A quick backstory, I write a lot in my free time as a hobby, comics, short stories, novellas, but never a erotic visual novel which is something I want to try. I've been prewriting a lot but my main problem is incorporating sex, namely mom-son incest, without it being the same convoluted cliches and tropes in a lot of porn already out there. So does anyone have any tips on how to incorporate incest into a story without compromising the rest of the writing?
VN Any tips on writing an incest game?
- Thread starter JonTheScoundrel
- Start date
- May 3, 2018
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I feel cliches have two purposes, which can conflict with writing. They can be a shortcut in writing or a tool of exaggeration in writing. Both of these properties may be why you are having a challenge, but you may want both properties without being a cliche, and there may be a way to do just that.
A cliche can be a shortcut. Because cliches by definition tend to be well known, you don't have to spend too much time building up or providing background information for readers/the audience to be able to understand where you are going or what you are trying to imply (at least without trying to be obvious and tell the readers directly).
A cliche can be a tool for exaggeration. Exaggeration shows up in all forms of art and writing, and as far as I can tell, the skill of good simplification is a prerequisite before you can properly understand exaggeration. Once you understand exaggeration for your particular art form, you can use it as a tool. Exaggeration can either do more with less (clearly communicating the key points to notice or remember), or at least recreating the previous property of achieving the same thing with fewer words (aka the shortcut). You can further take advantage of exaggeration by doing more with less, and then with less you have more room to do more in the same word count (if you continue to stack more forms of exaggerations).
To avoid cliches, you would essentially have to introduce a new idea that is not already well known. The danger with that is, because it is new, you have to take the time to provide all the information, which could kill the story pacing, attention rates, etc., and if you try to minimize your word count you could fall into using a cliche (accidental shortcutting)
Perhaps you are trying to really focus on an idea, such as perhaps you want to really focus on how the mom and son have conflicting personalities, but because of this conflict it makes them even more reluctant to accept the feelings that they have been having, thus this internal 'conflict' each has is the main meat of the story, the main progressing or pacing of how the situation evolves and eventually leads to the lewd content, whos progression continues to be flavored and paced by the conflict each character continues to reintroduce (such as through flavorful commenting of what is currently going on at any point)
In order to be able to go through this is a good amount of word count, so not to bore the player, and to do so in an interesting fashion, each word has to be powerful. To make each word more powerful, we would need to simplify and minimize how many words you use and thus we are unintentionally exaggerating the meaning behind what remains in your story (the same happens for art, it is why some art forms such as pixel art is really challenging to master). It could be that your exaggeration could fall into a cliche once you run into the phase of mom x son. The issue, in this case, is that you are not controlling what is being exaggerated, instead, it is a byproduct of you trying to clean up your story (through simplification, aka minimizing word count). So to prevent accidental falling into a cliche in this case, you have to control what it is you are exaggerating, and good exaggeration only comes after masterful skills with simplification.
This (the art of exaggeration) isn't an exact science, each artist and writer learns on their own (something I have been looking into for 6 years now) and no one talks about this concept really. If anything, this only gets talked about as drawing cartoony characters, exaggerated body styles, but I feel that this falls into the rhetorical theory realm and by trying to bring it into a more technical light, into talk of psychology, it will help us better understand our writing.
In this case, to solve the issue of improper exaggeration, you would have to explore what it is you want to focus on, highlight, or exaggerate in your story (exaggerating does not mean to stick out obviously, it just means that readers are not thinking of other things at the same time, aka not caught up in the details). figuring out how to do this with words, figuring out why you aren't doing it already, and figuring out what your current words are doing is very tricky because of rhetorical theory, how you already have a tinted view, how everyone comes at something from a different perspective, etc. So the best trick around this is to look at what others have done, see what works, look for more things that work or work differently, and try and compare and contrast the similarities and differences between said works, and through differential elimination, you can determine what effects or tricks do what to help or hinder different exaggerations. I do this a lot with art, it is not easy to explain without writing a freakin thesis on the topic.
I could list out common cliches and how they work (such as both mom and son being horny pervs makes it easy for both to start to initiate things, once things are initiated and each is thinking about it, then things can evolve more naturally, but getting started is the hard part), in fact we could just list out cliches in terms of how encounters start, slow starts are the greatest challenge and even then they don't get around cliches. cliches, or the actual 'start' of an encounter happens right at the moment of one or both noticing (almost in a 4th wall kind of sense) that this is the first moment of these types of encounter (aka seeing one in the bathroom or something by accident, or one getting caught (such as with a boner), etc.). controlling that first moment, trying to do something unique may be the one thing you need to worry about to do something that doesn't match any previous cliches.... I have no idea if anything I say makes sense or helps but best of luck.
A cliche can be a shortcut. Because cliches by definition tend to be well known, you don't have to spend too much time building up or providing background information for readers/the audience to be able to understand where you are going or what you are trying to imply (at least without trying to be obvious and tell the readers directly).
A cliche can be a tool for exaggeration. Exaggeration shows up in all forms of art and writing, and as far as I can tell, the skill of good simplification is a prerequisite before you can properly understand exaggeration. Once you understand exaggeration for your particular art form, you can use it as a tool. Exaggeration can either do more with less (clearly communicating the key points to notice or remember), or at least recreating the previous property of achieving the same thing with fewer words (aka the shortcut). You can further take advantage of exaggeration by doing more with less, and then with less you have more room to do more in the same word count (if you continue to stack more forms of exaggerations).
