Any Writers/Artists out there? Amatuer to Professional to Late Night FanFic Author

[aba1]

My main series of questions are as follows:
Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?

Nope I consider games to be media art and if anything they inspire me and give me ideas of my own for paintings etc

Was it in a negative or positive manner?

They effect me positivly giving me ideas and inspiration mind you some more than others for example child of eden is inspiring while COD is not so much

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

I draw alot of different style usually more along the lines of fantasy that varies in detail

What was your most recent inspiration?

Dunno I take in alot of different sources all the time I think the last game that got my engine going particularly strong was child of eden

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?

Not to much I mean if I am trying to flesh the character out for animating or a game etc I will write out a personality chart and design notes

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

I don't do fan art very often so I tend to create my own universes I think using somebody else's is a little lazy and to create a truly great story you should flesh out your own world

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew?

Secret since I am creating it to be a published game for XBLA etc

TL;DR: You're a horrible person. For shame.

Edit: Changed for clarity.

 

[nukethetuna]

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?

Yes.

Was it in a negative or positive manner?

Positively.

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

Fantasy, I suppose.

What was your most recent inspiration?

While most of the stuff I write/draw/whatever isn't inspired by video games, I was recently inspired for a moment playing Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together when I misinterpreted the direction the plot was going. Obviously it inspired me to experiment with a story in that direction.

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?

I'm pretty awful at describing things in a way that comes off as interesting (to me at least), which makes action scenes and physical descriptions a nightmare. That's resulted in me mostly focusing on developing personalities and trying to get the audience to understand character's mindsets and psyches more than anything.

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

Vast majority of the time.

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew?

Me and my brother were tossing around story ideas and I thought of one about a world where people who had a strong mentality could imprint their dreams (involuntarily) on those who were weaker. I haven't put too much thought into it, but lucid dreamers would be incredibly valued in society for both entertainment purposes and marketing/propoganda, as well as suppressing those with nightmarish dreams. Additionally, people with "hallucinatory" mental illnesses would be executed if they were found, because the hallucinations would be contagious, and they can't control their "imprinting". I guess serious hallucinogens would be hunted too, for their potential destructive/creative power on society...
Anyways, hadn't thought it out much, was kinda just gonna run with it.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities? I can't draw for shit. I mean my stick figures get made fun of by doodles from three year olds. It's not even cool. As for my writing it's been a great influence.

Was it in a negative or positive manner? Way positive.

What genre do you most frequently write/draw? Porn, fantasy, occasionally secret agent.

What was your most recent inspiration? Naruto and My Little Pony.

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)? Nothing is coming immediately to mind.

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters? As a DnD player I have ONE and a half original universes and honestly the sheer amount of work that goes into creating a world (for role playing purposes) is massive. It's not the same as writing a story where the audience only sees what you want them to see and never goes exploring. When you create a DnD world you have to know what's on the otherside of the mountain range in the same way that the guys who made GTA had to know a lot more about Liberty City than say the man who made Mario Brothers had to know about the Mushroom Kingdom.

Still I tend to wander to other people's worlds. The rules are established as are the charachters and such.

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew? If Sasuke had been killed in a similar manner to Ubito at the end of Naruto and he'd given his eye to Naruto.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

I?m working on an RPG right now, albeit I?m going pretty slowly because I?ve been having depression problems and stuff, so I guess I?ve been writing and drawing a bit for that. But, I only have any talent in the former. So I guess I?ll answer your questions.

Yes/Yes

I little bit of both. On one hand it helps me be more familiar with writing for a game, on the other hand I find myself exclusively writing for games. The same goes for the latter, but as I said, I?m not any good at drawing.

Since my major game ideas are in the fantasy genre, I?m mostly writing that, although I use to write a lot of comedy as a good and it?s probably my real talent. Drawing is mostly terrible character designs for those games coupled with some moody drawings I do as a sort of emotional release. I guess those kind of have a Tim Burton fantasy element to them.

Since I?m playing it right now, Fallout: New Vegas, it reminds what I really love about game design, world building. To me that comes first.

