Mr. Phoebe, the writer of Adam/Eve.

Ello

My name’s Luke and i’m 17 and i live in Suffolk, England. I go  to high school at the moment and i’m in my last year ever (thank GOD) studying Art, Drama and English literature/language. I love writing, i’ve loved it for…ever really. Ever since i learned to write i’ve been writing little stories.

The Sims 2 gave me a huge excuse to write, because i could combine the words with my other passion – visuals. I love photographs and all kinds of visual art, so to be able to put the two together was massively fun. I had some fairly moderate success with Electric Daisies which i wrote in The Sims 2. It lasted … 4 seasons i think, then i had to stop because my computer died and i lost everything.

Electric Daisies centred around the pre-packed-Pleasantview storylines – Dina Caliente and Don, Bella Goth’s whereabouts etc. and expanded upon them. For instance Dina killed Nina over Don and went on to have a child named Davina who then died (or so it was thought) in a fire. Bella ran out on Mortimer because he tried to kill her and then came back. Mortimer then lured her in to a trap and blew up the house they were both in, but she survived and went on to have a string of unhappy marriages, affairs, she organised the murder of Don Lothario and ended up killing herself. It was very soap-opera.

When the Sims 3 came out i knew that i had to do something bigger and more exciting and more…not dramatic … but more adventurous and out there. I played around with a couple of ideas. I started with a sort of Sims version of Dallas called ‘The Golden Triangle’ which i put on the exchange but then got bored of. I lost interest in the game itself for a while but then i started reading the Margaret Atwood book ‘The Year of the Flood’ which is incredible. It’s all about a post apocalyptic world which has been destroyed by a ‘dry flood’ which a religious cult had been predicting for years.

So i wanted to create a post-apocalyptic Sunset Valley basically. This was only possible with lots of cheats – for instance i had to create a new neighbourhood just so i could delete every sim in it and put Fatima and Adam in there on their own so that it really was abandoned, i didn’t want to run the risk of having random townies wandering in to the shots every now and then.

I am trying to make Adam/Eve as detailed and intricate as possible. I want people to see a tiny mention of something or see a small detail in a picture and then have that explained in a later chapter even though they may have thought that it was irrelevant at the time. Everything has a back story, for instance Fatima’s lack of shoes in the present time – that has an entire story line of its own which will be expanded upon later.

I’m even trying to make links between games. In an upcoming chapter i delve in to Dina’s past and her daughter’s story, so i used old pictures from Electric Daisies as flashbacks which works really well because it just ties it all up and gives it a real sense of history and depth.

Symbolism is a big thing for me too: like how Eve often wears snakeskin trousers in the chapters – that is a link to the whole snake in the Garden of Eden thing. It’s a tiny detail but it just makes it feel, as a writer anyway, so much more nourished. At one point i have Fatima eating an apple just before something bad happens to her – another link to Eve and the temptation and all of that.

I just can’t wait for this story to grow, which i feel it will.

And i’m always always always interested in feedback, ideas, suggestions, criticisms: anything! I love participation because it makes me feel like i’m actually writing something that matters. In Electric Daisies i had people create characters for me and give them their own back stories which i’d then work in to the series and i love things like that so i might look in to incorporating that idea in to this story.

I don’t know how long this story is going to go on for. It feels to me like it’s going to be a long running story because it’s such a rich one that could go off in any direction. I have no plans yet for how it’s going to end or who’s going to die or who’s going to get married or any of that. I just see what happens! Let me know if you have any ideas!

Keep reading and let me know what you think

I’d also like to hear from anyone that ever read any of Electric Daisies! It’s still on the Sims 2 exchange i think…

Luke, ‘Mr Phoebe’

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