To avoid cliches, you would essentially have to introduce a new idea that is not already well known. The danger with that is, because it is new, you have to take the time to provide all the information, which could kill the story pacing, attention rates, etc., and if you try to minimize your word count you could fall into using a cliche (accidental shortcutting)
Perhaps you are trying to really focus on an idea, such as perhaps you want to really focus on how the mom and son have conflicting personalities, but because of this conflict it makes them even more reluctant to accept the feelings that they have been having, thus this internal 'conflict' each has is the main meat of the story, the main progressing or pacing of how the situation evolves and eventually leads to the lewd content, whos progression continues to be flavored and paced by the conflict each character continues to reintroduce (such as through flavorful commenting of what is currently going on at any point)
In order to be able to go through this is a good amount of word count, so not to bore the player, and to do so in an interesting fashion, each word has to be powerful. To make each word more powerful, we would need to simplify and minimize how many words you use and thus we are unintentionally exaggerating the meaning behind what remains in your story (the same happens for art, it is why some art forms such as pixel art is really challenging to master). It could be that your exaggeration could fall into a cliche once you run into the phase of mom x son. The issue, in this case, is that you are not controlling what is being exaggerated, instead, it is a byproduct of you trying to clean up your story (through simplification, aka minimizing word count). So to prevent accidental falling into a cliche in this case, you have to control what it is you are exaggerating, and good exaggeration only comes after masterful skills with simplification.
This (the art of exaggeration) isn't an exact science, each artist and writer learns on their own (something I have been looking into for 6 years now) and no one talks about this concept really. If anything, this only gets talked about as drawing cartoony characters, exaggerated body styles, but I feel that this falls into the rhetorical theory realm and by trying to bring it into a more technical light, into talk of psychology, it will help us better understand our writing.
In this case, to solve the issue of improper exaggeration, you would have to explore what it is you want to focus on, highlight, or exaggerate in your story (exaggerating does not mean to stick out obviously, it just means that readers are not thinking of other things at the same time, aka not caught up in the details). figuring out how to do this with words, figuring out why you aren't doing it already, and figuring out what your current words are doing is very tricky because of rhetorical theory, how you already have a tinted view, how everyone comes at something from a different perspective, etc. So the best trick around this is to look at what others have done, see what works, look for more things that work or work differently, and try and compare and contrast the similarities and differences between said works, and through differential elimination, you can determine what effects or tricks do what to help or hinder different exaggerations. I do this a lot with art, it is not easy to explain without writing a freakin thesis on the topic.
I could list out common cliches and how they work (such as both mom and son being horny pervs makes it easy for both to start to initiate things, once things are initiated and each is thinking about it, then things can evolve more naturally, but getting started is the hard part), in fact we could just list out cliches in terms of how encounters start, slow starts are the greatest challenge and even then they don't get around cliches. cliches, or the actual 'start' of an encounter happens right at the moment of one or both noticing (almost in a 4th wall kind of sense) that this is the first moment of these types of encounter (aka seeing one in the bathroom or something by accident, or one getting caught (such as with a boner), etc.). controlling that first moment, trying to do something unique may be the one thing you need to worry about to do something that doesn't match any previous cliches.... I have no idea if anything I say makes sense or helps but best of luck.
- Dec 17, 2018
- 323
- 722
If people can write monsters, superheroes, and the like into believable stories, incest should be no different. The rest of your story, minus the incest part, should be coherent, which means the main characters should be believable with their own motivations and desires.
As for getting your mother character or your son character to want to fuck the other, it's slightly more complicated. People act rationally to get their desires, but I believe people act irrationally to get something their subconscious self desires. It's kinda like how pregnant women have all these weird cravings like rocks and worms and such when their body really needs the minerals those stuff provide.
So in your game, both of your characters engaging in incest have to have a subconscious emotional need that goes beyond wanting to fuck their mom or son. Their desire to fulfill that subconscious need will cause them to act irrationally, starting that incestuous relationship. But having them fuck because of pure sexual desire for one another will come off extremely unbelievable; instead it must happen as a byproduct of both of their desires for something else.
I'll give you an example. A conservative couple and their son live in a ranch 100 miles from the rest of civilization. After an accident with their horse after their first child was born, dad can no longer have kids (got kicked in the nuts, ouch!). Mom was an only child in her household and after parents passed away, she suffered alone until she met her husband. Having no family, and being so far away from the rest of civilization sends her emotions into overdrive: she needs to have more kids or else she and, one day, her son will be alone again just like she was. Her conservative roots compel her to remain loyal to her husband but her inner desire conflicts with this. Eventually, she acts irrationally by fucking her son, the only fertile man within 100 miles, not just because she is sexually attracted to him, but because it fulfills her desires for more children while adhering (very loosely) to her fucked up moral code. As for why the son wants to bone his mom, well you come up with something
.
As for getting your mother character or your son character to want to fuck the other, it's slightly more complicated. People act rationally to get their desires, but I believe people act irrationally to get something their subconscious self desires. It's kinda like how pregnant women have all these weird cravings like rocks and worms and such when their body really needs the minerals those stuff provide.
So in your game, both of your characters engaging in incest have to have a subconscious emotional need that goes beyond wanting to fuck their mom or son. Their desire to fulfill that subconscious need will cause them to act irrationally, starting that incestuous relationship. But having them fuck because of pure sexual desire for one another will come off extremely unbelievable; instead it must happen as a byproduct of both of their desires for something else.
