#[redacted novel project]

[aadmelioraa]

Hi! I was just wondering, what is the difference for you between the Scrivener categories you use? What makes a certain section redrafted vs revised vs punched up vs polished? Thank you!

Hey!! I am more than happy to elaborate on that post. Here are the scene (or chapter) draft categories I use via the "Label" function in Scrivener, and what each category means to me:

To Write. Any scene that I haven't fully drafted, ranging from an idea in my head to a few bullet points to a scene that doesn't yet have a beginning, middle, and end. Lots of ellipses and all caps notes to myself [ADD CONVERSATION WHERE X AND Y ARGUE ABOUT DINNER PLANS] at this stage. I am a planner-pantser hybrid—I usually start writing without a real outline, and then create and reshape my outline as I continue writing new scenes, the outline evolves as my draft evolves and vice versa. 

Drafted. I have written a full version of the scene. It has a beginning, middle, and end. I have hit all the major points I want to hit. It's messy, but it's on the page. These scenes comprise the Rough Draft.

Redrafted. At this stage, I follow Matt Bell's "Rewrite Don't Revise" advice in Refuse to Be Done (highly recommend this craft book!). Once I have a Rough Draft version of the project (the entire book has a beginning, middle, end, and enough essential connective tissue scenes to prop it up), I print that off* and open a fresh Scrivener file. I hold myself to Matt Bell's no copying and pasting rule, and it's honestly been a game changer mentality for me. I refer to my Rough Draft and my Revision Plan Outline as I create a new draft that is both leaner and more fleshed out as needed. The Revision Plan Outline is the roadmap of the book I wrote (the Rough Draft) spliced with a roadmap of the book I want to write, including new scenes, stronger versions of the scenes I already have, and notes about what needs to be cut. *This is probably obvious, but you don't need to work from a printed copy, you can open your Rough Draft doc side by side with a blank doc if that is more your speed. The important thing is to start with a blank document rather than making revisions to your Rough Draft. It might sound insane, but I've found that it allows me to let go of what I would otherwise struggle to cut, and opens me up creatively to write new material.

Revised. Once I have the fresh, stronger, more intentional version of my scene, I go through and check that it's doing what I need it to do in terms of character work and plot points. It's not only a complete scene in that it begins and ends where I want it to, it's also functioning as part of a whole. 

Punched Up. This is my favorite draft stage in most ways, I just find it really fun and satisfying. My goals are to make sure that the tension is properly threaded, that the emotional beats are landing how and where they need to, that the humor is working, that each character's voice is coming through, that my language is vivid and interesting. 

Polished. Here I am making final cuts and changes, taking things at a line level and evaluating individual word choice. Nitpick city, but ideally in a productive way.

Right now in my current WIP I have an array of scenes at every level in a single Scrivener file. Most of them are Redrafted or above (I already completed a Rough Draft, printed it off, and am working from that and my Revision Plan Outline to create a new version of the book) but there are plenty of scenes in my Revision Plan that didn't exist in the Rough Draft. I will once again shout out @bettsfic and her invaluable developmental insights, you can check out her substack here and read more about her services here.

Anyway, this is what works for me, it definitely won't work for everyone, but hopefully you find something useful here! I will note that you can use the Scrivener "Draft Status" category to function in a similar way as the "Label" category, allowing you to use "Label" to denote POV or something else. Labels are visible in the sidebar (you can find options under "View," and Draft Status shows up in the corkboard view (it's stamped over the notecard for each scene if you select that option).

[redsneyes]

wuh oh <- thinking a little too hard about parallels between shintaro and marry (5 dead 12 injured)

[jojotier]

god i'm so bad at short stories... i'll get halfway through and get attached to the characters and then a little voice in the back of my head goes "but like. what if this was a full novel instead"

[re-dracula]

Re: Dracula is Dracula Daily for your ears! Listen to the story with a full cast of voice actors and immersive sound design - all for free on your favorite podcast app. Search "Re: Dracula" to find us!

Our cast includes voice actors from The Magnus Archives, Wooden Overcoats, The Amelia Project, and more! Our crew has worked on SCP Archives, Doctor Who Redacted, Seen and Not Heard, and many others. We've got a deep love for this novel (and other horror media!), and are having the best time bringing it to life as an audio drama.

[thethirdromana]

Dracula characters based on how likely they would be to eat a worm

Jack Seward There’s scarcely anyone in this story more likely to eat a worm than Jack Seward. As an experiment? Yeah, sure. When he was bullied at school? Almost certainly. Because a somewhat overbearing father figure suggested it? Without question. This man has eaten a worm before and he would do so again.

Arthur Holmwood Arthur is the son of a Lord, the Victorian 1%, one of the most wealthy and privileged individuals in one of the most wealthy and privileged countries in the world. Until the events of the novel, do we think Arthur Holmwood, future Lord Godalming, ever had to do anything he didn’t want to? Even in the horrors of the Victorian public school system, rank has its privileges. He would not eat a worm.

Quincey Morris An adventurous type like Quincey? He wouldn’t just eat a worm, he’d fry it in a little butter and cayenne pepper and do his best to enjoy it.

Lucy Westenra as a human I was going to say absolutely not. Surely she would be horrified at the very idea. But equally, Lucy is by far the biggest people-pleaser in the whole novel [edited to redact unreasonable slander of Jonathan Harker]. If she thought eating a worm would make someone she loved happy, she’d dig right in.

Lucy Westenra as the Bloofer Lady Small children have been known to eat worms, and Lucy has been known to eat small children. So indirectly, yes, she would eat a worm.

Jonathan Harker It strikes me that we don’t know much about the eating habits of any of the characters in this novel – for instance, we know which pub Jack Seward likes, but not what he eats when he’s there.

But we have a wealth of information about Jonathan, and we know he is the kind of man who will have an unfamiliar paprika dish for dinner, have “queer dreams”, then go down for breakfast and have even more paprika.

Jonathan Harker would eat a worm.

Mina Harker née Murray Mina would do anything for her friends and loved ones, and that includes eating a worm. But come on guys, really? You would force Mina to eat a worm after everything she’s been through? You monsters.

Van Helsing Van Helsing thinks astral projection is real and parrots live forever. He’s the first person to consider the possibility that Lucy is being vampired. This man has the most open mind in the entire novel. He is a deeply weird individual and he would definitely eat a worm.

Mrs Westenra Mrs Westenra is a respectable Victorian lady of the upper-middle or upper-classes, and under no circumstances would she eat a worm.

Unless it was the last-ditch treatment for her ailing daughter, I guess.

Dracula You know the song you might have sung as a kid – “nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go and eat worms?”

We know Dracula eats solicitors and Lucys, he doesn’t eat worms. But he should.  

Renfield Do I even need to answer this one?

[holymaccaronii]

“From a very young age, Adam had always behaved as an introverted and shy child that craved the idea of keeping his life slow and simple. His high intellect was quite notable since his early years, but he only showed interest towards a compact area of hobbies consisting of reading, writing, and occasionally if he felt inspired enough, sketch drawing. His biggest dream had always been to publish a book or novel of any sorts, of any kind, he just wanted to see his name as the author of some book for sale in a small library around the corner of the street. He never managed to finish any of his projects however, and he blames his first breakup during adolescence to have taken all of his light and motivation away ever since. Sealing all strong feelings inside his heart, he recurred to keep all of his verses and stories to himself in a small, miserable book that could hardly be closed shut.

To worsen the matter, his dreams were seen further out of reach after he was forced to join the [REDACTED] project, making him begin an exhaustive process of preparation that would allow him to survive after the population was massacred, with his hopes and dreams as a price to pay.”

Aaaaand we begin the survivor concept design reveal with this guy! (excuse his face, just like the others he has seen the horrors).

Adam is supposed to take Ted’s “place” in the group, making him the youngest and the protagonist too. To explain a bit about the dynamic that I have liked so far for the survivors, they are young adults that got their dreams taken away by the war that eventually led AM to kill everyone. I like to imagine that all those 750 humans on the moon were either important people or the most intelligent YOUNG minds the government could find in the least time possible. So along with many other teens (at the time) he was forced to begin training for this project and dedicate the rest of his life to the restoration of Earth (supposedly). Adam’s name is based off Adam from the Bible, referencing that he was the first human to set foot on the newly born Earth/nature created by BE.

About his suit, this is supposed to be the design the humans used during cryogenic sleep. This could be considered an accurate representation of Adam right after exiting his capsule, except for the small detail that he’d have his head shaved (LATER ON BE GIVES EM HAIR OKAY).

