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Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
7/31/23 Assuming this website didn't exist and the best community around interactive fiction was the scattered IF community or the awful COG community, would you still write interactive fiction? (this is assuming that we all actually write from time to time)

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I think this is an interesting topic. I know people like End were writing interactive fiction on the kind of sort of dead Infinite Story and other writers came here because of interactive fiction, but I know as far as I'm concerned I don't think I would. I write storygames here because of the community here, if was between posting on infinite story where no one would read them and just a linear story in a google doc I would do the latter. So a lot of members are here because of interactive fiction, but I do interactive fiction because of here. I wonder if there are many other people like that. I'd imagine most of the more prolific writers would write interactive fiction over linear stories even if this site didn't exist, in my mind I'd guess End, Ogre, Will, and Bill would for sure.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I feel the same as you. I originally searched up this site for the purpose of reading CYOAs, not writing them, and I never thought I would. However, I was forced to join a contest against my free will, and it was actually sort of fun. Now I do write a few CYOAs from time to time aside from normal stories, but I haven't posted them here.

Speaking of, Abge and I recently unpublished Graveyard of Empires to fix all the grammar errors while I was on a road trip with her and her dad, but after about three hours we stopped and never came back to it. I should probably get back to doing that. 

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I set it so that you can edit your stories while they're published. But was it created in your profile or are you the co author? I have no idea if it works for co authors, that is done so rarely idk if it was considered when adding that feature.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I'm the co-author, but it also could have just been Abge unpublishing it before she realized that you could edit it already. She hasn't been on the site forums in a while, so she wouldn't have known anyway. 

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Oh, no she doesn't have that permission, why would I give her shit.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Off the top of my head...

Mizal might have stayed over on the Interfic forums and talked there more until the CoG take over of the place, then she might have just hung out on Adrift more I suppose. She probably would have still bumped into Nightwatch since I think she knew him from yet another IF forum.

Bill, Ogre, and Will were writing independently of IF stuff. So while that would have been the case, dunno if they would have taken as much of an extended interest in IF.

Gower would have just been at CoG still.

Kiel would have just groomed kids on CoG where such degeneracy flourishes.

Seth would have fit in at CoG even better. Beg for money via Patreon for his "surgery" and never actually finish the game he claimed he was working on. Might have some competition when Meltdown starts begging for her laptop money though.

I know he isn't as well known (Though he's been a little more visible lately) but urnam0 is actually one of the few IS people that wandered over here. His Warlord story was written over there first, so he'd probably at least write that and then maybe just lurk there from time to time.

Cat2002116 is another OG ISer (Who's even less visible) that would have still wrote stuff there (She's never really gotten around to writing anything here though)

It's entirely possible that some of the people here might have still found their way to Infinite Story. PerforatedPenguin for example actually found IS before CYS. (He apparently tried to PM me there until he saw in my profife location I linked to this place.)

As for me, I probably would be insane enough to still post stories on IS. I might have probably just lurked around other writing forums, maybe even posting sometimes. I assume that Thara might have still PMed me eventually since she was on IS quietly reading my stories for years. (Some bonds are never broken)

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
urnam0 just quietly reads things and writes actual reviews, it's so weird.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Its honestly impressive Seth got 2.5K out of the site. Its small enough you wouldnt expect that much to come out of it. I still wonder if he was in for the long haul scam or if he just saw the money and was like "fuck it, I can just take it and run".

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I would have probably stayed around IS, assuming that without CYS there would be a semi-active community. Probably never to the level of attachment I have with CYS, though.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I'd probably still be playing parser IF mixed in with CYOA style stuff just wherever I encountered it. And just not engaging with their boring non-community that was already becoming too lifeless and impersonal to look at more than once a year even as far back as 2011.

The ADRIFT forum has a handful of disgruntled Euroboomers on it still, and Infinite Story forum might have managed to totter along if Endmaster and I had never moved here. Although Sev seems to like randomly making it inaccessible.

I require a reasonably active forum full of dysfunctional misanthropes though so if those hadn't been enough to get my fix, I'd probably have ended up finding some other obscure at least vaguely writing oriented corner of the internet to get involved with. God willing they would not have been furries or roleplayers.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Probably not, I would have written a web novel/web comic for fun instead. I actually discovered digital interactive fiction through Hosted Games (COG). At the time they were still publishing very small charming stories such as Burnt and "who killed me last night", but I lost interest after reading a couple of bland ones and one very very bad one. (Something something evil boarding school)

Then ehh, chooseyourstory was found while I was typing in "choose your own adventure game something something" on Google. I played pretty much the entire top 10 stories (distinctly remembered the innkeeper, the gladiator one, deadman walking, my vacation and mommy can I go out and kill tonight) and then I read three hundred thousand tears, somehow hated that story so much that I didn't bother to read anything at all for at least several years.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
So what if it died tommorow? Do you perfer writing interactive fiction to writing normal fiction, or do you write interactive fiction because of this community?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I'll finish up the projects I planned to do and figure out how to use another type of script. If I don't find it too cumbersome, I continue. Otherwise, I'll switch to something else.

