, while it Elaine looks nothing like either mother. It's so perfect for creating a beautiful blended family.)
Perhaps this is something we can help you with @friendsfan367 - how to structure your story, where to start (past, present, future), and how to keep writing even with gaming glitches, reinstalls, etc.
When it comes to structure, I'd start with whether you want the story to be game-driven or story-driven. Game-driven allows the game to dictate direction, movement, flow, character development, etc. Play first, and write later. Story-driven is where you start with the story (a.k.a. the plot), you create pre-written background for characters outside of the game, you have an outline (typically, although some don't and there are pros and cons to having/not having an outline), and you write, and then go into game and set-up and screenshot.
Personally I do a mix of both. I like the game to flow and I'll direct my Sims to do things within the context of my story either straight, through cheats, or mods sometimes. I try not to pose because it's challenging and not always convenient. However, I have outlines, pre-written backstory, and character development I do outside of gaming in a OneNote or Word document and a post-it note system for my walls.
I think it's also important to come up with an overarching goal or purpose. Why are you writing? For purely entertainment purposes, to get your feet wet and/or stretch yourself as a writer, to get people thinking about a particular issue/idea/concept, etc. There are many, many more reasons.
You can also pick a challenge to give you some parameters like the legacy or another type of challenge. Sometimes this can give you focus and direction and give you a set of rules that are helpful when writing. Sometimes I find challenges to be too restrictive and I want to open up my story to more possibilities. This is precisely why the Colt Family follows a traitacy challenge (which isn't exactly like a legacy challenge in that it can continue past 10 generations if desired) and why Kass's story (KCKLF and KFLL) precisely does not follow a challenge.
When you have this goal in mind, this will help you structure your story and gameplay. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish with your story, what you want your characters to do or not do, do you want things to be random or planned in game, what type of story you're telling, and things like that.
When running into where to start, personally, I just start wherever the story takes me. I typically don't let the preset Sunday at 8AM (in TS3) define my gameplay and usually I have to do a little setup on the first day anyhow. Remember your overall goal.
For the Colt Family Traitacy, my goal is to tell Rachel Colt's story and to illustrate that she is ambitious (as this is the first generation trait I chose) and I do this through her work, family, home, friends, etc interaction. She also is an unofficial official member of the Racket family so I've been developing the Rackets a bit too.
My second goal was to try and be a little unique than the stereotypical legacy so I chose a traitacy (which is basically you follow legacy-like rules, and in my case, this means loosely, and you pick a trait to highlight for that particular generation, and the following generation, which I haven't gotten to yet, must have that trait, but highlight a new trait, and you repeat this for the third gen and so on, working through EA traits).
Then I chose to start her as a YA (which isn't terribly original), and to start on Tumblr with minimal backstory. I have since moved over to WordPress, and I'll probably explore back story a bit more in the future. I also chose to start in winter (which I managed with cheats) because everyone starts in summer.
Then with these goals in mind, I created my character and started playing with specific mini-goals to highlight her ambition (i.e. work goals - getting a job in politics, relational goals - aligning herself with powerful and connected people to advance her ambition, and personal goals - illustrating how she is wrapped up in work and moving forward.
Kass's story is its own ball of wax and I can talk about that later as I'm already getting a little long winded.
The point is start with your goals and that should help you determine where to start. If past backstory is important and relevant, include it. If starting in the future, and telling "past" stuff in flashbacks (which can be really cool) is something that sounds interesting, though it could be more challenging, do it. If starting in the present makes the most sense chronologically, start there, and this is by far, the easiest, I think. You can also alternate between time periods if you'd like - start in present, include flashbacks, include premonitions/dreams/visions for the future, or hop ahead to the future and tell things about the past, etc.
