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In my lastest episode, "The Green Girl", after I was finally able to concentrate, it still took me hours because I tend to grow obsessed making it. I tend to try to make it perfect, like, as if it were a book that was going to be published (A tad exaggeration). Does anybody else have this problem?

It was quite a good episode, I'll give you that, aside from a few spelling mistakes (the sort of 'night' Fred is, is spelt 'Knight'. In other episodes you've made, you should work on your 'there' their' and 'they're's.) I'm not too big a fan of the 'character who's currently in third/first person be up the top' thing unless there's a sudden setting change or a flashback.

In terms of wanting an episode to be perfect, I don't see that as much of a problem. We all want it to look as good as possible, but some of us (*cough*me*cough*) are too lazy to bother. A book that was going to be published? That's not too bad a way to think about it. Why not an essay you have to hand in to school? Wait, that's probably worse.

If you really want the spelling to be as accurate as possible, download Firefox 2.0. It means that the window automatically spell-checks for you. (If you create your episodes out of the window it won't help, butt even so, Firefox is better than IE).

El' MooCow wrote:It was quite a good episode, I'll give you that, aside from a few spelling mistakes (the sort of 'night' Fred is, is spelt 'Knight'. In other episodes you've made,

I actually did that on purpose.

And thanks for the complement, but somebody else I've asked to rate it thinks diffferently:

http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmes ... c=31933765

After re-reading, I get your 'night' joke.
In terms of Synthlika's name (as I made it up) it is pretty generic sounding, however it's meant to sound as if she's an alien... my names suck. I'll get over it.

In response to the guy saying 'nobody talks like that', you should remind him that they are from a different dimension after all.

Noise Tank, I would have to say that your writing is showing improvement. Your first contributions were very hard to read. Now I notice that your stories now have fewer errors. I would not let the criticism in the GameFaqs forum stop you from contributing here. I think that your writing will improve with practice, if you want it to. The fact that you are asking people for their honest opinions about what you are writing is a sign that you do want your writing to get better.

I will give you a couple pieces of unsolited pieces of advice, which you should use only if you find them helpful. First, I would suggest that you let one of your episodes sit for a few days, and then revise and correct it. Trust me, you will find flaws, and you will want to do things a little differently. That is one way that you get better as a writer. Now, if you are going to do revisions in Extend-A-Story, as a courtesy to authors that may want to extend your episodes, it would be considerate not to add to or change the plot. But changes so the story flows better, and getting rid of grammar and spelling mistakes, is good practice in becoming a better writer.

Second, there are certain genres, such as science fiction and fantasy, that contain elements that have been used in similar stories for anywhere between fifty and a hundred years - time travel, faster-than-light travel, elves, dwarves, and bikini mail on women come to mind. My reaction when I come across these in a book or magazine is the same as my reaction when I hear a joke. It may be very funny the first time I hear it. But when I hear it for the fiftieth time, it is usually stale unless it is very well told, or the teller adds amusing details. So if you use these elements in a story and ask for opinions, a number of jaded readers are going to think, "Oh, God, another story with pointy-eared elves?"

But if you want to write something the contains a spark of originality, the solution is remarkably easy.

Assume that your are writing about something real, even it is "fantasy." Pretend that you are telling a friend about something that you saw. Start asking questions about what you are seeing.

For example, let us say that in an episode there is a character with green skin. Now, the first question that I would ask is "Why?" Is it natural? Does it provide some sort of camouflage in the character's environment? Is it just a side-effect of its diet? Perhaps the character can produce its own food, like a plant. Or is the strange condition artificial? Perhaps the character's friends and family all dye themselves green as some sort of coming-of-age ritual, or the character is a member of a secret society. Suddenly a throwaway detail becomes a possible plot point, and it opens up possibilities. If you want, you can add depth to your story by doing research - using the resources of your local library or the Internet to see how realistic these options might be. Or you can just suggest a few options, and leave it to your collaborator to pick the one that he or she like the best.

My final piece of advice - don't be afraid to fail. If you feel that your writing has to be perfect, then you will never write anything. And what fun would there be in that?

Anableps wrote:Noise Tank, I would have to say that your writing is showing improvement. Your first contributions were very hard to read. Now I notice that your stories now have fewer errors. I would not let the criticism in the GameFaqs forum stop you from contributing here. I think that your writing will improve with practice, if you want it to. The fact that you are asking people for their honest opinions about what you are writing is a sign that you do want your writing to get better.

I will give you a couple pieces of unsolited pieces of advice, which you should use only if you find them helpful. First, I would suggest that you let one of your episodes sit for a few days, and then revise and correct it. Trust me, you will find flaws, and you will want to do things a little differently. That is one way that you get better as a writer. Now, if you are going to do revisions in Extend-A-Story, as a courtesy to authors that may want to extend your episodes, it would be considerate not to add to or change the plot. But changes so the story flows better, and getting rid of grammar and spelling mistakes, is good practice in becoming a better writer.

Second, there are certain genres, such as science fiction and fantasy, that contain elements that have been used in similar stories for anywhere between fifty and a hundred years - time travel, faster-than-light travel, elves, dwarves, and bikini mail on women come to mind. My reaction when I come across these in a book or magazine is the same as my reaction when I hear a joke. It may be very funny the first time I hear it. But when I hear it for the fiftieth time, it is usually stale unless it is very well told, or the teller adds amusing details. So if you use these elements in a story and ask for opinions, a number of jaded readers are going to think, "Oh, God, another story with pointy-eared elves?"

But if you want to write something the contains a spark of originality, the solution is remarkably easy.

Assume that your are writing about something real, even it is "fantasy." Pretend that you are telling a friend about something that you saw. Start asking questions about what you are seeing.

For example, let us say that in an episode there is a character with green skin. Now, the first question that I would ask is "Why?" Is it natural? Does it provide some sort of camouflage in the character's environment? Is it just a side-effect of its diet? Perhaps the character can produce its own food, like a plant. Or is the strange condition artificial? Perhaps the character's friends and family all dye themselves green as some sort of coming-of-age ritual, or the character is a member of a secret society. Suddenly a throwaway detail becomes a possible plot point, and it opens up possibilities. If you want, you can add depth to your story by doing research - using the resources of your local library or the Internet to see how realistic these options might be. Or you can just suggest a few options, and leave it to your collaborator to pick the one that he or she like the best.

My final piece of advice - don't be afraid to fail. If you feel that your writing has to be perfect, then you will never write anything. And what fun would there be in that?

You're inspiring.

Thank you so much for your advice. I also know that you need to sort out the good advice from the bad-because no matter what, people will always find something to complain about.

Noise Tank, I kind of have the opposite problem. I tend to write and post my episodes in short bursts. Sometimes that leads to brilliant and intense bursts of inspiration, other times... not so much. For me a lot of the appeal of NEQ is the spontaneous, improvisatory quality. It makes a nice difference from wrestling with stories I've been replaying in my head for months. But Anableps's advice to start letting your episodes sit for a few days is probably something I should take as well.

Aside: It's mildly disconcerting for me that no one extended my episodes for almost two weeks and then two people did today.

I think the process by which episodes are extended is completely random. There's no sense in obsessing too much about a particular episode, since there's no guarantee it will be extended or even read.

One thing I've noticed is, the shorter an episode is, and the more options it has, the more likely it is to be extended.