Right. First up, the basics of Story Construction.
This section, while aimed at a general Sims 2 audience, is also applicable to any other writing endeavour, for example, a novel. Basically, I've taken what I've been taught by my betters over the years and amalgamated it into these basics. There are many books on writing that will take you further. Try, for example, Stephen King's On Writing or the wonderful Ian Irvine's site. The man is a genius, people, and one of the most generous and enthusiastic writers I know.
Anyone who is familiar with the Sims 2 media would know that Sim stories can depend very heavily on the pictures you take, and on the exchange you can be hamstrung by the set character limit within the game's story interface. Yet, if you are writing stories off the exchange, where you can be more wordy, then you'll be wanting to have a very close look at your prose.
So. Step One. Once you've finished reading this paragraph, stop reading this article. Go and write your story, with or without a plan in mind: that's up to you. Don't worry about editing, or voice, or viewpoint, or how good or bad it is, or whether you've put the full stops in the right place. Don't censor yourself. The moment you do, you'll turn off the creative right brain (the side we spew story with and that gets us into trouble sometimes) and engage the logical brain (the side we edit with and also, btw, the side that tells us, if we let it, how "so very badly" we write).
Off you go now. I'll wait.
You're back? Cool. I look forward to seeing what you've written. But not yet, eh. Now is the time we take out our left brain, improve our craft and edit.
Editing is important. This section of the article, for example, was rewritten once, edited twice, and line-edited at least eleven times before I posted it. And again when I added the hypertext markup language. And again, when I posted it. And again, a few months later. And I probably still missed something.
Don't skip editing.
Read on.
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Next - Author Voice and Style.
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