Yeah, I do both of those all the time, but that?s more about building characters. I?d say my biggest quirk is the way I balance melodramatic drama with snarky comedy. I guess what I?m trying to say is that my stuff comes off corny. Also, I?m a huge fan of symbolism, so I?ve kind of taken up the Gainax lesson of making religious allegories just because they sound cool.

All the time, I don?t write fanfiction (Anymore?), like I mentioned in an earlier answer, I love world building. I do admit that some of my worlds are based on pre-existing mythology, for example I have one game idea based on Jeudo-Christian mythology and another on Thelma, but I try to make those my own and come up with my own ideas. For example, famous angels like Michael and Gabriel appear in the former, but they?re very much characters of their own taking only a few personality traits from their previous interpretations.

I wrote an outline for a short story I was going to do which then became an idea for an RPG. However, I felt I needed more experience making RPG?s before I started on it, so I came up with a neat project to teach me the basics. I found an old script I did when I was a kid that is ridiculously bad. I think I?m going to make that as an homage to old school RPG?s, I?ve already come up some original mechanics to go along with it. I haven't drawn in awhile though...

 

[Nazgual]

I count as an Amateur Writer/Artist.

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities? Yes to writing, not so much my art.

Was it in a negative or positive manner? Positive. Not only have I picked up good things and bad things to do for a story from various games, I've also paid attention to what works for interactive storytelling.

What genre do you most frequently write/draw? Sci-fi/Fantasy

What was your most recent inspiration? Arkham City in a sense. Even though I really like it there was at least one bit of the plot that I think could have been tweaked without drastically changing anything and it would have made it a lot better.

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)? Right now I'm playing around with the idea of taking an established character type or role and subverting them unexpectedly.

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters? I mostly the real world with tweaks for my settings and usually create my own characters. I'm not sure how original there are though

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew? I'm working on a number of things.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I draw and write a lot. I've taken a lot of inspiration from Warhammer 40000, which is so open and welcoming for aspiring creators. Its open endedness allows for countless stories, creations and artwork to exist. At the moment, I am in a collaboration with two other fan authors in making an unofficial recounting of the Dawn of War series, and making it into something more cohesive than C.S Goto's abortion novels.

 

[mitchell271]

My main series of questions are as follows:
Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?

Was it in a negative or positive manner?

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

What was your most recent inspiration?

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew?

1. Yes
2. For the better. Some games have showed me examples of good writing, new story-telling techniques and some examples of terrible, terrible story. e.g. Portal (good) and DNF (bad story, fun game).
3. I mostly write fantasy and sci-fi, but I'm trying to get out of my comfort zone at the moment. I'm even taking a creative writing course right now. There is one problem though, I can't write comedy. I can work it in to my writing, use it to lighten the tone or even make funny scenes, but I can't write a specifically comedy story.
4. Fallout. The setting is all I used (post-apocalyptia).
5. I do write dialogue the way I imagine they would talk, I do character sketches (read: actual sketches I do with my Wacom tablet)
6. All completely original universes (within reason). It's hard to write something original at the moment because if you write anything, someone will say it's derivative.
7. The plot of the novel I'm writing at the moment is about a scientist who kick-starts the apocalypse, deals with the transition, the recreation of society (sort of), betrayal and sacrifice. It's pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Hope this helps!

 

[Ursus Buckler]

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?
Not particularly, especially not from a writing point of view as I tend to buy the mainstream stuff (shoot me). Kind of makes the second question irrelevant... I guess if anything they make action scenes more frequent in my narratives?

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

Fantasy, usually something from my books that I write. I also dabble in sci-fi.

What was your most recent inspiration?
This- http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/internet-memes-birthception.jpg
and this- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-13952990

You do the math, although if you steal it I will hunt you down.

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?
Both examples, I'm also a fan of narrative twists.

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

Well anything I've written so far has been low fantasy genres in modern day New York City and Victorian Cumbria, although I'm going to be creating an original universe for my sci-fi stories.

