Chapter 6 Behind the Scenes

[jenga_jane]

After Chapter 6 was such an overlode of information all at once - I decided it was about time I posted one of those infamous 'Behind the Scenes' journal entries.

I feel bad saying this, but this chapter was one of the easiest for me to write. It helped that I was in a writing mood, and generally feeling to - antsy? - to load up the game. Writing in WordPerfect (which I am still using, even after chapter 4) can be left alone, dropped, picked up, and dropped again throughout the day. Plus, it's less risky when the parents are home. They peek into my room and see that I'm busy typing away at something rather than wasting my time on a stupid game that will turn my brain to mush - or something like that.

Most of the chapters I've started writing 3 different times, not being sure how to start, or coming up with something entirely different. This one was no different. In my original outline, Jan would have delivered a child (I wasn't counting on twins) and run off, much like she did in this chapter - except it would have happened at the end of Chapter 5. However, when I had written Chapter 5 to a certain point, I decided that I would go over the slide count if I tried to cram everything in. I still wanted to torture you with that cliffhanger at the end of a chapter. When Jan threw me twins, and once the initial panic wore off, I started looking for ways I could fill in some of the time.

First of all, the scenes with Jan's childhood. I knew who she was. I knew her horrid past - she's not a bad person, but her circumstances had made her that way. I had originally planned on revealing it a little later on, maybe in the coming chapters. But the third time I sat down to write, the first words my fingers formed on the keyboard were "You stupid, stupid girl!" Wham! Next thing I knew, I was lost in the world of Desirée Tellerman's past...

At one point (before we moved house) I opened up Pleasantview and created a family for Jan. Using both her template and Komei's, I made Jan's mother, Uncle Lew, and Komei. Joel was some ugly face template that I thought just fit the role I needed him to play. It would have been nice if I'd thought to make a couple - I wanted there to be more than one "boyfriend" brought home to do with Jan as she pleased. But, for the story's sake, I stuck to just one.

I really liked the strange angle of this picture - Jan looking up at the man. I took it the same 'round I made the family. I used one of the §12,000 houses downtown, and took a few shots for the heck of it. The only reason I didn't use it was that I had later decided that 'Monique' needed a different hairstyle. I also later realized that in editing the picture to match the other ones, she would have been covered up.


If I were a lucky person with a young computer that hadn't been networked, probed and prodded and had more than 1 gb of RAM, I would have probably used some sort of complicated animation hack that I would be explaining to you right now. Truth is - we're poor and have only the 5-year-old laptop that was given to me before I left Canada. I got the idea to use the 'Write in Diary' hidey thing from a Casting Crowns Simmified Music Video I found on Youtube ages ago. I think it worked well enough.

And, of course, the boolprop object, Paul's reaction tester, got a lot of use in this chapter. The arguments, the crying, everything came from it.


This picture turned out better than I'd thought it would. I made Jan's clothes myself, which is why I couldn't show them too closely (very bad alpha-editing), and the black woman with her back to us is one of the couple that come in the Sim Bin. Because that was poor planning on my part, and I didn't wait the extra 15 minutes to load up CAS to make another woman. I realized later that I could have simply changed Monique's hair and clothes, and maybe darkened her in photoshop. But you learn something new every day...


Anyone want to guess who this woman is supposed to be? I don't think I mentioned her true identity in the chapter. Oh well, it'll be in the next one.


How about this man? I know you probably all dislike him muchly, even though he was only in about 5 slides. The name should be a hint, and possibly the genetics will help, too...

 

Here is where I started having troubles. Not in the writing itself, but afterwards.

June told me about Lucy Peppers loosing a chapter due to a reference to terrorism. She told me that I would be lucky not to get reported to Maxis about unsuitable content. I panicked, but didn't quite know what to do.

Here is where "The Clique" came in.

I posted about my worries in the "What's happening in your legacy right now?" thread. I got a simple reply from Professor Butters about possibly changing it so that the unsuitable content wasn't there. No, that's the meat of the plot. I can't really do that without re-writing the whole thing.

So she read it, and sent me a PM with suggestions. Orikes did the same thing. I was wowed. I made the changes they suggested. No bedroom was implied, so those of you who read it later might not have understood entirely what happened. And I took out the references in the conversation with Komei at the end, too. It probably doesn't flow as well as it had, but I'd rather keep it on the exchange with slightly lesser-quality writing than loose it altogether.