I'll give you an example. A conservative couple and their son live in a ranch 100 miles from the rest of civilization. After an accident with their horse after their first child was born, dad can no longer have kids (got kicked in the nuts, ouch!). Mom was an only child in her household and after parents passed away, she suffered alone until she met her husband. Having no family, and being so far away from the rest of civilization sends her emotions into overdrive: she needs to have more kids or else she and, one day, her son will be alone again just like she was. Her conservative roots compel her to remain loyal to her husband but her inner desire conflicts with this. Eventually, she acts irrationally by fucking her son, the only fertile man within 100 miles, not just because she is sexually attracted to him, but because it fulfills her desires for more children while adhering (very loosely) to her fucked up moral code. As for why the son wants to bone his mom, well you come up with something
.
- Jun 10, 2017
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Exactly this.
Keep is just simple. To use cliche to express this :
If the son saw his mother topless while she's changing, the dialog goes like this :
- son "Oops, sorry mom."
- mother "No worry, can you wait outside, please ?"
- son "Of course."
For both of them it's natural, not because they are mother and son, but because of their inner desire.
Then slowly make it escalate. Another time, in the same situation, once the son start to go out of the room :
- mother "Wait, can you give me a hand to put my bra on."
- The son go back and help her.
- mother "Thanks you, I always struggle with this one."
- son "Why did you bough it in this case ?"
- mother "Well, I like how I look in it. Don't my breasts look firmer in it ?"
- son "I agree."
Step by step, unprovoked situation after unprovoked situation, they slowly give in their inner desire. Each one of those situation felt so natural, that they unconsciously accepted a little bit of this desire.
Then it start to be more touchy, but still not in a sexual way.
It can start by a feet massage, absolutely not sensual in is intent, but felt like it by both. But still, without the cliché dialog lines. No need for a, "It make me so wet".
It's not the mother mind that react to the sensuality, but her body. She'll spread her legs a little, involuntarily, unconsciously she want to "expose" herself to the person she's in love to. And the son will obviously no say the classical "OMG I can see mom's panties", he say nothing, he thought nothing, he just please the person he love by reducing her pain with a massage.
Then the mother will ask him to also massage her ankle, because a massage is always something relaxing, and you always discover how tense a part or your body is, when the part right beside it isn't tense anymore. And it will go further and further, on the same massage, until the mother ask him to stop.
She was hit by her desire, suddenly realizing that she want more from him that just a massage. But what she feel is more confusion than shame. She don't stopped him because she's ashamed of her desire, but confused by the fact that this desire exist.
But all this without moaning, at least not in a sexual way, nor pervert thoughts and introspection regarding this desire.
Starting this moment, the mother's desire for her son isn't anymore an inner desire, she's fully aware of it. She'll probably struggle with it for some times. She'll be a little more tense when asking her son to go outside of the room, not ask him again to help her with her bra...
This until the moment she understand that it's stupid. She really struggle with this fucking bra, there's no reason to not ask for help just because she love her son more than a mother is supposed to.
And now this not anymore inner desire start to slowly grow into a conscious and voluntarily assumed desire. But still an unexpressed one. What she feel is love, not lust, therefore she'll not enforce it on her son. Like any lovers, what would hurt her isn't to not have sex with her son, but to see him unhappy. Therefore, in her mind it's clear, if they cross the line one day, it should come from him.
Make the son pass through the same journey. One day his inner desire will not be inner anymore, and at first he will avoid his mother, like she did with him. Here again until the moment he realize that it's stupid.
And for him also, in his mind it's clear, if they cross the line one day, it should come from her.
Then come the moment of extreme sexual tension, but still fully natural.
One day they'll kiss, a kiss intended to be on the check but who, for whatever reason, end to be on the lips. Don't know, it can be a goodbye kiss on a crowed place, and one of them is hit in the back. But it's still just a kiss, and once again, no "OMG" and things like that.
Then one day the mother kiss her son directly on the lips and not on the check (once again still just a kiss). There's nothing sexual in this kiss, it's just a way she found to innocently steal a little pleasure from the one she love. If the son say something (which isn't necessary) she can just say that it's faster like this.
Note that it must come from the mother the first few times, simply because she's the mother. When he was a baby, she's the one that kissed him on the check for the first time. And now she's the one that decided that now the kiss will be on the lips. Then, after few times the son will adapt, being happy to innocently steal a little pleasure from the one he love.
And it continue like this, slowly increasing but will still being totally not sexual. The mother's bra can be smaller than she thought when she bough it (it's a myth to think that size is something universal), and she ask for a breast massage. But nothing sexual, no moaning while he do this, instead she'll more surely say how much she's stupid to not have tried it before buying it, and how clothes designer can agree once for all to effectively have a 95 C bra that have the same size than all the other 95 C bras.
They can be in hurry, and share a shower. But avoid the usual boner of the son. He'll be half hard, because of his feeling for his mother, but that's all. He's not a pervert full of lust, he can't control his desire and the reaction of his body, but he still fully acknowledge that this shower isn't at all a sexual situation.
Then one day, it will be stronger than them. They'll be back home after a lovely day full of mutual happiness. They'll stand in the living-room, and the mother will say something like "I really enjoyed this day, but I'm a little tired, I'll directly go to bed." And she'll kiss goodnight her son, on the lips as usual now.