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew

Well for the story that I'm writing at the moment it was a mixture of prompts by Fall Out Boy's video for 'A Little Less Sixteen Candles' and 'Hellboy'. Then I felt that instead of making a clone I should make it my own rather than following generic conventions.

 

[JoJo]

Writer here, mainly in RPs currently although I've written short stories and failed to write a novel before (I gave up because I realised it sucked, that was when I was much less experienced)

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?

No, although a few of my characters may have traits inspired from video game characters, though there's nothing special about them compared to characters from other media.

Was it in a negative or positive manner?

N/A

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

Past or modern day Earth with fantasy elements, often with strong family relationship elements too.

What was your most recent inspiration?

Dunno, it comes from everywhere really.

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?

I like thinking up extensive and detailed back-stories for my characters, my current "work" if you like is two characters (mother and daughter) spread across three RPs, with one as the canon base and the other two as alternate canon "what-ifs?" to explore their respective lives and personalities more deeply.

Sometimes I reference other works I have written in various ways, but it's normally so subtle that you've have to have read the previous work and remember it well to get it.

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

All my major works are original, although I've written a couple of fan-fiction short stories.

 

[SongsOfDragons]

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?

No. But then I am not a heavy gamer, I only play occasionally ("When I'm in the mood for XYZ"), I don't play for long periods and I don't tend to play difficult genres; I focus on games like Pokémon, Link's Awakening, etc. I can only speak for myself, but it may be that heavy gaming simply eats up time, rather than defeats creativity.

Was it in a negative or positive manner?

...however the games I have played have often inspired me to plot hooks, devices and points that I may not have come across so visually otherwise.

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

Write: I write what I like. I like sci-fi and fantasy but I like my own takes on it. Fanfiction-wise I look for the really obscure fandoms that have done things differently: Maggie Furey, Sector General...

Draw: I don't draw a genre. Again, I draw what I like. Mostly I've been drawing pictures of things and characters that don't have pictures yet. I draw anime-style eyes because I can't for the life of me get the hang of normal eyes; the rest of it follows proper proportions. (hopefully)

What was your most recent inspiration?

Err, seriously? I get inspiration from *everything*. The fact I had Toad in the Hole for dinner and am looking forwards to Jam Roly Poly on Sunday. I'm sure I can use that somewhere. A recent Literary Society obsession with TF2 and my housemate building a new Magic Deck. I'll mention these in passing for description enrichment. Everything and anything can be an inspiration to me. I always carry a notebook and pen so I never forget anything.

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?

How else would one write dialogue?

I do colour-code my characters, mostly so I can identify them easily. I don't restrict them to that colour though. I am known for heavily researching the fandom, and other necessary and related topics before I write, making sure I get nuances right; one of my worst worries is ending up on TV Tropes' 'Did Not Do The Research' page.

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

Worldbuilding is fun. ^^ I'm known to go too far in creating them, going down to very detailed pointe that would never come out in the narrative, but it's there because I had to know it before I wrote it. As I only touch on fandoms for oneshots and then I leave them alone, I would say I have more experience in original settings, but more recent stuff in already-created settings.

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew?

A little girl played with a machine, broke it, and turned about twenty people into cats.
Yeah. It was a small crackfic.
Recently co-written a sleeper agent in a prison, a trip to the Rome fandom, and my main self-insert getting mauled by vampires from the Shadowleague fandom. (fun vampires. Go find it. ^^)
Original stuff, been planning mostly...the exports for the different cities of a large country, planned the system of events of a family conference (family of immortals, natch) and planned four time-displaced young men ending up having to punitively work in a Victorian china factory.

 

[Tratchet]

I've been writing as a hobby for a couple of years. I've only finished one or two things, but I really love it. I don't think video games negatively impacts your creativity, but I may not be the best example, because while I consider myself to be a hardcore gamer I don't play a huge amount compared to a lot of people.

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?

Was it in a negative or positive manner?

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

What was your most recent inspiration?

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew?

