oh and they have triplets. which is why shes not working yet. because i started over partly cause of the gentics being wrong. they looked like sims3 genetics and since lauren is black and noel is white i wanted them to look that way and the kids to look mixed,
ok i started the benders again but ihad the triplets age to toddlers so i could see what color they were so now i need a prologe i think thats what its called where i try and tell what happened before the story starts. never wrote one before. so what does it usuaally contain information wise?
When I choose to write prologues, they always contain some kind of issue. A kind of fateful condition that will later have an impact on the rest of the character's life.
@MonaSolstraale I wouldn’t worry, everyone has different tastes in reading and writing and that doesn’t mean the writer is ‘doing it wrong’.
Keep writing the way you’re enjoying writing it and what works for you, and if people consider it ‘too romantic’ and walk away then that’s up to them. Never feel you have to change your story for something like that!
Your story isn’t ‘hopelessly romantic’ anyway, not in my opinion. I think you can have romance in a story without it being the main point and without it being considered too romantic. Romance isn’t a focal point for my work either. I write more about family, both blood family and found family. I am trying to add romance a bit though, just to try and write something different.
i agree with snowbunny if you enjoy your story continue writing.it. i said i was trying to finish mine since 2015. its because i love my charaters.and even if i only have one reader i'm going to finish it cause writing can be soothing. i had a lot of changes in life since starting but the family never changes. well there was the time lauren decied to become jason but other than that. i might be writing a sim soap opera without knowing it.
@MonaSolstraale Ahhh, good! You should absolutely feel proud of your body of work!
Haha, by 'mainstream' I mean I thought I could help outsiders see what's cool about the genre, but gave up long ago and am just enjoying my characters.
@SnowBnuuy I 100% agree that fancy silliness will not save a weak story. But it comes on the heels of this statement:
I've read so many pretentious stories, published or stuff on the Internet where the author is too busy trying to convey how much smarter than everyone they are by using the biggest words possible, and then it just becomes a load of meaningless purple prose.
which suggests that the purpose of using this kind of language is to say "ooh, look at me, I'm so special and smarticle." Or to obscure the lack of actual insightful content. This may be the case sometimes, and I can certainly name examples.
Within fanfic communities, though, the people I know who do this are doing it to be extra silly: it's more "wooo what if I said 'carotid' here? hahahaha," or "oh man, you know what this outlandish character needs? Allen Ginsburg rant," or "oh my goodness it would be super funny if I put a long sentence that tells a single ridiculous story."
To paraphrase the above comment I probably shouldn't have made, I'm all like "hahaha! guys? I'm having a blast over here, what about this? Who wants to talk about this thing?" and then very few people care while I get to read hundreds of Tumblr posts implying that using educated language suggests the author is an arrogant tool and probably has a bland, thoughtless story with no love put into the characters---all of which are presented under the guise of spreading quote-unquote 'positivity'---and I'm like "aw, man ."
It's rough. Yeowch.
That, and I have no way of fixing it because I'm legit talking the way I would in real life, and don't even know what I'd be allowed to use if I wanted to fit in.
So I'm glad we agree. I just wanted to clear up how this comes across to a group that can already feel sad & isolated, then hears people (not you) drag their style all day. As indifferent as I've become, I have friends who still get hurt by the assumption that educated = pretentious + soulless, and who don't feel comfortable enough standing up for themselves.
Catastrophe Theory: If, through loose ends, we could resume/Unrav'ling defects from the loom/And soften as the shuttle mends---/Then save for me a few loose ends! Haunted: Picture Oscar Wilde dating Willy Wonka, also Oscar Wilde is still dead
@haneul Yeah, this is a good community! I don't mean to complain at all. People have different tastes and that's great.
I put loads of love into my story, but there's a huge chunk of the community who doesn't want to read it because it's not their thing. And that's ok. Doesn't mean the love doesn't matter without their blessing. That said, there are still those who connect with it on a deep level and they're my absolute favorites; they're so lovely.
Hopefully it didn't come off as whining. My intention was to convey the feelings of isolation people have from this vantage point, since it's something that doesn't get talked about much and people who write like I do are frequently considered acceptable targets for derision (see?! What even was that?).
It seems like you want to talk about the nationality/race thing, too. My peeps have nationalities in order to fight the impression that being light-skinned and having Western-sounding names, etc., is the "default." Also, it lets me throw shade at racists and give my friends/family cool characters that look like them.
(My goodness, I am going to blindside the smoke out of my readers with an anti-imperialism twist in the next year or two, and I am STOKED.)
Catastrophe Theory: If, through loose ends, we could resume/Unrav'ling defects from the loom/And soften as the shuttle mends---/Then save for me a few loose ends! Haunted: Picture Oscar Wilde dating Willy Wonka, also Oscar Wilde is still dead
Hopefully it didn't come off as whining. My intention was to convey the feelings of isolation people have from this vantage point, since it's something that doesn't get talked about much and people who write like I do are frequently considered acceptable targets for derision (see?! What even was that?).
