u/-Sawnderz-

This book was a pleasure, but it seems Moffat hasn't done much commercial prose fiction.

Does anyone know any other writers out there with a similar flavor of narration, who could scratch the same itch?

I used to donate money to ecosia. Paid for a few young trees each month via their site. I liked their interface, with options like "Trees for nature" full of trees that would provide essential resources for local wildlife, and "Trees for climate" including trees that I suppose would grow fast and sequestre a lot of carbon.
But then ecosia installed a chatbot, and I asked on their twitter if there was something special about this chatbot, making it more energy efficient, and they never responded. Made me doubt their sincerity to the cause so I stopped donating.

But I'm open to finding new charities now, so if anyone knows any reputable examples, who've shown their work and made a difference in planting big swathes of trees, please let me know.

I notice ships flying along between worlds, back to my home planet. Made me wonder if all spice would be delivered for pickup at the one location, but I still appear to need to arrive at each world to get their yield. In which case, what do those flight paths of ships actually signify?

Also, is there a quicker way to gain spice beside zooming into each colonised world? Gets a little old.

There's a point I've seen brought up on occasion that points out how a story might fail to actually deliver a narrative through true drama, and cause & effect.

I suppose the argument is it's full of reactive characters with plot beats happening to them, and conflicts resolving with happenstance rather than with the conclusion of any arcs, but it's not something I really have a trained eye for, yet. Apparently a lot of MCU movies are guilty of this but it hasn't leapt out at me, and if I can't easily recognise it in others' fiction, I could easily slip and include this mistake in my own.

I was curious if anyone could point to some breakdowns that take a story that decidedly has these problems, and pointing out how it could be improved?

Defending territories can be pretty fun initially but they quickly become dull, especially if an enemy targets the same territory multiple times.
There is the option available to Automate the fight, but that's easy to cheese if you just save and reload until what's seemingly a coin toss works in your favor. Once you've defended 5 times and gained all the benefits, feels like doing anything other than Automating the defence is time wasting. So part of me wonders if making Automate an option at all breaks the game, and manual defense should be compulsory.
Maybe then make it so you have to defend less frequently, to balance this out, but then that could make bolstering territories seem a little wasted, if it's barely ever used.

So yeah, am I just hard to please or are there limited options for how future games could improve on this feature? Are there better incentives they could come up with? A way to remove the "optional" nature of it and make it more daunting, without caging the player in with repetitious defenses?

I'm sure a lot of players out there love defending territories. I'm just curious what could ever be done to please a sourpuss like me.

I feel like getting out some popcorn and watching something old-school goofy and hollywood.

Something Flash Gordon-esque, with energy, alien planets, rayguns, exotic sets, matte painting landscapes, the whole shebang.

I'd like it to be genuinely good, but if the best you can do with the specifications I'm putting out is "bad but entertaining" I'll go for that too.

I'd also like it if, whatever it is, it's easily accessible. Like if it's rentable on youtube or someplace.

Much like how a movie could have a weak script but be carried by its visuals, or a game could play poorly but have stellar ambient music.

What's a book you remember primarily for its vibe?

I don't have any particular concept in mind for how a story would pursue atmosphere. Maybe it's how it describes the environments, or maybe it's all in the POV's inner world, or something else. So long as you'd say "It's got that sauce!"

I gather that you want a lot of population growth when a city is new, to allocate citizens to important tasks, but higher populations come with reduced happiness, so does it make sense to start diverting citizens from food-producing tiles, so happiness won't dip below 5 suddenly?

I might avoid getting workboats to go to a fishing tile, for example.

I also read that Population size contirbutes to Science, so I guess part of the challenge is balancing the two?

I can't watch horror movies. Anticipating jumpscares and gorey visuals is simply too unpleasant for me, so horror literature is almost like a safe means to enjoy what I consider the juicey meat of the genre.
Just looked up a plot summary of the movie Obsession, because I'm too much of a wuss to actually watch it, and it's propelled me to come here asking this question, because it sounds like it's got the exact sense of terrifying close-quarters discomfort I think the genre's great at. People being walled in, running into dead-ends, finding consequences to their choices leading to bizarrely awful places, etc.

When it comes to the Fantasy genre, it feels like you can't walk down the street without tripping over a pile of 7-Parters, but when it comes to contemporary fiction set on regular earth, almost everything's a one-and-done.

I'm open to diverse suggestions, though I'm a little less interested if romance is the central premise of the series. I know that probably cuts down my options considerably, limited as they already are, but I go to contemporary fiction for other sorts of drama and conflict.

I read a book recently called The Oyster Catchers, about a woman in a miserable marriage trying to make nice as the new arrival in a gossipy welsh village full of people judging her, and how she lands on her own two feet away from her neglectful husband. The "true love" romance side of the story was the least interesting part of it, but it's the sort of story I'd be willing to see extended into multiple books, just to see how the many threads could snowball. Then there's also books like My Sister's Keeper with very provocative pieces of conflict that, understandably, get resolved by books' end, and it'd just be bad pacing to split it in two. But if like a billion fantasy writers innately know it takes 9 entries to explain how to defeat The Dark Lord, then surely some writers out there have found complicated moral dilemnas that can be explored across a trilogy or something?

I did recently find out about the two K-pop Confidential books by Stephan Lee, about some young music idols navigating the stresses of the music industry. Juicey stuff, I'm sure. And it shows that this stuff is out there, it's just tough to find.

