Developer blog

Process, thoughts and insights into writing interactive fiction.

[fallen-hero]

The Drag

Since I am currently home sick and procrastinating, let's talk about one of the hardest things in writing any lengthy project, and one which tends to take people by surprise. 

Actually finishing it.

You see, it's not like a book or a game is done once you write that last chapter, and tack on the final epilogue. Oh no, now you have to edit and polish the beast. All those times you sat around thinking 'oh I'll fix this later', or 'this is needs a rewrite later' now has to be dealt with. Past you is always an asshole.

Don't get me wrong, those decisions are still vitally important to get the project done at all. You cannot edit as you go, because you don't know exactly where you are going. You might have a plan, even a detailed one, but until the ending is written you can't be sure what's needed to get there.

That is when the drag begins.

At first it is easy, even fun. You get to switch sections around, maybe cut some, rewrite the start, add some subplots you didn't see coming until the second half of the book. It's cool, creative and new, but then it starts to slow down. Every change needed cascades through the story and needs to be hunted down and changed. Some sections you added that really do make the story better, need more changes and additions later. It grows and grows and grows...

And then it hits you. That quick editing job won't be quick after all. Just because your book/game is finished doesn't mean it's done. it will still take time to fix and polish, and it will be harder. Need more thought. And, at the back of your head there's a voice that screams "fuck this, I was done!" and just wants to get it over with fast...

I think we have all read those stories. Played those games. Where the first 80% was cool, and then everything just finishes too fast and the ending feels rushed. I was guilty of it as well, in Fallen Hero: Rebirth. There were more things I should have done in retrospect, but at the time I just wanted to be done, I didn't even know if people would like it, it wouldn't matter and all those other things I kept telling myself.

Maybe that's why I am writing this. Because I am sitting in that spot with Fallen Hero: Retribution, where things start to drag and I just want to be finished, but more tangents and issues pops up. And every time I go... "maybe I should just ignore this, and..." but I try not to. Because this game is already a bloated beast made for my own pride's sake, and to ruin all that extra effort just to get it done a month or two sooner would be like shooting myself in the foot near the finishing line.

2020 already messed up my personal deadlines. No, let's be fair here. My own ambitions messed them up long before that.

I am so bloody grateful that I have editors that won't let me get away with skimping on the quality.

I guess what I am trying to say here, is that finishing a book is only the first step in order to make it good. Don't make the mistake of thinking it is as good as it can get. Be prepared to be brutal. Be prepared for it to take time.

It will be worth it in the end.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

You've probably answered this in the past but I'm relatively new here. How does having multiple ending states effect your writing process for a sequel, and has the experience writing a sequel effected your plans for Retribution's endings? Interactive fiction has always fascinated me, especially making player choices feel meaningful while maintaining a manageable number of story threads going forward. I'd love to hear the perspective of someone in the field.

I was very wary about multiple ending states when I finished Rebirth. In essence, it’s just one ending with variations depending on what you had done to give you clues that something was up behind the scenes.

In Retribution.... I am going a little bit off the rails. There will be quite separate ending states, four major paths, with additional variations within those. It is going to make writing Revelations interesting, but I think I can pull it off.

The reason for the difference is that I was still new when writing Rebirth. I wasn’t sure what people would like, and even less sure what I could pull off. Thus I skinned the story down as much as I could in order to make a finished product.

With Retribution, I started adding things back in. Some were a lot more work than I had anticipated (villain paths), some made the story better and deeper (more RO’s), and then there was the twist.

In the original book, I had a thing happening at midpoint which shook things up and upped the stakes. I had decided not to incorporate a variety on that in the interactive fiction, because while I loved it, and it would work EVEN better with player choices accounted for, it would lead to major branching.Too much. Not a chance I could pull that off.

And then the reviews and sales numbers for Rebirth started rolling in, and the reactions to the demo once I got the first chapters up.

I decided to go for it.

So in essence I am treating the end states as an extended branch and rejoin choice. The branching starts right after the open alpha ends (there’s a reason why I broke off there), and continues right into the many end states in Retribution.

Each of these end states will have a separate start in Revelations, some will rejoin the main path quicker than others, eventually fusing into two major paths that will fuse back into one around the middle of Revelations or so.