Each survivor has a dream they abandoned for the sake of this project, each survivor has a dream that could only be lived in a simulation at this point… perhaps the Earth has something to offer for them?

[This lore/dynamic might stay as canon, but is still considered a wip].

[mosaickiwi]

Hey! Just a heads up, english is not my first language, so sorry if something sounds off! But first let me just say your writing is so good and the way you write [REDACTED] gives me so many feels like i can't even :') About the request, i've been kinda up to the neck in work (college likes to bury us in group projects, reports, exams, surgery preparations and hospital shifts all at the same time because time? what is that? :'D ) so if it's okay, could i ask for some [REDACTED] comfort where +

mialuna4 asked: + Angel, who's been trying to compromise by working close to him, finally gets a bit to properly relax with them? Thank you, take care of yourself and I hope you have a wonderful week! (Hope its okay to send this in two parts)

Thank you! School + healthcare work is tough so I hope you've been taking care of yourself as well. <3

14 Days With You is an 18+ Yandere Visual Novel. MINORS DNI

~A Little Free Time~

“I can't believe I'm done,” you sighed with relief. Even though you’d started in the morning, the sun was already setting by now.

The last assignment you had was finally finished. At least for the moment, there was time to unwind. [REDACTED] was quick to take advantage of it. Your bed creaked as he got up. The moment you shut your laptop, he dragged your chair away from the desk.

You weren't sure what you expected, but you were grateful when his hands came to rest on either side of your temple. Cool fingers began to massage in small circles to soothe the headache you hadn't noticed until then.

“Feel better?” you heard him say after a few minutes of bliss. The ache faded as you let out a pleasurable hum in response. “Good.”

His touch disappeared and your seat was gently spun to face him. You reached out for them, taking the chance to stretch as best you could once you were finally standing and tangled up in their embrace.

God, you'd been sitting in that chair for hours. “I never wanna use my brain again,” you jokingly whined into his chest before looking up. “Sorry it took so long.”

“S’alright, Angel. I missed you.” Dark hair brushed against your cheek as he leaned down to press his lips to yours. You were surprised by the fervent, almost desperate kiss he gave that took your breath away.

“But you've been here with me the whole time?” you wondered out loud once they pulled back to let you breathe again. Your work had absorbed the majority of your focus, but you were certain you would’ve noticed if he left the room outside of the breaks he made sure you took.

He didn’t answer right away, though the yearning in his eyes spoke for itself as he scooped you up in his arms and settled down on the bed. Your boyfriend didn’t miss you so much as your attention.

It’d been an exhausting few weeks. You couldn’t remember the last time you really got to do anything but work or projects, especially with him. All you could manage was letting him sit in the room with you.

Now that he had you situated in his lap, [REDACTED] seemed much calmer. His arms crossed over your front as if you were a doll he wanted to cling to. You felt the warmth of their breath tickling along your neck as they took their time to kiss and nibble any spot they could find. “Fuck, I really missed you,” he repeated in an aching whisper that you weren’t meant to hear.

“I missed you too,” you laughed. “There’s still a little bit of light out. Wanna head somewhere?” You couldn’t really think of anywhere to go, but surely you’d find something to do at the pier. The shops always stayed open well past midnight there.

He only groaned and rested his forehead on your shoulder. “Yeah. Jus’ let me recharge.” From the way he spoke, anyone else would think he was the one who’d been busy. You knew he was just happy to have you back.

You reached up to lightly rub the top of his head, and you swore you heard him purring. “On second thought, let’s just stay here.”

“Whatever y’wanna do s’fine with me,” he muttered into your back. But the way he clung to you kept you right where you were.

[projectastray]

what's all this then

if you follow [at]kuraine anywhere on the internet (except here, someone took it i guess) ... notably twitter dot com, cohost dot org, and others... then you're familiar with me! i'm lena, and i wrote music for 'celeste', 'chicory: a colorful tale', 'minecraft', and contributed some arrangements on 'deltarune chapter 2'

so why am i suddenly on tumblr now

well

i'm makin a game! it will technically be my 2nd game project. the first was ESC, a kinetic novel about roleplay & identity & dreams.

Project Astray is an rpg (!) & [partially redacted] game about existence, orbits, and [also a bit redacted].

i released a very outdated teaser for it on halloween 2021:

astute viewers will also remember a pixel animation proof of concept i did at the start of 2021:

needless to say it's been present in my brain space for a number of years now & i'm excited for it to trickle out bit by bit. i have come VERY FAR since initially animating astra & producing the conversation system seen in the halloween tease. it's a dang videogame now. but there's a LOT of work to do still, obviously. games take time, especially as a solo creator!!

i can't promise i'll have a lot to share before i "announce" it (and it has a real name that isn't just 'project astray') BUT..... i'll post stuff here periodically, and then a lot more after the announcement.

thank's for visiting my page

[chazzielynx]

What kinds of books I think some redacted characters would read - Part One

Characters in this Post: Lasko, Sweetheart, Avior, Ivan/Flyboi, Gavin

Lasko: Classical High Fantasy/Science Fiction

duh, we already know he loves LotR, so he reads Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis, and I can see him reading late 20th-century science fiction like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I particularly think that he reads popular books like these to then watch adaptations and go on rants about what is different (same, Lasko, same).

Sweetheart: Romance (specifically enemies to lovers)

The ones where the main couple is pining so hard but they use that energy for fighting each other physically and verbally with that very obvious flirtatious undertone (e.g.: Powerless by Lauren Roberts). I can see Sweetheart reading those dialogues and then using phrases from them on Milo. He gasps every time and fires back ofc.

Avior: Classics before the hellscape, now cosy contemporary

If he read books before meeting Starlight (which I'm honestly not sure he did, but let's just roll with it), he probably read heavy classics like Anna Karenina or Jane Eyre to soak in all the knowledge about human emotion and how different authors from different times used language to express them. But now he reads cozy contemporary, possibly romance. Though I also think he might still go for cozy classics, such as Jane Austen.

Ivan/Flyboi: Young Adult Horror

Now hear me out. Flyboi/Ivan w/o Vega's influence has terrible parents and still a little bit of an edge. Young Adult Horror very often has that kind of found family trope that I think he might enjoy but also that body horror/gore that might tickle that dark side of his (e.g.: Gallant by Schwab or Andrew Joseph White's books).

Gavin: 00s-10s Fantasy Erotica

Again. Hear me out. To just assign him erotica would be very stereotypical. But you know what I see this beautiful demon do? He reads the early 2000s to 2010s fantasy erotica novels (e.g. Nalini Singh's books) because he likes making fun of how the relationships are weird but he ends up getting invested in the lore of the general story every time.

All of this is just a huge projecting game lmao. But I already have more ideas.

[felassan]

Last week Mark Darrah did a Q&A video on his YouTube channel Mark Darrah on Games, called "15K Subs - Q&A". In case it's useful to anyone e.g. for accessibility reasons, here are some notes. The full video can be watched here [<- source link].

(Some of the questions answered were leftover from his previous Q&A video in this series from some time ago, during which time he had left BioWare and had not yet started his consultant work with BioWare.)

---

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the DA:D development era at BioWare & related topics

"I'm still consulting with BioWare."

Q. Were there any plans to make Dragon Age games in other genres, like an MMO? A. "Not really. What actually happened was during Joplin development, as we were being squeezed and people were being stolen onto other projects like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, I actually put a Twitter poll up at one point, just sort've gauging the interest. There was never any people against it, it was really nothing more than that, just to see what the appetite was for something like that. But no development was ever done." Q. Are you looking forward to playing Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I mean, I'm not really completely on the outside anymore. I'm working with BioWare as a consultant. So when this question was originally asked I was on the outside. Yeah, I mean, that was a pretty interesting thing to look forward to, I know a lot more now than I did then. So my answer I guess is not really relevant anymore, but at the time, yeah, I would say so."

Q. At this point would it be better for the Dragon Age IP to be sold off and taken by another studio such as Larian? A. "I don't think, first of all that's never gonna happen. EA doesn't really sell off IPs. I think that it's in a good place, it's got support from EA and it's moving towards its end." [meaning Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is nearing the end of its development cycle and moving towards ship]

Q. What happened internally at BioWare, [someone whose name was redacted by Mark for the video] started becoming more and more bigoted, and why does he have a beef with Mark? A. "So I'm not gonna talk about who this was, but I'll just answer the question. The reason why there's a specific beef with me is because I was the one tasked with responding to some of the drama that was spinning up, once it crossed the line where EA felt something needed to be done. I did a video about why it's sometimes the right answer to be quiet and not to respond to something, in this particular case EA decided that things had gotten sufficiently out of hand and something needed to be done. I was the one who had the very legally-approved language and was the one that was, as a result, responding to that."

