#often rewriting things that do not need tweaks and making them worse (when there's a lot of stuff that DOES need tweaking)

[wardensantoineandevka]

I'm not saying that Veilguard was perfectly written and could not have been written better—because there's so many places it could've been written better or more carefully or more elegantly—but some of the rewrites some of you are proposing are truly dumb as shit and often blatantly misunderstanding what the actual text is portraying or ignoring basic tenets of storytelling

[sunsafewriting]

Hey :). I was hoping that maybe you would have some nuggets of wisdom regarding story pacing and plot. Everything you published on ao3 is so well paced and worded in such a way that the reader can vividly picture every scene. Sooo.. question: how do you plan out the plot of a story? And when you don't necessarily have a plot, how do you make sure that the scenes you want to write are well-connected/paced within the bigger narrative?

Anyways, I hope you have a great day. And answer or not, I will keep enjoying your work just the same.

hey mate! thanks for thinking of me but you have actually come to a terrible place for pacing advice bc that is definitely the part of writing that i struggle with most lol . but i shall tell you how I cope and hopefully some of that helps you (?)

basically I cannot plan to save my life. fic or original writing --- if I set out to outline, I come up with bad ideas and stress myself out of even starting. all the stories I plan are MUCH worse than the ones I don't. for some writers planning works great and if that's you that's awesome!!! but I am doomed to walk another path

what I do instead of planning a story is think about what I (me, personally, bc I write fic from a place of indulgence) WANT out of it. like, what's the stuff I wanna see? to me, the essential aspect of pacing is making that stuff feel important and worth it and earned. it has to have emotional weight or it won't be what I'm after .

that's also how I try to make scenes are connected; they're all focused around a general Vibe or Feeling I want to construct.

for example, in Do A Flip, what I wanted was all of them getting to become a family. and so I worked backwards from that --- what are the steps within steps within steps that lead them there? what little aspects can we put together to create that kind of image?

for pacing it's also handy sometimes to ask what the best bit about NOT being where you're aiming for yet is. like, what is worth lingering on and enjoying that isn't the end goal? what fun thing can you only have at THIS moment of the story, rather than later? it makes each part more fun to write .

I started with a much shorter version of the fic (14k) where I wrote a shoddy draft of the whole thing from Diego's pov, and then I went back and added a ton more pieces.

that's also something I use to help myself out (and because personally I love to write this way) --- I write in pieces.

this improves my pacing, because then I'm not having to constantly consider the whole structure. instead, I'm thinking about what the point of an individual fragment is --- what am I showing in this scene, and what does it mean? often it's just something small (like I want to show that Beatrice is comfortable with Ava holding her hand, or that Lilith tries to be friendly to Diego) but I function much better with a hundred bite sized pieces than a massive whole.

in these piece-style stories, I rely on the reader drawing connections between different parts and inferring rather than a smooth flow. it's just something I enjoy as a narrative form --- I like gaps and spaces where you figure bits out yourself.

I also rearrange a ton. scenes get cut and pasted to be in a new spot all the time bc I realise as I go that they could be tweaked and fit better somewhere else. when I'm writing, I also often just leave a break and write SCENE, and then jump on to the next one --- like I don't know how I'm going to fill it in yet, but I know I need something to separate out two more similar bits, or a different POV, or to slow down before X Event happens. half the time I have no idea where a chapter is going until the first version is almost done.

the other thing about pacing for me is that devastatingly I rely heavily on rewriting, editing, and cutting beloved scenes that don't super gel. chapters take SO long to come out bc I rewrite them 2-4 times. a lot of better (and less highly strung) writers don't need to do that much so please don't feel like it's necessary but it's definitely necessary for me bc without it my work would be a total shambles lmao. I also find the promise of rewriting means I'm less likely to freeze up or stare at a blank page because I will go back and improve/tidy up later.

I also think paying attention when you feel pretty meh about something is helpful for pacing. for example, I wrote a 6k version of chapter 3 of Favourable Conditions where a lot more happened, but I didn't like it. I got my girlfriend to read it and she said "the whole first part feels like you're racing to get to the second part, and then it all settles down". and she was totally right --- I had a scene I was excited to get to so I gunned it, but the overall feeling of the chapter suffered as a result. I split the chapter in half and then rewrote the whole first half as a chapter in its own right, and decided to focus on what fun stuff I could do there, rather than just skipping through to get to the rest. I ended up adding scenes that were the ones people in the comments liked most. I also ultimately decided to change the next few plot beats afterwards, based on how that went.

I would also say that generally speaking, not a lot happens in my stories. like, I go for smaller stakes and smaller actions that slowly add up --- mostly bc I'm writing very chilled out stuff. but if you're trying to build a character to the point of doing something drastic, it's a different ballgame to escalating them to some minor change. both are super doable, you've just got to keep in mind what you're aiming for. I like minor stakes because I enjoy trying to make small things like washing dishes or going to the park matter. it's also just the vibe of where I'm at right now --- previously I've written things that were a LOT more dramatic.

if you're really struggling, I would also suggest starting with writing something short. your blog is blank so I couldn't tell what kind of writing you might be interested in, but it's much easier to tweak and change and judge these things if you're working in a smaller area --- like a 2-4k oneshot --- than if you sit down to write 80k. I literally never sit down to write 80k of fic I just accidentally end up doing it lmao.

I hope some of that is vaguely useful? I don't have a lot of wisdom to dispense bc as you can see most of my process is crutches for getting around having no natural sense of pacing. if you have any more specific questions about pacing a particular scene or idea I might be able to help more?

but good luck! 💛

[komoreangel]

𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐚

pairing: scaramouche x fem!reader

scenario: you met when you were both very young, and since the day he left you behind he still feels an undying fear for what sight would await him if he dared to return home.

or…

thantophobia - the fear of losing a loved one. but he had made it perfectly clear that you did not fall under that category when he left you and all of your promises behind.

request: okok my first idea was: scaramouche childhood friends to enemies to lovers. take with that what you will <3

a/n: hi anon ty so very much for the request we all know i love scara <33 but i did tweak it a bit basically its childhood friends to enemies to scara loves reader but reader isnt convinced (with a hint of 'ive always loved you' thrown in)

side note: this is a rewrite of an excerpt i wrote for a scara x oc, in which the oc was female (the same is said here but i will avoid using pronouns) and adopted into the kamisato clan as a princess (minor inazuma spoilers). the same situation is stated here. also i am 1000% willing to write more of this (includes my personal headcanons for scaramouche’s backstory, not canon!!)

growing up, you had always had poor health

your mother worried for you a lot when you were younger

she didn’t like to let you go outside much either

you spent most of your time in the palace walls while she worked, frequently being taken to see the royal physician

you would sit outside the door while your parents talked with the doctors about your “condition”

you weren’t even that sick

just weak for your age

that was when you first met him

he was training to be a soldier along his father

you were like a ghost in his eyes

sitting in the hall in the middle of the night

knees pushed to your chest, snoozing in the soft light of the moon

he was naturally a curious boy, so he kneeled in front of you and poked your shoulder

“hello?”

you startled awake

“wah-!” he fell back at your sudden movement

“who are you?” you asked

your voice was soft, and gentle, like a midnight breeze

“i’m [redacted].”

you remember what he told you, but some part of that memory had been erased from your mind…you wonder to this day what he could have said.

