Critique and Advice; the treadmill of adventuring.

As my fanventure test run on 4chan is slowly approaching its climax, I'm starting to get anxious about running it here "for realsies". Even though the story could use some sanitizing (obviously), I grew very attached to how it played out. I don't know if I want to do it all over again, risk derailing the story and killing off a potential ally. On the other hand I don't want to recreate the story 1:1, obviously certain scenes could be rehashed or expanded upon. Is there a possible compromise?

Run the story here as a remake, no reason to fret about running for realsies - like, what's the worst that could happen really. You already have some experience from 4chan, and even though /qst/ is a different environment the same basic storytelling skills carry over here. If you want feedback on your /qst/ run please link to it!

If you want feedback on your /qst/ run please link to it!

While I would be very eager to talk about it, I think I'll wait for the time being. Plus it's literally my first foray into interactive fiction so there's a lot of glaring mistakes.

Run the story here as a remake, no reason to fret about running for realsies

But I digress, what do you mean by that? Keep the story as a remake? I suppose I can do that. However I do intend to fully allow commands once I've reached a certain point in the story since I would have all the elements I need by then.

I meant take the same basic idea and reuse the characters you developed, but better this time. Run it from the start once more, allowing commands but using what you learned the first time, what works and what doesn't and so on.

I see but how would that help with my concerns about the plot? I'll be honest, I want certain things to happen because otherwise an extreme deviation would result in a lot of premature tragedies.

You're not required to make any particular thing happen.

You have a choice here.

You can say to yourself that, as the author, that there are particular things you do or don't want to happen, and you set the plot up so that they work out that way. Sometimes this might require heavy railroading; it's your responsibility to decide how heavy a hand you use here.

Or, you can accept that the suggestions you get may result in a different outcome if you just let them flow without much authorial interference, and you write what they lead you to. The key here is to make the stakes clear to the readers, and they'll take that into account when suggesting.

The important thing here is, you have as much control over the story as you want to take. What matters is deciding how much control you want to have, and accepting the consequences of that decision.

I've had this idea for a story fermenting in my head for over a year now, and I really want to write it as a forum adventure. I've got all the characters I want to use, the setting, the theme/feel of the story, the beginning, end, even the middle, all fleshed out. But I just can't connect it into a plot?

Somehow I just can't figure out the goals and motivation of the main character. I know why he got himself into this situation, but I don't know how he's going to get himself out, or why he does what he'll do afterwards. Not only does this lack of motivation make it really hard to have a cohesive plot, having a clear goal to work towards every update is one of the most important parts of a forum adventure. The lack of a clear goal/way to measure progress is what made this adventure fail the first time I ran it.


Does anybody have any advice? Is this something that you can give advice about, without knowing more of the story?

edit: Actually, I think I might just put this one on the shelf for a bit. In the time since I first thought of it, it's only grown more formidable, and my need to make it perfect has only grown worse. I'll probably save it for a time when I'm more equipped to handle it/possibly completely rewrite it.

edit nullified due to fogel's sage wisdom

The easiest place to start is to look at what you already have. Maybe you don't need to come up with new ideas - you might be able to rearrange the ideas you already have.

For instance, maybe you've got someone with a clear motivation who's mostly a background character. What if you made that character the protagonist, either by telling the story from their perspective, or putting them into the protagonist's place in the story? Or writing that character out and giving the protagonist some of their traits.

Or, if there's some particular event that you plan to happen... well, you could make it the protagonist's goal to cause that event to happen. Even if this isn't revealed in the adventure until the event actually happens, it can work as a guidepost for you when writing it.

Alternatively, just pick something, anything, as a motivation and then ask yourself if it works. If it doesn't, ask yourself why it doesn't work, and then maybe you'll have a better idea what you're looking for.

Thanks. I'll think about that. Actually, most other characters in the story do have clear motivations, one in particular, but due to plot reasons I don't think any of them would work as the main character.

I actually kind of like that last method. I never thought of just picking something. My character development has always been based off of what I already know about them, so doing something like that could be really helpful.

sit down with a piece of paper and brainstorm all the stupidest ideas you can think of. maybe they're baby crazy. maybe they're gravy crazy

sit down with a piece of paper and brainstorm all the stupidest ideas you can think of. maybe they're baby crazy. maybe they're gravy crazy

fuck, i love gravy.

To other fellow creators: How do you balance between waiting for responses/suggestions and getting to work on the next update? In my experience there were times when I was working on an update, then someone posts in the thread with a really good idea and I felt like I had to stop and modify to put that in because it feels like if I didn't I would have missed a damn good opportunity.

To other fellow creators: How do you balance between waiting for responses/suggestions and getting to work on the next update? In my experience there were times when I was working on an update, then someone posts in the thread with a really good idea and I felt like I had to stop and modify to put that in because it feels like if I didn't I would have missed a damn good opportunity.

in my experience, I just update with what feels right at the time. if i get suggestions i don't particularly like, i may spice it up and add more to it, or just wait for something else. After a day or 2 is enough time to wait for suggestions, afterwards its up to you.

This seemed like the best place to ask this, but if not lmk

So I’ve been running an adventure for quite a while, but the community I started it in has essentially dried up, and nobody really uses it anymore. Since not getting suggestions doesn’t really make an adventure happen, I’ve been looking for another place to run it, and this is the only online community I know of that really focuses on that! So here I am.

