Post Mortem your stories... what did well, what didn't?

Zekar

Zekar

Really Experienced
Post Mortems are used to look back at what you did and figure out what went right and what went wrong. Here are my post mortems for a couple of mine:

Costume Store
The initial purpose was to have a story that incorporated all the Mind control/Transformation tropes of Costume erotica.

What Worked Well?
One of my highest rated games. Most likely do to the open nature of it.

What didn't work?
So open that I lost focus. Rehashing the same story for guy and girl resulted in sub par number of likes. Found spelling errors no one called me out on.

Dream Prom Date
The initial purpose was to put out a story that focused on women in sexy dresses. Something that I don't see a lot of.

What worked well?
Highest number of views. Incest story got a lot of good feedback for having multiple resolutions (Good, Bad, Evil, etc...). Has the most comments and different contributors than any story I've wrote.

What didn't work?
Having many different storylines made me lose focus. While multiple endings were great, there were a few people who didn't like the ones I wrote.

Gender Change: Beta Test
The initial purpose was to do a Lit RPG style game. Many different stories do games changing people. I chose to focus on Gender Change because I like the genre particularly for how men are changed into sexy women. One person was upset about a previous story of mine having Gender Change so I just put it on the tin as a heads up.

What worked?
My highest rated story yet with highest number of views and likes.

What didn't work?
Should have used variables. Though I am not good at using them at all.

The Bridal Boutique
My first story from another website. Another story that I wanted to tell where people were turned into women in sexy wedding gowns.

What worked?
A lot of unique and creative ways to transform people.

What didn't work?
Using images resulted in a couple of links failing. There are no sex scenes so I had lower likes than my other work.

Now it's your turn post your post mortems!
 
I refuse to call these 'post mortems' as I don't consider the stories 'dead' but...

Married At Midnight:
One of my better efforts, but not one I've returned to in a while.

What Worked?
I was able to write a lot of content in only a few weeks. The Characters were strong and likeable.

What Didn't Work?
OMG, I soooo fucking should have left the variables system alone! The story is almost wholly linear, and I never actually make real USE of the Variables ONCE!

The Adventure of Nemo of Utopia:
My first story...

What Worked?
Not much. The Story never got much traction and remains quite unfinished.

What Didn't Work?
Just about everything. I shouldn't have messed with the variables, again; I should have updated more often; I should have been more flexible with other authors... The whole thing is a train wreck.

D&D Dynastic Delving:
My second story...

What Worked?
Well, I created a lot of interesting and believable characters...

What Didn't Work?
Yea... Just about everything. Again with getting bogged down in the variables: I made TOO MANY characters and didn't flesh out any of them enough. I couldn't keep a good pace...
 
Nemo of Utopia said:
What Didn't Work?
OMG, I soooo fucking should have left the variables system alone! The story is almost wholly linear, and I never actually make real USE of the Variables ONCE!


What Didn't Work?
Just about everything. I shouldn't have messed with the variables, again; I should have updated more often; I should have been more flexible with other authors... The whole thing is a train wreck.


What Didn't Work?
Yea... Just about everything. Again with getting bogged down in the variables: I made TOO MANY characters and didn't flesh out any of them enough. I couldn't keep a good pace...
Click to expand...
Sounds like lots of Variable problems.

I like variables, but i agree that they can become a real pain quite quickly. There's just really no easy way to manage them.

Take my story My Best Friend is my Teacher. The story has three major variables. Three "Affection bars" that go from 0%-100%. The more a girl liked your character, the more you could do with them during an appropriate time. So for example, if you piss off your girlfriend before your birthday party, she won't give you a blowjob. There's also simple "yes/no" variables that just denote whether a major story thing was taken or not. It sounds simple, right?

...except Chyoa has no real way of tracking the variables and their values outside of actually playing through the story with the game mode. So if you want to know the upper and lower echelon of a particular variable, you need to go through the entire story and take the pertinent options to get your maximum or minimum possible variable for any particular chapter. Then you need to do it for every single chapter. So writing a section of the story can send you clicking through your story collecting variable numbers several times. Sure, you could write them down in some way, but you shouldn't really need a spreadsheet to work with variables. Even if you do decide you want to spreadsheet your story, that doesn't help other people who may want to contribute to it. On top of that you have to go through every time you post a chapter to make sure all the variables are working properly.

This problem grows with each new major variable implemented and every chapter posted.
 
merkros said:
...except Chyoa has no real way of tracking the variables and their values outside of actually playing through the story with the game mode. So if you want to know the upper and lower echelon of a particular variable, you need to go through the entire story and take the pertinent options to get your maximum or minimum possible variable for any particular chapter. Then you need to do it for every single chapter. So writing a section of the story can send you clicking through your story collecting variable numbers several times. Sure, you could write them down in some way, but you shouldn't really need a spreadsheet to work with variables. Even if you do decide you want to spreadsheet your story, that doesn't help other people who may want to contribute to it. On top of that you have to go through every time you post a chapter to make sure all the variables are working properly.
Click to expand...

