Things that almost never happen in CHYOA stories

People don’t seem to use the toilet.

The women of our stories don’t have periods.

Safe sex does not exist, but nobody ever gets an STD.

There is a distinct lack of pets, are we not animal lovers?


What else do we hardly ever see in our stories?

By the way, the above applies to all my stories, I’m not calling anyone out here, it’s just a bit of fun.

 

I’m also pretty guilty of this - though I hadn’t clocked the pet aspect, I should fix this!
I do think it’s true of most fiction honestly. Bodily functions usually don’t seem to apply to protagonists unless they’re already somewhat dodgy.
I think GRRM and King both reference characters doing their business but again usually with the less clearly noble or benevolent characters.
You could say it comes from cultural hangups and the fact we don’t want our characters to seem overly unsavoury or even ignominious? Is that the right word?
I imagine chyoa actually has no shortage of “humiliation” themed stories but outside of that I think those areas do lend themselves to humbling or embarrassing our protagonists in a way that a lot of people might not want to engage with?
Not to say any of it is objectively bad, just I imagine that could be a factor?
Where things that are actually pretty ordinary if a bit “gross” are so deeply considered to be gross, they tend to be applied to unpleasant “ugly” characters like a slovenly landlord or a smelly orc, rather than our sweet protagonist heroines and elves, who are clear-skinned and smell like roses.
And oh god I really just waffled on there, I’m sorry.
But it’s an interesting topic!

 

You are right, it is true of most fiction, for a good reason, Chekhov's gun. If we put the ordinary and mundane into focus, the reader will think there is a reason behind it and feel cheated when there turns out to be no reason. But still, there's no harm in a little bit of scene setting, some thing like , 'Alice was running late, again. She used the bathroom in record time, grabbed her keys and ran out the door. Then, she suddenly turned and went back inside, fed the dog, took her contraceptive pill and finally left for work.'
Okay, that example is a bit clunky but you get the idea. I am so guilty of this, like not putting tiny details in that give our characters and scenes a bit more meat on the bone. To much is a very bad thing, we don't want to get laid down with loads of boring crap (pardon the pun) but a little here and there works wonders I think.

 

One thing I like to think I'm good at is having my female characters say they're on birth control or the older ones had hysterectomies, and when using supernatural powers, the characters are immune from STDs ad I often have something like "You'll need to get fucked doggie style every weekend, and when you're on your period, you'll take it up your ass," or "no panties unless you're on your period."

 

Oh, I can assure you, my characters are using the toilet, to a fault some would say XD

In the 1215 chapters I written so far there is exactly one were having her period is a plot point, uh that's better then nothing?

Gina definitely agrees with a lack of pets. As long as these pets are sharks.

I have to admit defeat on the STD front.

 

Yesterday I saw this and chuckled at the large-part truth to it. Upon reflection, I realized why we don't include such things in our stories.

In the ttrpg world, the DM and players will frequently do something referred to as handwaving: unless something is relevant to the story, it is omitted. This goes doubly for unpleasant experiences that aren't relevant: why would you go into detail about an unpleasant experience if it's not relevant to the story? Seems to me that that would be a gross violation of Chekov's Gun. So things like bathroom usage (except in those cases of fetish exploration), periods, minor food poisoning, and descriptions of trees longer than a page (unless you are either Tolkien or trolling) will get omitted.

Meanwhile as to why pets aren't things, this is an erotica site. Presenting pets, even in a non-erotic context, within our stories would usually be a distraction to the story.

 

100%!

This is one of the things I found hardest to learn as a writer when I first started out. I come from a background of technical writing, so I had (and to some extent still have) a habit of writing for absolute clarity. Nothing is worse than a manual or design that's ambiguous, but the core purpose of fiction is not the maximally-efficient transmission of information! It's telling a story, and readers are extremely good at filling in or glossing over blanks that are not absolutely necessary for the plot. It doesn't matter whether your protagonist has 36D or 38E boobs or if they weigh 70 or 71 kg, obviously, but the same goes for the more dynamic content of your story.

If 2 characters get a bite to eat as a brief intermission between 2 more substantive scenes, you don't need to exhaustively account for every second they spend doing it. All you have to do is establish a reason for going (a growling stomach, a need for a break), the core of the activity (describe if the food is good or bad), and the end of it (bye bye, see you tomorrow). Don't talk about them locking the door behind them as they depart from home, the route they take to the diner, or what their waiter looks like. Don't describe them poring over the menu, or indeed the brief bathroom break one of them takes... unless those details enhance the story!

If they've been flirting previously, maybe they walk back from the diner arm in arm, and describing how the sunlight shimmers through the softly rustling leaves creates a romantic feel. Or maybe they're office rivals and verbally spar while waiting for their meal to arrive, but are then surprised to discover some common ground, which can serve as an early indication of a slow shift in their relationship. Or maybe while person A is in the bathroom, person B obnoxiously hits on the waiter, demonstrating to the reader how little B cares about their relationship with A.

(Note how in these examples, the "extra" details make the scene serve multiple purposes too; this is another trait of "good writing".)


