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   So I read a thread called "interesting comments". I have been getting the sense that newbies who post story games or comments get blasted pretty badly. If you wanted to create a story just to play around with the mechanics, and maybe flesh out some ideas, it there a place to publish that without it getting torched? 

If you're going to publish, that's pretty much an indication that you're ready for public comments. If you're not, there's really no need to publish it. You can, on this site, create a story and leave it in "sneak peek" view. With that option, you can provide people the link to the story and they can read it, but it won't be available for public comments.

You can also post snippets of the story here in the forum for feedback if you like.

Thanks Ogre. Yeah was just trying to get a feel about the level of quality the community expected for a published game. So if i am creating a story for the first time, and not spending the time and effort to polish and put forth the best version that story could possibly be, i shouldn't publish? 

 

Of course, it depends on what you mean by "bad."

If the spelling and grammar stink, you're going to really get blasted. If you have no choices or paths, you're going to hear about it. If you have no story development and nothing happens in the story, people will let you know.

But if you have a story that has choices and character development; a story that has a beginning, middle, and end; and a story that has reasonable English language, there's a good chance you'll get constructive criticism, at least from some.

Keep in mind that you could write the best story ever written in all history and you will still get people who will complain about it -- that's the nature of critics. But most here can tell when you're at least trying, and some will try and help you get better, if that's what you're looking for. So don't be afraid of publishing a story, but if you feel the urge to write in the story description, "This is my first story and it's not very good," then don't be surprised when commenters agree with you.

cool, yeah. the things you mention there are very basic min requirements for a "story". So i think we are ok there. lol. Thanks for the help. 

I dont mind criticism. But some people seem offended by a bad story being published. lol   

Well this is a writing site. Everyone does have to start somewhere, but why publish something if you know it is bad or not to the best of your abilities?

Anyway, if you just want to play around with something create a game and don't publish it. You can mess around with scripting and all that without anyone leaving negative comments that way.

For example, I have a story game dedicated to me trying out different scripting ideas before putting them into stories if it's something I've never done before. I'll never publish it, but I can preview it all I want and test out stuff. :)

  I have no experience with writing. I am a gamer. I loved these books as a kid. And in retrospect, i dont think those books were written very well. But I am creative. And have a desire to flesh out some creative ideas. I am guessing, that a professional writer can have a varying degree of effort in his writing. For example, if he wanted to publish a novel, he would put in all the effort he could. However, if he wanted to create a fun game for his friends, would the effort level be the same? If you wanted to write a fun adventure about the roman empire for a Choose Your Adventure game, or publish a novel on the subject, would you have different levels of effort? I would never publish anything i thought was bad, but I am trying to gauge the expectation level of the community. 

Best way to get a handle on the quality level people looking for is just to browse around and start reading some storygames. High rated ones as well as a few that weren't so well received, and read the comments as well for an idea of why. I generally do recommend people glance through a few of the featured stories at least before diving into their own projects for exactly that reason.

Based on the example you posted in the Writing Workshop I don't think you have much to worry about. We're really not THAT picky here, a story just needs to be free enough of errors to be readable, complete, and entertaining on some level.

Now if it's something full of injokes specifically for your friends or meant for a teacher or whatever, something that you know isn't going to be of much interest to others or understood by Random Internet Reader #3114, that's a good use for the sneak peek option. But really a story has to be supremely lacking in effort to be rated under a 3/8. Stick around awhile and you'll start to get the idea. (There's a new one up now in fact of you need an example of the kind of thing that will definitely wind up removed when the ratings kick in, and it's not even remotely the worst we've seen.)

cool... TY for the input!

Good luck~