Finally, gaming glitches are annoying and reinstalls are the worst. Don't be discouraged. The key is to keep writing anyway, and explain to your readers the troubles you're having. They'll understand. I've had corrupted lots before and had to switch to a new lot to tell my story, but you can still use it (i.e. in KCKLF, I used an earthquake to explain the move to a new lot). I've had to reinstall the game several times either due to corruption or my own stupidity (i.e. I deleted my version tag once by accident). It can be frustrating and time consuming, but keep going. The first thing I do is start up a new game with my characters (hopefully saved and if not, then I recreate them) and the lot (or I recreate the lot or move to a new one). Then I just pick back up where I left off although it requires some cheats/mods setup (i.e. like for relationship levels, careers, etc) but this helps my readers follow and I don't have to start from scratch.
These are just my opinions and some of the practices I use. I hope it was helpful, @friendsfan367 and let me know what other questions you have.
I thought it could be helpful to set reading goals. Like I am feeling a bit more able to do stuff, so my goal is to get caught up on @RipuAncestor's story by Sunday night.
Aww, that's nice! Here's some more reading for you, and for everyone else too:
Chapter 14: Full Moon As Tad continues his meditation, Amelia wanders into a rather dangerous situation. But frightening situations are at least good for discovering something new about oneself.
I hope you have a good time!
My Sims stories: The Fey of Life - fairytales in life are few and far between (Forum thread HERE) The Chrysanthemum Tango - a story about life, death, magic, and how to be a good landlady (Forum thread HERE) Forget-Me-Not - some things just refuse to stay buried; an Ambrosia Challenge story (Forum thread HERE)
I thought it could be helpful to set reading goals. Like I am feeling a bit more able to do stuff, so my goal is to get caught up on @RipuAncestor's story by Sunday night.
Oooh! Awesome!
I'm caught up on @RipuAncestor 's story. (or I will be, once I read today's post...)
I'm caught up on @friendsfan367 's story! (Including all the previous posts from the past six months that have been zapped into the ether!)
I have 11 chapters to read in @AdamsEve1231 's story. I can read about two a day, and then I need to think and daydream... So, it looks like, unless AdamsEve launches into a huge writing spree, I'll be caught up by Monday, June 20.
With @rednenemon 's Racket-Rotter Chronicle, I've just finished the first arc. I need to pace myself with this one (like with @Munterbacon 's Ironbound) because I need lots of processing, daydreaming, imagining, fangirling time between each reading session. Maybe, once we're ready to talk about this together, we can start by talking about the first arc? I have a feeling that talking about these chapters will be really useful to me--there's so much there! And I love these characters so much!
So, my reading goals:
stay caught up with the ones I'm caught up on.
Read two chapters a day with AdamsEve's novel until I catch up.
Have at least one extended reading session per week with @rednenemon 's Racket-Rotter (reading it like a novel). I'm not sure how likely it is that I'll catch up, since @rednenemon publishes at a fairly brisk pace--red, what do you think? Will I be able to catch up, or am I reading at slower than the rate that you're publishing?
Also, I'm really finding that I'm wanting to talk about these stories with all of you! How do you feel about that? And what types of conversations would you like us to share about our writing and reading experiences?
I think I'm currently caught up with everything except The Racket-Rotter Chronicles. I've now finished reading Arc 2 of that and now I'm taking a couple of days' break before I'll move onto Arc 3. Or at least I'll try to take a break. My curiosity and interest for the story might get the better of me, though.
My Sims stories: The Fey of Life - fairytales in life are few and far between (Forum thread HERE) The Chrysanthemum Tango - a story about life, death, magic, and how to be a good landlady (Forum thread HERE) Forget-Me-Not - some things just refuse to stay buried; an Ambrosia Challenge story (Forum thread HERE)
I thought it could be helpful to set reading goals. Like I am feeling a bit more able to do stuff, so my goal is to get caught up on @RipuAncestor's story by Sunday night.
With @rednenemon 's Racket-Rotter Chronicle, I've just finished the first arc. I need to pace myself with this one (like with @Munterbacon 's Ironbound) because I need lots of processing, daydreaming, imagining, fangirling time between each reading session. Maybe, once we're ready to talk about this together, we can start by talking about the first arc? I have a feeling that talking about these chapters will be really useful to me--there's so much there! And I love these characters so much!
