A Thread for Writers to talk about Writing

[Sharkman Briton]

Yeah, that Polehanger was pretty good, I see a Jeb protest starting! Oh, and it would be really funny to do a kind of Tedus and Bob Sitcom interlude like that one person said.

[KSK]

OMG yes--and it can be a really exciting experience to tell a story "live" with reader comments coming in, for that reason. I can indeed be influenced by the comments, not so much for story direction but I will definitely pull focus where the readers seem to want to go.

KSK and others, can you be influenced by the comments in any way?

That's a tricky one. In general I try not to be, just to keep people guessing a bit longer. Ideally, I'm hoping for comments that are nearly but not quite anticipating where I'm going or, if they're way off-target, do follow logically from what I've described thus far. I take that as a good sign that I'm striking the right balance between foreshadowing stuff (so that the story remains consistent) but not revealing too much in the process (so that I can still drop in the odd surprise).

On the other hand, there's no sense in being pigheaded about it - if somebody guesses where the story is going then I won't go out of my way to change it 'just because'. And sometimes I do get some really good ideas from the comments, not necessarily ones that I can drop straight into the story but maybe a different angle on something that would be fun to explore in-story or simply improve it. For those cases, I'll normally post a quick acknowledgement as part of the story update.

Hopping back to Sharkman's question - something else you could try is cross-posting to another fanfic forum if you want to get a few more eyes on your work. I don't have any suggestions for graphic novels / comics I'm afraid, although I'm betting that they're out there somewhere. I cross-post to the Spacebattles forums - don't tend to pick up many comments but I have got a reasonably consistent following that's been picking up lately.

Edited September 9, 2015 by KSK

[Endersmens]

Question about my ongoing KSP Fan Fiction.

Should I start making illustrations? As in, drawings/renders of scenes in the story?

[MinimumSky5]

Completely up to you, some stories need them, some don't. Generally, AAR's include pictures, while other forms of writing don't from what I can tell.

[Ten Key]

Should I start making illustrations? As in, drawings/renders of scenes in the story?

One of the neat things about story telling is that each reader "sees" something a little different. The writer lays the groundwork, and the reader's imagination fills in the gaps. In this way, a single story can be enjoyed by a wide variety of people.

Illustrations kind of limit this. They often constrain the reader's imagination to no real benefit. I always found it jarring when I came upon a drawing in a book, and the character portrayed looked nothing like what I had imagined them to look like.

TL-DR -- Adding illustrations makes more work for you and takes something away from the reader. Probably not worth it.

[KSK]

Completely up to you. If you want to add illustrations I'd love to see them but in my opinion your writing doesn't need them. If a picture says a thousand words then the opposite is also true - there are things you can express in writing that I doubt you ever could in pictures. I know they've been flagged up before but take your lines here for example:

“Because I saw the launch yesterday, and I needed to learn more.†Jeb said.

“And I needed to find out how they work.†Bill said.

“And I wanted to see a launch, because it wasn’t fair that Jeb got to.†Val said.

“And they wouldn’t let me stay home.†Bob said under his breath.

I have no idea how you could illustrate that.

[Angelo Kerman]

The problem I kept running into before abandoning my writing efforts is how to develop the plot for my KSP missions. What to do to make them stand out... I got stuck with the KSOS Mission Chronicles, and had to keep STS short to try and keep some sort of plot to a workable level. Trying to do something like Duna, Ore Bust, Eve: Order Zero or Project Kappa is beyond me. How do you guys do it?

Side note: Kuzzter's KSMC idea is really intriguing, so much so I started writing a character for it, heh. But once again, I got stuck with what the character would do in the game...

[KSK]

The problem I kept running into before abandoning my writing efforts is how to develop the plot for my KSP missions. What to do to make them stand out... I got stuck with the KSOS Mission Chronicles, and had to keep STS short to try and keep some sort of plot to a workable level. Trying to do something like Duna, Ore Bust, Eve: Order Zero or Project Kappa is beyond me. How do you guys do it?

Side note: Kuzzter's KSMC idea is really intriguing, so much so I started writing a character for it, heh. But once again, I got stuck with what the character would do in the game...

I'm sure there are other ways of doing it but I found that asking myself 'why?' was a good way of working things out. Starting out with the basic question 'why are the kerbals going to space?' and eventually drilling down to quite specific points about why their world works the way it does.