The main thing that was holding me back is that I couldn't code and learning it seemed too daunting.

I like both.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I was writing interactive fiction before I knew there were ANY online communities surrounding it, so probably yes. But definitely a lot less. The stories I published on this site definitely wouldn't have happened without this community.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Probably not.  I had a particular story idea that I thought well suited to CYOA, so I went looking for a site that would facilitate that so I didn't have to code up my own.  If I hadn't found this one, I would have found one of the others but the the community there would not have held my interest long enough to finish the original idea.  The community here is what encouraged me to go with a simpler story for my first one, and now I am in the cycle of avoiding SHAME in writing contests.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
No. Only started writing because I stumbled on Eternal. I don't really care about the interactive part as long as it's a good story.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I think I would still write, just not interactive fiction. While I adore the genre, If I were to make something related to writing outside of an IF website I would want more pictures in it. So I would probably be making something like a visual novel. Writing is fun, but I've always been more into art. 

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
You could make illustrated stories here.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
And even turtles!!

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Can't say much about writing interactive fiction, but if CYS didn't exist, I probably would've never shared my writing at all. Leaving CoG for good would've still happened, but it might have been later than sooner. If I can ever decide on an idea and focus on it, I probably would've tried some kind of visual novel hybrid in some retarded attempt at learning to draw, program, and write at the same time. Still might try it in the unforeseeable future, but I'm trying to finish a backlog of unfinished projects right now (and failing).

Without CYS, I would've went back to being an internet hermit to say the least.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I would have written linear fiction if it wasn't for CYS. Most of the writing techniques I learnt were from reading novels (hence the overly long stories haha), so I might have written for one of those cringe websites for teen writers when I was younger and maybe joined a writing community there if I found a suitable one. 

Looking back, I'm super glad I found CYS when I did. That was the first time I wanted to publish my writing for an audience and doing this at the wrong place could have gone badly in so many ways.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Do we only get one question on one Monday?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I was planning on continuing every Monday, but last Monday slipped me by and now it's far in the past, so I was planning on continuing next Monday

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
10/08/23

No week shall have their question unasked.

What are your favorite ways of building tension in a story, either as a writer or reader?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

In mystery detective novels, I like the long discussion ramble the detective does with the Watson near the end of the story. The anticipation always gets to me, how all puzzle pieces go together and then bam; the reveal of the murderer. It's even more fun when you are about 95 percent sure it was the man in the garden, but are still a bit iffy about that creepy little girl who showed us a secret passageway.

Having more info as the reader than the characters in the story is also lots of fun.

(A little aside, in horror movies, sound cues. The croaks in the Grudge still creep me out.)

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Unresolved conflict.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Foreshadowing

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
You know, this is interesting because I've never heard people talk about this. So much so, that I forgot this was something you were supposed to intentionally do. I'd say the closest I get is foreshadowing.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Fighting between individuals. Especially when there are more pressing matters at hand.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I was going to say this, but agreeing with Suranna makes me nauseous, so I'm going to say that I like it when a character makes a plan and things spiral out of control. The murder(s) in Crime and Punishment I'd a good example of what I mean. The character starts panicking and winging it

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I actually started that book a few days ago, read the first chapter, and I thought he was going to be decently put together before the murder and then spiral afterward. Hell no, this man is crazy from the get go.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
The exact method may vary somewhat depending on genre, but this is the purpose of setting up stakes the reader cares about. Because then when you threaten those things, either directly or by raising fears that danger will come from some unknown direction, you get that emotional response from readers that keeps them on edge.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Yeah i think this is the most encompassing answer.

For the writers among us that need some extra help: it doesn't need to be stakes the reader cares about either, as long as the characters themselves care. (And the reader cares about the characters.)

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Don't care

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Fuck

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Usually with poor posture. Sometimes with passive aggressive comments towards my wife's cooking. Both, if I'm feeling frisky.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I love using dramatic irony as a writer, but I hate it as a reader. One tactic I like to use is where you directly tell or show the reader what's going to happen, but they know nothing about how or why.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Adding time pressures, raising the stakes, forcing the protagonist to face their greatest fear (usually at the climax), and having another character whose goals directly opposes the protagonist.

