When should half-assing be allowed?

Half assed: https://chyoa.com/chapter/A-visitor-stops-by.934399

Full assed: https://chyoa.com/chapter/A-trap.953800

 

Full-ass spanking! you describe the story so well that it makes the reader have to follow on for the next chapters.
Your half-ass was really just a couple of sentences though, which I get - in the CHYOA format, it makes sense and allows for more branching and reader choice.

 

Excellent work as always Warden. Your time travel one is more light hearted and fun rather than half-assed - actually bikini bottom seems to be fairly light hearted and fun too. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything of yours I would consider half-assed. Your horror story is definitely an ass-and-a-half. And your WWII tale of Stan Anton probably needed a double seat to itself on the bus.

 

Was more telling of the sex scenes in this one to be honest. Short and feels like I wasn't really trying in writing them.

 

This is the only story of mine where I would consider everything to be full assed: https://chyoa.com/story/It-Started-with-Panties.36525

and it wasn’t necessarily intentional…

 

Wouldn't call it half-assed, if not entertainingly comedic.

A tad rushed, sure, but it has its moments.

“I’m gay,” Natasha said bluntly. - This one got a chuckle out of me, though I imagine none of these are intentionally comedic...

 

Oh it definitely is comedic. And I’ll just pretend everything is intentional because unintentional comedic moments are technically intentional

 

You just described my sense of humor with one paragraph.

 

The idea of a half-ass episode reminds me of the 'bottle episode' trope from screenwriting. They're sometimes to lull the plot to make an impending climax episode feel more dramatic, or just to save budget, but they can often be works of art in their own way. They absolutely serve a narrative purpose.

I'm an amateur writer dabbling in niche stuff so I can get away with some pretty limp episodes, and I regularly abuse that because I'm getting frustrated with the pace. It might look like a lack of respect for the reader but actually I think it's the opposite. I wouldn't expect them to sit through a dull chapter any more than I'd expect myself to invest my energy into writing a filler chapter.

I'd love to hear if any regular readers had an opinion on this. It's hard to know what people think when all the analytics we have are chapter views and likes.

This topic caught my attention because a story I'm drafting is averaging 2500 words per chapter and very different to anything I've written before; each thread is three chapters deep before the plot really starts; I'm starting to get anxious that nobody is going to want to read this much content. I'm basically making the Hobbit of psychological bondage (in a bad way).

 

For me, half-assing an episode is usually when I want to get a chapter out, and especially when I want to get from plot point A to plot point B, and I just don't have the energy or creativity to make it a full-blown erotic epic of an episode. So there's a lot of filler, usually in short back-and-forth dialogue, which is really easy to fluff up and create a bit of drama. I think readers can usually tell the difference between when I actually get into a sex scene and when I'm basically marking time, trying to move the story along without really going into the heights of detail and language that I use when I'm really working it.

Part of which is because, when you write as many sex scenes as I have in this story, it's really difficult to bring the same energy to anal sex scene #667. At some point it feels like going through the motions, and it can be especially tricky when the particular plot doesn't necessarily call for something really weird or kinky that might give it a bit of extra flair, so...things tend to either get very by-the-numbers, or well and truly weird. Some of the more bizarre branches in the story started out with me half-assing it, the half-assed chapter proving surprisingly popular, and then I ended up following that batshit crazy idea to some natural or unnatural conclusion.

Which probably isn't good for the story as a whole, because the personalities of characters can yo-yo back and forth in that kind of writing. But, y'know. Some people like it.

 

So, I haven't tried this short interactive gameplay-style writing yet, so I'm not 100% I understand the definition of half-assing. Is it a low-effort, poorly edited steaming pile of shit? Or are you referring to cutting out details of action/emotion?

With the shorter length of stories - especially the chapter ones - here in general, I'd feel each word carries more weight to the plot.

I'd argue the latter is a skill that takes time and practice to learn. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes getting into the descriptions heighten the experience (but if I have to read another fucking laundry list of attributes I will fucking scream - get creative with how you describe characters and introduce information). Like others said (sorry, I'm too lazy to quote everyone), you don't need to detail Joe's journey from standing up from the sofa, going up the stairs, the entirety of his shower routine (unless his shower is his place to jack off while fantasizing about that new girl at work he wants to fuck), and the way he brushes his teeth and the position he sleeps. Most of that could probably be condensed or cut. In fact, depending on the story and style you're telling it in, you can even employ jump cuts to just keep our attention on the important bits, sort of like a screenplay.

In a sense, as writers, we are sculptors and directors. We chip and style what we have, but also we block out the scenes and choose where to focus, who gets the close-up, what we show to the reader, etc.

Disclaimer - I'm just an amateur writer and everything should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

I consider it a level-of-effort kind of thing. Some folks have a natural economy to their writing, so it's not necessarily a matter of length, but a perception of lack of quality due to lack of effort.

 

Lol, fair. I'll try and not half-ass, but that's more because I'm a perfectionist and get way too into my own head.

 

More or less, I consider a half-assed story, one where it's clear that the author did not give a damn about the quality of his work, or even deliberately insulting their readers by publishing an unpolished 1-paragraph block of text, skimming over the important details.

Dialogue that doesn't feel like people would actually say, sex scenes that are barren of details or simply put together words that don't mean anything but resemble verbs making up a semi-cohesive action, and a plot that's rushed or nonexistent that you'll easily forget within a week. Of course, others have their own definition of half-assed, so take my own checklist with some grain of salt as well.

 

I find it really hard to say “you don’t care and I don’t care but we need to bash through this boring bit so we can get to that good stuff” and I’m not sure if anyone has a technique for how to do it.

The two issues I struggle with are:

1. You can’t just write “end scene. cut to the office supplies cupboard next day”
2. Exposition - in the story I'm working on there’s tonnes of lore to set out some mechanics for branching stories

I think the latter comes with the genre of CHYOA - branching stories means you have to front load a tonne of exposition that could normally ease out naturally with narrative.

I love stories which set out a premise and people can contribute derivative work and other threads, possibly following other characters.

If I made the website I’d try to address this genre specific issue by having preface and author’s note fields in the story/chapter (although again I can see that giving an excuse for us to be lazy with exposition)

 

As for (1.), I often use a line break like '***' or '~~~' or 'oOo' (I've seen some pretty creative ones) to denote a change in scene. I've seen authors use this to break a story into very short scenes, or jump ahead or back in time. Then, you don't have to say 'end scene', you can just naturally end the scene where it feels natural and transition straight into the next one.

(2.) I'm not the person to ask about this lol. Um, hope people read the important set-up chapters? As long as you don't lore dump, you can still get the basics out there, and if you have multiple authors, have them all on the same page with the main lore points so that it keeps consistency and can still be drip fed through the story? But short author notes are helpful to help people remember where they are in a series or add important background.

 

The way people usually go about this is by doing a "Writers information" chapter that's optional reading. Frontloading Infodumps is generally frowned upon

 

That’s really useful advice, thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. Fwiw my new story is going to start with an interview and I hope I can get enough idea to the readers to not need a dump.

Certainly I wrote an essay in the contributer’s guide in case anyone were to see it

 

Or take advantage of the nature of this site and have a chapter break fall at the end of a scene.

 

Assuming this is exclusively about erotic writing in the main site, I think half-assing it is valid. Its not like people are getting paid to write the stories so its to each individual to dictate the amount of effort they want to put into their stuff.

Like me, personally, I just kinda write here to engage in a little inconsequential writing to keep the process fun for me. Since I can excuse it as "just writing smut" I don't feel I'm confined to needing to hyperfixate on my writing. Hell I rarely even double check the stuff I write before I hit send.