Yes, this means a lot of parallel writing, there’s a reason why book two is three times the length of book one. But it also makes replaying fun, and in some ways, the only way to get the clues for the full story.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

As a curious author (who has looked up to you a lot during the writing process) would it be possible for you to ballpark how many ideas you had before you came up with fh? And do you remember when it first came to your mind that you would write about a villian instead of a hero? Like was it a random shower thought? Did it spark from another source of inspiration? Thank you!

The original inspiration actually came from my partner’s unpublished comic script. There’s a world-changing event in there which for some reason triggered my imagination and made me wonder how that would feel from a telepathic point of view. The thought wouldn’t leave my head, and at the time I was working on writing in English so I made a series of short snippets on my Livejournal (yes, that old) called “A supervillain writing experiment”.

As I wrote, it became more and more about how to deal with trauma in a not exactly healthy way, and the more I wrote, the more it started sliding into body dysmorphia and gender thoughts. That was around the time I stopped writing it, since it connected too much to things I didn’t want to think about at the time.

More than a decade later, that idea was one of a handful or so that I had to choose between to try to make my first choicescript game. At this point I had come to terms with my genderqueerness, and felt I could dig into it. 

I had (and still do, no time limits on ideas) a lot of other stories I would love telling. There’s a whole folder just filled with half written things, or concepts I would love to explore. Ideas is NOT a problem for me, the time and skill to develop them is.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

hi malin! been meaning to ask for a while, and my question got mostly answered from that previous ask but i was just wondering about how much you make from sales of fh:r- like on a sliding scale from "pocket change" to "side job". and of course it changes depending on the popularity of the game i just have no idea what the ballpark amount is

It depends a lot. Apparently I have sold well for a first game (got no idea how things compare to others, there’s some talk about that in the links of the last money posts I reblogged).

Last year (not the release year, so no spike) I averaged around $500 per month before taxes (which is around 30% for me)..

I have no idea what anybody else makes, money is a touchy subject for a lot of people.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

This may not be comfortable to answer for you, but, does being a Choicescript writer pay well? I'm a teenager who is currently working on making a Choicescript game, and I was wondering if being a writer for CoG would help with that. I mean, is the pay good enough that you don't need to worryabout getting a second job? Follow up question, would you recommend me to go with CoG or Hosted games?

Okay, real talk here. 

Being a writer very, very, very rarely pays well. Except in the rarest of circumstances, you need a dayjob, an understanding spouse, or a rich background. There is a reason why so many writers are from the middle class and up. I’m from what would be considered upper working class background (nice unionized jobs), but being a writer was never even on my horizon growing up for that exact reason (also no contacts or role models).

With the advent of the internet it has become a lot easier to get published, but alas, the making enough money for car, mortage and a comfortable life hasn’t really become any easier.

That being said, writing can be a pretty lucrative side job, and of the things I’ve tried (books, comics, interactive fiction) the latter actually pays.

So the first thing one should do if you want to make a career of writing is trying to get a day job that gives you time to think and doesn’t destroy your creativity. For me that was going into machining, nicely paid, unionized, not much interaction and no way to bring the job home with me. But that’s me. It’s different for everyone. Some people can handle the freelancer lifestyle, I need the stability.

Writing interactive fiction (CoG, Hosted Games) has the advantage of having a built in customer base. Getting readers willing to pay for your work is always the hardest part, and no matter what you go with you will have access to the forums to build a buzz around your WIP and learn the ropes, and competent people to handle the infrastructure of actually selling things. For a first timer, the choice will often be to go with Hosted Games, and my experience is excellent. If you are a good seller, you will earn as much writing for Hosted Games as for CoG, but the pay will all be in the backend. No advances.

CoG wants people that are proven authors, and unless you have published things elsewhere (for example published a Hosted game), they are unlikely to be interested. For me, I love the freedom of Hosted Games, because I tend to take direction and oversight very badly.

As for how much it will pay, that is impossible to know. Some people sell a little, most people sell okay, some people sell a lot. The pay is all in american dollars, so right now I get paid a lot more than I would have five years  ago for the same sales numbers since the swedish crown is weak. So if you live in a country where one american dollar goes a long way you will automatically be better paid.

