Writing Standards¶

ClanGen is a game that relies on random event generation. This means that whatever you're writing needs to function for all cats it might generate for, under all circumstances it can be generated in.
Writing for ClanGen requires a different skillset from other types of creative writing, partly due to how brief each piece of the game's text must be. Often times, "tell, don't show" is more important than "show, don't tell."
The focus of this game is allowing players to build their own story! Most of the time, it’s better not to insert character motivations into the text. We want to leave space for the player to explain and expand upon the events that happen in the game. Of course, there are some trait, skill, rank, or age specific texts that can allow more personality to shine through.
The Dark Forest is not fully implemented yet, and flavor text should not mention it too much at the moment. It exists, but there hasn't been a consensus on the exact implementation yet for things like training in the Dark Forest, or how exactly it operates in ClanGen. For example, if it's a secret to all except those who are chosen to train there, or if it's well-known to all Clan cats.
If you have something you'd like to do with a patrol or event, but the code doesn't seem to have functionality for it yet, please let a coder know!

Caution

No assumptions should be made about the gender of any cat. Nothing in the game is completely gender-locked, including pregnancy under certain settings, so all text should take this into account.

Why Writing for ClanGen is Different¶

The nature of a game like ClanGen means most text is likely to be encountered many times over a single playthrough.
If text is brief and gives its information directly, it will serve its function the same way each time a player encounters it. If it's flowery and lyrical, the player will enjoy it the first time, but then all subsequent times, their eyes will skim over it.
That's not to say flowery writing doesn't have its place. Adding some extra sparkle to highly rare events can make them exciting and signal that something important and unusual is happening. As with character motivations, the more constrained and rare text is, the more descriptively it can be written.

Dos and Don'ts¶

DO: Prioritize player creativity!¶

Events can act as writing prompts. If a text generates over and over again, one way keep it interesting is ambiguity. You can add a single unusual detail in an event's text without elaborating on its meaning: the player will take it from there!

DON'T: Over-describe¶

If you are writing a cat to feel angry or happy, sometimes it's best to just label that emotion explicitly rather than try to describe it via body language. (If you say their tail is lashing, how do you know this specific cat has a tail, anyway? A daring cat might express anger differently from a wise cat.)
Go for quality over quantity in descriptions. Consider the event text "m_c was murdered. r_c stands over them, blood dripping from their pelt." It's short, but it includes one striking image of the blood running off of r_c's pelt. It doesn't explain how m_c was murdered, but the player can infer based on the single detail. Too many competing images can actually make descriptive writing weaker as a whole. Pick out the sharpest, and let it stand alone.

DO: Trim extra words!¶

Verbs can easily get out of hand — consider the difference between They were able to slowly close the distance as they stalked and They stalked closer. (Seemed to, was able to, managed to can all slow down the flow of writing. Same with ongoing verbs — does it need to be "She was walking" or can it be "She walked"?).

DON'T: Rely on archetypes about ranks and statuses¶

Medicine cats are not always gentle and soothing, and warriors are not always brave and loyal etc. Avoid adverbs like gently, excitedly, sternly as much as possible. If you don't constrain an event to certain traits, it will be possible to generate for ANY trait, from loving to childish to bloodthirsty.

DO: Embrace Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)¶

SVO is the most common sentence structure in English. "Fireheart ate the mouse" is a SVO sentence: Fireheart is the subject, "ate" is the verb, and the mouse is the object. Many writers vary their sentence structure to avoid repetitive SVO structure. However, SVO is nearly always the briefest and clearest way to express an idea in English, and brevity and clarity are key in ClanGen's writing!

DON'T: Worry too much about these guidelines while writing¶

These tips and tricks are great for editing. Let yourself write out an event however you imagine it, and then go back to it later to trim and edit!