Q. [a question regarding Dragon Age extended universe/secondary material, like the comics and novels] A. "At BioWare, there is a business development group who is responsible for looking for this kind of thing. Usually, well I guess always, there is a requirement of feedback, some sort of feedback loop. Depending on the exact property that might be everything from 'you will do exactly what we say and you're just work for hire' up to 'you have a lot of creative control and BioWare maintains some degree of veto power'. Typically, with BioWare, they're looking for deals where the cost is being carried by the people making the product, as opposed to by BioWare. This is not the case with all companies. The advantage of the studio paying for it is that you make more money, but you carry more risk, so BioWare goes with the more conservative way, where they're not spending as much, or anything usually, but they give away more profit on the back end."

Q. How has it been working on Dragon Age again? Did you miss it? A. "I don't know that I missed it when I wasn't working on it. It was interesting to be on the outside. It's very strange being back in the, on the inside again, because my role is very different. I'm not the Executive Producer, I don't have that direct managerial role, I don't have direct, I don't really have any hard power whatsoever on the project anymore, so that's definitely different."

Q. What's the best piece of advice you would give the Dragon Age/Dragon Age: Dreadwolf team if asked? A. "I guess this question, which was from before, isn't as relevant, I've given them all that advice at this point."

"Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be only on next gen consoles and PC, as far as I'm aware." [i.e., PS5 not PS4, Xbox Series X not XBone etc].

Q. Is this [referring to Dragon Age: Dreadwolf] a new beginning for Dragon Age? A. "Dragon Age is a weird franchise. It has had to reinvent itself every single time because of internal corporate pressures. This, like Dragon Age: Inquisition, like Dragon Age II, will be different from the games that came before it. I think that's fine. It's kind of become part of the DNA of the franchise at this point."

Q. What made you want to reach out to BioWare to consult on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "So I feel like that's been somewhat over-reported. So I have been doing consulting work since, in 2022, was when I started doing it. I was reaching out to different people. I knew where BioWare was when I first reached out to them. At the time they said 'no', and then I was like 'alright, fine' and I started working with some other people, and then things changed at BioWare and then they came and reached out to me when their situation was a bit different. So, I guess the short answer is money. The long answer was, I mean I have contacts there, I knew I could help them out, and I'm certainly interested in Dragon Age being the best game that it can be."

Q. How long is alpha to beta to release in general terms? A. "Almost unanswerable. It is incredibly dependent upon - the time from alpha to beta, well first of all there's lots of different definitions of these different phases, but the time from alpha to beta is the time of getting the content finished, and then from beta to release is more about getting your bugs fixed. Some games have thousands of bugs, some games have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of bugs, so these times can be highly dependent upon the game and the genre. If you're making something that's a competitive game that really needs a lot of tuning, then you want a lot of time in that beta period, ideally to get the game in front of people who're gonna play it, to really dial those knobs in as best you can."

Q. Why does Frostbite struggle with animation? A. "I actually feel like it's actually doing fine with animation. I think it's a content problem, not an engine problem, when it comes to animation in Frostbite. I think what you're seeing is what is being built. Now, that being said, Frostbite now uses ANT, which is the animation system built for sports, so it is different."

"I did watch Dragon Age: Absolution. I actually really liked Absolution. I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be for a non-Dragon Age person, because I'm not a non-Dragon Age person, but as a Dragon Age person I really liked it, I thought it was well-made, I thought it did something interesting with the IP."

Q. Have you added any new gameplay mechanics that you can talk about? [unclear if question was regarding DA:D or the DA games in general] A. "Not anything that I really remember, exactly, because, you know, it's a collaborative, for a AAA game it's a collaborative exercise, at least the way that I ran the project, so I wouldn't consider that anything that was in the games that I led was introduced by me, they would have been introduced by the team, or pushed for, or advocated for by people other than me, for the most part."

"In one of my videos, I said that Dragon Age: Origins went through lots of shifts in development. Yeah, Dragon Age: Origins was multiplayer two different times before it actually ended up shipping. Also, it was originally being built on the Neverwinter Engine, it shifted engines in the middle, so it had some big shifts. The difference being that, you know, back in the early 2000s, there wasn't as much scrutiny on development, there wasn't as wide of a pipeline for rumors as there is now."

Q. Is there going to be any new external/secondary media about Dragon Age? A. "I actually don't know the answer to that, that's not a room that I am in anymore, so that would be a question to ask BioWare."

Q. Where was this filmed? [The next DRAGON AGE: Behind the scenes at BioWare] How does it hold up comparing to what was announced at The Game Awards? A. "I think this is the video, the Dragon Age video that was filmed at a park in Edmonton. I think it was Whitemud Park, if it's the video I am thinking of. How does it hold up? I mean, it doesn't show as much, it's showing a little bit of content, it holds up fine."

Q. How difficult or realistic is it to have previous protagonists in a sequel game? Like Hawke in Dragon Age: Inquisition or letters from the Warden?  A. "It can, for Dragon Age, or any game that has a, or any game that has character creation, it is extra work, because you have kinda two choices. You either have to move to sort've default marketing protagonist. Well I guess you have three choices. Default marketing protagonist, or you have to put character creation right in the middle of the game flow, to allow people to create their character, or you have to have some way to move your protagonist appearance from game to game to game. Which, it would be the ideal solution, but that requires that your character creation remains relatively constantly from game to game. Which typically isn't actually the case."

Q. Why did EA cut BioWare's budget? A. "I assume that's to do with the layoffs. I do not have an answer to that question, but I put it in here anyway, so, there you go."

Q. Have you acquired new knowledge you can use for yourself consulting at BioWare? A. "It's actually been really useful, for me, so as a story-shaper, someone who develops my storytelling through the interaction with people, it's been useful for a lot of my concepts and philosophy, to bounce it off of people, and to be able to come back to things that I've thought about and even written about, even made videos about, and re-examine some of that. So absolutely, working with people has, for my kind of storytelling, has been helpful for me understanding the things I already believe."

Q. Any idea what the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Collector's Edition will entail, or how do you decide what goes in them? A. "I have no idea, I guess they'll announce it probably when they put pre-orders up. When you're doing a Collector's Edition, when you're doing a Digital Deluxe, any of those things, it's all about perceived value. So it's all about, how much more do we want to charge for this thing? How do we get that much stuff in the box so that it's worth it? Not worth it for everyone, because otherwise, that would just be the game, but worth it for some degree of people. Typically, for physical Collector's Editions, that comes with a bunch of little things and one big thing. Dragon Age: Inquisition went a different way and it gets its value through a ton of little things like a map, little things you put on the map, and a lockpicking set, and a whole bunch of little things, but it's all about getting over that threshold of this being worth it to some percentage of your audience."

Q. Do you have hope that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be good? A. "Absolutely, that's why I'm working with them."

Q. Do you think it's possible for EA to recover in the eyes of BioWare fans? A. "I'm not sure that it's possible for any multi-billion dollar publicly traded company to ever have a really great public perception. I think it's something that they should care about, but I think they would be better served by focusing on strengthening the perception of the individual studios. Let EA be the evil corporate overlord and then make the perception of the studios that they own as strong as possible. That would be the way that I would go."

Q. If you could go back and change Dragon Age lore, what would you change? A. "There was some stuff in the early Dragon Age: Origins [days] which was very much trying to address some of the tropey, problematic bits of magic from D&D, so teleportation, things that. I think we went a little too hard there, and I think leaving that door a little bit more open would be better. The other thing that I think that Dragon Age has been dealing with, but is sort've a problem is, the source of magic. So in typical vanilla D&D magic kind've comes from a million different places, so it kinda doesn't matter. In some other settings, magic comes from a single place, it comes from the astral plane or it comes from this crystal that people dig up and grind up and use to do magic. In Dragon Age you kind've have it coming from a couple of different places, but too few to be everywhere, and therefore it doesn't matter, but too many for it to be one. So you end up with this weird thing of like, are undead caused by the Blight, is lyrium a source of magic? Like, there's just a few too many. And so Dragon Age has been kind've collapsing that probability space down. If I had a time machine, I'd probably just collapse that probability space down in the first place, not necessarily put it in the games, but at least know where that space collapsed." Q. Aren't the only sources of magic Blight, blood or Fade? A. "It isn't, because you've got Blight, blood, Fade - well, okay, yes - lyrium is [Titan] blood now because that was Dragon Age collapsing the probability space. That's what I mean by Dragon Age is collapsing the probability space. It didn't used to be. I don't know if that was always the plan for lyrium or not. I don't think so, I think that was - yeah, no, I think there are Titans, Titans have always been in the plan, but I don't know that lyrium was always - I could be wrong, I could be misremembering."