“my name is y/n.”

he thought it was a pretty name, although he wasn’t going to say anything

the two of you sat in the moonlight, talking quietly amongst yourselves

“why are you sitting outside the physician’s office?” he asked you

“my mama says i’m sick, and that going outside will make it worse.”

“oh. are you going to get better soon?”

you smile at him, a gesture that makes his chest tighten, although he can’t fathom why.

“yeah! she says that if we can afford to get some medicine from liyue, i’ll be all better! then i can start making friends!”

he slightly smiles

“can i be your friend, [redacted]?”

you had even said the name yourself once. why couldn’t you remember it?

his expression shifts to a slightly surprised look

“you…want to be my friend?”

he was quiet even then, and his silent expression would grow to an angry one over time

“yeah! you’re interesting, and you’re one of the few people who bothers to talk to me.”

he doesn’t speak for a while.

“you can say no if you want to.” you say to him.

“okay. i’ll be your friend.”

it’s a short response, but the bright grin that lights up your face makes it worth the wait

“yay! i can’t wait till i’m better so we can hang out more!”

you two talked in that hallway a lot

meeting after dark, talking about anything in the world

when you were about six, the worst of your illness hit you

the doctors didn’t even know what was wrong, and there were nights when he would sit outside the physician’s office alone at night, hoping, praying that the sun would shine on a world that still had you in it

you would collapse from exhaustion at the slightest overexertion

his father always told him he had to be careful with you, not only were you shorter than him, but you were also very fragile

those hours spent sitting in the hallway alone, he got to do a lot of thinking

he wanted to help you, but he didn’t know how

then, there was a sudden burst of hope

you were going to liyue with your parents

you would get the help you needed

he was happy for you, even if it meant you would have to spend time away from him

and then there was the terrible news

the ship had gone missing

you had too

he couldn’t sleep for days on end

his father was worried too

when he saw you again, you found yourself shuddering on the shores of inazuma

he wrapped his arms around you as tight as he could, as if his strength alone could undo everything that had happened

it was one of the few times he showed affection in public

he rushed you to the healer again

and this time there was no hoping

there was no praying

there was just the pit in his stomach, the fear that coursed through his veins and fueled his blood

every second felt like a decade, it was a moment in which you weren’t perfectly healthy and safe

the townspeople began to spread rumors, as people do

the guard’s son who was lovesick with worry for the sickly orphan girl

what a pity, no?

he wanted to shut them up. he wished he had the power to shut them up.

when even his father had to drag him away from the pharmacy, he didn’t talk to anyone for a very long time.

this was around the time he grew sour and snappy

his simply quiet demeanor developed into a scowl that constantly graced his face

he only smiled the day you were released from the physicians.

you weren’t fully healed. but you felt better than you ever had in your life.

his father took you in without a second thought, and he was just happy to have you with him.

“i’m better, scara.” you said to him, a happy smile on your face

“i was wondering when you’d hurry up and get well.”

you were a bit troubled by his attitude, but no less, you were happy to see your friend again.

it went like that for a long time.

he was rude, but you didn’t care because you knew what he was like underneath.

some nights he would sneak into your room and talk to you.

he told you he was just bored and felt like annoying you.

but his real reason was to make sure you were still breathing.

he always worried about you

so the day you received your vision, he felt a lot of relief

surely this meant that you could protect yourself. you were safe.

then the worst of all things happened.

his fathers death.

the day he felt like his world was ripped from underneath his feet.

almost immediately, the electro archon, baal, herself, intervened, and declared that you were to be adopted into the kamisato clan.

why you? why couldn’t he keep you with him? he was old enough to be able to take care of both of you

baal didn’t like his questioning. she said she knew what was best for you.

it was strange. because in the days he spent with you after, although not many, you didn’t seem sick at all.

for the first time, you seemed perfectly healthy.

he was glad for that…but he wasn’t happy. you could see that easily.

you knew this wasn’t the right thing for him

he stuck around for a year. you suppose you’re lucky he even stayed that long. you were pretty much his only reason.

sure he found friends in ayaka and kazuha…but he was unhappy.

he knew there was no point in staying, so he thought it was time he took his leave.

he approached you one day, as the sun began to set

you were worried for him, as he had been very angry towards baal and the emperor lately.

“scara, is there something you want to talk about?”

you watch as he stands before you

he blurts out, “run away with me.”

you’re taken aback almost immediately.

“what?”

he repeats his statement

“i’m going to flee from inazuma. come with me.”

“scara..”

his expression, as it does often these days, turns stern and serious.

“i’m not going to ask you again. come with me, y/n.”

you’re tired of him ordering you around.

“you know i can’t. i have duties here. i can’t just betray my country for you.”

“you know baal wants me gone. she’s going to kill me if i stay. she might do the same to you.”

you scoff at his words. “she won’t harm me or you. you’re being dramatic.”

he spits out his next words, laced with venom. “baal killed my father. i hate her and so should you.”

“scara.”

“it’s like you’ve completely forgotten about him just because you’re royalty now.”

“scara.”

“don’t call me scara. come with me if you ever cared at all.”

“scaramouche!”

he goes quiet

“don’t go. please.”

he frowns

“you know i can’t do that.”

you want to try and make him stay

but he won’t. you know nothing you say will convince him. he won’t let himself be convinced by you, even if that’s what he truly wants.

you inhale

“get out of here.”

“what?”

“go. leave. and take this with you.”

you throw the necklace you were wearing at him, and he catches it. baal had exiled him, it was true, but he couldn’t expect you to throw everything away for him.

“wait, what are you-“

as the two of you stare each other down, you hear ayaka’s voice coming from the courtyard, calling for you.

she has a guard with her, as the emperor assigns every royal family member. you managed to ditch yours early on.

“the guard is gonna get you if you stay, scara. get out of here, now.”

he scoffs

“whatever. i can’t believe i thought you were worth risking my life.”

he pockets the necklace and steps over the wall, and he’s gone.

nine years of friendship and he threw you away like you were nothing

in truth, the minute he was out of sight, he threw down his bag in anger

he turned around and you weren’t there anymore

you gave up on him

so if he hated you, you deserved it

it might be worth a hefty price anyway.

at least that’s what he told himself

(he never stopped missing you. almost as soon as he joined the fatui, he requested an audience with the tsaritsa to ask her how you were doing.)

“a simple agent, asking that much of me? and for a girl? that’s very bold of you.”

upon hearing it was about you, the cryo archon grew very interested. of course she remembered you.

the sickly orphan she gifted a vision to at a very young age.

she told him you were well

what she didn’t tell him was about baal going berserk and massacring thousands of her people.

upon receiving the news, he felt that chill upon him once again

the fear that fell onto his shoulders, weighing him down, too scared to ask for more information. he didn’t want to be told you were gone.

“the royal family was not harmed.”

he felt his muscles relax as he calmed down.

he quickly reassumed an upright stance.

he was the sixth harbinger. he has no weaknesses. he cares for nothing and no one.

but beneath his mask, the fire of his love for you burned brighter than the flame of any pyro vision.

a/n: ok so i really enjoyed this….scara banner when. i did tweak it a bit but i have other things written for this scenario in which scara returns to inazuma and reader is (deservingly) PISSED with him :) lmk if you want me to post those !

