Bringing this back because I want to hear people’s answers now, in 2021!
I think I suck at battle action choices–or I hate doing them, or both. I think I’m fair enough at writing battle scenes/action sequences in traditional fictions and books, but for some reason, doing the action branching in IF just totally slows me down and bums me out! It’s probably because I gave myself too much to do with 9 magic classes and 4 weapon types + upgrades for each type of weapon, but… stuff like this is really hard for me to do!
In all seriousness though this pretty much sums up my feelings about my own writing. I read all these other stories and all these other authors craft magnificent sentences that I love and admire. Then I look at my attempt to craft sentences and I feel like a kid scribbling with a crayon, attempting to write cursive.
It helps though to have other people read my writing and give me the confidence boost I need sometimes. It also helps when I put something down and then pick it up literally ages later cause I have whiplash and go ‘I wrote this? Damn. This is cool!’
More specific to IF but sometimes I feel bad when I can’t think of interesting variations to even the smallest of choices (i.e. dialogue options). I feel like they aren’t varied enough and it feels like I’m failing my readers and that people are going to complain about the story being too linear.
Keeping all branches somewhat equal in word-count so overall play through average ratios stay even.
It is more fun writing certain branches… so those tend to have more in them initially.
I always view editing as a chance to improve… this helps me deal with all the negatives associated with edit/rewrite for me.
Plus when alpha/beta readers validate it is better, that helps a lot.
Eiwynn advise: Have the reader test both the “old” and the “new” material – usually this will help validate your initial feelings and allow you to move on in a positive head-space moving forward.
and regarding your demo… I love it, even after you revealed those nasty vile vampires
Editing and burnout. While I’m confident I can usually finish the first draft of a story, given enough time, I struggle a lot with editing, especially when it goes on for long periods of time. I have come to hate scenes and stories I previously enjoyed just because of how long it took to edit them.
It’s something I’m really trying to learn to navigate better, because editing is obviously such an important part of making a story worth reading, but it’s still a weakness of mine.
Also, a unique challenge with IF, is giving the player enough choice that they feel in control of their character, while also being able to let the protagonist feel like an organic part of the world through internal monologue, quick fire banter, etc. I think I’m getting better at this, but it’s a balancing act that I’m still keenly aware of when I write IF.
My biggest struggle in writing are those moments when I look at the scene I just wrote, scrunch my face and wonder how in the living hell my characters ended up in that position because that was not where I expected them to go at all. Being forced to rewrite 10K words of material because I thought they would do A and, instead, they did B, is annoying as hell and I end up either having to rework future plot or having to ditch everything and throw things at them to see if they’ll do what I want. My characters get out of control…
As my buddy and I are now attempting to put together a demo, I’m discovering that that particular annoyance is a flat out nightmare in an IF–and I’m not certain how to remedy it because it’s the choices that cause the characters to go bonkers in their responses. For those of you who lean toward character-driven rather than plot-driven, how do you do it? Well, let me rephrase–how do you do it without turning what should be a fairly short prologue into a deluge of words that never ends?
I segment my story … meaning within each plotpoint I allow each character to drive their story from A to B.
This allows me to tell character driven stories within the main plot without destroying the overall structure of the story.
Which is most likely why some branches are more fun to write and leads me full circle to my last post above.
Finding the balance is key for each project. Don’t get me wrong … there are times that my writing will end up changing the overall story structure, and then I have to go back and revise all the big picture stuff…
Being character driven writers, we feel more comfortable letting our characters dictate details … but we are still writers trying to tell a story and need to keep that in mind when writing as well.
That makes sense. I always tend to be a bit more big picture and let them run amuck and drive the story. Learning to segment it for IF will help, I think.
And I can see where some branches would end up more fun to write than others, in that case. Some characters just aren’t cooperative!
Battle scenes and flirting. Hands down. Especially in IF, where I don’t want to break immersion by having “THIS IS A FLIRTATION CHOICE” written in, so I have to go with the blushy internal monologue that I’d probably never really include if it weren’t player choice, and the obscenely bold I-want-you-in-my-bed-now choice. For the battle scenes, I just… find them boring. Like there’s nothing else to it, I love picturing them, but when I put them down on paper it just comes out as bleh.
Also, trying to please everyone, I guess is the best way to summarize the feeling. Finding a variety of choices in dialogue/action sequences that the player might rightfully take, without having them be repetitive or boring. Allowing players choice while still keeping the plot moving (like leaving in the middle of the quest cannot physically mean that the players get form A to B… so why else would they keep going?). Making sure that every branch and choice gets similar amounts of love. Although if you’re choosing “sleep” every time there’s a choice, it’s gonna be a pretty short IF for you, I’m sorry.