Q. Are games taking longer to come out now, or is it just Dragon Age and Mass Effect that this has happened to? Why? A. "No, games are taking longer. The short answer actually has a lot to do with graphical fidelity, it's just the assets take longer to make. There are more things, like you didn't have as many steps in creating a piece of art in 1998 as you do now, you didn't have even the concept of materials or shaders or any of these things, so now you have all of these additional steps along the way. It will be interesting to see if, as, some of these techniques, you know, PBM and photogrammetry and these other things become more commonplace, if some of those costs come down. It hasn't happened yet, it actually just kept going up and up and up, you just changed the work that's being done, but that might be the end-state, where maybe costs actually start to go down again. I haven't seen it yet though."

Q. Can you tell us more about Sandal or do we have to wait until Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "No, Sandal is a character whose future will be decided by BioWare." Q. Can I assume that Sandal will be in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I wouldn't make that assumption."

Q. What did you miss most about working in AAA and how does it feel being back in a different position? A. "Like I said before, it's weird, because I am, my desk, the desk, if I go into the office the desk I actually sit at is the same desk I had before, but my position is very different. I'm not doing salaries, I'm not doing people management, I'm not doing reviews, but also I don't have final say on anything, I have no hard power in my position, it's just a consulting position, so it's pretty different. I don't know that I miss anything in particular about AAA, I mean there's a power in the giant team that you just don't see in the indie space, but there's an agility that you just don't see in AAA in the indie space, so I think there's pros and cons for both sides."

Q. Any thoughts on the idea that Mass Effect and Dragon Age have become too similar? A. "I would, so I did a very sarcastic presentation back in, probably 2017. They've always been really similar. They are BioWare games with a party, they've always been incredibly similar, so I don't think it's a problem, I think that they have their own distinct characters, they stand apart from each other. In the same way that I wouldn't say that Fallout and Elder Scrolls are too similar, but they sure are both Bethesda games, so I don't think there's a problem there at all."

Q. ​Do you have an opinion to share on why there's been no marketing yet for Dreadwolf? A. "I assume that means 'why hasn't there been marketing yet for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. I mean, there has, but nothing recently. The policy for much of AAA has become very much shorter, louder marketing campaigns. I think that there is a lot of power in that. I think that can be a very powerful way to go. Dragon Age obviously carries the fact that we did an announcement trailer back in 2018, but I think that's what's happening."

Q. Do you think it's possible for BioWare to split from EA? A. "No. EA doesn't let things go, so no. Could everyone leave and start their own studio? Sure, but BioWare will remain part of EA as far as I can tell. That's not how EA thinks."

Q. Should Dragon Age have more or fewer jump-scares in it? A. "I mean it doesn't have that many jump-scares, so... more!"

Q. Why did you decide to rejoin BioWare? A. "Like I said, I was consulting. I reached out to them, to look at the possibility of helping them out with some things. They said no, then some time went by and then they contacted me and said 'oh, actually yes', so, short answer is because it was what I was doing at the time. Longer answer is, I mean, definitely I am interested in Dragon Age being the best game it's capable of being."

Q. Do you feel BioWare could have done more to nurture the fanbase between releases, other than comics and novels? A. "Yeah, I do actually wish that there was an ecosystem to make little games, so, you know, you make the little, you make Final Fantasy Tactics, you make Dragon Age Tactics. You make mobile title - I mean there was the mobile game, the Dragon Age mobile game [Heroes of Dragon Age], that did really well, but yeah, I think there is an opportunity there. That is not the way that development works really at EA. It would've had to have been done by a different part of EA, and, so, yep. [shrug]"

Q. What do you feel about the comments that BioWare is becoming less writer-oriented? A. "I don't know that that is true. Definitely it went through a period of trying to focus more on different kinds of gameplay, like Anthem is definitely a game driven by its gameplay as opposed to by its story. I guess we'll see with Bowie what the actual truth is going to be, but I don't think that's what's happening."

Q. Is the next Mass Effect still in development? A. "Yep."

Q. Will Dragon Age go open-world again? A. "I don't know, I mean I guess that's always a possibility."

"I'm not going to comment on any things that have changed in BioWare's staffing, because, one, I found out at the same time as everybody else did, so I have no information, and two, I'm working with them, so I'm not going to give my opinion on that, so." "I'm not gonna comment on any layoff stuff."

Q. Would it be possible to give us the option to turn off the 'screen shake' effects after a critical or melee hit in Dragon Age games? A. "Yeah, I mean you do see that as an accessibility option in a lot of games now, so, hopefully."

Q. ​Mass Effect and Dragon Age have thousands of years in each of their respective lore/worlds, do you think there's a space for smaller and/or externally produced experiences that explore it more? A. "I do think there is an opportunity for that, I mean that's kind've where the comics and Dragon Age: Absolution and things like that have lived. You do have to figure out to control the IP somehow. Now you could go, like with KOTOR, where you just throw something back into the past far enough. Like go wayyy back and talk about 'where the Qunari came from' or something, but, I do think there's an opportunity there with some thinking. Now, will that happen? I don't expect so because that would require dev resources that don't really exist, or going to an external studio, which I don't think EA is gonna be particularly interested in doing."

"Yeah, I know. [the title] 'Dreadwolf' did ruin the whole vowel thing. Like, I'm also mad about that."

Q. Has there ever been discussion about adding more 'drama' to BioWare romances? I loved the conflict with Liara in Mass Effect 2 if you had romanced another character. A. "I'm sure that's a conversation that's happened somewhere. Often the characters are, each character is written by a different writer, so when they interact that can become a little bit more complicated, but yeah, there's certainly interesting things to be potentially done there."

Q. How involved are you as a Creative Lead on marketing titles? Do you have input into the creation of trailers? A. "Yes, usually there's some degree of input in trailers, but at EA they're usually done by a central group, so it's influence more than necessarily even veto. Probably the Executive Producer has veto power if necessary, but not direct creative control, they're done by a different group."

"I won't be working on [his game, High Tea on the High Seas] until my contract with BioWare is over, I expect."

"I love the modding community. We don't really support them very much, but I think there's a lot of power there for sure."

Q. Do you think BioWare should make non-linear games like Baldur's Gate 3 or stick with what they have always done before? A. "I think that there is, BioWare used to do more 'campfires in the dark', so more, like, 'I know you got here, but I don't know how', and I think that we should return to that more, at least for the side content. I think that the follower content is where BioWare's strength remains and will remain, and I think that deserves to be done in whatever way fits the storytelling that we're trying to do."

Q. Do you think the Dragon Age series should have more musical numbers in the game? A. "Yes I do."

Q. Is there any animosity between BioWare teams? A. "There has been, in the past. I don't think there is now, but there has been in the past, for sure."

Q. Do you regret allowing the player to kill certain characters? How much does that complicate future titles? A. "It makes future titles really complicated. In Dragon Age: Inquisition trying to find a Warden was like, basically they all could be dead, that's why you end up with mustache, Stroud, because literally everyone else could be dead. I don't regret it though, I think it's good to do that kind of thing when you can, it adds extra impact. You just have to live with the consequences of it."

Q. ​Is there room when AAA games are being developed for smaller projects to get made in the same studio? A. "It depends on the studio. Within BioWare, basically no, because the big AAA things just suck all the life out of it, but I've seen it work at some places where they have protection to keep the little things working and alive. So it's possible, but I don't think it could work at BioWare because I think they would just end up getting starved out by the bigger titles."

Q. ​Do you think BioWare is going to innovate, or are they trying to make something standard? A. "I mean all games contain innovation, so I'm not sure what your question is there, so yes."

Q. Was there any general reaction that BioWare had to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners?  A. "Nothing that I'm aware of. I'm sure that people watched it and had thoughts, but nothing that I've heard."

