Trying to Decide My Next Project

[pwizdelf]

Going to link this from one of my stories to get some input if anybody wants to offer it. If I don't hear much then I'm probably going to do something soon with one of the first two concepts that I already have some material for.

I have a few story ideas I'm workshopping and trying to decide what to work on next (not intending to abandon either of my existing stories but I wanted some other stuff to play with too). Thought I'd check in and see what (or if) people thought. Some of these I have a goodly amount of material already written that I haven't done anything with (meaning I think they might not dilute my efforts toward the current Abby and Bridget stories as much as the new story concepts).

Probably anything I work on has potential for creampie action since that's kind of my personal jam. Potential for taboo/secret relationship stuff even if not incest kink specifically. Potential for MMF and FFM romantic scenarios and for those to turn sexy. Potential for me to explore kinks I didn't know I liked yet.

Option A: Marji. 2nd Person Female POV.
Setting: Contemporary North America; Chicago and central Michigan
Genre: Teen? Or something?
Existing wordcount: Maybe ~35K, not a ton but not nothing
Notes: I'm pretty emotionally attached to these characters and got stuck trying to decide between two somewhat mutually exclusive branches the story might take. Slow burn. Currently only one sex scene written but FWIW it's probably in my personal top 5 favorite of my sex scenes ever. Putting it on CHYOA will probably encourage me to create more sex content for it as well. This story is fairly linear as is, so I might try branching less than my other stories the way many authors here do, and then going back and splitting off in a couple of decision places.
Concept: Marji hasn't coped well since the death of her grandfather a little over a year ago. When she functionally tanks her senior year of high school, her parents decide their carrot and stick efforts thus far haven't worked. It's time for their daughter to finally get her head right, and what better place for it than WellRetreat, a no-security mental health facility disguised as a regular summer camp for emotionally normal teens who definitely see the value in their parents' ambitions. At first everything is exactly as bullshit as it sounds... except that on the first day of camp she meets someone just as disillusioned as her. Do these two misfits have any choice but to change each other's lives forever?
Story Plans: Deepening emotional connection between Marji and Tom as two fairly closed-off and sarcastic people struggle to come to terms with how attached they have become in only a short time. Explorations of cultural identity, grief and loss, mental health, and toxic parenting. Potential offshoot thread where instead of an antisocial inseparable pair, they befriend another camper Sidney and form a trio. Unsure what direction sexual lines from there might take.

Option B: The Quiet Ones. 1st or 2nd person female POV.
Setting: Original fantasy city setting (Waterdeep/port city analog)
Genre: Fantasy? Detective/thriller?
Existing wordcount: About ~165K of generally contiguous linear narrative for Book 1, assorted disjointed bits of future narrative
Notes: I've spent a LOT of time with this cast of characters over the last few years, and they're among my all-time favorites. Of all my stories this might be the one to which I have the deepest emotional connection. Since there's so much narrative this one will probably leave me freest to develop other stories since the amount of new composition required will be significantly lessened.
Concept: Detective story, Plus. Fauzia Bersk has an uncommon ability that sounds a lot more useful than it functionally is—after all, being unable to curb their little girl from chatting to dead people is what made her parents surrender her to a religious order all those years ago. But as she and her watch guard partner begin slowly to piece together the unexpectedly connected nature of a series of strange occurrences and disappearances over the years, they realize just how much of the life they've worked for is at stake in all this, and just how deep the deception goes.
Story Plans: This is a pretty linear story and has fairly minimal sex until later, but the characters both like to go down the pub with cop friends on a regular basis and are comfortable with casual hookups, so I think there are plenty of places where we can spend time with her casual encounters and I actually really like this because I think it will add emotional power to some events that happen later. I also have a few places in mind where I think it could branch. The narrative begins with the main characters at about age nineteen and takes them up through their late thirties in this first book or so worth of material.

Option C: Chrissy? Charlie? Name not set in stone. 2nd Person Female POV.
Setting: Contemporary North America; somewhere probably Midwestern/heartland
Genre: Incest/Teen
Existing wordcount: nominal, only a couple thousand words of narrative yet.
Notes: Not yet very attached to the characters and only have loose plans but setup seems potentially fun and two brothers give some possible interesting drama in terms of direction. Very much a "gardener not architect" scenario at present. I think this one has the potential to get sexier sooner than Bridget, possibly slower burn than Abby. This one would detract from existing stories more since I would be composing mostly from scratch.
Concept: Things have been unbelievably awkward between middle-sibling Charlie and her eighteen-year-old younger brother ever since a few weeks ago when she came home early and caught him in a flagrantly compromising situation involving the contents of her laundry hamper. By the time their big brother comes home from college for summer break, Charlie's ready to take a break from junior college so she can get a second job and a place of her own before Mom and Dad notice how weird things have gotten and demand a family sit-down. But having their brother home for summer changes the dynamic in ways none of them expected.
Story Plans: No real plans, open to reader/other input

