I put the screenshot before the text, usually. Sometimes I change it or put it kind of in between. I want to have some sort of transition to the next picture in the text before I put the actual screenshot in. So I'm not super consistent, but for the most part, it's the pic first then text -format I learned from TS2 stories. And yes, picture placement is really important to me. I want the entire chapter to look nice and to flow smoothly (or be clunky when it's appropriate), and that means I also want the screenshots and the text to have a good flow between each other.
Sometimes when I read the kinds of stories that put the pic after the text I occasionally think "wait, where's the screenshot... oh, there it is!" But I'm not saying it's a bad way of placing pictures, it's just newer to me so I haven't got totally used to it yet as a reader. I'm learning, though.
thinking about....how hard writing is, lol. And I was trying to find the right way to express the story, but it wasn't....it wasn't surface level thinking.
It's similar to how it feels to write a long essay about what I am researching on my personal blogs. It feels like...like nice deep slow brainwaves. Everything else disappears, including awareness of time and environment, and it's just the image or the thoughts.
Yeah, I like this state of feeling-thinking.
A lot of my thinking is feeling-thinking like this. It feels like rich chocolate sometimes.
One thing I love about music (playing music on an instrument, that is) is that it puts me into this feeling-thinking state, and then there's something about the specific patterns and intervals of music combined with the actual vibration of the notes, and soon I feel my brainwaves fall into harmony.
Sometimes, I like to play music first, and then write. Sometimes, I like to write and then play music.
Often, when I look back over what I've written when I've been in that deep state, I don't recognize it as my words or my writing--that's sort of nice experience, too!
I like the way you two put this feeling into words. I think I experience something similar when I draw or paint, except replace music notes and patterns with lines, composition, brush strokes, and colours (although I do sometimes listen to music when I draw). And writing can also do something similar to me in the best of flow-times.
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 put the screenshot before the text, usually. Sometimes I change it or put it kind of in between. I want to have some sort of transition to the next picture in the text before I put the actual screenshot in. So I'm not super consistent, but for the most part, it's the pic first then text -format I learned from TS2 stories. And yes, picture placement is really important to me. I want the entire chapter to look nice and to flow smoothly (or be clunky when it's appropriate), and that means I also want the screenshots and the text to have a good flow between each other.
Sometimes when I read the kinds of stories that put the pic after the text I occasionally think "wait, where's the screenshot... oh, there it is!" But I'm not saying it's a bad way of placing pictures, it's just newer to me so I haven't got totally used to it yet as a reader. I'm learning, though.
It's interesting to me that the style seemed to shift with TS4, since it seems like a lot of TS4 has text first, then screenshot.
I'm pretty sure that in TS3, I did screenshot first, then text. Of course, I was writing on the TS3 exchange-thing, so that made a difference! And in TS2 on the Exchange, with the slideshows it was set up for the text to go beneath each picture.
With TS4, the Sims' expressions reveal so much emotion that I want to set up what's happening or what they're saying first so that the reader understands why they look that way...
But sometimes, if it takes a lot of text to do the set up, then there's a big block of it before we get to see the expressions...
Ah @ThePlumbob you are supporting my theory about this being a new development. Not a better one, just different, of course. I wonder why? Are most of us 'picture after text' writers new to writing simlit so we didn't know the convention? Was anyone aware they were breaking an existing model? Do we drive you nuts by having our pictures in the wrong spot? Lol.
One of the unique feature of simlit is that is often contains pictures. It doesn't have to of course, but it can. Kind of like how I have graphic novels that are novels, but most of them are in comic format. So I'm interested in seeing how people plan to include pictures. I'm curious, somewhere on Carl's forums I have my ts3 story...that I wrote and abandoned long before I started back up on work press...where did I put the pictures back then?
I'm new to SimLit, so yes I was unaware, but ironically, I began writing the other way around! It wasn't until I actually began to read my own story that I got annoyed by being spoiled by my own pictures lol. When I was in gen 7 I went back and read from the beginning, so half my legacy is the "old" way and the other half is the "new" way lol.
Yes it drives me nuts, but it doesn't discourage me from reading of course. Clearly it's been quite sometime since I've read a children's book lol, but I seem to recall reading text and then looking at a picture when I was a child, so maybe that convention has stayed with me. It makes the most sense in my opinion.
One, I do think that screenshot order can affect the effect of the scene.
Agreed! I think a lot of us here take screenshots more for the effect than editorial purposes, so having the right picture in the right place certainly adds to the mood for me.
*waves* I lurk here on occasion but this question is right up my alley because I was just talking to @eXokamikaze about it!
I always put text before screenshot and my formatting usually worked so that there was a lovely even space between text and picture. However, switching to my new theme made it so that the text beneath the pictures appeared smushed up against it like it was a caption! I realized that it probably looked silly to my readers (and it looked silly to me!) so I had to go back and add an extra break after every picture of my Wonder Child story.
I'm also assuming that all 86 chapters of my legacy are like that and it makes me itch just thinking about it... *eye twitch*
I was noticing that there is a split in our world. Some folks put pictures before the text that goes to them, some folks put them after. I did and informal poll of the short stories this month and it's about 50/50, more evidence is needed. I'm not talking about stories like in Ts2 or on tumblr or Twitter where they are what I would dub "caption" stories, those are almost always post picture, for obvious reasons.
I notice a few folks weren't consistent, and not in a bad way. They would show the picture first and words second when the words illuminated more about the picture and vice versa. But most folks had a clear order preference.
I tend to the pictures second in my current writing, usually letting the picture fill in the gaps in the story and allow the pictures to do the revealing most of the time, rather than the words. I think (based on so little evidence that it's ridiculous) that folks who write TS3 have a slight tendency to put pictures first and then describe them and TS4 only writers tend to put pictures after the words. I shall do more research to see if my theory holds up.
So my question is, how much do you think about where to put your pictures or do they just seem to fit where you put them? I know I never really thought about it before last night. Does it throw you off to read a story that does the opposite of what you're used to writing?
Maybe it's based in if you write first or write after you've taken pictures? Gah, now I want to do a formal study...must resist desire to create spreadsheet...
I don't have a set way of doing things. Each picture is judged on it's own merits, does this picture spoil the text if I put it first? If so, I put it after the text. I sometimes like to start a chapter with a picture, so naturally the text comes after that one, but it can change within the chapter itself with some text coming before pictures, and some after.
For potential spreadsheeting purposes, I screenshot first, and then write.
So... Art of sim storytelling question.
So my question is, how much do you think about where to put your pictures or do they just seem to fit where you put them? I know I never really thought about it before last night. Does it throw you off to read a story that does the opposite of what you're used to writing?
Maybe it's based in if you write first or write after you've taken pictures? Gah, now I want to do a formal study...must resist desire to create spreadsheet...
I think about this ALL the time in my writing and sort of agonized over it when I first got started writing, flip-flopping, trying both ways, and so on.
Now, nearly 95% of the time, I do text first, then screenshot.
Sometimes (rarely, but sometimes) I'll start a chapter with a screenshot and then write below it, and then switch to my normal flow of text-screenshot.
Sometimes, if the screenshot seems to depict something in the middle of the passage, I will sandwich the photo with text. I really like this wrap-around approach, and it works well for conversations.
I have noticed what you say with TS3 stories tending to have screenshot first and then the text.
As a reader, I am happy with any style. I do notice--and I tend to remember which style each writer tends to use. If the writer switches it up, I'll notice, but I'll adjust. As a reader, this is one of my favorite aspects of SimLit, that little dance between screenshot and text.
jumps into thread
This is so interesting to me, as it's something I've been thinking about!! I didn't realize until this question, that there was a history of doing image first and text second!
I'm fairly new to sim stories... I only discovered they were a thing this July/September, and only starting writing my own in September. I almost always put the text first and screenshots after. (for statistical purposes, on my legacy I screenshot first and write second, on my short stories I write first and screenshot second). Sometimes, like @CathyTea I'll sandwich the picture. Actually, I quite like doing that. Often, my stories are dialogue heavy, and the picture can be a pause, or breakup of a bit of dialogue, perhaps taking the place of "and then she stood" or "he gave her a wink" or something like that, lol! (cheesy examples, but hey!)
