Page 3 • National Novel Writing Month 2012 • Non-Gaming • Books • Eurogamer.net

sunjumper 5 Oct 2012 13:15:25 3,548 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 20 years ago

@MetalDog
I also use that trick a lot. Back in the day I used 'heroic' music to learn chemistry, to trick my brain into thinking that chemistry is awesome. It even worked and once I started understand all the different concepts at work there and how they interacted I had to admit that it was kind of awesome. (or I had conditioned my self very well)

Would you ind to elaborate how music works for you and what you love and hate a bit more?

@TechnoHippy
Interesting stuff. I also have my super focused moments as my LastFM account always shows to me with the look of a worried mother.
What makes ABBA for you a pleasure and why isn't it pleasure enough?

@FalseAlibi and @evil_edd
Welcome aboard!

TechnoHippy 5 Oct 2012 13:18:27 19,245 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 18 years ago

I think it's pleasant listening, but generally only do pleasant listening when I'm forced :-)

spamdangled 5 Oct 2012 13:22:36 31,803 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 13 years ago

My profile:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/darkmorgado

spamdangled 5 Oct 2012 13:24:41 31,803 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 13 years ago

Salaman wrote:

darkmorgado wrote:
Im going to give it a go this year. Been meaning to for the last couple years but never done it.
Won't your finger surgery make it a bit impractical to type up a novel?

I'll just have to touch-type without using that finger, I guess!

sunjumper 5 Oct 2012 13:25:03 3,548 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 20 years ago

TechnoHippy wrote:
I think it's pleasant listening, but generally only do pleasant listening when I'm forced

You are a strange one! But I guess you already knew that. :-D

spamdangled 5 Oct 2012 13:28:53 31,803 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 13 years ago

MetalDog wrote:
When it comes to writing and music, I tend to use it as a Pavlovian conditioning. Play select tunes for select moods in a given yarn and after a short while the first few bars catapult you back into the right mood to carry on where you left off. On good days it's like flicking a switch from reality straight into dreamland.

I'm fairly sure there's at least one book that actually comes with a cd of music that you're supposed to listen to at certain points.

TechnoHippy 5 Oct 2012 13:32:46 19,245 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 18 years ago

I have completed my buddy collection spree :-)

Carbon_Altered 5 Oct 2012 13:47:49 890 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 15 years ago

@sunjumper

I want to help with your questions given that you are so helpful generally, however I think I won't be of much use to you.

Basically, I don't like music.

Now that sounds a bit odd, and probably is a bit simplistic, but is mostly correct. Music has never played much of a part in my life and I just don't understand people's fascination with it.

I think it comes from being partially tone deaf and incapable of remembering lyrics, but music holds no magic for me. I can turn on the radio and tap my feet to some pop song or other but it holds no greater meaning than a simple distraction.

I would probably make a good bad guy in your book!

spamdangled 5 Oct 2012 13:50:29 31,803 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 13 years ago

I even have a very dust-jacket author photo on my profile. Hurrah!

I pretty much know what I'm going to write, but trying to choose between two different stories (both set in the same world) that I've had kicking around my head a few years now. One of them is definitely more manageable in 30 days than the other though, which would be a massive epic.

TechnoHippy 5 Oct 2012 13:51:20 19,245 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 18 years ago

sunjumper wrote:

TechnoHippy wrote:
I think it's pleasant listening, but generally only do pleasant listening when I'm forced
You are a strange one! But I guess you already knew that. :-D

I have been told that. Weirdly I handle stress very well. I think that's why I like the nano, I do better with a deadline.

spamdangled 5 Oct 2012 13:53:34 31,803 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 13 years ago

If I can finish this by the 29th, then I have another reason to celebrate my birthday!

Also, it will make the WiiU arriving on the 30th even sweeter, like a prize instead of a big expense.

evild_edd 5 Oct 2012 13:56:52 4,334 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago

I procrastinated wretchedly with the first draft of my 1st book. I'm hoping the deadline and a slightly tighter focus on Book Two will help me bash out a preliminary draft.

Game on. Quite excited by this challenge :0)

Carbon_Altered 5 Oct 2012 14:32:16 890 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 15 years ago

So the planning for my "interactive novel" (please excuse the quotation marks as I can't bring myself to say/write it down without them) has picked up a bit over the last couple of days.

I have a plan for the first 60 or so paragraphs (out of a target of around 400). One of them includes the option of kicking someone in the nuts, in between the usual "do you go here" or "do you do that" sort of stuff that filled these books in their 80's heyday.

