Bad Endings

Trisha Lynn

Trisha Lynn

Really Really Experienced
Hey I’m new and I was wondering what people thought about bad endings. All those old chyoa books my dad had stashed away always had turn to page 12 to die, or at least that’s the way it felt I was never lucky with my choice. But on here since we’re righting about sex would it be sexual violence or some other undesirable outcome?
 
I'd advise that you should keep in mind your audience and that you're working within an entirely different set of confines and objectives. The classic Choose Your Own Adventure stories were primarily that, an adventure of danger. In such a case, failing to receive a reward or exposing yourself to danger is a natural outcome. In the most basic sense, you're trying to find the very limited route that gives you a happy ending, while hopefully also enjoying reading the gruesome outcomes when you fail.

Now, there are such stories on chyoa and it's valid. But there's no rule keeping you in that template. And, very frequently, you'll better engage an audience whose goal is to be sexually stimulated another way. In another sense, there definitely isn't any sense in having a "fail" condition that nobody wants to read, unless perhaps you see that as some seasoning that makes your successful endings sweeter (and maybe you do).

A couple of alternate suggestions that are commonly deployed to good effect:

1. Very commonly, a story where the choices are not success/fail but simply different outcomes. This is a good way if you aren't thinking of your story as having a "goal" with a "victory."
2. Establish a goal achieved by victory, then make the losing side something people might also want to read. Non con sex is the obvious answer, but just one of many.

But TL;DR keep in mind your chyoa story does not in any way have to read or play as a classic Choose Your Own Adventure story. Probably a great majority here do not.
 
Think this is a good question. The modern term 'Bad End' has a newly sexualized rendition of "It's good to lose / the scenarios in which the 'protagonist' loses are sexy". I'm with you in saying that 'You Lose" endings are different from the '(sexy) Bad End' things. This post is entirely the former.

Those old books, the ones in my memory, at least, usually had two common themes:
Bad ends didn't occur until the middle or end of the story.
Bad ends meant you went back to the page you fucked up on, and choose the other option.

Growing up reading those books, I was always intrigued about a couple variables:
"How far back did I make my mistake?
"What did I do wrong? / Why was my choice wrong?"

I try to keep these aspects in mind, because I want readers who hit 'you lose' screens to feel okay enough to go back and resume, but also intrigued / interested in why the end was a loss.
 
Just getting to an official end (as opposed to a dead-end where the chapters just stop) in a CHYOA story can be a challenge - and I'm not against a bad end, if it flows from the narrative of the story and makes sense in context. I'm hoping to include a few myself...if I can get over the pile of normal endings and additional chapters I need to write!
 
I certainly don't mind bad endings, when appropriate. But! On CHYOA, I personally believe in writing chapters with bad stuff, but I'd never call it an ending in my stories.

All those original choose your adventure books had to be a finite product with a limited scope. Here though? In theory, you could go on forever, with no limit to breadth and depth of branches (within the constraints of the server of course!) It's like a chess board where you can keep adding spaces instead of settling for a checkmate.

So, I think even in the darkest of chapters, someone might have an idea for a chapter to make it better. ...or worse. And it might really even elevate that whole branch, or add new dimensions to an idea.

So I think that's worth keeping in mind: is there really nowhere else to go with a story branch? Then it might as well end, good or bad. But if there's still a chance for something to happen worth reading, keeping it open might yield pleasant surprises later.
 
That's a cool thought too, Halode. On many stories, I like to leave options open, even once I hit what I feel to be the natural ending, so that anyone could add any number of branches. At the same time, an ending is the average writer's chance to put a bow on a story after a big climax. I'd advocate picking whether to write an ending or not situationally.

One thing I like about CHYOA is that it gives you a chance to write an ending, and yet, to allow yourself or others to continue adding regardless of that ending. So, as an example, you may have an ending where Mario saves the day, but then, someone can make another branch that explores the twist where his princess is in another castle. :)

I want to write the endings I have planned for the Goodbye Girls so badly... I wonder if I'll ever get there.
 
I definitely think there's ways to wrap up story arcs without actually calling it an ending, as well. Kind of like TV shows that had to clean up storylines in a season, only to be renewed for a new season and have new arcs open up, but it is all still linear.

In any case, true endings do have considerable meaning in a story, good or bad. It provides closure and weight to consequences. So like anything, it's another option in the toolbox that can be effective. I just know there are times where I read a story and I absolutely want more of whatever is happening in a particular branch, so I try to make sure that potential is typically present in chapters I write.
 
The way I see it... your story is going to end, one way or another. Even if you work on it your whole life, you'll eventually die; even if others carry on your legacy, you'll eventually be forgotten about. In that regard, it's not a matter of if your story ends. It's not even a matter of when. Really, it's a matter of how. You can only control that if you explicitly write a conclusion.

