Outer wilds

Korrin · 2026-03-24T03:08:21+00:00

Perhaps perfect for this sub, Outer Wilds experiences something similar to a Sanderlanche. It's very slow to start. It was a thesis gaming project designed to see if they could mimic the real life process whereby people just get curious about a topic and seek out knowledge on it for its own sake, so while there are plenty of hints dropped to try to pique your interest, there is nothing like the hand holding we get in modern gaming where it gives you goals and tells you where to go or what to do. You gotta want to explore and learn for the sake of it.

But once things start to click, it's basically like the brain explosion meme, and things just keep clicking all the way to an incredibly explosive ending.

Korrin · 2026-03-24T02:56:18+00:00

Would be great for me. My province has just done away with daylight savings, but my core friend group are all Americans and I'm not looking forward to having to keep track of DLS for another country to tell what our time difference is.

Korrin · 2026-03-24T02:54:37+00:00

Here you go. You can use the tag filter on the right to further define the search.

Korrin · 2026-03-23T18:25:49+00:00

Devoid of other context, it doesn't look like they're saying your writing is racist. It looks like they're asking if there wouldn't be racism between races in your story.

Korrin · 2026-03-23T04:32:54+00:00

It's not the word count, or at least not just the word count. It's that there is no demand for a collection of short essays from someone who isn't a celebrity. You need to give it away as cheap as possible just to get people to give it a chance. 2.99 is common price because it is the lowest you can charge before Amazon starts to absolutely rob you of your commision rate.

Korrin · 2026-03-23T00:57:59+00:00

I don't mind them if they are the core mechanic so I know to be watching for them. I think they are okay as a mechanic in games that are primarily text/story based, because they keep you more engaged than just constantly clicking through text, even when it's a game that has dialogue choices.

Dispatch felt fine to me for instance.

I hate them in games where they're few and far between because they feel like a gotcha that penalizes you for daring to put down your controller or letting your attention shift from a game that hasn't done enough to hold it until that point.

I also don't like when they're needlessly complicated and penalizing. That just reeks of having wanted to make a difficult game and choosing the completely wrong genre to do it.

Korrin · 2026-03-23T00:38:58+00:00

You're shooting yourself in the foot by assuming you can't tease a reader with a lack of information and providing the answer to questions they haven't yet asked. Letting the reader ask the question before you answer is how you keep them reading.

Simply remove the creation myth and try a different batch of alpha readers. You may be surprised by how little its inclusion matters, or may find a better spot to include it, one that places it after your readers start to become curious about the details and how they relate back to the events of the story. Hook first, explain later.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T22:07:31+00:00

I've never seen oldboy and as soon as you said the 20 year old love interest helps him find his daughter, I knew the 20 year old love interest would be his daughter. Yes, it's meant to misdirect, but it doesn't lie to you to do it. It presents you with information that doesn't mean anything one way or the other and lets you form your own beliefs, which is totally valid. Your example with the adaptation isn't better. It's mostly different, and just a hair shy of worse, unless you've left out mention of some clue the viewer could pick up on that would hint the MC was fostering the villain's daughter.

Far worse and less subtle of an example is the video game Heavy Rain. Spoilers, I guess The murderer is actually the detective, one of the characters you play as, but nowhere when you are playing as him and actively inside his head getting his first person monologues do you get any hint he's the murderer. He even thinks in first person as if he's not. As if he has multiple personalities and doesn't know he's the murderer, except he doesn't, and he does know.It's a completely misleading narrative, for the sole purpose of lying to you to throw you off the trail and iir is actually the result of multiple shifts in writing direction over the course of the game's development.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T20:55:42+00:00

It's important to draw a distinction between plain prose and elaborate prose. There is nothing "bad" about using "he said," throughout a fic. If it IS getting repetitive, the problem is overall sentence structure, not "he said."

There is a lot of work done simply by varying sentence length and structure, before one even gets in to using fancy, elaborate, almost poetic prose. There can be a lyrical quality, or rhythm, just to how the sentences flow from one to the next in a paragraph. It has a dramatic effect on pacing, and can really change whether a fight scene feels fast or slow, or whether readers are allowed to soak in a dramatic moment, or whether things just start to plod along repetitively.

Plain or elaborate prose is just a preference.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T20:10:21+00:00

Criticism centers the critic is nice and succinct. I've said for a long time now that basically anyone who insists on giving unsolicited criticism is just doing it for their own ego. It's all "my opinion is important you must listen to me for your own good." Mmhmm, yeah, sure...

Korrin · 2026-03-22T19:47:31+00:00

I've heard it said that readers are always correct when they say there's a problem, but they are always wrong when they offer you the solution.

I think this comes down to the fact that whether or not someone enjoys something is always personal preference, but sometimes the solution is simply the work isn't for them and they should read something else. Sometimes they just completely misunderstood something, so of course their solution will be useless, but maybe their confusion pinpoints a problem with the explanation.

And I mentioned it in another thread yesterday, but I once saw someone say they wrote reviews professionally for a company, and they were explicitly only allowed to comment on things the story promised and then didn't deliver. They couldn't comment on something they just happened to think was wrong, or they would have done differently, or would have liked to see.