@Dollyllama108 It's fine. It doesn't come off as whining to me and I think I understand what you mean. It's why I think writing/communication is difficult. Sometimes, it's easy for people to find pretentiousness/arrogance where there is none and to misunderstand motivations. It can be extremely hurtful and isolating if you make a conscious effort not to be pretentious, arrogant, or a show-off in any way and still hear a ton of that sort of criticism.
Outside of this community, it's hard to talk about this kind of isolation because it often comes from a place of privilege. It can't be helped, but it does have I'm-so-smart-no-one-understands-me vibes, which can trigger people especially since a gap in communication caused the problem to begin with. If communication is an issue and messages already aren't being properly conveyed, adding anything with connotations of I'm-so-smart over that generally doesn't help at all (because someone is already not being understood), so the isolation often just gets worse (regardless of what's meant or being said I think people hear, "you don't understand me/my writing because I'm smarter than you" which... ). So, anyway, I have no clue about any kind of solutions for this sort of isolation. I think everyone just has to be thoughtful and considerate, but common advice is to find your people, "join mensa" , keep looking, idk.
It seems like you want to talk about the nationality/race thing, too. My peeps have nationalities in order to fight the impression that being light-skinned and having Western-sounding names, etc., is the "default." Also, it lets me throw shade at racists and give my friends/family cool characters that look like them.
Yes, I want to cover a lot of areas and topics with my legacy, but I'm slow-paced and quite subtle. And my execution is all over the place for different reasons. I knew people would read race/nationality into my story even though I never mention it and my characters do non-American things (subtly), so I went "default" because my characters are sometimes quite bad and, to the extent I can avoid it, I just don't really care to perpetuate any harmful stereotypes.
Hopefully it didn't come off as whining. My intention was to convey the feelings of isolation people have from this vantage point, since it's something that doesn't get talked about much and people who write like I do are frequently considered acceptable targets for derision (see?! What even was that?).
@Dollyllama108 It's fine. It doesn't come off as whining to me and I think I understand what you mean. It's why I think writing/communication is difficult. Sometimes, it's easy for people to find pretentiousness/arrogance where there is none and to misunderstand motivations. It can be extremely hurtful and isolating if you make a conscious effort not to be pretentious, arrogant, or a show-off in any way and still hear a ton of that sort of criticism.
Outside of this community, it's hard to talk about this kind of isolation because it often comes from a place of privilege. It can't be helped, but it does have I'm-so-smart-no-one-understands-me vibes, which can trigger people especially since a gap in communication caused the problem to begin with. If communication is an issue and messages already aren't being properly conveyed, adding anything with connotations of I'm-so-smart over that generally doesn't help at all (because someone is already not being understood), so the isolation often just gets worse (regardless of what's meant or being said I think people hear, "you don't understand me/my writing because I'm smarter than you" which... ). So, anyway, I have no clue about any kind of solutions for this sort of isolation. I think everyone just has to be thoughtful and considerate, but common advice is to find your people, "join mensa" , keep looking, idk.
It seems like you want to talk about the nationality/race thing, too. My peeps have nationalities in order to fight the impression that being light-skinned and having Western-sounding names, etc., is the "default." Also, it lets me throw shade at racists and give my friends/family cool characters that look like them.
Yes, I want to cover a lot of areas and topics with my legacy, but I'm slow-paced and quite subtle. And my execution is all over the place for different reasons. I knew people would read race/nationality into my story even though I never mention it and my characters do non-American things (subtly), so I went "default" because my characters are sometimes quite bad and, to the extent I can avoid it, I just don't really care to perpetuate any harmful stereotypes.
i get the part about srereotypes. i was afraid of that too. i didn't make lauren a dr and noel a chef because i was afraid of stereotyes i tried to avoid that hopefully my readers agree. but its more enviromental with them she grew up with all the advantagees he grew up with close to nothing it wasn't even a descion i thought through much cause my biggest concern that night was how loud fireworks were going yo be. it was new yrs eve.
Sometimes, it's easy for people to find pretentiousness/arrogance where there is none and to misunderstand motivations.It can be extremely hurtful and isolating if you make a conscious effort not to be pretentious, arrogant, or a show-off in any way and still hear a ton of that sort of criticism.
(EVERY day of being a woman in STEM)
(that's it)
(that's my whole career)
MENSA? Yeah, I'd join if I needed more insecure men to explain things to me. The sad bit is, I don't even consider myself smart, just weird. (Which I'm okay with. No advice, please.)
I knew people would read race/nationality into my story even though I never mention it and my characters do non-American things (subtly), so I went "default" because my characters are sometimes quite bad
Do you read or listen to essays talking about racism & anti-racism in media?
Catastrophe Theory: If, through loose ends, we could resume/Unrav'ling defects from the loom/And soften as the shuttle mends---/Then save for me a few loose ends! Haunted: Picture Oscar Wilde dating Willy Wonka, also Oscar Wilde is still dead
@friendsfan367 I think the Benders are fine. I hope your New Years Eve went okay - despite the fireworks.
