ATTENTION! ATTENTION!
The idle banter project is now CLOSED. We've gotten all the initial submissions we need, and new volunteers are NO LONGER being accepted. This phase of the project can now be considered COMPLETE.
Hello everyone! This is a thread for volunteers, new and old, who have strong writing ability and would be interested in creating new, original dialog for Skywind. If you think you might be interested in helping, please read below.
Signup Sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16hN5gE4Ynejy4-6rVBrLuLRkDtj2htNYlIf5vKRGTMQ/edit#gid=0
Also, more good news! There is a new thread that has been established specifically for people working on this project to collaborate! Writers, be sure to check it out!
Anyways, the assignment is this:
Idle banter. Ever noticed how in Skyrim you would occasionally catch snippets of conversations between two NPCs, that had nothing to do with you? This gave the characters a lot more life, and it's something we would like to add to Skywind so that the NPCs are more interesting and engaging.
So what are we looking for in "idle banter?" Ideally, we would have every single NPC exchanging a few sentences with another, or even muttering to themselves if that's more appropriate. These would not involve the player directly, and to a large degree, are only limited by the writer's imagination. Just remember, this is short banter, not an elaborate scene. These lines should steer away from having more than two people involved, and they generally should try to stay less than 5 lines of dialog long. These are the kinds of scenes that the player will likely rush by, and they should be short enough for the player to be able to hear most of it before they leave the area.
The idea of these scenes is to elaborate on the personalities of NPCs. We can embellish their traits, but by no means are we making them up. If you are creating dialog between two NPCs, you are expected to do your own research on them and create dialog that makes some degree of sense in context.
So, how are we organizing this? I would like to assign dialog writing by major cells, as well as a "miscellaneous" section, so that no NPCs accidentally get left out. This would mean that someone might volunteer to do all the NPCs in the Rat in the Pot Inn, rather than just picking out NPCs at random across the region. All the miscellaneous NPCs would then go into their own group. These would be most of the NPCs you see just walking the streets of the city.
If you're interested in helping out with this project, send me a private message or just leave a comment in this thread. All you have to do is tell me what area you're interested in working on, and I can give you an official claim to that area so that nobody else ends up doing it at the same time. As you're doing your lines, just put them on a personal word document or whatever else for now, and we will compile them all into a single, online document later.
ALSO, if you need some inspiration:
- If you're willing to do a bit of digging in our forums, you should be able to find a thread titled "Scenes". That was basically the drawing board for authors who wanted to make longer dialogs that could play out between NPCs, and could be a good place to look for the kind of style we're looking for. Your lines will be shorter, but in general, they would follow a similar format.
- Secondly, the UESP wiki will undoubtedly be your best friend for this. If you don't know where to start, just go to the wiki, search for a location, and you should find you have more than enough information on various characters to get started. And if they don't have anything concrete about a certain NPC, don't be afraid to embellish them a little with traits of their own, within reason.
Hopefully that covers anything you need to know. If you have any comments or suggestions, leave a post on this thread or send me a private message. We need all the help we can get, so don't hesitate to volunteer. Thanks, everyone, and let the writing begin!
Michaelstao, I'm sorry if you
Michaelstao, I'm sorry if you took offense at the critique I've given you, but you need to understand that this is a professional-grade project we're working on here. You're certainly right, everyone does have a different style of writing, and that should be taken into account. But you need to be very mindful of the distinction between varying style and varying quality. If these are lines that are going to be read by voice actors and implemented into the game, they need to feel coherent, well-organized, fluent, and engaging. If a piece of dialog, for whatever reason, does not meet this standard, it simply cannot be accepted in that state. Most of the people who I've had an easy time supporting are those who have had a long history with writing, lots of practice, and can easily attain this level of quality. Others are newer writers, and need quite a bit more time to learn. Michaelstao, I appreciate your work and I believe you really do have potential, but I can see that you're really just beginning on this path. I don't give you advice because I think your writing is inferior, I give you more advice because I feel that you have the potential to further your abilities even more than they already are.
Part of working in a professional environment is being able to cope with critique. The things that are said here are meant to improve, not diminish. I truly did like your work, Michaelstao, but you seemed to only focus on my critique, and as a result lost focus on the fact that I've been commending you this whole time on your progress and development. Already, in this short time, you've come a long way. And you still have a ways to go. But you have to be willing to accept help, or else you'll never learn what needs to be done to improve.
I deeply apologize if I ever sounded in any way condescending towards you, and I hope you'll realize that such a tone was never my intention. I deeply respect you as a writer, just as I respect all the other contributors to this project. and I want you to know that the door is still open should you ever want to come and help again in the future. And should you be working in any other departments on this site, don't forget to say something if you're feeling disrespected. You'd be surprised at the many miscommunications that are made over text; you might be more appreciated than you realize. Please accept my gratitude and respect for all the work you've put in to this project during your time with us. :)
-Justafan