You made my head hurt...

Zelonkarac said:
Costume Store
...
What didn't work?
So open that I lost focus...
Click to expand...

Zelonkarac said:
Dream Prom Date
...
What didn't work?
Having many different storylines made me lose focus. While multiple endings were great, there were a few people who didn't like the ones I wrote...
Click to expand...

I still consider myself rather new to all this and i still don't have 'dead' stories, but i can tell you already that this is the one most frequent single issue with writing stories that can have multiple selctions.
Sooner or later, you'll be facing countless of parallel universes.
It's tricky to stay focused and don't go chasing every minor little difference, every possible slightly different outcome, sometimes i feel like it's driving me mad :p
 
SeriousBrainDamage said:
I still consider myself rather new to all this and i still don't have 'dead' stories, but i can tell you already that this is the one most frequent single issue with writing stories that can have multiple selctions.
Sooner or later, you'll be facing countless of parallel universes.
It's tricky to stay focused and don't go chasing every minor little difference, every possible slightly different outcome, sometimes i feel like it's driving me mad :p
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I don't really have dead stories. I'll update as I get ideas. I'm updating Costume Store at the moment as I've got an idea. Though they may stay on hiatus for a long long time.

I think I'm going to focus on multiple endings as opposed to multiple options. There are people who want endings to continue, but they are few compared to the people who like the endings.
 
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merkros said:
So if you want to know the upper and lower echelon of a particular variable,
Click to expand...
If you use a spreadsheet you would get problems when using loops within the story


merkros said:
On top of that you have to go through every time you post a chapter to make sure all the variables are working properly.
Click to expand...
Well, to make it somewhat easier, you could create a child chapter draft on the Introduction where you create your variable set and create another child chapter which links you deep into the story.
Though this doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a better tool for that.
 
merkros said:
One could say i gave you.....

Serious Brain Damage?

:)
Click to expand...

Well played sir, i salute you.

Zelonkarac said:
I don't really have dead stories. I'll update as I get ideas. I'm updating Costume Store at the moment as I've got an idea. Though they may stay on hiatus for a long long time.

I think I'm going to focus on multiple endings as opposed to multiple options. There are people who want endings to continue, but they are few compared to the people who like the endings.
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Sorry, i misinterpreted what you meant with 'post mortem' ( it literally means after death).

I agree, endings are better.
Better than loose threads and better of neverending stories.
 
I don't really have any stories I am never going to go back to but I do have some thoughts on my ongoing ones.

10 to 1

I would say the biggest problem I have had with this story is too many branches. Making a bunch of basically identical threads that I don't really want to continue.

A Beast Unleashed

Same problem really although I think I have managed to make the branches far more distinct from one another.
 
Not a post mortem as I am actively still working on my story, but over the past month I've had a few observations from the perspective of a newbie that I thought I'd share.

Mistaken Identity

I am mainly talking about my main Mob Boss storyline with these comments.

Worked:
The characters, story, and sex scenes seemed to all go over well. The main thing I learned is that, much to my surprise, the readers here enjoy a lot more than just the raunchy stuff. The readers definitely exceeded my own narrow preconceptions of what people wanted from this site.

Also, I did a survey to decide a key moment of the main storyline. This went over well and I was heartened by the reaction from some of the readers. I basically gave them a vote on whether a certain sex scene would happen or not. I expected a landslide victory for yes but it was actually close. They seemed genuinely invested in the story and the decision's ramifications.

Finally, endings. People like actual endings.

Didn't Work:
The story is WAY too wide ranging. It is really seven stories in one. My Tags are out of control at this point. I wanted to make sure I tagged everything so people went in with their eyes wide open, there is a lot of stuff not everyone would like in there. But now there are so many various tags that it must be confusing and is surely keeping as many people away from the story as bringing them in. My advice to any new writers here, try to keep your story somewhat focused on a particular category.