The most important thing to remember as a writer is that you are building up towards a goal. I published Fallen Hero 2 years ago, and it still ticks in a steady monthly check for me, some months more, some months less. When I put out Retribution, I will have two games ticking money. When I publish the third, I will have 3. That’s the trick. Patience and hard work. Every little thing adds up.

So my advice to you is this:

Don’t expect to live on your writing any time soon, but if you don’t start, you’ll never get to that point.

Write for Hosted Games.

Focus on getting a WIP demo up, and be really careful about reading people’s reactions. It wan be the most valuable learning experience, but you need to be aware that it can also be frustrating, disheartening and kill your enthusiasm if you’re not ready. Having people dig into your work always hurts, and having people wish for more/different content can easily lead to overreach and the story ballooning. Most WIPs never leaves that stage,

I hope yours will!

[hpowellsmith]

This is excellent useful commentary from @fallenhero-rebirth. My personal experience is very specific to me but I'll second the look for a day job comment. I spent 2 years freelancing (making CoG projects and others, doing teaching work here and there, etc) and it was very personally fulfilling BUT I didn't get a huge amount of money, I live in a country with free healthcare, and I wouldn't have had the freedom to do it without my wife's financial support and a lot of hard graft. I now have a day job and don't do as much work on my side writing projects but honestly the greater financial security is well worth it.

ALSO: unless you hit a big rare jackpot, it's unlikely that a first project will be super financially rewarding - if only because writers usually haven't built up a reputation yet. My second CoG game has sold VASTLY faster than my first, but in 2017 I didn't know that would happen and future royalties don't pay the bills (I had advances for that, which was fantastic but not as lucrative as a steady paycheck). It's a long term thing and it's best to treat it that way.

[fallen-hero]

Also, remembered this thread on the CoG forum.

And another.

And a third.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

This may not be comfortable to answer for you, but, does being a Choicescript writer pay well? I'm a teenager who is currently working on making a Choicescript game, and I was wondering if being a writer for CoG would help with that. I mean, is the pay good enough that you don't need to worryabout getting a second job? Follow up question, would you recommend me to go with CoG or Hosted games?

Okay, real talk here. 

Being a writer very, very, very rarely pays well. Except in the rarest of circumstances, you need a dayjob, an understanding spouse, or a rich background. There is a reason why so many writers are from the middle class and up. I’m from what would be considered upper working class background (nice unionized jobs), but being a writer was never even on my horizon growing up for that exact reason (also no contacts or role models).

With the advent of the internet it has become a lot easier to get published, but alas, the making enough money for car, mortage and a comfortable life hasn’t really become any easier.

That being said, writing can be a pretty lucrative side job, and of the things I’ve tried (books, comics, interactive fiction) the latter actually pays.

So the first thing one should do if you want to make a career of writing is trying to get a day job that gives you time to think and doesn’t destroy your creativity. For me that was going into machining, nicely paid, unionized, not much interaction and no way to bring the job home with me. But that’s me. It’s different for everyone. Some people can handle the freelancer lifestyle, I need the stability.

Writing interactive fiction (CoG, Hosted Games) has the advantage of having a built in customer base. Getting readers willing to pay for your work is always the hardest part, and no matter what you go with you will have access to the forums to build a buzz around your WIP and learn the ropes, and competent people to handle the infrastructure of actually selling things. For a first timer, the choice will often be to go with Hosted Games, and my experience is excellent. If you are a good seller, you will earn as much writing for Hosted Games as for CoG, but the pay will all be in the backend. No advances.

CoG wants people that are proven authors, and unless you have published things elsewhere (for example published a Hosted game), they are unlikely to be interested. For me, I love the freedom of Hosted Games, because I tend to take direction and oversight very badly.

As for how much it will pay, that is impossible to know. Some people sell a little, most people sell okay, some people sell a lot. The pay is all in american dollars, so right now I get paid a lot more than I would have five years  ago for the same sales numbers since the swedish crown is weak. So if you live in a country where one american dollar goes a long way you will automatically be better paid.

