From Design to production: A day in the life of a scene. (part 1)

I have had a few people ask about my development process. When or how do I make the scenes that go into Dreams of Reality? What post process do I use? How do I light my scenes?

I plan to answer these and perhaps lift the lid and show a little more behind the scenes (pun intended) of Dreams of Reality.

WRITING

Every writer is different, be it in how they come up with ideas for the story, or how they put those ideas into words. My scenes start with a basic framework, a timeline, if you will. I like to imagine a bare bones skeleton of story elements that link from one to another.

I have this skeleton of elements in mind for the entire plot of Dreams of Reality. I know where the start of each update begins and where it should end. This is not to say, exclusive and unable to be changed. Sometimes ideas can hit me whilst I’m writing, which leads to a new direction in the story. However, the ‘bones’ will always be present, they just may link to a different one than originally intended.

The framework or skeleton of ideas is produced in a program called TWINE. This very program is used by many developers to make a lot of those online HTML games, the benefit it has is that I can place each element or bone easily on a board and link between them. There are other methods, most require payment of some kind – TWINE is free and does exactly what I need it to do, no more, no less.

This is a zoomed-out image of the first part to chapter 2 – I’ve deliberately obfuscated the text of each card as some of it is not spoiler friendly.

Each level is a choice or path, you can see some converge whilst others split, and the end shows 3 cards in a single line, this is merely a convergence of all previous paths – though they remain separate in the actual game. I would just be duplicating entries if I included all 8 variations that were present at that point.

Once the skeleton is in place, I can begin to add flesh to the bones. It’s hard to explain where the story comes from. Inspiration can hit me at any time, in the bath, on the loo – I know what the scene needs to contain, the entry in and the exit out I just… fill in the blanks.

When an idea hits, I generally flesh it out in my mind first, sometimes I just write it down, which is why my desk is littered with notebooks containing scenes that needed to be written or would be forgotten to the fog of war. A nice example of that is when in a meeting at work I rewrote an entire scene in chapter 3 with Kimiko.

The original scene itself had not sat right with me. I refer to the moment when you visit Kimiko in the safehouse for the first time. I’d originally written the scene to include a lewd action between you and Kimiko – dependant on specific actions you had taken earlier. However, there are many reasons why this just did not work, and why my mind had been focussing on the problem for some days.

Firstly, and frankly, she gives it up too easily. I had intended this to be the moment Kimiko loses her virginity. But given how you had only met the day prior; this went straight from the realms of hyper-fantasy into the land of bullshit.

Secondly and I think more importantly, Kimiko is damaged, she is clearly traumatised by what has happened to her, at this point you know very little about her background – other than the fact she has been beaten and an attempt at sexual assault was made. The MC may be a borderline opportunist (your choices to look or not) but taking advantage of this situation would never be in his play book. He would be no better than those who took and abused Kimiko.

In fact, the MC even goes on to muse this exact thing. So, the scene needed to change – completely. It morphed from what it was, to what it is now. You sit and comfort her, she ‘tells’ you about her origins such as they are and as you go to leave, the girl who has known only to please others – does what she has been told to, she attempts to ‘please’ you.

Of course, your choices here have an effect. This entire re-write led to a complete change in how I used Kimiko. To the point that she became a lot more central to the plot – she was a side character, but she morphed into something more than that, she became a surrogate for your daughter. It fits the troubled mind of the MC as he slowly looses his grasp on reality.

If you choose to you can begin a corruption route with Kimiko, starting you down a path that will ultimately see you push her into a dark place. Of course, you could become a father figure to her, helping her rehabilitation. Both routes will have rewards, both routes will have pain.

This scene was written during a meeting on a Thursday morning. I could not tell you what the meeting was about, I was busy writing.

Stay safe all,

Cenc