Option D: Space Adventure Shit. 1st or 2nd person female POV.
Setting: Stars Without Number (space shit)
Genre: Far future space adventures (based on gameplay for Stars Without Number). Maye
Existing wordcount: Minimal, ~10K
Notes: Not very far developed and I've written mostly jack and shit for space adventures in my time but I've read enough Iain Banks books to probably fumble my way through some rough story mechanics. This character is from a roleplaying game that might or might not be done so I hesitated to even suggest it since oftentimes our GM introduces story elements via play that I never would have thought of. But it's pretty different than my other stuff, could be fun.
Concept: Posley is abruptly roused from cryo-storage when the unmanned vessel she's on experiences a series of catastrophic mechanical failures. She's alone, except for a caretaker medical drone whose three centuries babysitting silent cryo-capsules on a ship with no onboard AI has awakened its sense of conscious intelligence. Oh, and except for this boarding party that just showed up.
Story Plans: Almost no real plans other than I think the cryo-Amnesia thing is going to be super fun to play with. Potential for heavy branching since I don't have a well-defined linear storyline? Considering an overarching plot something to do with maybe a nefarious or illegal cloning program. If so probably that would involve some impregnation/breeding oriented material.

Option X: Try to not be so impatient and hungry for novelty! Wait to start any new stories till the current two are further along.
Knuckle down and focus on getting as much as possible of the Abby and Bridget stories to a save point, so to speak. Abby has 65 chapters currently and Bridget has 38.

Existing art just for fun:

Fauzia 1: book 1 draft cover
Fauzia 2: draft character art teen/early twenties
Fauzia 3: draft character art thirties


Posley 1 : fresh outta cryo. stuff is a little confusing right now
Posley 2: well at least my first shower in apparently centuries was OK
Posley 3: after the pirate vessel's captain sent her his last ever dick pic and she had just enough time to zing him before his ship was blasted out of existence


Possible draft covers for Chrissy:

 

[huginn]

Fantasy detective story combines two of my favourite genres. So The Quiet Ones certainly is appealing. Also Marji has elements i'd really like to see. Have you desided on Sidney'sg ender yet?

Personally I don't really mind linear stories or a good story getting in the way of the sex scenes Though, forgetting sex scenes completely would be an odd choice for this site.

Of the last two options, space adventure sounds like it needs most serious world building. So, if you want a story where reader input directs story most, Chrissy seems better choice to me, but I would certainly follow and comment on the space story.

 

[JWtts]

I think Options A and B have good setups for rich stories with character and story exploration. Yes, they may not get too much traction for those looking for a quick sexy times story on CHYOA or the familiar tropes and themes of many stories here, but I could see both being enjoyable and refreshing to read.

If I had to pick I think "A" has more potential for different sexual scenarios with the whole summer camp vibe and horny teenagers with possible branches for characters beyond Marji and Tom.

Option B seems like something you could actually publish somewhere for money as a sexy, paranormal mystery series (though, nothing against posting stories to CHYOA for free), but since you have ~165K words in the bag, that sounds like you might have at least two books in the series already.

Option C seems like it would hit a wider readership on CHYOA, if that's the plan, especially for the incest fans and due to the familiar setup. Though, the female POV would be a different twist from the more familiar male POV of guy caught jerking off with [insert character]'s panties.

Option D seems like another that could do well on CHYOA as a quasi-fanfic since you're basing it off an RPG, so I imagine worldbuilding wouldn't be too complicated as you're not starting from scratch and any fans of the game could get pulled in as readers.

Option X...? As someone who also suffers from "oooh, shiny!" syndrome when it comes to new ideas instead of finishing existing ones, I can't say much here.

 

[TheLowKing]

Marji: I'll be honest: the story doesn't speak to me at all. It doesn't seem to have a hook. Last year, I finished the first draft of a (non-sex) story, but when I started revising it, I noticed very little actually happened in it. The plot outline for Marji feels a little like that, to me at least.

The Quiet Ones: your description of the story (stories?) reads to me like it's a 'real' story that also happens to have some sexy moments, rather than a full-on sex story.

(Quick aside: the distinction for me lies in that a 'real' story only has sex in it more or less incidentally, because the characters are adults, and adults usually have sex every now and again, whereas a full-on sex story is crafted entirely or mostly about sex, and that remains true even when it is a slow-burn that doesn't involve actually Doing The Deed until 50000 words in!)

So I agree with JWtts that it might not fit very well on CHYOA. You could force more sex into it, but just plonking random casual sexual encounters into the story will almost certainly only make it worse, which would be a shame.

It's obvious you really enjoy the story, though, so I'd say: definitely continue working in it. Just publish it elsewhere.

(To slightly lesser extent, that also goes for Marji, by the way.)

Chrissy: this, though! Right up CHYOA's perverted alley, no question. I can already think of at least 3 directions this story could go in, even without the second brother in the mix.

Space Adventure: seems fine? I'm not familiar with the setting, so I'm having a hard time judging what the story would actually involve.

"Finish your shit woman!": I mean... obviously, yes? I will say this, though: unless someone's paying you good money for any of this, it's a hobby, and hobbies should be fun. If you're truly tired of working on a story, it's a-OK to just... stop. And if you'd enjoy it more if you worked on more stories at the same time, then by all means go for it!

 

[raziel83]

D and B seem to be the most promising ones to me. Strangely, despite incest being one of my favourite kinks, C doesn't seem interesting.


...As for the X option, don't try to force yourself to continue with the old stuff if you've lost interest. Maybe go back to them when you get inspiration again.

