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:
- 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.
- 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.
- Editing is important and takes very little time to do in comparison to the bulk of the writing, please do it.
- 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.
- 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.
To me, if I go full-ass, it's more about that sort of thing than how many words I put down for it.