When I don't know what to do, I just kill someone. Or threaten to kill them, that works too.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
14/08/23

They call it a Dutch takeover.

What is your favorite way of starting a story, and by extension, what was the opening line that stuck?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

It's kinda bad that I don't remember any of the opening scenes of what I've written except the most recent one. It depends on the story you want to tell, but it's nice to give the readers a hook, something that piques their interest, could be anything. Something something, give them a taste for what's to come and the overall vibe bla bla.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Don't bla bla my fucking question

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I like starting off a story by showcasing a vice or weakness. I especially like if a character is a self destructive alcoholic, starting off with them drinking. That said, I'm no great hand at opening lines.

My favorite opening line in literature is from Notes From the Underground: “I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man.”

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

All this Dostoevsky better not be influencing you, Petros!

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I will wallop you with the blunt side of an ax.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
My liver hurts? Good, let it hurt still more!

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Not my favorite sex position--oh, the questionnaire. Doesn't get any better than Stephen King's opening to The Dark Tower, a single line to start and sum the entire seven book series. One sentence to rule them all, Frodizzle my hobbit nizzle. The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Anything that catches my interest. It can be a line of dialogue, description, action, or whatever else you can think of, but it has to get my attention. I'm not picky.

The most memorable opening line, for me, comes from Neuromancer: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I tend to start with a simple sentence that piques the reader's interest. Especially in my most recent stories, it would demonstrate the protagonist's inner conflict and foreshadow the overall theme.

Something I've recently noticed is that the second/ third line of my stories would be rather descriptive, to contrast the first.

Case study because I'm procrastinating curious:
 

  • Dreamtruder: "Sleep. It pulled me in like a current, enticing me with comfort and relaxation."
  • Breaker: "The day's strange events had left me confused. Just seconds ago, I was in the arms of my parents. A group of well-dressed women and men were gathered around me, giggling at every word I said - or at least, tried to say."
  • Fall to Hopelessness: "The hardest thing to do those days was to explain how I lost Rosa. I didn’t lose her in the typical sense, like how Death’s cold hands wrapped around those he claimed for his kingdom."
  • A Hunted and Haunted Halloween: "Who knew dying would hurt so badly? As his breaths became unsteady and his blood soaked into his royal attire, the king did not say those carefully crafted last words he had his poet write for him."
  • In Moonlit Waters: "Sleep shunned you that night. Slits of moonlight trickled in the half opened shutters, as you rose from your silken sheets, covered in cold sweat, feet colliding with the floor."
  • Spell of Slumber: "I can't do this. Mother's cold, emotionless eyes scrutinize me from the portrait on the wall."


Seems like I've been following some sort of pattern without realizing it all this while lol.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
8/14/2023 Yo, how the fuck do you edit.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Slowly, painfully, and with reluctance.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Write first draft, read first draft while making notes, write second draft. Repeat process until reasonably satisfied.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
While procrastinating on finishing the story itself

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
There's rarely time to do that in the last 15 seconds before the contest deadline.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Edit? What and ruin the purity?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

For my actual stories (works less well with interactive stories) I typically outline the whole plot, then edit in details, then add more details, then connect everything, then smooth it all out more. Then, I force my friends to read it and tell me how to edit further

For stories on this site, I'm lucky if I just get them done. Editing is a nonentity

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

For my stories on this site, I wrote the first draft first, then went back and checked for spelling, grammar, and scripting errors. I didn't have the time or motivation to do thorough structural revisions.

Otherwise, I usually edit as part of my writing process. I use a lot of [brackets to block out phrasings I'm unsure about] and make in-text notes to myself on my rough drafts (like this).
...
I use dotted lines to skip ahead when I don't want to write something, and then come back and fill it in later.

It takes me several full revisions before I get a story in a format anyone else could read, but by the time I do, it's usually much more advanced than a typical rough draft, and the structure has also already gone through significant revisions. After that, I still need to do regular editing for typos and structural problems, but it's less intensive than it would be otherwise.

Sounds like my process is probably similar to what fresh does.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Similar, yeah. However, your summary sounded much more professional and cohesive than mine lol

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

By clicking the edit button on the top right of my posts.

Edit: See this, Peng? It wasn't here earlier.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Can't do that now, eh? I got you!

Edit: Ridiculous!

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Now you can't edit your post either!

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Psst.

I think both of you are in the clear on that, actually. Edit locking ain't what it used to be.



Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Oh, I'm surprised I've just noticed that button. I'll save this useful information which I totally will not use the next time I join a contest and can't finish my storygame. 

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
holy shit i just noticed it too

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

We've been given too much power.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Not you, you're still a cripple.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Fuck. Here I was thinking it was site-wide

There have been a couple other small changes since I was last really on so I wasn't surprised

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Now that's a silly statement. If you have a post in one of those threads at all, it WILL say you're excited to join the contest.

If not that, it'll say you're excited to stick live frogs up your butt. Your decision.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Surprised it doesn't drop some kind of "edited on" flag on the post.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Are you really?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

I mean, I would be, if that was still a doable thing, which it no longer appears to be.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
21/08/23

They call it a Dutch makeover.

This week is all about characters! What is about the maximum number of characters you can fit into a properly sized story? As a reader, at which point do your eyes start to glaze and the names start to fade? And what can you do as a writer to pump up those numbers?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

It depends on how unique your characters are. If ever single one is a bland cardboard cutout, then the max I'll remember is two- and those only if they're opposite genders! However, if they all have a very unique personality, style of talking, or anything that makes them stand out, the author can get away with a lot more. That being said, I try to stick with around five main characters, max. Less is usually more- less characters allows for more developed characters in my opinion.

An addendum to all that:
Sometimes more characters are necessary to make a story flow well or make any kind of sense. If you're in a full-manned vessel in outer space, your crew most likely consisted of more than two people, so more characters are needed. Now, how often these characters pop up and actually influence the story is still a matter of personal choice.

I did some research and according this website here, there are three crucial, necessary characters for every story: a protagonist, an antagonist, and at least one side character who has any kind of relationship with the protagonist to advance the plot and help establish the theme. In fact, every character is one of these things- but how many of each you have is totally up to you.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

As a reader, I don't mind a big cast of characters. I read lots of web serials and most of them have very bloated casts. One thing I really dislike though is when lots of characters are introduced at once. (Blablabla of house blablabla, blabla of house blabla and whole rundown of even more names with little to distinguish them). I've seen GRR Martin do this and most of the time I gloss over these passages.

 

I don't like to write big casts that much. The maximum number so far is about 15 different characters. The reason why I'm not that fond of it is that I don't like to write group scenes where more than three people talk at once. I still struggle a little with it. One trick I did was to just keep all these 15 characters apart and tied to a location. Of course it's handy to give them unique personalities, motivations and appearances to distinguish them even more. 

 

Another trick to increase the amount of characters while keeping things readable for your readers is to set these characters into separate groups or storylines. I often see this in web serials, but also in epic fantasy and big scifi series.

 

The Wandering Inn (longest written work of fiction in English) does this by having one unique storyline (later more) play out in each of the five distinct continents. Within one storyline you also have the cast split in different groups that have their own character arcs. For example:

In volume 4 you have within the main continent five groups; the people working in the inn, adventurer group number one; Horns of Hammerad , adventurer group number two; the halfseekers , adventurer group number three the Silver Swords, and adventurer group four; griffon hunt. It's about 25 people. It would be a huge task to remember all 25 names, but it's a lot easier for the brain if you can stick a label (and you only have to remember five of them) onto each of them. (Kinda like people do in daily life. Mike from work, family, Peter from the soccer team.)

 

Also make sure to give characters distinct roles. That also helps if you don't have a story with multiple POVs. What are they to the main character? Are they the antagonists, their friends, their colleagues, their family etc. (Another tip: you don't have to give every character a name. I once read a book series that often does this thing that the author often isn't bothered to give side characters names. These characters are just named by their title; Archduke of Klassenberg or the mother of blablabla. Somehow it makes the job of remembering these characters a lot easier, since their purpose and relation to the main character is spelled out all the time.)

Do not be afraid to make use of common character archetypes. (The snooty elf, the old mage, the annoying little sister etc.) They are there for a reason and can be used as an easy narrative shorthand. You can always flesh some characters out later in the story. The most important thing is that they leave some kind of first impression on the reader.

 

How I would tackle the fully manned vessel of Fresh. Have the crew in core teams with unique character dynamics and archetypes. (This is thought of on a whim). About 22.

(3) The captain and his team: 

  • Captain: figurehead; carefree, always seeks for new ideas and new experiences. Typical protagonist.
  • Vice captain: Right hand man of the captain: a lot stricter and less jolly but firmly loyal to the captain, often is the one who modifies the captain's ideas to make them achievable.
  • The navigator: much older and often butts heads with the two, especially the captain. Has an explosive temper, but only one who can veto the captain's ideas.