With that said, I think endings have their own inherent purpose. When you leave your project for the last time - and that will inevitably happen - and a stranger stumbles upon it many years later, it'd be comforting for them to have some small closure in the form of at least one ending.
 
Endings motivate me to write a story. That is if I can think of one...
One of the reasons so few of my contributions been branching stories is probably because endings are sometimes so daunting.
I'm one of those authors on the site who loves starting new stories... but often without having thought much about it beyond the first few scenes. Sometimes I just love the idea of the world or the characters and I want to write about it... but I've only vaguely thought about any sort of ending or final goal. When I first started out posting here I did very little planning at all and I think it shows. It might be a fun exercise for me to make myself write some 'bad ends' for branching stories to help train myself on ways to finish a story.
 
I like to write a mix of endings, where appropriate, but most of them could really be spun off into their own ongoing branches or even their own stories. That way people can add on later if they want to tell a story I consider complete from what I wanted to capture. I feature mostly "bad" endings, the kinds the reader fantasizes about happening to them. Still, I include an occasional, dark, downer bad ending in almost everything I write, because I think it ultimately makes the story feel more immersive. Of course, these are always the least popular chapters, but I still include them even if I am the only one that enjoys it. In a story with over a hundred chapters, you get to indulge yourself from time to time.
 
Bad endings were a necessity of the print CYOA books of the 80's. If every decision had three or more options, and each of those had options as well, very soon you have too many divergent plotlines to fit in a sub-200 page paperback. It was a way of them essentially writing only a few real story lines and than dressing it up with alot of bad, dead end choices.

I can't remember the last time I wrote a story that actually got far enough for me to have an ending to worry about. I think if they're used appropriately, they're perfectly fine. Whether it's "play stupid games, win stupid prizes", a matter of karma, or what have you, they can all work.

It shouldn't be a hard turn out of nowhere, M. Night Shaymalan kind of thing that nobody sees coming.
 
This is an old topic but I figured I might throw some thoughts here. Was looking at this:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cyoa-choose-your-own-adventure-maps

and I was thinking about the trend for linear tales here. I don’t think there are many plotted out tales here that use the CHYOA writing options to their fullest. Understandably so. I do like the idea of having stories loop around to other branches and having multiple ending choices. I think more bad or good endings make the branching nature interesting.
 
Maybe not a bad ending. Sometimes it can me fun. One of my favourite was having a guy with a magic typewriter that made whatever was typed into reality - he makes all women illiterate bimbos. Then he unwittingly turns himself into a woman and is trying to reverse what she has done but can only type “I’m a Ma-“ before she can’t write anymore. She either gives up and instantly becomes pregnant or tries to find the “N” letter but hits “T” instead. Instant door mat.
 
Bad endings are also a kink for some people. Usually for cuckolding stories or women being humiliated and raped. It seems like there is a lot of art where it happens. Usually a two panel short comic with a before/after kinda thing.

In written form, there are the corruption stories that are often a series of "bad ends" for heroes and heroines, but not for the "main" villain character(s).
 
There's a scene in The Hours where (a fictionalized version of) Virginia Woolf says one of the characters in her book has to die. Her husband asks why, and she explains: "Someone has to die so that the rest of us should value life more. It's contrast."

I think a similar case can be made for bad ends. In stories that are supposed to have real risks (mortal or otherwise), having bad endings emphasizes the danger, raising the tension. It also improves immersion, by making the player/reader's choices matter. It means that when the protagonist encounters 3 armed bandits, it's no foregone conclusion that he'll dispatch them all and walk away without a scratch.
 
My main story, The Fall of Noble Companions, is focused on Bad Endings, and is firmly in the non-con section of the site, has multiple content warnings, and still likely pushes the limits of what is allowed on this sight. I'll

- The story opens up with a content warning noting the extreme sexual content and that it is focused on bad endings.
- The opening paragraphs paint a terrible picture of the danger our heroines are in. One has already been captured by a trafficking ring.
- Bad Endings are explicitly noted in the thread title.
- Notably rough chapters are also noted in the thread titles.

There are many fetishes and interests at play that lead me to write such extreme content.
- Powerful superheroines totally depowered and treated like common whores and sex slaves.
- Heroines dealing with and responding to extreme content, to show what they are made of and to higlight character differences and conflict.
- Fetishes of evil women winning. Most of the slavers are men, but there are three particularly evil woman that are a delight to write.
- Adds a sense of danger to the world. Their lives and the world hang in the balance, and I mean to show a world where the superpowered heroines are fighting an uphill battle.

Much of this is based on Japanese Eroge, of which there are many with with branching bad endings that English erotica really never touches. I find the stark differences in outcomes to be interesting and satisfying.
 
I absolutely love bad endings in Cuckolding or cheating stories. Bad Endings could be something like a wife getting knocked up by your rival, catching feelings, etc.

I wish there was a way to filter for bad endings on chyoa because I’d love to find a few good stories with bad endings.
 
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