A guide for would be Fan-Fiction Authors

[Raging Deadstar]

It depends if you are basing your story off a game. I've based my story off the space empires universe but there's no game behind it, whilst sachmo's and erax's are based on a game.

I keep a word file with all sorts of trivial notes in, going from month by month including when charcters are introduced/killed off, battles, facilities constructed, captains for ships etc. Thats the easiest way to keep track of things

I'm guessing that a large quadrent would be overkill. The best thing in my opinion is do a small or medium galaxy. For my story i drew out a map of systems and at max there are 20. Big maps things start getting confusing for the reader

Anything else just ask, all us writers will be willing to help!

I have to admit Sachmo, it's not only erax you inspired to write a story. You and Atrocitie's great stories inspired me to write my own, i can remember the very night i read most of your completed chapters on Spaceempires.org and it fits together beautifully

[ June 18, 2003, 18:36: Message edited by: Senator Raging Deadstar ]

[Suicide Junkie]

For my story (End of the Line), I used a 2-system hermit empire...
It was a valiant struggle against overwhelming numbers and tech, just to survive in a hostile world.

[Ruatha]

My first story was a 256 systems map...
A grand epic saga! (NGC2)
I had help by the other co-authors, our stories influenced each others, our main characters interacting.
So sometimes I would put the words in the mouth of the other authors charachters and sometimes they would do the same with mine, real fun.

The story could suddenly take a whole new turn, to bad most of my characters died

[clark]

Thank you all for your input so far, but the interrogation, "She must continue!" (imagine a thick german accent)

I have downloaded the TDM mod, so I think I have quite a few races to work with, but are there certain ones that might make better opponents or foils for a story based SE4 game?

Do you play differently in terms of what you research in the game, or in other words, do you alter your strategy to fit into your developing storyline?

My main issue is I have a tech strategy that I consider optimal for my playing style, however, early introduction of certain weapons (like the phased polaron) can make for unbalanced tension in the story. Part of the draw to some of these fan fiction stories (for me) is the "impposible odds" as your race is confronted with Organic technology while all you have is a DUC.

In your opinion, am I better served trying to actualy role-play the game to the point where I determine stragey from the perspective of the characters and the universe?

IE- not really reserching weapons technology until you encounter a real need for weapons tech (like the Rage)?

[Suicide Junkie]

You could always have a militant or paranoid race...

With mine, I was bent on terraforming my universe to perfection, and stacked up 3000 mines to keep the AIs from bothering me while I did it.

All that research into planet improvement left me with a huge military deficit, and my LCs had to go on some tech raids against the ever-present dreadnoughts roaming the badlands beyond the minefields. And all with the minesweepers continually bashing away at the fields, providing that countdown to Doom.

[ June 18, 2003, 19:09: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Atrocities]

Hello and welcome,

I don't know if you have read the story I am writing or not, but I figure that since I have written one I could offer some advice.

I started writing a while back first with the Cleansing stories, (Star Trek based) and later with the Once Upon The Starts (OUTS). I started OUTS after reading Sachmo's "Rise of the Remorhaz Society" and fell in love with his concept of using SEIV as a story base. Yes Sachmo inspired me as well to write.

I wanted to do something differant and make it the story more involved than just the standard 'we did this this turn' format. I wanted my story to more drama and suspense.

When I sit down to write I always have a basic concept of what it is I want to accomplish for the segment or chapter. After that its all comes out as I type. The story seems to take on a life of its own, sometimes it can be exciting, other times a bit boring, but in the end, it is all good. (Or so I hope)

I do what many writers do with a lot of characters, I have a seprate information page. Each character, item, place, etc is listed on this information page and with it a brief description or back story.

I write because I enjoy it, and even though my work is appreciated by a few people, according to the recent pole, I keep writing because it is enjoyable.

If I had one peace of advice to give it would be to just write and not think so much about what it is your writing, let your imagination do the work and you sit back and enjoy the ride. Good luck and I do look forward to reading your work.

[ June 18, 2003, 20:06: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[Erax]

OK, I told you how I decided to sit down and write a story, now I'll tell you the choices I made before I started typing away.

I knew I was going to write a turn-report kind of story, because I liked ROTRS so much. But it also had to offer something different, something the other stories hadn't touched on before. I had been playing around with the Crossover mod some time before and I love Star Wars, so I decided to start a game as the Star Wars Empire and give every other race standard SEIV tech. I believed conflict and interaction between the different tech trees would be fascinating (and it is, but I've discovered it takes second place to role-playing the Empire).

In my special case, I knew my tech tree would be a challenge in itself (small ships initially, expensive weapons research, few opportunities to steal alien tech), so I set the AI at an easy level - medium difficulty and no bonus.

As for the story format itself, I wanted it to be different too. I got the idea for the 'war diary' format from Dracula (of all things). It is a challenge to write the battle scenes in this format but it makes the standard 'we did this and this happened' part much easier.

The initial Posts were actually quite easy, they practically wrote themselves. I checked my thread and discovered I did 13 story Posts in the first three days. After that things started slowing down, the game and the story became more complex and I eventually settled down to a routine of one post a day, five or six a week (although this week I've missed two days already and I am angry at myself for it).

More about how I write up each 'diary entry' later.