 

[Cuchuilain]

D would be my normal pick of the genres that you're describing.
However trumping that is the fact that sex scenes are so much better (as a reader and a writer) when you feel like you know the characters involved before it gets down to the messy stuff, so that sounds more like A and B.
C feels like it could have an "up in michigan" (Hemingway) kind of vibe. (Its quite a short, short story and I always wondered where it would have led to after it ended. Sounds like your story might be it, with a little bit of harmless incest thrown in to add to the fun).
Your detail is excellent in the stories I've seen so far. The characters are more fully formed than the average on the site due to your pacing and ability, and its clear you have a real connection to your existing characters, so I hope you continue to play with them as long as you can still see and feel them. However as @raziel83 says, if you've lost interest in those, move on for a while and come back another time. They'll keep.
In the end, my hope is that you continue writing the stories and characters that interest you, because those will be the ones that interest me as a reader most, regardless of setting and genre.

 

[pwizdelf]

Have you desided on Sidney's gender yet?

Sidney is cis-female as I currently have her. Only a couple thousand words of material, not a lot but I do have a sense of her and considered a thread with the flipped Bridget adjacent friend scenario? I dunno, I wrote this thing with a talking bird and it was, you know, whatever. [/QUOTE]

... it's a hobby, and hobbies should be fun. If you're truly tired of working on a story, it's a-OK to just... stop. And if you'd enjoy it more if you worked on more stories at the same time, then by all means go for it!

Option X...? As someone who also suffers from "oooh, shiny!" syndrome when it comes to new ideas instead of finishing existing ones, I can't say much here.

...As for the X option, don't try to force yourself to continue with the old stuff if you've lost interest. Maybe go back to them when you get inspiration again.

Good point. I'm not getting paid, what are people going to do if I disappoint them - be mildly annoyed and possibly not read. Nobody was reading my shit before I came here so still a massive improvement.

Marji: I'll be honest: the story doesn't speak to me at all. It doesn't seem to have a hook. Last year, I finished the first draft of a (non-sex) story, but when I started revising it, I noticed very little actually happened in it. The plot outline for Marji feels a little like that, to me at least.

Bahahah you are 100% correct! Literally the stupid origin of this story was a prompt I found somewhere about skinny dipping while at a camp for bad kids or some shit. I thought, this would be fun for just, personal spank bank, whatever, started working on it. Instead she shows up at the camp and the character she's supposed to skinny dip with and smash, he's fighting me all the way and in the end he turns out to be a queer guy with some good hash so they smoke that and proceed to not have sex. Nothing about this fucking story wanted to go like I had in mind. Seriously I even gave these teens a goddamn fucking tree house on an island and they used it to drink pilfered manischewitz and act like fucking nerds about Björk, instead of sex. Ungrateful shits.

just plonking random casual sexual encounters into the story will almost certainly only make it worse, which would be a shame.

Aw fuck. People making correct statements about things that would be dumb slash pointless to do with a story but that I then immediately want to do with the story just to see if I can make it feel organic despite all odds is my kryponite! (jk thank you for your valid perspective hahah)

potential for different sexual scenarios with the whole summer camp vibe and horny teenagers with possible branches for characters beyond Marji and Tom.

I was considering that too. I could still realize my dream of meaninglessly horny lake teens with other threads. Unless they're ungrateful shits too. Surely someone at this psych ward camp has to be more horny than they are sad.

Thanks to all of you who chipped in with remarks on this thread. It was super helpful to realize there's a kind of mix of preferences, which sorta makes sense considering I threw some fairly rando shit on the board to see what people thought.

Multiple of you commented to the effect: You're not getting paid, so write what is rewarding, even if that means setting something else aside for a while.

I had sort of made up my mind that I wasn't "bound" (hahah) by the results of a poll, because I was info-gathering, and that I'd see how people's comments left me feeling about how much I'd enjoy writing this or that story. All the same it was really nice to hear this advice echoed.

Multiple of you commented or PM'd to the effect: You're not getting paid... but maybe you could be?

This was super helpful to hear your remarks on because I think trying to formulate an answer to why I want to write good shit for free, really helped me articulate it better actually, for my own self. Enough that I considered a lengthy overshare about the experience. Haha! But I'll say that I had some limited experience with it, and it was a lot of work on top of my main career and making that into a business purpose-driven thing kind of sucked some of the magic out of it. Mainly what I liked was doing convention panels or meeting fans who actually read the book and liked it, hearing their thoughts and ideas and suggestions. At the end of the day I wanted to write and interact with other writers and readers. I didn't want to stand at my table in the vendor hall while a man in a utili-kilt compliments my "lovely figure" instead of the fact that I'm funny as fuck.

Anyway I guess all this to say I waffled a lot about my writing because I felt like being decent at it meant I was "supposed" to monetize it somehow and at the end of the day it mostly just had me writing for an audience of, myself. Then I ran into this place and decided to start with a couple of my throwaway story ideas here. It feels like years since anybody acted like they genuinely gave a shit about anything I wrote and I was starting to psyche myself into this weird place of "bitch you are the literal only one who thinks you are being touching and funny."

