#if-confessions

Can only make suppositions here, only those authors know why they share/recommend other projects that you don't find as good. Take those suppositions with a huge grain of salt, I'm just giving you some potential answer. Also none of them are good or bad. Not passing judgement here.

they are trying to be supportive to the community by sharing what they see on their dashboard

they are helping their IF friends get some interaction with their followers

[if they shared an intro post] the post itself was intriguing and they are keeping it for a later reading sesh.

they are like us, having headcanons about a character/theme/setting regardless of the actual content.

they actually like the writing style of the games they recommend

those recs are "guilty" pleasures

they have a different tolerance regarding writing issues (grammar, plot, etc...) when it comes to reading compared to yours or their own writing

and probably many, many more reasons than I can come up with...

But I think most importantly: everyone has different taste.

Same Anon, same...

We should try to finish them, tho :P (I'm trying/failing at that)

Hi Anon,

I'm going to get real with you, buddy. I had to write this message multiple times because I ended up being a bit too... angry. And as much as I absolutely don't vibe with this whole position, it would still not be fair to you to get the end of my frustration with it.

So I am trying again, (more) calmly.

I honestly have been wondering if you are maybe lying to yourself when you said you can't be asked to continue your project. You seem to be very enthusiastic about the story and the characters (or you wouldn't be sharing snippets or answer asks about it. What jumped at me was: my demoless intro blew up.

I've answered a lot of asks in the past about creators worried about not being enough because their project didn't get enough attention, but very little when it came to the ones blowing up overnight. But just because your intro blows up, doesn't mean you don't struggle with all of this.

So I have a few questions for you:

Are you having this blasé attitude about your project and giving up because of the heightened expectations of having blown up?

Then you might find getting a break from interaction/the social aspect to help. Or maybe interacting with other creators outside of Tumblr and discuss experiences and what to do when the motivation is gone or it becomes to overwhelming (hint: it's often a break).

Another option is to set expectations about the project. And I mean yours. Creating a grandiose story spanning books and dozens of chapters each and a cast as long as your arm can be incredibly fun, but it might not feasible, and often becomes overwhelming. Maybe take a look at your story and chop it down to manageable bites or remove parts that don't fit.

Do you worry if you actually post it, people will not vibe with it?

In this case, consider alpha/beta testing, where you share more about the story to a select few and request feedback. Joining a writer's group or a smaller IF server to discuss or brainstorm or get feedback on ideas is also a nice way of getting confidence about what you are doing. Some community have even some sort of writer's circle, where multiple people get together and write for an hour or two.

Are you afraid you will be found out as not being a good creator (a.k.a. the imposter syndrome)?

We all start somewhere, and that somewhere is very often bad. Don't sweat it. The good news tho, is that it can't get worse. The more you write, the better you get. (but you have to write first)

Do you want a point of reference? Try reading the first version of my first game. It is cringy as hell, there are a lot of grammar and syntax mistakes... I hate it so much, so I made it public to everyone. Go roast me about it, then go read the much better version (or the other way around.

Do you feel like you are lacking confidence in your ability to finish the project because your experience with the medium is minimal, making it overwhelming?

Pause the project for a bit, and write a tiny game (not more then 1k). Join game jams to test some stuff out. Mess around with the program and see what can be done.

Did your struggle with writing come from realising the amount of work required to make it happen?

Time to break it down in smaller pieces, until it feels doable. Then take one piece at a time. And there is no timeline you need to keep...

Do you feel like you can't do this by yourself and would feel more confident continuing the project if you had more direct support?

Try to reach out to other people and see if someone would be interested in helping you make this project a reality. I've seen many projects being done in duo or trio (Harcourt, Lady Thalia...). It will be a different dynamic, but can be very fulfilling.

Are the characteristics of the IF medium something you can't see working? Does the story not work when variation is added? Is there only one path that works for you?

Maybe, IF is not the medium for this project (or for you). That is also fine!

Not everything will work with IF (hell, even inside the IF sphere, some stories fits better the parser-type or the choice-based one, or the hyperlinks one). Maybe the project should become a novel, or a poem collection, or be turned into a comic/webtoon.

~~~

Before you go on to make another intro post with your new idea on the hope that it will blow up so you can just talk about it and bounce when it becomes too difficult, maybe ask yourself:

why you entered this community in the first place,

why you wanted to try your hand at making IF too,

why this story stuck to you so much you wanted to share it with everyone,

what made the story fun in the first place,

what was the point where the fun in writing actually stopped,

whether you want to abandon a story you seem so passionate about...

Interactive Fiction is an awesome medium, and it's a shame to take it for granted...

Or you can go ahead and post that new idea of yours, continuing to blatantly lie to people to get attention rather than enjoying the medium and the craft for what they are, and toy with people essentially...

I might have been reaching there about the lying to yourself, or the fact that blowing up affected your love for creation more than what you message conveyed...

... and you might actually not give a shit at all about doing anything but throwing ideas at the wall, ignoring the rich and incredible history of Interactive Fiction and its captivating evolution (still happening today), neglecting the vibrant community just to con people for notes and attention that are insignificant in real life, lying to everyone just for the lolz...

You do you boo...

