What Skills Do I Need To Develop To Be Able To Write Advanced Dialogues? (1 Viewer)

[Deleted member 125417]

long time lurker here; recently i started trying my hand at writing dialogues, but i realized very quickly that the "writing" aspect is the only part of it i understand. i have a wealth of ideas but no way to translate them into high quality dialogues because i don't understand how the game works on a fundamental level.

i've read just about every pinned guide i can find on the site (i have pim_gd's advanced dialogue guide and slingerbult's comprehensive dialogue guide saved on my pc as pdfs and i've been checking them regularly while i write), along with a lot of troubleshooting threads. i've also done what i see some people suggest, which is to look at the guts of dialogues i like, ones that do things that i would like to replicate, such as slave bazaar, and i have also read most of the guide/setup stuff in both sby and modguys' loader bundles, as well as the FAQs for mods like dialogue actions. for many of these resources, i know that i should just take my time and read everything many many times until i understand, but with a few resources i have done exactly that and it still comes off as gibberish to me. things like slingerbult's dialogue guide have indeed been useful, and i've made progress in writing some rudimentary dialogues, but at a certain a point i get the sense that to really be able to create what i want to create, i would need to learn... coding? scripting?

like i open a dialogue file to look at how it's laid out or i read an explanation that somebody wrote for a particular mod/feature and usually my eyes just sort of glaze over. i feel like doing stuff like that should be helpful, but usually it's just like reading something in french or spanish, where i definitely can kinda recognize what's going on but i only concretely understand like %30 of what's infront of me. i have zero experience with coding, scripting, flash, etc. but i would be willing to learn if i knew where to begin.

TL;DR how do people learn how to write for this game?
i've been trying my best to learn from guides and other dialogues but frankly i still don't understand how to, for instance, make buttons, do overlays, change backgrounds, use certain variables, etc. and all of that seems like pretty basic stuff. i mostly just copy and paste from other dialogues in an attempt to learn, but typically something doesn't play right after the fact and i end up feeling totally lost.
things like pimgd's dialogue checker aren't that helpful to me right now either because i don't really understand most of the stuff that it tends to point out besides very basic syntax errors.

 

[sclover13]

There are some really stellar dialogue writers in this community, including sorrowww , Slingerbult and Antimatter42 , but I'm not one of them.
Hopefully, one them them might be able to help you out!

 

[Antimatter42]

long time lurker here; recently i started trying my hand at writing dialogues, but i realized very quickly that the "writing" aspect is the only part of it i understand. i have a wealth of ideas but no way to translate them into high quality dialogues because i don't understand how the game works on a fundamental level.

i've read just about every pinned guide i can find on the site (i have pim_gd's advanced dialogue guide and slingerbult's comprehensive dialogue guide saved on my pc as pdfs and i've been checking them regularly while i write), along with a lot of troubleshooting threads. i've also done what i see some people suggest, which is to look at the guts of dialogues i like, ones that do things that i would like to replicate, such as slave bazaar, and i have also read most of the guide/setup stuff in both sby and modguys' loader bundles, as well as the FAQs for mods like dialogue actions. for many of these resources, i know that i should just take my time and read everything many many times until i understand, but with a few resources i have done exactly that and it still comes off as gibberish to me. things like slingerbult's dialogue guide have indeed been useful, and i've made progress in writing some rudimentary dialogues, but at a certain a point i get the sense that to really be able to create what i want to create, i would need to learn... coding? scripting?

like i open a dialogue file to look at how it's laid out or i read an explanation that somebody wrote for a particular mod/feature and usually my eyes just sort of glaze over. i feel like doing stuff like that should be helpful, but usually it's just like reading something in french or spanish, where i definitely can kinda recognize what's going on but i only concretely understand like %30 of what's infront of me. i have zero experience with coding, scripting, flash, etc. but i would be willing to learn if i knew where to begin.

TL;DR how do people learn how to write for this game?
i've been trying my best to learn from guides and other dialogues but frankly i still don't understand how to, for instance, make buttons, do overlays, change backgrounds, use certain variables, etc. and all of that seems like pretty basic stuff. i mostly just copy and paste from other dialogues in an attempt to learn, but typically something doesn't play right after the fact and i end up feeling totally lost.
things like pimgd's dialogue checker aren't that helpful to me right now either because i don't really understand most of the stuff that it tends to point out besides very basic syntax errors.

As someone familiar with writing loader dialogues (and not at all familiar with coding or scripting :-p), in my experience, it all came down to experimentation and starting with small and simple loader dialogues. Asking questions over PM's and such also greatly helped me (much thanks to f93 and Samoth , and others).

One dialogue I can recommend to act as a sort of template would be the Clara Loft dialogue by T0mcat . I, myself, and a few others have also remade the dialogue over the years.