But yeah, so then it turns out the pervert site is the first online place in years I've felt like I genuinely wanted to connect with. Like this is the place that most clearly captured the welcome feeling of my long disbanded high school IRC channel. Hah.

So I kinda love you guys for looking out for me and pointing out it makes ample good sense to publish this for money. Maybe I'll set up a tip jar or something. But I think trying to explain it tonight made me realize... uh my love language is Words of Affirmation???? Anyway I've earned money, and I've been told by readers that my heartfelt teen melodrama made them have feelings and a hard-on and more creampies please. Some feelings you can't put a pricetag on? hahahha

I have plenty more to say and I think I have some idea of what I want to do. But I'll try to get around to posting that tomorrow.

 

[TheLowKing]

Literally the stupid origin of this story was a prompt I found somewhere about skinny dipping while at a camp for bad kids or some shit. I thought, this would be fun for just, personal spank bank, whatever, started working on it. Instead she shows up at the camp and the character she's supposed to skinny dip with and smash, he's fighting me all the way and in the end he turns out to be a queer guy with some good hash so they smoke that and proceed to not have sex. Nothing about this fucking story wanted to go like I had in mind. Seriously I even gave these teens a goddamn fucking tree house on an island and they used it to drink pilfered manischewitz and act like fucking nerds about Björk, instead of sex. Ungrateful shits.

The number of times this has happened to me...

This was super helpful to hear your remarks on because I think trying to formulate an answer to why I want to write good shit for free, really helped me articulate it better actually, for my own self. Enough that I considered a lengthy overshare about the experience. Haha! But I'll say that I had some limited experience with it, and it was a lot of work on top of my main career and making that into a business purpose-driven thing kind of sucked some of the magic out of it.

This is my greatest fear about writing. I work on something. I enjoy it a lot. I put part of it online before the whole story is finished. It's well received (nightmare!!). People ask for more. I feel compelled to deliver. It becomes work. Aaand it's ruined.

This is partly what happened to A Mother's Adventures in Silicone, and it's pretty much made me stop publishing anything until it's really completely finished. Which is a shame, because I do want to incorporate feedback, and that's not really possible when you've already finished the whole 80 chapter story and someone leaves a suggestion on chapter 7, no matter how excellent it is. (P.S. I still want to get back to AMAiS at some point, but I haven't managed to get over that initial emotional hurdle yet.)

I didn't want to stand at my table in the vendor hall while a man in a utili-kilt compliments my "lovely figure" instead of the fact that I'm funny as fuck.

This doesn't read like a hypothetical, and my response is thus: oof.

 

[Cuchuilain]

lol - my take-away from all that is that I'm now trying to decide if I need a Utili-kilt (I'd never heard of such a thing). My normal kilt only gets an outing at international football matches and weddings. Your experience of the utili-kilted guys sounds like a negative one though, so maybe its just for assholes.
Is there scope somewhere for a kilted character in a story I wonder. It is a funny garment to sport, especially with a sporran bouncing off the genitalia, though google-images of the utili-kilt seem to omit one which seems a shame. Part of the fun of it is to have this ridiculously arranged corpse of a small animal working as a hairy purse bumping away at the penis with every step causing unintended erections and, given that no-one would dream of wearing underwear with one of these, the thing becomes quite the talking point at social occasions. Hmm.

 

[pwizdelf]

The number of times this has happened to me...
This is my greatest fear about writing. I work on something. I enjoy it a lot. I put part of it online before the whole story is finished. It's well received (nightmare!!). People ask for more. I feel compelled to deliver. It becomes work. Aaand it's ruined.

I'm waiting on my work computer to finish unexpected updates right now so maybe I will talk a bit about my overshare thing. I relate pretty fucking hard to, honestly most shit you seem to say, but this particularly.

I've thought ad nauseum about the concept of my "author career" because I wrote a um, mildly horny sci-fi book? once before (been like a decade ago, not recent shit) with a friend and we promoted the fuck out of it, took the paperback to some smallish comic/gaming conventions and stuff and a few bigger ones. Friend and I wound up ending the collaboration. I kept the series rights because I had Plans, and did fuckall with it because I was so sad and had so much more baggage than I realized, about what it meant to lose my coauthor.

GREAT fucking concept too. Pisses me off every time I think about it going to waste with me not doing more with it.

I worked on other stuff and then gradually abandoned that project. Then two years ago I finally made myself actually finish a fucking novel, all the way, do all the extra shit with print layout and final-final-final proofing and ebook formatting. I put out my first solo book quietly and did fuckall about it. A year after that I did some cleanup and then went to exactly one fucking gaming con with another friend, but I really didn't feel like taking selling seriously and the guy at the table next to us and his wife were funny and engaging, so all I did was basically just do a handful of panels, joyfully criticize the con-chairs behind their backs for their general poor organization and insular local-old-guard-sci-fi-club-lovecraft-wankfest bullshit, and try to make the people at adjoining vendor tables laugh. Then my energy for book promotion was eaten up and all I wanted to do was write and talk about it to people. It wasn't a waste. I met Fonda Lee there. I liked her.

