Drafting Tales – Genre/Topic Combination spreadsheet

General tips

Most of this game is pretty self-explanatory, but here are a few general tips:

1) Vacations increase in price every time you take them, up to a max of $20,000. In het vroege spel, you’re better off reading books to regain inspiration – save the books until you can use the inspiration boost so you don’t waste it.

2) The third month of each year, there’s an award ceremony for the best work of the previous year. (There’s some luck involved, as you can write a perfect book and still not win.) You will only be entered in a maximum of one category, no matter how many things you wrote in the previous 12 maanden. If you win, you get a free 50% inspiration boost – so I recommend not taking any vacations between months 1-3, voor het geval! It can be helpful to always keep an unread book waiting on the off chance you need a little boost before the ceremony.

3) Non-fiction only needs research, editing, and style. Fiction needs all those plus several other categories. You’re well served to go ahead and get those three categories maxed out to whatever level your favorite genres require before you start on plot/characters/etc, or you will find yourself short on points for things when you need them.

4) Naar mijn mening, it’s worth it to put points into your speed as soon as it’s practical to do so. You only gain points by finishing projects, so the more you write, the faster you gain points for other things.

5) You don’t have to answer fan mail right away – the fans will wait for you. They don’t get added to your fan count until you answer their letters, hoewel, so try to strike a balance between saving fan mail for times you need a breather to regain inspiration (it doesn’t give you any on its own but you naturally regain some whenever you’re not actively writing) and boosting your fan count to reach the next milestone.

6) In the top left corner of the writing screen, there’s an easy-to-miss button that will open a full list of genres and topics, sorted by current popularity. Although it’s useful to read all the books for inspiration eventually, you may find yourself just using the most popular topics/genres over and over again. Each game seems to be randomized as to which genres and topics are popular – they don’t all cycle through equally within a game.

Spreadsheet of genre/topic combos

(Some of these are missing because I haven’t gotten to them yet, but the ones that are there should be accurate!)