Silly Rationalization or Illogical Plotlines

[lazymunchlax]

I've always wondered, whether it be here in VNs or AAA stuff made elsewhere in any medium, do writers not fact check or even get someone to look at their script to see if some things make sense?

I've seen characters in love with an MC refuse her offer for marriage (Which, until it was offered, was what they wanted) because they favoured a prostitute instead on the day the MC needed help.
I've seen stories that make use of Legal aspects that would never fly in reality. You want the MC to legally be sold as a slave in the US? Do your conspiracy right, simply kidnap her and be done with it.

The lengths they go to, to justify their plotlines, which could've been achieved by simply tweaking one detail, then no questions need to be asked. The Rich woman that loses everything and has to be deported is in itself, potential for a self-corruption story to regain riches, why the need to add fake threats of a slave camp? While making it try to sound legal at that?

Why go out of your way to justify incest with some of the silliest rationales?

Authors! Writers! Scriptwriters! There are often simpler alternatives to achieve what you want. You don't need to make some crazy conspiracy. If you're going to go down that route though, go full hog! Main character has some non-existent illness that requires them to have sex with women or they'll die? Make it up, don't have characters in the novel act like that's normal, make it some new thing that nobody can believe. It adds a slight delay, but it makes sense and we don't need the illness to make sense, as it's obviously made up.

When you try to make a plotline sound as realistic as possible, with the catch that it isn't realistic at all, you end up running the risk for breaking immersion, especially if you keep bringing it up!

My 2 cents.

 

[Avaron1974]

Because a made up illness is totally immersive and just drags people into the story....

Stories are made realistic because it helps people relate.

You can take the most batshit insane of circumstances and plots and add touches of realism because it helps people to relate to characters and that's what immerses them.

Take Lord of the Rings, one of the original fantasies that brought a whole new world to life with races and creatures we'll never see yet a cast of characters so diverse people can relate to at least 1 and that draws them in.

When you add silly elements in the place of actual character growth THAT runs the risk of breaking immersion.

 

[lazymunchlax]

Stories are made realistic because it helps people relate.

I agree with this statement, I believe I said originally that a blend of Realism with Unrealistic elements can work. I just don't like it when they take something that's straight up bogus or nonsensical, and try to justify it.

It's like the issue with media that deals with Zombies. Books, Games, TV, Movies etc. The Why and How they came to exist is wholly irrelevant, we don't care. It's not generally pertinent. Arguably factors more into background decisions and rules. The only time it's an important factor is when you want the people to end it / cure it. In which case, you gotta figure out what causes it.

How is a virus circulating through a corpse and making it move? It makes no sense.

A fungus on the otherhand, makes a lot of sense. There are Fungi that exist in the world that zombify their victims (Ants typically). You can also go into other fantasy tropes that dont exist in reality, and need to give no real thoughts to how it works, because we have nothing realistically to base it off. A Magical Virus that can work in corpses? How can you argue with that when it's magic. Something to do with Souls, and thus ethereal / spiritual stuff.

There's a lot of potential to make something that makes sense, even if it's based on pure imagination. My issue solely stems from writers persisting on what could be seen as forcing something based on reality, that requires them to make up something, and it's constantly brought up. The sort of plotline where I'm getting a headache from rolling my eyes too much.

 

[Doorknob22]

So basically what you're saying is that some people in the world are mediocre storytellers? When I put it like this it's not so shocking, isn't it?

And a more serious answer: some people get into writing pr0n for the 3d boobies or the money, thinking that "story" is just a filler to put between booby shots. And, as you have realized, it shows.

Used correctly, words can be more erotic than any image or animation.

 

[sillyrobot]

Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything is shit.

 

[Diconica]

Because a made up illness is totally immersive and just drags people into the story....

Stories are made realistic because it helps people relate.

You can take the most batshit insane of circumstances and plots and add touches of realism because it helps people to relate to characters and that's what immerses them.

Take Lord of the Rings, one of the original fantasies that brought a whole new world to life with races and creatures we'll never see yet a cast of characters so diverse people can relate to at least 1 and that draws them in.

When you add silly elements in the place of actual character growth THAT runs the risk of breaking immersion.

What he is talking about is basic plot hole issues and the break in realism those stories have.

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These are things you are taught not to do in 4th and 5th grade writing, you know elementary school.
They actually kill immersion not help it.
The average reading and writing level is 7th to 8th grade. Ignoring grammar because English is so many developer second language it still doesn't even come close to that for most games on here.

Just for accuracy sake plot and story logic & consistency and logic is started in a lot of place in 3rd grade.
3rd grade they start analyzing it. By 8th grade they are required to master it. Texas isn't even the best its good compared to many but not the best.
Texas (TEKS) 3rd grade

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(8)Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--literary elements. The student recognizes and analyzes literary elements within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse literary texts. The student is expected to:

(A)infer the theme of a work, distinguishing theme from topic;
(B)explain the relationships among the major and minor characters;
(C)analyze plot elements, including the sequence of events, the conflict, and the resolution; and
(D)explain the influence of the setting on the plot

Notice C & D. That shows exactly how pathetic the writing is for most of these games.
The fact in 2016 Texas was rated 43rd in reading in the States, 28 in college readiness and 5th students graduating high school.
The TEKS provided above is 2019 meant to help correct some of that. If Texas had the level of ground to improve kind of says how even more miserable these games are written.

