#interaction concerns

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.

Oh, Anon....

I'm not going to lie to you and say it will get better as soon as you post a demo. This feeling can come back every time you post an update (have seen many authors worry about this on my feed) or even when posting a change in the game (locking a character aspect - gender, sexuality, race, etc...; re-writing a part/the whole thing; going on hiatus; answering a difficult ask; etc.... Or just come back... just because.

Creating IF is not easy to begin with, because of how the medium is constructed (whether it's choice-based or parser... so much variation to take into account sigh), where you are (usually) both the writer and the coder. But advertising your project adds another layer to it, because now you need to deal with expectations and feedback and comments and ratings and questions (a.k.a a customer service position), on top of making announcements and posting extra content (a.k.a a marketing position), and maybe even set up beta-testing rounds (a.k.a a quality control position). It's really a lot...

There are some advantages of releasing an intro post before having a demo. That's what I did with Harcourt, teasing the announcement, then posting an intro post with a release date, then posting the demo. All this spanned half a year. But I still got some lovely return from it. CRWL also didn't have a demo when I started posting about it. Building some hype about a project is a good marketing strategy!

The worse that can happen is that the demo doesn't live to your follower's expectations....

And that's fine. If some people leave, you will probably have other people coming onboard that like what you do. You will make mistakes along the way (everyone does), what is important is how you respond to them and how you grow from them. We all have to start somewhere :)

So right now, take a deep breath, maybe have a drink and a snack, maybe even a nap or a walk outside. Maybe take a little break from Tumblr or turn off the asks box for a while. And when you come back to your project, don't think about anything but what you want to do with the story. And maybe, when you have a bit ready (like a prologue or a chapter), have a beta-testing session for feedback.

