Do you think that there should be 'bad ends' / 'dead ends' and rejections in a story? For me, I grew up on "Choose your own adventure horror" books. Surviving these things were always very difficult, but that's what I liked about it the most. But how about you guys in erotica? Personally, I want to write a story that is challenging and where you can't blindly choose anything and expect it to work. But I know some readers will be put off by this. What's your opinion as a reader, and as an author? Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Damn, now there's a good question! As a guy who loves foreplay, my gut feeling is "quite difficult." I love reading bad ends, personally. They're my most favorite ones to write for Lust of the Golden Witch. In Kami Kurabe, the losing endings seem to be more popular than the winning ones based on the feedback! When a lot of detail is put into the bad end, they're as neat as the good ends! Plus, in this format, you can usually go back a chapter and repick. I would just try to keep in mind some way not to make it too punishing for a player, so he can either backtrack and repick or perhaps loop back to a shortcut. It's quite a blessing for someone to choose to read a story and I like to try and make sure they have some convenience features, so they aren't starting at 0 if they mess up, so to speak. If it's a game mode story, I'd try to keep that well in mind (you can only hit previous chapter so many times in sequence before it goes gray and inactive). If it's not game mode, they can jump around anyway. Even the bad end should sort of sound like it has a hook, ideally. Not to toot my own horn, but as an example, a bad end where a witch kidnaps you to use your semen as coffee creamer for all eternity has some heft to it! Not that they can all be so bizarre, but you get what I mean: never forget to make the writing entertaining, even in your bad ends. If anyone has examples of those kind of winding, punishing stories, I'd be interested to see some. I think Kami Kurabe is the most punishing I have; it's very easy to end up getting branded in your first couple of matches. The stats requirements might be too punishing.
I have a couple of 'game over' endings in a story of mine. Because it's ~30 chapters deep, I've kept them fairly early on, but even so, they seem to have been the wrong decision, based on feedback. In that regard, I think whether dead ends are a good idea depends on the Game Mode weight of your story. If the reader feels like they're losing something other than just time by 'dying', then perhaps implement some way to allow them to restart without losing too much. My own solution is to not end the story as a punishment, but instead take away items and force them into 'rooms' that make them more likely to reach the bad ending. Similarly, rewards involve giving them new items and putting them into rooms that are nearer to the good ending. In a way, you're asking two different questions, and the reason I say that is that it's not super necessary to tie your decision points to whether the reader gets a sex scene. Instead, you can use decisions to determine which kind of sex scene they access. For instance, say the reader has a Charisma score, and wants to woo the female guard so that he can sneak into the castle. You might think the obvious options would be: His score is high enough to persuade her, so they have sex and he gets into the castle. His score is too low, so nothing happens. It doesn't have to be this way. Instead, you could have: His score is high enough, so they have sex and he gets into the castle. His score is too low, but he doesn't realise this. The guard sees through him but wants the best of both worlds, so has sex with him, then arrests him for trespassing afterward and takes him to the castle dungeon. You could even have another split immediately after the second where the reader has a variety of choices as to how to escape the dungeon. The key here is to not make X or not X happen, but rather, let X or the equally interesting Y happen. It's best to write in a way that allows your story to go down multiple weird and interesting paths, instead of just the one you thought of first. That said, I rather enjoy the idea of certain sex scenes being locked behind difficulty, or even just getting lucky based on a seemingly unrelated choice. This is fine as long as you have something else for those who miss out. It doesn't need to be parallel; in fact, it's rather interesting to have options where you can either have a sex scene now, or most likely unlock one later. For instance, the reader might be in a tavern telling tales of their adventures when a gorgeous barmaid expresses her desire to venture out and see the world herself. However, the reader is also aware that she will do anything with her body for the right price. He offers to take her on his travels. This opens up the potential for a relationship that lasts more than a couple of chapters, and provides a bigger, better payoff later on with more sex scenes. He buys her services. As a result, the barmaid is less smitten by him and does not wish to travel with him. This gives the reader an instant sex scene in exchange for losing a future opportunity. There's even another element here with a secondary goal of the reader, which is money. Maybe they want a sex scene now, but they want to save their money even moreso, so they choose the first option. It's always worthwhile to have at least some incentive in your story that isn't explicitly sexual and balance that out with the sexual payoffs. In this way, you have different types of readers making different choices, and following paths that are actually catered to them. Someone who wants to play for longer is more likely to choose the first option. Sex scenes are an interesting tool because they're usually a payoff for the reader, but not strictly a good thing for the character. In this regard, it's important to balance them correctly, so as to not bore your reader regardless of the choices they make.
