Realistic (Harder) Novels
#1 28-05-2011 
Hi BO!

I had the funniest game glitch the other day. One of my EA simmies--Dina Caliente, to be precise--had the EA object "Stack of Books" stuck inside her tummy with the edges just poking out when I moved her from the Sim Bin and into her new house. I was able to grab the item and remove it, and she now has a shiny new deco item that she enthused about for a good sim hour. When she also rolled Film and Literature as her One True Hobby, and no job wants at all, her fate was sealed--she is going to become a writer. (After all, with that many books inside her, needing to come out...Big Grin) Anyway, the incident inspired me to try making a new mod, but the actual implementation is far, far beyond my skills. You have made so many super cool realistic mods, that I thought of you first.

I'd like novel writing to be much harder than it currently is. In real life, even established authors collect a lot of rejection slips--publication shouldn't be automatic. The criteria I'd like to implement are as follows:

creativity levels 1-5: automatic rejection
creativity level 6 and 10 or more novels previously written: 50% chance of publication
fewer than 10, automatic rejection
creativity level 7 and 10 or more novels previously written: 60% chance of publication
fewer than 10, 30% chance of publication
creativity level 8 and 10 novels written: 70% chance of publication
fewer than 10, 35% chance of publication
creativity level 9 and 10 or more novels previously written: 80% chance of publication
fewer than 10, 40% chance of publication
creativity level 10 and 10 or more novels previously written: 90% chance of publication
fewer than 10, 45% chance of publication
creativity level 10 with 10 previously published books, 5% chance of writing a best seller

I've written the (proposed) text strings, with the option for any one of four possible publishers.

creativity levels 1-5: impersonal rejection letter

Dear Mr/Ms [character name]:

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to [Prolix House, Llama Press, W. W Horton and Company, Sim and Shooster]. Unfortunately, it does not meet our needs at this time.

Sincerely,

Mary Hearst
Editorial Assistant

creativity levels 6-8: either impersonal rejection letter (60% of the time) or nice rejection letter (40%)

Dear Mr/Ms [character name]:

Thank you for submitting your manuscript, [novel name]. While your plot contains some interesting elements, and the protagonist is quite endearing and memorable, the dialogue is stilted and the pacing is often turgid. Therefore we have reluctantly concluded we are not in a position to pursue publishing your manuscript.

Sincerely,

David Mifflin
Editor


creativity levels 9-10: impersonal rejection letter (40% of the time) nice rejection letter (30%) or very nice rejection letter (30%)

Dear Mr/Ms [character name]:

We really appreciate having been given the opportunity to consider [novel name]. Our review committee was very favourably impressed, finding the work unusually well-written and entertaining. However, as I'm sure you know, our publishing schedule is highly competitive, and we are forced to be extremely selective in our editorial and marketing decisions. For this reason we have regretfully concluded that we are unable to consider publication at this time, but we hope you will consider submitting any future work more suited to our target market to [Prolix House, Llama Press, W. W Horton and Company, Sim and Shooster]. We cordially wish you every success in your writing endeavours!

Very sincerely,

Jane Harper
Executive Editor

Ideally, I'd like the reply to be a letter, not a phone call for rejections, leaving the existing routines alone for acceptances.

What do you think? Is this something you might be interested in?

0


Sorry, that is a members only option