The most important thing to remember as a writer is that you are building up towards a goal. I published Fallen Hero 2 years ago, and it still ticks in a steady monthly check for me, some months more, some months less. When I put out Retribution, I will have two games ticking money. When I publish the third, I will have 3. That’s the trick. Patience and hard work. Every little thing adds up.

So my advice to you is this:

Don’t expect to live on your writing any time soon, but if you don’t start, you’ll never get to that point.

Write for Hosted Games.

Focus on getting a WIP demo up, and be really careful about reading people’s reactions. It wan be the most valuable learning experience, but you need to be aware that it can also be frustrating, disheartening and kill your enthusiasm if you’re not ready. Having people dig into your work always hurts, and having people wish for more/different content can easily lead to overreach and the story ballooning. Most WIPs never leaves that stage,

I hope yours will!

[fallen-hero]

Update

Well, still alive over here, still healthy, and it looks like most of the union negotiating is done until July unless something changes. Our hours got cut, which means more time for writing, but also more time to start second guessing everything I do.

Times like this is not the best for creativity, my mind has been busy trying to understand what is happening around us, and that is way too much for anybody to comprehend. So easy to get overwhelmed. So easy to get caught up in the waiting game. There is nothing I can do except be responsible and keep me and mine safe, but yet my mind keep telling me that I should somehow fix things.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that I am doing the drudgework on Retribution now, filling in the things I left the first time around. It’s things that needs doing, sure, but it doesn’t give my mind the rush I need by moving the story forward.  I knew this would happen, and yet I did it anyway.

I have learned so much writing this story. Rebirth was sleek and narrow, and I decided to go all out and add everything I wanted to Retribution. In hindsight, was it a smart choice?

I don’t know. The sales and reviews will have to show me that.

I have however learned a bit more about planning interactive fiction. It’s very different from planning a book, and in ways I could not have predicted when I did the initial writeup of the story path. Adding more love interests expanded and deepened the story in ways I had not imagined, and while they are the main reason the wordcount has ballooned, I hope it will add to the replay value.

I’m starting to dread the cleanup/editing/proofreading stage... so many words. So many bloody words.

But, whining aside, things continue apace, just need to get through this bloody scene that keeps growing. Having four villain paths was definitely biting off more things than I’d like to chew, hope you will appreciate it.

And, finally, if anybody have any writing related questions, feel free to send them. They’re good practice to get things going.

Stay safe out there!

[avi-why]

how to unstick that stuck scene:

- make sure you know how each character feels going into the scene, and how that progresses throughout

-understand what each character wants out of the scene

-understand why you are including this scene in the first place

-check the last scene and make sure it is resolved the way you want it

[fallen-hero]

How to plot your interactive fiction

Another thing from the CoG forums that I wanted to share.

---

For your first game vs book, you need to think about two things:

One, think short. It will end up longer than you think anyway.

Two, think of it like a pine, not an oak.

You can structure it much like a book, that is the trunk of the story. You need to have that there, and it need to be solid. It’s very easy to get lost in the narrative, especially at the start. One beginning, one end, one main character, all the important other characters.

It’s not that you need to have this written out in detail, but you need the trunk there, the broad strokes. I would say you need them even more than you do when you write a book, because you’re going to have to know where you’re going in order to control the choices. So nail that larger narrative first, be sure what you want to say!

Then, you can start adding the big choices. Since this is a first book, I recommend no big ones until you’re in the endgame. By big choices, I mean things that greatly change the narrative, and won’t cut back to the main trunk in the same chapter. Think of it like that pine splitting in two near the top.

The medium choices are the meat of the book. They will influence a lot of how things go, even if the scenes might be superficially similar. Quitting the police force to pursue the killer as a private detective still sticks to the main narrative, but changes many of the scenes and resources. These are things that you need to think about, because every medium choice the character makes will stack up. This is what makes a 300 000 word story turn into a 70 000 word read,. Think of them like options you want your character to be able to explore, be sparing with them, they are easier to add as you go than to remove.

The majority of your story will consists of little choices. Those I seldom plan in detail, they mostly appear when I write. Things like if you want to break into the building, or just knock on the door. Which characters you want to befriend, and which ones will hate you. How a dialog goes. Often they are born when I go “wouldn’t it be cool if” as I write, and as long as it doesn’t take things out of bounds, it’s fine.