 

[mickydoo]

I'd be surprised if any of mine made sense.

 

[Diconica]

It's like the issue with media that deals with Zombies. Books, Games, TV, Movies etc. The Why and How they came to exist is wholly irrelevant, we don't care. It's not generally pertinent. Arguably factors more into background decisions and rules. The only time it's an important factor is when you want the people to end it / cure it. In which case, you gotta figure out what causes it.

Not true. Lets say there is a zombie plague that has been ranging for 200 years. By this time it will be the normal part of life. Except it won't be. People would still question why they have to deal with this type of issue in their normal lives why others have to risk their lives dealing with it and so on. It's really no different from war that has gone on for several centuries in that fact. People get fed up and tired of it and so on.

So to simply dismiss the origin of the event would be a massive plot hole. Even if the populace had no idea why or how it came about they would still have that lingering question why. Of course you might have other factors like cults rising up saying the people and land is cursed and all sorts of other crap.

The point is you would still need to address the issue in some way. It could be incidentally such as a child asking its mom why dad has to go off and fight them how come they exist... or a discussion in a tavern...

That said people don't actually have to know the exact cause. It could be a spell cast by a lone witch in a tower that went awry or a government experiment that went wrong in an isolated lab that no one knows about. But the time they showed up and people questioning it would be normal in the story.

 

[Diconica]

How is a virus circulating through a corpse and making it move? It makes no sense.

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As you know those control the ant by the roots creating chemicals that cause the ant to move.

Viruses can do similar because they can infect different cells and thus cause a change in how the cells react and thus produce chemicals also to control something. There are a crap load of different types of viruses including those that mutate.

That said I get your point regarding things making sense.
Even magic in a story has to follow rules. If it didn't people would never use it. If you can't rely on it to create a predictable out come it can't be used as a tool.
There are a ton of articles covering this type of issue from some pretty decent writers.

 

[lazymunchlax]

So to simply dismiss the origin of the event would be a massive plot hole. Even if the populace had no idea why or how it came about they would still have that lingering question why. Of course you might have other factors like cults rising up saying the people and land is cursed and all sorts of other crap.

I just meant that, you can sometimes get away with the why being "I dont know" provided the true reason isn't pertinent. Denying that information can of itself can be good sometimes. I'd just rather "Not know" then have something that makes me roll my eyes as an answer.


Onto your second post.

Yeah, I've always felt that if you're dealing with magic, you want a predefined system to deal with it's limits and strengths. You dont have to school the audience on it, let them theorycraft. But I think being able to deduce what is and isn't possible based on logic, is better than rules randomly appearing to justify a particular plot point.

 

[hewhocumsbynight]

I think that the silly/stupid justifications and plot-lines can also be a handy way of enjoying your fetish or the game content without having to examine anything too deeply.

I mean, take rape, for instance. I'm a fan of rape hentai, and rape hentai games. What I'm not a fan of is a brutal examination on the psychological, social, and physical effects of rape on the victim, the perpetrator, and the society in which they live. I don't need that sort of thing when I'm just trying to enjoy anime girls being brutalized. So, games where rape is either justified by some silly pretext or otherwise not deeply examined are optimal, as opposed to some sort of realistic story where the cute protagonist ends up killing herself in a hotel bathroom after being kidnapped by goblins or whatever.

 

[lazymunchlax]

So, games where rape is either justified by some silly pretext or otherwise not deeply examined are optimal, as opposed to some sort of realistic story where the cute protagonist ends up killing herself in a hotel bathroom after being kidnapped by goblins or whatever.

Might enjoy Goblin Burrow. Only thing to remember is to watch their sanity and give them shit to keep them sane or they WILL kill themselves.

 

[khumak]

To me the there's a few caveats to how well a story works, whether it's a game, a book, a movie, etc.

1. If it's supposed to be based in what is essentially the real world then it should follow the same basic rules as the real world does.
2. If it's a fantasy world (which could include sci fi or any other genre where the rules are not the same as the real world), then you still need to follow rules but you need to find a way to let the player/audience know what those rules are.

The basic idea is that every world has laws of nature/etc that must be followed. A fantasy world just has different ones but there are still rules. So as an example, lets say you're making a vampire story that is set in what is otherwise just the real world. You don't need to explain the rules for most things in that world because everyone already knows them. You only need to explain the rules for vampires.

I think where most authors get into more trouble is when they write the story for different characters and they don't give enough thought to what the motivations and personalities are for those characters and how real people react to different situations. If your main character is supposed to be an average Joe type of character, could a regular, average person do what you just made the character do? If the answer is no then you just failed as a dev.