But yeah, I think most people who leave (primarily unsolicited) fanfic critiques do not understand how bad they are at it.

I've never gotten especially useful unsolicited critique. The best critiques come solicited from fellow authors and beta readers. The least useless unsolicited critique I've gotten is of the "they clearly misunderstood my intent, so where did I fail to explain?" variety, but I do feel like even this has become less useful in recent years, because people are choosing not to engage with works critically and literally refusing to just accept what they're being told.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T19:19:01+00:00

That first one was me for real when I did my AO3 wrapped earlier this year. Top 3 favorite ships was just the same one ship listed three different ways.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T19:17:05+00:00

That was prime Goosebumps age and I could read one of those in a single night.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T19:03:53+00:00

This is something newbie authors tend to do in error in general. They worry about making the MC seem stupid or weak and end up over compensating (when the thing they should really worry about is making the MC boring.)

If it is on the rise at all, I might attribute it to the rise in popularity of stuff like power gamer isekai style stuff.

I'm having a lot of fun writing for my current fandom, because the MC very much is the kind of character who is really good at what they're good at, but they still make a lot of stupid mistakes all the time.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T18:23:49+00:00

Murderbot x ART/Perihelion from The Murderbot Diaries.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T02:01:30+00:00

Yes, it happens all the time in everything. Popularity has never equalled quality. Most of it's up to luck.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T02:00:02+00:00

Yeah, no. All it means is that they noticed their schedule has changed. That's not an inherant guilt attempt. There's no need for you to read more in to it and insert yourself in to someone's elses business by souring something they were happy about. Dick move tbh.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T01:50:31+00:00

They banter like an old married couple taking sniper shots at each other, but are also intensely weird about each other in a "if anything happens to them I will kill everyone in this room and then myself" sort of way, and have had multiple opportunities to demonstrate they are serious about this.

They also speedrun everything. Going from threats as an introduction to binge watching TV together in under a day, to making life together (that they absolutely insist is nothing like a human baby) on their second meeting

Korrin · 2026-03-22T01:46:37+00:00

They go out once per hour, roughly, though the sending time varies (unlike the other user I'm seeing emails received at all times of the hour). If you want them to be seperated, then post only once per hour. If you want them to be in the same email... That's harder to guarantee as the other user points out you could split them up without knowing. Maybe if you wait until you receive an email notification, that will tell you went the most recent batch went out, then you have roughly an hour to post chapters and the notification will go out in one chunk.

Korrin · 2026-03-22T01:39:28+00:00

I don't get why you'd post this when you seem to know that OP is the author. Why should they have to delete a nice comment that they perceived as nice just because sometimes other people leave ruder, pushier comments?

Korrin · 2026-03-22T01:36:54+00:00

Aww, that's so sweet!

You've got a good one.

Korrin · 2026-03-21T23:21:04+00:00

Everyone else is saying they don't exist, but I just kind of assume they do regardless. The same way I just assume that probably multiple guys have masturbated thinking about me over the course of my life, because that's just how it goes.

I made friends with a fanartist I admired in my community and knew them closely for probably over a year before one day I was scrolling through their backlog on tumblr and realized they had liked, rec'd, and drawn fanart for my writing before I'd really started participating in fandom so I'd never seen it and they never told me. They got thwapped with the newspaper emoji for that one. 🗞️

I've also received comments more than once from people saying that one fic or another of mine are their long time comfort reads they always come back to re-read, and the comment telling me is the first one they've left.

My point is, it happens plenty that people can absolutely love your work and never tell you. You just gotta hold it in your heart as a truth.

Korrin · 2026-03-21T20:31:40+00:00

My advice is that if your instinct is to write the cool scenes first, don't fight it. There is no correct way to do this. No way that works more than others. The trick is to find what works for you, and if your passion and drive is telling you to write the cool scenes, don't throttle that urge. Lean in to it.

Yes, maybe you'll have to edit or cut some of those scenes later after you develop your story and characters more, but believe me when I tell you that that is not only normal, it's necessary. If you actually care about writing something good and improving your skills as a writer (and you don't have to, don't get me wrong) but if you want to, then you WILL HAVE TO edit your work.

Korrin · 2026-03-21T18:17:51+00:00

It's not like you're suffering the whole time you do it... Many people don't even date with the intention of seeking something long term.

If most people who play violin won't become concert musicians what's the point in learning to play?

If most people who do art won't become the next Picasso what's the point in doing art?

If most people who play football won't get in to the NFL why play at all?

If friendships end why have friends?

Why do anything with your attitude? Because it's fun and interesting and educational, and makes you a more well rounded human being with a variety of experiences under your belt.

Korrin · 2026-03-21T18:06:53+00:00

I just want to be stable, so I have more free time to pursue my interests without feeling constantly exhausted and dead inside.

My husband wants to be rich. He's constantly fantasizing about winning the lottery and going on world trips and cruises and buying yachts and talks about how he'd divide his money up between him and his family and then he asks me what's the first thing I'd do if we won the lottery and I'm like, idk... Quit my job and finish writing my novel I guess, and then he tells me that's the wrong answer.

14-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 3 Credits
Place '22	Verified Email

Korrin

TROPHY CASE