Finally are the cosmetic choices, the ones that doesn’t need to have any effect other than letting the reader build their own person. Things like looks, name, gender and so on.

In my opinion, the first thing you should do is to decide what the story is that you want to tell, and then figure out how to set the boundaries within which the readers are allowed to deviate.

[fallen-hero]

Character types

Adapting this post from an answer on the CoG forum, because I wanted to share it here too. The discussion was about writing characters, and which kind we liked to write/read about the most.

---

So what are my favorite characters to write?

It’s less about type, and more about what I feel like exploring. Every major (and some minor) character I create has a single theme I want to explore with them. These can be very vague, like past regrets, or growing into your skin. I try to think of them as if they are the main characters of their own story, what would that be about?

Often I take classic/overused/bad tropes and start playing with them. A trope means that the reader already think they know what the character will be about. They will read their actions a certain way. It’s a bit like in fanfic, you use something the reader is familiar with, they will connect faster for good or bad.

Where it becomes interesting is when you take that trope and combine it with another, very different one and let it putter beneath the surface. People will catch hints of it now and again, and the two tropes will fuse and confuse until you have a character that feels more like their own person. This can be repeated as needed, until your character comes to life.

The reason why I am talking about tropes is that a lot of time they get a lot of bad flak, and people spend an enormous amount of time creating detailed characters from scratch down to what they like to eat for breakfast.

Tropes are tropes for a reason, start with them, and then let the details come naturally as the story progresses, just make sure to mix them up and add depth.

Oh, and skip the classic combinations like rogue with a heart of gold, while I love it, everyone has read about it before. How about a rogue who’s a shy nerd? Or a debt collector with a heart of gold?

There used to be a game when I was a kid, not sure what it was called, but it had cards with the head, the middle and the feet of various characters, and the goal was to combine them into their right form. Don’t do that, mix them up instead, have the baker’s head with the policeman’s middle and the farmer’s boots. That’s how interesting characters are made.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

having mortum just casually be trans (and esp a trans dude) means a lot to me; there's very little transmasc representation and mortum has honestly made me cry. thank u

I have a lot of thoughts about Mortum’s story, and the way I am choosing to reveal it, as you say, casually. I’m not really sure if I can find the right words though, so much of it is personal and with things like this they tend to be personal in a very unique way, that can also be hurtful to others who share similar thoughts. I’m glad it hit the right spot for you.

In short I think the easiest way to explain it is that I didn’t want the fact that Dr. Mortum was trans to form people’s opinions from the start, and for a lot of people that is a pretty big thing. Whether for good, or bad, it tends to make people jump to assumptions, and regardless of what some media seem to believe, it’s not really something you notice in real life. I wanted it to be something that you might start finding out by reading between the lines if you share similar enough thoughts and backgrounds that you’d spot the tells. If you didn’t, but grew close enough, it would come out, little by little, the way it sometimes does when you get to know someone. Some Sidesteps would go through the entire story and never know a thing, because quite frankly it’s none of their business.

The good doctor is a very private person, and so is Sidestep. It’s going to be interesting to see how they deal with their masks.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

I understand if you don’t answer but do you have any tips for world building in a story?

I do actually. But like with so many things about writing, everyone do things differently. However, this is what I have learned:

You don’t need half as much world building as you think you do, and if you like me, are a researcher, it can paralyze you.

You only need enough world to surround the story and make it internally cohesive, but on the other hand, the world can also make the story grow cooler and better so it’s a balance.

The most important thing will be cool names and concepts. That is what people will remember, not how they work. Calling magic users ‘smoke eaters’ is more important than the rules that govern their magic. The right words are important, it’s all in the name.

If the world stands in the way of your story, change the world or the story. Whichever is coolest. A lot of cool twists can come from trying to work around what you said five chapters previously.

If your story is not about politics, don’t bother with politics. If it takes place in a city, don’t bother with the ecology. Focus on the story.

Remember to show the world from the character’s point of view. A farmer from hicksville will describe the foreign relations of the USA different than a career diplomat.

The characters can be wrong, or biased about the world. If they are, try to work out how to show that they might not know what they are talking about, without saying it straight out.

In a familiar world, you need to add strange concepts. Like being a cab river for ghosts in NY city.