I also finished arc 1 of Rackett-Rotter and enjoyed it a lot. It was interesting to read a 100% prose story in simlit.
My next goal it to work on the Surreal Darkness and get a taste of all the stories in the circle to start with maybe 10 chapters of each.
I thought it could be helpful to set reading goals. Like I am feeling a bit more able to do stuff, so my goal is to get caught up on @RipuAncestor's story by Sunday night.
With @rednenemon 's Racket-Rotter Chronicle, I've just finished the first arc. I need to pace myself with this one (like with @Munterbacon 's Ironbound) because I need lots of processing, daydreaming, imagining, fangirling time between each reading session. Maybe, once we're ready to talk about this together, we can start by talking about the first arc? I have a feeling that talking about these chapters will be really useful to me--there's so much there! And I love these characters so much!
I also finished arc 1 of Rackett-Rotter and enjoyed it a lot. It was interesting to read a 100% prose story in simlit.
My next goal it to work on the Surreal Darkness and get a taste of all the stories in the circle to start with maybe 10 chapters of each.
The first two chapters are sort of a series of vignettes, but after that it developed a linear plot. So if you don't like the first bit, you might like later parts better.
I'm really not caught up with anyone's stories, but my current goal is 1 chapter from each of you a week, with the exception being @rednenemon's Racket-Rotter Chronicles because I'm enjoying the prose and it's easier for me to read faster. I have a tendency to read through prose, read through again looking at the pictures, and then comment before moving on. I'm enjoying Racket-Rotter Chronicles too much to just read 1 chapter at a time. It's my goal to have arc 1 completed by the end of the month.
@CathyTea I don't anticipate a surge in my writing. Lol. I've been on temporary hiatus so I can come up with good, quality chapters. I'll have one up by this weekend fingers crossed. I have about 13 stories left on your blog.
@MedleyMisty's Surreal Darkness is awesome and deep so I always take longer reading her stuff because I want to fully sink into it, although I'm 5 shy of finishing. I am slowly working my way through @RipuAncestor's story also. I am 8 shy of finishing on yours.
I need to start on @JLBDreamer and it's my goal to start in the next few days.
@AdamsEve1231 I wasn't looking for any goals. I just thought I needed a bit of structure myself, so I came up with one to get me started. Also, awwww, thanks.
I like to binge read, so I'll go through everyone's stories one by one and read until I'm caught up, and then after that I'll read chapters as they come out and I can get to them.
@CathyTea Of course I want to talk about the stories! I'm not sure how to do it, though. Let me get caught up on a few, and I'll think about it while I read and comment on their blogs.
Honestly, I'd say it's a bit of a toss-up at this point. You have said you finished Arc 1.
If I recall correctly, there's still over two hundred chapters left before you're caught up. (It's not as intimidating as it sounds, though; a lot of chapters are fairly short.)
However, to give a bit of a spoiler structure-wise: The Arc I recently started is the penultimate (second-to-last) one.
So just read at your own pace. You'll catch up eventually.
Comments
Awwww.... @friendsfan367 You're my rock and my angel!
We were so lucky with the Writers' Lounge--perfect idea, perfect timing! Good job, Ms. Inspiration!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
I do this until it becomes so cluttered in my mind that I need to get it written... then I feel the beautiful relief of an empty mind!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
i could not have done it without you.
I really love him!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
picturing you emtyheaded cracked me up.
Here's Leigh's chapter: https://cathytea.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/three-rivers-17-1/
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
The Last 100 Years
Prologue
The forum thread is here.
Me, too!
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
Do you want to skip writing about the past and just jump into present or future? We could always figure out what we need to know about backstory.
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
right now i want to make coffee.
When it comes to structure, I'd start with whether you want the story to be game-driven or story-driven. Game-driven allows the game to dictate direction, movement, flow, character development, etc. Play first, and write later. Story-driven is where you start with the story (a.k.a. the plot), you create pre-written background for characters outside of the game, you have an outline (typically, although some don't and there are pros and cons to having/not having an outline), and you write, and then go into game and set-up and screenshot.
