That was actually discussed in other thread this week. People don’t want compilations of short stories even less if is about no romance stuff… And even less kids stuff.
Maybe I present some to Hosted but I know will be less played worse rated game ever.
First… that is so cool
Second… maybe you have a gift for writing children’s stories. They are so very different. YA different still. But you are right, you’ll have to find the right audiences. I really like writing short fables---- Both light and dark. I put one or two in my IF just for me.
Maybe the goal for everyone is to make a great IF---- I don’t know. But for me, I just want to be able to write for a living. I’m thinking that is your goal to. Here, there, anywhere. I don’t care. Getting that first publish is important. I chose to start here---- But just like the stories we write, there are other choices to be made---- And I often wonder about them. Please keep sharing any successes you have with your children’s series. I am interested.
What does that make me? Part of the decor? 
It is. I read part of it. The kittens are really cute and have very distinct personalities.
The first statement is definitely false. There is at least one person that wants to talk to you and the rest of you at the support thread here, and that person is ME.
I also agree that everyone here tries their best to be proactive.
I must admit, plenty of WIPs don’t get much publicity. Mine is one of them, since I am better at advertising others’ than my own work, and publicity is really something I am terrible at. Those that get a lot more attention, are those with a decent enough length and rich romances, and writers who have good skills in publicity.
Since you like and are good at writing children’s stories, I say go ahead! Since I like writing video game adaptations/crossovers, I also go ahead! There will always be a market for these products! I would also be part of your audience as well. And it’s no shame putting your work here as well as on CYS (I heard the CYS community is a lot looser and less restrictive than the CoG/Choicescript community, so it’s a safer bet). Elvis at the Beauty Contest is one unusual and eye-catching title.
That’s very good to hear- there is a market, and it’s positive! The IF community has been so supportive of me- they encouraged me to review all 75 entries in IFComp 2023, and I did. Even though I was a first-time reviewer and I had never ever completed or even played a parser game before. Now at least I have the basics.
Don’t forget that the forums are such a small snapshot of CoG fans. You won’t know for certain unless you try 
One of the small joys I have as I work on this monster pass is that I get to write new dialogue and incorporate it in areas I had none before.
Dialogue, to me, is a really elegant and efficient way to character build. Not only with words, but with actions and reactions that the character engages in as they speak with others.
For example, I want an NPC character to be full of nervous energy and unable to hold still. What better way of building this into the character than to show them fidgeting with their hair, their clothes or something in their hands as they speak?
Then in the next sentence I can build on that by building reactions into the character(s) that the fidgiter is speaking with. One of the others can be annoyed with this nervous energy and another can be caring and empathetic.
So, in the scope of one bit of dialogue, I have built up three different characters and can use what I just wrote in future call-backs.
I think one of the benefits of doing a passthrough of earlier parts of a story is that you get to do it with the knowledge of future you so add things connected to later scenes.
I would love to have stories that would allow me to introduce my kid better to IFs (other than watching me write things all day). Not saying that it will sell well, but you might be able to help introduce a new generation to this type of story telling. Even if it does not sell well, everyone starts somewhere. Compilations might be a good idea; targeted to kids in a market untouched by HG as far as I can tell.
I did write a short story for my daughter in this format and she loves it, but it is time consuming and I stopped it nearly two years ago. Everyone other attempt to get her interested has been a challenge as a lot of stories available are not for her age or catch her interest.
You know, I’ve always thought it was super weird that computer based IF is almost exclusively aimed at mid teens and up. (I guess they’re the ones with the most disposable income.) In saying that, I used to devour every CYOA book I could get my hands on as a kid, and the early text-ish computer games too (like some of the early D&D games etc). There were gamebooks specifically aimed at kids and teenagers, almost none at all for adults. Can’t imagine that kids are no longer interested at all.
You are all really cheer me up about This. Maybe I will pass through the first Volume Elvis in The beauty contest @Dvalor53 to you could show to your kid. I am keeping write it right now.
or you to see and give me your feedback.
In reality I have one alone in Cys, one Co written, The one I wrote now and another planned and half done.
This is the cover of Elvis and The beauty contest I think is cute. (Elvis was a real rooster and this come from a Real photo from a Online friend he died though)
I adoooore writing dialogue, especially coming up with specific tics and such that characters do.