But this time something have changed...
The day was so lovely, she don't want it to stop, she want it to be even more lovely, and slowly, almost unconsciously, her lips start to spread apart. And like the son feel exactly the same, his lips respond... It's a matter of two/three second before they start french kissing each others.
Their lips spreading apart, responding to each others, what the sign they were waiting for all this time. Whatever who's lips started to move, it was an insignificant move. What is significant is that the other responded to it, showing that (s)he wanted it as much.
Another two/three seconds, and the french kiss is a furious one. The mother isn't tired anymore, now that she know that her love and desire are shared, she can't be stopped. It's a dam that exploded, they can't contain the desire they feel since so many time, the desire that was growing all this time.
There's no "I'll just give you a handjob", no "A blowjob but it's all you'll get". They'll have sex directly, they'll consume their love the instant they discover that it's a shared one.
And there's no shame, no "sorry talk" after this. What they did isn't something wrong. They are two persons that share a strong love feeling for each others, being lovers is the natural consequence of this.
But there's a "should we continue" talk, a none judgmental one of course. It should come from the mother, since as mother she's the caring one.
"You're still young, I'm 20 years older than you, one day you'll want to start a family on your own, to have children, I can't give you any of this". It's all, those are the only worries she have in mind. She's concerned by her son future, not by morale or what other would think.
And the son will answer with something like, "I don't know." ; "know", not "care", he's at the start of a love story, so confused about the future, he isn't a selfish lustful asshole. "For now the only thing I know is that I'm happy laying to your side and that I don't want to go out of bed. Last night was marvelous. Because of the sex, obviously, but more than this, because I was near to the person I love, sharing this love with her."
And that's all, the talk will end here. Everything have been told. They are related, but they aren't different to any other lovers. They know what they feel now, they know that, right now, they want to feel it forever. But like any other lovers, they don't know the future and don't know how their feeling will evolve with time, while not caring about this. It's the first day of their love story, they'll have all the time they need to think about what the future can be... and like any lovers, they'll never think about what the future can be.
- Nov 19, 2017
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I know you in no shape or form, need any kind of validation from me, Anne... but damn, well said. I wish there were more that wrote with obvious build-up and passion.
- Jun 10, 2017
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Well, I feel stuck here.
Liking such comment about myself would be weird, while not acknowledging it would be very impolite. But thanks, it's always something pleasant to read.
- Jun 25, 2017
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We'll do the "liking" for you... LOL
But seriously - we all do love your tremendous contributions to the site!
- Jun 10, 2017
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Don't be fooled, it's a way to not touch Daz3D and never release my own game
- Jun 25, 2017
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...and those who can't, teach! LOL (Or, in your case, "don't want to")Don't be fooled, it's a way to not touch Daz3D and never release my own game
Great thread, with rare clever people offering really good ideas and explanations about the complexity of incest feelings and working. Keep this thread up guys !
- May 3, 2018
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I don't know about you guys, but I am constantly trying to do more with less, as in, I erased everything I was going to say and tried to rewrite this again using less words to focus on my main point. I have the attention span of a dead goldfish when it comes to gaming, I just don't like reading in my games. I am a minority in these forums. most others I have asked see story and writing quality is high priority concerns. I would describe my goals as "show not tell" and to better describe how to do this without writing a freaking thesis on the subject of rhetorical theory, think of it like this. "Cartoonish writing" is what I like to explore.
In the example that anne O'nymous gave at the very start of their reply, it does two important things, but also does 2 things that grind my gears. An important thing I find with not only stories/writing but specifically with nsfw stuff is people care about the dynamics between people, as well as knowing what each character is thinking or feeling. What I don't like is it often feels like characters are pointing out the obvious, repeating thing that I just witnessed, as well as taking forever and changes in the character never feels real to me ( but that may because change never feels real to me... weird), and because tr to be well written and realistic, they try to talk to themselves not out loud so no one knows what each other is feeling so that kills the building of interesting character dynamics.
With cartoonish writing, you try to keep writing simple without being bad. the way to do this is to avoid writing, aka show not tell. So rather than a character keeping their cool and then each of them trying to rationalizing their feeling that progressivly get stronger over the course of the game. I find cartoonish writing (initially based on fan fics based on cartoons XD ) it tends to be the opposite. Where when they see boobs their reaction is obvious and rather than trying to rationalize how they themselves feel, they first have to deal with the fact that the other person had feelings, which you first ignore, reject, and eventually like. Depending on how slow you are it can still seem like normal writing, but I find with the more you can do and what changes you can cause without writing (such as a character being ok with not wearing close but with a bit of embarrassment) it can drive the story without words without players pointing out horrible writing (but they always will anyways).
but that is just me with cartoonish stuff vs non cartoonish realist stuff.
In the example that anne O'nymous gave at the very start of their reply, it does two important things, but also does 2 things that grind my gears. An important thing I find with not only stories/writing but specifically with nsfw stuff is people care about the dynamics between people, as well as knowing what each character is thinking or feeling. What I don't like is it often feels like characters are pointing out the obvious, repeating thing that I just witnessed, as well as taking forever and changes in the character never feels real to me ( but that may because change never feels real to me... weird), and because tr to be well written and realistic, they try to talk to themselves not out loud so no one knows what each other is feeling so that kills the building of interesting character dynamics.
