How To Manage A Gazillion Untold Sim Stories

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[00:00:00] Gloria from Yellow Llama Co.: Welcome to Sentimental Simmer, a podcast made for emotionally attached simmers and storytellers with wild imaginations. I’m your host, Gloria, and I run Yellow Llama Co, a planner shop made to help simmers play with purpose. Every week, I talk all about things, sim life planning, storytelling, and memory keeping. I’ll also brainstorm new ways to obsess over our pixel people, whether they’d be in the Sims or another live sim game. And now let’s get into it. Welcome to today’s podcast. Today, I’m going to help you through the frustration of having a gazillion story ideas in your mind in only so much time. It is an issue as old as time.

Gloria [00:00:46]:

We constantly have new ideas for sim characters and their story lines, whether it be what you wanna play next In your game session, an idea for CAS, or maybe you have a story you wanna tell. And, I mean, I already get bogged down at which format I wanna use. Like, is it gonna be normal gameplay with a let’s play or is it gonna be machinima? Oh gosh. I know you know, I love my machinima, but, you You know, there’s this whole skill set behind all that. You know, do I really wanna get into that? I just wanna tell my story. I just wanna get out there. Maybe I should make it a blog-ish, like, blog style kind of story or even a comic. Oh, that would be cool.

Gloria [00:01:23]:

Right? I even looked into How to create a visual novel style story? I looked into Twine. I looked into, All I I don’t even remember the name of all the softwares. I thought that would be really fun and really cool, like, the graphic novel with moving pictures. I thought it would be, like, A nice in between from a full blown machinima with proper animations because I don’t I don’t have the patience for that. Like, that’s also an issue. I just wanna get my story out there, but then you have, like, so many Hurdles. Like, it’s not only getting your story on paper, but, you know, actually making it real. And that’s just if you’re a storyteller and you like to actually put your stories out there.

Gloria [00:02:01]:

There are also a lot of story lines that I just wanna play out in my game that I just wanna play around with and so many scandals in my head. Also, hold some ideas. Yeah. It’s just like a constant tug and pull of all these ideas and methods and ways to do things swirling in my head, competing for my attention, and it’s just it’s really frustrating. 1, you don’t have the time to do it. Sometimes can’t decide on, like, a indecision peril paralysis paralysis. It’s it’s tough out there. Okay? If you’re a storyteller like me, you probably definitely have had this issue, on one time or another.

Gloria [00:02:38]:

And If you’re a a game player as well, I’m sure. And even if you’re just a builder or a cast player, there are surely plenty of ideas in your mind that you wish you could build or create, and There’s just only so much time. So for example, I’ve been juggling these storylines since I don’t know. It must be since November last year or so. Oh, I had this, like, gritty love story in my mind. Oh, no. Actually, first, it was like a gritty love story kind of like celebrity-ish and then it morphed into something completely different. Still love story, different characters though, and more gritty, less celebrity.

Gloria [00:03:13]:

I kinda like, I I fleshed that out, at least character wise, pretty well. And then I got sidetracked, and I fell in love with this other idea because there’s this whole thing about aesthetics on Twitter And, the different aesthetics that we simmers have, and I kind of thought, oh, you know, what is my aesthetic? Like, if I were to have an aesthetic, what would that be? And that kind of, like, turned into a story. And, oh my god. It’s like, so many ideas. But, yeah, I created the sim. I have a whole Pinterest board with the aesthetic that I like. And I also thought of, like, a story that would fit to that aesthetic, and now I’m stuck. Which format am I gonna use? Is it gonna be Play, is it gonna be machinima? Is it yeah.

Gloria [00:03:54]:

I don’t know. And on one part, I love putting the work and thinking of all of the with storylines and the characters and and all that the involvement they have between each other and how it’s gonna play out. But at the same time, I’m super lazy when it comes to the logistics of What it takes to actually make a mission. It’s not just the storyline. You need to actually make like, you have to dollhouse it. Right? It’s not just the Sims are gonna do what you want as Scripted. You know, you can’t just funnel in your Scrivener file or your Google Doc file into the game and say, okay. Yep.