My original answer for that first question was a bit vague: 'because it's there'. I wanted to write a story that took the 'parts found lying by the side of the road' meme seriously and tried to give a vaguely plausible backstory for the Kerbal Space Program that really did begin in Jeb's junkyard, and for no better reason than the fact that the founder members were all obsessed with space.

There were a couple of problems with that. Firstly, after a certain point, the story ran the risk of just becoming a list of rocket launches - and there's only so many ways I figured I could write about a rocket launch! Secondly, taking Jeb and Co. beyond LKO was going to stretch my junkyard space program idea beyond any plausibility it might have had.

So I needed another answer. The one I came up with wasn't particularly original - basically a Malthusian (overpopulation) crisis. However, that answer threw up another question - why is that crisis so bad that the kerbals need space travel to help solve it? The answers to that question turned out to be a bit more interesting, and threw up their own set of questions which helped to fill out the basic plot. That was helped by another unconnected question 'why are all kerbals called Kerman?' - and the answer to that question turned out to be the real kicker!

After that, the story was driven by a combination of reluctance to pull plot twists out of thin air for no apparent reason and good old fashioned making things up as I went along. The first part was helpful in turning a basic plot into a series of chapters - 'OK, I want to write about X but for X to happen I need to show A, B and C first and at least hint (however vaguely) at D and E.' The second part kept things interesting - if the story veered away from my plan or went down a side alley that meant the plan had to be revised - well that was fine. A plan is good, sticking too rigidly to it is bad.

But that's just my take. Other folks on this thread will probably tell you something completely different.

Edit: Most importantly, this summary is a bit like a scientific paper, in that it presents a thought process in a series of logical steps. Just like real science, things weren't anywhere near as neat and premeditated in real life!

Edited September 11, 2015 by KSK

[Mister Dilsby]

How do you guys do it?

Oh boy, that's a question isn't it? My answer is going to be a little similar to KSK's, in that the process will appear linear but in fact it isn't. The brain makes connections faster than lines can be drawn from point to point.

Good stories are the ones where the writer has something to say. This is not a sufficient condition, of course--maybe what the writer has to say is stupid, or he doesn't have the skills to say it well. I did set out to say a few things in D:OB. I had been playing KSP for some time and developed the Kerbfleet mythos in my own mind--I had the flag and some of the basic 'feel' of KF as an organization. When I started writing I just wanted to use that framework to make my Duna mission report more interesting and yes OK maybe get some rep for it. At that point no one else was doing comics so just doing the report in that format was a pretty good 'hook'. Besides that, I had the KF framework and culture which I think resonated with readers because it worked as a holistic explanation for what everyone sees in-game.

Then I came to the first interlude and found I had something more to say. That's when D:OB started to get some THEMES. I found I had something to say about the responsibilities of command, about friendship and loyalty, and about overcoming fear. In the end, that's what made D:OB really engaging to write and I hope also to read.

I started Eve: Order Zero with about a hundred pages of D:OB under my belt, and so I began right away by continuing and expanding on some of those themes. The major one, of course, centers around the friendship between Bill and Bob and the loyalty the characters have for each other. Can't say much more about that though, with the story still in progress

So--if you want to tell a story, figure out what you want to say. It could be something pretty straightforward--KSK's question of "why are the kerbals going to space?" is a good one. Parkaboy's Project Kappa gives a unique answer to that question, with spectacular results. Endersmen's Before They Were Orange answers the question, "What did the Kerbals do before Year 0, Day 1?" And then of course you can add as many layers of literary and philosophical theming as you and your readers can handle

[0111narwhalz]

Do you guys have any thoughts about a far-future story? You'd have to ask different questions than "Why are they going to space?" right? I'd love some feedback as to the readability and general quality of Kerbal Future. None of my friends can read it without making comments about fan fiction as a whole. Very few people I know are scifi fans.

[Angelo Kerman]

Interesting. Thanks for the advice! I think my problem right now is that I don't have much to say when it comes to stories. I can describe how things work pretty well (helps to be a software engineer by trade), I can create history and backstory, but figuring out the why, the motivations, the direction- that's a tough one for me. I think the closest I got so far was with STS, where Bill, Bob, and Jeb were building a ship in orbit and were recalled to KSC to test the new Shuttle, with a backstory of saving an aging space station. It was done as part of the Space Shuttle Challenge by Inigma. I was constrained by showing missions in the challenge, so it got drawn out. Now that I think of it, I guess one of the themes was "just because it's old doesn't mean it should be thrown away." I'll have to think on that for future stories.

