Echogems's Blog

Right so I know there are plenty of better sim stories out there but I thought I’d share some tips that writing Echo has taught me about making a sims story work for you.

- Firstly: It’s very easy to think up a cool idea but that doesn’t mean it will translate well on the sims 2. For example, say you got inspired by watching or reading something to do with pirates O.o and thought it’d be awesome to do an epic adventure story. Your idea is having a pirate set up a dastardly crew and sail in search of treasure… but your unfortunate pirate gets on the wrong end of a mutiny and his crew make him walk the plank! Swimming for survival he ends up on a beautiful though seemingly uninhabited island. On that island he struggles through the wilderness to find some means of escape and… finds a broken ship with a woman laid amongst the shipwreck. Well obviously I’ve just turned an adventure tale into a romance but that’s beside the point. The idea might be exciting to you and perhaps you’ll be thinking up all these cool scenarios already jumping ahead to climatic points in the story. Still, you have to consider whether it’s actually possible to make it into a sims story.

Yes there are limits. Think over these points with every idea you get:
* Is it an idea you will be likely to be inspired by in the long term (are pirates really that interesting to you? Would you want to write about the workings of a ship, storms at sea, and all the crew members – right on down to the cabin boy?)
* Do you have the CC to match? A pirate needs a good costume and a ship and all sorts of things maxis just haven’t put in the game so will you be able to download it elsewhere?
* Are you prepared to edit in the things you can’t download? If you have good editing software then use it (btw I use Photoshop CS3. I’ve heard good things about GIMP though which is a free software)
* Do you have an ending in mind? An idea is great but make sure you know a little beyond that and can think of how it might end. I say might because of course at such an early stage you shouldn’t set the ending in concrete – characters and yes plots do changes as you write. But having a general end point is a good goal to have.

With all these points in mind you have to see which your idea answers ‘yes’ to. The ideas that are successfully translated into a sims 2 album are the ones that answer yes to them all.

- Commitment; you need this to make a good story. If you aren’t prepared to spend the time and energy into writing it then it just won’t happen. A lot of people (and I used to be one of the worse in this respect) just think of an idea, run with it for a few days and then it just dies away… or gets replaced by another ‘brilliant’ idea. The story won’t write itself so even when you start having doubts about your idea: just keep writing. Commit to your idea and the story can work.

- PLAN. Plan, plan, plan, plan, PLAN!! I can’t stress it enough. A story needs a well thought out plan. Plan the characters, plan the sets, plan where the story is going, plan the photos and plan the time you spend on it. Do not start writing the story until you have at least thought through all the main events that will happen in your first chapter.

- When you start writing it, keep going. Some scenes might be tricky and in which case just move on to future scenes you feel more inspired with. Don’t limit yourself in the beginning stages of writing and think you have to write from A to B to C because in all probability the first few scenes you write will not end up in the packaged album. As I said before, characters and the plot will change the more you get into your story so initial scenes are very flexible. You shouldn’t stray far from your main plot idea but just little things like… say we started the pirate story at sea. You want to grip the reader from the very first slide so you begin with a terrifying storm with your pirate captain shouting orders to his crew and the ship struggling to not be swallowed by the massive sea waves crashing either side!
That’s all very well but the more you write the more you think about the crew. All of them are terrified that they are about to meet their end… and then you think it’s important you set up a back-story as to how the crew were formed in the first place. You think about how the little cabin boy, holding on to the ship’s sail rope with blistered hands and soaking wet ragged clothing, came to be a part of the crew. You move the story back to land, on the day where your pirate captain first came to town and ordered himself a drink of ale in the tavern where the little lad stood outside, begging for food…
Yes it’s a bit of the pity parade on the little cabin boy but in order to care about the crew possibly being killed in the storm, you really do need to give the readers back-story on the characters. Make them care about the characters and they will care about what happens to them. Other wise the plot is all meaningless if the reader’s aren’t bothered with the characters.