Once in awhile, if it feels correct, I may place a picture first, but I can't think of anything offhand at the moment. It's all about how it flows to me -- and for me, I like to have the text grounding the scene, and then see what goes with it. Reading, I like either style. Though, sometimes when I'm reading stories that do screenshot first and text second and the pictures are large, I'll have to scroll back up to the picture to see what the text is talking about. So maybe it also depends on the size of the pictures! Because if I can see the text and picture I don't notice, but if I have to stop and scroll up to look at the picture again, I do.
Placement doesn't hinder my love of the story, though -- as I see @ThePlumbob does picture then text, and she has one of my favorite stories! I also couldn't imagine her story being done any other way, as it feels right when I'm reading it. It flows, which is what I'm all about.
Taking a leap too... I am loving all these different answers to a question that has been boggling my mind also. Thank you for putting it out there @ra3rei and hugs all for the amazing answers thus far
I am a very instinctive person and mostly lurk around these storytelling threads for it is hard for me to analyze things quickly. By the time I have read several takes on a subject and formed my own understandable (to me at least) opinion to a certain question many others have answered before me or the topic changed all together lol.
I noticed the different approaches and since I am very new to SimLit (started reading around september and writing in october last year) I too didn't know there was a certain order in previous sims versions. I think as a writer I put my text first, well, actually exactly like @sabreene says:
(for statistical purposes, on my legacy I screenshot first and write second, on my short stories I write first and screenshot second).
Besides that I try to avoid lumps of text that are too big, but still finding my style, I guess. When I read I am absolutely not conscious of whether the text comes first or second. As said everything I do is pure instinct, I am no more human then the next animal I like to think. I do however recall scrolling back to a picture after reading the text once or twice. To me what matters most of all is that the story speaks to me and pictures and text support each other. Kinda like you expect to see a riverbank defining the river and vice versa. It is awesome if a story feels that natural, if that makes any sense.
Taking a leap too... I am loving all these different answers to a question that has been boggling my mind also. Thank you for putting it out there @ra3rei and hugs all for the amazing answers thus far
I am a very instinctive person and mostly lurk around these storytelling threads for it is hard for me to analyze things quickly. By the time I have read several takes on a subject and formed my own understandable (to me at least) opinion to a certain question many others have answered before me or the topic changed all together lol.
I noticed the different approaches and since I am very new to SimLit (started reading around september and writing in october last year) I too didn't know there was a certain order in previous sims versions. I think as a writer I put my text first, well, actually exactly like @sabreene says:
(for statistical purposes, on my legacy I screenshot first and write second, on my short stories I write first and screenshot second).
Besides that I try to avoid lumps of text that are too big, but still finding my style, I guess. When I read I am absolutely not conscious of whether the text comes first or second. As said everything I do is pure instinct, I am no more human then the next animal I like to think. I do however recall scrolling back to a picture after reading the text once or twice. To me what matters most of all is that the story speaks to me and pictures and text support each other. Kinda like you expect to see a riverbank defining the river and vice versa. It is awesome if a story feels that natural, if that makes any sense.
@ValoisFulcanelli There's really not more I can add to the gender question given everyone here offered a lot of good advice. I agree if you don't feel comfortable answering, then don't. Personally, as a reader, I wouldn't ask the question. I can't remember who said this above, but I do have a tendency to pick up books by female authors, especially in the sci/fi and fantasy genre (a genre where a male author is a stereotype). That doesn't mean I don't read books written by men. I often enjoy books written by men or women. The gender doesn't really matter to me. If a person is a fantastic writer, then it shouldn't matter. As I writer, I like creating strong female characters in my stories, but I also like challenging female stereotypes. I haven't really done much of that in my SimLit, but I do in my offline writing. In SimLit, sometimes I'll make a casual assumption subconsciously about gender. A writer's gender won't keep me from reading.
@ValoisFulcanelli There's really not more I can add to the gender question given everyone here offered a lot of good advice. I agree if you don't feel comfortable answering, then don't. Personally, as a reader, I wouldn't ask the question. I can't remember who said this above, but I do have a tendency to pick up books by female authors, especially in the sci/fi and fantasy genre (a genre where a male author is a stereotype). That doesn't mean I don't read books written by men. I often enjoy books written by men or women. The gender doesn't really matter to me. If a person is a fantastic writer, then it shouldn't matter. As I writer, I like creating strong female characters in my stories, but I also like challenging female stereotypes. I haven't really done much of that in my SimLit, but I do in my offline writing. In SimLit, sometimes I'll make a casual assumption subconsciously about gender. A writer's gender won't keep me from reading.
Oh, you reminded me that I was going to add my two cents to this! I think the asking about gender thing might just be a tumblr quirk. I've seen this from other blogs across all fandoms. If it's not listed on your blog sometimes they just want to know.
From my own experience I wouldn't ask, either. Also, I didn't feel like reading Harry Potter for ages because I didn't know if I would enjoy it since it was written about a boy and written by a man (my assumption). I had to read HP for a debate and when I found out that JKR was a woman I was so pleased. This was me at 14, though, and I've changed how I think since then.
I was noticing that there is a split in our world. Some folks put pictures before the text that goes to them, some folks put them after. I did and informal poll of the short stories this month and it's about 50/50, more evidence is needed. I'm not talking about stories like in Ts2 or on tumblr or Twitter where they are what I would dub "caption" stories, those are almost always post picture, for obvious reasons.
I notice a few folks weren't consistent, and not in a bad way. They would show the picture first and words second when the words illuminated more about the picture and vice versa. But most folks had a clear order preference.
I tend to the pictures second in my current writing, usually letting the picture fill in the gaps in the story and allow the pictures to do the revealing most of the time, rather than the words. I think (based on so little evidence that it's ridiculous) that folks who write TS3 have a slight tendency to put pictures first and then describe them and TS4 only writers tend to put pictures after the words. I shall do more research to see if my theory holds up.
So my question is, how much do you think about where to put your pictures or do they just seem to fit where you put them? I know I never really thought about it before last night. Does it throw you off to read a story that does the opposite of what you're used to writing?
Maybe it's based in if you write first or write after you've taken pictures? Gah, now I want to do a formal study...must resist desire to create spreadsheet...
I typically put picture first and then text. I've played around with picture first, text first, and trying a little of both. In KFLL, at the beginning of most of my chapters, I put text first and then pictures, but as I continue into the chapters, I switch this around. I think it's important to draw the reader in with my words rather than a good picture, but this is probably because this is my first time writing with pictures. The pictures do add an interesting challenge of balancing retelling what is being displayed in the picture and writing around it. When I'm writing, I like the ability to write without the pictures dictating everything and so much of what cannot be illustrated in game, I show through my writing. I don't consciously think about it though because often I'll write the chapter and add pictures after. As a reader, I don't think I have a huge preference, and I definitely like the whole no text, all pictures idea, but if I had to pick, I'd probably lean more toward more writing, less pictures. And by more writing, I don't necessarily mean more words, just that I gravitate toward the writing and glance at the pictures second.
@CathyTea said it was okay for me to post here again.
I got started back in TS2 Exchange days, so having the text under the pic feels right to me.
Also now I write on Tumblr, which also forces the text below the pic.
I don't really think about it much though. I don't really think consciously about much at all when I am writing. It's all pretty much instinct.
I mean, like, Sunday night when I wrote the most recent Surreal Darkness bit I was thinking about....how hard writing is, lol. And I was trying to find the right way to express the story, but it wasn't....it wasn't surface level thinking.
It's similar to how it feels to write a long essay about what I am researching on my personal blogs. It feels like...like nice deep slow brainwaves. Everything else disappears, including awareness of time and environment, and it's just the image or the thoughts.
I know that is off-topic but well - I find it hard to respond to a lot of things in this thread because of that lack of conscious thinking about the technical bits.
I haven't read many Sims 4 stories. I like the idea of a change in format changing the form. I will watch out for that when I do read Sims 4 stories.
I haven't read the whole gender discussion, but I wanted to say a bit.
