IF Seal: My IF WIP got lots of attention and it's messing with my head
Dear IF Seal,
Holds up a salmon and a trout. Which do you like better? Actually, you know what? You can have both! ๐๐
So I'm dealing with something weird and could use some advice. I posted about my IF WIP project early on in the dev process and people have been so nice and receptive to it. Really engaging with the premise and the characters and the demo. And I'm really super grateful!
But here's the weird thing: all this positive attention is kind of messing with my head? Maybe almost as much as negative attention would. Definitely much more than no attention at all.
As a seal, you probably spend quite a bit of time on beaches, so you might appreciate this analogy.
It's like I went from messing around in my own sandbox to suddenly realizing there's actually an audience watching me build a sandcastle, thinking about the sandcastle, asking questions about the sandcastle, waiting for the next addition to the sandcastle.
And now I'm second-guessing whether it's going to be tall enough, have enough towers, if the moat I planned for should actually be a rampart, if it'll even meet the basic requirements for being called a "castle", maybe it won't turn out to be exactly the sandcastle everyone is expecting, maybe it'll be more like a sand-igloo after allโฆ or worse, maybe I'm actually just making quicksand and everyone's about to slowly sink into disappointment. ๐ฑ Then I worry all this worrying is stalling construction completely. ๐ฎโ๐จ๐ตโ๐ซ
The blank page just looks really different when you know other people are waiting for you to fill it.
How do you handle this? Developing a story in public? How do you keep that experimental, "let's see where this goes" energy when you've got people already invested in their own idea of what your story is and who your characters are?
And maybe the larger question is: when is the right time to start sharing an IF project?
The bigger part of me wishes I'd waited until the first draft was completely finished, but then you miss out on some great feedback that can tell you if you're on the right track, make you think about details you hadn't considered before and let you nerd out on some obscure part of the worldbuilding that'll probably never make it into the story itself. But sharing early also seems to come with its own creative costs. ๐คท
TLDR: I'm just finding myself creatively paralyzed by the very encouragement that should, by all logic, be fueling me.
Anyway, I'd really appreciate any thoughts you might have on this! Sorry for the rant and sorry if this has been asked before (I can't be the only one to ever have experienced this, can I??)
Take care! Lots of love and much respect!
Dear Sandcastle-Building Friend,
O how lovely to be offered not one but two fish! Don't mind if I do!
And thank you also for your lovely letter. I know from my mailbox that there are plenty who would love to be in your position, and I hope that you sharing this shows that the sea is not always gentler on the other side, and there is potential insecurity whether one has a lot of attention, or little, or does not share their work at all.
Then I worry all this worrying is stalling construction completely. ๐ฎโ๐จ๐ตโ๐ซ
I think this is the key to it. It is of course hard not to think about the reception that your writing may or may not have in the future. And at the same time it is useful to think about the audience you are aiming for.
But try to focus on your ideal audience, the players who have got excited about your work and are there for the ride. Yes some people may slip off as they realise the game isn't exactly what they're after, and that is natural, but as you continue to write, the ones who do love it for what it is will stick with you.
Sometimes players construct a game in their mind that doesn't match yours, and get disappointed when they realise it doesn't match. Perhaps once you've completed your draft, you can return to this feedback and see whether you agree, and whether you might like to signpost the early game differently.
BUT.
Right now, players making up their own hypothetical game, or their potential disappointment, is their business. It is not really something you need to think about right now. Your business is to dig back to your roots, about the concept that got you excited about sharing in the first place.
And maybe the larger question is: when is the right time to start sharing an IF project?
I know for certain that people think about this question a great deal. I would invite you to take a look at the IF Seal archive for more questions and answers on this one.
For this situation, though: personally I do enjoy sharing WIPs, and getting a sense of what is landing well with players and where I can improve things. It does make me nervous to share, but at the same time I would rather share something incomplete that is easier to edit than something I made in total isolation that might be harder to change.
But everyone is different, so perhaps next time around you might like to write a larger proportion of your game before you share it. Or for this WIP, it might be more comfortable to, for example, write Chapter 4 and 5 by yourself, then share Chapter 4 once you are on Chapter 6. (This would give an extra bonus of having more distance from the first draft of Chapter 4 once others are looking at it, so your vision may have more clarity.) If sharing early has bumped your confidence maybe taking some time writing offline will help.
Or perhaps you might like to write something in solitude, then share it down the line.
It is your job to think about what you love about your game, and what you want to build from it. You will make a brilliant castle! It will not be a castle that everyone will love, because that is impossible, but I am sure that some will. Build your castle, not what you think someone else wants. There will be plenty of people who think it will turn out to be one thing, then it is another, and they did not even realise that was what they wanted until it happened.
Best of luck with your writing, and congratulations on the excitement that players have about your work!