Post by Nathaniel in Straight!? comments

Viewing post in Straight!? comments

I have a hard time believing there was "no previous storytelling experience" here. Granted, I’m only reading the Revamp for now, but let me say a few things.

I have a serious love-hate relationship with coming-of-age stories. As a gay man, that relationship is even more intense when the coming-of-age revolves around one's sexual orientation. As for NSFW games, I usually just straight-up dislike them—at best, they make me cringe.

I stumbled upon Straight!? completely by chance, and I’ll admit, my initial interest was just barely enough to make me download and launch it. It took me less than five minutes to decide I wanted to spend the next five hours playing (which, as a busy adult juggling two jobs, meant waking up with some serious dark circles the next morning—but also the satisfaction of an incredibly enjoyable read).

I’m an author. I’ve published a few novels, worked as a game writer, and now I write interactive fiction. I’ve never made a visual novel, so I can’t speak professionally on that aspect. But honestly, I found the visual side secondary to your writing. It’s engaging, irreverent, sometimes all over the place—but in the best way possible. It captures overthinking brilliantly and does an even better job portraying what it feels like to talk more to yourself than to the rest of the world. On top of that, it does so with excellent vocabulary, deliberate word choices, rhetorical flourishes, and digressions that may not always be essential but add so much flavor.

Which brings me back to my initial comment. I came here specifically to find a way to reach out and congratulate you (then I realized there’s a comment section—ironic, considering I’ve posted here myself… very Zack of me). I ended up rereading the intro and literally blurted out a very loud WHAT?! upon seeing that you had "no previous storytelling experience." Now, of course, that means I’ll have to check out the "original rough draft"—and if I don’t see a clear improvement, I’ll have no choice but to seethe with envy.

Jokes aside, my compliments are 100% genuine. You’ve got a gem on your hands. I really hope to see this on Steam someday—it would be an instant, proud purchase for me. And please don’t stop here—if this is what you can do with zero prior experience, I cannot wait to see what you’ll create after Straight!?.

Wishing you all the best.

Aaryn7 days ago(+1)

Heya :)

First off, thanks for the note and I'm glad you're enjoying the story. I read this late last night and it made me smile before bed so thanks for that. it just means a lot that you felt compelled to leave a comment and that the story gripped you that quickly when you weren't really that interested to start with. that's a very flattering compliment and i'm grateful for it.

I'm always intimidated when someone leaves a comment and says they're an author or writer-- it's not necessarily the their writing experience that intimidates but it's more that I assume they have the executive knowledge on how to plan things or put pieces together. it's always enjoyable to read something that just clicks or feels planned out or surprises me. good stories do that but i'm also not great at planning things. i sorta just shoot from the hip and listen to the vibes I get from a scene then i just roll with it. i also have to edit dozens of times because i'm honestly a pretty scattered person so rough drafts will never see the light of day and probably read more like borderline psychosis :p

But thank you for your kind words. Yeah, no fictional writing experience here at all. I have a masters in clinical psych that i finished a few years ago so i've written papers n stuff for all that but that's it. This entire project started with a dare from a friend after i was complaining that a TV show we were watching had bad writing. he said if i thought i could do better than i should so i started fucking around. It's also another reason why i picked the adult genre-- if it turned out that i couldn't write, people tend to be more forgiving about the writing when it comes to all the porny games. your comments made me laugh about my style-- cause you nailed it. "irreverent" and "talking more to yourself than the rest of the world." I'm a bit dramatic and chaotic but it's honestly kinda fun when things work out. i'm always humbled when another writer pays me a compliment like this so thank you. thanks for taking the time to read and for thinking of me to reach out.

I would like to get on Steam but i just haven't gotten around to it yet. Too many things to do when your'e working on a project mostly solo so i fight the battles i can.

(However, if you do try the original version, go easy on me. the beginning is rough but eventually i took the gloves off. the community gave me a lot of encouragement to write the story i wanted to and i eventually just said fuck it and started writing in my own style around chapter 6-- yet another reason for the revamp).

all the best to you as well. stay safe out there and all the luck with your own projects and stuff, i may check em out <3

Nathaniel6 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Hey!

I'm genuinely happy that I made you smile; that was my main goal. I also understand your anxiety when it comes to other writers—or rather, I have low self-esteem, so I get anxiety in general, lol. But really, you don’t need to worry about it. I just mentioned it to emphasize how much I understand the difficulty behind writing, not to promote myself (especially since half of my work isn’t even in English). Don’t feel obligated to "return the favor" or anything :-)

I also understand the difference with writing "papers and stuff" (here comes another unsolicited personal note...). After my master’s, I made the poor decision to stay in academia, and now I’m doing a PhD. The competitiveness in the field really requires you to do research with one hand and write articles with the other... So, I know very well how academic writing has nothing to do with writing fiction. Kudos to you for reaching this level of skill without previous experience in fiction writing, specifically!

This brings me to a question I forgot to ask earlier; if it’s too personal to answer, don’t worry. The fact that you have the same academic background as the protagonist and use his avatar as your profile picture got me thinking. Is it an autobiographical story? How much of the story is based on your own experiences?

(I’m at the beginning of chapter five, so feel free to stay vague!)

Thanks again for your heartfelt response, I really appreciate it.

Aaryn6 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

heya, good luck on the PhD stuff. i was actually going to do mine but got talked out of it. in the psych world it's pointless unless you wanna teach or specifically be a psychologist-- which honest i wasn't interested in because i dont like testing stuff. otherwise, you can do all the same stuff with a masters and it's a waste of money. ton of writing and work though so i wish you luck-- and most importantly- sanity.

So Str8 isn't a true story. all of the characters are fictional and i quite literally make things up as i went. only had one original outline and it was a messy flow chart. i didn't plan much ahead because i liked the story and characters and i didn't wanna be spoiled either so i only outlined updates one at a time with only a couple benchmarks throughout the story i was interested in hitting. i wrote a pretty detailed post about this on my Patreon page that i can link here if you're interested in all the details.

True Story?

Why and Adult Game?

Aaaaand, it hit ENTER too quickly. but thanks again for the kind words and holy crap, you said all those nice things before you got out of Chapter 5? you're not even to the good stuff yet. i think it starts to pick up in chapter 5. 6 was the game changer for a lot of people back in the day. i still get mail about that chapter and i was really intimidated and excited to get to it for the revamp

Nathaniel6 days ago(+1)

Thank you for the links! Your reflection on how developing one's identity is at the core of self-acceptance was really interesting. I have to admit I also laughed quite a bit at the game being an "anxiety simulator" because... yeah, it's true.

I'm serious, I really appreciated everything even before starting chapter 5! If you tell me these things, then I can't wait to continue playing. In the meantime, I’m recommending it to people I know :-)

itch.io

Viewing post in Straight!? comments