With cartoonish writing, you try to keep writing simple without being bad. the way to do this is to avoid writing, aka show not tell. So rather than a character keeping their cool and then each of them trying to rationalizing their feeling that progressivly get stronger over the course of the game. I find cartoonish writing (initially based on fan fics based on cartoons XD ) it tends to be the opposite. Where when they see boobs their reaction is obvious and rather than trying to rationalize how they themselves feel, they first have to deal with the fact that the other person had feelings, which you first ignore, reject, and eventually like. Depending on how slow you are it can still seem like normal writing, but I find with the more you can do and what changes you can cause without writing (such as a character being ok with not wearing close but with a bit of embarrassment) it can drive the story without words without players pointing out horrible writing (but they always will anyways).
but that is just me with cartoonish stuff vs non cartoonish realist stuff.
- Dec 17, 2018
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I'm a big proponent of "show don't tell" as well. The issue I find is most devs see VN script writing as novel dialogue writing and so they tend to include things that are natural there, such as "he said", "she said", focusing on how to explain how that person said something instead of showing it. I find VN script writing is much more similar to movie script writing, where the visuals (actors portraying characters onscreen) are as much a part of the dialogue as what is being said. The subtle and sometimes obvious visual cues and the body language of characters say much more and in a much more powerful way than flat words could ever convey.
- Nov 7, 2019
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Actually, it's a LOT different.
You see, when it comes to unnatural/supernatural/mythical creatures, we already know they don't physically exist, and we're more open to unconventional practices, desires and motivations, as well as unreasonable and unconventional character traits.
A vampiore, for example, that is limited by the vampiric lore to not walking on daylight, not standing the smell of garlic, be vulnerable to silver (assuming you follow that particular lore, and not the WoD realm's lore) are common knowledge, and we will easily accept the nocturnal-only lifestyle, among other things, like avoiding certain otherwise pretty hramless stuff, making the character believable, even with all these weird quirks and twists
On an incest story, on the other hand (or, ANY real-life possible scenario for that matter), the luxury of "it's not a real-life possibility" isn't there, to help with writing the story itself. The variables to take into account are way too many in some cases. Let's take a rape scenario, for a fast example. A rape would attract attention, if done in a public space, and the rapist would be easily arrested, or chased away before the act could properly happen, so, the ease of maching predator and victim goes away, there needs to be a plausible reasoning as to why the victim is there, and how the rapist can do it without getting caught in the act, or, if it's a kidnapping, how the victim got to get caught in the first place. Home invasion? Kitchenware acting as defense weapons. Back alley assault? A loud scream would attract at least some attention. And, when it comes to incest, we add the always tricky ethical impact. What of the self guilt of a son getting hard for his mother, or a father wanting to fuck his daughter, or any other variation of the above?
TL
R, incest, and any real-life plausible scenario is far more complicated to write, and be believable.
- Jun 10, 2017
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I fail to see the link between the two. For reason that don't have its place here, I have an attention spawn lower than 20 minutes, whatever the context. Yet I put the story and quality of the writing before the rest, precisely because of this. To simplify, to overcome my attention spawn, I need my brain totally interested by what I'm doing, and totally invested in it.
From experience (so it's neither scientific, nor necessarily the total truth, I just never found other cause whatever who I talked with about their own attention spawn problem), it apply whatever the cause behind the low attention spawn. You can't keep your attention on what you're doing, because it's "boring" (once again to simplify, it's obviously more complex to be effectively summarized with one word).
This imply that, for you, the problem isn't by itself the story or the writing, but the fact that reading (at least reading English) is "boring".
But what I fail even more to understand, is when you seem to oppose this story and writing to the visual part, while they have absolutely no reason to be in opposition. This especially apply to the writing, which is far to be limited to the sole text, and, because it regard the scenario, also apply to the visual part. Whatever how good can be the dialogs, and whatever how good can be the visuals, a game will never be well wrote, at least for me, if the two don't marry together.
The best example of the absence of opposition between text and visual, is still (and it will stay for years) the scene regarding Luna's past in The DeLuca Family. The game have a story and is really well wrote, yet every single image you'll see during this scene carry more than the few sentences you'll read while seeing it. And both are complementary. Without the CG, the scene is nothing, and without the dialogs and few narratives, the CG carry nothing.
There's no internal talk in my example, and it obviously need to rely on words since it's a description of how to to it. It will always be better to describe something with dialogs, than by explaining the kind of image that should go with the situation.
Yeah, it's the same difference than between an heroic-fantasy and an historical story. In the first one, we don't care about the context, and don't care if the author go wild, because we expected it to be unrealistic. But with the second its totally different. If it don't correspond to the reality of this time, then if feel odd.
One example of this is the way people travels in the story. A 100 km trip can take two days in heroic-fantasy, we will not care, but if it don't take at least two weeks in a historical medieval story, it will immediately become unrealistic, and the author will lost us ; he messed even with something as simple than writing (to over simplify it) "they finally arrived after a peaceful two weeks journey".
Since you talk about vampire and we are on an adult game site, it would disturb no one to see a vampire having an erection. This despite the fact that it's a dead person with a heart that don't beat ; therefore someone that can't have an erection. Same if it's a zombie in place of a vampire. It's pure fantasy, we already expect to see unbelievable thing, it's just one more.