I wound up that convention thinking, not for the first time: what the fuck am I even doing with this writing shit that I do compulsively and don't take all the way. Had long philosophical discussions with my author friend since he was staying with me for the con, etc. I didn't even go back and fix the proofing errors in my ebook. I didn't bother actually having the paperback printed. Sales isn't really in my wheelhouse unless I'm in the right place, and I kinda don't enjoy it enough to actually want to strengthen that muscle. After the convention last spring I didn't stop writing, exactly, but I did basically give up trying to get other people to read it and tried to accept that the shit I actually wanted to write is straddling too many lines for me to easily figure out how to market it, assuming I reached a point where I don't hate marketing. My poor friend is the soul of forbearance and has been kindly listening to me waffle about this for literal years now, but I think maybe the issue is that making money doesn't mean a lot because it's almost certainly never going to replace my day job, which I like and is not for profit so I don't even have to bow and scrape for money-grubbing cunts.

I think maybe six people total ever read my second book. It's probably more but I'd be shocked if it were even 15 people. I might have been projecting but after having had it either done or substantially done for a couple years, I couldn't get a single person despite their enthusiasm, to read it all the way through and talk to me about it, so I was starting to feel like everybody gave it a try and then because they like me, didn't want to admit to me it did fuckall for them. Probably they're just busy. Intellectually I know that. Still though... you start to wonder.

Maybe that's why I've found CHYOA so validating and warm so far that it's made me feel actually excited and inspired to share stuff from my backlog of several years on here. I love also how unbeholden I feel here because yeah, I'm not getting paid. So I can do wildly experimental possibly dumb shit and just see how it lands.

All that to say, I was halfass considering pulling that second book from Kindle and publishing it here (assuming that doesnt break any CHYOA rules that I haven't read yet, was going to go look and make sure) because I had places I really wanted to write sex but where it felt like it didn't fit in a traditional novel so I just had the characters talking about it.

It's also the most I've seriously considered dusting off the sequel material for my old project because it would be fucking perfect for this site if my coauthor doesn't mind me putting stuff out for free. I'm toying with asking her.

I haven't managed to get over that initial emotional hurdle yet.)

This statement, whole paragraph really but this bit, made me feel so seen. Haha! I think a huge reason I stopped doing conventions is that my second book is normal fantasy and my first book is supposed to be a series and it's not and it's also a much cooler idea and it's SO FUCKING LAME trying to cheerfully explain that why yes, I'm back here again for a third year with no sequel to the book you actually care about. Cool bye, thanks for being polite about how uninterested you are in the other thing.

This doesn't read like a hypothetical, and my response is thus: oof.

Not a hypothetical but it's pretty mild. I try to be constructive about convention dudes because most guys who aren't on the spectrum and can take a clue just need shown how to talk to women. The ones I'm harsher about are the ones who I can tell are savvy enough to know better and take a hint but are just trying to see if doing their ignoring-my-signals thing works (it doesn't work, ever). I mean I've been that painfully shy person before. It's fucking crushing for someone to be a dick to you because you're anxious and clueless. I've also been that try-hard person who couldn't take a hint but I grew and learned from the embarrassment of somebody having to lay out the awkward truth. I try to strike a balance of constructive? Dunno, I'm super people-pleasing and conflict averse by nature so it's been an education in learning not to be too nice and give people hope. I never knew till conventions how tiny a nugget of kindness a stranger needed go from "she made a face that wasn't a frown and didn't walk away when I started talking about Edgar Rice Burroughs" to "this woman is aching to claim my virginity." It's kinda weird and too bad because I am often now much less friendly than I feel like being, because it's so awkward and uncomfortable for us both if i have to explain in words This Shit Ain't Happening.

Your experience of the utili-kilted guys sounds like a negative one though, so maybe its just for assholes.

I don't think that's fair to say. I hear they are comfortable and useful. They are not necessarily a warning sign. I think it's just that a certain personality type of man with certain attitudes, who thinks other men have better insights about how to talk to women than the woman he is talking to at that moment, is very drawn to the masculinity that he perceives the utili-kilt to project. But it's a toss-up because some men just find it comfortable.

What I'm saying is that the utili-kilt doesn't guarantee me an interaction where someone tries to authoritatively explain engineering concepts to me that I'm objectively more experienced with than him, even after I've let him know that. These interactions are sometimes as neutral as him casually jacking off onto my book display and walking away. Cause he's so comfortable. Just kidding. I'm apparently slap happy. I need to stop fucking about because my computer finished updating... a while ago. Oops.

Part of the fun of it is to have this ridiculously arranged corpse of a small animal working as a hairy purse bumping away at the penis

I just wanted to call this sporran sentence out as a really solid bit of work.

Still planning to come back later and talk about where I'm at with project ideas, probably tomorrow since I have a thing tonight! I enjoy you guys. Thanks.

 

[TheLowKing]

I wound up that convention thinking, not for the first time: what the fuck am I even doing with this writing shit that I do compulsively and don't take all the way. Had long philosophical discussions with my author friend since he was staying with me for the con, etc. I didn't even go back and fix the proofing errors in my ebook. I didn't bother actually having the paperback printed. Sales isn't really in my wheelhouse unless I'm in the right place, and I kinda don't enjoy it enough to actually want to strengthen that muscle. After the convention last spring I didn't stop writing, exactly, but I did basically give up trying to get other people to read it and tried to accept that the shit I actually wanted to write is straddling too many lines for me to easily figure out how to market it, assuming I reached a point where I don't hate marketing. My poor friend is the soul of forbearance and has been kindly listening to me waffle about this for literal years now, but I think maybe the issue is that making money doesn't mean a lot because it's almost certainly never going to replace my day job, which I like and is not for profit so I don't even have to bow and scrape for money-grubbing cunts.

