Erotic - Games Interactive Stories FAQ

The Erotic-Games Interactive Story FAQ and writers' guidelines.

By B'Stard (nazgul5@hotmail.com)

Question: What is this?
Answer: A document I wrote up for Ice Demon. It includes some general questions about the Interactive Stories on Erotic-Games, as well as some (very subjective) tips and ideas for writing good chapters to the stories.

Q: If you could say just one thing regarding the stories, what would it be?
A: Respect your fellow posters! This is really what everything boils down to. The Golden Rule, so to speak.

Q: What is an interactive story?
A: In general, any story where you, the reader, participate in the outcome of the story. In this case, a number of interactive erotic stories, with dual choices for the continuation of every story-segment, written entirely by its readers.

Q: What are the stories?
A: Each story has a general theme.
    "X-Trek" takes place in a Star Trek setting. Usually with plenty of... let's say "special" additions.
    "Hentai" is the japanese name for "erotic comic". Typical themes involve aliens, tentacle-rape, science fiction and fantasy stories, and, well pretty much anything you can imagine. This hasn't always shined through in the stories themselves, but you shouldn't be surprised to find, say, amazon women, sexy mutants and a tree with lots of tentacle that rapes and impregnates young ladies (all part of a storyline in the current 'Hentai' story)!
    "Peeping Tom and Friends" hasn't always had much of an overall theme, but it's always nice if you include some peeping!
    The as-yet unnamed story we call just "Ongoing Story" for the moment. As opposed to the others, this one requires a password to post to.

Q: How do the Interactive Stories on Erotic-Games work?
A: You start at Chapter 1, with two choices on what to do or what happens. When you chose one, you're taken to the next chapter. In case this one hasn't been written yet, you can write it yourself. To do that, you give the chapter a title, a main text, and two choices for the next chapter. This way, the story grows and branches out like a tree. You can also add your name and e-mail adress.

Q: Why would I want to give out my name or e-mail adress?
A: No-one expects you to give your real name. However, having a consistent pen-name may help the other readers, and I heartily recommend it. If, for instance, you find you really like the writing style of a particular poster, you can make sure you read all his/her posts, and you can even find his/her posts in older stories! Help out the other posters by at least having a pen-name! Regarding your e-mail adress, you get a chance to get e-mailed responses to your writing by other posters. I find this very nice. If you don't want to use your normal e-mail account, you can always whip one up on, for instance, Hotmail. But again, e-mail is optional.

Q: What's this "View outline of the chapters" that appears at the bottom of the page?
A: It's a link that takes you to the outline for the story. This is graphical representation of the story-tree, with just the titles of the chapters (as links to the chapter itself). Chapters that you have already read show up in grey, while unread chapters are white. The outline is very useful. For one thing, it allows you to see when new story additions have popped up, perhaps in response to one of your postings. You can also use it to find posts by a special writer, or search the page for special words (use the 'search' function in your browser).

Q: Hey, the old story disappeared! There's some completely new stuff here!
A: The stories get restarted occasionally. The old stories are still available to members of 'Erotic-Games', but tend to be pretty inactive.

Q: What practical things should I think of when I post an addition to the story?
A: Good question. Several things:
    1. Check your spelling. It does matter. Your story becomes more readable, and easier to understand, and more pleasing to the eye, if you minimize your spelling errors. It's completely understandable that some may slip through, but do make an effort.
    2. Write the way they taught you at school. Punctuate properly. Capitalize the first letter of each sentence. Use correct grammar. Don't use shortforms like 'u' instead of 'you'. Separate your writing into paragraphs. All of this matters - it really improves the way your story reads.
    3. Don't write too short. The program will reject stories that are too short.
    4. Never, ever sabotage the story! That's just vandalism and lessens the enjoyment of everyone else. Participate instead!