1. I honestly don't think video games have affected my writing ability for better or for worse. The atmosphere and art in games sometimes inspires me, but I find it hard to find a game in which the plot really grabs me.

2. A little positive, but not much either way.

3. Fantasy and Science Fiction are my most common genres (although I enjoy horror as well).

4. That's a tough one, but the first couple names that spring to mind are: Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Brandon Sanderson and Stephen King. I also tend to get inspired by good music and good artwork.

5. I don't think I have many quirks. I have things that are odd about the way I write, but I think they're things that are odd about a lot of writers, so I wouldn't call them quirks. Things like writing more than I plan on having in the book, and finding writing to be easier late at night.

6. I've never written fanfics. All of the things I write are original characters and universes.

7. The story I'm writing currently I won't tell, I don't want to jinx it. But I'll mention the plot of a story that's been bouncing around inside my head.

A man rides an electric motorcycle (a motorcycle that rides on lightning) hundreds of thousands of miles across the American and Canadian wilderness to reach a point around which eight world circling, mile high walls called the Concentrics are located. The Concentrics kept something locked away, protecting the rest of the world, but decades before the story the thing escaped and destroyed about 95% of everything. The man seeks to reach the middle, the first Concentric, in order to fix whatever went wrong. He does this with the help of a smart phone (an actually intelligent phone, that does everything but make calls), his ancestral weapon (an aluminum baseball bat), and a member of a sect of insanely powerful warriors, who have survived for years past the Concentrics (the Canadian Mounties).

Sorry for the wall of text. Anyway, back to the original topic, video games definitely don't hobble creativity. You don't have to look past Minecraft to know that in many cases video games actually encourage creativity.

 

[Kapri]

I'll just answer your questions in order for time's sake:

1) Video games have inspired my drawings/digital paintings
2) Not a bad thing, they just give me ideas
3) I mostly draw fantasy/portrait paintings, but not high fantasy (elves, dwarves...etc). Never cared for for high fantasy
4) Recently? Don't really have time to do anything, so I just speedpaint in between homework
5) Ummm, not really
6) I always come up with original characters, and there's only one I paint reoccuringly
7) Don't really think of plots

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Whoever said that video games stunt your creativeness is stupid.

I'm still just as creative, if not moreso than when I was smaller. I DO write stuff from time to time, but it's usually really short, and I end up getting rid of it sooner than later. I think my writing is pretty solid. Not award winning, but at least decent.

That being said, myself and two friends are going to be working on a Devil Survivor Fanfic, that places the conflict in our city, with us in it. ...Which we'll start writing for once university work stops piling on us like crazy, so we can finish the freakin brainstorming! >: (

 

[Blue_vision]

1/2. A little bit, for my writing. I've found that generally consuming media has expanded my range of emotions and ideas that I can write about, and it also helps me to understand how to make my own writing better.

3. My writing's all over the place. Generally stories with a personal connection, lots of emotion, and a fair bit of philosophy.

4. Video game related, probably the idea for a hack and slash game set in the late Roman Empire, following a Centurion who gets lost outside the borders of the Empire; inspired by Latin class, and talking with a friend about God of War. Likely won't ever get past being a thing on paper, but I like brainstorming.

5. I generally don't like lots of long exposition. Oftentimes, I will write pages of what exactly a character is thinking or doing, with nothing to fluff up the actions but the words used to indicate them. I find it gives a very raw and straight feeling while reading, which is something that I haven't come across in other writing.

6. I always create my own universes/characters. I will gladly take general ideas from others, but I have something against using a character or world that has been conceived by somebody else's mind.

7. Can't even keep track of the last story I wrote. The last one I've done a lot of work on involves a Colombian detective coping with his wife's murder by letting his mind trick itself into thinking that she's still alive. Pretty messed up, I'd love to end up finishing it (it's a bit more of a film idea than a novel, but I'd be happy to get anything done.)