Metalfish 5 Oct 2012 14:45:18 9,191 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years ago

I'd love to write a single room of one of those text adventure games. An actual choose-your-own scares me somewhat though.

Deleted user 5 October 2012 15:10:52

Choose Your Own are much less complex than text adventures, from a logic and coding viewpoint. Text adventures require so much thought to the parser it's scary. Even something as simple as having a ladder - some people might use just "up/down" or "u/d". Some might use "go down ladder". Some might use "use ladder", or "climb ladder". And that's just a basic staple of movement. Try putting in things like locked doors, talking to characters, etc etc. Take something like this - http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-CYPHERCE/cypher-cyberpunk-text-adventure-collectors-edition - this had a ridiculous amount of promise. A text adventure that actually looks good, comes with shitloads of (albeit digital) feelies, has a great atmosphere and should be awesome. But it collapses horribly because the parser is so ridiculously fucking awful.

Like, there's no abbreviations or memory with the parser. In any standard IF game, to, say, open and look in a cupboard you'd do this:

x cupboard
open it
l in it

With this, it needs full typing and doesn't understand "it", so ends up being

examine cupboard
open cupboard
look in cupboard

and so on and so forth. Not particularly trying in a single example, but spread that over the entire game and you've probably got a NaNo in itself just of the transcript.

/end rant

Edited by meme at 15:14:59 05-10-2012

Deleted user 5 October 2012 15:15:44

But now I'm tempted to do a NaNo IF instead. Damn your eyes.

Carbon_Altered 5 Oct 2012 15:25:31 890 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 15 years ago

There will be no coding from me, just a plain "turn to paragraph 62" sort of thing, plus the occassional puzzle.

I'm mapping it all out in a flow chart, and am sort of "playing" it as I go along. The idea is when November comes is that I'm just writing, say, 10 sections a day without having to worry about the flow of the story / options encountered.

Edited by Carbon_Altered at 15:26:00 05-10-2012

spamdangled 5 Oct 2012 15:33:46 31,803 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 13 years ago

Point-and-click style adventures are fairly easy to do as a choose-your-own book. They end up getting very bloated though, with lots of recycled paragraphs taking into account different inventory configurations.

(yes, I actually tried this. About 15 years ago, but still).

Metalfish 5 Oct 2012 15:42:37 9,191 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years ago

meme wrote:
But now I'm tempted to do a NaNo IF instead. Damn your eyes.

sunjumper 5 Oct 2012 17:55:38 3,548 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 20 years ago

@Carbon_Altered
You know what? You would actually make a good antagonist for the coming story. If you want to, we can have a chat about that character so that you can leave an even more personal note to him (or her for that matter)

Not getting music is a strange concept you are like a sonic version of someone who is totally colour blind.

And your comment was massively helpful as I had never thought about an individual who just isn't affected by music.

About choose your own adventure:
I once met a guy who wanted to write a semi-autobiographical story about a young man's rise in professional sports. But with several points of great importance where the reader gets to choose which path the young man should follow.
I have to admit that the idea of using choose your own adventure techniques on a 'serious' novel does blow my mind a bit.
And I seriously want to steal that idea. . .

Carbon_Altered 5 Oct 2012 22:55:02 890 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 15 years ago

@sunjumper
Ha! Am happy to be of help if I can. What you say about it being a sort of colour blindness is spot on - I've always described it as a musical dyslexia.

I am interested in the mechanics of music - for example, I've looked at the language of it a bit, how you write it down. In a lot of ways it makes no sense. I annoy friends/relations by calling it a conspiracy - everyone that can read music sort of buys in to a lot of the inconsistencies about it, how timings and notes are annotated doesn't always make total sense.

How could you explain what a note actually is to me? People have tried explaining to me what an octave is before, but it makes no sense! A C is a C but in a different octave - WTF?!

Also, chose your own adventure is in no way "stealing" an idea, just if you want to do it for this nano, get cracking now as it takes a surprising amount of work!!

MetalDog 5 Oct 2012 23:15:03 24,076 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years ago

@Carbon_Altered You're not alone - there's a significant, if small, percentage of people who experience music as vastly overrated noise.

