When should half-assing be allowed?

It's clear that not all writings are created equal, and others like their writing style to be more complex/simple, long/short, serious/satirical, and purely erotic/semi-erotic with a story involved, other than the objective of getting laid every chapter.

But surely not all authors are expected to give all of their writings their 100% as that, to me at least, is draining. Many an author, from what I've seen from time to time, also have their own occasional short stories where it seems like a chicken was impersonating them that day, and I've been told advice that there are times where it's best to write what you have in your head, instead of what you want.

So, in your opinion dear reader, when do you believe that an author has the right to half-ass a story/chapter every now and then? Or if you're the owner of a publically open story, when do you allow for low quality chapters being added to the branches?

 

It’s kind of like when people criticize Disney for using the Chris scene in Winnie the Pooh and replacing it with Mowgli for the Jungle Book scene. There are certain moments that can be half assed in order to make sure the important scenes really hit and have the most impact. Do we really need Shakespeare for a scene where they’re just talking or walking around? Imagine you’re getting ready to have sex, and instead of actually doing it, your SO takes 30 minutes walking up the stairs for a long drawn out scene… I may be a virgin, but I’m pretty sure that’s a kill the mood moment. I think those certain scenes can be half assed.

Yeah we get it they’re going up stairs, get to the point. It would be like if a movie studio paid millions of dollars for VFX on the background people. It’s just not worth it.

So I’d say it’s okay to half ass the unimportant scenes in order to get to the important scenes.

 

Writing erotica should be fun. The point of CHYOA is to have fun.

Different writers will approach their work in different ways, depending on how much sleep they've been getting, the phase of the moon, whose face they are sitting on, the tightness of their underwear, whether the stars are right, etc. There's not wrong way to do it, as long as you abide by the basic rules CHYOA sets down, and the most important judge of your work is, at the end of the day, you.

So you half-ass it when you want to half-ass it, or when you need to half-ass it. The edit button exists for a reason. Some people want to give it 100% all the time, and that's fine if that's what they want to do, but nobody is pointing a gun to your dog's head and threatening to shoot if you don't pound out an erotic magnum opus every single time. Your own tastes and habits as a writer have to come into play.

That being said...

I think it is important if you want to improve as a writer to assess your own writing. Look at how you write things, look at how other people write things, experiment with different styles, change up how you order chapters or scenes, expand your vocabulary, dip into different kinks than you're used to. None of that is a requirement - and if you're happy with your writing as it is, no need to change it. Yet I think a lot of writers fall into a kind of rut, where they reach a certain level of proficiency and then just...stop getting creative. Stop trying as hard. The work might still be readable, but maybe lacks a certain something, or fails to get past a workmanlike quality.

Which, again, is okay. If you're not a professional writer, you don't necessarily need all sixteen common terms for penis in your vocabulary. If you want to get to that next level, however, maybe you start recognizing you're half-assing those anal scenes and decide "No, today, at least for this chapter, I'm going to go full ass. I'm going to describe that rectum getting fucked like I'm painting the Sistine Chapel of butt sex and describing it to a blind woman so she can jill off to it."

If that isn't your bag? If it turns out not to work out? Well hey, you tried! And that's all we can do, really.

 

It depends. If its someone else's story I would try not to drop below the standards already set, but if its one of the many free-for-all mayhem public stories where anything goes then I'm more than happy to chuck a few chapters in without the benefit of engaging much cranial activity. Its like having a cheap beer watching the game rather than sipping a single malt. Fun, but not exactly a highlight.
Sometimes though I guess you need to take a step back and remind yourself - I can do better than this, and at least try.
So I guess, if its not my story, then I'll take the lead from the tone already set, frivolous or deep.

As a reader though, I'll forgive a lot, grammar, vocab etc, but if it starts to get repetitive, chapter after chapter and I guess the writer is jumping the shark, just going through the motions then I'll switch off and find something else.

 

A few moments that were written in a half-assed style are alright in my eyes. Firstly, we all fuck up many, many times in our lives, definitely more than we succeed. In fact, I actually just fucked up really bad recently and might have to move states because of it. Yet, that doesn't mean that that's entirely a bad thing, it could be good depending on how you take the feedback because it will help you learn. Plus, CHYOA is a very blessed site in that nothing you write is set in stone and stories can be edited ad infinitum without everyone noticing. Also, no matter how many times people deny it, bad writing can be good. If the stars are aligned the right way (basically if the right context is given) then the story could be interesting even with a half-assed moment in it. I've actually never seen a half-assed moment work well for a story myself, but I'm a big believer in the ambiguity of literature. So, I'd wager that something like that does exist somewhere, sometime, I just haven't found it.