Personally I do a mix of both. I like the game to flow and I'll direct my Sims to do things within the context of my story either straight, through cheats, or mods sometimes. I try not to pose because it's challenging and not always convenient. However, I have outlines, pre-written backstory, and character development I do outside of gaming in a OneNote or Word document and a post-it note system for my walls.
I think it's also important to come up with an overarching goal or purpose. Why are you writing? For purely entertainment purposes, to get your feet wet and/or stretch yourself as a writer, to get people thinking about a particular issue/idea/concept, etc. There are many, many more reasons.
You can also pick a challenge to give you some parameters like the legacy or another type of challenge. Sometimes this can give you focus and direction and give you a set of rules that are helpful when writing. Sometimes I find challenges to be too restrictive and I want to open up my story to more possibilities. This is precisely why the Colt Family follows a traitacy challenge (which isn't exactly like a legacy challenge in that it can continue past 10 generations if desired) and why Kass's story (KCKLF and KFLL) precisely does not follow a challenge.
When you have this goal in mind, this will help you structure your story and gameplay. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish with your story, what you want your characters to do or not do, do you want things to be random or planned in game, what type of story you're telling, and things like that.
When running into where to start, personally, I just start wherever the story takes me. I typically don't let the preset Sunday at 8AM (in TS3) define my gameplay and usually I have to do a little setup on the first day anyhow. Remember your overall goal.
For the Colt Family Traitacy, my goal is to tell Rachel Colt's story and to illustrate that she is ambitious (as this is the first generation trait I chose) and I do this through her work, family, home, friends, etc interaction. She also is an unofficial official member of the Racket family so I've been developing the Rackets a bit too.
My second goal was to try and be a little unique than the stereotypical legacy so I chose a traitacy (which is basically you follow legacy-like rules, and in my case, this means loosely, and you pick a trait to highlight for that particular generation, and the following generation, which I haven't gotten to yet, must have that trait, but highlight a new trait, and you repeat this for the third gen and so on, working through EA traits).
Then I chose to start her as a YA (which isn't terribly original), and to start on Tumblr with minimal backstory. I have since moved over to WordPress, and I'll probably explore back story a bit more in the future. I also chose to start in winter (which I managed with cheats) because everyone starts in summer.
Then with these goals in mind, I created my character and started playing with specific mini-goals to highlight her ambition (i.e. work goals - getting a job in politics, relational goals - aligning herself with powerful and connected people to advance her ambition, and personal goals - illustrating how she is wrapped up in work and moving forward.
Kass's story is its own ball of wax and I can talk about that later as I'm already getting a little long winded.
The point is start with your goals and that should help you determine where to start. If past backstory is important and relevant, include it. If starting in the future, and telling "past" stuff in flashbacks (which can be really cool) is something that sounds interesting, though it could be more challenging, do it. If starting in the present makes the most sense chronologically, start there, and this is by far, the easiest, I think. You can also alternate between time periods if you'd like - start in present, include flashbacks, include premonitions/dreams/visions for the future, or hop ahead to the future and tell things about the past, etc.
Finally, gaming glitches are annoying and reinstalls are the worst. Don't be discouraged. The key is to keep writing anyway, and explain to your readers the troubles you're having. They'll understand. I've had corrupted lots before and had to switch to a new lot to tell my story, but you can still use it (i.e. in KCKLF, I used an earthquake to explain the move to a new lot). I've had to reinstall the game several times either due to corruption or my own stupidity (i.e. I deleted my version tag once by accident). It can be frustrating and time consuming, but keep going. The first thing I do is start up a new game with my characters (hopefully saved and if not, then I recreate them) and the lot (or I recreate the lot or move to a new one). Then I just pick back up where I left off although it requires some cheats/mods setup (i.e. like for relationship levels, careers, etc) but this helps my readers follow and I don't have to start from scratch.
