Reflection ii, Final...

Apologies for the late update. I have already finished my final draft of my short story, Homeland: The Flames of the Neglected, so I might as well reflect on my Twenty Percent Project. In the beginning, I chose this project as a driving force for me to finish this story that I had in my mind for quite some time. And, because of that, I am grateful to my past self for doing that, for now I learned much more than just improving my writing skills. For one, I learned how to type without looking at the keyboard, and two, you have to make time for yourself to do the things that you love and are passionate about. As I was planning and writing this story, I thought to myself, "How will my friends or other people will react to this story?" and that was the drive that allowed me to continue forward. For my classmates, friends, and future students who will somehow find this post: do what you love the most. Thank you for this great year.

And last, but not least...

Homeland: Flames of the Neglected is ready for public view. One story down, many more to go!

Elora the Tactician signing out. 

Reflection ii, 14

As I finished writing the story, I am now in the editing process. As it was a short story, I quickly edited out the mistakes that were easy to notice. However, I need feedback from a new set of eyes to catch any plotholes and confusing sentences, as I am poor with grammar. The main problem is what I am going to do for the remaining time during class, as I do not want to trouble my fellow piers from finishing their work. Maybe I will rewrite the scenes that I fixed in my rough draft to make a second draft. That's the plan; keep editing until it's finished.

Tidbit of the week: One of the idea names for this story was "Sinful Emotions." Even I don't know what that means.

Reflection ii, 13

I did it. It is done. I completed the story by finishing it in one full sweep--I completed chapters vi and vii. But it is not over yet because I have to start the editing process, which is the tedious part. As this is my first time actually completing a story, I have no experience on how stories should be like when it will be published (but I am not going to publish; it's too embarrassing). The person I called up for editing never responded, so I decided to go for other people to call for help--notably the English teachers, probably. So we're not done yet!

Tidbit of the week: Homeland: The Flames of the Neglected (title pending) is the title of the short story, with a whopping 5,399 words. Pretty cool name, right? The thing is, I have a whole page of title ideas. Pretty hard to think of a title, since I had one before but the story changed drastically, so that title didn't work anymore.

Reflection ii, 12

I completed chapter v and started chapter vi this week. There's nothing else to say, as the story is almost complete. However, I feel as if the pacing is a little bit off, but I will worry about it when I start editing. I never got a reply from one person who agreed to edit, so I need to find another one for more feedback. The moment I finish the story is the moment I start editing. Also, I need help with names! I can't decide what to name certain characters, as I want it to have some king of meaning, but it just doesn't sound right! (At this rate, it sounds like their names are puns)//

Next week's goal is to complete chapter vi and vii. It shall be done!

Tidbit of the week: I think our main character Amber is a tragic hero. Maybe.

Reflection ii, 11

I completed chapter iv today and I started chapter v today! The original plan had eight chapters, but I merged iv and v, so technically I finished chapter iv and v and started chapter vi. At this rate, I may be able to finish the entire story in two weeks from now. My motivation is still strong because I really want to finish and share this story to the world. I currently have one person who is reading over the first two chapters, but I have not gotten a reply yet. I am looking for more people, and I have at least three people in mind.

The tidbit of the week: the chapters are short (and because of that, it's hard to think up things that may spoil the plot)

Reflection ii, 10

I completed yet another chapter, so I am 3/8 done with the story. I cleaned up my outline so I could easily follow it when I type up the rest of the story. To get a head start on editing, I recently sent the first 2 chapters to someone who agreed to help me in this project. I am currently waiting for their response, but I also plan on editing those chapters myself. So far, everything is running smoothly, and I hope that it continues to be this way. The next goal is to complete chapter 4 and editing chapter one. I will make this story come to life!

And now a small tidbit of the day: this story has maybe 3 characters that intentionally have no names revealed. And it will never be

Reflection ii, 9

It feels so good to be motivated after a writer's block. I stepped my game on and actually completed part i and part ii this weekend, despite of the amount of free time that I had. In addition, I completed an outline for the first three parts of the story. This story is drastically different than what I had planned many years ago, but times change, based on the time constraints and research that I have. In fact, I think the story improved on its own as the years went by when I add new pieces to the story. This project forces me to work, which I appreciate greatly, and I gladly would take advantage of.

The current goal is to write at least 2 chapters a week, so I would be done with the story by 3 weeks (possibly shorter if I work in school and in 20%).

As reference, I have three pages so far. (Yeah, that's two chapters together...pretty short). Here's an excerpt if you don't care about spoilers.

By the time she woke up again, she found herself staring at the familiar wooden ceiling. The boy and his father were by her side once again. The boy was trying to hold back his tears as he saw her eyes open, while the other man remained emotionless, regardless if she was awake or not. The silence was broken when the father cleared his throat. He announced, “This young lad and I talked things out for a bit, and we’ve decided that proper ‘introductions’ are to be in order.”