Do you read or listen to essays talking about racism & anti-racism in media?
@Dollyllama108 Not lately, but I read a lot of different things. To be clear about the mensa thing, I don't really think it's a good idea and likely for the reasons you've expressed, but because I don't have anything helpful to say and I've heard that being said, I suggested it. Intelligence is a touchy subject, but if someone is in a space where they are already considered arrogant for existing, I think it's going to be hard for them to recognize their own talents or intelligence, especially without being attacked.
I have a random question for everyone. To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
Whoa, you’ve all had quite the discussion while I slept! I love how lively this place is these days 😁
The topic has mostly been closed already, but I want to touch on one final point, if that’s okay. @Dollyllama108 and @SnowBnuuy both have a point about genres and niche stories, as well as originality versus working with what is familiar. I’ve been around simlit for a while. I’ve been writing for much longer. So I can say this with confidence:
The story you want to tell can be whatever you want it to be.
It doesn’t have to be original. The most successful, widely-read stories are tales of a dance that we know inside and out. Romance, the unlikely hero that saves the day, vampire stories, family tragedies and other tropes are massively popular because people can connect to them. They summon emotion very easily, because we’ve been raised with them. They fit. A writer can take that connection, make it their own and spin it into whatever story shape they want. It’s like a beautiful, comfy, worn jumper that you can’t bear to lose.
You can make an entirely new jumper and plunge into the challenge of an “out-of-the-box” story, too. These stories miss the connection to what is familiar, and it takes skill to draw people in regardless. But you don’t have to be afraid to try it. Some of the best stories I’ve read, ever, are the ones that came up with something entirely new and made me connect with it. They made me think. You can take a piece of whole cloth, as Dolly described, and decide turn it into a stunning dress instead of a jumper.
Both of them are equally wonderful, whether it’s the thought-provoking, original story to take for a spin or the comfy, familiar romance to curl up with. 😊
Both choices lead to very different reader bases, though. The more familiar your story is, the better others can relate to it, and the larger your potential reader base will be. The more you deviate, the fewer people will connect with your story. For every writer that is doubting themselves: that is not because you are a bad writer. It’s not because you’re being singled out. It’s not because people don’t like you. It simply means that you’re growing fancy, exotic fruit, while what most readers want to eat is an apple. 🙂
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters? @haneul Fun one! Let’s see…
I’d love to be friends with Monoroe, would enjoy being around Gawain and would get along with Guinevere (because she reminds me a lot of myself). I’d have no opinion about Lancelot, would dislike Elyan and would despise Morgana as she is in Camelot. What about yourself?
Hosting D&D sessions on the side. Interested in playing through some fantasy-themed shenanigans? Send me a message 😘
That was definitively a quite long discussion, covering a lot of important topics...
I had reasoned quite a lot about which kind of stories to write, how much I should try to avoid predictable plot development or characters archetypes, if I should try to be more inclusive etc... but then I realised that it wasn't funny to write anymore that way. So I tend to write plots I like with characters I can relate with, in any case it's impossible to write something that everyone would like to read...
Passing to the question instead: To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
Not all my characters are very nice and agreeable people, so with some of them it would be quite challenging. On the other hand, most of my protagonists have a moral I can relate with (i.e. they take the choices I would consider right in that given situation), so in the long run we would probably get along somehow.
Using the founder of my current legacy as an example, he is one of the nicest characters I wrote and we are both nerds working in a scientific lab (so we would have quite a lot to talk about), so I think we would go along quite well.
You can follow the Legacy Miller from my blog and the forum thread, *Chapter 8.18 posted on the 23th of April 2024*
- I want to be Tusnelda's friend, but I would hate to be her colleague
- Rasmus could be a nice faithful friend. He's the kind of guy I want to hug while I tell him everything's going well in the long run. In a way, that's probably what I'm already doing
- Martin? Will I just be his friend? Maybe he's more the man I wish I had ... even though I might already have certain parts of him sitting in my living room
- Trix! Who does not dream of a little furry friend? I already have two cats and could easily find an extra place for him
Why does it have to be 'either/or'? Why is being in a box a bad thing or seen as unoriginal or uncreative rather than merely a convenient way to trap find readers?
I'll take Yimi's analogy about the dress and the jumper. If you don't make a dress from your cloth, you're making a jumper, like everyone else - but what if your jumper has three sleeves? Or a massive hood? Or the back is missing and has been replaced with lobsters?
What if you are pushing the boundaries of jumper to where it's probably not even a jumper anymore, but you still call it a jumper because people who aren't already happily wearing one won't know what 'backless lobster knitted monstrosity' is?
Whether we like to think we're in a box or not, we all are. We are all writing simlit, for starters.
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
I wouldn't. I'd find a different story. I'd probably move into @MonaSolstraale 's world where I want to be friends with Rasmus.
