Writer looking for writing advice.

Justin S · 2013-06-09T03:33:27

Long before I wanted to be a game designer, I wanted to be a writer. And, in fact, was a writer. I wrote a number of short stories, and got mostly positive feedback for them. I know my strength as a writer lies in my characters and settings, and I imagine that once I make the transition to visual media, namely video games, this will remain the same. I've always written deep, convincing characters who were developed enough (even in stories as short as a couple pages) that the reader could understand their actions and begin to see how they worked. My settings, similarly, have always been detailed and have held my readers' interest quite well. The only universal comments from my readers have been "I'd like to know more about this setting," "I want to see this setting" and "are you going to do more in this setting?" And settings are the fun part for me. That's most of the reason I wanted to do game design, in particular, as making my settings interactive is the best way for me to let people explore them, and all the people I've had read more than one story said I should do some form of visual media because my settings would be interesting to see. But that's where my strengths end. I'm decent enough at writing stories, it's not my strongest suit but I am still competent. The rest falls flat. My sense of humour is strange and grim to the point of turning a few softer readers off and prompting comments on me being "sick." When I write a story with a moral message (I used to do this a lot) it's either too heavy handed and turns the reader off the discussion I'm trying to turn them on to or it's too subtle and is missed entirely. My social, political, cultural and legal commentary falls under this as well. Often, rather than writing to make a statement I write to raise a question, but this brings a new issue as the question I am trying to raise tends to sail over my reader's head. While a lot of this should get easier in a visual media, I'm not entirely sure and I KNOW I need to work on these things. Well, not the humour part. My sense of humour is not going to change. So I'd like to ask writers that are strong in these areas for advice, especially when it comes to writing in games. In particular, on delivering moral messages as well as social, political and legal commentary with the right level of subtlety and making complex philosophical points comprehensible to those who are not as erudite as I am. I'd like to be able to lead them to a question, usually about a viewpoint that is commonly held and I disagree with, and give it to them in a context that will provide them a counterbalance for their likely bias and hopefully get them to think about it rather than immediately throwing it away. I can't let them know what I'm doing or they'll stick their head in the sand but I can't let them miss the question entirely or it might as well not have been brought up in the first place. I've never been able to get the balance right, and if any of you have I would like to hear from you on the matter.

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by JLW June 04, 2013 12:39 PM

34 comments, last by Tom Sloper 10 years, 10 months ago

Stormynature

5,198

June 08, 2013 01:09 PM

In the writing forum -- just make sure you keep the thread you create focussed on the aspects of writing rather than let it get derailed as this thread was. Which means don't open up subject areas outside of the scope of what you are seeking when you reply and ask others who divert your thread away from it's purpose to not take it offtrack.

BladeOfWraith

245

June 08, 2013 04:24 PM

That's because Islam blames rape victims for being raped, rather than their rapists, and those areas follow Sharia law. Those people may not be wearing uniforms, but they are enforcing the local law.

At times. And at times not. Honor killings are nowhere in Islamic law anyway. It's entirely vigilantism and that's because they don't particularly have a legal system to deal with issues, so they handle things outside of the law. There is not even a cultural standard on a lot of this. It pretty much boils down to what each member of each family/tribe decides to do about it.

And once again, this isn't a lack of law. This is just evil laws written by evil people for evil ends.

I don't think you are using a dictionary definition of law. A law is a formal rule that is enforced by some type of authority, be it a police force, an army, your tribal leaders, etc. A corporation paying you less than you need to survive and working you for ninety hours a week is not in any way shape or form a law.

Except that you can't. There's never been and never will be a society without law. It's an inevitable consequence of forming society. Your issue is that you don't know the local law and assume there isn't any.

I am speaking to specific areas without law. IE there is no law against picking wild blueberries in my state, but in Indiana, there is. Therefore Georgia has no law regarding picking wild blueberries.

Many countries in the third world do not have labor laws. That means they have no formal rule that says you or cannot do anything. There is simply no law whatsoever. There are not "bad" laws that say you must treat employees badly. There are no "good" laws that prohibit what you can do. You are free to pay them well, or chain them to the floor and refuse to feed them for two days. There is simply no law at all.

those areas follow Sharia law. Those people may not be wearing uniforms, but they are enforcing the local law.

In those areas, "Sharia law" is not a particular thing. It is not enforced by a central body with consistent views on the matter. Every individual makes up their mind what is within or outside the bounds of "Sharia". It is absolutely a system of vigilantism.

This is totally different than something like Saudi Arabia which has formal definitions of Sharia and have uniform rules regarding it and designated authority figures tasked with enforcing these laws.

"You can't say no to waffles" - Toxic Hippo

FLeBlanc

3,142

June 08, 2013 04:49 PM

Wow, this thread went into a weird place.

JLW

303

Author

June 08, 2013 11:27 PM

Wow, this thread went into a weird place.

You are preaching to the choir.

There's two of us on this account. Jeremy contributes on design posts, Justin does everything else, including replying on those threads. Jeremy is not a people person, so it's Justin you'll be talking to at any given time.

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