Hey Chickadee! *hugs* Stacy I'd like to ask your opinion, on sims stories. Well writing the story with the sims as a medium. I have this floating around in my head for a looong time, I just didn't know how to approach it. Still not sure. How did you tie in Valley's simpics with the writing? Do your simmies basically set their story up for you? Or are you their puppet master?
I hope you don't mind me answering this in public. I like to talk about my writing process, lol! :)
I know that the way I do it wouldn't work for everyone. Some people need more structure and planning and all that sort of thing.
In general, I set up an action for the Sims, like a conversation or walking somewhere or making waffles or whatever, and then I hit play on the slowest speed and I constantly take pics. Then I go through the pictures, find the good ones, edit them, upload them, put them in the draft, and write the caption.
Sometimes the game gives me wonderful things. Like this whole Marigold thing at the moment in Moonfall? Sarah rolled the wish to have her fortune told while I was shooting the pics for Bluebeard. And really much of Valley came from Seth setting the kitchen stove on fire and then rolling the wish to see Sarah's fiery ghost when I first played them. Then when I set up the fire and got it started, Bella and Mortimer and Michael autonomously came to watch. So I took pics of that, and I worked Bella into the story.
Basically - I have a general half-formed idea. I go into the game and start shooting pics to go with that idea, and then random things happen and I take advantage of them and roll them into the story. If you've seen Pacific Rim - I drift with my game, lol. ;)