I think maybe six people total ever read my second book. It's probably more but I'd be shocked if it were even 15 people. I might have been projecting but after having had it either one or substantially done for a couple years, I couldn't get a single person despite their enthusiasm, to read it all the way through and say anything so I was starting to feel like everybody gave it a try and then didn't want to admit to me it did fuckall for them. Probably they're just busy. Intellectually I know that. Still though... you start to wonder.

Maybe that's why I've found CHYOA so validating and warm so far that it's made me feel actually excited and inspired to share stuff from my backlog of several years on here. I love also how unbeholden I feel here because yeah, I'm not getting paid. So I can do wildly experimental possibly dumb shit and just see how it lands.

Are you me? I thought I was me, but I'm starting to think that you might be me. But then who would I be? Very confusing.

Kidding aside, you're a lot farther along the writer path than I've ever gotten, but I 100% understand where you're coming from. To me, coming up with a really neat story idea and plotting out the broad strokes is incredibly satisfying. Writing the actual story is... enjoyable, I like it, but I have to watch out that it doesn't become Work. Anything beyond that is just way outside of my comfort zone, though. Going to a convention and dealing with the real possibility that actually, uh, no one read your book, TheLowKing, no one knows who you are, you're just sitting there making a fool of yourself? Or sending out my manuscript to an even dozen publishers and getting back 3 really bland form letters and 9 deafening silences? Aaaaaaaah, shoot me!

Sitting neatly between "I have 2 finished dozen stories that I've never dared show to literally anyone" and "I have a Real Book out that people can buy and read ostensibly this could be my new day job", CHYOA and (presumably) sites like it are a perfect middle ground for me. Not so serious that you have to get some faceless person in authority to deem your work Worthy Of Being Read before you can proceed, but serious enough that you can get hundreds of people reading your story, dozens to like it, and a few to regularly comment on it.

All that to say, I was halfass considering pulling that second book from Kindle and publishing it here (assuming that doesnt break any CHYOA rules that I haven't read yet, was going to go look and make sure) because I had places I really wanted to write sex but where it felt like it didn't fit in a traditional novel so I just had the characters talking about it.

I once had the exact opposite experience! That 'nothing happens' story I mentioned earlier is/was a coming-of-age (non-sex) story. But sex story or no, part of coming-of-age is, you guessed it, getting The Sex for the first time. You can't really skip that. But since most of my stories are sexy, I had a really hard time stopping it from turning into a porn scene. Honestly, it's probably still too sexy for the good of the story, but I'm a little scared to go check. That another story I should get around to at some point.

So many ideas. So little time.

This statement, whole paragraph really but this bit, made me feel so seen. Haha! I think a huge reason I stopped doing conventions is that my second book is normal fantasy and my first book is supposed to be a series and it's not and it's also a much cooler idea and it's SO FUCKING LAME trying to cheerfully explain that why yes, I'm back here again for a third year with no sequel to the book you actually care about. Cool bye, thanks for being polite about how uninterested you are in the other thing.

Haha, yeah. This is why, when I quit AMAiS, I went out of my way to say: "readers, I'm definitely never ever coming back", rather than leave open the possibility that, uh, actually, maybe I will be? And then risk feeling pressured to do so. Better to set low expectations and maybe exceed them, than to set high ones and probably disappoint.

 

[huginn]

Are you me? I thought I was me, but I'm starting to think that you might be me. But then who would I be? Very confusing..

Now that sounds like an intro to a weird story, if either of you were short of ideas for one.

Haha, yeah. This is why, when I quit AMAiS, I went out of my way to say: "readers, I'm definitely never ever coming back", rather than leave open the possibility that, uh, actually, maybe I will be? And then risk feeling pressured to do so. Better to set low expectations and maybe exceed them, than to set high ones and probably disappoint.

As a reader I think that it is much easier to continue a story believably from that after throwing your hero down a waterfall in a fight against an epic nemesis.

At least you have gotten started with writing. When my first public story met with response "There are typos, otherwise not interested", I have never found a place where I felt like starting to write publicly. Not that having to write in a foreign language, if I were to write erotic stories helps.

I like how erotic stories have grown from those 500 word single scene stories so that now it is not odd, atypical maybe, to find multiple novel length stories where sex is essential part of the story. Currently sites like CHYOA seem to be primarily where there is space for those.

More I hear about Marji story more I like it.

 

[pwizdelf]

Now that sounds like an intro to a weird story, if either of you were short of ideas for one.

The interesting thing is taking a bit like that and working out even broad mechanics of what that means or looks like. I'm not trying to do that right now I'm just SAYING.

As a reader I think that it is much easier to continue a story believably from that after throwing your hero down a waterfall in a fight against an epic nemesis.

At least you have gotten started with writing. When my first public story met with response "There are typos, otherwise not interested", I have never found a place where I felt like starting to write publicly.

