it appears it again comes down to my not having a plot.
Again, authors don't write good plots, characters do. If you really want plot ideas, we can give you plot ideas, but we're warning you in advance that plot is not a very critical part of writing a good story. Most stories with interesting characters and no plot are comedies. Most stories with interesting plot and no characters are history books.
My company was going to be relatively hard-working, but I didn't know how to make it interesting. So, say, what are people who loaf around too long like?
See, that's just it. People who loaf around are not inetresting. But, people who are interesting might loaf around. Do you see how those two statements are different? Good characters are rarely defined by what they do, but interesting characters are interesting regardless of what they do.
it turned out there wasn't a plot beyond the beginning, and that wasn't very good.
Ok, look...here's five generic, canned plots for you:
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Stock Aesop:
Hoist by his own petardThe story opens from the perspective of a particular game designer on his first day on the job. He's a junior programmer, but he's always expressing great interest in learning and taking on more complicated tasks. He befriends a senior developer, and the two become close enough to have a social life outside of work. The senior developer hates his job and when the junior offers to help with some more advanced tasks. That, however, is against company policy, and the senior is hesitant to allow it. But after much coaxing, eventually he relents and gives the junior deevloper some coding task that he's been stuck on, figuring that he wouldn't be able to handle it, but at least it will stop him from continuing to ask. However, the next day the junior solves the problem. Senior is shocked, but pleased, and conspiratorily begins feeding the junior his workload, swearing him to secrecy about the whole affair and taking credit for his work. This continues for some time, until the junior developer doesn't show up to work one day and it's revealed that he was a spy from a rival company who only took the job to steal trade secrets.
*
Mooks work for
Well Intentioned Extremist with a
Downer EndingThe president of the company doubles as lead developer. He's very driven to make an awesome game, but the company is broke and he's not willing to tell anyone because he's too focused on his holy grail of making an awesome game. When paychecks don't show up one month, he assures everyone that it's simply a clerical error and everything will be ok. But time goes on, and still no paychecks come. Every couple days he comes up with a different excuse, always trying to redirect everyone's attention on the sheer awesomeness of the game they're making. After a few weeks, the wife of a developer is in a car crash, and they desperately need the money immediately to take care of the hospital bills. He goes to the president, but he keeps telling the same story, insisting that they all just need to get back to work. The developer leaves in a huff, and several of the team resign. Those who stay keep working on the project, getting increasingly stressed day by day eating nothing but ramen until one day they come in and the office is being repossessed and the president has shot himself.
*
Save the world from the
Hidden VillainTurns out the director of the gaming company is actually a demon and he's using the creation of the game to create a portal to unleash the legions of hell upon earth. The developers begin to suspect something is wrong when they find sections of code that nobody understands. It's not clear what they're supposed to do, and so far as they can tell, they shouldn't work at all. Of the dev team, the one who was the crazy one that nobody ever listened to starts to piece it together, but nobody listens to him until crazy things start to happen. Eventually they come to believe, and they conspire together to change the code to banish the demon.
*
FarmBoy Desperately Seeking Purpose is
Called To Adventure and finds his
Goal In LifeGuy is dumped by his girlfriend only one semester away from graduating with an art degree. He mopes around and begins neglecting his schoolwork in favor of drawing fantasy artwork for his facebook page. His grades start falling, he doesn't care, questions why he's even in school to begin with since everyone in his family works retail and he's obviously not goign anywhere with his life. One day he gets surprise feedback from someone he doesn't know telling him that his art is very good, and asking to commission him for a particular piece of art for a very small fee. Pleasantly surprised, he even further ignores school and friends to work on the commissioned piece. His friends tell him he's an idiot, that he should eitehr focus on school, or at least relax some, and that he's wasting his time for an insgnificant amount of money. He ignores them, completes the work and skips an important exam to meet the client, who turns out to be a recruiter for a game development company who gave him the commission to see if he could do the type of art they required. He's happy with the work and offers him a job on the spot.
*
Ralph Wiggum promoted by
Nepotism is
Too Dumb To Live, bringing on a
Mutiny that leads to a
Happy EndingLead developer marries into money and leaves the company on short notice in the middle of a project. Of the remaining five man band of developers, two vie for the position. One by claiming seniority, the other by claiming he has the best skill and experience for the job. Of the other three, one doesn't want the position because he's scared of responsibility, one genuinely believes in the project and simply hopes that the best man get the position. The fifth is too pessimistic to hope or expect to get the position himself and cynically suggests that the worst possible person will inevitably get it. He's right, and an idiot relative of the boss gets the job. He's never worked in the industry, the only games he's ever played are checkers and badminton, and he doesn't know quite enough about computers to send email without help. the dev team is shocked, and as time goes and the new boss starts to think he's getting a grip on this game design thing he starts issuing increasingly stupid directives. Some of the team tries to argue, some accept, others consider quitting, but finally the cynic of the group convinced them to tell the boss that they're doing what he says, but actually do what they want. The narrative goes back and forth between their attempts to manufacture the trash the boss is asking for, and the actual game that they're actually working on. Eventually release day comes, everyone is worried they'll all be fired when the reveal happens, except the cynic who doesn't want to work there anymore anyway. However, the game is a smashing success, and the boss is too stupid to realize that they didn't anything other than what he told them to.
Note that the last one probably has the most potential for comedy. However, once again, plot is not what makes interesting stories. Characters make interesting stories.
Good luck.
Author
Topic: Let's solve my massive story issues; "On game programming" (Read 3062 times)