Character Side (Short) Story Writing
For this task I have created/written two (short) side stories for two different characters that appear during the game. These side stories show a range of events (such as an event that occurs during the game/story, and another that occurs long before), but these events are shown from the perspective of characters who aren’t the protagonists. In addition to this, these short side stories help give reasoning, as well as explaining some of the areas to the story (e.g. the reason for the games/stories main objective of finding the protagonist’s missing father).
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The two side (short) stories are shown below. Then below them, the process of this task is listed.
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Why I did this task
The first character that I wrote a side story for is Leonard, the first crew member of the protagonist during the game. His side story takes place around the time the game/story would begin, with Litore Island (his home island) being attacked. However, the reason I decided to give this character this side story is that he’s absent during the attack and only returns to the island after the damage has been dealt. I felt that this could be a fitting area to write about for the character/side story, as it would give an explanation for his absence in the game, but it would also allow me to show his perspective of the aftermath.
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The second character that I wrote a side story for was the protagonist’s father, Hugh. His side story takes the form of a backstory, as it portrays the event that leads to him going missing (which was him encountering and being consumed by the Mecha Shark). I felt that this was a fitting concept for a side story, as it would allow me to explore the characters motives in going on the journey and the reason for him going missing (although this would be found out within the game/story).
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Leonard Side Story
Hugh Side Story
How did I carry out this task?
After carrying out almost all of the other tasks I was required to have completed for the project, I found out that planning before jumping straight into writing the task at hand was always the most effective start to any task I could do.
Because of this, I managed to avoid a problem before encountering it (unlike most of my other production tasks), as I decided to make a list of possible side story concepts for a few of my characters which meant that while writing I had the idea of what I wanted to write about listed (and didn't encounter the common problem I ran into of writing and then quickly having little idea of what to write).
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The images below show the planning that I carried out before writing the (short) side stories.
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To begin with I listed a number of events that I could write about as a side story for any of my characters.
After the initial planning, I decided to pick out the characters I thought would be the most fitting for a side story, and then listed out concepts/writing areas for those individual characters.
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These concepts were mainly just events that had happened in the characters past, or events that occur within the story, although the side story would show the events from the eyes of different characters (and therefore focus on their thoughts and feelings). But these concepts were more developed/specific to the first stage of planning.
After carrying out the planning shown above, I then picked out two side story concepts that I would use for the basis of my two different side stories.
With the concepts outlines, all that was left to do now was begin writing the side (short) stories themselves.
But this wasn't the most simple of tasks, and there were some problems that I encountered (explained under the problem solving section).
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Decision making
During this task, there were a number of different decisions that were made.
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The first decision was about the number of side stories I would write for this task. Originally, I had the intention of/hoped to write at least one side story for each of my characters. However, upon starting the task, I realised that this would be impossible for me with the remaining time.
Because of this, I decided that, for this task, I would write two different side stories for two different characters.
This somewhat solved my problem, as it meant that I didn't use up all of my remaining time on this task, but there was still another problem.
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While writing my stories, I realised how they were ending up as rather short stories. Thinking back, it was likely because of the sense of urgency and my awareness of the lack of time remaining in the project (and the remaining tasks I wanted/needed to complete in the time), which therefore lead to me spending less time on this task then I would have originally wanted to have spent.
Because of them being on the short end, I have gave them the additional label of 'short story' which makes them being short somewhat acceptable. However, these stories being short did enable me to dedicate time to other tasks that were more important (such as some script editing and blog updates/posts), so I feel like the decision to make short stories wasn't actually a bad decision.
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I also had to make a decision In terms of the writing itself and the topics used to write about. After carrying out the planning for this task, I was left with over a page of concepts, which meant I had the decision of picking out the two concepts I would write about.
My thought process for picking the concepts was along the lines of 'what concepts/story ideas would develop the existing story I've made', and so my decisions reflected this.