This threshold could be significantly different depending on the character too. For instance to use an example that is relevant for an adult game, you have a female protagonist who walks into a random bar and asks the first guy she sees if he wants to go back to her place and fuck her brains out. No problem there. If she's that much of a slut, and she's somewhat attractive, she'd get a yes from a very significant percentage of men in real life. Now flip that scenario on it's head. A guy walks into a bar and asks the same thing of some random woman. Unless the guy looks like Brad Pitt he's going to have a success rate close to 0% and even if he does look like Brad Pitt he's going to have a low success rate. So the same strategy that is actually believable for a woman is not for a man.

I think the key when you're writing a scene is to ask yourself, is this really plausible? Is this justified somehow? If it's not then you need to flesh out that scene a bit more and come up with a better justification for what you want to happen.

 

[Deleted member 3145675]

To me the there's a few caveats to how well a story works, whether it's a game, a book, a movie, etc.

1. If it's supposed to be based in what is essentially the real world then it should follow the same basic rules as the real world does.
2. If it's a fantasy world (which could include sci fi or any other genre where the rules are not the same as the real world), then you still need to follow rules but you need to find a way to let the player/audience know what those rules are.

The basic idea is that every world has laws of nature/etc that must be followed. A fantasy world just has different ones but there are still rules. So as an example, lets say you're making a vampire story that is set in what is otherwise just the real world. You don't need to explain the rules for most things in that world because everyone already knows them. You only need to explain the rules for vampires.

I think where most authors get into more trouble is when they write the story for different characters and they don't give enough thought to what the motivations and personalities are for those characters and how real people react to different situations. If your main character is supposed to be an average Joe type of character, could a regular, average person do what you just made the character do? If the answer is no then you just failed as a dev.

This threshold could be significantly different depending on the character too. For instance to use an example that is relevant for an adult game, you have a female protagonist who walks into a random bar and asks the first guy she sees if he wants to go back to her place and fuck her brains out. No problem there. If she's that much of a slut, and she's somewhat attractive, she'd get a yes from a very significant percentage of men in real life. Now flip that scenario on it's head. A guy walks into a bar and asks the same thing of some random woman. Unless the guy looks like Brad Pitt he's going to have a success rate close to 0% and even if he does look like Brad Pitt he's going to have a low success rate. So the same strategy that is actually believable for a woman is not for a man.

I think the key when you're writing a scene is to ask yourself, is this really plausible? Is this justified somehow? If it's not then you need to flesh out that scene a bit more and come up with a better justification for what you want to happen.

Easy, you change a few terms of your equation

A guy walks into a bar and asks the same thing of some random woman Unless the guy looks like Brad Pitt he's going to have a success rate close to 0% and even if he does look like Brad Pitt he's going to have a low success rate.

to this=>

Spoiler: how to increase your rate of success

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Et Voilà!

 

[khumak]

Easy, you change a few terms of your equation
to this=>

Spoiler: how to increase your rate of success

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Et Voilà!

Heh, that's true but you've just replaced your target demographic with an entirely different (and much smaller one).

 

[Deleted member 3145675]

Heh, that's true but you've just replaced your target demographic with an entirely different (and much smaller one).

indeed i did, but it is often easier to target smaller specific demographics than a bigger one - and hey at least brad pitt got laid

 

[lazymunchlax]

and hey at least brad pitt got laid

Was that ever under debate?

If your main character is supposed to be an average Joe type of character, could a regular, average person do what you just made the character do? If the answer is no then you just failed as a dev.

I read an author discuss this topic somewhat. He argued that Writers should NOT let characters "Do their own thing", and should manually direct their actions to drive them to the plot.

I argue, if your character wouldn't naturally do what you want them to do, you've written a bad character and are making him act out of character to meet plot needs.

Its like how in the show Friends, it was pretty much impossible for any of the main cast to get into a serious relationship for a long period of time until the last 2 or so seasons in the show, because such a dynamic would bring in an arguable 7th main character, or take one of the main 6 out. Ross could've easily gone off with Emily, but then we lose Ross. Ross couldn't marry her in the US, because then she'd show up in the show a lot. The only exception to this rule, is if they get together with another main cast member.

What was the problem with this? It led to several characters breaking up for the dumbest reasons. Ross and Rachel either dumped their lovers because they were nuts, or were dumped for doing something stupid.

She dresses up in a wedding dress and opens the door saying I do to a committophobe? Sure, how convenient.
Ross loses 3 girls in a row for 1) Wearing leather pants 2) Getting a bad tan 3) Overdoing teeth whitening. He'd never done ANY of these things before or shown ANY interest in them, and now he suddenly does them all to cost him a relationship and for a joke.

Chandler is pretty much never the target of random flirting by strangers, yet the episode Joey gives him a bracelet he refers to as the "Woman repeller", a girl makes googly eyes at him at the cafe, until she see's the bracelet and literally RUNS OFF at the sight of it. As if it had "Warning, I'm a rapist" inscribed on it.

Jesus christ.