coyotecraft
Sponsor
When I call writing "bad" or "fanfiction quality", I'm really talking about the story's presentation or poor planning. First let me explain, fanfictions tend to lack descriptive details because there's an assumption that the readers will have a knowledge of the series and just get it. Except when the writer is bring something new in like an OC. Rather than seed details so that they become important later, it's straight out of nowhere on-the-spot explanations. It's like "Oh, by the way, this is my cousin who I've never mentioned before. He's the one that taught me this skill I've never demonstrated until today. And I've secretly been a vampire this whole time."
I can think of 2 ways this happens. One being lazy revisions. A detail was an afterthought and was just shoehorned in. The other one being that the story is just too short to bring these things up naturally anywhere else.
The latter is something I see in rpgm and mobile games. A symptom, I think, of planning the game in too blocky of segments.
Let's say it's the beginning of the game. A healer just joined your party for whatever reasons. Together you reach the end of the Level1 Forest area where you fight some bandits. The bandits run off and The Healer tells you "Btw, the girl bandit was my sister...blah blah blah...side story." Because it's just the beginning of the game, it's the first opportunity to present these details. Or is it?
What I'm getting at is that you don't have to stagger gameplay objectives and lengthy story sequences consecutively. You can break the story into shorter beats during the gameplay and avoid a chunky conversation and explanation at the end of a level. For example, instead of encountering the bandits suddenly at the end of the forest perhaps you witness them and briefly overhear their plans to met up with "Delilah". Your party stays quite during this except The Healer saying "Delilah? That's my sister's name." Then after the encounter with Delilah, simply confirming "So this is where she ran off to."
In this way, you weave details in as small beats instead of an avalanche of exposition.
I can think of 2 ways this happens. One being lazy revisions. A detail was an afterthought and was just shoehorned in. The other one being that the story is just too short to bring these things up naturally anywhere else.
The latter is something I see in rpgm and mobile games. A symptom, I think, of planning the game in too blocky of segments.
Let's say it's the beginning of the game. A healer just joined your party for whatever reasons. Together you reach the end of the Level1 Forest area where you fight some bandits. The bandits run off and The Healer tells you "Btw, the girl bandit was my sister...blah blah blah...side story." Because it's just the beginning of the game, it's the first opportunity to present these details. Or is it?
What I'm getting at is that you don't have to stagger gameplay objectives and lengthy story sequences consecutively. You can break the story into shorter beats during the gameplay and avoid a chunky conversation and explanation at the end of a level. For example, instead of encountering the bandits suddenly at the end of the forest perhaps you witness them and briefly overhear their plans to met up with "Delilah". Your party stays quite during this except The Healer saying "Delilah? That's my sister's name." Then after the encounter with Delilah, simply confirming "So this is where she ran off to."
In this way, you weave details in as small beats instead of an avalanche of exposition.