~~~~~~~~

Little reminder for people reading this: Don't send hate to people posting an intro post without a demo assuming they are like this anon. It would really suck if we end up gatekeeping a fun hobby because of one bad apple.

this is specifically about artbreeder character portraits and nothing else. i’m not defending authors creating entire pieces from prompts on other ai art programs.

and from what i’ve seen, artbreeder doesn’t steal art like other ai art generators do. it seems like it has different templates that you can recolour and morph between to create certain facial features. (someone please correct me if i’m wrong)

Anyone familiar with how Artbreeder functions exactly, please do jump in the conversation, I'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic of Machine Learning to be able to explain properly how it works (and the technical aspect is making me more confused...). Nor whether it is different to other AI programs like Midjourney/DALL-E.

Hey Anon,

Take a deep breath. Feel your feelings. Take another deep breath. Close Tumblr for a while and focus on something else (taking a walk helps cooldown).

With numbers being so visible on posts and game pages, it's often hard to stop watching them go up and not compare yourself.

But they are just this... numbers.

They don't say whether your project will tank or be successful either. Hitting the jackpot of notes on an intro post doesn't always translate in readership, or longevity of those projects either.

Most importantly, those numbers don't define your value as a creator or as a person. They don't define the quality of your work either.

Working on an IF project is not a sprint. It's a marathon. And a lot of projects never see the finish line...

Be kind and patient with yourself and your work.

Back to two or three years ago, I feel it was much easier for a new IF to gain a decent amount of people interested, while now sometimes it can be hard navigating through all the new stories.

And don't get me wrong, I believe readers have risen too with time, but it is still hard to create a story that has not been done over and over and that at the same time holds the tropes or characters dear to so many authors.

I think that once your IF is long enough, it all somehow equalises, but at the early stages stakes have become higher. Readers expect more and more customisation, since they have been accustomed to it, they expect variety and a certain level of polish of the story. Which is natural since IFs have become more popular, but it still can look daunting from a new author perspective.

Cherry, the author of A Tale of Crown, has also talked about how the IF landscape on Tumblr has changed on her blog ( X , X ) in the past years. I am sure she is not the only one... It is becoming a bit saturated in some genres for sure...

It is so nice people get to find a new way to be creative and tell stories. That's also something I love about IF. Anyone with an internet connection can create something.

But I agree with the sentiment of looking at the community and seeing a bit of a saturation with so many new IFs popping up on Tumblr. You have to be shinier and newer and grab the attention of readers in new ways and keep that attention, otherwise your project will get washed out by other ones... It can definitely feel frustrating, that's true.

This is why I always tell people who what to start: do a small contained story! Something simple, very linear, with few variation, to test the waters and the IF program. Then try bigger (or not, do whatever).

Though, having been behind the scene with the Interact-IF directory, there are waves of new IFs throughout the year. Usually, we'll see more new projects pooping up around school holidays, especially the summer ones. And of those, very little have available demos or do end up getting one out. Many, many, projects end up getting abandoned after being announced, more so if there is no demo out.

I think this is why you can see a bit of an equaliser once your project is long enough (or you are more settled/popular in the community). People like shiny new things, but they prefer consistency and substance.

On the story and trope note: everything had been beaten to death already, but it doesn't stop those stories or tropes from being used over and over again and achieving popularity. And you can have the exact same premise/plot/trope between two authors feeling different because those authors have different voices.

For the stakes rising... yeah... Readers can have a lot of power in the community. [I'm generalising here, there are exception to the rule.]

Readers are expecting more, more polish in the writing or the UI, more customisation and variation in choices, more choices being meaningful to the story, more updates, more words, more of everything they've been accustomed to have through popular or long-standing IFs (or IFs published/created by actual companies). Note: this is not always a conscious thing, btw.

They will either forget that forget that IF is a hobby for most authors, that they do in their free time, that those authors may not have the knowledge to reach those expectations, or that they are limited by the resources they have (see this other confession). Just because someone did it before or because it is technically possible, doesn't mean that everyone should or has to strive for it.

But at the same time, I feel part of it has to do with how great past and established works have been, how boundaries pushing they were in terms of polish or customisation or just what IF can do/be. Each new project as the potential to push that boundary, to increase people's expectations for the next wave of IF, and to put more pressure on newer creators.

And the issue with that is you can't stop that from happening. You can't take back what's been made, it's already out there. And you shouldn't want it to stop from happening either. Without people pushing boundaries, the medium would be come stale.

I am sure there are many different reasons for why the stakes have been increasing, aside from the saturation of new projects, increased readers' expectations, and increase of great works out there. But here are a few as to why there might be more pressure for creators:

creating an IF to get likes/numbers/interactions rather than just because,

not getting the amount of interactions you expected from the get-go or not seeing it increase as much as you hoped,

IF becoming more popular and the potentiality of your work being read by more people,

announcing a project before having planned or written part of the story,

promising mechanics or features without knowing whether it will possible/make sense/feasible to include it,

not setting expectations about the content of a project when announcing it (or soon after),

expecting too much from ourselves as creators,

believing their story isn't new enough,

starting an IF without having done any research about how to create one,

starting a big project without testing the waters of IF creation,

I know a few general ones. I believe most people hang out in each other's personal/IF discord or have private groups.

Interact-If (@interact-if) has a discord with quite a few IF authors (it is open to all IF enthusiasts, not just creators).

@larkin-if created a Twine Discord some while back, which is mainly used by IF creators (the convos are usually Twine related).

@mondaysandwich started the Writer's Club Discord (not just IF, but most users are IF creators)

If you are looking for a more broad IF community (not just Tumblr), I would suggest checking the IntFic Forum, there are a lot of veterans there (like have done IF for 30 years veterans).