[bobbyshaddoe80]

Liberated Audio Reviews

Blake's 7 - The Liberator Chronicles Vol. 2

RELEASED AUGUST 2012

Recorded on: 18 October and 25 November 2011, and 15 March 2012

Recorded at: Moat Studios

Review By Robert L. Torres

The Magnificent Four by Simon Guerrier

'A mission to steal data from the planet Mogul goes badly wrong when Cally and Avon are outflanked and outgunned. And then they are teleported to safety – to an alien spaceship stolen from The System, which is crewed by Gilden Trent and his small team of rebels.

For Avon it’s the opportunity to start over again without Blake.

But can Trent be trusted?'

Chronological Placement:

Set during Series B between the episodes Countdown and Voice From the Past.

Magnificent. Defined in the dictionary as 'impressive, deserving of admiration, especially due to an unusual quality involving size'.

The word is often used when describing something vast in size and scope, but magnificence can also be attributed to the quality of something that involves a small group. A prime example would be the title characters of the classic Western The Magnificent Seven. Even the accomplishments made by the John Wick character could be described as magnificent despite them being done by one man.

Magnificent is an apt word to describe the impressive storytelling quality that Guerrier has pulled off with this Cally focused story.

Cally, as played by the exquisite Jan Chappell, was always one of my favorites from the original cast. She was someone that wasn't a hardened cynic like Avon (who provides much needed support for Cally in this story), nor was she cowardly like Vila. She was someone that genuinely believed in doing the right thing and saw fighting against the oppressive tyranny of the Federation to be a very serious responsibility.

I was also always fascinated by her stance as someone that, for all intents and purposes, was the alien of the group (due to her coming from a race of telepaths). I have my own thoughts and theories about the Auronar, but that can wait for another day. Despite having powers of the mind, I always felt that Cally was very much the heart of the team.

I love that this story has Cally and Avon meeting up with a group like Blake's, on a ship like the Liberator, only to learn that they are little more than highly skilled pirates.

I love that the events of the Series B episode 'Redemption' are brought up and how the crew of the Libertine are a result of the aftermath of the events from that story.

I love how the story showcases in the crew of the Libertine a distorted reflection (and perhaps a retroactive premonition) of what would happen to the crew of the Liberator should they lose their way by abandoning their morals and scruples and just give in to blind self interest... Which for the most part is exactly what started to happen during Series C and ultimately came to fruition in Series D.

A minor nitpick, but I always thought the planet Cally came from was called Auron and her people were called the Auronar. And yet in this story and others, they refer to her as being an Auron. Is it a case where one singular person is an Auron but the collective term for the species as a whole is Auronar? It is a minor thing, I know, but still something that stuck out.

Something else that is a bit of a minor flaw is that at one point in the story the voiceover narration switches from Cally to Avon. There is a specific reason why this happens in the narrative, but it still comes about rather unexpectedly.

Given the stories in these chronicles are events being recounted AFTER the fact, there is the inevitable problem of how to create tension and intrigue with life threatening peril for the characters when most fans know the show backwards and are fully aware of what the inevitable fates for many of the characters are.

Luckily for Guerrier and many other writers, they do create moments that make you wonder how such and such will be able to survive whatever life threatening peril is thrown at them, and manage to cleverly pay off how they survive without falling into 'Oh Come The Fuck On' Territory.

8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

Anyway, this story is very well done and is the first of many plots that involve coming across potential allies for the Resistance movement, only to learn the would be allies are often a lot worse than their enemies in the Federation. Definitely give it a listen.

False Positive by Eddie Robson

'Dr. Lian has a mysterious new patient – a man who was found shot in the leg near Engel City, a man who is delirious and talking about the most extraordinary acts of rebellion.

She prescribes drugs and the use of the alleviator – a device that will dig deep into his memories – to unlock the truth about Carlin Guzan.

But the truth that she exposes is far more shocking than she bargained for...'

Chronological Placement:

Set during Series B after LC Vol. 10's Retribution, between the episodes Horizon and Pressure Point.

This story is definitely a step up in quality from volume 1's 'Counterfeit' and is an excellent Blake-centric story. The framing device for the recollection of the events is actually quite clever as it ties in with the adventure itself in a very naturalistic manner.

The dialogue scenes between Blake and Dr. Liam are excellent. Kudos to Beth Chalmers for giving the character of Dr. Liam the right balance of professional intrigue and personal curiosity as she learns more and more about her 'patient'. But this story belongs to the late Gareth Thomas through and through and it is great to hear him be afforded better material than during his first go round back in 'Counterfeit'.

I always rather liked Blake from the start, and a large part of that is down to the performance of the late Gareth Thomas. The character of Roj Blake was a passionate idealist fighting for a noble cause, someone who could be diplomatic but understood the need for action rather than simple civil disobedience. As someone that broke free from an oppressive government, he immediately gains our sympathies... even if his passions occasionally bordered on overzealous fanaticism. This is largely due to what the Federation did to him personally by trying to rewrite his mind, killing his family and even destroying his public image by falsifying accusations of paedophilia.

Since the Federation enact the same tactics on countless others without any hesitation, morals or scruples, it is no wonder why Blake is so overwhelmingly passionate about wiping out the corruptive and cancerous tumor that is the Federation. Not only to avenge family, but to ensure that people are given the freedom to choose for themselves and not simply be coerced into following the rules through propaganda, torture, drugs or mind control.

Speaking of drugs and mind control, that goes to the heart of the plot: Blake going undercover at a Federation research facility that is conducting a clinical drug trial for the development of a new pacifying sedative, which the Federation hopes to employ in order to ensure total compliance and obedience to Federation doctrine.

Ironically enough, that is exactly what would come to pass towards the tail end of Series D... But we already know that, don't we?

7 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

All things considered, it is a pretty good story. This story, like a few others in the Liberator Chronicles range, could work as a two-hander stage play with a couple of tweaks. It also could easily have worked on TV or even as a full cast audio. Give it a listen.

Wolf by Nigel Fairs

“I heard his death cry. I felt it. And there was a word. ‘Wolf’. You, Servalan. You were the “Wolf”. You killed him. I want to know why.”

'Some time ago, Blake and his crew were helped by a revered Auron scientist named Gustav Nyrron. He stayed aboard the Liberator for a time and then disappeared.

Cally wants to know what happened to Nyrron, and only Servalan knows the answers.'

Chronological Placement:

Set during Series B between the episodes Pressure Point and Trial.

This is a very intriguing Servalan focused story, featuring Cally and a return appearance by Gustav Nyrron from Volume 1's 'Solitary'.

They say that a protagonist is only as good as the antagonist created to provide drama/conflict. This is especially true when the character of Supreme Commander Servalan (along with the equally excellent Space Commander Travis) was introduced as the Liberator crew's primary antagonist in the Series A episode 'Seek-Locate-Destroy'.

A large part of why the Servalan character has left such a lasting impression on the minds of fans had to do with the casting of the late Jacqueline Pearce, and the way she played the role. Her grace, charm, beauty and seductive allure went hand in hand with a ruthless ambitious edge along with a keen strategic mind.