Q. Do you believe marketing campaigns that are started too early, with features that don't make it into the final product are deceptive and counter-productive because they create false expectations? A. "So I do believe in shorter, louder marketing campaigns in general. There are cases where ya gotta go out and ya gotta start building expectations for your title, but when you're out there for a long time, and you're showing gameplay, you're going to show things that end up getting cut. And I don't think, so, are they counterproductive? No, I don't think they are, because most people don't remember, they just remember they were excited, the thing they saw two years ago. They don't remember that it showed something that ended up getting cut. Do they cause a little bit of internet drama? Sure. But I don't think that they're counterproductive. I think in the cases where you have to do them, where you're repairing a relationship or you need to build up a new IP or whatever, they can be useful. Are you gonna get yourself into trouble? For sure, but, still worth doing."

"Shorter marketing campaigns are super effective, but there are cases where you need a longer conversation with your potential fans."

Q. Do you see Dragon Age as a franchises headed towards a linear end, or more of a world for stories that expand in different directions? A. "I don't know that we'll ever see Dragon Age kind've branch into a bunch of different things. So, like, will there be a main title that continues to basically be the line of canon, that's, probably, yes. That's probably what will happen. It is a franchise that is much more about its world than Mass Effect, and much less about its characters, so I get your point, but I don't think we'll ever see, like, several different parallel storylines going at once."

Q. Without a remake or remaster [of previous Dragon Age games] what would you pitch to onboard people in the Dragon Age franchise? A. "I mean hopefully Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is a perfectly reasonable on-boarding point. The games are designed to be able to be consumed starting with any of them, so hopefully that remains the case."

Q. Why did you not teach anyone at BioWare the true art of Twitter teasing and trolling before you left, because your skills was legendary, and it has not been the same since? A. "So I think, I only got to be on Twitter the way I was on Twitter because I was the Executive Producer, because I was basically the one who decided what information was public. Which is why you haven't seen me do that again."

Q. Does BioWare face any recruitment problems due to its primary location in Canada? A. "Primarily in Canada isn't a huge problem, primarily in Edmonton definitely is. We still live in this weird world of hybrid development so people are getting hired from all over the place right now, but yeah, Edmonton was always a problem for recruiting."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? [in YouTube videos] A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. There was talk about a "five game plan" for Dragon Age at some point. Was that ever a thing? If so, is it still a thing? A. "There have been lots of plans, so, sure."

Q. Will you continue your career in development after Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, or was it just a one-time return? A. "Yeah, I'm working with another studio right now as well, this is not my only contract, for sure."

Q. Will you be involved with the next Mass Effect as a consultant? A. "That's not my decision to make."

Q. What is the main thing you would change about how management works in AAA studios? A. "I think that question is unanswerable because management at AAA studios is different everywhere. BioWare uses a matrix structure, so they have departments, but they also have individual leaders. I would like to see more project-driven, like, I've talked about [his] 'hourglass' [concept] in a video before, where driven more through the product, but that being said, I'm not sure long-term how that would be for the people, so I guess, short answer is depends on the studio."

"Dragon Age has had the misfortune of always being seen as being inaccessible to the average gamer, so there's been a lot of corporate pressure for it to become more mainstream. And so it's been kinda questing for a fantasy RPG that is very accessible. Hence why, and then, you know, hence that's Dragon Age II, and then you know Dragon Age II's reception pushed Dragon Age: Inquisition to change some more. Dragon Age has never really been allowed to be constant. And I think it would actually be very good for the franchise to be allowed to be constant for a while, get some 'true sequels' [true sequels here refers to a specific thing Mark has previously discussed on his channel] under the belt. So, yes, true sequels are awesome, I wish that there were more of them and I wish that Dragon Age was one of them."

Q. Are Dragon Age and Mass Effect regarded as big IPs by EA? A. "Sometimes. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There was a time when EA had the, I think it was called like, 'The Big 12', Mass Effect was on that list, Dragon Age was not, so, sometimes."

Q. Do you feel EA has historically had unrealistic profit expectations for the Dragon Age series? A. "I can't really get into the way that EA does its financials. I think that there are, sometimes, EA wishes everything was FIFA and obviously that's unrealistic."

Q. Will the critical success of Baldur's Gate 3 influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and other future projects? A. "It's a bit late to influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Will it affect other future projects? I suspect so. I think it's gonna have a big impact on the RPG space, in some ways, for sure."

Q. Oh, is 'Bowie' the actual codename? Neat! A. "Yeah, Bowie is the actual codename. Did I just leak that? Well it is."

"The hardest part of a project for most people, myself included, is when you can't see the start anymore, and you can't yet see the finish, so with games with really long [development] cycles they can have a lot of trouble in the middle because you don't have the excitement of the beginning anymore and you can't see that it's finishing. So that can be hard. I think that is honestly one of the reasons why I think completion urgency has been on my mind so much, because this has always been kind of the case with BioWare with games, where you do a middle march in the dark, and so hopefully we find some solutions to that."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. ​Is it more accurate to think of the development cycle of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf as one game, or several? A. "Kind've something in-between. Definitely there have been moments where the game has pivoted to a large degree that it effectively has started over, but it hasn't always actually started over, and maybe that would've been better, so it's a little bit of both."

Q. BioWare office tour when? A. "I don't think that I can do that, but maybe BioWare will, you should ask them."

Q. Do you think the 'Frostbite is bad' narrative has been blown out of proportion? A. "Yes I do. I mean, yes it is not a perfect engine, no engine is. It definitely doesn't have the support levels that Unreal has, but it is a capable engine if you treat it with respect. The problem is, is that I think a lot of developers have not treated it with respect."

Q. Has BioWare ever thought about character DLC, for example the story DLC in Dragon Age: Inquisition was wonderful but much of what people enjoyed about the story DLC like Trespasser was reuniting with the companions. A. "Yeah, there actually, a bunch of stuff got discussed in earlier incarnations of Joplin and Morrison about doing, like, date packs, or very, very focused bits of DLC. I don't think that's still in the plan, but that was the plan at one point."

Q. What would you say to fans of Dragon Age that are worried about Dreadwolf right now? A. "I'd say keep paying attention, and hopefully BioWare give you confidence."

Q. ​Do Dragon Age: Dreadwolf leaks hurt any team morale? A. "It can, depends on the leak, it can, for sure."

[source and full video link]

Other notes from the video are collected under the cut due to length:

Q. What's something from Baldur's Gate 3 that may not be obvious to players that you've seen and said 'wow, Larian really figured something out that I wish we, BioWare, had been able to do'? A. "The big thing that Larian is doing that is missing from most other modern games is they are, Failbetter Games calls it 'campfires in the dark', which is, a lot of their plot scripting is based upon reacting to where you are in the moment as opposed to the path you use to get there. What that means is you can do almost anything, because the game doesn't really care how you did it. If you're Matt Mercer and you pile up a bunch of boxes and then teleport into a keep, and bypass the entire plot of getting in there, once you're in the keep, the keep is like, 'okay, you're here, I don't know how you did it, but whatever, we'll just go from here'. And, two things. One, it makes for incredibly robust scripting. The game is able to not fall apart as you do things that it wasn't expecting, because to some degree it's not really expecting things as much. Two, it's just letting you do much more as a result. Now you are giving up a certain degree of reactivity for that, but it's a very powerful tool that I think has been largely set aside by most other developers."

"I think there's definitely some interesting avenues to be taken with your party members having relationships with each other and interacting with each other. It gives them more life. It makes them more believable, that they're not just there waiting for you to come and talk to them and otherwise they're completely static. I think having them interact with each other definitely helps make them more believable."

"One of the, I would say, biggest mistakes of Dragon Age II is the fact that you always have to fight both final antagonists, regardless of which path you decided to do, and that's a decision coming from 'we don't want to waste our content. We want people to see this stuff we spent all this time on'. So some of it is about just being willing to commit to the concept of, there is content that people won't see. It helps, at least it helps me a little bit to remember that most people aren't gonna even finish your game, so arguably the end is a branch that most people won't see." "Honestly, to a large degree, let the creatives guide the way. If they're excited about writing it, if they're excited about scripting it, let them do it. Maybe you do a much simpler version [of the hypothetical cutscene being discussed, re: branching content and zots/resources], but you can still do it."

"I've never played a game of the Dragon Age TTRPG. How much was the Dragon Age team involved in the creation of the rules? Not at all. That was created entirely by Green Ronin. That was their system entirely and I think they've used it for other things since then. I like that it exists. I like that there is a, something that signals that Dragon Age is an RPG. Now I think I would be pushing to make a 5th edition supplement for Dragon Age, rather than a standalone RPG, but at the time, it was the right call, I'd say."