I think they all vary as to the BIGGEST, but if someone could teach me how to flirt through IF, that’d be wonderful.
Coming up with story/plot ideas and linking scenes together. Like, practically coming up with the next actual thing that happens. I can write stuff from stiff outlines but I’m not very good at coming up with stuff organically, you know?
I can get struck with a whole vivid massive idea of the exact emotional arcs these characters will come through, those moments of highlighted feeling, etc. Then it’s like. “Now I have to start writing the actual happenstance and I have no idea what they’re doing… Uh… they walk into a room and then walk into another room then… walk out the door and… uh… stand there, I guess?”
Then I’m horribly stumped. I’m awful, haha.
Also, plot holes and character motivations. I drive myself crazy with the question of ‘Will the reader think that this character’s behaviour isn’t justified and get annoyed by it/find them whiny?’ I feel like at some points I’m overcompensating with reasons and retconned backstory. So many damn reasons.
Sometimes people just… do things or hold grudges or rub people the wrong way for no particular reason at all. It’d do me well to remember that, I suppose.
Also! Motivation. I am so tired all of the time. Motivated people are like rainbow unicorns and I admire them greatly for having the discipline that I do not.
As a reader/player, please try to find a different way to go about it. The options are always so over the top that it makes me want to scream, because it’s so difficult to develop a character who would behave that way.
I’m not picking on you–hope you know that! It just really is a problem (and one that I’m sure I will run into myself, so yay me… not). In a way, I’d almost rather have the immersion breaking description of (THIS IS FLIRTING!!) than to only have the option of making my character behave like a blushing 13-year-old or a smarmy weirdo who asks someone to bone as soon as she meets them. It’s like, okay my character is thirsty, but stop humping the dude’s leg, please (especially when the object of her affection has shown zero interest or is outright hostile to the idea of being with her!).
I have to compliment @Bacondoneright on this, too, actually, because he has made it so that a character who is clueless about romance and has no experience whatsoever with dealing with attraction can display the signs of attraction without being a flustered child or behaving like a dog in heat. For someone who isn’t comfortable writing romance, he is proving quite adept at it.
At this moment it’s keeping focus on what I need to edit and finish, instead of writing the next book in my head. Creating new and shiny things is always so much more fun than polishing what is already there.
In general though, it’s trying to navigate a path between what I want and what I feel I should want. What expectations on a story are there because it makes for a better story, and which ones are there simply because that’s how it’s usually done?
For IF my biggest struggle has to be the MC themselves. I can write friendly, rude, funny, or serious characters well enough. What I don’t know how to do that well is write six different generic personalities for the player to pick from, or how to have the MC be a blank slate in between those choices. It’s simply too foreign to how I’m used to writing.
I’ve considered having the player simply choose the MC’s personality in a single option so I can write flavor text better, but I’m told that’s generally a bad idea for IF. In a similar vein, it can be hard for me to ensure all the dialogue choices ultimately lead to the same conclusion, so I don’t have to branch every conversation.
Just pick a personality and write that one well and with depth. You don’t have to be bland or have too many options, your life will be better for it. That’s what I did.
And then write out the action bits of your story. That way, you can make sure all the branches loop back together.
Later, you can go back and be just one character in your mind as you go through all of the “hot-blooded answer” sections instead of having to juggle six different characters in your head all the time.
Something I do is have at least one or two set traits or characteristics for the MC. It could be MC is snarky in nature, but players can mitigate that with choices, or MC is incredibly fidgety, and again, players can mitigate that. I’m working on flavor text myself so I understand the difficulty, especially if this is your first IF like mine is. I think that’s been the hardest part for me as well, creating and defining the MC. “How much can I do without taking away player agency? How little is too little? How much is too much? Is this stat useful? How can I utilize it more?” Especially if you write like I do, and create everything on whim and at that moment.
I bounce between sloth levels of lethargy and writing on a dozen stories at once instead of committing to one. When I actually do write I notice my stories tend to go dark rather quickly and I’m a terrible gauge of what’s too dark.
Other than that, writing short stories. Due to having less free time like I used to, I have attempted to write shorter works but it never turns out that way. I can’t help but to add more stuff that I feel is necessary to flesh out the story properly. As a result, even attempts at shorter works tend to take a long time.