My question is, could I/how would I make the switch to running my adventure on Eagle Time? I can think of a few main ways to do so, and hope that someone could offer advice on the best or correct one to use.

1) Repost the original content. This would presumably be done on the MSPFA mirroring site, with the actual ET thread starting where the adventure left off. Alternatively I could try using some sort of nested-spoiler abomination to cram it into actual thread posts, but obviously that would be difficult to navigate and just not look very good and I only mention it here to catalog as many options as possible, even the bad ones.

2) Make a short recap. This would require more work but would get people up to speed without asking them to read an archive. If I did this I could repost the old stuff on the mirror site, too, but the idea would be that you wouldn’t actually have to read it. Right now I’m leaning towards this option.

3) Straight up just start over. Erasing some of the early art/writing/story decisions is pretty tempting, but on the other hand I’ve drawn almost 500 dang panels for the thing and am nervous about losing the bit of forward momentum I have.

If anyone has any advice or experience re: transferring an adventure between sites, and can weigh in on these options or suggest ones I didn’t think of, it would be greatly appreciated!

I had to transfer my adventure too. I basically did options 1 and 2. I uploaded everything to the mirror, then put a short recap in the first post of the topic, then just went from there.

Question: Is it considered tacky if I mention my patreon page in my adventure threads?

Several folks on this forum use Patreon and advertise it in their sigs and the like. It's a decent system for creative folks so I say go ahead.

I imagine it could be tacky if you're constantly repeatedly plugging it, but letting current readers know and editing in easy-to-find links for new readers seems to me quite reasonable.

People who actually use patreon should probably weigh in on "how much is too much" but in terms of general Eagle Time etiquette, I'm here to say it's a-ok

A'ight, thanks Schazer

So what's the etiquette for when your adventure suffers a suggestion drought? Anyone got any advice for or experience with that kind of thing?

When that's happened to me, I wait a few days to be sure, then I just go with what the most likely action would be based on the last update.

I've only been here awhile, but I've asked kind folk on discord to throw me suggestions for a thread before. I've also seen people just... Carry on with the story and break at a more engaging decision point. Sometimes that's all it takes!

I usually just ask; just not on the forum.

Taking a look at your adventure, the issue may be the question you ended the last update with. It's a weird question, and doesn't seem to have a lot of relevance to the situation - whatever we answer, the next update is probably going to involve waking up. So it's not clear how any answer is going to affect what happens next, which is the main point of suggestions.

In this case, it might be best to just do another update and try to end with a clearer prompt.

One thing I really like about Tuesday's Sixteenths is the way those question prompts are done. Instead of just asking "how do you react to what's being done/said" it asks questions which are more specific and add atmosphere. An example is a recent update where one of the other main character asks the current MC for his men to battle alongside them. Instead of just saying "how do you react" it asks "why is this a terrible idea?". For an adventure so focused on short but succinct updates it helps greatly because it guides the commenters while not completely railroading them, allowing for the author to maintain some control.

Thanks a bunch for all the feedback. Just continuing the story on your own was what I figured the move would be, just wanted to make sure I wouldn't be committing some sort of social faux pas.

In retrospect I can really see how the prompt was poorly worded. My original thought process, iirc, for ending the update there was that I wanted to telegraph that I was planning on ending the scene so that readers would have a chance to ask/do anything that they wanted to at the last second before the dream actually ended. Also I figured that if the amnesiac was going to wake up anyway, it would be more fun to spend an update or three on a weird dream logic way to wake up than just writing 'and then you wake up'. Obviously that didn't end up playing out.

So I guess the problem is that I didn't realize it would come across as a situation where player input didn't matter. I should have been more explicit about my intent re: giving a last chance to do dream stuff. Like I said, looking back I can totally see how someone would come to Fogel's conclusion about lack of agency. And in the end no matter what the guy was waking up eventually. But on the other hand, the suggestion I did get made the waking up process- and what came after- take a totally different turn from what I set out expecting to write, so I can't say that the readers didn't actually have power.

Actually though, this discussion works a perfect springboard into a tangentially related topic I was wondering about! How do you reconcile character consistency with reader agency? For example, in my adventure, two characters are attempting to enter a city. There are lots of valid ways to try and do that, and other things to explore in the meantime, but ultimately- assuming that they don't fail completely which admittedly could happen- no matter what path they take the end result will be about the same. They'll be in the city. This is just by virtue of the fact that characters have goals and are unlikely to act in ways that would go against them.

Additionally, there's the matter of the fact that different in-universe personalities would react differently to suggestions, or even refuse some outright. That also limits how much effect the readers can have on a much more immediate basis.

So what are different ways of resolving this conflict? Personally I've kind of found that over time readers tend to give more 'in character' suggestions, so does that aspect of the issue just kind of resolve itself? What about the matter of long-term character goals- is it actually a problem at all or just a fact of certain styles of adventure?

I'd be interested in hearing other peoples' takes on the matter.
Edit: holy fucking shit this is a lot of text sorry

forum tips: Keep your art quality to a medium so you can make consisent and fast updates but still keep your reader engaged with charming art