I am very open about....everything really, lol, but everyone knows I am female. I think that was part of the Bad Times - the Sims community is rife with internalized sexism and young women policing each other, and well, the writing of women has been discounted and devalued for centuries. I think there was a fair bit of "Who does she think she is, taking her Sims stories seriously as art and literature?"
This was backed up by the response to a friend's Sims 2 story. I'd already noticed that her commenters judged the female characters much more harshly than they judged the male ones for the same behavior. And then a male character assaulted a female character.
She had been worried about the response and she thought people would get mad, but no one did. Because they all blamed the female and they said she was lying about the assault.
Not at all surprised that some of the people who turned on me were among those commenters.
I tend to write female main characters. Not always, but at least like 90% of the time. Seth is a dude, but he's my shadow so maybe it's like an animus kind of thing, I don't know. And really I love his wife Sarah just as much, and one day I might go back to Moonfall and finish the story of her realizing that he is abusive and finding her own strengths. I like that she is a housewife who highly values marriage and children and cooking, but that's just who she is, and she has steel ovaries under that pale skin and hair so blonde it's almost white.
And then in Surreal Darkness no one has a gender or a name, so yeah.
Thank you to everyone who replied to my ponderings about the gender question. I did actually answer it over on Tumblr, but in Valois's voice (I answer most of my character-related asks in that way) and also... in French (Well, Valois is French, soooo...). He did actually say "It is important to know this? Very well," before he gave the answer, so I think that registered my perplexity with my readers.
Onto the replies (and hoboy there's a lot of them) -
@VIRTUALEE Oh lord, the "Can I see a picture of you?" thing would be a straight-up NO from me. I don't share anything personal of myself online. Even my facebook account has a photo of a cat as the avatar, even though I only have a very small handful of real life friends added on there. The "share everything about yourself" thing that I see a lot of these days gives me the heebie-jeebies because I'm an intensely-private person online.
@ra3rei Agreed on the m/m genre writing. It does tend to be written by women, although not exclusively. Contrarywise to you, though, I prefer stories with a male protagonist. I've noticed that these tend to be more rare within SimLit, especially when you look at things like the proliferation of 100 baby challenges, which - obviously - focuses on a strong matriarch, as well as the legacies which, in the main, feature m/f couples.
@InfraGreen Interesting point on reader bias, especially with regard to SF. It's interesting to note that, in many ways, we haven't moved on a great deal from the times when women wrote under male pseuds in order to be accepted and published.
@Jes2G I understand the curiosity, absolutely. And I'm going to err on the side of your suggestion: possibly the reader lacked the awareness to understand that their question was a little boundary-overstepping!
@Munterbacon Devil's Advocates are always welcome in my house If they did reblog me, then they didn't do it by name, since I didn't get an alert of it. But it's perfectly possible. I know that if I'm reblogging something by another writer, I usually just mention them directly by name and try to avoid using any gender pronouns, because even if someone appears to present as one gender they may identify as another, and I try always to be sensitive of that possibility. If I do need to use a pronoun, I always use the gender-neutral "they/their".
@CathyTea That's an interesting point you made about feeling that you enter into a friendship with the author. It's not something I've ever experienced, in all honesty. My friendship is more with the characters, because it's those people whom I imagine sitting down with and wanting to know more about. It does help me understand a little more about why my anon may have asked the question, if they, too, felt like they entered into a friendship with the author (but maybe lacked your awareness that - if gender is not explicitly mentioned - it may not be something that the author wants to share).
@Citizenerased14 I've had that (the assumption that I'm male) happen quite a lot. I can only assume that I've cultivated such a "male voice" through my writing mostly male characters over the years! (I remember taking one of those "paste a sample of your writing here and we'll tell you what gender you are" things online, and I was overwhelmingly male in the result.) I actually don't mind the assumption, but I'll always gently correct the person making it, if it looks as if they might be embarrassed by getting it wrong.
@RipuAncestor I'm very much the same when it comes to privacy online. Over the decades since I've been connected, I've only ever used pseudonyms. Heck, I only got a Facebook account in my real name after ten years of my work colleagues persuading me, because we all got made redundant at the same time and they bugged me to get an account so we could stay in touch!
@roseinblack69 Thank you! Now that I've had time to think it over, and I've read several different viewpoints (which was why I asked here in the first place!) I'm leaning more towards it being innocent curiosity that led to that question being asked in the first place.
@drafonfire Good point about finding an author whose work you want to read more of. I have a good memory for names online (but not in real life, oddly) so I'll almost always recall who wrote what when it comes to online fiction.
@AdamsEve1231 I love your point about challenging stereotypes. I had someone asking me privately for advice on writing m/m fiction, and several of the points I replied with were about guarding against writing stereotypes (feminising one half of the partnership by making him "the girl", for example; it's so easy for writers to forget that gay [if the forum will let me use that word)] male characters are still guys with all the masculinity that entails).
@Meggles Agreed. I think it is a Tumblr thing, since Tumblr is predominantly home to a younger and more open-to-sharing-everything generation (I sometimes feel like a bit of an old fart over there ).
@MedleyMisty I've noticed that women policing each other thing in several other creative venues, too. It just makes me want to knock heads together and ask them if they don't think that women have enough on their plates already. It's so frustrating to witness that, and to know that - if you spoke up against it - you'd be the next one in the firing line.
Okay, that's all the gender responses done. Now (very briefly) onto the screenshot/text order question asked by... *scrolls back* ...@Ra3rei -
My answer to this is... I don't actually really give it much thought! I just put the screenshots where they feel right (so, in a way, I'm another instinctual writer). I suspect that mostly I put the writing first and the screenshot after, but then I do tend to take far too many screenshots, so I want to get them all in and plunk them wherever they feel they ought to go.
I do, however, always like to end with one image, especially if the chapter closes on a... Dun-Dun-DUNNNN! cliffhanger
I do have a Sims-related question to spin-off the conversation. Do you challenge stereotypes and assumptions in your Sim-lit? If so, how? To clarify, do you challenge the stereotypes of the Sims world and/or characteristics of Sims or typical SimLit writing styles? On the flip side, do you think there's a time and place for stereotypes, and if so, when and where? Does your idea of stereotypes or challenging stereotypes change when you're a reader vs. a writer?
I'm of the persuasion that just because this is the way something has always been done doesn't mean I should follow along. In fact, often times, I think I do the exact opposite in my writing. Or I might start with the flow and wildly veer off the trail. Call it my creative outside-the-box thinking or challenge of norms. I like writing and reading characters who take a unique or opposing position on a topic, who are fighting against the odds, and decide to challenge stereotypes, norms, rules, societal standards, etc. Take for example my character Kass. I began her story as a lighthearted family drama, but I always planned to write a Simworld mystery series. I know this isn't anything incredibly new; in fact, I feature two SimLit mysteries under my Sims Stories I Enjoy section. However, I decided there aren't many people out there writing SimLit mysteries, one of my favorite genres to read. I also wanted to tackle the supernaturals and their existence, aliens and their interactions with Sims, and societal disregard for a life-threatening disease or medical condition. Perhaps I've been a little too ambitious given I'm barely scratching the surface yet and I'm into Part 2 of Kass's story, but I'm hoping to expand and delve into these topics more. Alas, I digress... Thoughts?
@AdamsEve1231 I have a lot of thoughts on this, but since I have to leave for work in 15 minutes and by the time I get home the conversation might have moved on, I'm hammering out a few words now
I think it's important to challenge stereotypes, but it's even more important to do so subtly. The idea of that challenge is not to stop the reader in mid-sentence and make them think, "By golly, I've been wrong all along about XYZ!" but rather to create the slow drip-drip of understanding in their mind. The former is far more likely to make a negatively-biased reader stop reading altogether when they realise they've been "tricked" into reading a story which suggests their bias is wrong, whereas the latter seeps in slowly and takes root without their realising. This challenge is often done by creating positive role models out of what is commonly assumed a stereotype, but it takes a skilful writer to do it with subtlety.