Gloria [00:04:22]:

Let’s do this now. That’s like a whole another skill set, a whole another Level of preparation you have to actually do until you have what you need to really start telling the story if you depending on the way you wanna tell it. Like, if it’s machinima, you need animations. You need to understand how the camera works in the game. You need recording software. You need to know how to cut and start and do things to make it work. Kind of on the fence there, kind of like, okay. Let’s just do a let’s play.

Gloria [00:04:48]:

You know? I don’t have to figure out too much with animations for that, but I don’t wanna spoil too much because I’m still kinda wanna do this idea, but I I want to still have, like, a machinima aspect because I’ve also found a gazillion songs I wanna use for it, of course. Right? You know? That’s also more of the fun part, the creative part, because I feel song really inspires me in my in the stories I create as well and kinda reaffirms the story I’m telling. So that’s just, you know, as a storyteller, the predicament I’m in. I have all these ideas, and that’s just 1 or 2 ideas that I have of, like I said, a gazillion. And you wanna move forward and I end up just overthinking and not end up not doing really anything. I have the stories kind of like half baked in my head, and Because of logistical reasons, I just end up not going through with it. But today, we’re gonna talk about all these stories that you have in your mind and trying to get over that frustration of Having so many stories in your mind, knowing good and well, even if you didn’t overthink things, even if you push through, you You still would not get through all those stories in your mind. Because like I said, I had something from November in my mind morphed into something else, then I have another idea.

Gloria [00:05:52]:

If we were honest, like, if I were to sit down And if you gave me 10 minutes with a pencil and a paper, I could come up with an some more ideas that I wanna either turn into, like, Here’s my story, sharing it with the world or just straight up story lines for gameplay the game. So, like, even just thinking about my save file that I currently play in the current household. Within that household, I already have so many stories I wanna play. It’s it’s a lot, and it’s It’s a weight on your shoulders. It’s a bit of a burden for a simmer because you just you wanna play everything, but, you know, you can’t. And there’s a bit of a sadness to that. But I think I can help you get over that frustration, of having so many stories in your head and It’s a little time. The 1st step and I think it’s probably an obvious one, but I’m gonna help you make it an easy one to do for any and every idea.

Gloria [00:06:43]:

So the 1st step and really a foundation for any story is to write down those ideas. I know it can seem obvious, but I have a tip here to help you write down the ideas in a way that if you come back to them, they’ll be more than just scattered words and and bullet points. I think they’ll be more useful to you. They’re not just a brain dump. So, of course, part of the anxiety that comes from the sheer amount of ideas that you have that come in and out of your mind and swirl around is the fear of losing the gold nuggets because not every idea is keeper. But you know some of them are, like, let’s say, a good 30%. Okay? You wanna write everything down in a journal or somehow otherwise document them. So I personally like OneNote or, of course, my legendary Sim Planner.

Gloria [00:07:26]:

Quick plug. So if you’re looking for something to Save your story ideas. There is a note section in the sim planner on the back of it, and I also recommend my sim chronicles for OneNote that It’s a template basically to keep track of what’s happening in your Sims game. OneNote is a free software available really for for apps for Mac and PC. So I highly recommend it to create, like, a Wikipedia file collection of your ideas and your stories. Perhaps you have a Ton of ideas for the future of your sim, so if it’s all about gameplay for you, you could write a bucket list for that sim. Bucket lists are made to be accomplished in a lifetime and not today. They are not made to be done, like, in 1 gaming session.

Gloria [00:08:07]:

So I think by design, this type of collection of ideas helps take the pressure off of wanting to get everything done right now. I think another helpful tip to help you collect your ideas in a more meaningful way is to use color and symbol coding, a bit like an adapted bullet journaling method. You could assign a specific color and symbol for a certain category or status. And then when you’re actually writing those ideas, you could use a certain color pen, for example. You could add a color dot next to it, And, of course, you could also add that symbol that you thought of. For example, you could write wholesome ideas with blue ink. You could write scandalous ideas in red and another color for maybe behavioral experiments is what I’m gonna call it now. So for all you simmers that like to keep your sims in cellars or basements, of course, you have, like, another Color for something that you actually wanna turn into machinima or, you know, a story that you wanna share and not just play.