BTW, the graphic novel format Kuzzter pioneered is a fabulous idea!

[KSK]

Do you guys have any thoughts about a far-future story? You'd have to ask different questions than "Why are they going to space?" right? I'd love some feedback as to the readability and general quality of Kerbal Future. None of my friends can read it without making comments about fan fiction as a whole. Very few people I know are scifi fans.

Myself, I find it a bit harder to connect with very far-future kerbals, simply because it's a bit removed from how I play KSP. On the other hand that can be a definite plus - you're free to break with any and all memes from the game and just go your own way. I also loved Deadweasel's Kerbal Khronicles and they were pretty futuristic. JakeGrey's The Next Frontier was kind of futuristic too, with a very kerbal twist to the bits of higher technology such as warp drive!

So yeah, far future is cool. You're right though, if you're starting off by assuming spacefaring kerbals you need to find another question to ask, something else to build the story around.

About Kerbal Future - great start that sparked lots of questions in my mind and definitely left me wanting to find out more. I like the multithreaded approach and the opening chapter - wow that was a different take on the kerbals! The glass mining in the next chapter was a piece of wonderfully inspired grimness too. In general, the story is pretty easy to read but the text could do with more spacing between paragraphs and particularly between lines of conversation, to make it a little easier on the eyes. I have a couple of thoughts on general style too if you want them but those are just minor details based on one-guy-on-the-internet's opinion.

[Angelo Kerman]

I think I get what you're saying about character development. Here's a writing exercise I came up with, set on the very first manned flight.

“I’m scared, Bill.â€Â

“You? THE Jebediah Kerman, scared?â€Â

“Yeah, I’m scared. Just don’t tell anybody ok?â€Â

“I’ll erase the flight tapes later, buddy.â€Â

“…Oh yeah, right.â€Â

“What’s bothering you, Jeb?â€Â

“You know, the old legends. Up in the heavens, ‘here there be Kraken’ the old scripture says.â€Â

“There’s no such thing as Krakens, Jeb. Just bad luck. “

“But what if they’re real?â€Â

“They aren’t, trust me, and you won’t have bad luck today, either.â€Â

“Right. Yeah.â€Â

“You want to abort the flight?â€Â

“Krak no, CAPCOM! I’m scared but you know what they say, there’s no courage without fear. *sigh* Let’s light this candle!â€Â

“Right! Alright then! Resuming countdown, T-minus two minutes.â€Â

Oh, and thanks again for the advice to asky why the kerbals are going to space. That's opened up a bunch of ideas.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Angel-125

[SaturnianBlue]

Have not forgotten you Blue--I loved the new artwork and mustache/no mustache Wernher! I'd continue to work on panel and speech balloon layout--make the reader's eye flow easily across the page. Parkaboy is a better graphic designer than I am so look to his stuff for examples of good technique. As for storyline, you've given us a reason to worry about your kerbals and the plot is developing. I think the portal stuff is still a bit confusing--for me, it's lot of words back and forth and I'm still not sure what the portals mean and how much I should be thinking about them in relation to other things like the inbound asteroids. Part of this could be because the characters are confused, themselves; if so, you just have to make it clear that the reader hasn't missed anything. Similar to my comments to Sharkman, everything you write must be easily digestible by the reader. We're not writing Finnegan's Wake here--if anything needs to be designed for a short attention span, it's a webcomic I think a good pair of questions for a writer to always ask are, (1) what single really important thing am I trying to convey to the reader, and (2) how many of these words can I take out and still get that point across?

So I've tried to make dialogue and plot a bit simpler in my Interlude end, but is there any tips like say, how frequent I should post these and such? It's sort of dull to do these without much feedback. How many pages should be per entry? Also, I've been trying to do a career mode graphic novel for a while more or less somewhat in parallel with real life, how could I make it interesting? (Of course, I'm going to draw more of its scenes, add more plot, as this covers a whole space program.)