Incidentally, I love your idea about challenging general Sims-related stereotypes, such as the supernaturals, aliens, and societal disregard for certain things. Contrast our real world panic over E-bola* and Zika with the Sims' apparent lack of awareness over the insanely contagious Pestilence Plague!
OK, I have to run now. Looking forward to reading others' replies on this subject when I get home.
*Edited because the forum inexplicably censored it with the correct spelling.
I can't remember if I've posted this here. I may have just posted the link to my blog post? Anyway, I wanted to share it now for a reason.
Rarely is the question asked: what makes a good writer?
Okay actually that’s probably asked thousands of times a day every day on the internet.
But this time a dear friend of mine asked me specifically, so here is my specific answer. Also she capitalized good, like this : GOOD writer.
So….
There’s a similar question in the Sim Storytellers interview but I was trying to not show up in Simsecret that Friday so I just said “imagination.”
Which imagination is important!
And then a couple of years ago someone asked me for writing advice, and I said that noticing things and being open to your experiences and emotions and having the courage to face the darkest parts of yourself were all important. And they are.
I will try to expand on those things and also not even be scared of showing up in Simsecret here! 🐸🐸🐸🐸 the haters, full speed ahead!
I think that to be a GOOD writer you must be yourself, utterly and completely.
That takes time. And courage and strength and a certain quality of not giving a plum if you do show up in Simsecret.
I want to say that there is nothing wrong with being a bit derivative when you’re starting out. Like I said, being yourself takes time. You’ve got to cross great chasms of boiling darkness on a very thin string, and also there are huge bird monsters flying around you and they want to eat your fingers and also your teeth, and also far down below you in the bottom of the chasms there are millions of haters staring up at you, their mouths streaming forth judgement and condemnation and suggestions that you jump off the very thin string.
But you can’t. You cannot jump.
And hey, if leaning on someone else a bit as you first edge out over the chasms helps you stay up on that string, go for it.
The trick to becoming a GOOD writer is to stay on that string, stay on it for years, letting go of all your supports as you learn and grow and become stronger, and then eventually you can even start doing tricks, and after many many years you become the master of the string.
It is not easy, though.
Sometimes the bird monsters will eat a finger or two or even a tooth. They’ll grow back, don’t worry, but it’ll hurt like hell for a while.
Sometimes the screams of the haters will get to you, and the string will wobble and you’ll lose your balance, and you will come close to falling off.
Sometimes the darkness boils up and over and it blots out everything else and you can’t see the way forward and you think about stopping, but eventually it’ll calm and sink back below the string and you’ll be able to see the way forward again.
At first, you need help. So you read writing blogs and industry blogs and you reblog lists of synonyms and links to various resources and ways to say “said”, and you scare yourself with lists of “don’ts” and “these are reasons why work gets rejected from the slush pile”, and you read what editors say they want and you try to fit within their lines.
These things will all eventually drop into the chasms.
You know you’re on the way to being GOOD when all your rules and role models and guides and lists and resources fall away into the boiling darkness, and it’s just you and the string.
The haters will be screaming very loudly at this point. They don’t like it when people walk on their own. Probably because they can’t do it themselves.
This may be the hardest part of the walk. It was for me.
But if you want to be GOOD, you gotta keep going. Even when you’ve lost all your supports and the bird monsters are eating all your fingers and all your teeth and you can’t see anything through the darkness and all you hear are screams about how you suck and you do everything wrong and you will never be good enough. And some of those screams won’t be coming from the haters. They’ll be coming from inside.
I think that here is the difference between a writer and a GOOD writer.
A writer turns around at this point. They go back to their supports, to their lists and rules and corporate approval and non-threatening mediocrity. They slip on a mask and they act like everyone else, and they write what’s trendy and what will get them readers and comments and likes and sales and social status.
A GOOD writer will keep going. A GOOD writer will stumble and almost fall but then they catch themselves and find their balance again, and they take one step forward and then another and another.
I can’t tell you what their writing will be like. That is a very individual thing. Which is the point.
A GOOD writer walks along that very thin string, among the hungry bird monsters and above the screaming haters and the boiling darkness, and they become more and more themselves. Fear and pretense and masks and dependence on external authorities all fall into the chasms, and as the GOOD writer walks along the string everything extraneous burns away.
A GOOD writer is fearless in the service of her art. A GOOD writer rips out her heart, sets it on fire, and turns the smoke into words. She sends the words out into the world, and her trust in the words is greater than her fear of being alone.
A GOOD writer is one who deals in truth, and only in truth, and before her fire the darkness and the hungry bird monsters and the haters all fade away and become as nothing, and the fire burns and burns and lights her way across the string, and she is not afraid anymore.
A GOOD writer is herself, and only herself, and she writes down her soul in letters of flame, and she lights the way for those who come after her, a trail of fire along the string that says, “Yes, you can do it. The journey is long and dark and full of danger, but at the end there is Words, and Sentences, and Rhythm, and Art, and it is the thing itself, and it is beautiful, and it is worth the journey.”
A GOOD writer knows that the words are worth everything, all the fear and doubt and self-hatred and screaming and tears and blood.
A GOOD writer walks in beauty that she made out of pain.
A GOOD writer knows that love is the answer to the darkness. She loves and loves and loves and loves some more. The love pours through her words and sentences and rhythms and it bears her up as her as she walks. The love fills the bellies of the hungry bird monsters and they fly gently around her, supporting her. The love flows through the darkness and tames it, and it responds to her will. The love stuffs the mouths of the haters and silences them, and their words do not reach her anymore.
The GOOD writer is the master of her soul, and the world trembles with her every step on the thin shining string.
Wow, wow and wow! @MedleyMisty From the bottom of my heart: You, I. Like. You! That was so inspirational to read. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts here! There's much more I would like to say in response but the lump in my throat that remains after reading this prevents me at this point to make my thoughts very coherent. You just swan dived right into my
I can't remember if I've posted this here. I may have just posted the link to my blog post? Anyway, I wanted to share it now for a reason.
Rarely is the question asked: what makes a good writer?
Okay actually that’s probably asked thousands of times a day every day on the internet.
But this time a dear friend of mine asked me specifically, so here is my specific answer. Also she capitalized good, like this : GOOD writer.
So….
There’s a similar question in the Sim Storytellers interview but I was trying to not show up in Simsecret that Friday so I just said “imagination.”
Which imagination is important!
And then a couple of years ago someone asked me for writing advice, and I said that noticing things and being open to your experiences and emotions and having the courage to face the darkest parts of yourself were all important. And they are.
I will try to expand on those things and also not even be scared of showing up in Simsecret here! 🐸🐸🐸🐸 the haters, full speed ahead!
I think that to be a GOOD writer you must be yourself, utterly and completely.
That takes time. And courage and strength and a certain quality of not giving a plum if you do show up in Simsecret.
I want to say that there is nothing wrong with being a bit derivative when you’re starting out. Like I said, being yourself takes time. You’ve got to cross great chasms of boiling darkness on a very thin string, and also there are huge bird monsters flying around you and they want to eat your fingers and also your teeth, and also far down below you in the bottom of the chasms there are millions of haters staring up at you, their mouths streaming forth judgement and condemnation and suggestions that you jump off the very thin string.
But you can’t. You cannot jump.
And hey, if leaning on someone else a bit as you first edge out over the chasms helps you stay up on that string, go for it.
The trick to becoming a GOOD writer is to stay on that string, stay on it for years, letting go of all your supports as you learn and grow and become stronger, and then eventually you can even start doing tricks, and after many many years you become the master of the string.
It is not easy, though.
Sometimes the bird monsters will eat a finger or two or even a tooth. They’ll grow back, don’t worry, but it’ll hurt like hell for a while.
Sometimes the screams of the haters will get to you, and the string will wobble and you’ll lose your balance, and you will come close to falling off.
Sometimes the darkness boils up and over and it blots out everything else and you can’t see the way forward and you think about stopping, but eventually it’ll calm and sink back below the string and you’ll be able to see the way forward again.
At first, you need help. So you read writing blogs and industry blogs and you reblog lists of synonyms and links to various resources and ways to say “said”, and you scare yourself with lists of “don’ts” and “these are reasons why work gets rejected from the slush pile”, and you read what editors say they want and you try to fit within their lines.