(No lobsters were harmed in the making of this comment)
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
With most of them. Maybe not the Sneedleys, but I like characters for the most part...I even fancy a couple of them. But as they are projections of either me or people I like in real life it's hardly surprising that my protagonists appeal to me in various ways.
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
I wouldn't. I'd find a different story. I'd probably move into @MonaSolstraale 's world where I want to be friends with Rasmus.
@SnuffyBucket Oh! Thanks
You are his friend! You've made him grow. I hope you are aware of that.
(No lobsters were harmed in the making of this comment)
I’ll respond to other people’s posts later after work, but to answer @haneul’s question:
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
I know the question says one, but I’ll pick a few from the magic stories:
I wouldn’t bother getting to know Morgyn, Helen or Leo. I’d be afraid of them because of their powerful magic, and Morgyn and Leo would be far too chatty and loud for me to feel comfortable around. Aine would terrify me as well, more than the other three combined.
Darrel Charm would probably be a good friend. He’s a caring guy and he’s not intimidating in the slightest, people feel safe and secure around him even though he’s mostly a pacifist at heart. Gemma would probably be the same. I think Simeon would be easygoing as a Sage, and Keisha would be a lot of fun since she’s just a walking disaster but she’s also good at keeping the peace. Grace and Emilia would be good friends too I think.
I feel like I’d annoy Theo because he’s so introverted. He likes his personal space even more than I do.
I’ll answer talking about other people’s stories and characters later!
Wow. I step away for a few days, and I miss a huge discussion. The world moves too fast for me. Even before the internet existed, I had this problem. And I'm clearly not cut-out for the digital age.
I'm not sure how to answer the current question, since no one here is familiar with any of my stories, saying "I'd like to be friends with this character or that character" wouldn't mean much to anyone.
But the previous question does interest me. It's actually something I've honestly been struggling to understand in myself, so I'm curious if anyone else has similar experiences. I hope that's okay. I put in the spoiler, since it's off topic from the current discussion.
Where do you find your motivation to write?
I... don't know. It either comes at me all on its own, taking over my life and thoughts entirely... or it deserts me completely, leaving me to wonder why I ever imagined myself a writer in the first place.
When it's there, it is all consuming. It is voices in my head telling me what to write. It is my thoughts obsessively churning a conversation, a scene, a description, or even just a single sentence around and around until it drives me crazy and I have to write it down just to be able to think about anything else.
When it's not there, it's me hopelessly working the handle of a broken pump up and down, trying to get a sputter of water from a well that is quite obviously dry.
When I was a kid, science fiction and fantasy stories were a way for me to escape real life and immerse myself in a world of magic or aliens. And I think, the closest thing I have to a "motivation" for writing is that I want to create those worlds too.
As an adult, I think I am finding it harder and harder to write because I feel pressured to have a "message", a "story to tell", or some unique personal experience to illuminate, when in reality all I have is a world or a set of characters I want to explore. All I want to do is entertain other people with something that entertains me.
The world and characters come to me. I don't plan them, because they live in my head and they decide when to reveal themselves to me. But I have learned that I have to plan the plot, because otherwise there will be no conflict, no rise in action, and no direction to it. I focus so much on exploring the world and characters, that I have a hard time noticing whether there is a story there or not.
But planning the plot in detail can also cause the words to stop coming to me, leaving me unable to write at all, so I am always struggling to find a balance.
I think I have taken to writing SimLit so much now because I discovered that telling the story with mostly pictures completely changes things for me. Instead of having to wait for the voices to speak to me, I can just forge on ahead with my planned story idea, using pictures, and let the words catch up when they want to . I have a lot fewer dry periods with SimLit than I do with novels because of this.
Okay, that got a little off-topic from the actual question, but I'm wondering if anyone else feels this way...?
I am especially inspired by looking at pictures. When I start imagining what is happening in a picture. What the Sim in the picture is thinking at the moment. What they will do in a little while.
I always play without a plumbob and therefore I can not see the small speech bubbles that show a Simmer's conversation.
Once I've started a story in my head, I turn it around. Then I can spend a lot of time chasing a particular picture that underpins my narrative. This is done without the use of poses. It's a dialectical process ... if you believe I can be in dialogue with my game? (That sounds crazy )
I do not use so many words or long sentences.
Another thing that can inspire me is a concept I have taken from the world of painting. My painting teacher calls it leg brace. In the world of painting, this means that you will be limited to using only three colors for your subject. For example, blue, brown and white.
In the world of the sim game, the leg span can be a bug in the game or an unforeseen event. I always found it exciting to explore how to get the most out of a constraint.
@MonaSolstraale It's interesting what you say about having constraints. I agree this can lead to some interesting ideas. One constraint I've played with is how many characters get to be point of view characters. I used to let every character that wanted to give their point of view do so, and that resulted in a huge story that was very hard to cut down. But one POV character bores me. I've found that 3 to 7 seems to work pretty good for me.
In SimLit, I also like creating "silent" chapters which are just pictures and no words, in order to show things that are important to the story, but not happening where one of the POV characters will see it or hear it. It can be challenging to figure out how to convey the important information of the scene using only visual elements, but I like it.