Q: I want to produce a good addition. What should I think about?
A: A very good question. Again, several things:
    1. See the above question.
    2. Keep to the subject. Make sure your addition is along the lines of the previous chapters, although you can of course make some changes. Use the names and descriptions previous posters have handed down to you through the chapters. Make sure that your addition is line with the choice that took you there. You wouldn't like it if a new poster made too drastic changes to something you wrote, would you? Don't do it yourself, then.
    3. You want to write a tense, sexy story, right? Then make sure to describe your characters and situations. This increases the quality of the story - you should make the readers care about what happens. There is a reason incest stories are so popular - they automatically add tension through their very subject matter. Compare the text piece "You see a woman. You go up and fuck her ass" with "You see a stunningly beautiful brunette in her early twenties step out of the limo. She wears high-heeled pumps, a very tight, black mini-skirt and a shirt that strains against her huge, well-shaped breasts. You walk up behind her, and whisper 'Have you ever had a foot-long cock up your ass?' in her ear. She spins around, and stares at you with eyes wide open." Now, which one was more interesting? Which one makes you care what happens next?
    4. Adjectives are good. Make sure to vary them. It's possibe to go overboard with them, but in general, they improve the story. In the second text above, there may be a little too much, but hey, this isn't high literature. A cock is probably more interesting if it's "Eleven inches of rock-hard man-meat, heavily veined" rather than just "big". Describe bodies, clothes, situations, feelings, sensations... and anything else you feel like.
    5. Dialogue is nice. It adds to characterization. It's not that hard to write, really. It's often more interesting as well, and gives your story a nice flow.
    6. Do give your characters names. Not only does it make the story easier to read and write, it also adds to the 'feel' of it. Many names are associated with certain nationalities ('Hermann' is an instant German) or personalities (the extreme example being 'Lolita'). You may want to take advantage of this when naming your characters.
    7. Write long story additions. I would recommend at least ten lines. This way, the story gets a chance to move along, and anyway, giving good characterizations and descriptions take a bit of place.
    8. Give the readers an interesting choice when they decide what happens next. The choice between "You fuck her pussy" and "You fuck her ass" gets really old, really fast.
In case you want to introduce a more controversial or extreme theme, it's a good ploy to give the reader a chance to choose something else if it's too kinky for his or her taste. That means that when the reader comes to the hard stuff, it's by his/her own choice. Involve your readers!
    9. If all of this seems daunting, post anyway. Just do your best. You will get better at it.

Q: Is there a maximum to what length an addition can be?
A: Not really. If your addition gets really long, you may want to consider to split it into several consecutive additions, or at least add the warning text 'Long' to the chapter title.

Q: Hey, some stuff here is really sick! Do you allow anything?
A: Pretty much, yes. One person's 'sick' is another's 'exciting'. However, if you want to post stuff that others might find really offensive, you may want to build it up over several chapters. Allowing the reader to choose the extreme stuff - by putting it in the 'What happens next' choices - also works. Remember the Golden Rule - respect the other writers. Also, don't crash extreme stuff into places where it doesn't belong. If some writers are having a nice, soft and romantic storyline going at one place, don't introduce pre-teen anal donkey-rape into it.

Q: I found a really annoying chapter. I'm going to stop it. Perhaps if I start with "It was just a dream..."
A: Don't. If you can't stand a chapter or storyline, just avoid it. There's plenty of space for you to write stuff you like. Don't sabotage stuff that other people may enjoy. That just gets everyone annoyed. Either run with the flow or don't post.

Q: Someone just posted a chapter that's completely incomprehensible or just consists of random characters. Should I still not try to make things right?
A: If it's really that bad, go ahead and try to make a save. It's usually best if you can save at least some of the latest posters intentions. However, see the next question.

Q: Hey, there's a chapter that was here yesterday, and now it's gone!
A: Each story has one or several administrators, who have the power to delete chapters. This is a power that should be used sparingly, mainly at plotline sabotages and incomprehensible posts.

Q: Someone just wrote a damn great chapter! What should I do?
A: Write an addition to it, if you have a good idea. You're not interfering, honest. Almost everyone who posts a story addition wants to get responses to it - why else would they post it? You can even include a short note of praise in your reply. And if the writer posted his e-mail adress, why don't you send an e-mail? I, for one, like to receive them and answer every time.

Q: Can I make some cool special effects in my addition?
A: You can make your text bold, underlined or italicized using the usual HTML tags.

Q: B'Stard, you don't post as you preach, you hypocrite!
A: Er... No-one's infallible. I do try. And most of the above recommendations aren't set in stone. There are situations where they may not apply.

Live long, and post!
/B'Stard