These things will all eventually drop into the chasms.
You know you’re on the way to being GOOD when all your rules and role models and guides and lists and resources fall away into the boiling darkness, and it’s just you and the string.
The haters will be screaming very loudly at this point. They don’t like it when people walk on their own. Probably because they can’t do it themselves.
This may be the hardest part of the walk. It was for me.
But if you want to be GOOD, you gotta keep going. Even when you’ve lost all your supports and the bird monsters are eating all your fingers and all your teeth and you can’t see anything through the darkness and all you hear are screams about how you suck and you do everything wrong and you will never be good enough. And some of those screams won’t be coming from the haters. They’ll be coming from inside.
I think that here is the difference between a writer and a GOOD writer.
A writer turns around at this point. They go back to their supports, to their lists and rules and corporate approval and non-threatening mediocrity. They slip on a mask and they act like everyone else, and they write what’s trendy and what will get them readers and comments and likes and sales and social status.
A GOOD writer will keep going. A GOOD writer will stumble and almost fall but then they catch themselves and find their balance again, and they take one step forward and then another and another.
I can’t tell you what their writing will be like. That is a very individual thing. Which is the point.
A GOOD writer walks along that very thin string, among the hungry bird monsters and above the screaming haters and the boiling darkness, and they become more and more themselves. Fear and pretense and masks and dependence on external authorities all fall into the chasms, and as the GOOD writer walks along the string everything extraneous burns away.
A GOOD writer is fearless in the service of her art. A GOOD writer rips out her heart, sets it on fire, and turns the smoke into words. She sends the words out into the world, and her trust in the words is greater than her fear of being alone.
A GOOD writer is one who deals in truth, and only in truth, and before her fire the darkness and the hungry bird monsters and the haters all fade away and become as nothing, and the fire burns and burns and lights her way across the string, and she is not afraid anymore.
A GOOD writer is herself, and only herself, and she writes down her soul in letters of flame, and she lights the way for those who come after her, a trail of fire along the string that says, “Yes, you can do it. The journey is long and dark and full of danger, but at the end there is Words, and Sentences, and Rhythm, and Art, and it is the thing itself, and it is beautiful, and it is worth the journey.”
A GOOD writer knows that the words are worth everything, all the fear and doubt and self-hatred and screaming and tears and blood.
A GOOD writer walks in beauty that she made out of pain.
A GOOD writer knows that love is the answer to the darkness. She loves and loves and loves and loves some more. The love pours through her words and sentences and rhythms and it bears her up as her as she walks. The love fills the bellies of the hungry bird monsters and they fly gently around her, supporting her. The love flows through the darkness and tames it, and it responds to her will. The love stuffs the mouths of the haters and silences them, and their words do not reach her anymore.
The GOOD writer is the master of her soul, and the world trembles with her every step on the thin shining string.
I can't remember if I've posted this here. I may have just posted the link to my blog post? Anyway, I wanted to share it now for a reason.
Rarely is the question asked: what makes a good writer?
Okay actually that’s probably asked thousands of times a day every day on the internet.
But this time a dear friend of mine asked me specifically, so here is my specific answer. Also she capitalized good, like this : GOOD writer.
So….
There’s a similar question in the Sim Storytellers interview but I was trying to not show up in Simsecret that Friday so I just said “imagination.”
Which imagination is important!
And then a couple of years ago someone asked me for writing advice, and I said that noticing things and being open to your experiences and emotions and having the courage to face the darkest parts of yourself were all important. And they are.
I will try to expand on those things and also not even be scared of showing up in Simsecret here! 🐸🐸🐸🐸 the haters, full speed ahead!
I think that to be a GOOD writer you must be yourself, utterly and completely.
That takes time. And courage and strength and a certain quality of not giving a plum if you do show up in Simsecret.
I want to say that there is nothing wrong with being a bit derivative when you’re starting out. Like I said, being yourself takes time. You’ve got to cross great chasms of boiling darkness on a very thin string, and also there are huge bird monsters flying around you and they want to eat your fingers and also your teeth, and also far down below you in the bottom of the chasms there are millions of haters staring up at you, their mouths streaming forth judgement and condemnation and suggestions that you jump off the very thin string.
But you can’t. You cannot jump.
And hey, if leaning on someone else a bit as you first edge out over the chasms helps you stay up on that string, go for it.
The trick to becoming a GOOD writer is to stay on that string, stay on it for years, letting go of all your supports as you learn and grow and become stronger, and then eventually you can even start doing tricks, and after many many years you become the master of the string.
It is not easy, though.
Sometimes the bird monsters will eat a finger or two or even a tooth. They’ll grow back, don’t worry, but it’ll hurt like hell for a while.
Sometimes the screams of the haters will get to you, and the string will wobble and you’ll lose your balance, and you will come close to falling off.
Sometimes the darkness boils up and over and it blots out everything else and you can’t see the way forward and you think about stopping, but eventually it’ll calm and sink back below the string and you’ll be able to see the way forward again.
At first, you need help. So you read writing blogs and industry blogs and you reblog lists of synonyms and links to various resources and ways to say “said”, and you scare yourself with lists of “don’ts” and “these are reasons why work gets rejected from the slush pile”, and you read what editors say they want and you try to fit within their lines.
These things will all eventually drop into the chasms.
You know you’re on the way to being GOOD when all your rules and role models and guides and lists and resources fall away into the boiling darkness, and it’s just you and the string.
The haters will be screaming very loudly at this point. They don’t like it when people walk on their own. Probably because they can’t do it themselves.
This may be the hardest part of the walk. It was for me.
But if you want to be GOOD, you gotta keep going. Even when you’ve lost all your supports and the bird monsters are eating all your fingers and all your teeth and you can’t see anything through the darkness and all you hear are screams about how you suck and you do everything wrong and you will never be good enough. And some of those screams won’t be coming from the haters. They’ll be coming from inside.
I think that here is the difference between a writer and a GOOD writer.
A writer turns around at this point. They go back to their supports, to their lists and rules and corporate approval and non-threatening mediocrity. They slip on a mask and they act like everyone else, and they write what’s trendy and what will get them readers and comments and likes and sales and social status.
A GOOD writer will keep going. A GOOD writer will stumble and almost fall but then they catch themselves and find their balance again, and they take one step forward and then another and another.
I can’t tell you what their writing will be like. That is a very individual thing. Which is the point.
A GOOD writer walks along that very thin string, among the hungry bird monsters and above the screaming haters and the boiling darkness, and they become more and more themselves. Fear and pretense and masks and dependence on external authorities all fall into the chasms, and as the GOOD writer walks along the string everything extraneous burns away.
A GOOD writer is fearless in the service of her art. A GOOD writer rips out her heart, sets it on fire, and turns the smoke into words. She sends the words out into the world, and her trust in the words is greater than her fear of being alone.
A GOOD writer is one who deals in truth, and only in truth, and before her fire the darkness and the hungry bird monsters and the haters all fade away and become as nothing, and the fire burns and burns and lights her way across the string, and she is not afraid anymore.
A GOOD writer is herself, and only herself, and she writes down her soul in letters of flame, and she lights the way for those who come after her, a trail of fire along the string that says, “Yes, you can do it. The journey is long and dark and full of danger, but at the end there is Words, and Sentences, and Rhythm, and Art, and it is the thing itself, and it is beautiful, and it is worth the journey.”
A GOOD writer knows that the words are worth everything, all the fear and doubt and self-hatred and screaming and tears and blood.
A GOOD writer walks in beauty that she made out of pain.
A GOOD writer knows that love is the answer to the darkness. She loves and loves and loves and loves some more. The love pours through her words and sentences and rhythms and it bears her up as her as she walks. The love fills the bellies of the hungry bird monsters and they fly gently around her, supporting her. The love flows through the darkness and tames it, and it responds to her will. The love stuffs the mouths of the haters and silences them, and their words do not reach her anymore.
The GOOD writer is the master of her soul, and the world trembles with her every step on the thin shining string.
Good Heavens that was inspirational and beautiful - thank you!