Exactly. That's (one of) the reason why Dating my Daughter have a slow pace, because it need to stay believable. As well as the reason why other popular incest games rely on some kind of magic, because from the start it put the context in an alternate universe, and therefore everything can become believable, including an incest relationship raising from nowhere.TL
Yet for the later, it generally stop to be believable once one of the character start the guilt trip ; you don't put your story outside of our norms and reality, to later put those norms and reality back into your story.
Incest is and will always be, the story with the lower pace, as well as a story where it's important to show the background of the characters into their saying and actions. The feelings of the characters don't start with the game, they exist since years. We will just witness the moment where the characters will stop to repress them.
And once they really stop to do it, there's no more moral, no more norms. If you accept to be sexual with a relative at least once, it imply that you already dealt with moral and norms ; you're already above this and you've no reason to stop or go slow. It's even the opposite, you can't go slow at first, because you finally have what you wanted since so many time.
It's like a child at Christmas. When he finally have the toy he'd dream about during all the year, he'll play with it all day long, and sometimes even all night long. Try to say to him that he can only play for one minute (which is the equivalent of "alright, but just a hand job"), and see if he care. See how he look at you if you achieve to keep him away from the toy ; you're the worse human being that ever walked on this planet.
It's the same with an incestuous relationship that become sexual. They wanted it for years, now that they can finally have it, they'll not just start with a quick taste, then put it away until next time ; no, they'll consume it all.
It's a long time dream come true, but it's so unbelievable that it's surely just a dream. So, you dream it all you can 'till it last. It's only after few days, when it become evident that it's not just a dream, that you start to slow down.
- Jun 14, 2018
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Taking your original question and finding another direction...
One thing to consider is that not all stories need to be origin stories. Take Spiderman. Just how many times did film makers decide to tell and retell the Spiderman origin story? Yet the most recent incarnation was able to assume the audience knew how Peter Parker became Spiderman and go from there without the same old tired "spider bites school kid" being rolled out for the 10th time. With incest VN's... it's been way more than 10 already.
You could spice things up by having an incest story that takes place maybe a couple of months AFTER the the point that normal visual novels end. A relationship still new enough to be dramatic, but throwing away the same old story we've seen so many times before. A couple exploring their new found feelings against a background of cultural taboos. Start from a position where things are already "normal, but not normal" and continue from there.
Maybe the protagonist wants to talk about it with his best friend. Maybe the mother isn't being as discrete as she perhaps needs to be. Something... anything to tell a new story.
Also consider a character that is sexually comfortable. Either generally or from an incest point of view. It doesn't have to be the protagonist. Maybe mom is already having an affair and son finds out about it. Maybe the son is already sexually active Mom's best friend. Dunno - something that changes the starting point somehow.
I don't remember the game... but I do recall being mildly surprised when the story starts with the "sister/girlfriend" type being sexually proactive. One of the first scenes is her sleeping with her repressed college friend, who was clearly crushing on her and wasn't likely to say anything about it. She just just wanted to get laid. All it did was highlight to me just how one dimensional all other characters in other games can be and how being sexually passive has become the norm for so many adult VNs.
Both or either of these ideas could also remove the usual peep > touch > kiss > fondle > oral > fuck > anal progression too. Not every relationship has to be linear.
One thing to consider is that not all stories need to be origin stories. Take Spiderman. Just how many times did film makers decide to tell and retell the Spiderman origin story? Yet the most recent incarnation was able to assume the audience knew how Peter Parker became Spiderman and go from there without the same old tired "spider bites school kid" being rolled out for the 10th time. With incest VN's... it's been way more than 10 already.
You could spice things up by having an incest story that takes place maybe a couple of months AFTER the the point that normal visual novels end. A relationship still new enough to be dramatic, but throwing away the same old story we've seen so many times before. A couple exploring their new found feelings against a background of cultural taboos. Start from a position where things are already "normal, but not normal" and continue from there.
Maybe the protagonist wants to talk about it with his best friend. Maybe the mother isn't being as discrete as she perhaps needs to be. Something... anything to tell a new story.
Also consider a character that is sexually comfortable. Either generally or from an incest point of view. It doesn't have to be the protagonist. Maybe mom is already having an affair and son finds out about it. Maybe the son is already sexually active Mom's best friend. Dunno - something that changes the starting point somehow.
I don't remember the game... but I do recall being mildly surprised when the story starts with the "sister/girlfriend" type being sexually proactive. One of the first scenes is her sleeping with her repressed college friend, who was clearly crushing on her and wasn't likely to say anything about it. She just just wanted to get laid. All it did was highlight to me just how one dimensional all other characters in other games can be and how being sexually passive has become the norm for so many adult VNs.
Both or either of these ideas could also remove the usual peep > touch > kiss > fondle > oral > fuck > anal progression too. Not every relationship has to be linear.
- Jun 10, 2018
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I think the most important part of a incest story is the buildup of the relationships where "exploring their new found feelings" is the key, starting a game where the relationship is already there takes that away.
And that's something I never understood, so many MC's or other relevant NPCs always have to be kind of awkward and sexually inexperienced... so that's a good point.
exactly!
!
- Jun 14, 2018
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You're probably right.
The OP was talking about not doing the "same convoluted cliches and tropes". Origin stories for incest feel like more of that to me. I'm not suggesting my thoughts are any better... just different. I wholeheartedly concede the point though that "new feelings" and "buildup" are key. Good stories for me are about character growth and change (not that adult VNs need to have good story)... I just think it might be possible without an origin story. I seek only to challenge the usual route, to provoke a different point of view in the hope that something better comes out the other end.