In many ways, Servalan, as played by Jacqueline Pearce, reminded me of Alexis Colby as played by Joan Collins. Although Servalan was a bit more reserved than Alexis.

As such, it makes perfect sense that the Liberator Chronicles would provide ample opportunities to explore the villains as well as the heroes. This story does well to explore Servalan's character along with her thoughts, beliefs and how she carries herself as she recounts events. The recollection is pretty interesting cuz it comes about in multiple ways.

We learn a little bit about Servalan's childhood in reference to a game she used to play with others. Its interesting how this story, along with the upcoming 'Kerr', 'President' and 'Three', provides more insight into the character than the show ever did. The aforementioned upcoming stories do provide some great insight into why Servalan is the way she is... But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I love the scenes between Servalan and Cally, as I do not recall the two of them having much screentime during the series proper... If ever. But I could be wrong.

This story has some great twists and turns as it deals with exploring how Servalan used Nyrron as her personal plaything in her efforts to lure the Liberator into her clutches.

Although Nyrron will be featured again in the story 'Brother' off of Volume 11 (which I will talk about eventually), I think this is the story that features him the best. We learn the most about him as a character, and much kudos to Anthony Howell for bringing much pathos and nuance to the Auron scientist.

The story also lends itself quite well to philosophical debates regarding how each side views the other. Naturally, Blake's crew view Servalan and the Federation as an evil and oppressive tyranny, while Servalan and those within the Administration view Blake and his ilk as little more than terrorists wanting to bring down the only force for law and order in the galaxy.

It is that clash of ideals and personal morals that will be explored to great effect in future volumes as well as in the full cast audios.

9 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

Final score for Liberator Chronicles Vol. 2 in its entirety is 8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts. It is a profound step up in quality compared to Volume 1, and it demonstrates that things can only go up from here in terms of character exploration and engaging plots.

Special credit to Craig Brawley of the Big Finish Listeners Facebook Group for his tireless efforts in mapping out the chronology of the audios and determining his they fit in with the established TV continuity.

[brynwrites]

I was just wondering if you had any advice for a new writer? More on how to approach writing a book or anything you wish someone had told you, thanks!

THE BASICS OF NOVEL WRITING

First off, you have to know these two things:

Your first draft of your first book will be terrible.

All your favorite authors of all time wrote a terrible first draft of their first book too. Probably a terrible second and third draft, maybe even a terrible second and third book.

This is okay. It can make writing hard sometimes, but the point of writing is not to whip out a masterpiece the first time you type: it’s to have fun exploring new settings, watching new characters grow, and being the first person to ever experience this story–your story–progress!

So, where do we begin?

Know thine story.(or ya know… to don’t.)

Before you tackle any kind of project that will take months, even years, of work you want to first decide what you’re actually doing. In the case of writing, we outline. (Or sometimes, we deliberately choose not to online, but only after we thought about outlining and maybe tried it out a little.)

There’s no wrong way to outline. Every writer does it differently, and therefore there’s about a million different methods. You can instantly find a ton of them using google, and these are a bunch of my own personal outlining tips.

The things you should know by the end of your outline include:

Setting. Where does your story take place? What does this place feel like? (If it were being filmed as a movie, what would the color palate look like?)

Worldbuilding. If you’re using a real place, how much research have you done? If you’re creating the setting from scratch, in which ways is it like our real world and in which ways is it not? (You don’t need to know everything about your world building going into a project, but it’s good to keep track of what you haven’t figured out yet, so you don’t get to the end of the rough draft and realize that everything you made up along the way contradicts itself.)

Main Characters. Who are they and what do they want? What beliefs or flaws are keeping them from getting what they want, or driving them to want something which hurts them? What’s the first trait someone notices about them? (Check out this nifty character creation sheet for some simple development questions!)

Plot. Now, plot sounds scary to a lot of writers, but a plot is just the accumulation of your other story aspects put at odds with each other. Your characters will make choices trying to get what they want, and those choices will effect the rest of the world, which in turn comes to bite the characters in the butt and force them to make more choices until eventually they get what they want, for better or worse. That’s the basis of a plot: it’s everything standing between your character and the rest of their life. (If you don’t have any semblance of a plot, check out these nifty tricks.)

Genre. Specifically, why are you telling this story in the genre you chose? How do the themes and tropes of the genre work with your story? What would the story look like in another genre?

Optional: The Beginning. If you come to the blank page of death without knowing exactly where you’re starting it can be incredibly daunting. Check out my tips on writing the first act for more help.

However you chose to outline, (and whether you chose to outline at all), the most important thing to know going into a story is what will produce the central conflicts?

Conflict drives a story. 

Conflict between characters and other characters.

Conflict between characters and the obstacles to their desires.

Conflict between characters and their own flaws and beliefs.

Even if you have no idea where your story will go or how it will end, as long as you start out your story with a conflict that’s difficult to resolve, you’ll always be on the right track!

Now, to the writing.

For the first draft of your first book, I’m going to suggest this controversial tip: Ignore all the writing advice.

The learning stage of your writing journey (aka the first three books you write) will be a mess of picking up and throwing out advice, and you’ll have plenty of time to do that once you start revising your rough draft, but for now the most important thing is finishing your first novel. 

Write your story exactly how you want to and damn the advice.

Some important things to do though:

Decide how many words or pages you want to write a week and try to continuously hit that. (But start out small! Your writing heroes might be churning out a novel in a month, but a thousand words a week can be an good and ambitious goal during your first novel!) The key is to build a habit. 

Find someone to motivate you! This can be another writer friend but it can also be a non-writer friend you’re comfortable talking about your writing with. Tell this person what you’re doing and how much work you want to put in each week and let them be your cheerleader.

Don’t get feedback yet. If you do have a writer friend cheering you on, it might be temping to send them your work asking for their opinion, but negative feedback tends to demotivate and make you question yourself. If you’re letting people read your first rough drafts, ask them just to be motivational right now, and then save their critique for when you’re ready to edit!  

Don’t even get feedback from yourself. It’s very tempting to stop every three paragraphs and wonder if you could have written them better a different way. And the truth is, you probably could, BUT imagine how much better future writer you (who has finished the whole manuscript and has far more skill than current you) will fix those paragraphs up?! Current you has barely any more skill than the you who wrote those paragraphs last week, so let your future far more skilled self handle it.

Don’t be afraid to change your story and process as you go. If you go into your story believing something specific about it, but you come up with something you like better as you write, you’re allowed to change it. You’re allowed to write it out of order. You’re also allowed to write another story beside (or instead of) the one you set out to write.

Above all: KEEP WRITING. Writing can be tough (even for the best and most skilled of writers) when you stop writing and start thinking, because thinking often leads to doubting and fearing. Just put one word after the next and let your future self worry about whether those words sound good together.

You can find more of my advice about the rough drafting stage here!

So, you have a novel... now what?

Now comes the revision stage. (And yes, you will have to revise. Some writers have to do more revisions than others, but nearly every author worth their salt will have at done at least three drafts of a story before sending it out into the world.)

Just like outlining, there are many ways of revising and each writer has to do what works best for them. Some people rewrite the entire book from scratch. Some take elaborate notes and then rework pieces at a time. Some just dive in and change whatever they don’t like as they read. Here’s an in-depth look at what I do when I edit my rough drafts.