I like the idea of bad ends - I just haven't written any yet. Not every path need be equal, and the existence of bad ends adds a frisson to a game, since it becomes possible to lose. Victory without the possibility of loss removes some of the sweetness.
Your initial thoughts were mine, but your second point gives me pause. I was intending on using the 'bad ends' / dead ends as a (Go back and try again, dude) type of slap on the wrist. But they're sparse on erotic writing (which ties into Insert's excellent recommendation). Thank you also for the suggestions. I'm new to game design; however, writing is an old passion of mine, so I can at least spice up the bad endings / encourage readers (or should I think of them more as players?) towards re-engagement, not disengagement. Thank you for the thorough response. You raise 4 points of interest I'd like to reply (although you raised well more than 4). 1 - Game Mode weight - As I'm new to the game aspect, it was not my intention to utilize such a tool (which I was not even aware of). Instead, I would have Mishap paths (from bad player decisions) lead past certain options, but always towards new ones. Dead Ends, however are like a "try again" single screen ending, to give the sense of "frisson" as Zeebop so eloquently put it. 2 - More sex, either path. I adore this suggestion. Thank you, I will really take it to heart when I am designing these Mishaps or Deads. 3 - X or Y, move down different paths. I really like this idea. I need to orient myself more to the storyboard design to really implement this, I think. Is it possible for, as you said, both X or Y (down different paths) both lead to, for example, the same 'Z'? 4 - I think everyone who's replied has echoed this last sentiment of certain scenes being locked / decision based. For me, I would really like it to be a situation where a reader/player can still succeed in Scenario B, even if he didn't do so well in Scenario A. I think my writing style is more geared toward that 'Myst' style than the 'One Way Hero' style. Again, thank you for the very interesting and well-thought out response. Does it need to be a complete / unrecoverable loss, that 'bad end'? As stated by others above, I think the Game Mode aspect lends towards a different game/story design style. Being a novice at that aspect, I think I'd ask you what kind of extent of loss is necessary to achieve frisson, in your eyes.
In that case, there's no real downside to dead ends, as there's no Game Mode score to be lost when the player restarts. If every second option leads to death, then it could get annoying, but other than that, I think they're a decent way to raise tension. If you're asking whether this is possible in CHYOA, then yes. You can use link chapters - just ensure you leave the link chapters blank, because anything you write in them will be deleted. I think it's an interesting and engaging (not to mention time-saving) technique to be able to tie two paths together at both ends, if that makes sense, as it makes the cohesiveness of the world and story more apparent when replaying. That said, if you're making it inevitable that, no matter what, X and Y both always lead to Z, then I prefer this only to happen for really, obviously small and meaningless decisions: "Do you order a steak or spaghetti?" "Do you cum on her back or creampie her ass?" Unless you're deliberately trying to fool the reader, it should be possible for them to guess how relevant the choice before them will be for the future. I digress, however, as I know this isn't what you mean. You can introduce the possibility of loss without having bad ends (though it's tricky without Game Mode). It all comes down to what the reader considers 'victory' or 'loss'. Let's say, in the same story, Alice wants to slay the dark lord and free the land from tyranny, whereas Bobby wants to woo his cleric friend and marry her and have lots of kids. There's an ending where the good guys kill the dark lord, but the cleric has to sacrifice herself to make it possible. Is this an objective 'victory' or 'loss'? No - Alice and Bobby have different goals, so will react differently to this outcome. It's like how in a videogame, there might be no strictly useless items, but a player who likes to swing a huge sword will not appreciate a dagger or wand. If you introduce more than just a single yes/no goal in your story, then you can create several endings where you fail the main goal but at least have something interesting occur.
It depends on how much content you have. If you have a lot of sex, anything else is fair game, but if you've only got one missionary scene and half a titwank, making the "player" click through pages of potentially dead ends to get there is a slap in the face. I also think you should offer a good sex scene (preferably a selection of scenes) right up front, so that the player knows what they're dealing with and if it's worth trying to get to any more. If you can give the player an, ehem, satisfying session of play in five chapters out of sixty, you can bet your ass they'll be back to see what lies within. Personally, I think the more sex, the better. If you want a challenge, add sex scenes that are hard to unlock (e.g. you get a blowjob for free in the first three pages, but if you want her to swallow, you have to go on an epic quest).