@MedleyMisty
Oh wow... Normally, I don't really imagine things without visuals, but that was descriptive enough. Amazing.
@AdamsEve1231
When it comes to stereotypes, I generally don't really adhere to them. Mainly because of, "I've a story to write! I don't have time to deal with those!"
Most of the time anyway. There is one chapter where a character names off a few stereotypes, stating he doesn't embody any of them:
The implication being that Harwood is likely so used to being stereotyped in certain ways (In Chronicles, he's half-Chinese and was raised by Chinese grandparents), he debunks them off the bat sometimes if a new person asks him certain questions. (He states he doesn't eat dog, he isn't a kung-fu master, etc.)
There's also the more positive stereotypes I noted with Harwood: Usually, he's shown drinking tea, having various Chinese foods, and sometimes uses Chinese words in his speech. (Could be using the terms for his maternal grandparents, or just him saying "Aiya...")
Basically, if I feel mentioning stereotypes is important at that given time, I'll do so. Otherwise, no not really.
Do you challenge stereotypes and assumptions in your Sim-lit? If so, how? To clarify, do you challenge the stereotypes of the Sims world and/or characteristics of Sims or typical SimLit writing styles?
Not really... Perhaps in my first story, about Abbie. It was written in a diary style in Abbie's voice who is a child-free woman. There's this general perception that all women want children, and those who don't are some sort of abominations, and will never experience true love/womanhood... true anything really. So through Abbie's story i explored the life of a young woman growing up and not conforming to the social norm, but still leading a happy and fulfilling life.
In my other stories i didn't really care about anything like this, just wanted to craft some mysteries.
On the flip side, do you think there's a time and place for stereotypes, and if so, when and where? Does your idea of stereotypes or challenging stereotypes change when you're a reader vs. a writer?
Of course there are! Stereotypes can be cool in funny stories, or sit-come type stories. It also doesn't hurt the more serious ones because through stereotypes i think we can feel more connected to a certain character or story.
@MedleyMisty : "I think that to be a GOOD writer you must be yourself, utterly and completely.
That takes time. And courage and strength and a certain quality of not giving a plum if you do show up in Simsecret."
Yeah! For sure. It's so hard, too, when you put all of yourself out there and then you're misunderstood, under-understood, misquoted, or translated into a bunch of binary jibberish (speaking from experience).
From my own experience, I also found a certain beauty when readers disappeared and I was left alone with my words and my truth. It also hurts so much, as you pointed out.
I feel that a lot of us either have memories or at the least identification with the archetype of being burned at the stake. So the spurning that can happen when we do speak our truth--and when we put ourselves out there and are misunderstood, rejected, and hated--pokes into that very deep core.
Getting through that, beyond that, continuing to speak it as we live it, that brings so much healing. And also, in the process, we can learn ways of protection while we continue to put ourselves out there, continuing to let our lives create our words.
***thank you for sharing that and for diving in here to share yourself with us. Thanks for helping to build a community here where we can all share ourselves as good writers.***
Comments
Sometimes when I read the kinds of stories that put the pic after the text I occasionally think "wait, where's the screenshot... oh, there it is!" But I'm not saying it's a bad way of placing pictures, it's just newer to me so I haven't got totally used to it yet as a reader. I'm learning, though.
I like the way you two put this feeling into words. I think I experience something similar when I draw or paint, except replace music notes and patterns with lines, composition, brush strokes, and colours (although I do sometimes listen to music when I draw). And writing can also do something similar to me in the best of flow-times.
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)
It's interesting to me that the style seemed to shift with TS4, since it seems like a lot of TS4 has text first, then screenshot.
I'm pretty sure that in TS3, I did screenshot first, then text. Of course, I was writing on the TS3 exchange-thing, so that made a difference! And in TS2 on the Exchange, with the slideshows it was set up for the text to go beneath each picture.
With TS4, the Sims' expressions reveal so much emotion that I want to set up what's happening or what they're saying first so that the reader understands why they look that way...
But sometimes, if it takes a lot of text to do the set up, then there's a big block of it before we get to see the expressions...
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!
I'm new to SimLit, so yes I was unaware, but ironically, I began writing the other way around! It wasn't until I actually began to read my own story that I got annoyed by being spoiled by my own pictures lol. When I was in gen 7 I went back and read from the beginning, so half my legacy is the "old" way and the other half is the "new" way lol.
Yes it drives me nuts, but it doesn't discourage me from reading of course. Clearly it's been quite sometime since I've read a children's book lol, but I seem to recall reading text and then looking at a picture when I was a child, so maybe that convention has stayed with me. It makes the most sense in my opinion.
Agreed! I think a lot of us here take screenshots more for the effect than editorial purposes, so having the right picture in the right place certainly adds to the mood for me.
I always put text before screenshot and my formatting usually worked so that there was a lovely even space between text and picture. However, switching to my new theme made it so that the text beneath the pictures appeared smushed up against it like it was a caption! I realized that it probably looked silly to my readers (and it looked silly to me!) so I had to go back and add an extra break after every picture of my Wonder Child story.
I'm also assuming that all 86 chapters of my legacy are like that and it makes me itch just thinking about it... *eye twitch*
House: Hufflepuff | Wand: Ebony wood w/a unicorn hair core, 9 ¾"
Origin ID: meggles87 | twitter | simblr
I don't have a set way of doing things. Each picture is judged on it's own merits, does this picture spoil the text if I put it first? If so, I put it after the text. I sometimes like to start a chapter with a picture, so naturally the text comes after that one, but it can change within the chapter itself with some text coming before pictures, and some after.
For potential spreadsheeting purposes, I screenshot first, and then write.
jumps into thread
This is so interesting to me, as it's something I've been thinking about!! I didn't realize until this question, that there was a history of doing image first and text second!
I'm fairly new to sim stories... I only discovered they were a thing this July/September, and only starting writing my own in September. I almost always put the text first and screenshots after. (for statistical purposes, on my legacy I screenshot first and write second, on my short stories I write first and screenshot second). Sometimes, like @CathyTea I'll sandwich the picture. Actually, I quite like doing that. Often, my stories are dialogue heavy, and the picture can be a pause, or breakup of a bit of dialogue, perhaps taking the place of "and then she stood" or "he gave her a wink" or something like that, lol! (cheesy examples, but hey!)
Once in awhile, if it feels correct, I may place a picture first, but I can't think of anything offhand at the moment. It's all about how it flows to me -- and for me, I like to have the text grounding the scene, and then see what goes with it. Reading, I like either style. Though, sometimes when I'm reading stories that do screenshot first and text second and the pictures are large, I'll have to scroll back up to the picture to see what the text is talking about. So maybe it also depends on the size of the pictures! Because if I can see the text and picture I don't notice, but if I have to stop and scroll up to look at the picture again, I do.
Placement doesn't hinder my love of the story, though -- as I see @ThePlumbob does picture then text, and she has one of my favorite stories! I also couldn't imagine her story being done any other way, as it feels right when I'm reading it. It flows, which is what I'm all about.
/end jump
I am a very instinctive person and mostly lurk around these storytelling threads for it is hard for me to analyze things quickly. By the time I have read several takes on a subject and formed my own understandable (to me at least) opinion to a certain question many others have answered before me or the topic changed all together lol.
I noticed the different approaches and since I am very new to SimLit (started reading around september and writing in october last year) I too didn't know there was a certain order in previous sims versions. I think as a writer I put my text first, well, actually exactly like @sabreene says:
Besides that I try to avoid lumps of text that are too big, but still finding my style, I guess. When I read I am absolutely not conscious of whether the text comes first or second. As said everything I do is pure instinct, I am no more human then the next animal I like to think. I do however recall scrolling back to a picture after reading the text once or twice. To me what matters most of all is that the story speaks to me and pictures and text support each other. Kinda like you expect to see a riverbank defining the river and vice versa. It is awesome if a story feels that natural, if that makes any sense.
You. I like you.
Thank you! Dunno what i said to deserve that, but it made me
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
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My Sims Pinterest
Oh, you reminded me that I was going to add my two cents to this! I think the asking about gender thing might just be a tumblr quirk. I've seen this from other blogs across all fandoms. If it's not listed on your blog sometimes they just want to know.
