Very true Ben. Starting with an good story outline should save loads of design effort and make the final product more focused and higher quality.
On the "sub category" of story writing, I'll relay a couple bits of advice from a published writer I knew once:
Avoid writing in genre clichà ©s.
He defined a clichà © as being a plot point that was decided by conventions of the genre rather than the natural desires of the characters in the story. For instance, in fantasy fiction the clichà ©s say elves are archers, dwarves fight with axes and have a Scottish accent, magicians can't wear heavy armor etc. If you want your story to be poignant, let honest human nature guide your characters.
Value your characters' life as much as your own.
Killing off characters to get an emotional response from your audience is an age old but lazy way of trying to inject something meaningful into a story. Having a character that fights to live can be much more poignant than one who gets killed off for a quick "boo hoo" reaction.
On the "sub category" of story writing, I'll relay a couple bits of advice from a published writer I knew once:
Avoid writing in genre clichà ©s.
He defined a clichà © as being a plot point that was decided by conventions of the genre rather than the natural desires of the characters in the story. For instance, in fantasy fiction the clichà ©s say elves are archers, dwarves fight with axes and have a Scottish accent, magicians can't wear heavy armor etc. If you want your story to be poignant, let honest human nature guide your characters.
Value your characters' life as much as your own.
Killing off characters to get an emotional response from your audience is an age old but lazy way of trying to inject something meaningful into a story. Having a character that fights to live can be much more poignant than one who gets killed off for a quick "boo hoo" reaction.