(3) migrant workers: also the scapegoats when the secret suitcase of the diplomat family gets stolen in the shop. They try to prove their innocence

  • The leader: big broody grumbly guy, very big and tall
  • His friend: effeminate thin willowy, big crier and complainer
  • The stranger: the normal guy of the bunch. Really is done with the whole shit in the ship, but gets pulled into it again and again. Only went with the two because they promised a high salary. Depressed and suicidal for the entire trip.

(4) support crew: /actually spies from another country to spy on the diplomat family

  • The cook: outgoing and generally pleasant guy, very much a people's person, the clever schemer
  • Housekeeper three: loses attention quite often, very enthusiastic about everything, but a giant airhead.
  • The housekeeper: wife of the cook, anxious and very jittery, thinks of everything that can go wrong
  • Housekeeper two: calm and very much donning a poker face the entire time.

(5) the mechanics

  • Leader: very experienced, capable leader, questions the competency of the captain, is very firm about keeping with traditions.
  • Hauler: dumb as bricks, but very strong, doesn't think much, 
  • Specialist: sister of the hauler. Does the tinkering, nerds out over gadgets.
  • Team player: main peacekeeper of the group, most emotional intelligence, is the one who smooths out any rows.
  • Leader's apprentice: young inexperienced, very timid, but wants to follow the philosophy of the captain instead of the leader of the mechanics

Family of diplomats that have to be escorted. (7)

  • Father: support behind the scenes; thinks that someone is spying on them and wants to steal the secret suitcase, but doesn't know who.
  • Mother: friend of the captain, main figurehead and spokes person. Travels with the vessel to continue negotiations with the other country.
  • Elderly grandmother who suffers from lapses of forgetfulness
  • Very annoying rebelling little brother
  • Know-it-alll sister who is a big parent pleaser
  • Toddler
  • Family dog

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I always did like your ovens.

The author is allowed an unlimited number of characters that add to the story. Anything (and this goes for any word, sentence, chapter, character) that doesn't add value needs to be cut. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is more. It's your story, man. Just keep it cool. Real cool.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
28/08/23

They call it a Dutch bakeover.

What is the coolest idea, or worldbuilding element, that you never got around to putting into writing?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago

Elections and campaigning. It's more common in sci-fi and, modern settings, not as much in fantasy. I always love this trope when I see it in fantasy stories.

Modern Olympic sports but with fantasy races and magic. I want to see goblins play baseball or have wizards do some ice magic to make the ice more slippery with curling. 

A whole city built of the bones of its dead inhabitants. The whole area (which is a desert) is otherwise unliveable and unfertile without necromancy. To live there and be a citizen one must agree to donate their body to the city after they die. 

Edit: Blablabla

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

29 days ago
Don't bla bla my fucking question you mongoloid

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
Once, I wanted to write a story set in a world where dead spirits were intangible, but still on earth on a continual state of torment, and the only way they could find reprieve is by binding themselves to the mind of a willing human. The problem is that people are aware of them and ghosts tend to be insane as well as the fact that a human has to initiate the communication.

I considered having select family members who would carry an unlimited number of ancestors in their head, but if the line ended, generally they were all screwed.

Then I decided to write nothing instead.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

one month ago
I had a story about a soul trapped within a ring passed down for generations and generations, witnessing and influencing important events throughout the history of a fictional world.

Another one that I liked: A noble/king dies repeatedly, each time waking back up from the same point that night. Slowly, he figures out this plot to have him dead.

Unlike Petros, I've decided to write them both tomorrow.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

28 days ago
How's that writing going?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

28 days ago

Didn't you see? He's doing that TOMORROW ^_^

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

29 days ago

I might have mentioned it before, but I once planned for a 200k+ CYS-inspired story. I gave up halfway and never finished because my plans were spiraling out of control, too many new changes were happening on CYS all at once, and I was worried about people being offended by their portrayal.

It’s a cave-of-time space fantasy, which includes:

  • The wannabe edgelord ‘noob’ protagonist who sets out on a fruitless quest to kill a Celestial being (it was loosely inspired by banned members who wanted to ‘ban’ or ‘report’ mods)
  • Celestial beings as the embodiment of concepts like Time, Death, Insanity, etc (representing the mods) and each had their own powerful Artifacts, along with planets you could visit even if you’d most likely die
  • The N.O.O.B realm (filled with dangerous planets, because the most random choices lead to death)
  • Cylestiacademy (learn dark magic, portal studies, and combat skills; also, you can watch writing duels and bet on the outcome)
  • Four factions of Artifact Hunters (pretty sure most people know what this represents)
  • Many events such as the ascensions of new mods, appreciation days, contests, etc
  • Interplanetary heists, mass murder of lesser subhuman species, either getting tricked by or tricking the exiled ‘celestials’, purging an entire spaceship due to their awful feline contagion, visiting the grimdark graveyards of Death… the list goes on