For me, this was proof that there are no cliques on boolprop. There are groups of friends who know each other and whatnot, and who read each others legacies quite a bit. But they are all willing to help you out, and answer any questions you may have, regardless of how good your story is, or how long it's been around. I knew this already, but now I have a testimony of my own to prove it to be true.

 

Okay, on to happy thoughts - toddler picspam! I admit, there wasn't enough of it in the last chapter...

Best Grandpa in my game, ever! Hands down! With the child who'll be needing comforting the most, too.

And, not to play favourites:

Curse teeth-in-chin disease...


(Yes, Mystery, I have pets)


But let's not forget that our adorable little Junior has only 2 nice points:



I'm really not sure where Emily is taking me yet. She definitely has family sim in her - and that will play a big role. But she's also rather true to her aspiration/personality on paper. I'm not ready for her plotline to commence yet - I want Joseph & Jan's story to be wrapped up first. So much to do, so much to do...


I've also been dropping hints at Pierre-Louis' bit, but that won't be for a long time, yet. I'll probably be back in Canada when I can get started on that...

And now the simself bit:

I definitely recommend the book "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers to anyone who likes sad stories with happy endings, mixed in with some spiritual stuff and historical fiction. Even if you don't think you like that sort of thing, give this book serious consideration. I'm telling you, it will change your perspective on Grace.

I finished reading it at 3 o'clock in the morning one night, and I cried like a baby for a solid half hour afterwards. It is officially the best book I have ever read. I doubt it will be at a library somewhere, but you might get lucky. I'd try a Christian book store first, though. Buy it, it's worth every penny.
 *Ahem* anyways...

If there's one thing I have a lot of, it's dialogue. A few months ago, there was someone who contributed to the locking of the I'm My Only Reader Support Group; who wanted to start writing a plotty legacy. She went to the big guns for help. DocNerd, Orikes, Prof Butters and PurpleBunny were all helping her out. They talked some about posing hacks, facial do-dads, and so forth. But they also did a lot with the 'Chat' interaction. It was those bits of the thread, those morsels of information that I gobbled up. The Desjardine Family Legacy was in it's planning stages, and even though I had no idea where it was going, I knew that it would be plotty.




All of these were simply 'Chat' pictures.

Moving right along, we have Komei and Summer...

Summer, as you know, is a visitor from the "My Favourite Things" Legacy by Jules. She's the one-nice-point wonder-woman Goopy spawn. Who was set - with Komei - to take over for Generation 2. She's still taking over - but apparantly not with Komei. I'm still clinging to a hope that she and Komei will end up together in the end, but I read that she's already expecting Derek's child - who, by the way, is a dead man the minute he walks onto one of my lots. I don't care if he's a face-one hottie with green glasses.


As someone mentioned, Komei often gets portrayed as a sort of Neanderthal Bloke without a heart. I've read at least 2 legacies to tell me otherwise, and I agree with them - Komei is a big softie at heart.

I wanted to bring him into play. Him having the same last name as Jan was too good an opportunity to turn down. So here he is, happily married to Summer Dekker in Downtown Desjardine Springs.

Summer has this thing going on with her sister. Mainly - she hates her. It may get resolved - things were a little bit up in the air last update. Until then, she's none too keen on the idea of a sister-in-law. So she shows her infamous angry face. Apparantly two can play at that game.


See, Komei knows his Summer. I <3 Komei.

I would really like to let these two have kids, but I'm not sure if I should wait until Jules has or not. Summer and Komei as a couple was her creation/idea, andI don't know if it would be fair if I got to see their spawn before she does.


The conversation with Jan was fun to film. I had Joseph present, running in and out of the house, just to keep the door open, while Komei and Jan did their animations from the reaction tester.

Here's a secret: Jan wasn't pregnant, the twins were in their cribs maxmotives'd at the time. I dressed her in maternity using boolprop, then tried my hardest not to show her side view. It was tricky, but I hope it worked.

You can definitely tell here.

This picture didn't make it to the update, obviously.



I was really pleased with how the ending turned out. I did have this following sequence shot, but I didn't think squeezing it in would have had the same effect as a surprise phone call to the head of the family. Yes, Pierre-Louis is about to get his first chance to 'take charge'. We'll see how he goes.

 
That's all for now. After I reply to the remainder of the comments on boolprop, I get to play Joseph's house. With Jan officially out of the picture for a while, I don't know if Joseph or I will make it out alive...

Happy Simming! (Yeah, right!)

~Jane~