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The first side story idea was to explain Leonard's absence during the events at the beginning of the game, and then show his viewpoint/perspective of the aftermath when returning (developing/further explaining the story of the game itself).
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Then the second concept I decided upon was the story of how Hugh (protagonist's father) ended up being trapped inside of the Mecha Shark, and the reason he left on his journey which led to this event (which would then further explain the main objective of the game, being to find the missing father).
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One of my more major decisions, in terms of writing, was the decision to link the first side story (Leonard's side story) to the beginning of the game/the script. I thought this would be an effective idea, as it would allow me to end Leonard's story where the protagonist's story/main story begin, but also because I thought it would be an effective way to link the world and the events occurring together.
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Below you can see the section of my script and short side story which link together.
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The image to the left shows my script, and a conversation between the characters Ace and Leonard during the scene where Leonard is first introduced.
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Below, you can see how I've tried to show this conversation from Leonard's perspective in the format of a story.
Problems/Solutions
Upon carrying out the task of writing my side stories, I realised how I had a serious lack of time (this being the problem), and a number of tasks still needing to be completed. Becasue of this, I decided to change my idea of writing a side story for each character, to instead only writing two side stories for to characters and then having these stories being classified as short stories (although as mentioned in a previous section, if I had the time, I wouldn't want them to be short, and I'd like to develop and spend more time on them).
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One of the main problem that I encountered throughout this task in terms was that I had a certain idea of what to write, but linking those ideas, and building the concept when writing proved to be more difficult than I originally thought. My solution wasn't the most effective method I probably could have used, but I ended up using trial and error until I was somewhat happy with what I had written.
Although I did also use a method that I had found through research (explained further in the section below), which actually ended up being rather useful. This method pretty much said to do something other than writing to get an idea/ideas (as during other activities you might suddenly have an idea), and then note the idea down.
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Did research influence me during this task?
During this task, there wasn't really a specific research task that I carried out to help me with coming up with ideas/concepts or to help me indicate what I needed to write. But as mentioned above, I did listen to the advice of a certain piece of information I found through research.
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During my research into the book Level Up! (Rogers S, 2014) I found some effective ways of coming up with/gathering ideas.
Firstly I found that the book mentioned brainstorming (which influenced my lists) would be useful, which I ended up doing and found that it was, in fact, helpful (especially when planning). However, this only included me noting down my own concepts, so asking others may have also been a good idea.
Additionally, I also found, from the book, that carrying out another activity to the task at hand could be useful as you can form ideas and make connections you would otherwise. This is something I tried, which was sometimes useful in allowing me to think of an idea, but I also thought it was useful as I was able to do something else with my time when I would have just been sitting and writing nothing (able to manage time more efficiently).
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However, apart from the few influences shown above, there wasn't really much research that I carried out that influenced me. However, now having completed the task, I have been able to spot an area that I should have researched. This area of research that I could have looked into could have been how stories start and end.
I feel as though this would have been an effective research piece as these were areas I found myself having trouble writing/dealing with.
Although if I do somehow have the time, I would like to carry out this research and make improvements to these sections. However, I doubt I will have the luxury of this, due to the time remaining.
Reflection/Evaluation
After having completed this task, I feel as though the side stories themselves are somewhat effective. I believe this as the stories themselves link to the main story, and also provide some explanation to areas that might not be so clear (such as why Leonard wasn't on the island, and how the protagonist's father went missing and ended up being consumed by the antagonist/Mecha Shark.
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However, this isn't to say they are perfect, as they're not by any means. There are a number of sections I would like to improve (e.g. start/end to the stories), and a few research tasks to go with these improvements (such as how stories start and end).
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Additionally, in terms of time management, I don't feel like I was poor at managing my time, but I feel like it was more to do with the reason of me not completely taking into account the scale of the tasks, and the fact that I'm the only writer of my group. But this is something for me to be aware of for the remainder of the project/project to come in the near or even distant future.