More overambitious plans:

  • Each Cylestial would have their own branch and epilogue (probably the main reason I quit)
  • Every somewhat active member would have their own scene, and some more prominent ones would feature in longer paths (but my list is somewhat outdated since this was early - mid 2022)
  • Other unimportant people may be mentioned in a one-liner so everyone would read my story
  • The first real choice would split into 3 main paths (you can’t write a CYS-inspired story without an allusion to its top ranked storygame, Eternal)


I managed to put around 60k words into writing so it isn’t exactly unwritten, but I’ve been placing this project on hold indefinitely. Might as well put this idea here for your entertainment haha. 

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

29 days ago

This would actually be so cool

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

29 days ago

Glad you think so haha. I was planning for it to be my magnum opus on the site, until I realized it wasn't feasible. 

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

29 days ago
If anyone could it would be you

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

28 days ago
I have this problem with a lot of ideas where they're too big and complex to figure out where to even start in turning them into a story. I think because my interests are in science fiction where everything happens on such a massive scale.

Four rogue AIs known as the Horsemen devastate the Earth just as the human race takes its first steps in interstellar travel. No suitably Earth like planet had been found before this occurred, so the survivors in far flung and barely sustainable science stations cobble together a communication network and a decades long project to make AIs of their own to combat the Horsemen.

They succeed, sort of. Their seven AIs protect them, build up their colonies and destroy the Horsemen over a long period of war. But in the process evolve their own sapience by absorbing the Horsemen's corrupted data, and break their leashes to take on twisted versions of their old roles, identities based on the Seven Deadly Sins. They ultimately divide up the population between them and rule over it.

This is meant to be told from several POVs and the events themselves span centuries. So yeah, difficult to know how to structure or even begin it all, so instead I wrote absolutely nothing.

Centuries after the Sins take control, a small community living in hiding on an arid moon is approached by an enigmatic entity known only as the Other. It proposes to Thanos Snap humanity as a whole out of its misery, but can be convinced to spare this colony and any other individuals they save from the AI run hives within a short timeframe.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

28 days ago
Partition it off so it's not so overwhelming. Find one viewpoint and set of events that holds up as it's own story, then write it. Then move to the next. If you just want to publish something, it doesn't have to encompass the entirety of all this, it can still work as a game just showcasing any part of it you feel up to writing. If the viewpoints and timeline all jump around that much it seems like you could break them apart to work independently of each other more easily than in most stories anyway.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

24 days ago

Might as well answer this one.

One thing in particular I have always had an idea for but just never implemented in several stories is the idea of an ongoing rival. Basically a character that keeps popping up throughout until towards the end where it gets settled once and for all. (Or sooner depending on a branch)

Now in a few stories you might see some bits of where this was sort of planned, but for whatever reason I just never really continued with it consistently.

I think arguably the only one where it semi-happens is in Necromancer with Trelik who you are told is pretty jealous of your abilities, but other than the snide comments in the beginning with the Dark Order description and towards the end of the main path where he fucks around with time magic, he doesn't play much of a "rival" role.

Eternal was supposed to have at least one branch where you massacre some kid's family and he comes back as an adult like a bad ass to completely wreck your shit. It just never happened though. I had the beginnings of this set up a couple times in the story, but like I said, I never really followed up on it.

Again, I sort implemented it with Zana who was the last of the Felkan royal family that Klemto raises. Though again this wasn't really a rival so much as it was an "unknown antagonist". Even then it was twisted a bit since Zana didn't even experience the "life" that Francis had "taken away" from her. So she just made up her own mind that the life she never had would have been better than the life she had now.

Finally Rogues was definitely one where I really planned to have an ongoing rival, and that particular rival was going to be Klint from the beginning of the story. The idea was you'd keep bumping into him and his dislike of you was based on kicking his ass in the beginning.

However, that never happened and you murk Klint pretty much as your first choice in the story. Lol. From there, there's a few rivals you deal with based on various branches, but never that one that follows you from the beginning.

Funny enough, the original basis of Rogues which was the old Legend game also had this plan for Klint in that one to become your rival. Never happened in that one either. Klint was just doomed to be a very minor character to be dealt with at the start of the story it seems.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

23 days ago
04/09/23

What's your favorite fragrance? Oh wait, back to writing.