For your first novel, I’d suggest one of two ways:

Rewrite it all. This is a good method if you either changed your story a lot while your wrote or you didn’t have a thorough outline so your resulting story ended up having huge holes. Rewriting is never a waste. Your pacing, dialog, even your prose, will all come out better when you rewrite the same story over.

Re-outline it all. This is a good method if you don’t think you need to rewrite but you don’t know where to begin editing. Read through the story and track everything that happens and then compare it to standard character arcs, three act structures, and so forth. The goal is to figure out how your story compares to the ideal simplistic stories in your genre and then tweak your story to make it closer to the ideal.*

*In no way do you have to stick with traditional or simplistic structures for all your writing, but if you don’t know how and why the traditions work, it’s very hard to produce a great story that defies them.

Once you’ve done some editing yourself, you want to find another writer (or three, or five) who’s of a similar skill set as you and get their feedback. They’ll be able to pick out issues you didn’t notice.

The final thing you’ll have to deal with in the editing process is your prose. Most writers have terrible prose for the first 50k to 100k words they write. Beginning writers who’ve already written short stories or role played or wrote a lot as youngsters tend to have an advantage in this. The thing to always keep in mind is that it’s okay if your first book’s prose is awful. 

You’ll have improved your prose just by writing it, and you’ll have a better grasp on story as well. This book doesn’t define who you are as a writer. If you really love the story, you can chose to rework it further to clean it up, or you can use what you learned through it to write another book that’s cleaner from the get-go. 

THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN STARTING OUT

1. First books almost never get published. 

A lot of us resist this, because our first books are good, dammit, we worked very hard to make them that way! But the quality of the book isn’t always the thing that holds it back; often the first book we write ends up pretty similar to the more poorly written published fiction, but it wasn’t written with knowledge of the publishing industry and the market. 

And that’s okay! It’s okay to write a lovely book that you put aside so you can publish your second or third or fourth book instead. That first story is still wonderful and it still helped you immensely.

2. Not everyone will like even the best story you ever write. (And even if it’s a literary masterpiece some of them will quote literary flaws as the reason they don’t like it!)

It’s common knowledge that everyone has different tastes in literature and one person might dislike a story another person loves. What’s talked about less often, is that the people who dislike a story based on taste, will often pinpoint specific literary aspects they believe were done poorly. They’ll say the characters are bad, and the plot had too many holes, or the prose was clunky. And they’ll probably believe what they say, and find evidence to back it up.

And that’s okay! As long as the majority of your target audience isn’t finding these things a problem, then you’re in the clear as a writer. Not every reader’s critique is valid and not every piece of feedback is worth listening to, even if it has the lingo of a legit critique.

3. You have to be reading in order to write well. Or, more specifically: If you aren’t reading books, you won’t write as well as you can.

It’s easy to assume that just because we read a lot of books growing up and know how stories work that we can write good ones. And in some ways, that can be true. We can write good stories without reading good stories—but we can’t write great ones.

A writer who really wants to improve their craft should try to read a book a month, or more if possible. If you have limited time, you can read shorter books, listen to audiobooks, or quit any book that doesn’t immediately hold your interest. But do read. Read, read, read, read.

4. If you can’t write a blurb, the problem is in your story.

Maybe this is a little harsh; there’s a lot of skill required to writing blurbs and it does take practice! But whether you have a concise story with characters whose goals and resulting conflicts weave seamlessly into the setting and create an easily describable plot with specific, emotional stakes and hard character choices will be very clear when it comes time to write those down as a 200 word blurb.

It’s so essential to blurb writing to have a tense, well paced, nicely woven story, that writing the blurb while you work on the story’s rough draft can actually help you produce a better story!

5. Sometimes the best stories are not the epic masterpieces but the ones you’d want to whiz through despite its many flaws.

And these stories are worth writing. Don’t feel the least bit bad for choosing to write the book you’d want to read as a ‘guilty pleasure.’

And on that note, if you’re still reading this, go check out my guilty pleasure book Our Bloody Pearl to support my ability to answer asks (and also get a swell read about a sassy, disabled siren and a soft, freckly pirate.)

[13eyond13]

if someone wants to be a writer what are the advices you give him/her to be good in writing?

Ooh, a very good question! I’m certainly no writing expert myself, there’s SO MUCH I have to work on with my own writing, and I usually spend way more time procrastinating on it than actually practicing it these days, but it’s something I think about constantly and strive to improve upon myself, so I’ll give it a shot.

ADVICE I ALWAYS TRY TO GIVE TO MYSELF WHEN THINKIN’ ABOUT STORYTELLING:

1. WRITE THE STORY YOU WANT TO READ, BUT SOMETHING THAT OTHER PEOPLE WILL HOPEFULLY BE ABLE TO ENJOY, AS WELL. Think of a question you have about life or a weird scenario or a relationship that you really want to answer or investigate, and then try to answer that question or explore that intriguing thing as honestly as you can. Doesn’t matter how big or small or serious or silly it is, if it’s an interesting question mark to you then it probably will be interesting to someone else, too. People generally read stories because we want to learn about ourselves and the world around us in some entertaining way. When we see things in stories that remind us of ourselves or other people we know, or that are tackling topics and concepts we’ve often wondered about ourselves, that’s when we really get emotionally invested. And if you can’t wait to find out what happens next in your own story yourself, that will really compel you to keep putting your butt in the seat to write it!

2. WRITE HOWEVER FEELS MOST NATURAL TO YOU, AND DON’T CONSTANTLY COMPARE YOUR OWN METHODS TO EVERYONE ELSE. Some people like to meticulously plot out their whole story before they begin, and some people like to just wing it and see what sort of weird surprises come out. Both approaches are valid, and so is a mix of the two! Play around with it and see what helps you get words down on paper the easiest. It won’t always be effortless, but it shouldn’t feel like a punishment or a horrible chore that you dread every time you sit down to create, either.

3. MAKE TIME FOR CONSUMING LOTS OF GOOD STORIES. Watch cool movies and TV and read books and comics and carefully observe all the people you know in your everyday life. Absolutely everything is a useful learning opportunity if you want it to be. Pay close attention to the world around you, because it’s all inspiration, even the mundane stuff. It’s those little realistic moments that really give stories life and weight and make people pay attention to what you’re saying as having a spark of truth to it. Get in the habit of describing the things you’re observing to yourself, too, because that’s what writing is. The more you read / watch / experience the more you will internalize the art of storytelling and start figuring out what is good and what isn’t, what feels cliche and lazy and untrue and what feels real and moving and fresh. If you think a story really sucks, don’t just zone out, figure out exactly why you think it sucks, too!

4. MAKE TIME FOR CREATING YOUR OWN STORIES WITHOUT OUTSIDE INFLUENCES OR DISTRACTIONS, TOO. Develop a routine and make it a habit and create your own cozy rituals around the act of writing. Whatever puts you in the best mood for it and keeps your head-space open for clearly visualizing your imaginary world.

Personally, I get very inspired by reading other people’s stories, but they also distract and block me from writing when I’m trying to create something of my own. Everyone is different, but I know I need to keep these two things (story-consuming and story-creating) pretty separate, or else I start doubting everything I try to write and picking it apart way too much. Figure out what kind of writer you are and structure your time and your work-space accordingly.