Well that's a pretty understandable way to feel after being brutalized by the silently indifferent void. Ow.

Not that having to write in a foreign language, if I were to write erotic stories helps

Yeah. I get what you mean because having talked to you a decent amount on here, obviously your English is fucking terrific. But being conversationally intelligible is a whole different game from fiction narrative and I think it's cool you would even try. Rural middle US elementary education in the 80s and 90s wasn't the linguistic cornucopia of non-anglo opportunity that the EU children of my mind's eye are surely enjoying. We were distinctly non-anglo-bereft. Being multilingual is a wealth I can't even imagine. Basically in awe of everyone who manages it (you are managing it obviously).

I like how erotic stories have grown from those 500 word single scene stories so that now it is not odd, atypical maybe, to find multiple novel length stories where sex is essential part of the story. Currently sites like CHYOA seem to be primarily where there is space for those.

Agree. At the risk of sounding still more redundant, it's been really nice these last few weeks to feel like I was rediscovering that headspace where your writing feels like a worthwhile pursuit and that it isn't just a thing that nobody else ever sees but me.

More I hear about Marji story more I like it.

I thought since early when we first started talking, that you would probably enjoy Marji. Her story is pretty different but it's... WAIT A MINUTE, the same deal, teens at a lake. Aw, shit. I'm a lake-teen hack! jk

 

[pwizdelf]

So I'm mildly surprised at the results and it was really cool to see how things came out just over the last couple days. I snapshotted in case after I post samples anybody wants to change their vote. Just for grins though.

What did I expect? you ask. I kinda figured that Chrissy would win because of everything it's the one that has the sex center focus and baked in to the primary conceit. It for sure on paper makes the most sense.

I definitely didn't expect Posley to win, maybe because that's the story I have least fleshed out in my head? Posley's fun though! This is great!

Here's current snapshot. Discussion below.

TLDR: I think I'm gonna post a little of each and see if any particular intro grabs people most.

Honestly unless people here suddenly turned so harshly critical of me and I stopped feeling this happy and eager to share, which is pretty hard to imagine because people have been nice to me here, I think all these stories were going to get developed on here to one degree or another.



Posley. It's really funny to me that she won! Pos is the only one of my heroines who I couldn't have posted a few chapters for before dinner tonight, if I wanted to. All three of the others I have at least 2-5K worth of intro material that I could post basically right away to give people a taste of the general vibe and see if anything grabs them. Posley I still need to sit down and write that stuff. Because, partly, all I wrote for her literally ever is completely uncontextualized sex scenes that would probably be fapworthy but all the same, less fapworthy than they'd be if they meant anything at all to a story? But also, it's a setting and genre I have fuckall experience with.

I wanted to talk about the setting and genre for her. Someone above, I can't remember who now for sure, added that they don't know the setting. Yeah. So me neither. I, cough, have not read the sourcebook. The GM explained the setting to the group because he apparently doesn't love himself enough to demand better from us. I immediately substituted, the collective works of Iain Banks' Culture series, and have so far stayed alive on this assumption with —

Roleplaying PRO TIP (for assholes): Instead of reading a book and learning the setting and rules, convince the GM to let you play a character who either just sustained a traumatic brain injury, or has amnesia, for science-reason. Make him remind you what dice to roll, every time, you lazy fucking shit.

—occasional course corrections from our GM. Anyway. Our group is on hiatus so I'm not still shamed enough yet to actually read the main game book. I'm certainly not going to bother just so I can write more canonically accurate SWN NC17 fan fiction. So I guess what I'm saying is that if we want Posley story stuff any time soon then this will read like more of an Iain Banks NC17 fan fiction. Wow. Huh. Any Meatfucker fans up in here, guys?

Anyway, point is, I clearly gotta noodle on Posley a little. Also—I think of all of them since I have the least material and the biggest experience deficit setting and genre wise, I'd probably be open to a collab or moderated thread thing? So with the clear interest it seems like maybe the story could have some legs and be fun. I need to figure out my story guidelines. The thing JWitt did in the slice of life thread earlier was great - I want to do that.

Marji. I agree with everybody who pointed out that this has a bordering downright unseemly amount of "real story" vibes. (Borrowing here from @TheLowKing's earlier remarks that I can't be bothered to go find and link right now). I still love this story because I love dorky fucking teen dumblove shit. I also don't have a "vision" for this story in an overarching sense. Someone else pointed out (sorry someone that I don't remember which of you!) earlier in this thread that lakes have good opportunity for other dumb teens to have sexy story times. That could be fun. I could see doing a big long thread for the primary story, maybe experimenting with a couple of other directions I wanted to take things, but maybe then having other threads for other campers, potentially written by other authors. Because I'm pedantic as fuck I could definitely draw up a roster of all campers and WTF got them sent to psych camp. Anyway yeah I have some material for this and it's already in second person present so the only conversion factor is that this wasn't chaptered up especially. Big deal. I just need to decide on some cover art for her. Yes I know that's not technically a requirement for a story.

The other thing in Marji's favor is my personal preference that while it's like thirty thousand words till she has sex, it's one of my all time favorite sex scenes I ever wrote.