So basically, I'm not very picky about what the premises, so long as the conflict and drama is compelling.

When it comes to the Fantasy genre, it feels like you can't walk down the street without tripping over a pile of 7-Parters, but when it comes to contemporary fiction set on regular earth, almost everything's a one-and-done.

I'm open to diverse suggestions, though I'm a little less interested if romance is the central premise of the series. I know that probably cuts down my options considerably, limited as they already are, but I go to contemporary fiction for other sorts of drama and conflict.

I read a book recently called The Oyster Catchers, about a woman in a miserable marriage trying to make nice as the new arrival in a gossipy welsh village full of people judging her, and how she lands on her own two feet away from her neglectful husband. The "true love" romance side of the story was the least interesting part of it, and it's the sort of story I'd be willing to see extended into multiple books, just to see how the many threads could snowball. Then there's also books like My Sister's Keeper with very provocative pieces of conflict that, understandably, get resolved by books' end, and it'd just be bad pacing to split it in two+. But if like a billion fantasy writers innately know it takes 9 entries to explain how to defeat The Dark Lord, then surely some writers out there have found complicated moral dilemnas that can be explored across a trilogy or something?

I did recently find out about the two K-pop Confidential books by Stephan Lee, about some young music idols navigating the stresses of the music industry. Juicey stuff, I'm sure. And it shows that this stuff is out there, it's just tough to find.

So basically, I'm not very picky about what the premises, so long as the conflict and drama is compelling.

I like the idea of reading a bunch of stories (be they full novels or an anthology of shorts) that detail the ups and downs in a war, from many perspectives on one side, showing the diverse path to eventual victory.

Maybe some entries would be following a group of soldiers on a mission to take out a munitions factory, leading to another story where the enemy has now altered their plans because they're short on supplies.

Another could be a propaganda plot to sow dissent among enemy-claimed territories and rally them into rebellion.

I guess I'm basically looking for something like Max Brooks' World War Z, except against a conscious enemy. I don't really mind if it be medieval-style, some dieselpunk alt-history earth, or whatever.

I like the moments between high tension when a book finds time for its characters to knock around in a fun setpiece for a bit, with good personality and funny jokes, but I don't find those moments that often in literature (maybe prose fiction's more concerned about unwasted, tight pacing?)

Not saying I need a whole beach episode in the middle of the book, but... Actually yeah. I'd absolutely want a beach episode.

The vibe I've gathered over time is that fluffier fiction is there for when people are in the mood for it, but by nature it doesn't give people an intense need to experience more of it, because it doesn't aspire to strong emotions or mind-provoking concepts and drama.

I've seen the occasional series be talked about like it "got gud" when stakes started ramping up and the focus shifted from being charming to being intense.

Maybe this is all true but perhaps there are ways to capitalize on fluff as strongly as possible? What have you seen that can be done to bump up low-stakes fiction into readers' favourites without compromising their premise and core appeal?

I wondered if there's like, a document anywhere, listing off specific writing tasks to do, daily.

I feel like I could use it because I've reached the point where I think my writing can be adequate. I broadly understand what a good reading experience is, but putting it to paper is like bleeding rock. How many rewrites will it take before I clue in on basic matters of cause and effect, or ensuring a scene has satisfying conflict? I can come up with these eventually, but the process is so cumbersome it gets in the way of enjoying the process at all.

So I'd like to start from scratch. I'd like a template of exercises to work from, to train me on the basics of storytelling, line by line, paragraph to paragraph, until it becomes muscle memory and comes much more naturally.

Anyone know of anywhere I can find something good for this? I'm willing to spend a little to access some sheets, I'd that expands my options.

I wondered if there's like, a document anywhere, listing off specific writing tasks to do, daily.

I feel like I could use it because I've reached the point where I think my writing can be adequate. I broadly understand what a good reading experience is, but putting it to paper is like bleeding rock. How many rewrites will it take before I clue in on basic matters of cause and effect, or ensuring a scene has satisfying conflict? I can come up with these eventually, but the process is so cumbersome it gets in the way of enjoying the process at all.

So I'd like to start from scratch. I'd like a template of exercises to work from, to train me on the basics of storytelling, line by line, paragraph to paragraph, until it becomes muscle memory and comes much more naturally.

Anyone know of anywhere I can find something good for this? I'm willing to spend a little to access some sheets, I'd that expands my options.

I don't mind a classic hero's journey, but I'd like to check out a world that's as far from classic "Humans meet Elves, Dwarves, and Dragons" as possible.

The heroes might be completely new creatures. The animals, plantlife, maybe even the geography is something curdled out of a deep dream.

I like the idea of checking out "all-ages" literature because I keep anticipating a level of character and charm to the narration that might not be at home in adult fiction. Much like how all-ages movies and TV will aim for bouncier visuals and humor, so if that's what you're craving you'll seek out cartoons.

I fondly remember a lot of Roald Dahl having this appeal, and I recently read Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell that had a lot of spritz in its writing, but the majority of middlegrade or teen books I find are startlingly dry. Most of them have no sense of charm or whimsy or energy in the writing, only in the plot, so they come across very flat and boring to me.

It doesn't necessarily need them to be humorous or whimsical, just vivid with personality, in a way that compensates for the briskness. Adult literature has lots of space for internalization that middlegrade books usually don't, so I keep looking for a sense of character in the prose to make up the difference.