Author in creativity crisis Options

[balduran]

Shame on me! I am a writer, who cannot create a simple romantic dialogue. I wish I could use the poor excuse that I have lost my inspiration, but it would be a badly-sewn lie. I have all these ideas about what should happen with Azure, when it should happen, but when it comes to putting it together and creating the dialogue entries, my mind goes completely blank.

This post has been edited by balduran: Sep 6 2005, 12:27 PM

[Domi]

- It's probably extra "strain" on people who are both learning the .D format and learning the ins and outs of writing interactive dialogue

I disagree, because D format allows you to easily track which branch goes where, and you avoid looping problems more easily. You also have an easier way to see which option leads to which reply, so they actually are better coordinated. Plus, I have noticed, that my flat texts emulated D, only where much less convenient to read

Changing things is easy enough - when I add new branches, I simply add a new letter index on them, ie if I had a

SAY ~Text.~
++ ~Reply1.~ + REP1.1
END

I will just do:

SAY ~Text.~
++ ~Reply1.~ + REP1.1
++ ~Reply1.A.~ + REP1.1A
END

this does not change the rest of the structure.

As for proofreading, it is never easy, and in my case, the proofreader has to read the things through anyway, looking for all the ESL errors, not just use the spellcheck. So, I don't see how it changes things. When I switched from flat to D, I asked the feedback from at least three or four proofreaders, if they find it easier to read flats or D's. They all replied that it made no difference to them.

On the good side, you eliminate the wrong linking when coding the flat text to D, which is a nightmare when your dialogue is complex and exceeds 10 states per dialogue. Writing D also comes naturally in a VERY short while, plus you have to learn it anyway, why procrastinate or hope that someone else will do it?

This post has been edited by Domi: Sep 8 2005, 02:22 PM