Sagawriter - need help of the community!

[Louigi Verona]

Hey guys!
I need your help in creation of a very special piece of software, the idea for which is derived out of the earlier work, Storywriter (http://www.cathyportal.ru/files/Storywriter.zip).

While Storywriter was written in a humorous state of mind, Sagawriter is a more serious project.

The idea is to include into it 100 basic words, so basic that almost anything can be said with them. This is how humanity in the early period of history described the world, in few words, with lots of imagery. Working with Storywriter, I found out that it is possible to describe even complex things with simple words and their creative use.

The program will have the same functionality as Storywriter - it will have nouns, verbs and 'various' into which I will include things like 'was', 'is', 'had' and other things like that. Nouns and verbs should have 30 items each and various will have 40. Perhaps I will even this out and make it like 33, 33, 34, we will see.

So what I need from you are suggestions of the most basic nouns and verbs, like "fire", "friend". "enemy", "food", "mother", etc.

It will help if you download Storywriter and try writing a story with a plot using it creatively. Then you can get a feel of what basic words would've helped.

[Saga Musix]

wat, nobody is writing ME!

[bvanoudtshoorn]

I've got quite a nice vocab set up for my Sentence generator, if you're interested... Although I do admit that it's targeted at humour more than seriousness.

[Sam_Zen]

More serious, I don't think one can get a nifty storywriter out of a word generator.
Single words are getting in the way with grammar, or are combinated in a boring way.

So a story needs, as BvO states, sentences, a collection of full phrases in the datalist.
Single words can be rendererd too, but only for choosing specific items like names, or objects, in the phrase.

[Louigi Verona]

Grammar can and should be ignored. You have to make your story understandable.

What I believe even Storywriter in this form does is make you think how to use few words to create more meaning. It requires imagination, use of imagry. In Sagawriter I will have key words which will allow you to tell almost any story with 100 words.

So what kind of help I need? Some advice, something I might overlook. Important words.

Consider a word "like", for instance. It is an important word because it will allow you to make comparisons and describe more. "something like something" is a structure which will allow you to define many things. So this word is important.

Another example is "sun". With this word a lot of things can be described and a lot of imagery can be associated with "sun".

[machinesmith]

I think you'll be missing out on any kind of audience without the humor element (then again maybe this isnt for the public, is it?)

I agree with Sam_Zen that without sentence construction there wont be much to `talk' about (or laugh about for that matter) and much could be lost in translation, literally! (e.g. storywriter gave me `Android had does')

However you may be onto something here, to (mis-)quote you:

This is how humanity in the early period of history described the world, ... with lots of imagery.

Making something like That would do away with the indecencies of grammar while getting the creative juices flowing. In effect you could be getting the message across (serious or otherwise) whilst maintaining an aura of subtle humor.
Case in point:

[Louigi Verona]

(e.g. storywriter gave me `Android had does')

Perhaps you are using Storywriter in a weird manner. It is not a random or automatic generator and I see that most people have understood it that way.

Storywriter is basically a tool to write a story with very limited vocabulary. I see no grammar problems there - at least not problems that would prevent understanding what you wanted to say. Let me share a small story I wrote. It is very clear, in my opinion, although lacks superb grammar skill.

Code Select Expand

- jackpad is broke, is it not, - said Mario.
- it is, - said android.
- what do we do then?
- unfortunately not anything. not in this castle.
Mario went away from castle to garden and search for battery. battery was something pretty! Mario took battery to castle.
android saw battery with care and said
- this is pretty! - and started to do jackpad.

when jackpad was pretty they flew from castle on jackpad. it took android and Mario to vortex. vortex said
- what you went to i for?
- vortex!!! we went to you for you to taken jackpad!
- jackpad is ugly, - said vortex and then vortex was ass. ass that ate apples. ass that attacked person. and ass attacked Mario and android. they flew away!!!

[machinesmith]

I guess its a `point of view' thing. I think the `image language generator..thing..' would've just be more plain fun to use. I know I'd rather try `write' in that and let the viewer intrepret my story from just the pictures than read non sequitur `digi-prose' (the images too would be non-sequitur but thats where the human imagination is supposed to kick in and construct the story/msg/whatever!)

For example, I understand theres a basic theme to your tale but what the hell is a jackpad? A magic carpet? Also the copious amounts of `ass' that happened at the end left me a little perplexed - I'm not grading a comprehension (to hell with grammar) but it does seem just a tad bit boring (and senseless).

But don't let that stop you!

[machinesmith]

oh and because I dont want to be labeled a `pompous jackass who'll give his opinion precedence over what I needed from this thread' heres a list:

not  yes  no  me  you  hello  bye  go  want  give  travel  like  say  know  unknown  help  laugh  cry  fear  free  kill  vote/opinion  money impossible  trap/prison  danger prisoner divide play  race  disarm  destroy  nonsense  time  meeting  forbidden  unpleasant urgent  search  information  idea  missile  code  friend  enemy  spirit / mind  brain  warrior  scientist  president  genetic  sex  creation reproduction  male  female  identity  parent  people  different  small  great  strong  bad  good  brave  crazy  (insult) / (curse)  peace  war  dead  poor  stupid  lamer  criminal  crazy  violent  nice  traveller  friendly   weird  animal  wizkid  girlfriend/boyfriend  devious  young  old babe car ship  contact  home  place  ugly  dog  inner  outer  sun star moon space earth bow-bow  hour  is / equals  or / and  zero  one  two three  four five six seven eight nine (* prefix with -th and -nd if needed)

and last but not least my favorite...`?'
honorable mention: more less and multiply (right next to where it says divide)

Let us know how it turns out!

[Louigi Verona]

machinesmith: haha! nice input, thanks! in Storywriter there are question marks and such stuff. As for your word list, it's very helpful, thanks )

[machinesmith]

SAGA IMAGE WRITER FOR TEh W...I mean.. Yeah! sure glad to help...anytime..those words werent supposed to have images attached anyway...I mean..you're welcome!