General Grammar¶

We use American spelling!
Keep it simple! We do not include direct dialogue within our events, and we try to keep the word count of each event low.
The classics:
- you're vs your
  - "Your" is always possessive, while “you’re” = “you are”. If you aren’t sure whether “you’re” should be used in a sentence, imagine the same sentence with “you are” in place of “you’re/your” and see if it still makes sense.
- than vs then
  - "Than" is used to compare things. For instance "I like cake better than pie." On the other hand, "then" relates to time. 1. "First I brushed my teeth, then I went to work." 2. "If there are no apples left, then please go to the store and get some."
- to vs too vs two
  - “Too” means “in addition”, “as well”, or "excessively". For example, “Bluestar had some prey too.” Or, "The elder was too old to hunt." Two is, of course, only referring to the number. NGL my method for remembering “to” is just “if too should not be used” LOL but it’s kind of a “directional” word if that makes sense. Shows the relationship between two words, the opposite of “from”.
- its vs it's
  - “Its” is always possessive. "It’s" is an abbreviation for “it is”. Again, if you’re not sure, try imagining the same sentence with “it is” in place of “its/it’s”.
- their vs they’re vs there
  - "Their" is possessive. “Their tail”, “their prey”, etc. “There” refers to a place. “They’re” is an abbreviation for “they are”.
- affect vs effect
  - Less common, but always seems to trip people up. “Affect” is a verb. “The poison has affected them quite strongly.” “Effect” is a noun. “They felt the effects of the poison quite strongly.”
- cats vs cat’s vs cats’
  - Plurals and possessives! Basically, English grammar conventions are hell. I will try to make it not too confusing with the word cat as an example noun. "Cat's" = single cat, possessive. "The cat's tail." "Cats" = plural, multiple cats, not possessive. "The cats gathered around the High Rock." Cats' = plural possessive. "The cats' nests were lined with fresh moss."
  - For singular words that end in S, add an apostrophe to make them possessive. For instance, "the crocus' petals". For a possessive plural of a word that ends in S, add "es" to the end, then apostrophe. Random example sentence: "The actresses' rooms were located across the hall."
  - Basically, anytime there's a possessive, you want an apostrophe in there somewhere. If the word ends in S, plural or singular, the apostrophe goes at the end. If the singular form of the word ends in S and it's a plural possessive, add "es" at the end, then apostrophe. The exception to this is “it’s’ and “its”, where “its” is the possessive form and has no apostrophe.
- commas and conjunctions (and/but/so etc)
  - A comma comes before a conjunction when you are connecting two independent clauses. You can tell if you have two independent clauses by answering the question: "Am I connecting two complete sentences?"
  - Consider the following: m_c walked into camp, and r_c looked up. "m_c walked into camp" and "r_c looked up" are both complete sentences. That's why there is a comma in front of "and."
  - Conversely, look at the sentence: m_c walked into camp and meowed hello to r_c. "m_c walked into camp" is a complete sentence, but "meowed hello to r_c" isn't. That's why there is no comma in front of "and."
  - A comma alone is not enough to connect two full sentences. m_c walked into camp, r_c looked up. is grammatically incorrect; it's called a comma splice. A semi-colon can work here instead, or you can add a conjunction after the comma.
All ClanGen game text should follow normal grammar rules for capitalizing the first letter of a sentence, and trying to avoid spelling or grammar typos. We all make typos, don't worry! But this is one of the ways beta testing your new content can help you!
If you are struggling with remembering or understanding a grammar rule, even one that isn't mentioned in the above list, feel free to message in the writing contributor thread or in other official channels of the Discord server.
The only exception to the above rule is Thoughts! Thoughts should be structured in such a way that they read as a full sentence if the cat’s name is read at the beginning. For example: “Thinks about their past mistakes.” is the correct grammar for a Thought, as you could imagine a name at the beginning of the sentence and it would be grammatically correct. However, the sentence should still be capitalized normally. Event and flavor text should always use Americanized spelling.
Text should always use proper punctuation. Note that we are NOT using double spaces. There should only be a single space after all periods.
Text should be written in present tense, with the exception of history text and backstories being written in past tense. This is because patrols, events, and thoughts are happening to your cats at this present moment, while history text and backstories are a record of things that happened in the past.
We are using the Oxford comma. The Oxford comma is used for a list of three or more items. For instance: "He bought eggs, milk, and bread." This sentence uses the Oxford comma. "He bought eggs, milk and bread." This sentence does NOT use the Oxford comma. Please use the Oxford comma.
Advice for fixing typos: control + F and control + shift + F is your friend, and the computer is going to be able to scan the entire document to find every time you wrote “teh” instead of “the” much faster than you can. If you are trying to fix typos in game files in VSCode, you can also use the search tool (magnifying glass on the left sidebar) to find every instance of a specific typo across all files in the currently-open folder and rapidly find and replace. Very useful for patrols, which often have many different iterations of the same text across different files.
If a code abbreviation (such as o_c_n) needs an ‘a’ or ‘an’ to precede it, always use “a”. We have code in place to dynamically adjust ‘a’ and ‘an’ depending on the word that replaces the abbreviation.
HTML tags for bolding and italicizing are usable. These tags are:
- <i> and </i> for italicizing
- <b> and </b> for bolding
Keeping a change log: as a writer, people are going to be super excited to experience what you write! Make sure to keep a rough record of what that might be. For example, a writer may have no idea how many fox patrols they are adding total. However, they do know how many species they have added and in what biomes. So, when they make the PR to merge them into the game, they can mention their existence in the changelog for that PR.
- An easy way to keep track of your additions is with your commit titles and descriptions. Making commits whenever you reach a ‘milestone’ of sorts and then titling it appropriately will leave you with a nice list of commits to review for your later change log. When I bugfix, for example, I tend to make a commit every time I fix a bug and then title that commit with a short description of the bug I fixed.