Which is me just defending my idea. I have all the artistic instincts of a fridge - which is generally why I try to stick to code rather than story.
- May 19, 2017
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Set up your patreon artist account, and make no mention of the story. caption the images "two consenting adults" and no one is the wiser.
sure some viewers may report you, making false claims that your images look like "mother son incest" but you can categorically deny it. "Heavens no! You must have a very dirty mind to even think such a thing" "Art is subject to interpretation, so I suppose if you have a very sick mind, you could interpret any relationship as incestuous, if you wanted to, but I assure you that was not this artist's intent"
If someone sees that your art is being used in an incest game on some other website, you have plausible deniability. "OMG, I had no idea. Those bastards! I'll DMCA them, they won't get away with this!"
Always deny, deny. deny. I dundu nuffin.
sure some viewers may report you, making false claims that your images look like "mother son incest" but you can categorically deny it. "Heavens no! You must have a very dirty mind to even think such a thing" "Art is subject to interpretation, so I suppose if you have a very sick mind, you could interpret any relationship as incestuous, if you wanted to, but I assure you that was not this artist's intent"
If someone sees that your art is being used in an incest game on some other website, you have plausible deniability. "OMG, I had no idea. Those bastards! I'll DMCA them, they won't get away with this!"
Always deny, deny. deny. I dundu nuffin.
- May 3, 2018
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- 1,011
With writing, game design can also dictate how a game maker or a writer may approach their story.
79flavors If character growth and change are the key things you want in your games, then you probably would focus not just the writing, but even the gamp play to focus on your core goals. If you are coding your own game you may also implement game mechanics that further enhance that "aesthetic of play." If you can do growth that does not require players to have to rely on character background knowledge then write a paper and make millions. I am not saying it is an impossible feat, but a common problem many struggles with. Specifically, it is called "front-loading" sometimes in game making, but often that just may apply to learn the game mechanics rather than the story/background itself.
I like everyone else shares this problem. But thankfully, because I am more interested in unique iconic characters and the dynamics between characters, I just need to focus on personalities and quirks, and not so much about background information. The bad thing is, this doesn't make it easier, it just means I am cutting fat out of my story. Even if I introduce one character as a 'bitch' and she acts like a 'bitch' the entire time to prove the point, just that quick introduction isn't enough for players/audience to fully grasp what kind of player the character is, until they have experienced them for a while. I tend to do something similar to portal, portal was 90% tutorial without players knowing it. In my writing, I try to be vague about the past, and because I focus on more of a cartoony aesthetic, I can get away with characters who have quirky personalities which could end up driving the story, such as your example of being "sexually comfortable." My character basically proves who they are for 90% in my writing and then spend the last 10% realizing they need to change else they could miss the opportunity of a lifetime (true love for example, where I am working on a story of a girl who is a queen bee bitch falling for a nerd). But again I am still exploring, I haven't shipped much to prove my craft with this type of writing yet. now send me all the sexy refrigerator drawings >:3
anne O'nymous one of the reasons I try to do more with less, especially on these forums, is because a lot of the time there are people like you who are smart and start to fill in the gaps. This way over the course of multiple replies I can cover what I want to say without writing an single massive essay that no one reads. Rhetorical manipulation of dialog. In response to the points and concerns you have noted, I in summary, I am visually oriented and find that even the simplest of games can impress. I like everyone else spend their lifetime discovering what I like, and then chasing after it.
This is just me, but I feel that too often stories get stuck on the part where the characters dance around the issue. I feel people get stuck on this because they are trying to write realistically, and realistically people do dance around problems and issues. This may be the issue LotsofIncest the original poster was having, and I often feel that in order to break out of the dance, one often has to use a cliche. The longer the dance has lasted, the more the cliche feels obvious and forced because it is a cop out. The sooner you use a cliche, the shorter the dance, the less information readers have that would set a pattern and make it clear when the cliche started, but then if you start too soon all people see is the cliche.
I think the challenge is trying to make change in people something that is convincing. Most of the time we don't change if we don't want to. Sure one could become more sexually bolder, I have thought of the idea of using confidence points to upgrade character builds in rpg like games, but then the issue with slow change is you need a fair amount of content, and then it is an issue of motivation to make the game. I can't say I have a true solution, and if I did it would be a single trick and if I made multiple games/stories each would be a cooky cut of the same design so my games would become predictable like the Bleach storyline. The reason I explore "cartoonish" writing more and more is it is hard to write, it follows different rules, it solves some issues but has new problems, and basically I gave up on this math problem and moved to another hoping to have better luck, just like I do on all my final exams XD
edit: one more paragraph
Often to break out of the dance, you need something like to force an interaction, such as mom catching the son with a boner or something cliche like that (not too sure what all the cliches there are on this subject). I often find it jarring that a writer tries to be careful about things, having characters dance around the problem, only to solve it by tripping them both up with this "sudden" event, and that contrast in writing I feel like gets relied on too much. But then again its not like its an issue that doesn't trip me up as well. I have tried so many stories and story ideas and this is the constant problem with them all is, eventually the characters need to understand that the other character is reciprocating, and you either give consent, or catch them in the act, it seems like. cartoonish writing in many series I see relies sole on just character having funny interactions that make it obvious something is up, or maybe it even gives it away. So I eliminate the issue of the dance entirely by skipping right to the interesting scenes of boobs and boners. And rather than each character trying to rationalize how they feel (minimize talking to themself), I could try to continue to force situations throughout the story and focus on how characters react, and then over time change on how they react. maybe instead of a girl saying piss off, eventually she say fine and flashes the guy or something across the fence, and eventually that behavior escalates to something more interesting.