In a strange world, you need to add familiar routines. Weird dragon sorcerers handling public transport via teleport circles.

Your world will change as you write, it’s never finished.

Start the story even if you’re not sure about the world, it is perfectly fine for the world to be birthed around the story and then hammered into shape in future edits.

You don’t have to kill your darlings, just make them fit.

Stick to a cohesive naming scheme, that way you can introduce foreign concepts just by switching to another type of names. If you have Sven, son of Sven, and Jarl One-Eye, then introducing something called Issh'th'anthiar then that by definition is weird to the world of your characters as well as to the reader.

Above all, have fun. If you don’t have fun in your world, then you might need a new one. I’ve had stories that grew a lot better just by shifting words or characters. Move that dragon age rip off to the wild west. Maybe set that stale noir detective story under the sea. Have your buddy cop drama be about two demons in hell. Switch it up and have fun!

[fallenhero-rebirth]

A few questions; about how long did it take you to write Fallen Hero: Rebirth? Did you take a while in the planning stage? Did you give yourself a quota on how much to write a day and if so, did you focus on how much coding you did or how much story writing you did? How often did your base storyline change along the way?

This is a complicated answer, so let’s start with the simple things:

It took me almost three years to write Fallen Hero: Rebirth, but there’s three things to remember there. 

One, it was based on an unfinished book, so I had a lot of the idea and plotting (and some text I could salvage) to help me get started, I just needed to convert it to a choicescript story. 

Two, I had a break of almost a year in the middle because the company I worked at folded and I moved to a new town and bought a house that needed renovating and a lot of real life things.

Three: This was my first choicescript game so I had no idea what I was doing.

So, the planning stages. Yes, that had mostly been done around a decade earlier for the book, and at the start it stuck very close to the book storyline. It had a lot of time to mature, if I had written the book back then it would have been different and a lot worse.

Did the base storyline change? Not the base, but as is the nature of choicescriot stories, it escalated to leave room for other playthroughs than my own. The core is still the same, but there’s a lot more branches and viewpoints now. 

I give myself no quota. None. I have done in the past, used to do nanowrimo, and some long-running writing competitions (LJ Idol) where you needed to present a piece for voting each week. It was VERY useful back then to get into the swing of actually producing things rather than having them be perfect, but at this point productivity is so ingrained in my brain that I have the opposite problem. I don’t really function well if I’m not writing, I need it for my mental health.

That being said, writing is not my full time job. I’m a machinist (40h a week), and a local union rep, and at times real life is going to be so busy and tiring that I won’t be able to. It sucks.

As for coding and story, it depends. Sometimes when I’m tired I do coding just to get some basic branching down. Or I write the story without choices, just to get something to fill out later. More and more I write and code at the same time, as that’s how I think. It can get annoying though, if my brain gets stuck on choices and won’t let me move on. Then I tend to switch back to pure story writing.

[fallen-hero]

The end part two...

Of course the most important thing to remember after having read my last rant is this:

HOLY CRAP YOU ARE GETTING CLOSE ENOUGH TO THE ENDING TO START FREAKING OUT ABOUT IT!

Let’s never forget how incredible that is.

[nudityandnerdery]

[christinaroseandrews]

This guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s one of the lead writers for Leverage and if you ever watch the series on DVD, do yourself a favor and listen to him talk about how the scripts got written. Some of the advice he has is stuff I use all the time: 1. Don’t introduce an important plot person or thing after the first half of the story. 2. Always tie up loose ends. 3. Introduce important things in the middle of unimportant things. 4. If you have to infodump, find an emotion to tie it to and it will seem less like infodump and more like a motive rant. Seriously this guy knows how to write.

[fallen-hero]

Getting to the end

Well hello there, it’s me, your friend the procrastinating writer.

So guess what, you get a small rant while I try to figure out how to write the things I actually need to write today.

Today we are going to talk about endings.

No, not endings as in how you actually construct a story and make it end in a satisfactory way, there’s enough advice for that online and at least half of it is bullshit. No, what we are going to talk about is how getting to the end of a story can make you feel.

As always, these are just my own personal musings, but there’s not that many people out there talking about how working through a long project has an emotional toll, you know?