Reflection ii, 8

I shifted gears a bit and I finally finished the outline on how the story will go. I have a preview to show, but of course, I cannot show you the content of the plot.

Since the beginning I couldn't think or find a theme that would fit the plot and the main character of the story, Amber. In the picture, you would notice that the theme of the story would be, indeed, centered around emotions. The plan is to have a "chapter" handle a specific kind of emotion (special thanks to Wikipedia) that may or may not affect the main character. All that's left is to write the whole story out and edit it with some help. With the way the story is set up, it is probably longer than a short story but closer to a mini novella. Judging by the emotions alone, you could probably tell what I'm going to write but I assure you it won't ruin the fun. I finished chapter i, a relatively short chapter, and I will finish the other chapters when I have extra time.

Reflections ii, 6 & 7 Spring Break Edition

Over the course of spring break, it is regrettable that I have not worked on my project. Yes, I have been thinking about ways to go around the wall that I faced in regards to plot, but there were no ideas. It is quite a challenge to write a story with just one main character; there are many factors that I have to think about: make the character likable, find a way to make the story engaging, and most importantly to teach a valuable lesson that I have in mind. I know other stories with one character, like The Hatchet or The Alchemist, so I need to review those stories again to get tips. A collaborator of mine and I decided to change the beginning of the plot and the backstory the same, so things should finally shift into gears.

I want my future self to read this: please work on writing the story until the next reflection. And continue backing up your themes/etc. If this story comes out, I expect a good analysis!

Reflection ii, 5

It is regretful to say this, but I have not been working on this project, hence the late response for the weekly update. However, I have been keeping this project in my mind every single day, where I brainstorm and gather ideas around. And to my surprise, as I was walking home, I had another idea to implement for the story. As stated last week, the story will be written in parts, or episodes, and each one would teach a lesson to our main character. In addition (or as another option), our character here would "change" as each episode progresses. This story is about her, so I wanted tons of characterization implemented.

As spring break approaches, I hope I have the time to work on this more than what I expect now. I know that I have other unfinished stories like this, but this is the one that I am truly passionate about; it is very important to me. Heh, it seems that the writer's block is coming for me after it came for Josh, but I'll need to keep on planning before I write all of this down. It is an uncertain time, but I think, at least seven episodes or more would do the trick for this story. Wish me luck!

Plan:
[1] Opening
[2-8] Episodes
[3] Ending

Reflection ii, 4

I have not worked on the story this weekend. However, I have researched numerous websites to further improve my writing skills. While researching, I discovered a great website that can help writers--professional or not--hone their skills. The topics that I was looking up in that website include how to write beautifully, characterization, secrets, plot twists, describing the world, and much more. I am reading this up because I wanted to think about these aspects of a story while writing them down.

Also, I ultimately decided on extending this story to be longer than a short story and to be a novella. Each chapter would be an "episode" of sorts relating to our main character, Amber. How the story is going to be told...is a secret. I plan on thinking of these episode ideas, as I want each one to have meaning and further develop our character. If I have at least four episodes, maybe I will continue writing (or start from the beginning again). Wish me luck!

This is the website in question:

http://thewritepractice.com/

Reflection ii, 3

There aren't many thing to report, but I am working on the rough draft. There are around three pages worth in Google Docs, and the main story isn't written yet! I realize that my story will be longer than expected, so the short story may become a novella, which is around 20,000-50,000 words. I tend to write stories that move slowly.

I realize that I want to improve my writing skills. I feel as if the sentences that I write are too basic and straightforward. Hopefully the people that will edit this story once it's finished will give feedback. For future weeks, I want to continue to write this rough draft, but I want to finish this so that I can have enough time to edit this. Maybe in 3 or 4 weeks, but this is not guaranteed.

And for the tidbits of the week. Our main character, Amber finally has her first line of dialogue! It took a good three pages, but she didn't have reason to in the first place!

Reflection ii, 2

For this week, I have continued working on the short story. To be honest, I am already facing difficulties for this story. Even though I had the idea fleshed out a few years ago, I started the story from scratch with some of the same concepts. Thus, my original story from years back is completely different for the one I am making right now. It is hard to write the scenes that are in-between the main plot points that I had created. And I have been told that I write a lot and that the scenes are moving very slowly, so I did not reach the interesting parts yet. Isn't it sad that I have the backstory fleshed out in comparison to the main story?

I have good news, however. I have this great idea that I thought up for narrating the story, similar to the movie Memento, but I am not sure if I will be using it (and frankly, it would be unoriginal). I also considered getting people to edit my work piece-by-piece, rather than the whole story in one go.

I can't show my work (or pic) as that would be spoiling the fun, but from now on, I will give small info about the story every week. It is not set in the modern times, but similar to the medieval ages. It's a fictional world, too, but take this sentence with a grain of salt.

Shameless advertisement: editors, needed! Feedback is appreciated!