Q. As a producer, how have you mitigated decision fatigue for you or your team throughout closing a project? A. "So one of the reasons why I actually advocate so strongly for triage is that triage is a forum through which you can answer a lot of questions, especially at the end of a project, the closing parts of a project. You're not going to avoid making decisions. Finaling a project is making thousands of decisions in rapid succession, but you can take a little bit of the burden off individual team members by helping them with that decision-making, or when necessary making decisions yourself. Triage also lets you get a group of people together. Making decisions as a group, if you've worked together for a while, can be faster, can be less draining as well."

"I really believe in some degree of developing out loud. I don't know how practical Larian's style of, 'go into Early Access for three years and develop it with the community' is, for most studios, especially the publicly traded ones, but I do think some form of discourse with the community is incredibly valuable. Are we gonna see it? I hope so, but I do think that a lot of studios have developed a very secretive, private kind of stance. For good reason. It's a lot of work to keep this discourse running, to keep it from turning toxic, to keep the conversation going. I think it's worth it, but there's work there, for sure." [I think BioWare are a publicly traded company]

"I could be wrong, but I feel like we're starting to see DLC in singleplayer games be a thing of the past. It seems like it's fading away. I think we may not see very much [of this] three years from now. Will it then circle back around, come back around? I suspect it will, but that's what I'm noticing."

[on the game industry in general] "We've had a lot of layoffs this year, so definitely there's been volatility this year, but we have, as the industry has grown up, it has become more risk-averse, at least in the AAA space, it's become more expensive, things have taken longer, but you do see less, sort've pulsing - you see less AAA games shipping and then the entire studio being shut down. It does still happen, but I do think you are seeing less of it. I think it's partly just, becoming more and more a business."

"I do not think Mass Effect 3 will ever be open-sourced."

"If I was given a large budget and asked to create a 'Dragon Age Legendary Edition', I think if I was given that task, the big thing would be, I think for Dragon Age: Origins, you have only two choices. Once you start going in there, you gotta go so deep, that I would go remaster, and just pretty it up, and let all its warts be its warts. Maybe take another crack at the console controls, and like getting tactical camera on the consoles, if I could, but largely just prettying it up. Dragon Age II, I'd be really tempted to see if you could make Orsino an optional fight, otherwise, probably it's fine. Dragon Age: Inquisition, Hinterlands, actively pushing you out of the Hinterlands much more quickly, not cutting anything from it, but definitely making it more clear that there is a critical path, because the pacing is kind've off there. Reducing the amount of Influence you need to unlock things so you can get through it a little more quickly."

"Dragon Age: Origins was originally planned as one game with no sequels. That was the original plan, which is why the end of Dragon Age: Origins has weird branching epilogue structure, is because it was never intended to be a game with sequels. You're always going to, that's a lesson for the world, always assume that you're going to potentially have sequels. So, it's not that you should leave a bunch of threads, but don't make sequels incredibly difficult to have."

"Dragon Age: Inquisition basically only had eight spells because of console convenience, yeah, basically, it's designed around its console controls for sure."

Q. Was there ever a significance to the Amell [blood]line? Like the Warden and Champion being related? A. "I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, there are often things that are planned and then executed, but also things where convenient plot hooks are picked up and taken in different ways. So sometimes things are planned years in advance and sometimes they just look that way."

"As far as I can remember, Leliana's lyrium ghost was just a quantum thing. It's just because we wanted Leliana in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Leliana could be dead. I mean it kinda makes sense, because the only place that Leliana could die in Dragon Age: Origins was at the Urn, so, sure, the Urn did it."

Q. If Dragon Age: Origins ever gets a remake, would a lot more of the problematic elements be removed? A. "So that's, ultimately what it comes down to, I think if you did a Dragon Age: Origins remaster, you wouldn't, you would just put a fresh coat of paint on it and that would be what you would do. But if you start to do a remake, I think it becomes necessary to start to open up some of those conversations, and that could be a lot, which is honestly one of the things that probably is causing hesitation on doing a remaster, or a remake in that case."

Q. If a fan writes an incredibly good idea on a forum or social media, is BioWare banned from implementing their idea? A. "It depends. If it's just like, 'I put an idea out on a Twitter post', no, you're basically releasing that idea to the public by that kind of post, but we don't, but BioWare doesn't, so I guess no, I guess, short answer no, because in that case it's like, well you just gave that to everybody. If it's a bit of fan literature, nobody's reading it, it's just going in the garbage, so no, so in that case nobody knows what's in that piece of literature, so, no."

"Will Dragon Age: II and Dragon Age: Origins ever come to PS5? I don't know. I mean that would basically require a remaster of some sort."

Q. If you had free reign what's the coolest, most ridiculous thing you would put into a physical Collector's Edition of the game? A. "So, I did, on Anthem, I did push for this, and I wish we'd done it, I did push for doing, because we had the studio that made the physical versions of the Javelin suits for that one EA Play. I did push for a $55,000 Collector's Edition, where you got one of those suits. Obviously we didn't do that."

Q. Would you say it’s harder to import decisions in a series like Dragon Age or Mass Effect? I bet it’s harder when each game has a different protagonist. A. "Actually, so, Dragon Age is a little bit more self-healing because when you are playing a Mass Effect, so Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, a lot of what you care about is the interpersonal stuff. When you're moving from Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age II, you don't really care about any of that interpersonal stuff, because it's a different character. I mean, you care, but it doesn't, the game doesn't need to reflect it. So Mass Effect has to deal with a lot more minutiae than Dragon Age does. Dragon Age just needs to deal with the big stuff."

Q. Would the Eclipse Engine have been better for Dragon Age: Inquisition even if it had meant the scope of the game would have to be smaller? A. "No, the Eclipse Engine was about ready to die of old age."

Q. ​Do you remember what the major aesthetic influences on Anthem were? A. "So, this is what I remember. Cigarette butts and coffee cups, so like, the abyss. No wheels. I actually think Anthem has a pretty strong identity. It looks like something."

Q. Who's decision was it to start using Frostbite? A. "I mean, the short answer is, it was the only politically-viable answer for Dragon Age: Inquisition, so, so I guess EA."

Q. Did you feel there was a large culture change when Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka left BioWare? A. "Not really, like a lot of it was basically already happening, as part, as EA basically started to impose its culture on, and also just the culture infiltrated over time. I would say that the cultural shift at BioWare happened slowly, not all at once when they left."

Q. I was really hoping for that Dragon Age tactical game. Any chance of seeing something like that in the future? A. "Probably not, I mean, it was a tweet, there wasn't anything behind that."

Q. ​If only there was a Mass Effect toolset. A. "Yeah, so I don't think you're gonna get, so a toolset with a game that is using Unreal like Mass Effect, that's much less likely, because you're gonna have to get a deal with Epic to do that. They might go for it, but yeah, that would be harder."

Q. I recently found out that The Last Court was made by an outside studio, and BioWare has brought in outside writers to work on Dragon Age before. Is that a common occurrence? A. "Yeah, it happens, for sure."

"Dragon Age II is pushing the Eclipse engine to the limit, it's basically the upper limits."

Q. Was there ever any discussion on showing Hawke and their companions visibly age over Dragon Age II? A. "There was, there was absolutely, that conversation did happen. We didn't really have any way to do it easily, but it was talked about."

Q. Dragon Age seems to have a much larger female fanbase than most gaming franchises, is this something EA has been cognizant of/interested in? A. "Cognizant of, yes, interested in, yes as well, though The Sims is actually even better. Understanding what to do about? No."

Q. What were your lessons learned from Mass Effect: Andromeda and why it went that bad? A. "I don't actually think it went that bad. It had a rough launch, so it kind've escaped a little early. That's probably its biggest problem. If it had released in the state that it was at within a month, it would've been a lot better received. Now it did also launch up against Zelda and Horizon, so, the number one lesson there is - when Dragon Age: Inquisition shipped and the Inquisition team was talking to the other team, one of the biggest things we said was 'don't use Inquisition as your baseline, it should be your worst-case', and a lot of the planning on Mass Effect: Andromeda was done using Dragon Age: Inquisition as the best case, so, what happened, basically its end got squeezed out of existence."

Q. What do you think about a Mass Effect: Andromeda remake? A. "Seems early, but maybe, some day. I mean it's kind've healed its perception to a large degree, kind've like Dragon Age II but for different reasons, it's not seen as as bad as it was seen at launch, so, I think there's a market there."

Q. Have there ever been discussions within BioWare of visual novels as a possible format for their franchises? A. "Yeah, it's come up, it's even been pitched. Hard for EA to do little things."