Upsetting vs graphic content¶

Caution

ClanGen contains content that is designed to cause distress. There is no way around it, and it is intentional, and it is not malicious. Players are supposed to care about the death of a cat, or a cat being injured, or the Clan not having enough food. Writers for ClanGen spend our time trying to provoke emotions in players, both good, positive, happy emotions, and sad ones, or feelings of injustice, or loss. Video games as a medium, especially a story generator like ClanGen, are designed to need active investment from a player on many levels, including emotional.

There is an important difference between upsetting content and graphic content.
ClanGen follows the warriors canonical levels of graphic content and gore. This is not a non-graphic book series. For example, in warriors canon Scourge gets an extensive scene where he takes all of Tigerstar(the first)'s lives at once by ripping out his throat. This would be the absolute maximum graphic content allowed in ClanGen.
However, everyone has far different levels of comfort with regards to graphical content, particularly written graphical content rather than visual. We have needed to edit content to be less graphic before. We will doubtless do so again in the future. When we receive feedback that game text is particularly upsetting, it's important to take that feedback and carefully consider it. This does not always mean removing that content - but we must carefully consider it.
Graphical content is not limited to violent content. Illness, injury, pregnancy - no one wants to read a play by play of a cat giving birth in extreme graphical detail.
This is one of the reasons the development version of the game exists. By playing the development version, people have accepted they may be exposed to features that aren't ready for the stable release of the game yet, including upsetting content that is being playtested.
People have drastically different levels of comfort for graphical content for kittens (and sometimes apprentices) than for adult characters. This does not mean that nothing upsetting should ever be allowed to happen to kittens, but it's worth considering.
For distressing content, aim to use text that is emotive and provokes an emotional response, without using descriptive imagery that is likely to provoke disgust. The diarrhea illness progression and reaction texts are a good example of this. It's an illness that's actually reasonably dangerous, but the text tries to communicate that without focusing on the shitting uncontrollably part.

Being Mindful of Disabilities¶

Written with the input of disabled ClanGen developers

Disabled cats should not be sidelined in favor of how their disability affects those around them:

For example, the "sad circumstances" of the "poor" parents of a disabled kitten. The kitten is the cat who is disabled and should not be ignored or regarded as a burden for their disability in favor of pitying their parental figures.

Disability should not be portrayed as the ultimate tragedy of a cat's life. Their life does not end when they become disabled.

While ClanGen allows disabled cats to "retire" early, the cats aren't required to do so. Retiring also doesn't mean an "end" to their life within the Clan. They can still receive events and interactions.

Avoid inspiration sensationalism. Inspiration sensationalism warps stories and images of disabled people in a way that allows a nondisabled audience to feel warm and fuzzy, but treats the disabled person as nothing more than an object that produces these positive feelings.

Remember that there is a difference between "joy" and "inspiration". Disabled cats can feel joyful and fulfilled in their life without that joy being used solely as inspiration for those around them.