 

[Princess Rose]

Hello fellow Escapists! I'm here to ask something that's been on my mind as of late; while we are all (likely) gamers, I can't help but wonder how many of us also write and/or draw. I once heard that people who frequently play video games become "artistically stunted", and therefore, become unable to pursue other artistic endeavors such as drawing, painting and writing. I am prone to disagreement, based on the staggering volume of Fan Art and Fan Fiction that exists, much of which is surprisingly well done.

I write romance novels. I'm currently submitting to publishers and agents.

I've taken some (very minor) inspirations from video games now and then.

And yes, people who claim gamers are artistically stunted are clearly idiots.

 

[Thaius]

Yes, I'm a writer. I write things. And thus I answer your questions.

Do you think Video Games have affected your writing/drawing abilities?

Absolutely. Intensely so. For that matter, the first thing I ever committed to writing? A novelization of Crash Bandicoot. I was like 10, Crash was my favorite game, and I decided to write a trilogy telling the story of the first game (with a lot of interpolation, of course). I finished part 1 at over 80 single-spaced, handwritten pages, then moved on to my own original writings.

Was it in a negative or positive manner?

Positive, entirely. Outside of the fact that Crash Bandicoot is really what got me writing, writing video games and writing about video games is what I love to do. I study them, examine them, and I consider video games to be an important and highly impacting artistic medium. I'm even writing the story to an indie video game right now, and I also keep up a blog called <url=http://binarynarrative.blogspot.com>Binary Narrative specifically on the subject of video games as a narrative art (though I haven't updated it in a couple weeks due to unusually intense school and other commitments).

What genre do you most frequently write/draw?

Science fiction and fantasy, mostly. I like the freedom granted by such highly fictionalized settings; I can basically make up whatever I want, within reason of believability. The ability to create an entire fictional universe just has so much more potential than setting it within the real world, and I love that.

What was your most recent inspiration?

A story that I started writing almost three years ago, actually. It more recently became the story for an independent game I'm developing with some friends and a few people I met on this very site. The idea is to create a fantasy RPG that nostalgically harkens back to the Super Nintendo glory days of the JRPG; the main inspirations are Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. But yeah, that story is developing rather well with the help of the other writers on the team (one of which, Trivun, is on this site and will probably even post on this topic at some point, if he hasn't already ninjad me already with it). Becoming quite a nice, long, complex fantasy story worthy of its video game genre, I think.

Do you have any particular creative quirks (Write character dialogue like you imagine they'd speak, give each character a particular color scheme, etc.)?

My main thing is that I like to name characters based on foreign words (from dead languages, if possible) that describe their character in some way. It's a great way to do subtle foreshadowing in some cases as well. But yeah, I try to do stuff like that when possible.

I also simply have my strengths and weaknesses; I can do pretty much everything, but I'm far better at narrative than I am at character development or, to a lesser extent, world development. I'm capable in all categories, but story is my strength over characters and setting. Needless to say, having a writing team for my game is really helpful.

How often do you create original universes/characters as compared to using someone else's universe/characters?

Most of the time. Fanfiction isn't really my thing; I haven't written any in many years. As I mentioned when talking about genre, I like creating my own world and setting.

What was the plot/prompt of the last story you wrote/drawing you drew?

Were I to summarize the game's story for you without giving any real details, it would sound pretty typical of the genre (though also pretty interesting, I think), but that's kind of the point, for now; again, it's meant to be nostalgic, so it will be presented similarly to those older games (even with awesome synthesized music), start off on familiar ground, and set itself apart in how it progresses. Rest assured, it sets itself apart as it goes on, even reaching that middle-point of many JRPGs where everything changes radically, but explaining exactly how would be giving spoilers for my own creation that hasn't even been officially announced yet, and that simply won't happen. Sorry. Suffice it to say, the initial concept for the story wasn't even touched on in that tiny summary.

EDIT: And in response to the thing about gamers becoming "artistically stunted," I call the highest level of bullshit. Video games are an art form; they tell stories and present them in an artistic manner along with interactivity that can actually increase the power and impact of that artistic value. If video games stunt creativity, so do books, movies, music, and all other art forms. It's a stupid, ignorant argument that will hopefully die out as time goes on and video games become more artistically recognized.