Fauzia. I meant to do this in descending order. Oh well. My current other real-story-adjacent that isn't predominantly centered about sex. I was a little surprised she came in second! I mean, happy too. I love this character. If people enjoy it well enough I'll probably wind up sharing a fuckton because it's all crap I've never shared with more than one or two other people so it would be neat to share it more broadly. They're nineteen in this first 20K but by 170 they're in their late thirties so this isn't a teen romp. It's two decades of not sexually requited close friendship while they both have sex with other people and never each other. (Because antifraternization policies)

Chrissy. Sure as shit still happening because all my Chrissy material is already in draft form here on CHYOA because I got a wild hair recently and wanted to make her cover art and decided, well, why not. Of all of them this one is almost as not-fleshed-out as Posley, except that the setup gives such an embarrassment of riches in terms of character configurations that it seems easier to start and run with. I'm looking forward to hearing what suggestions people have. It's fun to hear them, even the ones that I don't wind up using, or modify. Also I was thinking it might be fun for one of my teen characters to be a comfortably-promiscuous person. (Bridget and Marji, start the story virgins, Abby is comfortable with sex and sexual topics so comes off probably more experienced than her two previous partners). So anyway. I guess look forward to some Chrissy stuff quite soon since I have a little bit up already.

Everybody. You made me really happy on this thread. Thanks for this.

 

[TheLowKing]

Iain Banks NC17 fan fiction

This sounds like an absolute win to me. In fact, I would be hard pressed to imagine Special Circumstances not having a sexy subsection.

...I'm totally only making your decision harder aren't I? You're welcome!

 

[Cuchuilain]

I don't know the RPG either, but if you're thinking along a Special Circumstances line, I've always thought the plot of Inversions should be done erotically. (the one with the Ultra-advanced "culture" alien living in a medieval civilization as a medic/advisor to a ruler).
As regards your option D, I guess my thoughts on how your plot might develop would be that Polsey could be the advanced "culture" type, and that those rescuing her have all sorts of nefarious petty schemes and rivalries which she would ordinarily rise above, but the different players realizing how special she is try to drag her into their affairs on one side or another, either by coercion, bribery, flattery, or begging.
Polsey could also struggle to resist the temptations of the flesh if the rescuers are particularly attractive (or possibly not struggle at all if she is as sexually liberated as Banks' culture characters tend to be).

 

[insertnamehere]

A refreshingly realistic depiction of the actual consequences of walking in on your brother masturbating on your bed with your underwear.

 

[raziel83]

A refreshingly realistic depiction of the actual consequences of walking in on your brother masturbating on your bed with your underwear.

Written erotica can do such situations much more realistically than filmed (or animated) porn since many viewers want to get to sexytimes with minimal plot but a writer can do a lengthy "will they or won't they" phase before the sexytimes without eating up the budget.

 

[Zingiber]

I really enjoyed the character setup for The Quiet Ones so that story has my attention. (I cast a vote for Posley's story, but Fauzia is already really fun after a few chapters, especially the ghost peeking into the kitchen and where Fauzia got her name and how she and her constable partner ended up paired together).

 

[Zingiber]

Anyway, point is, I clearly gotta noodle on Posley a little. Also—I think of all of them since I have the least material and the biggest experience deficit setting and genre wise, I'd probably be open to a collab or moderated thread thing? So with the clear interest it seems like maybe the story could have some legs and be fun. I need to figure out my story guidelines. The thing JWitt did in the slice of life thread earlier was great - I want to do that.

Your RPG notes and thoughts about Posley's backstory put me in mind of my favorite player character setup phase.

The RPG is "Diaspora", a FATE-based hard-ish SF game modeled on the world feel of Traveller, which adapts its chargen from FATE: Spirit of the Century. (It might suggest that Posley's revival is part of the chargen theme scenes).

1. Growing Up -- character's origin, their birth planet or space station, family or community, people, early life, personality. Write a short paragraph or scene that introduces them.
2. Starting Out -- decisions that put the character into the world, define their skills, social role, job or career, what connected them to space travel. What sent them into a larger world?
3. Moment of Crisis -- a scene that changed the character's life, involving the player character sitting table-right as an observer or participant. (Everyone's read aloud their first two scenes).
4. Sidetracked -- write your character's perspective on the Moment of Crisis of the character to your left. How did you happen to get tangled up in their life-changing scene?
5. On Your Own -- how has your character established themselves before play begins? What are their needs, goals, and choices that put them in the path of adventure and intrigue?

Each scene can also suggest character mechanics, perhaps skills or special abilities, or FATE's "Aspects" - a brief phrase defining part of a character's personality or behavior or circumstances, which has an in-game mechanic where an Aspect can bring story complications (with a reward for accepting the complication), or be used to resolve a complication. So an aspect with a phrase like "My backups have backups" could complicate the story by making the character late for an important meeting, or could overcome a complication like having their personal data unit confiscated and their network access cut off.

So perhaps Posley's Moment of Crisis is being revived by someone unfamiliar, and then being present at some dramatic turn of events for someone else in the rescuing crew. Or maybe the Moment of Crisis is what puts her into stasis and then there's a hook back to someone else from that time.

But mostly my thought was about how to anchor Posley's story to what people are doing in the setting and what might bring them together or put them at odds.

Anyway I like all of your story options A B C D.