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
Hoo boy, this is going back some ways Simlit wise.
I'd probably want to be friends with all the dogs. Sagebear, Faridah, and all the other ones (which, including the aforementioned two, would make eight dogs. That's a lot of dog kisses ).
I like to write but I needed a trigger to motivate me to not only start but continue a story once it started. That used to be financial incentive: Being paid to write something by a certain date is a motivator in itself but with Sim 66 it's more like a tube of Pringles: Once you pop, you can't stop...well, certainly it's become that way. Being SimLit helps: I get to play the game, which is fun, I get to build places and dress people how I want them to look and then once I started writing the project took on a life of its own. I'm never bored writing Sim 66, it's a matter of how much time in a week I get to write it.
Okay, now I can type up all my responses to everyone...In spoiler tags for neatness's sake this time. Also I apologise to anyone who is struggling to keep up, I am bad at socialising especially in group settings and tend to stray off-topic a lot. That said I do like that this place is livelier now and I've got some new stuff to read and new readers as a result!
Yeah, like as you already know there have been times back when my readership was low where I would wonder what I was doing wrong. I'd always think 'Oh, it seems challenges are more popular, maybe it's because I've gone narrative now' or 'maybe people prefer pictures with commentary than pictures with narrative', 'maybe it's because there's not a lot of romantic focus', so on and so forth... Honestly I was a bit whiny about it at times before I found my found a good reader base. I shouldn't have been, but all creatives have their down days about 'am I good enough?' etc. It's a curse
In all honesty, I realise now that none of that matters (in a good way!). Mainly thanks to Yimi and Snuffy talking me through my creative 'ugh' moments, I realised it's not that I'm doing anything wrong, it's that what I do isn't for everyone- and that goes for every writer, even the popular writers who write about more well-known themes and plot types etc. You're right in that there's a place for everything, whether it's niche or experimental, or comfortable and following a common formula. Also in a similar vein to this I'm on board with @SnuffyBucket's points there as well. Thinking outside and inside of the box can both be beneficial in one way or another!
Yeah, whilst it's nice to want to change things up, try new things, etc...Sometimes you can become too focused on 'is this good enough?' and it sucks the fun out of it. There's always time to want to change or add/try new things, so don't worry too much about any of that- so long as you're having fun that's the important part! I think changing things too much for the sake of others can have a really bad effect on writers. I've noticed while browsing Simblrs, how often readers expect a writer to change a romantic shipping or something like that...One of my friends got discouraged because people always moaned about them having aliens in their story as well -.-
Agree with rednenemon that befriending all the animals would be the best idea!
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters? Other People's Stories Edition (don't worry, I won't spoil anyone's story):
@_sims_Yimi - Gawain and Gwen for both being adorable. I'd give them both tea, biscuits, reassurance, and hugs. As for the others I think I'd be a bit afraid because they're either knights, royalty, or they're the three that I always complain about in every comment. @SnuffyBucket - Chuck and Mel! Me and Mel can sit together and be like 'THAT'S A BIG MOOD' all day long. Chuck can talk all day about his garden or whatever and I'll sit there and listen because he's wholesome. Everyone else I would probably be terrified of, and there'd be one person I'd want to rip to shreds- you know who! Oh, and also Broof would probably be a cool person to meet. Maybe not Wyatt, only because he reminds me too much of my brother in ways @haneul - I always feel like Dysis would be good fun for some reason. Although I'd probably hesitate talking to her, I feel like anyone related to Asher I'd be pretty afraid of. I'd probably think in my head if I didn't know them: 'vampire power-couple and their kids would probably hate me or bite me'. @HermioneSims - Stuart Miller seems like such a fun and friendly guy, so probably him. And Nacho! @MonaSolstraale - as much as I love the human characters, Trix is so cute and I would honestly love to just have him next to me to cuddle whilst I'm playing games or something.
Comments
i agree with snowbunny if you enjoy your story continue writing.it. i said i was trying to finish mine since 2015. its because i love my charaters.and even if i only have one reader i'm going to finish it cause writing can be soothing. i had a lot of changes in life since starting but the family never changes. well there was the time lauren decied to become jason but other than that. i might be writing a sim soap opera without knowing it.
Haha, by 'mainstream' I mean I thought I could help outsiders see what's cool about the genre, but gave up long ago and am just enjoying my characters.
@SnowBnuuy I 100% agree that fancy silliness will not save a weak story. But it comes on the heels of this statement:
which suggests that the purpose of using this kind of language is to say "ooh, look at me, I'm so special and smarticle." Or to obscure the lack of actual insightful content. This may be the case sometimes, and I can certainly name examples.
Within fanfic communities, though, the people I know who do this are doing it to be extra silly: it's more "wooo what if I said 'carotid' here? hahahaha," or "oh man, you know what this outlandish character needs? Allen Ginsburg rant," or "oh my goodness it would be super funny if I put a long sentence that tells a single ridiculous story."