- The photos. A lot of people are put off by the idea of matching their text to the photos but it needn’t be so daunting. Firstly, get your text in order. Have it proofread (very important that you do this because no matter how many times you read over the text yourself you will not be able to spot all of the mistakes) and then print it off. Yes, even if it’s nine or however many pages long, print the whole things off. Then read through it and as you do, begin to separate the text into the different slides.
For example:
Cassie looked up at her saviour and frowned as she saw how disappointingly he marred with her perfect image of a dashing hero. She took in his matted dark hair which was tangled with colourful beads attached to the ends. He didn’t have a clean face -far from it- though she supposed she could excuse this on a desert island… Yet his beard was so frightfully long and attached to the ends were some more of those exotic beads. He was strong, to be sure, his burly chest was bare and she blushed to see such muscles. She quickly withdrew her gaze from his chest, which, however, had such a collection of gold medallion necklaces reflecting back the midday sun behind her, that it was almost as blinding as if she had been staring straight at the sun. She took in his face again and was met by bushy eyebrows, scrunched down and covering his dark eyes that she couldn’t yet tell if they were friendly; his skin looked rubbery and was well tanned, so completely alien to her own fair and freckled skin.
“W-What did you say you name was?” she asked, dazed.
“Cap’n Fernbourghs, lassie. And you be who now?” His voice was gruff but at the same time she remarked that he was young.
“I’m C-Cassie Birdle… are you really a captain?” There was wonder in her voice and eyes as she looked over his strange appearance once again.
“Aye just I am, Miss Cassie. Cap’n of a beauty of a ship and a mighty fine crew you may lay to that.” He puffed his great hairy chest out proudly, his many necklaces danced more light over her that she shaded herself with a swooning hand.
“Well, where is your ship then? Where are your men?” He shifted uncomfortably and both their eyes drifted away… his to dip down at the sand, hot and glinting golden under his grubby boots, and hers to the palm trees swaying in the light breeze then out to the wide empty ocean. Calm waves and a brilliant blue sky stretched before her and she felt as though they really were utterly lost and forsaken, the only two people for miles and miles of distant sea.

Right so that text can be broken up into three pictures. Each bolded word indicates where I would begin a new slide. The first slide the text describes the pirate’s appearance so that picture should be solely of him. Because it is in the perspective of Cassie, you might want to do a from the shoulders up shot of him at a slightly lower angle, as though she is looking up at him. The next slide starts the dialogue which I would suggest (as the dialogue includes them both) should be a side shot of them both – Cassie looking dazed and the pirate quite confident to reflect each of their speeches. The last slide I would do another POV (point of view) shot showing just purely the ocean. Cassie is looking for signs of an escape, of a boat of some kind but finds only her inescapable surroundings so a shot of the ‘wide, empty ocean’ would be ideal in showing this. You could even edit in a lens flare effect for the sun and some cloud brushes just to make that sky look more interesting than the block of blue the sims gives.

- Another thing to keep in mind is that it is very important to know your characters. If you know their personalities and circumstances in life then writing their dialogue becomes much easier. In the example text, it becomes obvious that he is a pirate not by me saying: that man is a pirate! but by his manner of speaking, “mighty fine crew you may lay to that“.
The time frame is obviously not modern day so you have to ensure no present day slang and also keep in mind that Cassie, being a woman of an early period, would typically be expecting a hero to save her. She can be strong and independent too but that is likely to come from her aversion to pirates which she has no doubt been brought up to despise.
Also for the characters make sure you know all the little things about them but only disclose the parts which a reader will appreciate learning. We might not care that Cassie is accomplished in playing the pianoforte because that’s hardly useful on a desert island but we would care to know whether she enjoys music. Perhaps the pirate hums a lot of old sea songs and she finds herself remembering her old playing room she used to practise her piano on when she was little… things like that would interest a reader because it acts to bring the unlikely pair together.

- Have fun! Writing is all about creativity and enjoyment. Get to know your characters, have fun creating new and exciting situations for them. And stick with it. Many times I’ve felt like just giving up on Echo and moving on to another story but then I put my iPod on and I see the scene I’m having trouble writing… it can be frustrating and sometimes you’ll write complete rubbish but so long as you are still seeing the characters and getting excited about the future scenes you still have to write then you should stick with it. Yes new ideas are awesome to get, but sticking with the old ones can be a lot more rewarding in the long term. :]

Hope that helps and good luck