Also, in the future I am going to be more wary of creating new branches if I don't have a really good idea of what to do with them. In one part of my story I created a new branch just because I felt I should, but I had no real idea of what to do with it. In all likelihood it will now just sit and wither. Ah well, live and learn.
 
grimbous said:
The story is WAY too wide ranging. It is really seven stories in one. My Tags are out of control at this point. I wanted to make sure I tagged everything so people went in with their eyes wide open, there is a lot of stuff not everyone would like in there. But now there are so many various tags that it must be confusing and is surely keeping as many people away from the story as bringing them in. My advice to any new writers here, try to keep your story somewhat focused on a particular category.
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I think the problem comes from the tag system rather than your story. If you take a look at all the biggest stories, you'll see that in the tags you can find almost every thing (literally), because they have this one little chapter with this and that other one with that and so on ...
As to keep your story focused in just one category, i don't see it as a real solution. You'll just end up smothering your creativity.

grimbous said:
Also, in the future I am going to be more wary of creating new branches if I don't have a really good idea of what to do with them. In one part of my story I created a new branch just because I felt I should, but I had no real idea of what to do with it. In all likelihood it will now just sit and wither. Ah well, live and learn.
Click to expand...

Hey, maybe someone else will continue it someday, who knows?
 
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The Isle of Lesbos
My first story (I was writing under a different name at the time). The protagonist, a woman, goes to an island resort where she can have sex with other women.

What worked: Nothing. I had a setting, but no interesting characters or plot to speak of. I quickly discovered that just jumping straight into the sex parts was uninteresting.

What didn't work: See above.

If I did it again: I would change the point of view, and write the story with the protagonist as one of the escorts at the resort, not a customer. That would allow for more drama and more storytelling.


Sappho's Amulet
A magical amulet gives a woman the power to seduce other women.

What worked: As a plot device, the amulet wasn't a bad one; it certainly provided an explanation as to why the main character was having a lot more sex than she otherwise would! And I was pleased with some of the threads, like the bit where she seduces her boss while using her newfound mind-control powers to make it seem like it's all her boss' idea.

What didn't work: As others contributed to the story, I discovered that I hit the edge of my comfort zone for mind-control sex very quickly; there were a number of submissions which were objectively good, they just strayed into territory where I didn't like going (I want to stress that this was due to my own hang-ups, not because the submitters were perverts!). Finally, I just opened the story to submissions and abandoned it to its fate.

If I did it again: Let someone else do it - it could be a great story in the hands of an editor less squeamish about such things.


FantasyWomen, Inc.
Create the woman of your dreams by choosing different characteristics

What worked: Well, I have to say that I actually DID it - others have had this idea, but to my knowledge I'm the only author on CHYOA who ever carried it all the way through. This is one of those stories which asks the reader to pick things like race, hair color, bust size, etc. and then those characteristics are given to the primary female character in the story. The downfall of such stories is mathematics; the number of threads gets very large, very fast. My story establishes five characteristics (Race, Age, Hair Color, Bust Size, Attitude) with four options each, PLUS the reader can choose the protagonist's gender at the beginning - which means the story has 2,729 chapters before anything even happens! It's easy to see why most people would give up on writing a story like this (and why I should have!).

What didn't work: It's probably both the longest and the most pointless story on the entire site. After almost three thousand chapters, the only thing that's established is a five-word description of a single character; there's no plot, no setting, no NOTHING to go any further with. There were a couple of half-hearted attempts by me and others to create some stories, but they felt lost in the sea of options it takes just to get there.

If I did it again: The story was written on the old CHYOO site, where the only variables were {first_name} and {last_name}. Now that one can have more variables, this concept might work; one could just have five variables into which the characteristics could be entered. But any story one wrote which took them all into account would have to be so peppered with variables and conditional text, it would be insanely complex and no fun at all to write. It's just one of those bad ideas which looks good up front.


Sex
A linear, single-thread story about a guy who goes out and has a lot of sex.

This was something of an experiment - the idea was that the story would not branch, people who wanted to write submissions would just pick up where the previous writer left off. I just wanted to see what would happen.

What worked: I feel like I had a decent idea for the plot driver; I introduced a pheromone-enhancing substance which the main character used to dramatically increase his own sex appeal on a subliminal level. In the words of his somewhat misogynistic roommate: "It's kind of like fixing it so women have the same sexual response as men. It makes them as horny and receptive as we are." That's an idea I might actually use again sometime.

What didn't work: To put it succinctly, the experiment failed. I think that it's just that with a shared story that follows only one thread, there's eventually going to be something there that everyone doesn't like. Since authors didn't have the option of ignoring threads and branching off from an earlier point, no one wanted to submit anything, and the story died.

If I did it again: I wouldn't bother. The core concept failed and isn't likely to succeed if it were tried again.
 
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Xenolan said:
FantasyWomen, Inc.
Create the woman of your dreams ... looks good up front.
Click to expand...

I see that a lot around. When i first started to lurk around this website, i must admit i was quite attracted by those kind of stories myself.
The interactivity, the chance to determine everything, it's almost like a video game, but form a writer prospective, they are almost impossible to write.
 
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