Edited September 12, 2015 by SaturnianBlue

[Mister Dilsby]

So I've tried to make dialogue and plot a bit simpler in my Interlude end, but is there any tips like say, how frequent I should post these and such? It's sort of dull to do these without much feedback. How many pages should be per entry? Also, I've been trying to do a career mode graphic novel for a while more or less somewhat in parallel with real life, how could I make it interesting? (Of course, I'm going to draw more of its scenes, add more plot, as this covers a whole space program.)

I think I may have done you a disservice with my last feedback. Being brief is good, but really what I should have said is that you should strive to be efficient--get over as much of the story as possible without any extraneous words. Take those last two panels of your interlude: What actually happened in them? We got two shots of the ship approaching the rock. There was some dialogue around the scene, but not much of it had to do with the actual story you are telling--the difficulty of approach, what the characters are doing to make it work, what is NOT working and what they are doing about it, and any interpersonal stuff you want to put in to build the characters. I have to say, I found myself echoing your characters: get on with it!

When I get comments on my stuff, it's typically not about how nice the art was or what a great line someone just said. It's about the really huge thing that just happened. I try to make at least something interesting happen on every page, if not every panel, and I try to make the little somethings add up to very big somethings with some frequency--generally timed for ends of chapters. When I'm really on track, all the big and little somthings connect to theme and character. When I manage to get that right, the art and the zingers and the tropes just add to the fun. None of those things would stand on their own without Big Happenings.

- - - Updated - - -

I think I get what you're saying about character development. Here's a writing exercise I came up with, set on the very first manned flight.

You're using a good technique there: vulnerability. This is as tough to do as it is important for a badS like Jeb. If he succeeds at everything and fears nothing, he's not very interesting. I struggled with Jeb myself and I don't think I've been as successful going deep with him as I have with Val, Bob and Bill. In the end I kept him mostly as "TZ Spacebar whooo! comic relief", though he will occasionally break his "idiot savant" motif and do or say something unexpectedly profound.

Making him scared, but really good at hiding it, is a take I haven't seen before--I really like it, good exercise! Makes me think about the archetype of the Achillean hero, and whether such a person can or should in fact exist.

[Angelo Kerman]

I think I may have done you a disservice with my last feedback. Being brief is good, but really what I should have said is that you should strive to be efficient--get over as much of the story as possible without any extraneous words. Take those last two panels of your interlude: What actually happened in them? We got two shots of the ship approaching the rock. There was some dialogue around the scene, but not much of it had to do with the actual story you are telling--the difficulty of approach, what the characters are doing to make it work, what is NOT working and what they are doing about it, and any interpersonal stuff you want to put in to build the characters. I have to say, I found myself echoing your characters: get on with it!

When I get comments on my stuff, it's typically not about how nice the art was or what a great line someone just said. It's about the really huge thing that just happened. I try to make at least something interesting happen on every page, if not every panel, and I try to make the little somethings add up to very big somethings with some frequency--generally timed for ends of chapters. When I'm really on track, all the big and little somthings connect to theme and character. When I manage to get that right, the art and the zingers and the tropes just add to the fun. None of those things would stand on their own without Big Happenings.

- - - Updated - - -

You're using a good technique there: vulnerability. This is as tough to do as it is important for a badS like Jeb. If he succeeds at everything and fears nothing, he's not very interesting. I struggled with Jeb myself and I don't think I've been as successful going deep with him as I have with Val, Bob and Bill. In the end I kept him mostly as "TZ Spacebar whooo! comic relief", though he will occasionally break his "idiot savant" motif and do or say something unexpectedly profound.

Making him scared, but really good at hiding it, is a take I haven't seen before--I really like it, good exercise! Makes me think about the archetype of the Achillean hero, and whether such a person can or should in fact exist.

Thanks! I took the idea and am running with it. I took the night off from modding to create an outline of a story. Of course I need to finish my mods before making the story, but hey, that gives me time to work things out.

[Deddly]

I would by no means consider myself a seasoned or particularly skilled writer, but I think there are a few general points that haven't been made yet.

