Part 6 Afterword

Hey everyone! It’s Somburliss. This is going to be kind of a blog post, which is new for me. If that’s not your thing, no hard feelings, and I’ll see you in Part 7.

I should start by thanking everyone who’s been reading the story so far. Even though I’m just writing a story that I think is fun, interesting, and lewd, I’m always hoping that others will be able to enjoy it. And it does really feel like people are enjoying what I write. The fact that people are still coming back to read this, even after I’ve been writing it for three years (and there’s no end in sight) is really cool. Thank you all. But, on the topic of how long this story is taking…

It’s hard to ignore that Part 6 has taken the longest time to write yet, with a whopping 462 days between Begin Part 5 and Begin Part 6 getting published. I apologize for how long it’s been taking, and I’ll be trying my best to shave down that time. I know I can’t expect everyone to remain interested in this story forever, and frankly, I don’t want to keep writing the story at this pace either.

With that all out of the way, I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask everyone, if you’re willing to take a few polls. They’re all separate, so you can vote on just the ones you want to answer.

Occasionally, I write short erotic stories that are mostly linear. They’re far too small to justify their own story on Chyoa, so I’ve been uploading them on other platforms, such as Hentai Foundry, Archive of Our Own, and Adult FanFiction. Most of my writing is here on Chyoa though, and I wonder if the people who read my writing on here would like to see those short stories here as well. I could create a new story dedicated to holding all of my shorter stories. I could also try looking around for other stories where my works would make sense as their own story arcs, though that would mean all of my short stories wouldn’t end up in the same place. It would be a bit more collaborative, too, since the stories won’t be moderated by me. Or I could leave them off of Chyoa entirely, since short, linear stories aren’t exactly in the Chyoa “spirit”.

https://www.strawpoll.me/21221705 (Poll closed)

What characters do you like? Questions like “Who’s your favorite character?” just have too many options, and people typically can’t vote for all the characters they want, so you can pick multiple characters in this poll. Just pick all the characters you like. Keep in mind, I’m mostly asking about which characters you do, or don’t, enjoy reading about. If you wouldn’t like this person in real life, that’s okay. That’s not what I’m asking.

https://www.strawpoll.me/21221815 (Poll closed)

I noticed something surprising. One of the smut scenes with the most likes on it is a blowjob scene in Part 2, with about 800 words. That’s one of the shortest smut scenes in the whole story. Generally I try to write longer scenes, but I wonder if people prefer shorter ones? I’ll likely still write longer scenes no matter what because I enjoy it, but I may try to mix in shorter ones too if it seems people prefer those. Like the last poll, you can vote for multiple choices, so let me know all the types of scenes you enjoy. For reference, no scenes in Part 6 were under 1,000 words. The shortest was the exercise bike scene, at only ~1,500 words. All other scenes were 1,900+ words, with the dojo scene being over 4,000 words combined.

https://www.strawpoll.me/21221887 (Poll closed)

Update: Thanks everyone for your support! Especially in the comments, it's really appreciated. Don't worry, I'm getting a pretty clear "Just write like usual, you dummy," signal, so that's what I'll do.

Based on the short story poll, I've created a story titled Quick Lewd Chronicles here on Chyoa. My short stories are already uploaded on the previously mentioned platforms, but I'll be gradually uploading them here as well when the mood strikes me.

It looks like my concerns on scene length were unfounded. Short scenes were the least popular in the poll, so there's no reason for me to change what I've been doing. Though I do find it interesting that multichapter scenes scored noticeably higher than much longer scenes, despite being the same length (generally). It's good to know that has a significant impact on peoples' enjoyment.

The character poll is interesting. Emilia came in first, which is relieving, since she's the main character. Recurring characters mostly scored high too, which is good. There's prooooobably some recency bias going on, since Sabrina, Kim, and Charlotte all scored pretty high, but that's okay. Outliers are: Officer Jenny came in 3rd despite only appearing for one scene. And the Gym Leaders scored low in general (excluding Sabrina), with Erika being the lowest of the bunch. I wonder what that's all about... Thank you for your feedback just the same! It was very informative.

I can't really "close" the polls, but they're effectively closed because I won't check them anymore.