To paraphrase the above comment I probably shouldn't have made, I'm all like "hahaha! guys? I'm having a blast over here, what about this? Who wants to talk about this thing?" and then very few people care while I get to read hundreds of Tumblr posts implying that using educated language suggests the author is an arrogant tool and probably has a bland, thoughtless story with no love put into the characters---all of which are presented under the guise of spreading quote-unquote 'positivity'---and I'm like "aw, man
It's rough. Yeowch.
That, and I have no way of fixing it because I'm legit talking the way I would in real life, and don't even know what I'd be allowed to use if I wanted to fit in.
So I'm glad we agree. I just wanted to clear up how this comes across to a group that can already feel sad & isolated, then hears people (not you) drag their style all day. As indifferent as I've become, I have friends who still get hurt by the assumption that educated = pretentious + soulless, and who don't feel comfortable enough standing up for themselves.
Haunted: Picture Oscar Wilde dating Willy Wonka, also Oscar Wilde is still dead
I put loads of love into my story, but there's a huge chunk of the community who doesn't want to read it because it's not their thing. And that's ok. Doesn't mean the love doesn't matter without their blessing. That said, there are still those who connect with it on a deep level and they're my absolute favorites; they're so lovely.
Hopefully it didn't come off as whining. My intention was to convey the feelings of isolation people have from this vantage point, since it's something that doesn't get talked about much and people who write like I do are frequently considered acceptable targets for derision (see?! What even was that?).
It seems like you want to talk about the nationality/race thing, too. My peeps have nationalities in order to fight the impression that being light-skinned and having Western-sounding names, etc., is the "default." Also, it lets me throw shade at racists and give my friends/family cool characters that look like them.
(My goodness, I am going to blindside the smoke out of my readers with an anti-imperialism twist in the next year or two, and I am STOKED.)
Haunted: Picture Oscar Wilde dating Willy Wonka, also Oscar Wilde is still dead
Outside of this community, it's hard to talk about this kind of isolation because it often comes from a place of privilege. It can't be helped, but it does have I'm-so-smart-no-one-understands-me vibes, which can trigger people especially since a gap in communication caused the problem to begin with. If communication is an issue and messages already aren't being properly conveyed, adding anything with connotations of I'm-so-smart over that generally doesn't help at all (because someone is already not being understood), so the isolation often just gets worse (regardless of what's meant or being said I think people hear, "you don't understand me/my writing because I'm smarter than you" which...
Yes, I want to cover a lot of areas and topics with my legacy, but I'm slow-paced and quite subtle. And my execution is all over the place for different reasons. I knew people would read race/nationality into my story even though I never mention it and my characters do non-American things (subtly), so I went "default" because my characters are sometimes quite bad and, to the extent I can avoid it, I just don't really care to perpetuate any harmful stereotypes.
i get the part about srereotypes. i was afraid of that too. i didn't make lauren a dr and noel a chef because i was afraid of stereotyes i tried to avoid that hopefully my readers agree. but its more enviromental with them she grew up with all the advantagees he grew up with close to nothing it wasn't even a descion i thought through much cause my biggest concern that night was how loud fireworks were going yo be. it was new yrs eve.
(EVERY day of being a woman in STEM)
(that's it)
(that's my whole career)
MENSA? Yeah, I'd join if I needed more insecure men to explain things to me. The sad bit is, I don't even consider myself smart, just weird. (Which I'm okay with. No advice, please.)
Do you read or listen to essays talking about racism & anti-racism in media?
Haunted: Picture Oscar Wilde dating Willy Wonka, also Oscar Wilde is still dead
@Dollyllama108 Not lately, but I read a lot of different things. To be clear about the mensa thing, I don't really think it's a good idea and likely for the reasons you've expressed, but because I don't have anything helpful to say and I've heard that being said, I suggested it. Intelligence is a touchy subject, but if someone is in a space where they are already considered arrogant for existing, I think it's going to be hard for them to recognize their own talents or intelligence, especially without being attacked.
I have a random question for everyone.
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
The topic has mostly been closed already, but I want to touch on one final point, if that’s okay. @Dollyllama108 and @SnowBnuuy both have a point about genres and niche stories, as well as originality versus working with what is familiar. I’ve been around simlit for a while. I’ve been writing for much longer. So I can say this with confidence:
The story you want to tell can be whatever you want it to be.
It doesn’t have to be original. The most successful, widely-read stories are tales of a dance that we know inside and out. Romance, the unlikely hero that saves the day, vampire stories, family tragedies and other tropes are massively popular because people can connect to them. They summon emotion very easily, because we’ve been raised with them. They fit. A writer can take that connection, make it their own and spin it into whatever story shape they want. It’s like a beautiful, comfy, worn jumper that you can’t bear to lose.
You can make an entirely new jumper and plunge into the challenge of an “out-of-the-box” story, too. These stories miss the connection to what is familiar, and it takes skill to draw people in regardless. But you don’t have to be afraid to try it. Some of the best stories I’ve read, ever, are the ones that came up with something entirely new and made me connect with it. They made me think. You can take a piece of whole cloth, as Dolly described, and decide turn it into a stunning dress instead of a jumper.