I think it's just your wiring. For most people, music seems to route through parts of the brain that trigger strong emotional and imaginative responses - it clearly doesn't do that for you. Must be tricky. I've found with the dyscalculia that on the whole, people have real trouble getting their heads around the idea that someone is wired up wonky. They think that if I just tried hard enough, or if I was just taught properly, everything would be as it should be. You must get a lot of people offering you tunes saying 'this one will move you!'

MetalDog 12 Oct 2012 13:11:03 24,076 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years ago

T minus 20 days and counting.

repairmanjack 12 Oct 2012 13:37:38 6,133 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years ago

Apparently, my agent's office get between 600-800 manuscript submissions each month; it's so bad that they've stopped taking any unsolicited novels now. I dread to think how the submission rate climbs at the end of this month.

Metalfish 12 Oct 2012 13:44:19 9,191 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years ago

Surely no one is stupid enough to submit a novel they bashed out in 30 days?

Salaman 12 Oct 2012 13:47:26 24,162 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 17 years ago

evild_edd wrote:
Right, I'm going to sign up for the NaNoWriMo this evening. I'd like to get the username signed up for my future pen name. One slight snag with this: I don't have one!

So, at the risk of putting a significant, potentially life-altering decision in the hands of my fellow EG forumites, I'm going to ask you lot to make the decision for me...!

Bit of background: my real name is Edward Brown. No one wants to read a book by an Edward Brown. The idea of someone willing buying a book by such a named writer is as incongruous as the notion that someone named Daniel Brown could go on to have a massive international bestseller.

No, from this moment on Edward Brown is no more. This is my opportunity to free myself from the shackles of my mundane appellation and make a statement of intent. I shall do this by employing the use of my (IMO, cooler) middle names, Oliver and Laven, and/or subverting the boring Brown in to its more sinister brother: Black.

So, some choices to consider:

Laven Black
Oliver Black
Edward Laven

Laven (pronounced LAY-vehn) can be a first or surname. It was originally a surname on my father's side but died out in my family generations back.

Quick straw poll then to decide my future.

Thanks you :0)

P.S. Whom do I have to blow to get admitted to the EG Author's Guild group? My request from yesterday seems to have gone ignored :0(

Stick to Brown. Edward Brown is a fine name and carries a hint of penmanship. Try to get your book cover made up to look like a Dan Brown book and you might get some incidental sales from it.
;-)

But Yeah seriously. If you hadn't told me your name and gave me this list to choose from:
Laven Black
Oliver Black
Edward Laven
Edward Brown

I'd have picked the last one.

MetalDog 12 Oct 2012 13:56:35 24,076 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years ago

Metalfish wrote:
Surely no one is stupid enough to submit a novel they bashed out in 30 days?

You should take a read through this and then decide how people are =)

repairmanjack 12 Oct 2012 14:14:23 6,133 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years ago

Metalfish wrote:
Surely no one is stupid enough to submit a novel they bashed out in 30 days?

The majority are first drafts that aren't even proofread. I was gobsmacked to hear it. It's the same everywhere, apparently. A lot of agents will return work unread as they have to invite you to submit.

evild_edd 12 Oct 2012 15:47:06 4,334 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago

MetalDog's link amused and depressed in equal measure. Staggering that people go to the trouble of writing a novel yet don't even take the time to ensure that their query/opening letter makes sense.

I'm on draft three of my novel, neatening grammar/punctuation issues now as the fundamental plot alterations and rewrite were covered in the second draft. It's slightly misleading to call it a third draft however, considering I've likely rewritten each sentence countless times.

Even after months of alteration I remain terrified and wracked with self-doubt that my work is worthy of their time.

evild_edd 12 Oct 2012 15:55:59 4,334 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago

repairmanjack wrote:
Apparently, my agent's office get between 600-800 manuscript submissions each month; it's so bad that they've stopped taking any unsolicited novels now. I dread to think how the submission rate climbs at the end of this month.

I thought agents acted as the solicitors? I know most publishers will only accept MSs through agents these days, for this very reason.

From my understanding, the process seems to be:

1. Apply to an Agent according to their procedure (typically a covering note, synopsis, and opening few chapters)
2. Agent looks at information and either rejects (in the majority of cases) or requests to see full MS.
3. Writer supplies full MS.
4. Agent then decides whether to take writer on as a client and begins touting MS to publishers.

I think there remain some publishers out there who'll look at MSs directly from writers but from my understanding they're now very few and far between.

Would love to know if I'm wrong or am missing something here as I'll soon be starting my rejection...sorry, submission process.

National Novel Writing Month 2012 • Page 3