One of these is the challenge of emergent storytelling - I'm not sure how far you all go with this, but I'm sure the best stories out there are the ones that have a fair measure of forward planning and mental storyboarding. Take Parkaboy's Plan Kappa, for example; he obviously has put some thought into the back story and the sudden appearance of the future characters. In Eve Order Zero, Kuzzter planned all along for the wonderfully-named Atmosferkdipperkraft (excuse the spelling) to crash-land on Eve. The entire series is named after the "General Order Zero" that Bill just invented. None of this is a bad thing. Indeed, it makes for a well-thought-out story and an entertaining read. The challenge comes in that most of us then write as we go along, with some decisions and mistakes along the way. But what's written is written, and there is no going back. In my case, Ascent and I (who are two different people, if you hadn't caught on yet) have a strict rule of no reverts, no respawns. This makes for a very entertaining game because there is a real element of risk, but also a genuine feeling of fear, because mistakes have real consequences. When Valentina died, I was genuinely upset, which of course has to be reflected in the story somehow. But then comes the real challenge: emergent storytelling inherently means you don't know what's coming next. We can spend time building characters, but what if they suddenly die in a stupid accident?

[0111narwhalz]

KSK, if you want to PM me some of those specific thoughts, that would be lovely. Considering that this particular "one-guy-on-the-internet" is the author of a highly successful work, I'd value your advice as much as that of an expert in any other field I'm a novice in. I'll be applying the line spaces this afternoon; the device I'm working on at the moment is not very competent as far as text editing is concerned.

To the rest of the thread-readers, where would you suggest I put a fairly expansive set of worldbuilding notes? Things about tech, diplomacy, characters, and so on.

[Parkaboy]

I've been toying with the graphic novel format for a few weeks now, and I think I'm getting the hang of it, so let me share a few thoughts. Please note I'm not pretending to be an authority on the subject - I just want to pass what I've learned from attempt and from years of reading.

First: don't fret too much if your stories aren't getting enough readers. Even if nobody reads, your story still serves as a good practice. I did a few attempts at mission reports before, and nearly nobody read or cared about them. But I learned from those experiences, and I think I found now a format that fits me. Doing prose is a bigger effort to me, since english isn't my first language, and so it turns out that I have a lot more fun creating comics than doing old-fashioned mission reports. To each his own, so don't try to emulate what you think is more "popular", just experiment and find out what gives you pleasure to do.

Second: if you want to be an author, then don't just read other stories as a reader. Read them as an author. Try to figure out what makes the storyes you like work, and try to apply that to your own stories. But don't copy a plot, try to understant what makes a story special, try to imagine the steps its author took to arrive at the concept, the characters, the plot, and try to replicate those steps. For instance, the stories that I most enjoyed about KSP were stuff like Scott Manley's Reusable Space Program, Brotoro's Long-term Laythe Exploration and Kuzzter's graphic novels. All of those were mission reports, but not just reports of a generic career playthrough - each had a concept that guided gameplay, something simple to understand and interesting to follow. I tried to apply the same logic to Plan Kappa - do a mission report that people would be interested not only if it was well narrated, but would be curious to see, as players, how I played out a career with those self-imposed rules and objectives.

Third: about emergent storytelling, Deddly said it well. It's important to have an endgoal and some checkpoints that you plan to go through, but if you're doing a mission report, try to leave some margin for what the game brings. Don't set goals that are too strict, but looser ones, that can be reached by multiple paths. Plan Kappa has a lot of stuff that arises from me trying to fit what happens in the game with the backstory I had in my mind from the beginning. I think that's very interesting, because even I don't know where exactly the story will take me.

[Deddly]

Case in point--I expected a few pages of "What? Fired? Booo! Hiss! Down with Mort!" after the last E:O0 update but all I'm getting is "Yeah he would totally survive that fall, big deal".

ETA:

I knew I could count on you Deddly!

Just for the record, that was a complete coincidence - I hadn't actually seen this thread at that point

[Mister Dilsby]

Second: if you want to be an author, then don't just read other stories as a reader. Read them as an author. Try to figure out what makes the storyes you like work, and try to apply that to your own stories. But don't copy a plot, try to understant what makes a story special, try to imagine the steps its author took to arrive at the concept, the characters, the plot, and try to replicate those steps.

The whole post was really great but I wanted to amplify this part especially. Learning a storytelling technique on your own by observing someone else's work is much more effective than having it explained to you. I do this with the graphic design all the time when I look at Parkaboy's stuff and ask myself WHY is it so much better than mine Sometimes I do see something that I can apply to my own work. Writing in a community like this, and really paying attention to the other works, is invaluable.

