A guide for would be Fan-Fiction Authors

[Erax]

Hello, welcome to the forum.

I haven't seen this topic before. It's been mentioned before, but never in a dedicated thread.

Before my own 'war for the stars' story, I had never written any fiction. I had written a few articles for local game magazines and translated some game-related material. About the closest I had come to fiction was a few introductory paragraphs for homemade game scenarios.

Then I read Sachmo's "Rise of the Remorhaz Society". It gave new depth to the game. This was a typical standard SEIV game, but with real, living characters to which you became gradually attached. And you knew that this wasn't a television series or movie in which the main characters never die. On the contrary, they may die suddenly and unexpectedly the next time the author clicks on the 'next turn' button. This was something I could get into.

But I didn't start writing right away. This idea took shape over several months, until one day I woke up and said to myself, "I can do it. I can write a Space Empires story."

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by clark:
[QB]I haven't seen this topic approached in any other thread, and if it has, I apoligize for wasting bandwidth.

Fear not! If a thread like the Name-changing thread can exist here, you can rest assured that you're not going to be looked down upon for bandwidth usage
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=23;t=006550

[clark]

I have enjoyed, and been impressed by both your thread Erax, as well as the Sachmo's work. You both are doing an excellent job.

I myself am contemplating doign something similar, for exactly the reasons you cite- the lure of a story where the unexpected is all to possible.

What do you do to prepare for your installments? What kind of notes do you take? Do you write as you play, or do you play several turns, then write?

How do you keep track of all the characters?

Is a strong AI opponent better in terms of creating a dynamic story, or is a lower level AI preferable?

Thanks for the welcome and the replies!

[sachmo]

First, Erax, if my story inspired you to write yours, then my whole effort is truly worth it! Thanks for saying that...it made my day.

Clark,

I don't do much in the way of preparation. I just play a turn and watch how it comes out, writing as I go. SEIV is Alt-Tab friendly, so it allows me to switch over to my Word doc quickly. I have story threads in my mind (which, oddly enough, usually come to when while I'm brushing my teeth and shaving in the morning?) but as Erax said they can change in the blink of an eye. So they key for me is to be flexible and have fun. I find myself being overly cautious at times, hoping that my main characters don't get vaporized, and I take less risks in the game.

To keep track of my characters, at the end of my story I have an information section with all sorts of notes about the galaxy. It lists character names and details, military structure, system information, ship losses to date, and a host of other things. I generally check here to ensure that I don't suddenly replace one ship's captain with another.

As I read back over Remorhaz, I find it interesting to watch how the writing itself shaped the story...I started out with a narrative that had many references to the game, and then moved to an event by event format, to now what is basically a novella. Who knows how it will turn out, but the biggest key for me is that I have fun doing it, and that people are enjoying and responding to it. After all, writers write for their audience, no matter what they say.

Good luck and I look forward to reading your work!

[Raging Deadstar]

It depends if you are basing your story off a game. I've based my story off the space empires universe but there's no game behind it, whilst sachmo's and erax's are based on a game.

I keep a word file with all sorts of trivial notes in, going from month by month including when charcters are introduced/killed off, battles, facilities constructed, captains for ships etc. Thats the easiest way to keep track of things

I'm guessing that a large quadrent would be overkill. The best thing in my opinion is do a small or medium galaxy. For my story i drew out a map of systems and at max there are 20. Big maps things start getting confusing for the reader

Anything else just ask, all us writers will be willing to help!

I have to admit Sachmo, it's not only erax you inspired to write a story. You and Atrocitie's great stories inspired me to write my own, i can remember the very night i read most of your completed chapters on Spaceempires.org and it fits together beautifully

[ June 18, 2003, 18:36: Message edited by: Senator Raging Deadstar ]

[Suicide Junkie]

For my story (End of the Line), I used a 2-system hermit empire...
It was a valiant struggle against overwhelming numbers and tech, just to survive in a hostile world.

[Ruatha]

My first story was a 256 systems map...
A grand epic saga! (NGC2)
I had help by the other co-authors, our stories influenced each others, our main characters interacting.
So sometimes I would put the words in the mouth of the other authors charachters and sometimes they would do the same with mine, real fun.

The story could suddenly take a whole new turn, to bad most of my characters died