The Pen is, Mightier Than the Sword #1

Welcome, welcome, one and all, we are back once more! Before we go any further… did you catch our little titular joke? Alright! Let’s roll on! Today we have a nice follow up to the retrospective on the work Unshi has been putting in over the last year and beyond (which has fast become one of our most liked posts ever… Noe will be so jealous if she is dethroned), we’re going to take a look at what Spook brings to the mix. As the title suggests, words can be powerful movers and for some they are even more important than art. Well, Spook can dream, right?

Now, we’ve actually received some questions on this topic before, even more so recently, and have been asked advice on how we put together our stories. We’re terribly flattered by the prospect and we wanted to give a well thought out answer, but first let’s pick out some of the questions! Those of you on the Fan Discord server may have come across this one:

“how do you decide how the stories will take shape and how much flexability within the stories (ntr & aoh.) do you tend to allow for?”

To quote the beloved Louise Belcher, “That’s a two-part question… I don’t answer those… Next!”

Well now, it would be mean to come this far and not give an answer, so we’ll have to do a little rework. The first thing to do is to separate out the two questions before we tackle them, so let’s do that… we will answer the first part here and now (the second part we answered already on the Discord Server), if we tried to do them both together we would all need to stop for a meal break mid read. If people are interested in hearing more then we will make more posts on the topic, so if that’s you, come shout out on the chat or the comments! Now… let’s get to it

---

How do we decide how the stories take shape?

Well, for us, we are very much an advocate of character orientated design. Where others may find it easier to begin with a premise for a story, stretch it out until it reaches one of the many possible climaxes, then populate their world with the set pieces to move the plot along, we like to take our characters as the starting point. We strongly believe in having character with depth, all the more so (but not because of) being in the adult games industry. 

When coming up with a story, we start with our main character. We learn all we can about him or her, even things that are probably unnecessary in the larger context of the plot, but every little detail helps ground the character in the here and now. We think up not only their strengths but their faults too. We compare them to the major archetypes of characters and if they line up to one a little too much, we steer them away with a detail/flaw/ideal that helps them stand out from the background. What kind of details help avoid flat stereotypes you ask? Here are some small examples: 

- Kriem seems like your typical punk, but her parents are both hippies and don’t impose rules for her to rebel against, that rage needs to come out in some other way.

- Kelsey may be the smartest character of all, she certainly is no fool, but she’s not your typical brain box. Her chosen path in life doesn’t lead her through college so she’s going her own way.

It’s twists on the external factors playing on the characters, internal views of their own that differ from the norm, and other things like that which can keep a character idea fresh yet relateable.

So what kind of things do we think up? Well, here is an excerpt of the info we compiled on all the main NTR characters (both male and female) …

- Birth and Early Childhood

- Early Life and Teens

- Schooling and (if applicable) College

- Recent Life

- Family, Friends and Relationships

- Interests, Goals and Dreams

- Favourite Music, Political Views and Other Flavour Details

… all to name but a few (seriously). Will it all get used? Probably not in one game, but it adds the needed depth to bring our world to life! When you get to the point you could make up a whole game’s content out of just the characters acting like they’re in a sitcom, talking, teasing and causing trouble for each other… you know you’re on the right track! (If we didn’t love sex so much we’d be making a comedy right now I tell ya!)

(Back when we were designing Noe, we made versions of her through the ages to match how here life changes affected her appearance. Glasses came at age 8, nose piercing at 16, her tattoo at 18… right up to age 28 as she is now… obviously we don’t have any pics younger than 18)

When we know our character as well as we need and want, the next step is to envision them as we would want them to be by the end of the story. One or two major changes and a few minors is enough, people don’t change that fast or that much in real life even given time in most cases. We also don’t want them to lose who they were and what we like about them over their journey either, no matter how much they grow or regress. 

Once we have them where we want to go… well then, we have the bones of a story in that journey! What is better still is the story already has character development not only included but baked right in. This is the key element that most stories lack and that make the experience feel hollow, so if you make it to this point you are already ahead of the game! All that is left out is the why’s and then the how’s, each of them tend to emerge from the details we made back in the beginning, as we already know what our character is likely to do, how they react to given things and where they spend their time… see we told you all that thinking was worth it!

Now, we just repeat the process for each of the characters we want. Obviously, the less screen time you plan for a character, the less you need to put into the details stage, but the more the better we say! When you come up with multiple characters’ stories you can weave them in and out, find points in which each complement each other and how the characters can pull each other in directions that benefit the plot. The threads you are not ready to pull on yet can be used to branch out into other stories and situations when you are… just another benefit of the beWilderverse! (or insert your extended universe here!)

Alright then, have you absorbed all that? Well then, now it’s your turn! If you’ve ever contemplated making a story of your own, try our method and see how it fits you… but don’t blame us if you fall in love with your characters like we did so long ago. It is a hazard of the job! And be sure to let us know what you come up with too, it’s always cool to see what other people have in mind, there’s even a place to put it over on the Discord.

---

Phew… told you it would be a long post, but passion is worth expressing, is it not? Alright then, we’ll get back to putting our words into action and show you just how effective our method can be, we hope by now your even more hyped for NTR v0,1! We are making great progress, but it’ll still be a short while yet until it’s ready. Until then, every Brave and wilder backer make sure to vote in the Season #1 wallpaper polls, AoH’s closes in less than 24 hours and our girls crave your input! Everyone else, brace yourself for the big winner announcement on Wednesday. Oh, and all you Bold backers out there, Lara’s Last Raider comic will be coming your way soon too! Until then…

Be full of character and beWilder!