These are just my opinions and some of the practices I use. I hope it was helpful, @friendsfan367 and let me know what other questions you have.
Thoughts, Reading Circle?
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
Chapter 14: Full Moon
As Tad continues his meditation, Amelia wanders into a rather dangerous situation. But frightening situations are at least good for discovering something new about oneself.
I hope you have a good time!
The Fey of Life - fairytales in life are few and far between (Forum thread HERE)
The Chrysanthemum Tango - a story about life, death, magic, and how to be a good landlady (Forum thread HERE)
Forget-Me-Not - some things just refuse to stay buried; an Ambrosia Challenge story (Forum thread HERE)
Oooh! Awesome!
I'm caught up on @RipuAncestor 's story. (or I will be, once I read today's post...)
I'm caught up on @friendsfan367 's story!
I'm caught up on @MedleyMisty 's story.
I'm caught up on @JLBDreamer 's story.
I have 11 chapters to read in @AdamsEve1231 's story. I can read about two a day, and then I need to think and daydream... So, it looks like, unless AdamsEve launches into a huge writing spree, I'll be caught up by Monday, June 20.
With @rednenemon 's Racket-Rotter Chronicle, I've just finished the first arc. I need to pace myself with this one (like with @Munterbacon 's Ironbound) because I need lots of processing, daydreaming, imagining, fangirling time between each reading session. Maybe, once we're ready to talk about this together, we can start by talking about the first arc? I have a feeling that talking about these chapters will be really useful to me--there's so much there! And I love these characters so much!
So, my reading goals:
Also, I'm really finding that I'm wanting to talk about these stories with all of you! How do you feel about that? And what types of conversations would you like us to share about our writing and reading experiences?
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
The Fey of Life - fairytales in life are few and far between (Forum thread HERE)
The Chrysanthemum Tango - a story about life, death, magic, and how to be a good landlady (Forum thread HERE)
Forget-Me-Not - some things just refuse to stay buried; an Ambrosia Challenge story (Forum thread HERE)
I also finished arc 1 of Rackett-Rotter and enjoyed it a lot. It was interesting to read a 100% prose story in simlit.
My next goal it to work on the Surreal Darkness and get a taste of all the stories in the circle to start with maybe 10 chapters of each.
that reminds me i need to write.
The first two chapters are sort of a series of vignettes, but after that it developed a linear plot. So if you don't like the first bit, you might like later parts better.
@CathyTea I don't anticipate a surge in my writing. Lol. I've been on temporary hiatus so I can come up with good, quality chapters. I'll have one up by this weekend fingers crossed. I have about 13 stories left on your blog.
@MedleyMisty's Surreal Darkness is awesome and deep so I always take longer reading her stuff because I want to fully sink into it, although I'm 5 shy of finishing. I am slowly working my way through @RipuAncestor's story also. I am 8 shy of finishing on yours.
I need to start on @JLBDreamer and it's my goal to start in the next few days.
@friendsfan367 caught up on Benders.
I'm not sure what other goals you're looking for, so let me know if I'm missing something.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
I like to binge read, so I'll go through everyone's stories one by one and read until I'm caught up, and then after that I'll read chapters as they come out and I can get to them.
@CathyTea Of course I want to talk about the stories! I'm not sure how to do it, though. Let me get caught up on a few, and I'll think about it while I read and comment on their blogs.
Thank you, all! Seeing all the things said about Chronicles makes me feel a lot better.
@CathyTea
Honestly, I'd say it's a bit of a toss-up at this point. You have said you finished Arc 1.
However, to give a bit of a spoiler structure-wise: The Arc I recently started is the penultimate (second-to-last) one.
So just read at your own pace. You'll catch up eventually.
Part One(Complete 9/24/16) /Part Two(on hold)/Short Stories(on hold)/Twinbrook 1996(on hold)/Ten Crystal Hearts (on hold)
I own the TS3 Store as of 12/11/16 (sort of. It's complicated)