Creating IF should be about having fun (even if writing/coding is frustrating), not tormenting yourself with what could happen.

~~~

And since most of them are without demos, but with a very very interesting premise, I feel like they sometimes overshadow IFs with demos. And that is very demotivating as an author who has worked on their demo to see new intro posts blow up much much more than theirs.

Like you and another anon said, I am to a point where I follow only IFs that are at least a chapter long. If anything, because otherwise I am unable to keep track, send asks or follow more than that...

Arhg I thought I has another one of those, but can only find this one currently... I was so sure I answered more like this...

Welcome to the school holidays burst! where WIPs are announced left and right until school starts again.

It is a wonderful time where everyone is online, getting excited about synopsis, and trying to follow the hype of creating IF. And everything is shortly abandoned when making an IF is not as easy as it looks, or the pressure becomes too great from getting thousands pairs of eyes following you overnight, or readers realise there will probably not be a demo anytime soon, or [insert reason]....

As said in the first part of this ask, things start to equalise after a few updates, overall. While quite a bit of people like novelty and will jump on the new bandwagon when the next synopsis is posted, substance ends up being more important at the end of the day.

Don't let Tumblr IF get to you. It's just a bubble. There's more to IF than this website...

Hi Anon,

I think it comes down to a few reasons:

Luck

Marketing

Expectations of the readers

As much as we would love to believe a piece of work should get attention based on its worth alone, it's not really the case in reality. Like you said, there are many WiPs without demo that get a lot of attention, while other projects with a working demo/game who barely get anything. This is a generalisation, there are completed games and demos that are widely popular, as well as WiPs without demo who get no traction.

So first, there is plain Luck. Luck in regards to who ends up seeing the post, who reblogs the post, whether it checks the boxes of whatever is trendy in the moment (genre/tropes/customisation/etc), whether followers are actively engaging with the post and blog (replies/reblogs/asks), etc...

You know: right time in the right place.

You can't really plan for that, even if you researched all the trends, where to promote your project, who to send your project to, etc... Still might not be enough.

What can help mitigate this is using marketing to your advantage, with actions such as:

teasing a new project to get some hype with for example: teaser posters, countdown to the intro post/demo, character reveal, lore reveal, UI teaser, quotes from the demo, playlists, etc...

having a compelling intro post, with a good hook at the start, a synopsis that gives just enough to get the reader interested, having nice design in the graphics, including relevant links (demo, forum, tags, etc...), including what the game will feature (or what it already has), tagging the post properly (#interactive fiction, the genres, customisations, type of game, the system, etc...)....

submitting your intro post to directories, or promoting on different platform

continuing to be active on the blog after the intro post/demo drops with snippets, answering asks, and pretty much again what was in the first point....

Does this seem like a lot? Because yeah... it is. And it's not always feasible to do all of this. It requires careful planning, and skills, and knowledge. (I can draw to save my life for example...) And it can be very very frustrating to having done all of that and get little interaction (and the luck part comes back into play here).

And finally, reader expectations (I am not sure whether it is the right word...).

Hype can be a double-edged sword. The more you have, the higher the chance the end result might not match the hype expectations (I would loooove to know how hyped project continued in terms of interaction after a demo drop).

When you don't have a demo, people can only learn about the way you write or the character or the story from what you publish on your blog. As much as snippets can give you an idea, it's still not the actual thing. So you can't really disappoint people just yet.

Until it is set in stone by a demo, Reader's imagination can run wild (and even to the opposite direction of what the author intends).

I know my story is as good as theirs. And I love it. But honestly sometimes it is not enough. I wish I had the ability to be completely detached from the amount of notes I get on the blog but I don't.

Despite this, I think I will keep going, but it will probably take me much longer than anticipated.

(Sorry for the negativity, I am still mostly happy about my work and the people, even when they are fiew, who interact with my game)

Hey, no need to apologise. If I don't like an ask, I don't have to publish it :P

I understand the feeling. It can feel very demotivating to continue working on a project when this happens. And I've seen many authors just giving up their projects because of the lack of interaction. It really suck to see many people following your work and just get little to nothing in return.

I know I've given the advice about not caring about numbers before (which is kind of hypocritical considering I post all my stats every 6 months :P), but I also know first hand it is not something that happens in an instant. It's a gradual process where you need to catch yourself and remind yourself that your worth and the worth of your project is not synonymous to those numbers. Not going to lie, it sucks hella balls. And it's not full proof. Still catching myself...

Another advice I've given is to join writing group or IF author communities (discord and the like). Many find themselves in the same position as you feel right now. It's always nice to be able to discuss it with people who've been going through it. Interacting with other IF author in general had been a great positive for me, I've found out.

Anyway here's the other side of getting a lot of attention when you're just beginning, it is overwhelming. And as much as I'm grateful it's not a dry desert I'm also terrified of making a mistake or not being able to deliver and absolutely losing this thing that's currently built on sand.

I'm still grateful because I think for a bit I thought "yeah this much attention is probably normal" but then I see certain posts that bring me back to life and it's all "oh god they'll hate me if this sucks" again.

Do I sound entitled and like a spoiled brat? Maybe but this is truthfully how I feel.

Ohhh related to the OG Confession though I think that OP anon was more frustrated with not getting attention than anything else. But those two asks feel like different side of the same coin.

Feelings aren't right or wrong. They just are. Sometimes all your feelings are aligned, sometimes they are conflicting. It's normal. It's very human. No worries there.

So here's a hug, hon.

And you don't sound entitled. Just because you got a lot of attention quickly (lol, can't relate), it can still be scary to have so many people look at your project, interact with it and have (maybe too strong) opinions about it.

You can end up feeling very pressured to put out only perfect content, and reply to every messages you get, and feel thankful all the time for people giving your work attention, etc... because you don't want to let those people down. No wonder it can be overwhelming!

But, writing IF shouldn't put you in such a pressured state. You are allowed to make mistakes. It's actually good to make them, because this is how you learn to be better, to grow as a creator.

So make your mistakes. Make a lot of them. And have fun with it!

also in general it’s frustrating because creators are so very often treated like shit for standing up for themselves. there’s a sense of entitlement amongst readers to where they’re forgetting that these aren’t their stories focused around their characters but rather a story in which they can take part. there’s a difference. the condescension is utterly ridiculous, as is the false indignation or concern over “but my MC wouldn’t do that.”

😕

Yeah... Going out of the trend usually doesn't get a lot of return. And the Tumblr/CoG sphere is more focused on those genres than others. This is true for many things in the creating/entertainment sphere unfortunately.

Still... too much of a good thing... And we should have more range in genres out there. Helps the whole IF sphere not go stale ;)

So, write your stories even if they go against the grain, share your perspective. It will strike a cord with some people, even if it is just a few :)

I also agree, some readers can have... blinders when going through IF works, rather than enjoy the works. It's a shame, because they don't experience the full story they have in front of them by doing so.

Making IF can be very personal (the Neo Twiny had a lot of personal entries), so it is normal to feel some apprehension after sharing it to the world. You can't know how other will react to it.

But unless you write something truly outrageous, most people don't hate the author because they didn't like their story. They will move on to something else. I've hated pieces by a creator I absolutely adore, for example. Sometimes our writing knocks it out of the park, sometimes it doesn't.

~

Those users seems acquainted with one another probably because they've been on those server the longest or just like to discuss stuff a lot.

But just because they are doesn't mean they wouldn't want to talk to someone else, or get acquainted with another IF creator.