Disabled cats are not inherently worth less than their abled counterparts and should not be treated as such. Disabled cats have just as much power, autonomy, and dignity as abled cats.

Disabled cats should be allowed to engage with Clan life in all the same ways that abled cats can.

Cats are allowed to engage with the complexity of their individual disabilities, both the negatives and the positives.

A cat who becomes paralyzed is allowed to wish that they could still walk on four paws, while also celebrating their accomplishments. A cat who is blind in one eye is allowed to struggle with their blindness, while still serving the Clan as a warrior or leader. Likewise, a disabled cat deciding to take a place in the elder den is a valid choice for a cat to make, and should not be treated as the end of their "usefulness" or "ability".

CatA is frustrated their pain has left them in the nest all day.

CatA is excited to learn how to fight on three legs, even though it might be a little harder.

CatB comforts CatA, insisting that they will never be a burden, despite their bad days.

Some conditions can be more visible than others, but remember that the visibility of a condition does not determine its importance or impact. Invisible disabilities are just as impactful to a cat's life as more visible ones.

Constantly dizzy and persistent headaches aren't conditions you can tell a cat has just from looking at them, but they still have profound effects on a cat's life. They still impact their level of activity and their capability to perform certain tasks.

When possible, seek advice from fellow developers with the disability you plan to write for or reference outside resources written by those with that disability. It's always best for those with a first-hand perspective to dictate how their experiences be portrayed.

While the mainly-RNG controlled nature of ClanGen means nuance isn't particularly easy to add into individual events, writers are encouraged to allow nuance by creating a wide variety of events that portray the myriad aspects of disability.

What ways can we portray the lifestyle of a disabled cat?¶

"Tail signals" are a great stand-in for human sign language and can be used to communicate.
While blindness absolutely affects a cat's ability, keep in mind that cats actually rely far more on their other senses! Whiskers, especially, help even seeing cats to navigate the surrounding space. When writing blind cats, consider having them follow a "guiding" Clanmate's scent/presence through complex obstacles or investigate their surroundings before making a move (such as feeling for a safe ledge before jumping up to it.) Have them rely on smell and hearing to understand what's happening around them.
The cats within this universe do not have the ability to create wheelchairs or prothesis for their paralyzed or mobility-impaired Clanmates. However, remember that cats are incredibly adaptible creatures. Real-life 3-legged, paralyzed, and weak-legged cats can still be incredibly agile and fast. There are ways in which they may struggle, but they aren't confined to just wandering around camp.
Remember that while these cats aren't so technologically advanced as to create complex tools like a wheelchair, they are still intelligent beings who can be creative in how they support their disabled Clanmates; and disabled cats are likewise intelligent beings who can be creative in how they support themselves.

How do we handle terminal conditions?¶

Death, especially from terminal conditions, can be a difficult topic to handle. Our goal when communicating this aspect of disability is to use simple, direct language.

It's alright for cats to muse about a death they know is coming, for their loved ones to understand the potential consequences of a condition, and also alright for cats to react negatively about the oncoming loss. Writers should not look to sugarcoat death.

What are the "real world" counterparts of ClanGen conditions?¶

Some of our conditions are named in a less scientific manner than their real-world counterparts, or are meant to be more "umbrella" terms for conditions that wouldn't be particularly diagnosable to cats living in the wild.

Condition Name	Counterpart
Raspy Lungs	While this is also a consequence of temporary conditions like "water in lungs", the congenital versions of this condition are typically used to portray asthma
Wasting Disease	This is a catch-all condition, used to portray detrimental conditions that wouldn't have a clear cause without better medical technology. For example: diabetes, internal malformations, parasites
Strange Lump	Cancerous tumors
Absent	Cognitive decline or psychological disconnect. This is based mainly off conditions like dementia or traumatic brain injuries, but can also be given as a result of conditions like lasting grief for the idea that a cat has emotionally/mentally disconnected from the world.
Seizure Prone	Epilepsy
Constantly Dizzy	Chronic loss of balance
Recurring Shock	Post Traumatic Stress
Lasting Grief	Depression
Persistent Headaches	Chronic migraines
Redcough	A catch-all condition, used to portray internal damage that could lead towards a cat coughing up blood. While not a permanent condition, it is typically considered terminal and is rarely recovered from.