Both of them are equally wonderful, whether it’s the thought-provoking, original story to take for a spin or the comfy, familiar romance to curl up with. 😊
Both choices lead to very different reader bases, though. The more familiar your story is, the better others can relate to it, and the larger your potential reader base will be. The more you deviate, the fewer people will connect with your story. For every writer that is doubting themselves: that is not because you are a bad writer. It’s not because you’re being singled out. It’s not because people don’t like you. It simply means that you’re growing fancy, exotic fruit, while what most readers want to eat is an apple. 🙂
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
@haneul Fun one! Let’s see…
I’d love to be friends with Monoroe, would enjoy being around Gawain and would get along with Guinevere (because she reminds me a lot of myself). I’d have no opinion about Lancelot, would dislike Elyan and would despise Morgana as she is in Camelot. What about yourself?
I had reasoned quite a lot about which kind of stories to write, how much I should try to avoid predictable plot development or characters archetypes, if I should try to be more inclusive etc... but then I realised that it wasn't funny to write anymore that way. So I tend to write plots I like with characters I can relate with, in any case it's impossible to write something that everyone would like to read...
Passing to the question instead:
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
Not all my characters are very nice and agreeable people, so with some of them it would be quite challenging. On the other hand, most of my protagonists have a moral I can relate with (i.e. they take the choices I would consider right in that given situation), so in the long run we would probably get along somehow.
Using the founder of my current legacy as an example, he is one of the nicest characters I wrote and we are both nerds working in a scientific lab (so we would have quite a lot to talk about), so I think we would go along quite well.
- I want to be Tusnelda's friend, but I would hate to be her colleague
- Rasmus could be a nice faithful friend. He's the kind of guy I want to hug while I tell him everything's going well in the long run. In a way, that's probably what I'm already doing
- Martin? Will I just be his friend? Maybe he's more the man I wish I had ... even though I might already have certain parts of him sitting in my living room
- Trix! Who does not dream of a little furry friend? I already have two cats and could easily find an extra place for him
I'll take Yimi's analogy about the dress and the jumper. If you don't make a dress from your cloth, you're making a jumper, like everyone else - but what if your jumper has three sleeves? Or a massive hood? Or the back is missing and has been replaced with lobsters?
What if you are pushing the boundaries of jumper to where it's probably not even a jumper anymore, but you still call it a jumper because people who aren't already happily wearing one won't know what 'backless lobster knitted monstrosity' is?
Whether we like to think we're in a box or not, we all are. We are all writing simlit, for starters.
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
I wouldn't. I'd find a different story. I'd probably move into @MonaSolstraale 's world where I want to be friends with Rasmus.
(No lobsters were harmed in the making of this comment)
With most of them. Maybe not the Sneedleys, but I like characters for the most part...I even fancy a couple of them. But as they are projections of either me or people I like in real life it's hardly surprising that my protagonists appeal to me in various ways.
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
You are his friend! You've made him grow. I hope you are aware of that.
Are you sure?
I am now! woo! 🤩
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters?
I know the question says one, but I’ll pick a few from the magic stories:
I wouldn’t bother getting to know Morgyn, Helen or Leo. I’d be afraid of them because of their powerful magic, and Morgyn and Leo would be far too chatty and loud for me to feel comfortable around. Aine would terrify me as well, more than the other three combined.
Darrel Charm would probably be a good friend. He’s a caring guy and he’s not intimidating in the slightest, people feel safe and secure around him even though he’s mostly a pacifist at heart. Gemma would probably be the same. I think Simeon would be easygoing as a Sage, and Keisha would be a lot of fun since she’s just a walking disaster but she’s also good at keeping the peace. Grace and Emilia would be good friends too I think.
I feel like I’d annoy Theo because he’s so introverted. He likes his personal space even more than I do.
I’ll answer talking about other people’s stories and characters later!
I'm not sure how to answer the current question, since no one here is familiar with any of my stories, saying "I'd like to be friends with this character or that character" wouldn't mean much to anyone.
But the previous question does interest me. It's actually something I've honestly been struggling to understand in myself, so I'm curious if anyone else has similar experiences. I hope that's okay. I put in the spoiler, since it's off topic from the current discussion.
Where do you find your motivation to write?
I... don't know. It either comes at me all on its own, taking over my life and thoughts entirely... or it deserts me completely, leaving me to wonder why I ever imagined myself a writer in the first place.
When it's there, it is all consuming. It is voices in my head telling me what to write. It is my thoughts obsessively churning a conversation, a scene, a description, or even just a single sentence around and around until it drives me crazy and I have to write it down just to be able to think about anything else.
When it's not there, it's me hopelessly working the handle of a broken pump up and down, trying to get a sputter of water from a well that is quite obviously dry.