Prior to my reply, many mentioned grammar and vocabulary, saying half-assing it indirectly correlates with quality. This is somewhat true, but it's not the entire truth. Grammar and intelligent-sounding vocabulary don't have much to do with writing other than making the work look nice and professional. In the context of erotica, it can also make the work easier to jack off to (based on personal experience) since you don't need to replace, skip over, or even change words around so that it makes sense when you're reading it to yourself. Yet, despite the fact it could be seen as trivial, semi-average, basic grammar is necessary to make a story sound right. Knowing any language fluently and being able to put your thoughts into basic whatever is good enough until you decide to publish it. I actually like to type the first draft in Google Docs with half-wit grammar and first grader vocabulary, that way the ideas are on paper before I forget them. As a non sequitur, I only write in English since that's the only language I know besides somewhat-above-average Latin, very basic Korean, and even more minimal Russian. Anyway, once the draft is done, I rewrite it properly and run the documents through about six online grammar checkers. In the end, I'll finally give it to my one, unpaid editor, my brother. The writing takes a very varied amount of time, but the editing process takes about five minutes tops. I get quite upset when I see whole goddamn stories with hundreds upon hundreds of chapters written like my first drafts or in gibberish that I can't bear to consider English when it literally takes less than five minutes to run it through a grammar checker and a semi-decent translator. I won't name names, and I'm not trying to put anybody down in any way. I know not everyone has a younger brother as cool as mine who allows me to chuck him a document so that he can proofread it, either IRL (we live together) or via email (when he's not home). Yet, please, for God's sake, fix the grammar whenever possible.

Just because the first paragraph said I'm quite cool with a single half-assed moment doesn't mean I accept whole stories written in that way. If you have some rushed plot lines or cliché moments in a story that took many days, weeks, or months to finish, I don't really mind. It's actually better that way, it shows you're human and that you are not perfect. If you wrote the whole story from cover to cover (I don't know a phrase equivalent to "cover to cover" which refers to stuff online) with rushed plot lines and cliché moments in twelve hours, then depending on the author, I won't really mind again or I'll mind a lot. I think the best way to describe this is by telling the story of two Ancient Roman poets: my former Latin teacher's favorite poet, Gaius Valerius Catullus (I'll just call him Catullus) and his polar opposite in terms of poetry style, the forgotten Suffenus. During his career, Catullus was a poet who was very careful, meticulous, and intelligent when it came to word choice, poetic meter, and syntax. He never "churned out" poetry (as my teacher said) like a factory, Catullus worked on each and every line with great scrutiny and high standards. All in all, Catullus' poetry was polished and well-thought-out. Of course, it wasn't always perfect per se, but it was definitely making significant leaps to reach that. On the contrary, as Catullus described in a poem to a friend named Varus, Suffenus was "venestus et dicax et urbanus" (charming and witty and sophisticated), but only during physical interaction. To make this a bit easier to understand, Catullus essentially spent the beginning of the poem saying how Suffenus would be a great guy to have a beer or a cocktail with. The praises end when Catullus says Suffenus becomes a "caprimulgus aut fossor" (goat-herder or ditch-digger) when he writes. Suffenus does the exact opposite of Catullus in poetry. While Catullus values quality, Suffenus contrarily values quantity. Apparently, Catullus said the latter has written over ten thousand verses, all of which Catullus disapproves of. Quality outweighed quantity in writing during their lives and it still does now. Catullus had high standards for his work and treated every aspect of his works with the same amount of dedication. There is no trophy I know of that is given to the guy who churns out the most stories ever assuming how well the story is written is ignored. I understand that there are plenty of people here who write because it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy without much care for how well the finished product turns out and that's just fine, Suffenus was the same way. The cool guy on the streets of Rome who became a shell of his normal self when writing only seemed truly happy, according to Catullus, when writing poetry, even if it was bad poetry. The only problem that I see with this ideology is that the people similar to Suffenus often seem to take the inevitable backlash very personally despite the fact they only wrote what they wrote for fun and games. If I ever wrote trash to joke around, I'd ignore all the resulting negativity since it was supposed to be bad, not something I wanted people to take seriously. I don't really like writing joke stories since I'm like Catullus in that I have high standards for myself and what I'm reading (don't assume that means I'm a narcissist, my self-esteem is actually quite low and I only act like I'm egotistical on rare occasions to cover it up). Although I would love it if everyone wrote in the same process as me, I know that's not the case. It's all good if you want to churn out half-assed stories every twelve hours for kicks, but I will give you a piece of my mind when you're expecting praise for something that had no effort put into it.

