Writer's Block!!!

[vanillacoke]

I'm currently trying to come up with ideas for my game. I started off with a basic tutorial to ease the player into the game. Simple quests, some pretty decent dialogue to sort of build up to the story.

It's not too frustrating, nor does it make you feel stupid. (Like some tutorials do...)

Now, I want each character to have their own personalities and I feel that I could expand on that by bringing up past events to show how they became that person.

So I started work on my main character today. Made the necessary characters, the town in which the event will take place and even have the rough idea in my head of what is happening.
But I can't seem to convert my idea into the game at the moment and it's frustrating me. It seems I have a case of writer's block.
I'm not going to ask you to write my story for me, but any advice you have that would help with what I'm trying to achieve would be great.
Also, feel free to share with me how you deal with writer's block, it'll be interesting to hear.

 

[Scythuz]

No matter what it's for, writer's block generally means you're doing too much of something.  Take a break and do something else that's not related to it at all, bonus xp if you do something non-media related!

 

[West Mains]

As a writer, I think the idea of "writer's block" is complete bull. I don't believe in it at all. 

Put on some music or something, watch a bit of tv, and then go to a blank notepad document. Just write down every idea that comes to mind. Don't think about how good or bad those ideas are for the moment, just get them down. Just do this for ages. Being creative helps to be creative, writing eases writing, so to speak. Usually whenever I hear people talking about writer's block, it equates to them sitting there just waiting for an idea to come to them. Inspiration isn't something you can just let come to you, you need to find out where it lives and go to it's house, maybe wait outside for a few hours and do a puzzle, wait until its asleep and break in, beat it with your fists until its not gonna struggle and then take it home and keep it in your fridge. Sometimes itll get away, but after chasing it down a few times, you get better at locking the fridge door.

That metaphor went too far, but yeah.

 

[vanillacoke]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
I believe you both may have something, in that I'm pushing myself too hard and completely dismissing ideas that I've had rather than noting them down.
I have work very soon and I'll look to jot down my ideas and work with them, expand on them and continue to do so until I get there.
I guess that maybe instead of looking for perfection, I should get my ideas down and expand on them, perhaps create different scenarios and see what comes out best.
P.S Nice to see a fellow Scot on the forum.

 

[West Mains]

I guess that maybe instead of looking for perfection, I should get my ideas down and expand on them, perhaps create different scenarios and see what comes out best.

P.S Nice to see a fellow Scot on the forum.

Exactly. Do that. I mean, any time I get ideas, I've made it a habit to write them down. One way or another they usually get adapted into some other bigger idea. 

And yes it is. Vote yes btw.

 

[Cadh20000]

Another thing to do is, if you have a voice recorder, use it instead of a notepad. If you're a slow at writing stuff down it helps you to get them out before you can be distracted and forget them.

 

[WNxTyr4el]

That's a good idea Cadh. I didn't think of that. But yeah usually if I'm having trouble thinking of plot lines or adding more to my story, I'll take a break from it. I'll work on the database or do something not RPG Maker related. Watch a show or movie or play a game or something. Inspiration comes to you at the oddest times.

 

[Tai_MT]

As a writer, I think the idea of "writer's block" is complete bull. I don't believe in it at all. 

Put on some music or something, watch a bit of tv, and then go to a blank notepad document. Just write down every idea that comes to mind. Don't think about how good or bad those ideas are for the moment, just get them down. Just do this for ages. Being creative helps to be creative, writing eases writing, so to speak. Usually whenever I hear people talking about writer's block, it equates to them sitting there just waiting for an idea to come to them. Inspiration isn't something you can just let come to you, you need to find out where it lives and go to it's house, maybe wait outside for a few hours and do a puzzle, wait until its asleep and break in, beat it with your fists until its not gonna struggle and then take it home and keep it in your fridge. Sometimes itll get away, but after chasing it down a few times, you get better at locking the fridge door.

That metaphor went too far, but yeah.

That escalated quickly...

As a writer myself, I also don't believe in "writer's block".  I've discovered in my 27 years of life that the reason I tend to quit writing or have nowhere to go with a story, it's because I'd basically written myself into a corner or my initial ideas weren't that great to begin with.  At other times, it's from sheer laziness.

My own personal response to anything getting remotely close to "writer's block" is simply to sit down, turn off everything for a second, and then do "then what?" exercises.  I basically run my stories to ground in my head or on paper and it actually helps the creative process quite a bit.  Jessie is a brooding and self-centered jerk with narcolepsy.  Why?  His parents never let him out to play with other children and since they were affluent, they taught him to never trust anyone.  A later head injury during a scuffle with a peasant reinforced his parent's teachings as well as left him dozing off at random times.  Okay, then what?  He meets a bubbly cheerful girl who knows about how cruel the world is, but chooses to paint over the ugly bits with whatever sunshine she can manage.  Okay, then what?  Their personalities naturally clash quite a bit and it results in a lot of tension between the two as they find it difficult to even be friends.  Then what?  During their adventure, Jessie has a traumatic event thrust upon him in which if he hadn't been told to be optimistic by the girl, it would have driven him insane with grief and revenge.  Then what?  While trying to bring the people to justice responsible for the aforementioned event Jessie had, the girl learns about how much harsher the world really is and how condescending her attitude of "don't worry, be happy" could be to the downtrodden and those without hope.  Then what?  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  You just run it into the ground and then start the next thing.  You do the same thing to your story that little kids all eventually do to you when they discover that just asking "Why?" constantly gets you frustrated.  Why, why, why, why, why, until it runs into the ground and you can't give any answer.  You do that with your story.  Later on, you can add the "how does this affect other things?" in the story or even the "how would the villain respond to the measures the heroes are taking?".  You just keep running it all into the ground, writing it all down as you go.