What now?

[CrawfordMtnNative]

I guess it has probably been getting close to a year when I stumbled upon the Interactive Story section of Literotica and thought, "I can write one of those!"

Read the FAQ, got to know Inky and started writing.

It quickly spiraled and the story became something more than I had intended. Last count, I'm at about 97,000 words spread across three dozen .ink files. And I am getting close to being finished! I've edited the entirety a couple of times nows, had a few friends and my wife playtest it, etc.

Problem though. I didn't realize, or had forgotten, that to upload to Literotica it has to be in one file. That isn't best practices for other tutorials for Inky and honestly, splitting it into multiple files would be the only way I could keep track.

So, what do I do now?

In theory I could combine all 97k words into one file to copy and paste into the Literotica story portal. I have spent soooooo long making sure that everything works correctly with my knots, stitches and variables that I am spooked trying that.

At the moment I am thinking "Screw it" and just post the thing on the web under some domain that I buy. That would be the easiest.

Any advice?

 

[Steph_McNeal]

Whoa, almost 100k words over three dozen files is daunting to mess around with. Well done on creating such a behemoth! However -- and there is a possibility that I'm overlooking a bunch of things because I've never dealt with this particular issue -- it feels like you've run a marathon and are now asking us if you should cross the finish line?

Can't you just leave your original files untouched (as backup), copy and paste all the content in a new inky file and see what errors it throws? It'll look blood-red at first, but you can probably solve most of them by CTRL-F-ing through the whole thing and fixing the references to other files. If there is a lot of repetition, CTRL-C/V everything into a text editor and use find-and-replace-all to fix the bulk, then paste it back into Inky.

Once you have the errors solved, give it a few more playthroughs, to see if it works as you've intended. Consider downloading Ink Explorer, which has an alternative storyview and also lets you skip straight to the parts you want to test drive. It helped me, might be handy for you too.

Self publishing is always an option of course. It is your story after all. But the nice thing about Literotica is that it comes with a built-in audience of thousands. Your own domain is unlikely to come even close. And self-publishing also means adding at least some basic html and css yourself. Doesn't have to be a lot, but it is another task, before going live. You can always choose to both as well.

You've come too far to 'screw it'. Would be a shame if this site never gets to see all your hard work.

 

[CrawfordMtnNative]

Daunting is an understatement. Particularly with this story because of its structure. It won't be as simple as copy and pasting into the Literotica editor. The plot is two middle aged couples spend a weekend at a cabin without the kids. As you can imagine that plays out exactly like you think a piece of erotic interactive fiction would play out.

However, there are certain moments that can potentially trigger (40% chance if they made certain choices) a break in the story. The genre completely flips and the four characters find themselves in the middle of a supernatural-horror story. If the math in my spreadsheet is right, that trigger should happen about 15% of the time someone reads the story. In fact, almost 2/3 of the prose and code is in this hidden branch that most readers will never know exists. Getting that structure to work was a challenge and why I am afraid copy and pasting will be hard.

I took a look at Ink Explorer and it seems like an amazing tool. Unfortunately, I only have one computer with Mac silicon and it is the kitchen computer. Which I would rather not work on this in the middle of the kitchen.

I think what I will do is both. I will publish on my own website dedicated just to the story. That will allow me to add images which I want to do anyway. And I will publish Act One on Literotica. It takes place entirely before the potential supernatural trigger, so will be much easier to adapt to Literotica.

Thanks for helping me think through this.

 

[Steph_McNeal]

The story sounds intriguing, too bad you can't get it to work here.

Publishing part 1 here is a fine compromise. It would be great if this could serve as a teaser for the entire self-published story.
Keep in mind though, that Literotica is very restrictive in linking to external domains. Maybe you're aware, but just in case: you can't publish part1 of your story, then add a 'read more' link at the end to your own site.
But who knows, maybe someday you get to publish the rest as part 2.

Ink explorer also works on Windows btw. So you don't have to write review your smut in full view of family and house guests.

Good luck with publishing, drop a note when it is live.

 

[HotCosmo]

I guess it has probably been getting close to a year when I stumbled upon the Interactive Story section of Literotica and thought, "I can write one of those!"

Read the FAQ, got to know Inky and started writing.

It quickly spiraled and the story became something more than I had intended. Last count, I'm at about 97,000 words spread across three dozen .ink files. And I am getting close to being finished! I've edited the entirety a couple of times nows, had a few friends and my wife playtest it, etc.

Problem though. I didn't realize, or had forgotten, that to upload to Literotica it has to be in one file. That isn't best practices for other tutorials for Inky and honestly, splitting it into multiple files would be the only way I could keep track.

So, what do I do now?

In theory I could combine all 97k words into one file to copy and paste into the Literotica story portal. I have spent soooooo long making sure that everything works correctly with my knots, stitches and variables that I am spooked trying that.

At the moment I am thinking "Screw it" and just post the thing on the web under some domain that I buy. That would be the easiest.

Any advice?

Hey, my understanding is that if you have everything well arranged in Knots, the copy-paste should work fine because global variables can be declare in any part of the code. I used multiple files in my first story and then copy-paste them to make it work here, the only think that could be a problem are the INCLUDE in the main file, just erase these when you are copy pasting here.

 

[Steph_McNeal]

In addition to that - and with the risk of stating the obvious: personally I'd get things 100% working and finalized and finished and ready to go in Inky. Then paste here (and do a final check).

 

[liliput1]

When the movie Clue was released in theaters they trolled the audiences by sending out one of three different endings to the film. The multiple endings you see in the streaming or disc copy are just the three endings run sequentially. But movie goers got to be confused/argue about the ending.