Hope this helps!

 

[sorrowww]

long time lurker here; recently i started trying my hand at writing dialogues, but i realized very quickly that the "writing" aspect is the only part of it i understand. i have a wealth of ideas but no way to translate them into high quality dialogues because i don't understand how the game works on a fundamental level.

i've read just about every pinned guide i can find on the site (i have pim_gd's advanced dialogue guide and slingerbult's comprehensive dialogue guide saved on my pc as pdfs and i've been checking them regularly while i write), along with a lot of troubleshooting threads. i've also done what i see some people suggest, which is to look at the guts of dialogues i like, ones that do things that i would like to replicate, such as slave bazaar, and i have also read most of the guide/setup stuff in both sby and modguys' loader bundles, as well as the FAQs for mods like dialogue actions. for many of these resources, i know that i should just take my time and read everything many many times until i understand, but with a few resources i have done exactly that and it still comes off as gibberish to me. things like slingerbult's dialogue guide have indeed been useful, and i've made progress in writing some rudimentary dialogues, but at a certain a point i get the sense that to really be able to create what i want to create, i would need to learn... coding? scripting?

like i open a dialogue file to look at how it's laid out or i read an explanation that somebody wrote for a particular mod/feature and usually my eyes just sort of glaze over. i feel like doing stuff like that should be helpful, but usually it's just like reading something in french or spanish, where i definitely can kinda recognize what's going on but i only concretely understand like %30 of what's infront of me. i have zero experience with coding, scripting, flash, etc. but i would be willing to learn if i knew where to begin.

TL;DR how do people learn how to write for this game?
i've been trying my best to learn from guides and other dialogues but frankly i still don't understand how to, for instance, make buttons, do overlays, change backgrounds, use certain variables, etc. and all of that seems like pretty basic stuff. i mostly just copy and paste from other dialogues in an attempt to learn, but typically something doesn't play right after the fact and i end up feeling totally lost.
things like pimgd's dialogue checker aren't that helpful to me right now either because i don't really understand most of the stuff that it tends to point out besides very basic syntax errors.

You will find each dialogue writer has their own style as it were. It wasn’t easy for me at first either but pim_gd guide makes a lot more sense once you’ve experimented with certain things like Antimatter pointed out. Come around the SDT discord Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities

If you need help with particulars or getting a system to work.

 

[campusvamp]

long time lurker here; recently i started trying my hand at writing dialogues, but i realized very quickly that the "writing" aspect is the only part of it i understand. i have a wealth of ideas but no way to translate them into high quality dialogues because i don't understand how the game works on a fundamental level.

i've read just about every pinned guide i can find on the site (i have pim_gd's advanced dialogue guide and slingerbult's comprehensive dialogue guide saved on my pc as pdfs and i've been checking them regularly while i write), along with a lot of troubleshooting threads. i've also done what i see some people suggest, which is to look at the guts of dialogues i like, ones that do things that i would like to replicate, such as slave bazaar, and i have also read most of the guide/setup stuff in both sby and modguys' loader bundles, as well as the FAQs for mods like dialogue actions. for many of these resources, i know that i should just take my time and read everything many many times until i understand, but with a few resources i have done exactly that and it still comes off as gibberish to me. things like slingerbult's dialogue guide have indeed been useful, and i've made progress in writing some rudimentary dialogues, but at a certain a point i get the sense that to really be able to create what i want to create, i would need to learn... coding? scripting?

like i open a dialogue file to look at how it's laid out or i read an explanation that somebody wrote for a particular mod/feature and usually my eyes just sort of glaze over. i feel like doing stuff like that should be helpful, but usually it's just like reading something in french or spanish, where i definitely can kinda recognize what's going on but i only concretely understand like %30 of what's infront of me. i have zero experience with coding, scripting, flash, etc. but i would be willing to learn if i knew where to begin.

TL;DR how do people learn how to write for this game?
i've been trying my best to learn from guides and other dialogues but frankly i still don't understand how to, for instance, make buttons, do overlays, change backgrounds, use certain variables, etc. and all of that seems like pretty basic stuff. i mostly just copy and paste from other dialogues in an attempt to learn, but typically something doesn't play right after the fact and i end up feeling totally lost.
things like pimgd's dialogue checker aren't that helpful to me right now either because i don't really understand most of the stuff that it tends to point out besides very basic syntax errors.

Copy and paste can be tossed. No help if you just use others. SO... Here is a way to learn that's more fun than coding... BTW, how can coding ever help?

So find a photo... Describe in one sentence what she is wearing, doing, thinking? What would you say to her? Is she receptive to a conversation? From what you wrote, I don't see your problem. I don't write many long conversations but I'm always having trouble with describing actions and scenery. I read a LOT of John Steinback for help. He can put you into his story with just a couple of sentences.