A Guide to Help Improve YOUR Writing Skill: Life Stories

[Seabody]

I concur.

In my first Sims 3 Story, Katie's World, I intended for an epic chase through the streets of Bridgeport, Violet to fall through the gate of dimensional connectivity, and for a small tear to shed on Katie's face, in an extreme closeup.
In the end, "something, anything happened".

[Odinsdottir]

I'm learning that I have to be flexible.  I play on high free will and they will do suprising things.  Little pains in the neck. 

[Esther1981]

I'm learning that I have to be flexible.  I play on high free will and they will do suprising things.  Little pains in the neck. 

That is so true. I used to have make needs static on everytime I played, but without it they actually do things I'd never seen before, and they always do things that make me laugh. 

[Odinsdottir]

@Esther 1981, when I cheat motives I leave them dynamic and move the sliders as and when something needs a boost, but let most of them deteriorate naturally.  That way I get a mix.

[Janna]

This is very helpful and informative in how to write stories.  What I am wondering is, how would you incorporate it into stories that involve more than one town?  Some of the project stories have your sim family move from one town to another; with the life story continues from one generation to another.
How can you not micromanage your sims yet make sure they eat, sleep, shower, learn needed skills for career and do opportunities?  What is the key to letting them do their own thing, yet do what is needed?   Especially when a sim day is over so fast and there doesn't seem to be enough time to do what is needed.

Could some tips be given for such stories, the projects with moving from one town to another, from one generation to another.

You have the private eye move from the city to a small town to become an author and falls in love with the maid.  Where do you go with his children if they don't want to stay there?  If you are going from DV to AS to MF to MV how do you blend in those towns with your plot that you created and with changing from one generation to another?
Your private eye witnessed an undercover cop being shot by a crime lords son.  Now he wants revenge and is going to kill your son, your heir.  So your son has to move away, not only to protect his parents, but to start a new life hoping to not be found and killed. 
What next?  The crime lord dies of old age and his son is killed in a prison fight, what happens to the next generation to keep interest in the story?  Your heir has married and has a daughter for his heir, now what do you do to create a plot for her?  Do you create a new plot?  Does it have to be connected to the first plot? 

I love to read and my favorite are series, but there is always a central theme that is built and the main family stay generally in the same area, such as the dynasties stories.  How to you create when you go from generation to generation, from town to town?

[Shirin]

Come up with a reason why the town is changing with the generations.

Kenneth's son, Marc, moved from Twinbrook to Riverview to protect his parents, and to start a new life without being found. The Big Bad and Small Bad die in the interim, so maybe Marc's daughter, Tara, decides to move back to Twinbrook. She thinks everything is ok now, because she's always been the innocent and naive sort. She wants to meet her grandparents, since she'd like to be a crime writer, like her grandfather.

But Kenneth is dead, he was killed by Small Bad (which is why Small Bad was in prison). So now what does Tara do? Learn to write on her own? Do her own investigations? Or explore writing more fully, and hey...while doing some research for her Journalism boss, she meets this superstar athlete, Braden, and realises she would rather write sports instead.

[Janna]

I hadn't thought of it from that standpoint, just that they were being chased.  I could get it from one town to the next, but the third town, was at a loss in what to do. 
This has given me some ideas of how to take it another direction, which will allow me to continue the story from a different perspective. 

I'm bouncing ideas around, need to write some of them down so I won't forget.

Thanks for the help

[MarianT]

You can think about why people move -- to take a new job, to be with someone, to get away from it all...

[Janna]

The thing I have been focusing on in my story is they are being chased because he want the female for a hidden reason.  My plans had been that he had a means of living for a much longer lifespan, not totally immortal, but close.  She will live a longer than normal lifespan but her hubby won't, but what about their offspring, and the next generation.  Are they going to inherit the ability to live longer?  If not, then what is the reason to continue to move from town to town.  To escape, run and hide is no longer needed.

Keeping it fresh is where I have been struggling, but if I switch to where they are hunting him, perhaps, or the going back to get information, then expose him, I could go with the military wants him for experimenting on and he will now be on the run, focusing more on keeping himself alive. 

I've been stepping back from it, to allow my brain to focus elsewhere, instead of trying to get past the roadblock. 

I'm writing down ideas to focus on later, adding notes as thoughts come up and doing more of planning it out then planning as I write it.  I've started another story without a hidden agenda, and I think it has been of some help.  With it, I am focusing on each town, not trying to plan out seven generations.   Add to that the feedback I am getting from here and some fresh ideas are coming up.
 
If one generation is a doctor, another a scientist and another is in the military and reading the diaries of the founder of the family they should be able to put two and two together.   They can find the hidden agenda and then set the government after him. 

First generation is the founder.  Second generation is a doctor.  Third generation is scientist.  Fourth generation is news star journalist who has access to the diaries.  That heir can exposes him.  Fifth generation is military who takes him for experimenting on.  Sixth and seventh generation are having fun in the sun and enjoying the good life. 

Has potential with what and who Mr. Big Bad dude is.   

[Eldridge]

I think we should consider becoming one of them. This means a lot about what we called as “Empathy". This always exhaust me so much, as I laugh, I cry when I thinking about their situation.

And also I believe everything happen for a reason, even the unreasonable thing, there must me something that can explain why something like that is happen. For me Evil not always Evil and Good not always Good, there always be a gray zone between them.

Often people missed that point and chose to hate the character without reason. When the evil villain lose and defeated by the hero usually don’t know what behind their reason to do something like that? What’s the root of the problem that they become something like that?

Mostly some people don't care, that's not of my business anyway. You never know about a Killer who did crime and never know about his daughter being held captive by someone. You never know about student that comes late to class and being scolded by her teacher just because she attends her sick little brother? Maybe that’s because we never want to know.

There always more than one perspective in our life. The winner and the loser, often we always focus on one side and forgot the other and also remember that what their choice is also impact in what they are now.

Past – Present – Future

Choice and Consequence

Simple concept but deep, I remember this well when I was listening radio and getting advice from people. Just want to share