The very thing that separates this site from all others is its Chad way of branching, so let's talk about that. How do you incorporate branching your story in either the planning or the writing phase? How do you work up to the choice on that page? How do you not let the story sprawl out of focus?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

23 days ago

I plan the structure around the same time as the story. They kinda work in tandem. Most meaningful choices in a page are preplanned too and already in the main outline along with the endings. I do improvise with the flavor text and the less plotty parts like characterization or world building.

As for preventing the infinite sprawl; outline, outline, outline. If I'm really pressed for time and need to be strict what is included and what not, I'll highlight the main events and other things that NEED to happen for the story to make sense like some kind of to-do-list. Then just go write them one by one with no extra flourishes.

Nowadays I'm also mentally prepared that each story I write will probably be twice as big than originally planned. I'm therefore a little hesitant to jump into a big saga for this reason. 

Edit: blablabla

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

22 days ago
I appreciate your loyalty and dedication

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

20 days ago

I do a very full and organized outline, with placeholder text, for the important choices, including all of the variables that are going to change based on the choices, and the various minor branches that stem off of those major choices.

Then I sit down to write and I almost immediately find myself ignoring the outline because I came up with something funnier, and then the whole thing ends up ten times longer than I originally thought.

It's not a very efficient system, but it works for me.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

21 days ago

Outline of most of the main paths usually comes first then I usually just write a main path from beginning to end and backtrack to add the branching choices after that’s finished, usually working on the longer ones from beginning to end first.

As far as focusing stuff, it depends on the story’s situation.

Now of course a choice that ends up killing you resolves itself. However, sometimes it would be a little silly to kill you off ALL the time based on a particular choice (Or similar bad end like being trapped or something), 

So in those cases I take the story itself into consideration and that particular main branch.

Probably one of the example based on a branch and one I actually used to get asked about a lot was Ground Zero, since there were more than a few endings where you just wander off into the wasteland to an unknown fate.

The focus here was based on the four main branches. So if you picked one of the shelter paths, the focus would be what you did in there. The story would effectively end prematurely if you ever left it for whatever reason. Did you live? Did you die? Well that’s up to your imagination because you left the boundaries of what that particular branch was focusing on.

Sometimes you might get a “mini-epilogue” saying what happened to you, but that was still it for the story itself.

Eternal took more of a general focus of the literal word. Eternal, immortality, establishing some sort of legacy to be remembered. All 13 epilogues are based on that, though only one actually leads to “immortality.” In the few cases where you don’t actually die, (Like wandering off into the desert with Brenda) you’ve effectively still “given up” so the focus ends along with the story.

Innkeeper and Rogues were the same way. As soon as you weren’t running the inn anymore, the focus of the story and the story itself were effectively over. You get one last bit with Eliza at best.

With Rogues, as soon as you weren’t really being a “rogue” anymore in the current time period, (Like settling down, being enslaved, going back in time, etc) the focus of the story was gone and it ended. Now Rogues does slightly waver a bit with the path where you become a vampire, but even then I bring it back to engaging in roguelike behavior one last time before wrapping up the path.

Nothing’s perfect and sometimes an interesting branch just has to be explored a bit more even if the focus gets away from the original purpose.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

21 days ago
Yeah, I've noticed the structure on yours are overall pretty consistent. And the writing one path and then backtracking method you've mentioned before seems like the only sane way to organize progress onve a game gets to a certain size.

I'd be curious if anyone who also wrote big games had a different method they managed to make work out for them anyway.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

21 days ago

Similar to the other responses, I plan most of the important choices and branches before writing. Sometimes during the writing process, I’ll have an idea for a mini-path or new choice, and it’ll be added spontaneously. This is how the choice to leave the castle in Spell of Slumber became its own small branch.

As for writing, I tend to go chronologically since my stories are somewhat of a gauntlet style. When the branches split, I get the shorter ones out of the way first, so I can spend more time on the longer ones. This isn’t always the best tbh. It means falling behind on my schedule (and neglecting the main story) if I spend too long on side-branches. Working up to the choice usually happens naturally, although when I have too many one link pages, I add information links, seemingly meaningless choices with delayed consequences, or just flavor text. 

My stories always sprawl out of focus. Everytime. Since my storygames are written for contests, I often sacrifice entire branches or subplots to meet the deadline. This is the reason behind the rushed last few chapters of Breaker, the one-page chapters at the end of In Moonlit Waters, and the kingdoms you can’t visit in Spell of Slumber. 