Mostly everyone know the thrill of starting something, that breathtaking romance with your own idea before it runs headlong into the gray slog of actually putting it on paper. 

A lot of people know about the tough middle, where it’s just grey slog and hard work, and where most projects get stranded and abandoned for various reasons. But say you get past that, say that the ending is in sight...

For me, that’s the hardest bit.

That’s when the doubts come...

To get through the slog, I always tell myself to edit later. Rewrite later. Fix things once the ending is done, but now that the ending is fast approaching? 

Shit. That’s terrifying.

It’s waking up at 4 am, moving from couch to bed and catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. Is that really the state of your story? All the ugly and disjointed bits, hazy and indistinct? How are you going to make that into a presentable whole once the alarm goes off in the morning?

It’s telling a funny story while drunk, not being able to tell if the crowd that surrounds you is listening in rapt attention or annoyed horror, and feeling your tongue start to falter.

It’s second guessing all of your ideas at once, because the payoffs need to be there, but are they? Are they really?

And above all, everything feels so boring and trite.

At this point, it’s a project you’ve lived with for months, probably years, and it’s lost all it’s luster. All the cool ideas you had when you started, now sounds dull and bland because you’ve turned them over and over in your hands until the shine wore off. It’s like glasses you’ve kept touching, grimy and dull but if you take them off you can’t see anything.

At this point, your ending sucks. So your book/game/comic/art sucks. You’re so tired you just don’t want to see it ever again. You just want it done so you can start that fresh romance with a new project.

You ever play a game/read a book that’s fine, and then in the last chapter everything happens so fast it’s over before you know what happened? It’s probably at least partly due to this. Approaching the end, the writer probably realized that they had two choices: Add more content/time/energy that they don’t have, or stick to the plan and just get to the end as originally plotted. 

At that point it is REALLY hard as a writer to know whether your lackluster feelings about the finale is because it truly is lackluster, or whether you’re just so tired of it that you can’t see the shine.

In a perfect world, they say that you should leave your manuscript alone for a few months before you  start editing for these reasons, but we’re living in the real world, and we all need money. There might just not be time to do that, there are deadlines. 

And so, all we can do is to try to work through these complicated feelings. Which is why I am writing this post. 

There’s a sense of grief that comes with wrapping up a story that I think we need to acknowledge. A fear that it won’t be enough. That you’ve made a mistake along the way that’s too hard to fix now. This is where a good editor comes in with fresh eyes to tell you what they think, but hey, we’re all broke and a professional editor is seldom an option.

All you have is yourself, and sometimes invested friends or fans.

It might not feel like it will be enough. But it will. You got this far so you will make it the rest of the way as well. Just be aware the things I’ve talked about above. It’s not just you. No need for imposer syndrome. This is all of us. It’s hard finishing things.

We’re all afraid of endings, that comes with being alive.

Do it anyway.

[fallen-hero]

The creative process and reality

I have been pondering whether to write about this, because it’s a stage everybody eventually comes to when creating something that’s not just for your own immediate fun and consumption.

I have been trying to figure out a way to explain how to deal with the fact that you want to make something that’s important to you; perfect and cool and everything you know it can be, and yet you also wants to finish it some day.

I have been trying, but today I came to the conclusion that there  is nothing I can say that haven’t been said already, in a bloody anime of all things.

Look. If you are a budding creator. If you do art. If you do animation. If you make games or write books. Then I would advice you to take the time to watch Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken.

It looks cutesy, and it is. It looks peppy, and it sure is.

But above all I think it is the best exploration of creativity, collaboration, and what goes into finishing a project that I have ever seen, visualized in ways that makes it easy to understand and empathize with. I was a bit on the fence on how hard they would take the theme of creativity, but with the latest episode I realized that it wasn’t a little side story, but the spine of the show.

Watching it, I cringed, I laughed, I swore silently to myself because I keep making the same mistakes, and then I need to try to fix things and get the show back on the road. Please, take the time to check it out. There will be no better guide in that most central issue when it comes to hobby vs going for it: How to translate having fun into a finished products, without sacrificing your vision, and figuring out what corners you can cut.

This is a show made by people who’s been there, a love letter, an instruction manual and a philosophical discussion in one.