From my own experience I wouldn't ask, either. Also, I didn't feel like reading Harry Potter for ages because I didn't know if I would enjoy it since it was written about a boy and written by a man (my assumption). I had to read HP for a debate and when I found out that JKR was a woman I was so pleased. This was me at 14, though, and I've changed how I think since then.
House: Hufflepuff | Wand: Ebony wood w/a unicorn hair core, 9 ¾"
Origin ID: meggles87 | twitter | simblr
I typically put picture first and then text. I've played around with picture first, text first, and trying a little of both. In KFLL, at the beginning of most of my chapters, I put text first and then pictures, but as I continue into the chapters, I switch this around. I think it's important to draw the reader in with my words rather than a good picture, but this is probably because this is my first time writing with pictures. The pictures do add an interesting challenge of balancing retelling what is being displayed in the picture and writing around it. When I'm writing, I like the ability to write without the pictures dictating everything and so much of what cannot be illustrated in game, I show through my writing. I don't consciously think about it though because often I'll write the chapter and add pictures after. As a reader, I don't think I have a huge preference, and I definitely like the whole no text, all pictures idea, but if I had to pick, I'd probably lean more toward more writing, less pictures. And by more writing, I don't necessarily mean more words, just that I gravitate toward the writing and glance at the pictures second.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
Yay! I'm glad you've returned.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
I am very open about....everything really, lol, but everyone knows I am female. I think that was part of the Bad Times - the Sims community is rife with internalized sexism and young women policing each other, and well, the writing of women has been discounted and devalued for centuries. I think there was a fair bit of "Who does she think she is, taking her Sims stories seriously as art and literature?"
This was backed up by the response to a friend's Sims 2 story. I'd already noticed that her commenters judged the female characters much more harshly than they judged the male ones for the same behavior. And then a male character assaulted a female character.
She had been worried about the response and she thought people would get mad, but no one did. Because they all blamed the female and they said she was lying about the assault.
Not at all surprised that some of the people who turned on me were among those commenters.
I tend to write female main characters. Not always, but at least like 90% of the time. Seth is a dude, but he's my shadow so maybe it's like an animus kind of thing, I don't know. And really I love his wife Sarah just as much, and one day I might go back to Moonfall and finish the story of her realizing that he is abusive and finding her own strengths. I like that she is a housewife who highly values marriage and children and cooking, but that's just who she is, and she has steel ovaries under that pale skin and hair so blonde it's almost white.
And then in Surreal Darkness no one has a gender or a name, so yeah.
Onto the replies (and hoboy there's a lot of them) -
@VIRTUALEE Oh lord, the "Can I see a picture of you?" thing would be a straight-up NO from me. I don't share anything personal of myself online. Even my facebook account has a photo of a cat as the avatar, even though I only have a very small handful of real life friends added on there. The "share everything about yourself" thing that I see a lot of these days gives me the heebie-jeebies because I'm an intensely-private person online.
@ra3rei Agreed on the m/m genre writing. It does tend to be written by women, although not exclusively. Contrarywise to you, though, I prefer stories with a male protagonist. I've noticed that these tend to be more rare within SimLit, especially when you look at things like the proliferation of 100 baby challenges, which - obviously - focuses on a strong matriarch, as well as the legacies which, in the main, feature m/f couples.
@InfraGreen Interesting point on reader bias, especially with regard to SF. It's interesting to note that, in many ways, we haven't moved on a great deal from the times when women wrote under male pseuds in order to be accepted and published.
@Jes2G I understand the curiosity, absolutely. And I'm going to err on the side of your suggestion: possibly the reader lacked the awareness to understand that their question was a little boundary-overstepping!
@Munterbacon Devil's Advocates are always welcome in my house
@CathyTea That's an interesting point you made about feeling that you enter into a friendship with the author. It's not something I've ever experienced, in all honesty. My friendship is more with the characters, because it's those people whom I imagine sitting down with and wanting to know more about. It does help me understand a little more about why my anon may have asked the question, if they, too, felt like they entered into a friendship with the author (but maybe lacked your awareness that - if gender is not explicitly mentioned - it may not be something that the author wants to share).
@Citizenerased14 I've had that (the assumption that I'm male) happen quite a lot. I can only assume that I've cultivated such a "male voice" through my writing mostly male characters over the years! (I remember taking one of those "paste a sample of your writing here and we'll tell you what gender you are" things online, and I was overwhelmingly male in the result.) I actually don't mind the assumption, but I'll always gently correct the person making it, if it looks as if they might be embarrassed by getting it wrong.
@RipuAncestor I'm very much the same when it comes to privacy online. Over the decades since I've been connected, I've only ever used pseudonyms. Heck, I only got a Facebook account in my real name after ten years of my work colleagues persuading me, because we all got made redundant at the same time and they bugged me to get an account so we could stay in touch!
@roseinblack69 Thank you! Now that I've had time to think it over, and I've read several different viewpoints (which was why I asked here in the first place!) I'm leaning more towards it being innocent curiosity that led to that question being asked in the first place.
@drafonfire Good point about finding an author whose work you want to read more of. I have a good memory for names online (but not in real life, oddly) so I'll almost always recall who wrote what when it comes to online fiction.
@AdamsEve1231 I love your point about challenging stereotypes. I had someone asking me privately for advice on writing m/m fiction, and several of the points I replied with were about guarding against writing stereotypes (feminising one half of the partnership by making him "the girl", for example; it's so easy for writers to forget that gay [if the forum will let me use that word)] male characters are still guys with all the masculinity that entails).
@Meggles Agreed. I think it is a Tumblr thing, since Tumblr is predominantly home to a younger and more open-to-sharing-everything generation (I sometimes feel like a bit of an old fart over there
@MedleyMisty I've noticed that women policing each other thing in several other creative venues, too. It just makes me want to knock heads together and ask them if they don't think that women have enough on their plates already. It's so frustrating to witness that, and to know that - if you spoke up against it - you'd be the next one in the firing line.
Okay, that's all the gender responses done. Now (very briefly) onto the screenshot/text order question asked by... *scrolls back* ...@Ra3rei -
My answer to this is... I don't actually really give it much thought! I just put the screenshots where they feel right (so, in a way, I'm another instinctual writer). I suspect that mostly I put the writing first and the screenshot after, but then I do tend to take far too many screenshots, so I want to get them all in and plunk them wherever they feel they ought to go.
I do, however, always like to end with one image, especially if the chapter closes on a... Dun-Dun-DUNNNN! cliffhanger
Edited: Typos
I'm of the persuasion that just because this is the way something has always been done doesn't mean I should follow along. In fact, often times, I think I do the exact opposite in my writing. Or I might start with the flow and wildly veer off the trail. Call it my creative outside-the-box thinking or challenge of norms. I like writing and reading characters who take a unique or opposing position on a topic, who are fighting against the odds, and decide to challenge stereotypes, norms, rules, societal standards, etc. Take for example my character Kass. I began her story as a lighthearted family drama, but I always planned to write a Simworld mystery series. I know this isn't anything incredibly new; in fact, I feature two SimLit mysteries under my Sims Stories I Enjoy section. However, I decided there aren't many people out there writing SimLit mysteries, one of my favorite genres to read. I also wanted to tackle the supernaturals and their existence, aliens and their interactions with Sims, and societal disregard for a life-threatening disease or medical condition. Perhaps I've been a little too ambitious given I'm barely scratching the surface yet and I'm into Part 2 of Kass's story, but I'm hoping to expand and delve into these topics more. Alas, I digress... Thoughts?
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I think it's important to challenge stereotypes, but it's even more important to do so subtly. The idea of that challenge is not to stop the reader in mid-sentence and make them think, "By golly, I've been wrong all along about XYZ!" but rather to create the slow drip-drip of understanding in their mind. The former is far more likely to make a negatively-biased reader stop reading altogether when they realise they've been "tricked" into reading a story which suggests their bias is wrong, whereas the latter seeps in slowly and takes root without their realising. This challenge is often done by creating positive role models out of what is commonly assumed a stereotype, but it takes a skilful writer to do it with subtlety.