I don’t know if anyone else does this, but because of IF involving y’know, branches, so more instances of characters talking, more stuff to keep track of, I have a document that I’m putting key characters’ verbiage into.
As in, here’s the turns of phrase and contractions this character often uses. Here’s the types of dialogue tags and actions most associated with them.
It’s really helping me keep straight in my head the characters’ voices so that they don’t all blend together into an indistinguishable blob 
On a related note, something I’m slowly getting to grips with is that like… wording and phrasing can be reused between branches, even if the rest of that branch is different. I’m not talking wholesale sections (would prefer using *IF and multireplace for that where possible), but like… oh, a character exclaimed in one branch and then the other.
My first instinct is to avoid using two instances of the same words close together as much as possible, but I’ve been reminding myself that the player only gets to see one of these at a time, so the awkward reptition isn’t actually happening. Strange instinct to untrain!
I definitely have more trouble describing things, that’ll have to be the next thing I focus on 
I’m currently working a chapter whose outline has given me much grief. I’d had to change things around, add things, make the chapter serve a new function, and it had gotten very confusing. Which is why I’m very surprised to find myself having a lot of fun redoing it, making it more coherent and more detailed. I wasn’t able to finish an entry for the Halloween jam, but I did end up trying a new way of making outlines that so far seems to really be working, so I’m very, very grateful for the experience. More than just finally having a process, I actually have an enjoyable one.
Irrelevant: Whatever I write, when I menage to, it becomes too long.
Can you gave me some of that problem?
Everything I manage to write always seems too short and concise, even when I actively try to pad it.
Speaking of. I know it’s not 15th yet, but I had so much fun with this scene that I can’t wait.
“Commander,” the comm officer interjects. “Call coming in.”
“Who’s calling?” Sol asks.
“The aliens, it seems.”
“Oh, so now they want to chat?” Sol shakes her head and sits down in the captain’s chair. “Repo, go to the tactical station. Miriam, put the call on screen.”
“Forwarding,” the comm officer says.
You nod a greeting to the tactical officer as you take a seat.
On the main screen, the view from outside the ship is replaced with a view from the alien ship. It resembles, oddly enough, Producer’s bridge, although there are differences (technology, and chairs, for example, are not at all similar, and there are a lot more handrails); the aliens seem bipedal and vaguely human-shaped (insomuch as a half-shifted werewolf is human-shaped) but more dragon-bird-like in appearance, with beaks (or snouts? Muzzles?) and a lot of feathers.
“Repo,” Connor says in your ear. “What’s happening there? Vega went in frenzy.”
“Wait,” you say. “Do you need help? Are they a danger?”
“Only to themself,” Connor says. “It’s more like a some kind of psychic seizure, I got it under control. Them under control. Whichever. What’s going on?”
“Commander’s talking with the aliens,” you say.
“Oh,” Connor says. “I’ll leave you to listen, then.”
On the screen, the aliens are whistling to each other, gesturing wildly and flapping their crests. The one that seems to be perched on their equivalent of the captain’s chair says something that seems directed to your ship but what no-one can understand, thinks for a moment, tries something else with perfectly the same results, then makes a gesture that, as far as you can understand, means hold on for a moment (although you could be wrong, but it would make sense given how they turned their attention away from your direction), then exchanges agitated-sounding clicks with some of their fellows.
“Well,” Commander Sol mutters. “This is going great.”
On the screen, the whistling and clicking has turned into chittering, and then a new alien rushes in, a skinny one with their disheveled appearance a stark contrast to the impeccably-dressed bridge crew previously present. They stop next to the presumably-captain, tilt their head, and open their mouth as if to say something, but no sound comes out (no, wait, that’s not exactly true. There’s the faint echo of ultrasound at the edge of your hearing).
Sol gives the screen an annoyed glare, crosses her arms and taps her fingers on her elbow.
The alien captain says something and gestures to whatever must be their equivalent of the viewing screen, since the new alien glances in the direction that, from the position you’re looking at, appears to be, well, the direction of where you’re looking at. They open their mouth again, but the captain clicks and points to their head, to which the other alien blinks, touches their crest, shakes their head causing a small spread of tiny droplets (did they just come out of a shower? That would explain the appearance), combs their feathers with their hand (six claws, two thumbs) for a moment, and then, finally, turns to the screen, adjusting their uniform collar.
