#idk i have so many plans for the straud legacy i think it's going in a direction i'm really satisfied with!!

[stinkrascal]

hiiiiiii <3 how are we doing? how are the straud kids doing?

hiiiiiiiii im doin ok, how are you bby? <3 the straud kids are great!! idk when im gonna post the straud legacy again, i really really really want to post the vlad/brie backstory reprisal before i pick up the straud legacy so tbh i havent seen them in so long, i miss my pixel people :-( but in my head im certain theyre living their best lives!! i have so many story ideas that i wanna execute it's so crazy my mind is a jumbled mess of silly vampires lol

#jade answers #itsmariejanel #oh im about to ramble SO HARD in the tags you dont even know #lucien and bonnie are gonna have a baby very soon i decided because bonnie has been pregnant for TWO REAL LIFE YEARS #even though it's only been a few months for them in the story D: so straud grandbabies soon ahhhh im not ready!! #gen is still a misogynist who's terrified to come out to his parents but they'll come around #carlile is still sick with an Unknown Illness... but he'll feel better one day! he just has to feel worse first :'( #nikolai is studying hard at school! making friends! learning about literature and whatever! #klaus is still struggling to make new friends but he'll make them sooner than he thinks!! all the while developing his musical skills <3 #anastasia is an indecisive queen who cannot decide what aesthetic she likes or who she's into. but that's ok! libra queen! #ilya will explore their identity has they get older! and also steal their mother's lighters and attempt to start fires. arsonist icon <3 #maybe the strauds will have more babies idk i have to decide how bored vlad and brie are #brie wants to GO TO SCHOOL! and be EDUCATED! so idk if she'll wanna have more kids at the moment #maybe afterwards though. she can get her degree and then be like heyyyy vladdyyyyyyy ;)))) #idk i have so many plans for the straud legacy i think it's going in a direction i'm really satisfied with!! #especially regarding anastasia/caspian/vaughn/wolfgang ugh it sounds like a love square but i promise it isn't lol #i'm really satisfied with their arcs. especially caspian and wolfgang. i think it's going to go in a good direction #i can't wait for u guys to see it in a thousand years when i finally start posting again <3 #but first i feel like i need to establish things in the vlad/brie backstory reprisal #mainly having to do with vlad/brie's mental health. bc there are characters with the same diagnoses as them #and they help those characters come to terms with their diagnoses #there's also general worldbuilding stuff that i want to better establish in the reprisal that i feel would be beneficial for my legacy too #there's so many stuff and things to do!! and i only have two hands!!!! #but i promise i am constantly working on new story stuff ok? if you read this far i am very impressed lol ily <3

[stinkrascal]

How do you go about planning your story? I want to post my own but I am not into heavy plot and kind of want it to be a slice of life story. Would I need things to be all planned? I hope this isn’t a bother, thank you in advance 😊

the way i plan my story is pretty sporadic! i do try to organize my thoughts and write them down, but there are still a good chunk of scenes which i’ve planned in my head for years, but i've yet to write out lol. i consider my legacy to be a healthy combination of serious storytelling and silly gameplay, and though i do have something of a plot interwoven in the straud legacy, i wouldn’t say it’s extremely plot-heavy, but rather steadily character driven. my story is forwarded by the interactions between the characters, not by the situations with which the characters find themselves apart. without a heavy plot to maintain the tension, heavy character development and interpersonal conflict takes its place. so if you’re more interested in slice of life storytelling, i think that’s something important to consider!

okay, onto the actual process/my advice ig idk i rambled HARD here man lol

originally, i only wrote the dialogue for my scenes, but per isa’s advice, i now use two writing documents:  one which details the timeline of events, and another with a brief descriptor of each scene, followed with the characters’ dialogue.

writing document one:

this document is organized by characters. i structure my story in a way where each “sequence” of scenes focuses on one specific straud child on one specific day, then segues into focusing on the next straud child on another day. i typically start with one of the triplets, then work my way down in the order of which child was born first. normally, i wouldn’t recommend doing this, as it does disrupt the linear quality of storytelling, but i have around twenty characters now, ten of which consist of the straud family alone, which means there’s a lot of characters to cover in a small amount of time. characters who all have their own lives, their own hobbies, their own interests, their own friend groups, etc. for me, it’s easier to write this way, as i can isolate the motivations behind each character and each scene while still ensuring that i’m giving each straud child enough screen time!

writing document two:

and this document is where i write the dialogue!! usually i stay pretty close to what’s written in the document, but occasionally while i’m editing, i'll switch the phrasing if i find that the text doesn’t align with the border of the image in a way i find pleasing lol.

i also think it’s really helpful to have a basic foundation of ideas planned. have a beginning, a middle, and an end. have a few random scenes sloppily tossed in between. have an idea of how characters start out, and how they change and grow in their environment. it really helps a lot, knowing where your destination starts and ends!! with those destinations in mind, all that’s left is to meaningfully fill in the gaps. find smaller ways to heighten tension and interpersonal conflict that reaches your end. plant the seeds which inevitably lead to greater ends, find ways to reincorporate miniscule items/phrases/interactions from the past and turn them into larger plot developments. what scenes would heighten tension and interpersonal conflict? what will help express a character’s intentions, motivations, emotions, personality? try to include as many little scenes with those ideas in mind!

for the most part, i do believe that much like an author brainstorms his book, you should brainstorm your sims 4 fanfiction lmfao ;-;. i feel gameplays can usually get away without much (or any) preparation, but stories with the intention of being coherent narratives really do need to be fleshed out in whatever way’s more comfortable for you, so you don’t write yourself into a corner you can’t get yourself out of later. i find this especially important for simblr, as our stories are published online on what i’m assuming is typically a “posted when finished” schedule. we don’t have the luxury of an author, who spends years mulling over their works before releasing it to the public. if you write and post a scene you later find disrupts the narrative, there’s almost no way to fix this, as the scene and each scene succeeding it has already been posted online. i mean, sure, you can delete the posts, make an announcement that those scenes are no longer canon, and that you’re working on rewriting those scenes in the meantime. but, to me, it makes more sense to plan the scenes ahead of time so that you’ve time to decide if any scenes disrupt the story. it’s good to give yourself a little leeway with these things! but overall, just do whatever’s most comfortable to you! i hope my rambles helped, even just a little!! :’))

#Anonymous #jade answers #omg it took me so long to answer this bc i just KNEW i would ramble FOREVER #i just.... i love to talk abt writing <3 it fills my silly little heart with joy #i always feel rlly pretentious when i post answers like these lmao #i feel as though im tryin to act like im some authority on the matter and thats just not true 😭 #a professional sims 4 writer giving u very professional sims 4 writing advice fr lmaoooo #stinky tuts