I honestly can’t understand how people make that long chapters. I simply can’t wrap my head around them.
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Development note:
I’ve noticed trying to fix the story while I’m not done significantly hampers my momentum.
I’ve made a new rule that I cannot edit any scenes already posted in public, except stat variables for balancing.
Does anyone have thoughts on this?
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It’s a good rule. The thing most WiP writers stumble on is not writing, it’s finishing. That’s why most end up with a string of promising demos, but 0 published games.
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I think there’s a happy middle between zero editing and editing ad infinitum, so that you never get on with actually writing. This, by the way, is a well-documented phenomenon with emerging creators, not just in interactive fiction.
Back in the heyday of webcomics, I remember there was a great deal of discourse around the phenomenon. A new artist, through the act of drawing however many dozens of strips, would improve their technical skill and refine their style. When they looked back on their earliest strips, they would cringe, and couldn’t help wanting to redraw them. Of course, the redrawing would also help them refine their style and technique, and the cycle was in danger of repeating.
But for writers, I think this is just one of many reasons why so many have “promising demos” and never finish a game. One of the reasons is that beginner writers pay a lot of attention to the beginning and end of their story, and are in risk of getting flustered when they hit a sagging middle. Another reason is that there is often a burst of interest from readers at a new project, but very few WIPs will succeed in maintaining the same level of engagement for updates that they got for the initial drop.
Other reasons tend to be more personal; I found my personal bugbear when I used Dan Wells’ 7-point story structure videos to analyze my incomplete novels.
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I’ve noticed this too recently, as I got a lot of good feedback on Chapter 2 of my WIP, and it took me some time (when I was already busy) to implement the changes and then test them. I’ve now fallen behind schedule on Chapter 3, though I still hope to finish it by the end of March, and I was ahead of schedule on the first two chapters, so it isn’t too bad.
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As someone who hates editing and has just spent about three hours solely editing spacing errors in Shadow of the Eagles (yes, the meds are helping, how can you tell?) I have to tell you how much I absolutely miss knowing that I could count on an editor to fix this shit when I’m done.
I’ve spent nearly two decades publishing work that is almost entirely unrevised first drafts, and the fact that I’m not doing that this time around is something to really wrap my head around.
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For me, I’ve decided that mornings are for writing or planning the next scene. Evenings are whatever I want. If I have the focus for it, I’ll edit or write. If I don’t, I’ll make mood boards or find songs and poems for characters. But. Every morning? I write.
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Hi everyone, me again 
Last month I may have been a tiny bit overambitious…
I’m currently focusing my energy on Jun’s path and am considering expanding chapter 2 to add a bit more “meat” to the early dynamics.
Also, in case you missed the latest notification, Part 1 of chapter 3 was officially released yesterday!
It’s been a wild ride seeing the response so far, and I’m so excited to keep building this world with you all. if you want dark kpop check i-doll out 
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Random question for everybody - in general, when you guys write a set of branches and find that writing some of them comes much more naturally than others, what have you typically found the cause of that to be?
Context is that I’m writing the third and technically final ‘Society’ branch (there’s technically a fourth branch, but that’s not joining a Society at all, so it just gives you more Free Time roaming points) for Pactbinder, and I’m stunned at how much more smoothly the process of writing the second and third Society scenes has gone so far when compared to the first. A few days ago I mentioned here that I was feeling impatient as I worked through them, but things seem to be flowing much more readily now…
I haven’t yet decided whether I should be taking that as a reason to worry about the quality / my enthusiasm for that first branch or my approach to it, since I really do want them all to be good and valid picks, but I was just curious as to whether others have had this issue.
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Sometimes you just have to rethink a scene so it’s easier to write.
That said, there’s no correlation between how onerous a scene is to write and how well it reads. Make it easier for yourself, not for anyone else.
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I have this scene at 2277 words and there’s still a piece missing, but I’m just snickering here at the accidental Fallout year reference.
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I think the ease for me comes from how much time I’ve had to map it out, either in my head or on paper. The more I generally speculate and imagine about different scenes, the more I look forward to writing them. I often play scenes out in my head on repeat over the course of weeks, months, or years before I get to a point I can write them. I don’t take the time to imagine all of the branches with equal time or effort and I know this is a problem.
I’ve been wondering recently if I should write these scenes out of order so that I can stop thinking about them for so long and give more time to these other branches/scenes. However, I wonder if doing that will take away from the potential of writing these scenes, since I won’t be thinking them over as often once written. A Catch-22, I feel.
I think this is why I sometimes have a better time during rewrites. I’ve had more time to reconsider some events and can often enjoy a new take to events.
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I had the urge to make Town of Salem (Mafia) IF game… only to discover I’ve already outlined a Town of Salem game I forgot. 
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I finished writing this scene. It’s 2.9k and a handful words. I think it’s my longest chapter I have on anything I’ve been writing lately.
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This is really relatable, because I’m writing two concurrent branches now too.
An outline might help, I’ve detailed ± 8 challenges / key events to tackle for each branch so that they balance out. And indicated clearly how they’ll connect to the next part of the story.
Before the outline, I was basically writing on a whim and it led some parts of the writing to diverge so much that I simply had to cut those out. Otherwise it would create excessive branching and never get the job done.
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I’ve treated myself to a brand new Cat-themed keyboard to motivate me to get Chapter Four finished. Hope everyone is writing well too!
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PLEEEASSSEEEEE town of salem was my SHIT in like 2014-2016 omfg
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Having a surprisingly good month so far - I’d built up a little surplus so I was planning to take tonight off and skip my scheduled writing ~hour in favour of doomscrolling, but I ended up opening up CSIDE anyway and got another 500 words out. My progress chart is looking really good, even counting the mondays which are my official days off.
Also I’m trying to use descriptive label names, which has led to this beast
*label endInterroOutsideBFriendlyCooperateSuccessInsightIf
Gods I hope there’s no limit on label length or I’m gonna be in trouble 
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I seem to have written mostly 50-150 words per day this month (not counting the couple of days I wasn’t writing at all, naturally), which… isn’t great, but is better than nothing.
I’d hate having to type that many times. 
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On the days when I’ve been writing, I’ve managed a solid 500-1000 words per day, but there have been several days when I didn’t have time.
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