Commander Sol is, at this point, simply staring at them blankly.
The alien coughs an a-hem, then starts to speak… in Old Norse. Sol blinks, momentarily confused, and answers in German, which leads them to engage in a short back-and-forth that goes from Icelandic through Danish to Swedish, until they finally settle on New Vargheimian. Why the selection only includes Earth (or at least Earth-adjacent) languages, while neither of the speakers is a human, you know not the reason of, but there you have it. (Although the rest of your bridge crew is human, and the ship is registered as such, so if the aliens were running some kind of origin check on you in the background, gauging responses with human languages would at least be logical. What truly baffles you is… Old Norse? Seriously? Who speaks Old Norse?)
“This is Lord Commodore Brings-the-ninth-bird of the Second Hunter Fleet,” the alien says. “Apologies for the delay, we weren’t expecting you.”
Oh man, when this happens, I have to say to myself: “I’m Hemingway now 
” and roll with it, otherwise it just becomes an unpleasant experience.
So, I still haven’t finished adventure mode, or the friendship events, or the smaller events, but I had a lot of fun writing a maze section that’s about 5,000 words for treasure hunters that most probably won’t see. In fact, I might have had too much fun, because I got lost writing the maze and had to make a map to figure it out. But now I’m free of it, and can continue on!!
I’m the same; I don’t like to pad and so go at a pretty fast clip. Although currently hemming and hawing about a prequel to Vampire’s Kiss were events unfold over hundreds of years, which should avoid that.
Still a little uncertain about committing to a project of that length; a much larger scale than my first IF, with a lot more romance (both short dalliances and long, expansive relationships that both succeed and fail.) Sometimes it seems a great idea; other times I remember the piracy, and the hugely negative reception from a few on the forum and wonder if I would be wasting my life.
THIS IS SO TRUE. If you don’t like writing it, you won’t.
This. See, when you look at a statue, you just see the beauty of the lines, and the hard work that went into it, and you feel awe.
When you make a statue, all you can see is where your chisel didn’t hit right, and what the stone could have been, in your mind. It’s all about perspective.
As someone who is currently holding a grudge that could, technically, be forgiven and normally would be if I weren’t actively holding it…
It’s about holding onto the hurt of what was done. It’s about ignoring the reasons. About justifying them and going through mental gymnastics to remind yourself that this isn’t something you want to forgive, and giving yourself reasons not to. It’s about constantly reminding yourself of what they did, so that the sweet memories you have do not feel like sweetness anymore, but rather are tainted by that soft pain you keep reminding yourself of.
It’s a choice.
Holding a grudge isn’t always about anger. It can also be about jealousy, or fear. In my case, it’s fear that they’ll do the same thing again and fighting to remove my natural forgiveness to avoid that happening.
Oh, this is so goodddddddd, yes. Stories are fundamentally about PEOPLE and how the world affects them.
Everything has been done. All mustic is a combination of the same notes. All stories are a combination of the same words, all art is a retelling of the same sights.
That isn’t meant to discourage. It’s meant to encourage. Every story is worth telling. Every art is worth making. Every music is worth crafting.
Inspiration from other things isn’t to be discounted. Inspiration from other media is to be revelled in. Learning about your chosen medium through experiencing it is how your skills grow.
I mean, look at how many retellings of Cinderella there are.
GOOD JOB! That’s hard work right there.
I wish I could do this as research for my game. but honestly the closest I’ve found to my genre is mobile games and their dialogue is always so stilted and badly-translated that it’s not worth it. I read novels instead, but well… similar proplem.
I love my villains. Often, they’re my favorites.
I LAUGHED SO HARD I WHEEZED. TAT this is so accurate.
I have yet to get any more work done than last week. This whole week has been just throwing shit at me, and I’m sitting here dodging bananas and vases and shit. Anywho, I’m hoping that soon I’ll be able to focus a little more, but… honestly, I don’t know what to do. I’m so tired all the time. TAT
The first chapter of A Familiar Magic has just reached 7690 words. Daemonglass Chapter One was just over 22,000 words when completed so I’m aiming for a similar count for AFM so it will be a fair comparison.
Hope everyone are still having a helpful month regardless of how many words you’ve written so far. Remember that 1000 words written and then deleted is still 1000 words you wrote.