[source and full video link]

[aadmelioraa]

i've been zeroing in on my ideal scrivener draft labelling system and i have to say i really like this iteration...love the feeling of re-labelling a tricky scene when i finally have a better handle on it, there's nothing more satisfying tbh.

shoutout to @bettsfic and her wonderful lowkey writing-related newsletter for helping me figure out what works best for me! highly recommend subscribing to beth's substack.

[sam-glade]

My Editing Process 

Part 1/3 - Big Picture Stuff

This is what I do to a novel or a novella before showing it to anyone (including beta readers). I’m posting it in hopes that it will help someone, and I’m not expecting it to work for everyone. Take any parts that help you!

Two things up front:

‘Imperfect’ doesn’t mean ‘bad’. Good writing can have imperfections.

The goal is to get the manuscript to a stage where the imperfections won’t be distracting to beta readers.

Baseline

This is my process for novella- or novel-length projects (so around 40-100k words). I don’t write short stories, so I don’t know how applicable it will be. I’m currently editing Gifts of Fate, trying to shave off a couple of thousand words, and I’ll be pulling examples from it.

I’m a pantser and an overwriter who loves checklists. I know that my early drafts include scenes that explore the characters and the setting, but don’t contribute enough to earn their keep – this isn’t applicable to everyone. I also write in 3rd person multi-POV, hence references to switching POV.

In this project, I also aim for a crisp, direct style, with minimally flowery descriptions.

I start this process when my draft is in the following state:

After I’ve replaced all [[foreshadow this]] and similar comments, added all the skipped segments, etc.

After I let the manuscript rest for a couple of months

When the overall plot is highly unlikely to change. I.e. the sequence of events/plot beats is set in stone. I may consider reframing them or rewriting from someone else’s POV, but I won’t change the direction of the story.

Big-picture stuff first

I can’t stress this enough, do this before you get into the nitty gritty line edits. You don’t want to pore over a chapter for hours, only to realise it has to be cut – and all the effort you put into editing will be thrown away.

The goal of this pass is to bring out the best parts of the story, make the focus crystal clear, and make sure everything gels together.

I make a copy of the manuscript and make sure you have the old one stored away. I often refer back to it, to see if I like how a chapter has changed.

The outline

I write a bare-bones outline, no more than a phrase per 2k words – the shorter the better.

The way I do it is to put that as the title of each chapter – chapters for me tend to average just over 2k words. E.g. in GoF, the first few chapter titles are: ‘The Rupture’, ‘The Sword’, ‘The Cutthroat’, ‘The Sergeant’, [redacted], ‘The Windmill’, ‘The Threat’, ‘The Investigation’, ‘The Plan’. Not catchy, but pinpointing the focus of each.

It’s important that each point corresponds to a similarly sized chunk of text, so that I can spot when there are long sections where not much or too much happens – this will highlight issues with pacing.

If I’m not sure what to put in the title, it’s an indication that it might be one of those meandering, unfocused chapters. I gather a list of those, to pay more attention to them.

It also helps me identify the goal of each chapter. This is the part where I’d consider reframing or even rewriting a chapter from someone else’s POV, if the current structure shifts the focus away from what it’s supposed to be about.

Two examples:

In one chapter, I had a regular POV character (Ianim) check in on the protag’s family, and the protag’s sister (Marta) filled him in on how her magical powers had manifested a few days earlier. The intended goal of the chapter: tell the reader about the powers. What it ended up being: by framing it as a conversation between them, the focus was on their dynamic. Solution: rewrite the chapter from Marta’s POV and present the events that led to her powers manifesting as they happened, rather than retrospectively talking about them.

Later on, the protag (Lissan) is on the run and struggling to survive, while feeling that he should be saving the world, not just himself. He gets a stern talking to from an old man. The intended goal of the chapter: Lissan gets over his dilemma, and makes a decision to save himself, then make the world a better place. What it ended up being: the old man’s backstory stole the spotlight Solution: spend more time on the dilemma, especially before the storytime, and less on the backstory – I want to keep it, because it serves a subplot, but I can shorten it by a few sentences. 

Meandering Chapters

With that done, I read over the manuscript one more time, focusing especially on the chapters identified as meandering, and skipping the ones with clear plot beats. I know events like the big fights, first meetings, etc. definitely won’t be cut.

In my case, a lot of these are consecutive chapters composed of 2-3 vignettes, which come up when characters spend a period of time in one place, e.g. taking time to train or make preparations. They’ll be composed of scenes with low-stake actions, some exposition, and some exploration of characters and their dynamics. I want this project to be a fairly fast-paced fantasy adventure, but these slice-of-life scenes slowed down pacing too much. They are usually identified as meandering, since each scene/vignette has its own goal, but they aren’t strung together.

I Marie Kondo the hell out of them. I list what’s the purpose of each scene, and what I lose if I cut them out – this can be a mental exercise. Will cutting each one in turn leave the reader confused? Sometimes, all the reader is losing is an additional bit of characterisation. This is how I discovered I had two chapters showing the same two characters spar, each from one of their POVs, and the only purpose the first one fulfilled was to show that one of the characters didn’t like cold weather. Yep, that got cut.

Then, anything that's set up but doesn't have a pay off UNLESS it's a deliberate red herring. The length of the set up should be proportional to how crucial to the main plot is the pay off.

E.g. I had two conversations where in the first one the protag was told that demons react to the colour red, and in the next one he found a red ribbon to put on his Sword. And that was the last mention of it. The first mention stayed as flavour, the second conversation got cut.

And I know I need the red ribbon there in the second book of the trilogy, but it really can appear closer to when it's needed – i.e. in the second book. In general, I'm weeding out set up for later instalments which are easy to forget.

Repetitive Chapter Structure

I group chapters by structure, especially paying attention to the cases when:

Characters sit around discussing a plan, with the dialogue being a civil discussion all the way through. I know I have a tendency to do exposition through pages of dialogue. I don't want to have more than 2-3 of these across 50 chapters, and I want them spaced out.

A character fills others in on events they don’t know about. This can be either 'you weren't around when this happened to me' or 'this is a legend you (and especially the reader) needs to know, to understand the rest of the story'. I want to make sure there’s at most 1 of these in my novel.

How many of each you want in your manuscript, depends on its length and genre – I’m going for a fantasy adventure with a fair bit of action, so I cut down on the dialogue-heavy or research chapters, in favour of action scenes.

If in either of these categories I have more than what I want, I try to change the setting, or sprinkle in some action – for example, talking while doing shopping or renovating a house. Sometimes, a large chunk of the conversation can be skipped with a 3-5 sentence summary paragraph – and yes, in cases like this exposition might be the lesser of two evils. I also make sure the similar chapters are spaced out, with a change of pacing or setting between them.

This is where I stop tinkering with the story on my own – if I go on further, I don’t have the confidence that my changes are making it any better.

Part 2: Ctrl+F'ing the manuscript

Requested tag: @galactic-mystics-writes

[re-dracula]

Re: Dracula is Dracula Daily for your ears! Listen to the story with a full cast of voice actors and immersive sound design - all for free on your favorite podcast app. Search "Re: Dracula" to find us!

Our cast includes voice actors from The Magnus Archives, Wooden Overcoats, The Amelia Project, and more! Our crew has worked on SCP Archives, Doctor Who Redacted, Seen and Not Heard, and many others. We've got a deep love for this novel (and other horror media!), and are having the best time bringing it to life as an audio drama.

[bloomdigital]

MJ Tumblr Takeover

Hey there tumblies, it's me, ya boi!

I’m MJ (he/him), a queer, overcaffeinated, perpetually exhausted, chronically online, cat- and TTRPG-obsessed, BL-loving, shameless weeb, memelord (wannabe), raging anti-capitalist chaotic word goblin and aspiring cryptid, and I AM TAKING OVER THE LONGSTORY TUMBLR! (At least for a bit.)

Born: 08/09 Height: 182 cm Blood Type: [redacted] Type: Tsundere

I’ve been working on LongStory (on and off) since 2015, but I actually started as a fan! Once upon a time I blogged about queer nerd stuff for Xtra, Canada’s longtime LGBTQ+ publication, and I stumbled on the first episode of this adorable little romantic visual novel through Twitter (RIP). I was absolutely charmed, an instant fan, this gorgeous little game that let me relive the trials and tribulations of grade school life but in a more queer and trans friendly world. It was exactly the kind of game I wanted when I was growing up in a VERY small town in the Canadian Maritimes. So when they did a call for writers I think I was physically vibrating from excitement putting together my resume and sample scene—I actually remember exactly where I was, it was one of those weird, stars-aligned, stranger than fiction moments, but that’s a story for another time!