5. GET TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS REALLY WELL. The characters that are the easiest to write and the most fun to read are the ones that the author knows well and understands inside-out. Every single character should want to gain something and/or be afraid of losing something, or else they will be flat and boring. If someone only exists purely to be a love object or an opponent to another character and they don’t display any sort of inner life or personality outside of that role, it will show, and they will not be very relatable or compelling.

If a character is feeling really flat or you’re having a hard time getting inside their head, two great first questions to ask yourself are: “What would this character be doing right now if they weren’t involved in this specific plot?” And: “What would they be doing if they could do absolutely anything that they wanted to do in the world?”

Sometimes you won’t understand a character or how they need to develop or the main conflict / goal of your characters or story at all until you write more scenes with them or even get to the very end of your story, but that’s what second drafts and rewrites are for! You can always go back and clarify all that stuff later, adding more depth and streamlining stuff and cutting things out as you see fit.

6. DON’T GET TOO SAD ABOUT YOUR CRAPPY ROUGH DRAFTS. They’re going to suck at first most of the time. Just keep chugging and tweaking things and keeping a positive mindset, it will definitely not be perfect in the first try! I’ve often saved many versions of things I’ve written and then been shocked when I go back to the early drafts at how much worse they used to be. That’s why we have rewriting and editing and getting feedback from beta readers.

7. SAVE EVERYTHING YOU WRITE. Even if you decide to cut it out of your story because it’s not working right, it can almost always be used again for something else in the future. Maybe you wrote a great description that doesn’t suit the tone of the story, or a funny conversation that doesn’t add anything useful to that particular scene. Put those unused bits into a scrap folder and dig them out to use again somewhere else, either in the same story or a different story altogether.

8. WRITE DOWN YOUR IDEAS FOR YOUR STORY AS SOON AS YOU GET THEM. Keep a little memo pad app on your phone or carry a notebook around. It’s easy to forget those useful little nuggets again later if you don’t.

9. DON’T WRITE ANYTHING YOU WOULDN’T FEEL COMFORTABLE READING OUT LOUD. If it would be way too embarrassing to read to even your most ideal and nonjudgmental reader, then it’s probably a bit over-the-top and should be reworked until it feels more natural and more honestly “you.” I forget where I originally heard this little piece of advice, but I love it and think it’s a good one to keep in mind (mostly because I used to do that a lot, and still do sometimes, lol)

10. FIND SOMEONE YOU TRUST TO GIVE YOU HELPFUL CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK ON YOUR WORK. Beta readers are so important! Ideally it should be someone with a good sense of spelling/grammar and an eye for detail who also understands and enjoys your writing and the things you care about, and is also good at articulating exactly why something is/ is not working well yet. This can be scary and embarrassing sometimes, but if it’s the right person doing it they will both encourage you and help you grow by giving you good honest suggestions for things that can be improved or changed. We often don’t even realize all the things that aren’t coming off well in our own writing after staring at it so long, but that fresh pair of eyes is often very good at picking it out for us, and they’re just trying to help us write the best story we can.

11. FINALLY, there are so many great resources for learning about storytelling online or at your library!

Here are a few YouTube channels on the subject that I really like:

-Lessons from the Screenplay (my favourite): [X]

-Every Frame a Painting (mostly about visual storytelling, but still a ton of great lessons): [X]

-Alexa Donne (a published fiction author with decent practical advice): [X]

-Ellen Brock (an editor with good practical advice): [X]

A few books on the subject I’ve read and enjoyed:

-Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

-On Writing by Stephen King

-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (thank you to @translightyagami for the rec!)

And here is my collection of writing advice that seemed pretty legit from Tumblr:

writing advice tag [X]

Best of luck with telling your own stories, and thank you for asking me to blabber like a nerd about it!!

[hydrus]

Version 438

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.gz

Hey, this causes errors if you are running from source and using PyQt5 (PySide2 is fine)! All the releases above are PySide2, so they are ok! I will fix this for next week, so if you are source+QtPy5, please hold off for now.

I had a great week overhauling the media viewer's image rendering. Zooming and navigation should be a lot smoother now!

image tiles

tl;dr: the media viewer now zooms and navigates with less lag and flicker

Zooming in a long way, particularly for large images, has been pretty hellish for as long as the program has existed. Historically, the client drew the whole image in memory at the zoom you desired so it could quickly show you the bit it needed on screen. Of course this meant zooming in to 400% on anything above 4k was suddenly taking a very long time to set up and eating a lot of memory to do it. As images have naturally grown over time, the problem has occurred more often and was starting to affect other systems.

My plan to fix this has been to break the image into tiles that then render on demand. The parts of the image off-screen are never drawn, saving CPU and memory and allowing arbitrary zoom. This is a significantly more complicated idea, and rewriting the whole rendering pipeline was always expected to be a multi-week 'big job'. I originally planned to just optimise and tweak the secondary systems and add in some sanity brakes this week, but I ran a couple of small tiling tests and realised if I went bonkers it would be possible to hack in a prototype. So I did!

In the media viewer, images now draw in tiles. It works a little like a browseable satellite map, where when you zoom in and pan about you see squares of data fading in (except in hydrus they appear instantly). You should now be able to zoom in as far as you like on an image pretty quick and you won't have any sudden memory needs.

Furthermore, I have written a cache for these image tiles. This saves CPU when revisiting different images or zooms, so when you flick back and forth between two normal things, it should now be instant! It still takes 20-200ms to view or zoom most images the first time, but going back to that view or zoom within a minute or so should be really smooth. The cache starts at a healthy 256MB this week. I think that will cover most users very well (in screen real estate, it works out to about 35 x 1080p worth of tiles), but you can alter it under the settings at options->speed and memory.

And I did some misc work improving the rendering pre-fetch logic when you browse in the media viewer. Huge files won't stomp all over the image renderer cache any more, which should make browsing through a series of giant images far less jank. If you are feeling advanced, you can now edit the prefetch timing and distance settings too, also under options->speed and memory.

I am really pleased with this week's work, but there are some drawbacks: I did it quick, so I cannot promise it is good. The most obvious bug already is that at around 200-500% zoom you start to see tiling artifacts. I know what causes this (interpolation algorithms not getting full pixel neighbour data from my simple tesselating tiles) and have a plan to fix it (adding a tile border pre-resize, and then cropping). There is also an issue when the 'virtual' image exceeds about 32,000x32,000, so I hacked a zoom block for that. There may be some weird files that render with other stitching artifacts or bad tile data. Note also that hydrus's 'Animation' renderer (the soundless fallback if you do not have mpv support) does NOT use tiling yet, so it still sucks at zooming! Please let me know how you get on!

If you have a steam-powered GPU or a machine with only 4GB of ram, you might like to wait for 439 so I can address any surprise bugs or performance issues.

PTR and account permissions

The PTR is changing how its accounts work. The shared public account is transforming to a 'read-only' account that can only download, so if you want to upload, you'll be going to manage services to auto-create your own privileged account. This is being done to improve janitor workflow for the various petitions, which were all being merged together because of the shared account. With the recent network updates, it will soon be easier for janitors to send simple messages back to these individual accounts, like 'that proposed sibling was not approved because...'.

