Anvilsmith

I'm not sure if "tending" is a proper word... I aimed to draw the title from mathematics - as in, a function may tend towards a limit, getting closer and closer without truly attaining it. I find myself in the same state: I've been writing the first part of an IF for nearly two months, with a perfectionist attitude, so that while I'm sure I'll manage to complete it, I might not make it to the rest of the work. By perfectionism, I don't mean re-reading my texts or anything of the kind - I actually prefer to add words and phrases rather than chip away the brittle pieces of my work, always striving to make the next paragraph longer and more complex for some reason. I disregard all principles of pace in storytelling, which I don't find a fault... It does, however, become a tremendous handicap when I focus on a single scene, as the words often take precedence over the actions they sustain, and dialogs might grow disjoined because of this. After all, when I'm writing two replies a day, each made up of five hundred words or so, it's hard to withdraw yourself and study the entire.

If you didn't already know, IF stands for interactive fiction... In my case, the "interaction" is deliberately limited, as the player cannot use verbs for his instructions or even perform actions of his choosing. He may type in an object that his character perceives, then pick one of three mental actions related to that object, each of these actions being governed by a clear principle - wisdom, glory or emotion. Most players of interactive fiction prefer being allowed to give imput on regular occasions, and having to read through a paragraph of more than five rows irritates them. As such, a problem firmly tied to the introduction's length is its divison. Whenever my mood lets me write well, I get caught up in my own story, and doing things like backtracking to write a new thread don't do much good to my enthusiasm. I might also want to expand on an idea simply because it intrigues me... I've found that writing is a form of thought, and as I'm using a main character that resembles me (together with a principle of wisdom), I might as well make it a wise main character.

I usually show leniency when dividing the text: the character may think many thoughts and even perform several actions (nodding, saying certain things), which could very well exist beyond or against the player's intent. Sometimes, one of the principles intervenes without the player's choice, though this is usually to help allevate the character's independence. I'd write sections as short as four phrases for when the character just looks at things, although when he must speak or perform a complex action, it naturally must take longer. I don't have to explain just what the character says, but why he says it and what he thinks of it... There's a bit more that needs to be described than in a typical subjective novel, as the way the character thinks must gradually be made known to the player. After all, th player must guide him towards a certain goal by playing on his principles - without the means to define or pursue such a goal, he will only be able to react in the short term.

The fact that I'm writing IF bolsters the size problem... Whenever I allow the character's principles to give imput, I typically need to write more than four times as much. Usually, a single object may receive several descriptions according to the hour and the character's knowledge, while a dialog divided into even three topics can take a lot of effort if not properly structured. I'd say that, right now, I have about twenty-five thousand words laid in, and that I would probably need to get the count as high as 40,000. If I keep this up for every conversation (I plan to have about ten major ones), the whole story will likely take me... More time than I want to think about. It seems I need to manage my text, plan out how many words I'll use in every meeting and discipline myself. The question seems lodged into the actual numbers, as I haven't yet decided on a suitable scheme. I also have no idea how I can pull off a solid conversation, wherein I describe both words and the character's numerous thoughts...

I'll have to finish it around the middle july, writing about three hours a day, and that doesn't leave me with anything more than 270 hours. In that time, I'll be prepraing for my baccalaureate exam, which might severely cut the number of hours I have left.

satisverborum2003

I would recommend making your senteces simpler and only add information that the readers need to know or it will simply clog up the story. I had met many people who had the same type of problem. I'm in the process of writing a novel too and I have a major exam coming up.

By the way I once had the same problem like you had but in reverse. My style was very minimalist and I didn't add so much description but I'm getting better.

To improve you can read newspapers as the sentences are pretty simple.

blackswan

Well, what you might want to do is go back, read what you have and edit it--by deleting anything that doesn't help the storyline. I know it's going to pain you a lot, but it will actually probably make the story more interesting, once you take out all the parts that doesn't matter.

And then when you keep on writing, you'll need to remind yourself that if you don't skip writing the unnesscary parts now, you'll have to go back and waste your time deleting them, when you could be writing new things in the first place.