When I was a kid, science fiction and fantasy stories were a way for me to escape real life and immerse myself in a world of magic or aliens. And I think, the closest thing I have to a "motivation" for writing is that I want to create those worlds too.
As an adult, I think I am finding it harder and harder to write because I feel pressured to have a "message", a "story to tell", or some unique personal experience to illuminate, when in reality all I have is a world or a set of characters I want to explore. All I want to do is entertain other people with something that entertains me.
The world and characters come to me. I don't plan them, because they live in my head and they decide when to reveal themselves to me. But I have learned that I have to plan the plot, because otherwise there will be no conflict, no rise in action, and no direction to it. I focus so much on exploring the world and characters, that I have a hard time noticing whether there is a story there or not.
But planning the plot in detail can also cause the words to stop coming to me, leaving me unable to write at all, so I am always struggling to find a balance.
I think I have taken to writing SimLit so much now because I discovered that telling the story with mostly pictures completely changes things for me. Instead of having to wait for the voices to speak to me, I can just forge on ahead with my planned story idea, using pictures, and let the words catch up when they want to . I have a lot fewer dry periods with SimLit than I do with novels because of this.
Okay, that got a little off-topic from the actual question, but I'm wondering if anyone else feels this way...?
I am especially inspired by looking at pictures. When I start imagining what is happening in a picture. What the Sim in the picture is thinking at the moment. What they will do in a little while.
I always play without a plumbob and therefore I can not see the small speech bubbles that show a Simmer's conversation.
Once I've started a story in my head, I turn it around. Then I can spend a lot of time chasing a particular picture that underpins my narrative. This is done without the use of poses. It's a dialectical process ... if you believe I can be in dialogue with my game? (That sounds crazy
I do not use so many words or long sentences.
Another thing that can inspire me is a concept I have taken from the world of painting. My painting teacher calls it leg brace. In the world of painting, this means that you will be limited to using only three colors for your subject. For example, blue, brown and white.
In the world of the sim game, the leg span can be a bug in the game or an unforeseen event. I always found it exciting to explore how to get the most out of a constraint.
In SimLit, I also like creating "silent" chapters which are just pictures and no words, in order to show things that are important to the story, but not happening where one of the POV characters will see it or hear it. It can be challenging to figure out how to convey the important information of the scene using only visual elements, but I like it.
Hoo boy, this is going back some ways Simlit wise.
I'd probably want to be friends with all the dogs. Sagebear, Faridah, and all the other ones (which, including the aforementioned two, would make eight dogs. That's a lot of dog kisses
The humans? Eh. Maybe. But definitely the dogs.
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)
I like to write but I needed a trigger to motivate me to not only start but continue a story once it started. That used to be financial incentive: Being paid to write something by a certain date is a motivator in itself but with Sim 66 it's more like a tube of Pringles: Once you pop, you can't stop...well, certainly it's become that way. Being SimLit helps: I get to play the game, which is fun, I get to build places and dress people how I want them to look and then once I started writing the project took on a life of its own. I'm never bored writing Sim 66, it's a matter of how much time in a week I get to write it.
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
@_sims_Yimi
In all honesty, I realise now that none of that matters (in a good way!). Mainly thanks to Yimi and Snuffy talking me through my creative 'ugh' moments, I realised it's not that I'm doing anything wrong, it's that what I do isn't for everyone- and that goes for every writer, even the popular writers who write about more well-known themes and plot types etc. You're right in that there's a place for everything, whether it's niche or experimental, or comfortable and following a common formula. Also in a similar vein to this I'm on board with @SnuffyBucket's points there as well. Thinking outside and inside of the box can both be beneficial in one way or another!
@HermioneSims
Agree with rednenemon that befriending all the animals would be the best idea!
Okay so answering @haneul 's question again:
To what extent would you like to be friends with one of your Sims/characters? Other People's Stories Edition (don't worry, I won't spoil anyone's story):
@_sims_Yimi - Gawain and Gwen for both being adorable. I'd give them both tea, biscuits, reassurance, and hugs. As for the others I think I'd be a bit afraid because they're either knights, royalty, or they're the three that I always complain about in every comment.
@SnuffyBucket - Chuck and Mel! Me and Mel can sit together and be like 'THAT'S A BIG MOOD' all day long. Chuck can talk all day about his garden or whatever and I'll sit there and listen because he's wholesome. Everyone else I would probably be terrified of, and there'd be one person I'd want to rip to shreds- you know who! Oh, and also Broof would probably be a cool person to meet. Maybe not Wyatt, only because he reminds me too much of my brother in ways
@haneul - I always feel like Dysis would be good fun for some reason. Although I'd probably hesitate talking to her, I feel like anyone related to Asher I'd be pretty afraid of. I'd probably think in my head if I didn't know them: 'vampire power-couple and their kids would probably hate me or bite me'.
@HermioneSims - Stuart Miller seems like such a fun and friendly guy, so probably him. And Nacho!
@MonaSolstraale - as much as I love the human characters, Trix is so cute and I would honestly love to just have him next to me to cuddle whilst I'm playing games or something.