Gloria [00:09:01]:

And there are so many ways you can use that to help Sort your ideas so that they’re more organized. And at a bird’s eye view, you know exactly what is what. And then on your next game session, if you’re feeling more like torture your sims. You can look for the, I don’t know, orange, text and you know, oh, okay. Those are the ones I need to focus on. And if you’re collecting ideas more for storytelling and more than just gameplay, for an actual full story that you wanna share with the world, You could also write a log line for each idea to structure your notes. I found a story prompt structure by the story engine deck, which I find quite useful as a template to structure ideas. It’s a sentence that you can use with bracketed subjects or nouns that you can replace with your actual story content.

Gloria [00:09:50]:

So for example, we have the sentence, a Flaw. Flaw would be you would swap that out with flaw. A flaw main character wants motivation, a Character slash object slash location, but conflict. So hearing that is probably a bit confusing, so definitely check out the link. Basically, you would replace flaw with whatever while your character has because I think a good story always has a flawed character. A perfect character is a boring character. Of course, Paddington the bear is maybe the Option here, but if you want a fun story, a story that actually can create conflict, you usually gonna get that with a character that has some sort of issue. And They’re gonna work through that.

Gloria [00:10:28]:

You can have a character arc. There’s some already at the end or maybe not so if you wanna create a series out of it. But yes. So, basically, the first bit is to replace it with an actual flaw that you’ve Chosen for your character, then in main brackets, you replace it with your main character, and then there’s a bracket for motivation. So you swap that out with whatever motivation you wanna give that character. And then character slash object slash location. Obviously, you you replace that with whatever component you would have for your own particular story from the idea that you thought up and conflict as well. You would swap that out with conflict.

Gloria [00:11:00]:

And it could be that your ideas in the moment just a feeling or an emotion or A look, an aesthetic. You might not be able to fill out all of these parts of the lock line. This prompt or this lock line template can help You already further develop that idea and make it more fleshed out so that when you come back to your story notes, you’re like, oh, yeah. That’s pretty cool. And you, you know, have more than just an aesthetic. So that’s also a reason why I like the whole log line templates. Another one would go, like, for example, a flawed main character, one’s motivation Number 1, from an opponent, but conflict. And then the opponent wants their own motivation in, you know, contrast to the main character, but conflict number 2.

Gloria [00:11:41]:

So that’s another structure I saw from the story engine deck, which Kind of pits 2 characters against each other with conflicting motivations, and that makes also for interesting story. So another way to Get over your frustration of having too many story lines in your mind to play out is just to play stories in parallel. You are not constricted to just 1 save file or 1 household even. You can create multiple save files to explore different ideas. I’m sure a lot of simmers already do this because I’ve seen screenshots where, like, they just scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and, like, just can’t get the necessary files. I mean, I don’t know if that’s because of the gazillion story lines or because of, You know, just saving regularly your your main safe. It’s something that we should allow ourselves to do for sure and have maybe a less of a guilty conscience. Another great way to play the game is to play in rotation.

Gloria [00:12:30]:

I think rotational gameplay is a great way to play with different storylines. It keeps it a bit more of an overview because Instead of a gazillion save files, you have a gazillion households that are all in 1 save files. At least they’re in 1 place. I mean, they might be scattered across different worlds, depending on how many game packs you have. So overview isn’t quite there, but it’s it’s more than if you had it in different save files. And it can also make the save file more interesting since it contains multiple households that you’re already invested in. So you’ve spent time in their stories. You’re actually like you’re enthralled with, you know, what’s gonna happen next.

Gloria [00:13:02]:

And so that can make the save file itself cooler. Right? So maybe you can’t decide between playing a lonely rich grand dame or a single father. Why not throw them both in your save file and just simply swap between their households every week? Right? Nobody’s stopping you. Another thing I recommend is to focus and remove decision parallel assist. I really should have looked up how to say that word before starting this podcast. This is in paralysis. Okay? So focus your time. You can dedicate each simming session to 1 story line.

Gloria [00:13:32]:

For example, it can be hard already to find time to play if, you know, Some of us are parents and have to, you know, juggle our time between work and and kids. Some of us, you know, are students. Well, most of us, unfortunately, just can’t afford to play the game all the time. Right? So we have hobbies, other obligations. And so when you do find him to play, I suggest maybe just scheduling in that story with whenever you’re gonna play, that you have a clear idea of which story you will play next. And then you can look forward to it as well. So let’s say you know for sure that you’re gonna get, I don’t know, 4 hours of gameplay in this week. You have Tuesdays Fridays you can play, for 2 hours each.