I understand this is a long reply, so if you're that one guy who only reads the end, I got you, here's a recap:

1. A few moments written in a half-assed way within a serious story are fine because we are human and because it could work in theory.
2. Half-assing grammar and vocabulary does have some part to play with a story's quality, but it isn't as big as people might make it out to be.
3. Editing is important and takes very little time to do in comparison to the bulk of the writing, please do it.
4. Catullus and Suffenus were Ancient Roman poets who personify the two basic writing styles: Catullus was more focused on making a good poem than how many he wrote, Suffenus was more focused on churning out as many poems as possible without much care for quality.
5. Half-assing an entire story for fun is not a bad thing, half-assing a story of similar quality and saying it's serious without expecting backlash is a bad thing.

Whew, this took over an hour to type, but I don't care, I've got plenty of time. Anyway, that's what I think. Feel free to reply in a civil manner with or without agreement.

 

I'm not gonna read that, wow.

 

Yeah, the main points are near the end, you can just read that.

 

IMO, it is always allowed. Unless you do something like opening Patreon and gathering money for your work on Chyoa, you are writing for your own enjoyment and should put as little (or as much) effort in your stories as you wish.

 

I half-agree with the previous answer. You're in the sense that we write for our own enjoyment. I know for sure that a major reason why I write is to somewhat escape reality and live in a fantasy of my design for just a few minutes. That aside, I interpreted the question as, "When should a reader ignore a part of the story that isn't as polished?" So, you're answer makes sense when the writer is the one that is being referred to.

Also, if there is anyone software-savvy here right now, I linked the notifications I get on this forum to my email, but I always get the email at least three minutes after the message was sent. As a comparison, when I'm actually on the site, I'm informed of a post thanks to the "alerts" thing in the top immediately after a refresh. Is there any way to improve the syncing between this site and my email? My email uses Gmail by the way.

 

I suggest making a separate post on the general category, have the mods see you easier there.

 

Okay, will do. I'm still feeling somewhat lazy after typing my original answer, so I'll copy and paste from here.

 

I'll echo the take that if it's my story, I'm okay with letting the odd expository chapter or chapter that feels like it needs more work but the work isn't worth it slide in. If it's in someone else's, I liked the advice given earlier: the courteous thing is to try to keep close to the standards they set.

Though, when it comes to whether I personally feel something I've written is half-assed or not, I think it has a lot less to do with the proofreading and length then it does if the chapter accomplished what I wanted. I.e. did I spend a chapter just moving characters from point A to point B, or did I use it to world build, character build, etc.? Is the dialogue dry or did I think of something funny/cool/sexy/whatever? Is the sex just sex or did I think of a neat twist?

Proofreading and being descriptive is good, but finding a typo in my stuff or putting up a short chapter bothers me a lot less than realizing the chapter I put up is boring. To me, if I go full-ass, it's more about that sort of thing than how many words I put down for it.

 

Anyone willing to venture a link to two chapters of their own? One which they consider full-ass and the other half-ass?

 

I'm not in the mood for someone to insult me right now, kind of feel shitty mentally.

 

Heh. Sure, what the hell...

Full ass: Epilogue: Bat-Breeder III: Spoiler Alert

Half ass: Rock Paper Scissors

 

anything from "Uno Reverse Card" would really count for this, but I go with this one. I have no fucking idea how that got 9 Likes

https://chyoa.com/chapter/Gotta-be-the-brother-right.916074


Now as for a chapter which I definitely also half assed, but kinda like

https://chyoa.com/chapter/Rina,-20,-Captain-of-the-Beach-Volleyball-Club-Wildcats.886036

 

Nice. They're both good works, but I can see there's a bit more time and effort in the full ass one and its easier to see and believe the scene
However, your worst is far from bad and your half-ass is more than some folk going full-Kardashian.

For mine I'll go for:

Half-ass I tend to chuck an image in to make up for the dearth of writing talent : https://chyoa.com/chapter/Jervis-street-Jail.987769

Full-ass : https://chyoa.com/chapter/Janice---The-office-cleaner.1009837

 

Excellent - more bad-ass than half-ass!
Can definitely tell which you put most effort into. Full-ass is almost a self contained story in its own right. I liked the twist at the end.

 

Newbie here, but I'll toss a couple out there.

Full Ass: https://chyoa.com/chapter/Home-Grown-Tits.997378
Half Ass: https://chyoa.com/chapter/A-Young-Couple-Enters-the-Fray.1007563

For me it's about the content. If the chapter feels full and well thought out, then I would toss that in the Full Ass category. If the chapter is pretty dry and meant to move the story along, then it feels like I am Half Assing it even though I'm still accomplishing something with the chapter.

 

You know, looking back, this is probably my most half-assed story to date, even if it's not technically a chapter:
https://chyoa.com/story/Travel-Back-in-Time-and-accidentally-fuck-your-mother.31981

As for full-assed, it's either my little horror story but that's not erotic. So instead, it's this:
https://chyoa.com/chapter/Bikini-Bottom.688883