Those musings aside, other things that don't happen much in stories:
- Getting dressed (for a normal day)
- Eating alone
- Grocery shopping
- Home cleaning

 

I've written several of those things (does it count if it's a demonic STI?). But some others that come to mind, although these are mostly situational:

- Have sex in zero gravity
- Have sex underwater
- Felching
- Say something stupid at the moment to ruin the mood ("Happy birthday, grandma!")
- Awkward, unfulfilling sex
- Planning or cleanup for the orgy
- Sneezing during oral sex

I like a certain amount of small detail, mundane tasking, and sudden injection of people being flawed/stupid/etc. into sexual scenarios. Also my imagination tends towards weirdness and the occasional bit of grossness and humor. It's kind of boring if everything goes lovey-dovey and perfect and you have to try to describe sex that is always hot and awesome and leaves people fulfilled at some spiritual level that they can never hope to obtain in reality.

 

I've thought about the period thing on occasion, wondering how to (or if I even should) interact with my character's monthly cycles, and considering how diverse the experience tends to be, and how often I already have to deal with it (more than I'd like to, for the record), it tends to become something I'd prefer to leave alone. In the case of something like a beastial estrus cycle, then the matter becomes more relavent, but that biological process generally is treated as a very distinct one from our feeble human periods.

I think the bathroom thing tends to be how everyone else says it is: just not important. Yeah sure, they do their business, but it's their business, not yours (unless that's what you're into, but that's your business, not mine).

Also, I'd feel kinda like a piece of shit if I gave the heroine AIDS (seriously why would I do that we put our poor girls through enough).

Now as for pets, I think it's a real shame how difficult it is to insert an animal into a place of humans doing human things. Once again, Chekov's gun becomes the issue here. What's the point of adding a character to 'look cute' for nothing other than to be there? It's hard to make the dog/cat/whatever anything more than fluff for a scene (pun intended).

 

I think there is a sensitive and intelligent way to include sexually transmitted diseases, even incurable ones, into an erotic narrative. Maybe the first chapter starts with the heroine catching HIV and then the story is dedicated to them trying to find love while navigating that experience. Maybe the protagonist is a bug chaser who has an erotic need to be infected for some deep-seated psychological problem. Perhaps it's a fantasy where the STD is part of a magical curse and gets in the way of the protagonist and their love interest doing things the old-fashioned way, so there's building sexual tension and discovering what else they can do without genital-to-genital contact, and it ends when they find a cure and their relationship is stronger. Perhaps it's a science fiction story and the super-advanced medicine can cure syphilis with a pill in fifteen minutes. Hell, I've been wanting to do a horror story where...well, we won't go into that here.

The thing is, I think, that an STI is generally a big consequence, and unless you want to devote a substantial amount of the story to it, or you have some plot-specific reason for including it, then the STI rarely enhances the enjoyment of the story. If you have a slightly raunchy story of free use love in a college dorm, adding gonorrhea to the mix isn't exactly going to enhance the thrill of consequence-free sex. And if you wanted to highlight the potential dangers of an STI in a free use world, it would be titled something like It Burns When I Pee: A Love Story.

 

Also if you don't include mention of it you can pretend, just briefly, that they don't exist.

 

I feel like including a mention or a short scene of a pet should be easy. It's another way to give someone character.
If they have a dog that's well taken care of then that character must be responsible and reliable. Very desirable traits in a partner.
If they have any of the creepy crawly pets then that character is eccentric, mysterious, or just a weirdo. I'm saying they're interesting, not trying to put anyone down!

Finally, conflict in a free use world story.

 

This thread reminded me of this VLDL video: (turn on subs before watching)

 

"Hmm, I've somehow gotten reality-altering powers. Should I use them to have sex with my favorite celebrity?...

No, I'm going to solve global warming, end world hunger, and eliminate poverty."

 

This. This this this. If I or anyone here was to actually get supers powers of some kind, we wouldn't go straight to banging, we'd be going around and doing things. Then we'd, of course, start banging, but that's besides the point.

Personally, if I get a genie to grant me wishes, I'm going to change the world for the better (I hope I would, at least), and I don't think enough stories ever really get around to seeing if their MC's use their god power in any beneficial capacity.

 

That's actually a good premise for a story. Like, "right, I've solved the worlds problems, everyone is happy and healthy, um, what do I do now? Ooh, look at her, she's hot..."

 

Lot of stories on chyoa about fixing social issues?

 

I will admit that I did a chapter in which someone -- using an app that alters reality by allowing you to make statements about what's true for a certain percentage of the population -- drastically changed the world for the better: https://chyoa.com/chapter/Creating-the-Future.807173

(In order to have sci-fi-style food replicators, you basically have to have unlimited energy available, which solves a heck of a lot of problems in the world. I should write a follow-up to this where the character gets a good ending living in the utopia they inadvertently created.)

 

Most of these things missing is just to save time. Writing about the prep for anal sex takes time and effort. Writing about someone going to the bathroom offers very little to the writer unless it is somehow important for the scene due to other reasons. Like sexy shenanigans happening while this one person is out.


Writing about putting on condoms likely should happen more. Especially since you can do that in a sexy way. And it would give more impact to sex scenes where protection isn't used. Heck, starting the sex scene with a condom on and then having one of the partners take it off because they want to feel the dick inside them raw and to be bred by the guy, makes for a hot scene.

 

I will put my hand up here and admit that the one time I’ve written an anal scene, I guiltily hand-waved the prep with a ten second time skip and a pretty lazy “magic did it”. Though it was supposed to be a very spontaneous scene!