Unfortunately, various permission and account-management code has not been tested much until now, so as the PTR guys have been trying this stuff out, I have been working to improve bad notifications and workflows. This week I rounded out account permissions testing with uploading. Hydrus no longer tries to upload content the current account does not have permission for, and if you end up in that situation, popup messages now tell you what is going on. It also catches if your account is currently 'unsynced', with instructions to fix.

Similarly, under 'manage siblings/parents', you can now see and edit all tag repositories (previously, they were hidden if you currently had no permission), but you get a label telling you if you don't have permission.

full list

media viewer:

I have hacked in tile-based image rendering for the media viewer. this has always been planned as a larger, longer-term job, but the problem of large images is only getting worse, so I decided to just slam out a prototype in a week. if you have a steam-powered GPU or 4GB ram, you might like to wait until next week to update so I can iron out any surprise bugs or performance problems

images are now cut into tiles that are rendered on demand, so whenever the image is zoomed larger than the media viewer window, only those tiles currently in view have CPU and memory spent on resizing and storage. as you pan around, new tiles are rendered as needed, and old discarded. this makes zooming in super fast and low memory, even for large images!

although I am happy with this, and overall we are talking a huge improvement on previous performance, it is ugly fast code. it may fail for some unusual files. it slices and blits bitmaps around your video memory much faster than before, so some odd GPUs may also have problems. I haven't seen any alignment artifacts (1-pixel thick missing columns or rows), but some images may produce them. more apparent are some pretty ugly tile artifacts that show up between 200% and 500% zoom (interpolation algorithms, which rely on neighbour pixels, are missing border data with my simple system). I will consider how best to implement more complicated but stitch-correct overlapping tiles in future

futhermore, a new 'image tile' cache is added. you can customise size and timeout under _options->speed and memory_ like for images and thumbnails. this is a dedicated cache for remembering image resize computation across images and zooms. once you have seen both situations once, flicking back and forth between two images or zoom levels is now generally always instant! this new cache starts at a healthy default of 256MB. let's see how that amount works out IRL--I think it will be plenty

I tuned the image renderer cache--it no longer caches huge images that eat more than 25% its total size--meaning these images only hang around as long as you are looking at them--and the prefetch call that pre-renders several files previous/next to the current image no longer occurs on images that would eat more than 10% the cache size. this should greatly reduce weird flicker and other lag when browsing through a series of mega-images (which before would stomp through the cache in quick succession, barging each other out of the way and wasting a bunch of CPU). in real world terms, this basically means that with an image cache of 200MB, you should have slower individual image performance but much better overall performance looking at images with more than about 5k resolution. the dreaded 14,000x12,000 png will still bonk you on the head to do the first render, but it won't try to uselessly prefetch or flush the whole cache any more

if you are currently looking at a static image, neighbour prefetch now only starts once the image is rendered, giving the task in front of you a bit more CPU time

new options for prefetch delay and previous/next distance are added to 'speed and memory'

note this does not yet apply to the old hydrus animation renderer. that still sucks at high zoom!

another future step here is to expand prefetch to tiles so the first view of the 'next' media is instant, but let's let all this breathe for a bit. if you get bugs, let me know!

due to a Qt issue, I am stopping zoom-in events that would make the 'virtual' size of the image greater than 32,000x32,000

.

account permission improvements:

to group sibling and parent petitions by uploader (and thus help janitor workflow), the PTR is moving to a system where the public account is download-only and accounts that can upload content are auto-generated in manage services. this code has not been tested much before, and it revealed some very bad reporting and handling of current permissions. I move this forward this week:

if your repository account is currently unsynced from a serious previous error, any attempt to upload pending data will result in a little popup and the upload being abandoned

manage tag siblings and parents will now show service tabs even if the account for those services does not seem currently able to upload tags or siblngs

if your repository account is currently unsynced from a serious previous error, this is now noted in red text in manage siblings and manage parents

if your repository account does not have sibling/parent upload permission, this is now noted in red text in manage siblings and manage parents. you will be able to pend and petition siblings and parents ok

if your repository account does not have mapping/sibling/parent upload permission of the right kind, your client will no longer attempt to upload these content types, and if there is pending count for one of these types, a popup will note this on an upload attempt

.

the rest:

added https://github.com/NO-ob/LoliSnatcher_Droid to the Client API help!

improved some error handling, reporting, and recovery when importing serialised pngs. specific error info is now written to the log as well

fixed a secondary error when dropping non-list, non-downloader pngs on Lain's easy downloader import window, and fixed a 'no interesting objects' reporting test when dropping multiple pngs

added a 'cache report mode' to help debug image and thumb caching issues

refactored the media viewer code to a new 'canvas' submodule

improved the error reporting when a thumbnail cannot be generated for a file being imported

fixed an error in zoom center calculation when a change zoom event was sent in the split-second during media viewer initialisation

I think I fixed an issue where pages could sometimes not automatically move on from 'loading initial files' statusbar text when initialising the session

the requirements.txt now specifies 'requests' 2.23.0 exactly, as newer versions seemed to be giving odd urllib3 attribute binding errors (seems maybe a session thread safety thing) when recovering from connection failures. this should update the macOS build as well as anyone running from source who wants to re-run the requirements.txt. I hacked in a catch for this error case anyway, just a manual retry like a normal connection error, we'll see how it goes (issue #665)

patched an unusual file import bug for a flash file with an inverted bounding box that resulted in negative reported resolution. flash now takes absolute values for width and height

next week

Back to multiple local file services. Mostly more backend cleanup and prepping File Import Options and the Client API for talking to multiple locations.

[downtroddendeity]

SHARE WITH ME the thoughts and predictions on gameplay improvements...... I am Interested

ALL RIGHT SO. This is… really long, so, cutting it.

Things we know for sure about remake changes based on released info:

There are three difficulty settings

They’re adding a feature (I think only in easy mode?) where if you knock out enemies with Strike you can insta-kill them and get the XP and cash reward without fighting them

They’re willing to mess with order of events enough to change available party composition for at least one boss fight (there’s a Mist Spider screenshot with Marco in the party)

Enemy turn panels now have icons indicating what enemy they are, as well as where they are on the grid(THANK GOD)

Sound/music/voice volume sliders

Minimap

Possibly more if I spoke a word of Japanese and didn’t have to rely on incomplete translations

Things I’m pretty sure about, based on stuff that’s been released:

This was screenshotted from a status menu: icons for all the status effects, plus what looks like fire/ice/lightning. My bet is these are resistances, which implies that enemy attacks are going to have elemental attributes now- before, the game just treated it as magic damage or physical damage.

I couldn’t tell during the stream, but it looks like they’ve effectively switched the screens in the combat interface. The turn order now appears on the bottom screen, which hopefully means that when you’re changing turns/using Turn Break you can select them with the stylus.

The “condition” button here might just be the same old “Help”/skill description button we’re used to, but I’m hoping it means we can get a list of buff/debuff/status information for enemies and allies.

Stuff I think is likely:

The reason Rosch is always underleveled is because for some ungodly reason people you can’t add to your party get no XP. This is a really easy fix which would markedly increase Rosch, Gafka, and Eruca’s usefulness at various points.