79flavors If character growth and change are the key things you want in your games, then you probably would focus not just the writing, but even the gamp play to focus on your core goals. If you are coding your own game you may also implement game mechanics that further enhance that "aesthetic of play." If you can do growth that does not require players to have to rely on character background knowledge then write a paper and make millions
. I am not saying it is an impossible feat, but a common problem many struggles with. Specifically, it is called "front-loading" sometimes in game making, but often that just may apply to learn the game mechanics rather than the story/background itself.I like everyone else shares this problem. But thankfully, because I am more interested in unique iconic characters and the dynamics between characters, I just need to focus on personalities and quirks, and not so much about background information. The bad thing is, this doesn't make it easier, it just means I am cutting fat out of my story. Even if I introduce one character as a 'bitch' and she acts like a 'bitch' the entire time to prove the point, just that quick introduction isn't enough for players/audience to fully grasp what kind of player the character is, until they have experienced them for a while. I tend to do something similar to portal, portal was 90% tutorial without players knowing it. In my writing, I try to be vague about the past, and because I focus on more of a cartoony aesthetic, I can get away with characters who have quirky personalities which could end up driving the story, such as your example of being "sexually comfortable." My character basically proves who they are for 90% in my writing and then spend the last 10% realizing they need to change else they could miss the opportunity of a lifetime (true love for example, where I am working on a story of a girl who is a queen bee bitch falling for a nerd). But again I am still exploring, I haven't shipped much to prove my craft with this type of writing yet. now send me all the sexy refrigerator drawings >:3
anne O'nymous one of the reasons I try to do more with less, especially on these forums, is because a lot of the time there are people like you who are smart and start to fill in the gaps. This way over the course of multiple replies I can cover what I want to say without writing an single massive essay that no one reads. Rhetorical manipulation of dialog
. In response to the points and concerns you have noted, I in summary, I am visually oriented and find that even the simplest of games can impress. I like everyone else spend their lifetime discovering what I like, and then chasing after it.In the example, I would say there are two phases. There is the two interacting (the bullet points) and then there are the characters reacting. Reactions are good because we get to understand what each character is internally feeling. The concern I have with this kind of writing (which may just be this example, and not writing in general) which was kinda touched on by 79flavors
The issue of internalization I hinted at (I actually erased the words but I am glad you anne O'nymous brought the terms back into the conversation) is not the kind where people describe a scene that I want to talk about (actually I don't mind those, I tend to enjoy text-based games because of the unparalleled freedom creators have thanks to no art restrictions). Rather, I am talking about how in the above example, since each character tries to act calm, I feel like what happens through most of the beginning (the part 79flavors would say to skip) is that both characters try to "dance" around the subject as they try to deny their feelings or try not to show their feelings.
This is just me, but I feel that too often stories get stuck on the part where the characters dance around the issue. I feel people get stuck on this because they are trying to write realistically, and realistically people do dance around problems and issues. This may be the issue LotsofIncest the original poster was having, and I often feel that in order to break out of the dance, one often has to use a cliche. The longer the dance has lasted, the more the cliche feels obvious and forced because it is a cop out. The sooner you use a cliche, the shorter the dance, the less information readers have that would set a pattern and make it clear when the cliche started, but then if you start too soon all people see is the cliche.
I think the challenge is trying to make change in people something that is convincing. Most of the time we don't change if we don't want to. Sure one could become more sexually bolder, I have thought of the idea of using confidence points to upgrade character builds in rpg like games, but then the issue with slow change is you need a fair amount of content, and then it is an issue of motivation to make the game. I can't say I have a true solution, and if I did it would be a single trick and if I made multiple games/stories each would be a cooky cut of the same design so my games would become predictable like the Bleach storyline. The reason I explore "cartoonish" writing more and more is it is hard to write, it follows different rules, it solves some issues but has new problems, and basically I gave up on this math problem and moved to another hoping to have better luck, just like I do on all my final exams XD
edit: one more paragraph
Often to break out of the dance, you need something like to force an interaction, such as mom catching the son with a boner or something cliche like that (not too sure what all the cliches there are on this subject). I often find it jarring that a writer tries to be careful about things, having characters dance around the problem, only to solve it by tripping them both up with this "sudden" event, and that contrast in writing I feel like gets relied on too much. But then again its not like its an issue that doesn't trip me up as well. I have tried so many stories and story ideas and this is the constant problem with them all is, eventually the characters need to understand that the other character is reciprocating, and you either give consent, or catch them in the act, it seems like. cartoonish writing in many series I see relies sole on just character having funny interactions that make it obvious something is up, or maybe it even gives it away. So I eliminate the issue of the dance entirely by skipping right to the interesting scenes of boobs and boners. And rather than each character trying to rationalize how they feel (minimize talking to themself), I could try to continue to force situations throughout the story and focus on how characters react, and then over time change on how they react. maybe instead of a girl saying piss off, eventually she say fine and flashes the guy or something across the fence, and eventually that behavior escalates to something more interesting.
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