When I joined the team, we were basically a few writers, the producer/CEO and the programmer sitting around in a room figuring stuff out. I VERY ENTHUSIASTICALLY wrote a single VERY LONG episode which—instead of making me cut it down—the project leads generously cut in two and became Episode 4: Drama and Episode 5: Make Up, and I’ve been working with the company as a writer and narrative designer since then!

LongStory’s the first game project I ever got to work on, it’s near and dear to my heart, so when I got asked to join the team on a follow-up I was once again vibrating with excitement. The company is no longer a few people sitting around in a room, it’s basically doubled to a dozen actual employees and then a bunch of part-time contributors like me, and we’re working on not one, not two, but three—okay, one of them is in very early development, but still—games, with more coming down the line! It’s like we’re a real game company or something?!

YOU MAY HAVE HEARD WE’RE DOING A KICKSTARTER! We’re taking preorders through a crowdfunding campaign to finish development on seven shiny new episodes. We would ABSOLUTELY love if you supported the campaign, with just under two weeks and little over half way to our goal we really want to make it happen!

But, long story short (har har har), we wanted to make sure you know that there is a free Steam demo that you can very much play if you haven’t already! The team, including our narrative lead and I, put so much love into this demo which, let’s be honest, is the first full episode of LongStory 2. If you play it and like it, let us know what you think! In the meantime, I’m going to be here writing about what it’s like to work on LongStory, maybe take a look at some fun new additions to LS2, share some of our favourite fanart, answer some asks… talk about the music I’m listening to… uh… share cat pictures… SO YEAH! I hope to hear from some of you over the next couple of weeks! Otherwise I’ll just be here… you know, doing my thang?

Before I go… I’m just gonna leave this here…

[moltengoldveins]

That TCU post…that is truly one of, if not the greatest thing I’ve ever seen come out of this fandom. I tried my own hand a while back at writing “the dsmp but taken seriously”; gave it a name and a playlist but didn’t really write much before I went back to my other projects. If you ever have the motivation to do more with that outline I’d be honored to be a co-writer or help out in any way, or if you want you could just use my title as a name for the series: A Ballad of Broken Dreams.

holy crap op this is so sweet. Thank you so much. I’m… wow ok. That. Wow. Thank you. That’s legitimately so kind and I’m so glad you enjoyed it XD. Id also Love to see your playlist and your thoughts behind the songs if you’re down?! That sounds awesome :D

funnily enough, I’ve had a drafted outline for this heccin thing running around in my head since the Butcher Army arc. Right around when SAD-ist dropped her animatic, I simultaneously realized ‘oh wow, I Adore this concept’ and ‘oh wow, I Highly doubt the CCs are gonna manage to do this the way I’d want to see it’ and lo and behold: I was correct. So painfully correct. (There were also People Involved whom I had Really Bad Feelings About from very early on that, sure enough, turned out to be exactly what i thought they were, rip) So the Emduo prequels, Icarus heccin Dying, and the end of Axe of Peace have been around for Ages.

I’d honestly love to do more with this concept, (i am designing movie posters as we speak) but due to Chronic Illness Pog I’m in a rather unstable financial situation? And don’t have a ton of free time for art. Any big projects are gonna take a While, or id need to find a way to use it or something adjacent to fund, y’know, Rent. That being said, I’m definitely writing the emduo prequels, both as movie scripts and as novels, as those are the films focused on, yknow, My Bois. I also think it’d be hilarious to release the novels and then the scripts and watch people Loose Their Minds over the ‘inaccurate adaptation >>:(‘

I’d absolutely love to work with other people in the fandom on this stuff, though I’ve never been the best at directly co-writing (my writing method and style is painfully specific (ie needlessly poetic) and I’m very autistic: I don’t like it when people touch that Specific Thing) but literally anything else? Im open ears. I love collabs.

and finally, I adore your name for the series, (excellent word choice there /srs, it fits perfectly with the symbolism of the whole story) and I think it works really Really well for the actual DSMP, but if I’m entirely honest… I’m not sure it fits the TCU? Like genuinely I’m so grateful for the suggestion, I love when people offer ideas and bounce things around like that. But one of the main things I tried to do with this concept was work out how the story could actually end Well. A deep-seated belief in the good-but-fallen nature of man, the importance of hope, and the inevitability of redemption kinda comes part and parcel with the whole Being-A-Christian Thing (if it doesn’t, you’re missing the Whole Point Of The Bible) and while the actual DSMP may have ended in broken dreams… this doesn’t. That was my first thought when writing that outline: This Is Going To End Well. Not for wish-fulfillment reasons, not because I’m naive or I don’t like bad endings, but because fundamentally, everything sad is a lie, and if the story has ended in tragedy, it hasn’t ended yet.

If I had to pick a series name now, I’m not sure what I’d pick. A part of me balks at referencing anything popularized by Our Local Redacted, but ‘unfinished symphony’ wasn’t his in the first place, it was from Hamilton. “The Finished Symphony” has a cool ring to it? I dunno. If anyone else has ideas please feel free to toss them in here aight, I’m not settling on anything for a While.

Anyways, thanks for Ted talking with me, drink water 💜

[lynnarang]

Purpose: A Human's Guide to Angelkind - Draft

Note: Doctor Kuri here, the following is just a few draft entries of the larger project I'm working on. The members of the board have been on my ass recently so I needed something to tide them over until my research is done.

1) He-Who-Inspires-Tears

You might think upon hearing this angel's name that his stated Purpose, to bring sadness to mankind, is a thing of horror. We've all heard stories of angels with far less intimidating Purposes committing atrocities, but I assure you he is quite harmless.

The first time I met He-Who-Inspires Tears, it was side by side in the dumpster near the local bar. As you all are likely well aware, angels who fail to adequately uphold their Purpose (through varying definitions of the word 'adequate') often dispose of themselves into these.

However I was surprised to learn that he was digging through the dumpster as a method of fulfilling his Purpose, and not as a result of failing it. He told me he was looking for material for his latest novel, that the best way to bring sadness to many was through writing.

To a human, we might expect that he would perform mass murders, torture loved ones in front of each other, or other such horrible things, but to him those actions inspire different emotions than the ones his purpose drives him towards.

He told me he isn't terribly creative, so his main method of bringing sadness is to write about broken and abandoned things he finds and make sure as many people see it as he can. He calls it 'dollposting', a rather preposterous title but one doesn't simply argue with an angel.

2) She-Who-Bleeds-Skin

Another horrifying name for an angel that was surprisingly tame. I first found her in the middle of the road, halfway through a procedure with scalpel in hand. Beneath her was a little doll-thing, surrounded by the scraps of the human it failed to be.

An angel performing a doll conversion is a strange sight, but she told me that it was the best way to fulfill her Purpose and I had learned at this point not to voice my doubts (see Section 4: Taboos). Still, it is certainly better than it using that scalpel on actual people.

Her criteria for choosing which future non-people to convert was different than the standard state-mandated conversions or even those of the Witches from Beyond, but she wouldn't explain them to me. This professor can't help but pity those dolls a little though.

The sight of her red crackling halo as she performed conversions with nothing but a scalpel and too many rows of teeth was utterly horrifying, so I ensured this was my only encounter with She-Who-Bleeds-Skin.

3) They-Who-Flutters-Hearts

As is evident by me writing this, my encounters with They-Who-Flutters-Hearts were all performed from a safe distance and beyond several layers of fae-crusted steel plating. Information hereon is limited to what the Bureau of Rehabilitation approved.

They-Who-Flutters-Hearts is a Class 4 cogitohazardous bio-anomaly. They are currently held 3 kilometers underground in a state-run facility in [REDACTED]. By authorization of [REDACTED], they are currently utilized for administering the death penalty to [REDACTED] criminals.

Visualizations of They-Who-Flutters-Hearts, whether in-person, recorded, or through text description (experimentation shows readers with a high degree of Aphantasia are safe), will instantly lead to the perceiver's heart undergoing [REDACTED] and expiring shortly after.

They-Who-Flutters-Hearts enjoys warm tea and watching sunsets, and seemed quite distraught about their current circumstances. They however have had little trouble fulfilling their Purpose, so they have had made no effort to escape.

Note: Jesus, that last one had to go through sixteen revisions before I could finally get it approved. I know I accidentally killed the first reviewer since my first draft made a few mentions of the angel's appearance, but how was I supposed to know I had Aphantasia before then?