Devlog - 10/15/2021: Writing process

General Summary

So a while ago Deepglug maker of Euryale's Gambit asked other creators how they approach writing and render, to which I reply with the following but part of me what to give even more details of my development process.
When I start writing I'm using some kind of combination of World Anvil (what was the url to that site again), Campfire, google Doc(just google it) and twine

World anvil is a tool to help with worldbuilding and managing your campaigns for tabletop which allows it to double as wiki.
Campfire is another writing tool that I use that is more character focus, as such and I use it when I'm trying to get details about the character sync. it also helps that they have a version that is available offline
Google doc is self-explanatory
Twine is the last piece of the puzzle that helps me organize everything when branching choices come into play.
As I mention in the tweet depending on my mood I either write a short story or just dump everything into twine using comments to describe the scene if needed. I do this while constantly paging through world anvil and campfire to make sure I am hitting points that are important or taking full advantage of the world I have created so far.
While writing I present my story in three different ways.

• The first is the story of the medium, the whole reason why you are consuming it. You know the cliche story that has been told thousands of times before in one way or another but you come for how it can be told differently
• The second story of the character. This is what makes the story media different and interesting. It one thing to retell the story of "Alice in Wonderland". it another to retell it with Superman as Alice, dress and all.
• The third and last is the story of the world. Whether you acknowledge, the world is a character in the scene in itself especially if the character interacts with it regularly. Such as a home base or mode of transport. the best example I can think of this is "Lucky 13" from "Love, Death & Robots" with Tardis from Doctor Who as a close second.

This is how I approach each scene, especially those that have set I plan on or want to reuse for later.

When I first sit down to write my goal with the first draft is the get everything down on paper, once I get enough on paper to be a full chapter. I start work on hammering out any detail to try to make things cleaner. by both keeping the reader/player interest and keeping the story moving.
From here everything goes into twine. Providing I didn't write in that format first place it here I break everything into their respective branch and choices. This is the first place when I start fighting with myself as I either cut scenes or add scenes. Once I feel that there are enough satisfying options that are more than just a fade to black I bring it into ren'py where I start breaking things down to fit the format, it is here I do my next passes without any images to make sure the dialogue sounds correct and that I could possibly form an image of what's going from the dialogue given with maybe a descriptive dialogue here there. Once that is done I start making my key renders.
Key renders are usually the first image the player will see for the scene, as such they are used to set the mood. Depending on how complex the scene is I might limit it to what is in a scene to things that are important to the action or subject of the scene. Thinking of it as staging before the principal photography.
Once all of them are made I bring them into the Renpy and start doing my final edits of the scripts. rewriting scenes to better fit the images used or doing new renders, and even cutting scenes because I couldn't make the image match with the dialogue, Sometimes this even requires me to rewrite entire scenes. Once all that is done I render the rest of the project and fit them into their proper places.
Once everything is said and done I send the finalized script off to my proofreader as I do my own final check with the render to make sure everything flows correctly within the images. once that is all said and done it is released to the wild.

Report Date

15 Oct 2021