Incidentally, I love your idea about challenging general Sims-related stereotypes, such as the supernaturals, aliens, and societal disregard for certain things. Contrast our real world panic over E-bola* and Zika with the Sims' apparent lack of awareness over the insanely contagious Pestilence Plague!
OK, I have to run now. Looking forward to reading others' replies on this subject when I get home.
*Edited because the forum inexplicably censored it with the correct spelling.
Rarely is the question asked: what makes a good writer?
Okay actually that’s probably asked thousands of times a day every day on the internet.
But this time a dear friend of mine asked me specifically, so here is my specific answer. Also she capitalized good, like this : GOOD writer.
So….
There’s a similar question in the Sim Storytellers interview but I was trying to not show up in Simsecret that Friday so I just said “imagination.”
Which imagination is important!
And then a couple of years ago someone asked me for writing advice, and I said that noticing things and being open to your experiences and emotions and having the courage to face the darkest parts of yourself were all important. And they are.
I will try to expand on those things and also not even be scared of showing up in Simsecret here! 🐸🐸🐸🐸 the haters, full speed ahead!
I think that to be a GOOD writer you must be yourself, utterly and completely.
That takes time. And courage and strength and a certain quality of not giving a plum if you do show up in Simsecret.
I want to say that there is nothing wrong with being a bit derivative when you’re starting out. Like I said, being yourself takes time. You’ve got to cross great chasms of boiling darkness on a very thin string, and also there are huge bird monsters flying around you and they want to eat your fingers and also your teeth, and also far down below you in the bottom of the chasms there are millions of haters staring up at you, their mouths streaming forth judgement and condemnation and suggestions that you jump off the very thin string.
But you can’t. You cannot jump.
And hey, if leaning on someone else a bit as you first edge out over the chasms helps you stay up on that string, go for it.
The trick to becoming a GOOD writer is to stay on that string, stay on it for years, letting go of all your supports as you learn and grow and become stronger, and then eventually you can even start doing tricks, and after many many years you become the master of the string.
It is not easy, though.
Sometimes the bird monsters will eat a finger or two or even a tooth. They’ll grow back, don’t worry, but it’ll hurt like hell for a while.
Sometimes the screams of the haters will get to you, and the string will wobble and you’ll lose your balance, and you will come close to falling off.
Sometimes the darkness boils up and over and it blots out everything else and you can’t see the way forward and you think about stopping, but eventually it’ll calm and sink back below the string and you’ll be able to see the way forward again.
At first, you need help. So you read writing blogs and industry blogs and you reblog lists of synonyms and links to various resources and ways to say “said”, and you scare yourself with lists of “don’ts” and “these are reasons why work gets rejected from the slush pile”, and you read what editors say they want and you try to fit within their lines.
These things will all eventually drop into the chasms.
You know you’re on the way to being GOOD when all your rules and role models and guides and lists and resources fall away into the boiling darkness, and it’s just you and the string.
The haters will be screaming very loudly at this point. They don’t like it when people walk on their own. Probably because they can’t do it themselves.
This may be the hardest part of the walk. It was for me.
But if you want to be GOOD, you gotta keep going. Even when you’ve lost all your supports and the bird monsters are eating all your fingers and all your teeth and you can’t see anything through the darkness and all you hear are screams about how you suck and you do everything wrong and you will never be good enough. And some of those screams won’t be coming from the haters. They’ll be coming from inside.
I think that here is the difference between a writer and a GOOD writer.
A writer turns around at this point. They go back to their supports, to their lists and rules and corporate approval and non-threatening mediocrity. They slip on a mask and they act like everyone else, and they write what’s trendy and what will get them readers and comments and likes and sales and social status.
A GOOD writer will keep going. A GOOD writer will stumble and almost fall but then they catch themselves and find their balance again, and they take one step forward and then another and another.
I can’t tell you what their writing will be like. That is a very individual thing. Which is the point.
A GOOD writer walks along that very thin string, among the hungry bird monsters and above the screaming haters and the boiling darkness, and they become more and more themselves. Fear and pretense and masks and dependence on external authorities all fall into the chasms, and as the GOOD writer walks along the string everything extraneous burns away.
A GOOD writer is fearless in the service of her art. A GOOD writer rips out her heart, sets it on fire, and turns the smoke into words. She sends the words out into the world, and her trust in the words is greater than her fear of being alone.
A GOOD writer is one who deals in truth, and only in truth, and before her fire the darkness and the hungry bird monsters and the haters all fade away and become as nothing, and the fire burns and burns and lights her way across the string, and she is not afraid anymore.
A GOOD writer is herself, and only herself, and she writes down her soul in letters of flame, and she lights the way for those who come after her, a trail of fire along the string that says, “Yes, you can do it. The journey is long and dark and full of danger, but at the end there is Words, and Sentences, and Rhythm, and Art, and it is the thing itself, and it is beautiful, and it is worth the journey.”
A GOOD writer knows that the words are worth everything, all the fear and doubt and self-hatred and screaming and tears and blood.
A GOOD writer walks in beauty that she made out of pain.
A GOOD writer knows that love is the answer to the darkness. She loves and loves and loves and loves some more. The love pours through her words and sentences and rhythms and it bears her up as her as she walks. The love fills the bellies of the hungry bird monsters and they fly gently around her, supporting her. The love flows through the darkness and tames it, and it responds to her will. The love stuffs the mouths of the haters and silences them, and their words do not reach her anymore.
The GOOD writer is the master of her soul, and the world trembles with her every step on the thin shining string.
Hugs
Well! Amen to that!
Good Heavens that was inspirational and beautiful - thank you!
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Oh wow...
@AdamsEve1231
When it comes to stereotypes, I generally don't really adhere to them. Mainly because of, "I've a story to write! I don't have time to deal with those!"
Most of the time anyway. There is one chapter where a character names off a few stereotypes, stating he doesn't embody any of them:
There's also the more positive stereotypes I noted with Harwood: Usually, he's shown drinking tea, having various Chinese foods, and sometimes uses Chinese words in his speech. (Could be using the terms for his maternal grandparents, or just him saying "Aiya...")
Basically, if I feel mentioning stereotypes is important at that given time, I'll do so. Otherwise, no not really.
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)
Not really... Perhaps in my first story, about Abbie. It was written in a diary style in Abbie's voice who is a child-free woman. There's this general perception that all women want children, and those who don't are some sort of abominations, and will never experience true love/womanhood... true anything really. So through Abbie's story i explored the life of a young woman growing up and not conforming to the social norm, but still leading a happy and fulfilling life.
In my other stories i didn't really care about anything like this, just wanted to craft some mysteries.
On the flip side, do you think there's a time and place for stereotypes, and if so, when and where? Does your idea of stereotypes or challenging stereotypes change when you're a reader vs. a writer?
Of course there are! Stereotypes can be cool in funny stories, or sit-come type stories. It also doesn't hurt the more serious ones because through stereotypes i think we can feel more connected to a certain character or story.
Regrets (Finished)
Abbie's Diary (Finished)
Mistakes
That takes time. And courage and strength and a certain quality of not giving a plum if you do show up in Simsecret."
Yeah! For sure. It's so hard, too, when you put all of yourself out there and then you're misunderstood, under-understood, misquoted, or translated into a bunch of binary jibberish (speaking from experience).
From my own experience, I also found a certain beauty when readers disappeared and I was left alone with my words and my truth. It also hurts so much, as you pointed out.
I feel that a lot of us either have memories or at the least identification with the archetype of being burned at the stake. So the spurning that can happen when we do speak our truth--and when we put ourselves out there and are misunderstood, rejected, and hated--pokes into that very deep core.
Getting through that, beyond that, continuing to speak it as we live it, that brings so much healing. And also, in the process, we can learn ways of protection while we continue to put ourselves out there, continuing to let our lives create our words.
***thank you for sharing that and for diving in here to share yourself with us. Thanks for helping to build a community here where we can all share ourselves as good writers.***
Do you also play The Elder Scrolls Online? You can find me there as CathyTea, too!