Strike- that is, the ability to knock out enemies on the field- had a really wonky hitbox in the original, making it so you’d often juggle enemies four or five times before they got knocked out. I’d bet that one way or another, that’s not going to happen as much, though I suspect there will be different tweaks at different difficulties.

Giving enemy attacks elements and adding elemental defense is going to require a massive equipment rework and rebalance. I’m actually all for this- RH’s equipment balance is all over the place, and by about midgame a lot of equipment seems to be distributed completely at random, resulting in a lot of stuff being useless. Aht’s equipment is particularly bad: upgrades for both her weapons and armor (at least, ones that give her the magic and defense boosts she needs, rather than relatively useless ATK and MDEF) are thin on the ground until SH Ch. 6, when you get access to the ridiculously powerful Promised Knife and like five better pieces of armor shortly after each other. You can go to a lot of work grabbing a rare, unique steal from a boss and then find it’s worse in every way than the thing you picked up in a treasure chest five minutes ago (*glares at bear*). You can easily get Stocke’s second-best armor in SH Ch. 4, resulting in him taking a fraction of the damage everyone else takes for the entire rest of SH, and the best armor is only available as a rare drop from a random enemy in the final dungeon, so you’re probably going to keep the other one on him for the entire rest of the game. I think odds are excellent they’re going to straighten the mess out, in part by putting elemental and status resistances on more equipment.

Building off that last bit, I think we’re probably going to see a huge jump in enemies using debuffs and status effects, and the success rates of both in general. In the original, you could go through the whole game and never see a successful Fear, Curse, or Petrify. Debuffs had such a low success rate that you could often ignore them entirely from the enemy side, and you never wanted to use them on your side because that was a turn you could be having Eruca cast G-Frost again instead of doing a crap-damage phys hit that might make her next spell do more damage. I suspect we’ll see enemies weak to more status ailments than just poison and sleep, and maybe some skill set changes so there are ways to inflict the other ailments other than items.

I will not be surprised if enemies now have elemental resistances as well as weaknesses, somewhat reducing the efficacy of my favorite tactic, Will o’ Wisp spam.

More enemy manipulation of the grid. I expect we’ll see more formation attacks and effects, and probably either the ability for enemies to move and act in the same turn or a bunch of abilities that move the user on the grid when they’re used.

Speed buffs and debuffs get a boost, possibly directly rewriting the turn order the way enemy summons do. They’re essentially a waste of a turn in the original- you might get a single bonus turn for your efforts before the fight ends, but the odds of getting two before everything’s dead (which would actually make it worth it) are pretty much nil.

My personal wish list:

Ability to scroll through lists quickly with the left/right buttons.The lack of this is a grade-A pain in the ass in the original, especially when trying to select skills or use items.

Better scene skip function. The current one a) is never indicated anywhere in the game, b) will only skip one scene at a time, and some nodes have three or four EVERY TIME you visit them, and c) can occasionally cause you to miss scenes, because changes to events are registered as part of an old scene instead of a separate one. So, e.g., you can accidentally permanently miss the scene where Stocke scares the crap out of Hedge because you tried to skip the conversation with Garland before it. (I’d probably do a button you push that toggles skipping all scenes you’ve already watched but doesn’t affect new ones.)

Reevaluation of some skill sets. All the ladies have physical skills which you will probably never use because they don’t have the stats to make them worthwhile. Seriously, there is no point when you ever want Raynie to use Rush.

Reevaluation of some damage numbers. There are two separate bosses you can kill in two turns before they can even move by pushing them into a Volt Star Trap, and a third you can kill in four turns if you lead with Dancing Death/Heat Blade on the cannons in front of it, then push it into a Volt Star Trap. You can beat every one of Gafka’s skill boss fights in one round by popping Sky Hammer. Eruca gets G-Frost at level 32 and it’s her highest single-target damage all game.

Shuffling some nodes around, whether by promoting random events to nodes or strategically adding additional choices with bad ends. There are some points in the game where it’s annoyingly difficult to reach things because if you jump back in time, you have to go through several dungeons and/or boss fights to get back to where you were and it’s a pain.

Reevaluation of when you get some skills. Aht only picks up Frost Star Trap at the bottom of the Imperial Ruins… and there are no enemies after that that are weak to ice and can be moved, rendering it effectively pointless. On the flip side, Burst Light murders absolutely everything and negates all need for strategy while Eruca is in the party once you get it, and the pact for that is available before you even meet Master Vainqueur.

Final dungeon rework, so you get Eruca back halfway through instead of at the end. Seriously, it’s stupid to have one of your party members gone for the entire last three dungeons, and you really don’t need an extended “save the princess” thing to want to get on with the plot at that point. If anything, plot tension would be heightened by getting her back and then continuing along with her. 

Improve Raynie’s bonus skills. The only remotely good one is Sleep Break, and even that’s not exactly something you spam in every fight. Resist Boost in particular is pretty much a waste of a skill.

Improve Raynie’s MP. She’s a black mage, why does she have worse MP than Marco?

Eruca’s Mana Bursts get changed from physical damage to non-elemental magic damage to use her stats better. Preferably Aht’s Imperion too.

More variety in Mana Burst effects. Most of them are just “heavy damage to one/all targets,” so there’s often not a lot of reason to use them over anything else (especially when Turn Break is a unique effect). The only interesting ones are Marco’s (multiple buffs, target all), Aht’s Lucky Breath (fill someone else’s MB), and Rosch’s Seyfried (launch everything into the air).

Eruca gets Frost. I think Mana Shot is supposed to do the same damage as a basic elemental spell, but in practice it doesn’t seem to, and it can’t hit weaknesses. And there’s a pretty good chance that if you’ve been skipping monsters, she might not have G-Frost yet when you get her, so her DPS is kind of crap.

Better armor for Gafka. For a character who’s clearly supposed to be tough and tanky, his armor sucks, especially early on- I usually end up giving him defense accessories just so he doesn’t die the first time some goblin mages sneeze in his general direction.

For that matter, Aht and Eruca also have armor problems- it’s often best to use armor that’s allegedly “worse” because their armor upgrades prioritize MDEF over DEF, but they have naturally high MDEF and terrible DEF.

In-game display of enemy steals (and possibly item drops). I’m not asking for a full-scale Etrian Odyssey bestiary here, but it’d be nice to not have to keep a running list of which enemies I’ve robbed just in case one of them has good loot.

One-on-one boss fights rebalanced, so there’s more to the strategy than “change turns and heal until you’ve got a bunch of turns in a row, then nuke them, taking off all their health in one round.”

Press B to walk/Press B to run toggle. Someone who can read Japanese might be able to tell me if this was in the config menu in the stream, but it’d be really nice to be able to turn off auto-run in the sewers.

A decent magic bonus on Historica. It’s kind of ridiculous that there’s an Endgame Sword of Plot Importance restricted to the main character with a special superboss fight to upgrade it… and the magic bonus is less than the Sorcery Epee you bought from a shop thirty levels ago. Like, no, screw that, I’m not taking a 27-point hit to Stocke’s magic stat when he doesn’t have any physical skills that even begin to compete with G-Fire/Heat Blade/Will o’ Wisp for DPS.