Reflection ii, 1

My short story is progressing well. As I already have the idea and such in my mind, I wrote all of my ideas down on paper. I have a friend that reads a lot of literature, so I asked for help when I wrote the entire plot in chronological order. I thought that my ideas were okay, but I have discovered that my story is incomplete: there were many questions and plot holes to be answered. As such, I drastically changed the story, but it still has the base premise, so it is not entirely different. With my friend, we have completed the backstory for the main character. Now I need to finish prewriting the main plot. I started writing the rough draft, but I need a guideline to follow.  I do keep a notebook to jot down my ideas for this story, though.

For each week, I plan on finishing at least one "event" that I plan in my prewriting draft. I still need to find editors when I write and complete the story. However, I found a great website called Hemingway Editor which proofreads my sentences and gives feedback. I can't really show a picture of my work, as that would be spoiling the fun! All right, I'll give you the first two sentences (I have 4 paragraphs so far):

If you want to refer to this story, it's called Project Homeland (title pending). See you next week!

Proposal, the Second Coming

For the remaining time of the year, I would like to work on something that was in my backlog for a very long time--writing a story that was in my mind for a couple of years. My finished product will be a short story, which is as long as 7,500 words (but this may change along the way). This would not only be my goal for completing a story, but to improve my writing skills. For this project, I'll have to research many things, such as constructing characters, world, and such. The easy part of this project is probably writing the story out. However, there would be difficulties, such as editing, fleshing out the characters, and the prewriting in general. Most of this project can be done both in class and outside of class. Anyways, I wish everyone good luck!

Reflection 14

Fortunately, I've completed the game in time but I have been unsuccessful to fix that music bug from last reflection. For now, press the "Q" key to stop the music if it loops and "W" (if I remember correctly) to play the music. As presentation day looms, I have to work on preparing my game to show to the world. I have to export the game to be playable (and to test if it works) outside of my computer. I briefly read over these links:

http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/61440/how-do-i-share-my-game-maker-games

http://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/000_using%20gamemaker/009_distributing%20your%20game.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiKGxJLnscQ

and I'll have to test this out when I come home.

After exporting the game to Windows/PC, I will test if the game will work in the school computers by either putting it to a USB or sending the file to my school email. This is the plan that I want to test out. If all else fails, I'll bring my laptop to play the game over. Good luck, everyone~!

Reflection 13

During the course of winter break, I fell ill and was unable to work on the game. I was patching up some tiny holes and mistakes that were left behind for this week. There were no major changes, but the only things that I attempted to do were to stop the music looping bug (which failed) and making the game more pleasant aesthetically. Several instances of the visual appeal is to animate some of the enemies so they would feel more alive. Also, I changed the pause menu to be more player friendly by putting instructions!

For future patches, I would like to continue to fix the music bug.

I would like to say "here is a pic of the new pause menu," but my computer was having connecting issues so I can not show the picture at this time.

[insert picture here]

Reflection 12

With the good old trick of copying and pasting (with a bit of modifying), I finished the script for the boss! Now that's left is to revise a lot of things (balancing issues, the visuals, animation, etc.). Also, I need a beta tester (the alpha tester is myself) to check the game out! I will get some testers if I could find a way to import the game out of the software. Beta testers, as I have learned, are people who test out the game and report bugs and other issues for the programmers to fix.

Also, I have thought up of a name for this game! From now on, call this game Arole's Role I can't think of titles Slime Extermination  (title pending).

Here's the boss.

Reflection 11

Making this boss has been harder than I expected, since I wanted this boss to be unique from the other enemies. I'm still working on the boss by giving it properties that the other enemies do not have--spawning more slime enemies. Originally, I wanted the boss to fling the slime to the player, just like the experiment that I made for the player's magic. I tried doing that, but it worked differently than I expected. Now the boss just leaves his slime on the floor as he moves around. I read stories that some video games had unintentional things to happen that the developers leave; now I understand the reason behind it.

As stated earlier, this is an early build of the boss, and as such, I will put notes to myself for next week.

Add more exp levels for the player
Give spawned enemies HP. (+ make the spawned enemies move?)
make obj_magic collide w/ spawned enemies
in step event of spawned enemies and obj_boss collision_check obj_player
    if global.hp <= 0
        global.hp = 0

Here is the unintentional result that I decided to leave.

Reflection 10

Sorry for the late entry; I thought I posted this reflection yesterday...

In any case, I continued working on the boss, but I am having an immense amount of trouble. I wanted to make an enemy that can shoot like the player, but this is harder than normal enemies colliding with the player. There is not much to talk about, since this is probably the last thing that I am going to all because of the limitations of a free version. After fixing up the boss, I plan on fixing the other bugs and polishing the game up.

Note to self reminders:

//If the player's magic collides with the boss' slime balls. <obj_boss_magic STEP EVENT>

if place_meeting(x, y, obj_magic)
    instance_destroy();

//If the player's magic collides with the boss' slime balls. <obj_magic STEP EVENT>

if place_meeting(x, y, obj_boss_magic)
    instance_destroy();


Here's a pic of my work so far: