Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Writing Process

I have none. OK, that's a somewhat of a lie. Sometimes I get a notebook, a pencil, and I start writing down what I think about to a particular subject. For example, In the RAGE review I started to write the review and doing some manual count of the words, which ended up somewhere between 600 and 650 words. It was detailed, but from reading it I could still remember in the back of my mind that there is still some things that need to be addressed. So I took another notebook and began to write it again. Some sentences that was in the original draft ended up being in the new one. One of the best thing about doing that is while I'm writing the obvious stuff, my mind is going back to the more subtle stuff. The stuff that slips past your mind. The final draft has about 1306 words not including the subtitles for the paragraph breaks. On my twitter account a while back ago, I said that it would be an accomplishment to me if I write anything with 1000 words on it. I'm not sure what happened, but I always get past that. So far there is one that is not near 1000 words and that's the "Let me talk, Damn it!" writing.

WRITE WRITE WRITE

I try to do this, but fail

Obviously, that plan to write it all down on paper first doesn't really pan out most of the time. The overviews of Metal Gear Solid series and Dino Crisis had all been written on paper weeks before they were released on websites. On twitter, once again, I wrote that paper before internet. That is me somewhat lying to myself. There are a few things I wrote where I just wing it. "Do we really need a new generation of consoles?" and "Power of character" was all just something that popped in my head. I wrote and released it. The one thing that need to do is proof read everything. I notice mistakes hours after I post them and they are a few. I'm sure my grammar is not that great, and I tend write words twice. "Inconsistent graphics and, and story downplays this game" noticed the two ands in that sentence? I didn't notice it until hours after it was released. I could go back and fix it, but I'm afraid I might mess something up. My mind thinks of something before my fingers can react so that will lead me into sentences that will skip a word. I'm sure there are a dozen more I'm not noticing. To me all of this is learning. I need to learn myself to read each one carefully before I release it.

DID YOU SEE THAT

Expect a few They Might Be Giants  Subtitles


Surprisingly, the one that takes quite a bit of time is writing the subtitles for the paragraph breaks. It's something I use to make it look like chapters. I don't like a wall of texts and I'm sure that there are others like me that feel the same way. It's something I do when finished writing whatever I'm talking about. When making titles I scan through what I wrote and think of a line that will accommodate it. Whether from the top of my head, song titles, or song lyric. What ever fits. I had quite a bit of trouble from "Power of the Character" for the first subtitle. "I'm good with what you said" I have no idea why that is up there. It doesn't make much sense about the Bioware dialogue wheel.  But after finding the other two, I wanted to keep that theme going. So I just went ahead and used it. I tired so hard not to put Jurassic Park references in the Dino Crisis Overview, but I just went ahead in did it. So instead of saying "Hold On To Your Butts" or "Clever Girl" I just used lines that fit and wasn't so known. Sure the "They're Moving In Herds" is known, but what about the other three? Those are just random ass lines from Jurassic Park. In my earlier stuff I really didn't do it, but I felt that I should. I think the last time that I didn't do this was the Resident Evil 4 Review. I'm not sure why I didn't do it. I think because at the time I was thinking that this would be the only place that would have it. Like always that didn't pan out.

BEFORE LATER ON

Don't ever expect this


Lastly, I find pictures that fits what the picture will be at. This is the easiest thing to do, but looking for that right one does take a few minutes. I have to make sure they fit of what's beside, below, or above of what I wrote. I have to make sure that it's small enough, but big enough to make it viewable and not just something that you can barely see. What makes it hard is that other websites has different ways to post a picture. You can simply put ["img][/img"] and be done with it. It does get annoying, but I got over it quite quickly. I also write subtitles that relate to the photo.

It's not much, but it's a learning process. I hope little by little I get better and start handing some of these out. I don't have much to do and I hope to change that in my own terms. My original plan was to write something down each week, but now I'm writing something close to everyday. My biggest fears is that I will no longer have anything to write about. Sure, I can write a review, but for me that comes far and few between. I don't want this to only be reviews. When worst comes to worst, I can always do another Overview. Those turned out to be fun to do.

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