It is certainly possible to have too much sex - that is, when it makes the story incohesive, lacking in suspension of disbelief, or otherwise silly. I say it's at least important to have 'breather' chapters every so often. I would say that I see stories including too much sex, at the expense of writing anything worth wasting one's time or attention on, far more often than I do stories that are so lacking in sex they're boring. A particularly common issue is when characters that obviously have no close or positive relationship decide to have sex for absolutely no reason. It just remindeds the reader that they're reading text on a screen, and that the characters are just figments of their imagination. This is a very good technique when it comes to drawing readers in, which is becoming increasingly important in our fast-paced world. In a similar regard, I especially like when a story begins in media res; that is, partway through the plot already, and perhaps in the middle of a sex scene. I also don't mind when a story has its first sex scene a few chapters deep, but begins with hints of erotica: characters flirting, someone have a mild wardrobe malfunction, the protagonist having obscene thoughts about their crush. One of my favourite stories on the entire site doesn't even have an actual sex scene, but it's so laden with sexual language that the emotional difference is negligible.
Depends on the writer, I think. If the tone of the story is commensurate, a "hard" bad end might be the way to go; if the tone is lighter, try-try-again might be the order of the day. I think there's a degree of excitement that comes with facing and overcoming a challenge - but nobody wants to make it too hard; this is all in good fun after all, and I imagine a lot of folks browse these stories one-handed.
Right now, the number of maximum backsteps is set to 10. (Every linking chapter counts as an additional backstep.)
Didn't know that about the links, that explains a lot. I thought the number was like five or something since I was forgetting those. Thank you.
I think it depends on what your story/game is for. I've definitely been titillated by stories that are practically porn and I've been invested in stories where you have to achieve a result. Both have their place. I've seen "Slow Burn" used as a tag for stories where there is a lead up to the sexy times, I think if you can find a way to say "Hey, this story is a power fantasy about pulling every girl in your high school into your personal harem" or "Hey, this game is basically the Dark Souls of sex" will help a reader find what they're looking for. Does this mean that a linked chapter counts as a "previous chapter"? I've got a work in progress where the reader picks out physical attributes and then goes onto the next one which involves a ton of linked chapters...
Well, assume we have following structure: The Chapters are child chapters to the introduction. The Links are child chapters of the chapter above them 1. Chapter A 1.1. Link B (Links to C) 2. Chapter C 2.1. Link D (Links to E) 3. Chapter E 3.1 Link F (Links to G) 4. Chapter G 4.1 Link H (Links to I) 5. Chapter I 5.1 Link J (Links to K) 6. Chapter K 6.1 Link L (Links to M) 7. Chapter M Now, the reader chooses the following options 1 Chapter A 3 Link B -> forwards to Chapter C 5 Link D -> forwards to Chapter E 7 Link F -> forwards to Chapter G 9 Link H -> forwards to Chapter I 11 Link J -> forwards to Chapter K 13 Link L -> forwards to Chapter M The number at the beginning of each line is the number of historical save game data sets you would need to go back to Chapter A. But when you reached chapter M, you only have 10 sets left. Now clicking on previous gets you to chapter K with 8 sets left. previous -> chapter I with 6 sets left previous -> chapter G with 4 sets left previous -> chapter E with 2 sets left previous -> chapter C with 0 sets left So you can't go back to chapter A. (Right now, I'm not completely sure if it actually counts a chapter more. If so, it would already end at E.) Usually, the "previous" link is greyed out if you can't go back anymore. In some cases it is available but clicking gets you a popup message that you can't get back. In these cases, the previous chapter is a chapter link.
Oh, I think I get it now. The hidden chapter that redirects the reader to the linked chapter counts in the "previous chapter" limit, so it costs two chapters instead of one.
Wha type of bad ends are we talking about? Game-wise bad end, is one where you lose the progress you've accumulated. It's death, go back to the start, or to the last save. Plot-wise bad end is one where the character gets killed, imprisondened, but also possilby loses the objective of her quest, or her love or, well, the list of sexual mishaps can get very long form here The first one tunes the 'difficulty' of the game, it may result frustrating for the reader, especially if it doesn't come with rewarding sex chapter. On the other hand, not giving a sex scence, could be considered perse a bad end, game-wise. That said, it encourages replayability of the game. The second one can be ideally handled separatley, giving almost no penalty to the reader and sending him back to a previous 'save point'. It also maybe planned upon, in a setting were the main character has to survive an hostile environment. In this case, most of the time the player will be actively fishing for the different sexual bad ends, which, game-wise, will be actual goals of the game.