Gloria [00:14:10]:

That’s already quite generous. So he’s, okay. You know what? Tuesdays, I’m gonna play the grande, and Friars, I’m gonna play dad. And I’m gonna focus on those stories, on those gaming sessions, and then you can really dive deep into those stories. And that way, you’re not sitting in front of the computer. The game is loaded up and you’re like, okay. What now? You know? You come into the game already set up with an idea. If you can’t decide, grand dame, single dad, wholesome family, you know, legacy family gameplay, what Why don’t I play? Well, why don’t you write your story ideas on pieces of paper and then put them in a cup and draw an idea at random? That way you can choose what to dedicate the next maybe 1, 2, 3 gaming sessions to actually explore that idea.

Gloria [00:14:52]:

Another tip is to combine story lines. Why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone and merge them? Remember our lonely grand dame and the single father? How fun would it be if their storylines merged? Perhaps the 2 fall in love or the grand dame sees the grandchild they never had but always wanted in the kid that belongs to dad and in turn helps the family out of some sort of tough situation, maybe a financial situation. Maybe she’s the mom of the mobster of the town and the single dad got into a nasty, you know, altercation with the mob, but, you know, she’s gonna talk her Fun out of killing him because, you know, she feels such a, you know, emotional connection to the grandchild. Yeah. Why not? Merge these storylines. How can they work together and to Create something new and something that you can play at the same time, you know, so that it’s not like, I can’t play story 2 because I’m playing story 1. But you can create a story 3 out of them. The same applies to story formats if you’re more of a, you know, storyteller likes to share what you’re Creating and what you’re thinking of, why not mix and match different formats? For example, if you’re not sure if you wanna create a let’s play or machinima, like, I’m still stuck in this decision, paralysis.

Gloria [00:16:05]:

Just combine the 2. You can introduce each episode with a prerecorded clip while the meat of the video is the actual let’s play. And for storytellers who are just still struggling with having all those ideas in their minds, why not test drive them? Give them a quick run. You could try outlining the stories that you have in your mind. So you’ve written them down on paper. You have, like, maybe a rough log line. And then from there, what he hits you? You see, you can actually just outline them, flesh them out a little bit more, not too much, just a little bit more, And think about the type of Sims you could play, and from there, you can decide if you really are still excited about that idea or It’s not actually that cool. You know? You might learn that some of the ideas aren’t worth the FOMO.

Gloria [00:16:47]:

You can’t have FOMO for something you realize is you only feel, you know, lukewarm about. So to get your plot laid out so that you can separate the gems from the duds, you can write a short synopsis. I’ve created a template you can fill in with the elements of your story so you can test drive the idea. You can insert the elements within the allotted brackets similar to the story engine deck prompt log line I was talking about before. I hope this fill in synopsis will help you turn your idea into a more fleshed out story, you know, from beginning to end quickly so that you can also quickly decide whether or not it’s even worth your time anymore. Because that’s what I feel like with some of the stories I’ve still been, like, hanging on to, and, I could kinda like the idea of it, you know, all shiny and new and, like, oh, I was thinking about, oh, you know, what the characters look like. And it was just Kind of about a bit romanticized in the idea of the story, but then when I actually came to the drawing board, I didn’t get too far. You know, maybe just because I didn’t.

Gloria [00:17:42]:

Maybe the idea just wasn’t ready for the storyboard yet or maybe the idea just wasn’t worth my time. Sometimes you figure that out as well. And so I hope maybe a log line or or this Fill in synopsis will help you find that out quicker about your ideas, and so you can spend less time, you know, overthinking them or having them in your mind as, You know, what ifs, and you could just turn them into I know now, and I’m actually not that cool. And so you can actually focus your energy on the gems that crystalized from this exercise. And last but not least, the hardest tip is acceptance. So I think just like a writer can’t write all their story ideas or, you know, readers can’t read all the books in the world, as a simmer, you won’t be able to play every possible Storyline. I know. It’s it’s a hard one to say.

