Looking for writers

Ok, I hope I’m not getting in over my head. This was a spur-of-the-moment decision, which I hope I don’t regret.

So here’s the deal. I am not very good at coming up with stories, or puzzles, or even concepts. However, from time to time, I do get some flashes of what could be interesting. And occasionally I flesh them out, because they seem promising. And before long I have the rough layout of an entire game, even an idea of what some of the obstacles might be.

Now, it took me a long time to realise this, but realise it I must. It’s not that I can’t write - I can. But not well enough to carry a full-length game. I have two concepts in my head, one of them has been there for years. They’re fairly epic (one moreso than the other), and mostly linear (but with a lot of space for development).

I’ve had it. I want to see these stories out there. But I can’t do it myself. I simply lack the writing skill. At best, I tend to be verbose. At worst, I simply can’t convey what I intended.

So I’m actively looking for writers who would be willing to, on a first bases, listen to these concepts - these outlines - and decide whether they would like to help me flesh them out. I would be glad to do the programming myself and write some of the more menial stuff like descriptions. I have very strong ideas on game design, but I’d like to to able to discuss them with whoever I would be working with, so as to arrive to some sort of middle ground if there are disagreements. I’m very bad at coming up with puzzles, so they’d also be mainly in the hands of my collaborator, though I’d be more than happy to brainstorm.

I do NOT want to split this equally in half, with me programming and someone else writing. I want to be a part of the creative process. However, my collaborator would be free to write as he/she pleased, and would be free to suggest anything. I’m not dumb - I know that, if I could do this by myself, I wouldn’t need anyone else, and since I do need someone else, the intelligent thing to do is to give that “someone else” all the space they need. I promise space, as long as the collaborator understands that these concepts are my babies, and I’d like to see them grow and flesh out.

One of the stories, the biggest one, is fairly epic. It’s Sci-Fi. It’s, I think, a fair amount more interesting than most "epic sci-fi"s out there, but what do I know, I’m biased. :slight_smile:

The other one is more fantastical, and allows for episodic release, which was how I planned to release it (if I ever got anything done but the first couple of rooms and an outline, that is).

Ok, I know everyone has an outline, and everyone has a project of their own. But I also know that if you want to see a project through and you can’t do it yourself, you should be humble enough to ask for help. It seemed harmless enough to try. :slight_smile: Anyone interested please e-mail me at peter_pears@hotmail.com, and we should be able to discuss the matter further.

Bottom line - I’m looking for partnership, not dictatorship. This goes both ways - I do not intend to be a dictator.

Sorry, I can’t help you… But something you said surprised me:

You seem to imply that descriptions are easier to write than the rest, or maybe not as important. I really don’t think that it’s easy to write descriptions that are evocative and not too generic (detailed enough, with accurate vocabulary) but also not too long and, above all, not boring! And descriptions certainly are important in IF (except maybe in purely conversational games, but apparently that’s not the kind of game you want to write). I mean, if the room descriptions are bad and the descriptions you get with the “examine” command are bad, too, then most of the text in the game (without the cutscenes) will be bad, won’t it?

Just to clarify, is it that you don’t want to write, or, you want to start working on the games now rather than working on the writing?

Eriorg: Oh, I expressed myself very badly, apologies. I didn’t mean room descriptions, or descriptions of first-level nouns - I meant descriptions of 2nd, 3rd and 4th level nouns. I meant responses for various useless but possible interaction. I meant describing every small little unimportant thing, and allowing the player to fiddle with them, while the creative guy writes the important stuff. Such as, of course, room descriptions.

George: I’ve worked on the writing for a long time. In the end, I’m simply terrified by the blank page, and am never pleased with what I do, there are always too many different ways to tell a story and they’re all better than one another and they’re all worse than one another. And then I have to deal with my sometimes less-than-good English (I’m Portuguese), which never seems as bad as when I’m actually trying to write. So I’ve pretty much given up on that. It’s just that I wouldn’t like these stories to die away, because I think they have potential. At the very least I’d like to tell someone these stories and, even if I ended up having nothing to do with the project, I just wish they’d be picked up on.

You can do it, bro. If you get stuck, just use resources like this and they can help you with some of the more difficult English rules. Remember, you’ve already got the hard part down by learning the vocabulary. Now you just have to learn to proofread your own work.

As an aside, just from reading your posts here, your writing is better than about 80% of America’s youth. :laughing:

I was lucky enough to get two interested callers! So for the moment I have what I wanted, and none more need apply, and thanks all! If the situation changes, I’ll post again (after all, skeptic as I was myself - it worked!)

that’s great Peter.