But there are times when the opposite happens—I finish the main storyline earlier than expected, and because I want to make the most of my time, I add in new challenges/ subplots/ extra obstacles at the end. This is why there was suddenly a lot more branching at the end of Fall to Hopelessness, the random subplot at the end of Dreamtruder, and the frustrating time-based puzzle at the end of the Halloween game. 

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

16 days ago
12/09/23

No week shall have their question unasked.

What kind of plot hooks pull you right in? What can the others do to make those hooks even more gripping?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

15 days ago

Honestly, anything cleverly worded, or even showing a little bit of effort. My standards are low

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

15 days ago

Just about anything, not that picky once I start. I often read the entire summary and several reviews before I delve into a new story. As for the stories on the site, I'll trudge through any schlock though they can make themselves more enticing just by writing a good synopsis.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

14 days ago

The stereotypical advice I've always seen is to add internal conflict. But imo, anything that piques my curiosity and/or is well-written would be good enough for me.

Personally I believe the first line isn't as important as the first scene. The main mistakes that bore me are:

1. Nothing happens (e.g. 'boring' scenes like waking up, too much description which doesn't move the story forward, or solely an infodump/ worlbuilding explanation I was given no reason to care about)

2. It is confusing (e.g. too many story-specific terms that can't be easily contextually inferred, lots and lots of names being thrown around, technical terms that makes it seem like less of a story and more of an academic article)

3. There’s no suspension of disbelief (e.g. everyone acts illogically and out of character, the story doesn't follow its own rules, finding a new plothole in every paragraph)

I believe the best plot hooks immerse you in the story's setting and allows you to connect to the protagonist's goals and struggles.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

9 days ago
19/09/23

It must be Monday night somewhere in the world.

Is pacing the story something you do consciously while writing your scenes? If not, do you take it into account when editing? What insights into pacing do you have to share?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

5 hours ago

How did this one get completely missed?

Anyway the only pacing I sort of take into account is infodumping.

A long time ago when I was writing Paradise Violated and going into more of the background lore I started to realize that it was taking up a significant part of the story and not actually related to the action/events that were currently going on.

So to solve that problem I started doing the "history/lore" links and put them as a closed loop "choice" that you could click on if you really wanted to read lore.

Also did this for things I wanted to add in a story, but the events weren't significant enough to warrant writing an entire passage with choices for them.

That's probably the main thing I take into consideration as far as pacing goes though. Just keeping the main story focused on the protagonist's actions/reactions and not getting side tracked with extra stuff that doesn't quite directly impact the story.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

3 days ago
25/09/23

Life is all about upping the pace.

What was the most fun you had while creatively writing? Do you think you can spot where the author enjoyed telling the story and where the author had to push himself over a writers block?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

17 hours ago

Gay and DepressedER!!! is probably the most fun I've ever had with writing.

No, I don't think I can tell most of the time. Sometimes it's obvious at the end of stories that were made for contests around here...

I know this question is old, but I'm answering because:
1. These questions are fun, and I don't want them to go unanswered for two weeks in a row.
2. I love seeing my username in bolded letters :) (even if the whole username doesn't fit and all I see is "fresh_out_t...")

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

16 hours ago
I liked the part where I finished and published a story for once.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

16 hours ago

I think in amateur/unedited writing you can usually tell when the author was having a good time because those sections of the story are just better. They'll spend time making sure it's good, and the scene is more clear in their head. You can tell the author cared less about a scene if the spelling and sentence structure gets sloppy.

In professional writing you can only sometimes tell, since the whole book is usually edited pretty well. But I think there's usually a pretty high correlation with how much an author enjoys a scene and how much their readers enjoy it.

I've been having a blast with my current project of about a year. I decided at the beginning that I wouldn't write any scenes or plotlines I didn't really want to, and it's been a huge help in keeping my focus on the project. I've also enjoyed writing a screenplay, since it cuts out a lot of the writing mechanics that interest me less and gets straight to the plot.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

8 hours ago

What's the logline of your screenplay?

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

7 hours ago

An airship pilot, an inventor, and a history professor must stop an evil corporation from seizing control of some newly uncovered powerful ancient technology.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

6 hours ago

Cool. Sounds like an Indiana Jones movie.

Monday Night WRITING Questionnaire

8 hours ago
The feeling of having finished something is great.

But there are scenes that are fun to write too, and yes I've always thought it was very identifiable. It's the difference between lavishing fun details and dialogue or vivid word choices on a page, versus just apathetically moving on as quickly as possible. I think some of the best writing advice I've ever seen is that if you're bored with a scene, then your readers will be too. If the reason you get stuck is because it's just not interesting it can help more to try and fix it than force it.