Thanks for the advice! I’ll add everything I’m reading here to my brainstorming .txt.
Exactly what I mentioned. One of the books here on the forum was abandoned a couple of years ago because of these idiotic comparisons. And it was really good too. I feel bad for the author.
In my opinion, this added layer is what makes an ok superhero story into a great one. If I just wanted a power fantasy, I’d play call of duty or something.
I haven’t seen much hate for this kind of backstory. In general, this kind of thing adds complexity to make the story more well rounded.
My advice for this is to make sure the MC isn’t pushed into certain feelings. That’s something that disconnects people from the character and the story
looks at a superhero story draft where the most dangerous character is a lawyer
Hit my February non-writing goal, which was being more active on the forums! (Didn’t so much reach my actual writing goal, but I’ve been sick again.)
This is what I like most about IF games. Exploring the consequences for even small choices is fun.
I unfortunately was unable to meet this goal. I do have some more writing time today, but I doubt I’ll meet it. (I’m currently sitting at 25k.) I still think I’m happy with 25k because I was kind of all over the place this month, both healthwise and going from bursts of inspiration to terrible writer’s block. Also it was my first month running a Patreon, so I want to give myself a little grace to make schedule adjustments.
I’m not much for the superhero genre, but I’d read this.
I love when random choices crop back up chapters later and I have to be like. 
Did I do this? Or even if it’s less a consequence and more random details changing. It makes the world feel more alive.
I also haven’t seen many complaints about these kinds of choices unless the backstory relevant character is particularly hated. In my opinion, it’s very hard to write a compelling MC without at least some backstory ‘baggage’.
First off, thank you to everyone that replied and gave me their thoughts on the question of editing and WIP production and release. I think these are pretty much the same conclusions I’ve come too. I do want to post here, for any potential new writers/coders thinking of dipping their feet into the water of creating a WIP and posting it the forum here the wrap up conclusion: Unlike the conventional world of publishing, it is anticipated by alpha and beta testers that there should not be very many typos, spelling, or grammar errors. Anticipate worse review results if you have not adhered to this principal when publicly presenting your WIP on the forum, so I would advice only to present your WIP to the forum once it is presentable enough, unless you are prepared for a ton of blow back. I know this may seem like immediate common sense to some, but it took me around six years to figure out this forum social convention. As for next steps for myself, I’ve come up with a few and am going to mull over the matter for a while.
Moving on from that, congrads to everyone that made some progress on their monthly goals, even if it was a relatively small amount. For myself, I did complete my update, though some sections were greatly abbreviated from what I hoped and there was some negative feedback. Not sure of the word count, but from occasional glances on CSIDE, I think I landed at somewhere between 30k to 40k for the month.
Here’s my release/WIP/update digest for this February!
Heart’s Choice release
Hosted Games releases
Expected release next month:
New CoG WIPs
New HG/Hobby WIPs
HG/Hobby WIP Updates
New Steam Pages for upcoming games
Just to be clear, Crown of Ashes and Flames is a Twine IF published on itchio. It has nothing to do with this forum specifically, I just referenced it because it happened to be on my mind.
My experiences with this forum were generally chill—I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t—but users still sometimes lose their minds when something in a game is out of their control.
Actually this makes me think of the three seasons of Jessica Jones. Which I highly recommend. First season, MC had the ability to take out the BBEG, but was always in a position where she needed to be smart and clever. Season two she was actually out powered and needed a different approach. Season three the BBEG wasn’t even powered, the only way to defeat him was to outsmart. This all happened because of something that us as IF writers can only kind of control: the morality of the MC. A lot of players want to make all the moral choices, but if you take an approach like Samurai and Hyuga, then you could pull something like this off by forcing those morals to get in the way.
So I’m ending February with Quiver having a word count of 51.621 words, which is currently split between the current revised Chapter One at 22,869 words, with just the revised prison break to write tomorrow and what’s presently chapter two, which is 28,752 words (the original end of chapter one with the present day carriage attack and visiting the town.)
I’ve been debating adding the latter back to chapter one, but I think having the timeskip occur between Chapter One and Two will be easier for the reader to get.
My WIP Guardian of Time also had an update this month.
Added, thank you!
I mean he’s also a supervillain, but what makes him dangerous is the fact that he’s a lawyer in a world under threat from creatures that operate on exact words. And that nobody really wants to hear him say “I’ll sue you”.
Why’s February already almost over?!
I have barely even thought about writing in the latter half of the month, still learning at my new job. Today felt pretty hectic. At least I’ve been forced to actually sleep earlier, or else risk a steep decline in mental health and ability! So that’s nice. Next ideal step would be to be able to harness my now-much-more-limited free time to writing—maybe I’ll even write more than I used t—okay that sounds very unrealistic, never mind. See you all in Pi Day Month 
I’m ending the last night of February with 53k words in proper writing and 6k in outlines and notes. I had a great amount of inspiration and passion this month and I’m proud of what I got done, though I’m certain that my output will slow down as I focus on bigger picture issues and where I want to put my effort. I’m close to finishing that WIP so I’m also brainstorming for my next project.
While outlining a new WIP has been fun, I have an older WIP hanging over my head that I want to work on but am struggling to write for longer than ten minutes. It’s not even something that a rewrite could fix my passion for, I think I’m just not as interested in the story I wanted to tell a few years ago when I first started making it. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to change the direction of the story, but I’m also not as passionate about the new direction. I don’t want to extend the break because I feel like I’ve waited so long to come back to it, but I just don’t know what to do with it.
But then again, is it really that serious? I have no one to “respond” to except for myself. Might as well work on things I’m more interested in, instead of trying to force it when it’s obviously not happening
Bless!