[Ten Key]

Anyone here know how to get people to actually read my stuff?

I wouldn't let it bother you. Dance like no one can see you, sing like no one can hear you and write like no one is ever going to read it.

KSK and others, can you be influenced by the comments in any way?

From the standpoint of typos, corrections and plot holes, yes. From the standpoint of direction or focus, no. Much of the time, even I don't know exactly where I'm going.

Do you guys have any thoughts about a far-future story? You'd have to ask different questions than "Why are they going to space?" right?

I'm not a fan of the far future stuff, to be honest. It steps too far away from the basic premise of the setting for my liking. The same goes for stories that revolve around war. That said, you do still have to answer the "Why are they going to space?" question.

I think my problem right now is that I don't have much to say when it comes to stories. I can describe how things work pretty well (helps to be a software engineer by trade), I can create history and backstory, but figuring out the why, the motivations, the direction- that's a tough one for me.

I literally have conversations with myself sometimes. I have pages of notes that start with a single question, sometimes as simple as "Does this make sense?". Then I write down the first two or three things that pop into my head, and proceed from there. "Brainstorming" is a good word for it, though it's more like throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks. But it does work. If nothing else, it helps me see exactly where the problem is, even if it doesn't immediately show me how to fix it.

Farlight began as a play through, not a story, and I ran into something very interesting during the initial brainstorming sessions. Kennedy Space Center is just up the road from my home town, and I grew up inundated with all things NASA. Apollo, the Space Race, the astronaut corps, etc. The only way for me to really describe it is to say that all of that starts to color the way you look at space flight. And when I was planning my story, when I started thinking about moving beyond the Mun, I came to the realization that the basic narrative of space flight I had in my head was wholly incompatible with the needs and realities of interplanetary travel. I suspect KSK has run into this himself, in one way or another. But it was jarring, and it took me a while to find a way to deal with it.

As far as having something to say goes, I think theme is something you find, not something you plan. Don't worry about it too much-- it will come out on its own.

But then comes the real challenge: emergent storytelling inherently means you don't know what's coming next. We can spend time building characters, but what if they suddenly die in a stupid accident?

I play ahead-- my save game is well ahead of my writing, for this very reason. (And not at all because sometimes I'd rather fly rockets than write! )

But to some degree, all writing is emergent writing. If you stick rigidly to an outline, you close yourself off to all the unanticipated plot twists you didn't think of until you actually started writing. This can be tough when you're releasing a story in chunks instead of holding it all until the end, but it can still be done. Sometimes it pays off to be a little vague and not nail down every little detail.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I wouldn't let it bother you. Dance like no one can see you, sing like no one can hear you and write like no one is ever going to read it.

[...]

I write a blog, and the sad truth is that hardly anyone reads it. I may gain more readers, but right now, I'm only getting a few hits a day. It's still fun though!

[SaturnianBlue]

I think I may have done you a disservice with my last feedback. Being brief is good, but really what I should have said is that you should strive to be efficient--get over as much of the story as possible without any extraneous words. Take those last two panels of your interlude: What actually happened in them? We got two shots of the ship approaching the rock. There was some dialogue around the scene, but not much of it had to do with the actual story you are telling--the difficulty of approach, what the characters are doing to make it work, what is NOT working and what they are doing about it, and any interpersonal stuff you want to put in to build the characters. I have to say, I found myself echoing your characters: get on with it!

When I get comments on my stuff, it's typically not about how nice the art was or what a great line someone just said. It's about the really huge thing that just happened. I try to make at least something interesting happen on every page, if not every panel, and I try to make the little somethings add up to very big somethings with some frequency--generally timed for ends of chapters. When I'm really on track, all the big and little somthings connect to theme and character. When I manage to get that right, the art and the zingers and the tropes just add to the fun. None of those things would stand on their own without Big Happenings.

Alright! I've been trying to work towards this in the past few entries, what do you think?

[Mister Dilsby]

Alright! I've been trying to work towards this in the past few entries, what do you think?

Yes, definitely. I think things are going to heat up even more as they actually maneuver the asteroid. We should see pretty clearly why this is hard, what's at stake, and what heroics your characters will perform to save the world!