Gloria [00:18:30]:

Just like speak into existence, but also to accept. And I I don’t think I still fully accepted it in my Mine. But I’m just I think it’s something it would be healthy. Okay? It’s okay to leave some ideas unexplored because it is inevitable. We are Simmers, we’re so creative, and so we will always have ideas rolling in our mind, especially when a new pack drops, When we consume media or when we, you know, go about our day, already we’re, you know, influenced by everything that’s happening to us and we’re just bursting with ideas from our experiences, new ones, new story seeds are constantly showing themselves and keeping us up at night. So I think the sooner we accept that these ideas, some of them will stay ideas, I think the sooner we can also maybe just feel better about it. I don’t know. And also why not appreciate the stories you’ve played? You know? There’s so many stories that I think just get lost in the dust because of shiny new thing syndrome, and we’re like, oh, you know, we’re like a new new spark of of a story or an idea.

Gloria [00:19:34]:

Like, oh, you just run off with that where, you know, you know, when you open up the game, it’s like, sim blah blah blah missed you. And I’m like, yeah. But, you know, Quiet now. I got a new story I gotta go after. You know? So it’s like, we have so many great stories we’ve already played, and that’s why I just love saving them and documenting everything my sims experience because while I can’t play out every idea in my head, I can look back on what I have done and what I’ve experienced with my sims in the past, and that is also very satisfying in its own right. So that’s also a thing. Except that you can’t Play everything. Like, play play every story line, but you can also appreciate what you have been able to do and also enjoy the ones you’re playing now.

Gloria [00:20:15]:

So there are SIM households right now. I promise you right now in your save file that are collecting dust. Okay? And they have great stories behind them. And we were talking just an episode or 2 back about these great premade townies as well and their stories just rich with gossip and So much fun to be had. Right? And they’re just, you know, waiting for you to open them up and play them. And all the while, you’re just chasing idea number 500, gazillion 9. Yeah. Except that you won’t be able to play them all, appreciate what you have played, enjoy the ones you’re playing right now, And maybe find a new one in there that you didn’t come up with yourself could also be quite fun.

Gloria [00:20:56]:

And, ultimately, you know, trust that the right stories will find their way to be played in their own time. You know, whether it’s sifting out the golden nuggets from the duds, you know, with a few of the exercises I I recommended Before or, you know, just going with your gut and just instead of overthinking it, just playing it and then see where it goes from there. So I hope that helps If you feel a little bit more relaxed the next time you open the game and a little bit less pressure, a little bit less FOMO, I think The world of storytelling in general is about to get a lot more interesting, with life by you coming up. The the whole conversation maker thing, You know, being able to create a dialogue between your lifers or whatever we’re gonna be calling them, will give us storytellers another way to tell our stories. Also, game player is another way to experience stories because you’ll be probably downloading a crap ton of story conversation mods, And you’ll be playing those stories and having those conversations, and I think it’ll add another level of complexity to the stories we like to tell and experience in our game. So I’m super curious about what that’s gonna look like. But until then, whether you’re playing the Sims or, like, you know, any other life sim right now, I think, when it comes to taming all those ideas in your mind, let’s come back to those steps. So write down your ideas, Play the stories in parallel.

Gloria [00:22:16]:

There’s nothing wrong with creating a news play file. Nobody’s looking over your soul shoulder. Nobody sees the 100 files in the list. Focus. When you’re opening up the game, it helps to know beforehand which story you’re gonna play and really dedicate that time to it. Combine different story lines So it could help from, you know, 2 great one. Test drive your story lines. If you’re a storyteller, you can just make a quick synopsis to see if it actually works and it’s worth thinking so much about, if it’s worth the brain space, and last but not least, acceptance.

Gloria [00:22:49]:

Except that some of these stories will be left untold or unplayed, and that’s okay. Not all of them were worth it anyways, but no one can take away the stories you’ve already played and experienced and already have a place in your heart. So if you don’t have a list of ideas we’re already, you know, collected, I advise to to start that list. If you already have a list, maybe you can start, you know, categorizing them, color coding them, adding little symbols next to them so that you have a better idea of what you’re actually working with and go from there. During the next episode, I’ll convince you to let your sims die. That’ll be a fun one. So make sure to check-in next week. Thank you for listening.

Gloria [00:23:29]:

Till then, Happy Simming!