Note: I know I’ve talked/ranted about problematic themes, subjects and relationships in many featured stories before, but they are not going to be the main topic. Instead this is just more of an investigation of what makes some featured stories stick and others slip. I’m also going to mostly talk about the current 8-12 chapter long stories (with some exceptions), and I will try my best to focus on Episode’s part in story crafting and not the original author. Again, it depends.
I’m sure almost everyone here has either heard or said something along the lines of this when Episode has a new Featured story bought from a user creator out in the app: “Surely the original is much better than the featured.” I know taste is a matter of opinion, but in my experience this is often a mixed bag, with both the original and featured versions being various levels of meh or okay or just plain bad (especially trending problematic ones). But besides that, what could make this statement true? My current answer for this is simple: many featured stories being forced to be 8-12 chapters long without much foresight nor author input.
Without rambling too much, I would separate my points into two main categories: General (what could be considered bad story-crafting to many readers) and Personal (what I personally dislike and/or think is bad story-crafting):
General
Pacing
To me, this seems to be the most damning composition-wise thing which makes or breaks a featured story, likewise most affected by the normal 8-12 chapter trend. As most of the stories are heavily romance-based, this sucks since readers don’t feel a connection with the main couple falling in love and hooking up so quickly. If you really think about it, the main romance could really be established within 3-4 days in the story’s timeframe, which can be confusing if the two didn’t know each other or had no prior mutual feelings.
First stories that pop in my head are Suite Hearts (Jasmin Dee) and Enemies with Benefits (Naemi). At least the latter already had the LI have feelings for MC since High School, but still there isn’t either enough time or well-executed writing to actually see why MC and LI have to be together at this point.
Another story, unfortunately to me, has to be Toothbrush. The main Act 1 plot plus a couple of subplots and large cast just isn’t suited to exist within 8-12 chapters.
Unnecessary Changes/Removals
This is a broad umbrella, ranging from changing outfits to be more ‘appropriate’ or current, to editing things which gives context to a major plot point. At worst, these changes bring up extra problematic themes, like the double standards of male and female SA victims or how abusers look a particular way.
Bad Boy Roommate and It’ll Be Our Secret demonstrates this last point. Like how the MC’s tragic backstory had an appropriate TW for SA while one of the LI’s near-experiences does not get the same attention.
Gems over Everything Else
Technically, I feel this is under the last point, but its prevalence deserves its own point. It’s really no surprise that the recent increase of gem choices in Featured stories is quite draining, often to the point of hindering the flow and logic of the plot.
An older example of this is Sandra G’s A Little More Me. There is this gem choice which has a premise of the mean girl’s family having financial issues, and somehow is common knowledge. Without getting into it really deep, this changes the context of why the Mean Girl could act like she does with the LI, but it never gets mentioned again beyond the gem choice. It’s pretty pointless too since her character gets erased in the second part of the story and she is just a meaningless stereotype.
Romance shoved in
In another post I made, I sorta commended Episode for putting in this option for MC and LI to not get together in the end in some recent stories, like Married to the Mob and Crossing the Line. Looking back on it now, this is just really nebulous, since Episode doesn’t bother to do this for more stories and it’s so obvious Episode puts in more effort in the romantic happy ending and the romance in general than the non-romantic one.
On another note, not really handling stories which originally have love triangles into a single relationship and vice versa with care. For instance in My Sister’s Crush which originally has a love triangle between MC and two brothers, made the featured version only focus on the first sibling Harvey/Haley. Despite this, there are some scenes which uncomfortably focus on the other brother. This is kinda fine considering technically this is part of the LI’s character development, butI think it would drag less if there was more of an effort to keep characters like the brother side characters and put more attention n the established LI.
Another example of this is It Girl (by Cher), where for some reason there is a love triangle between MC’s co-star and childhood friend, even though in both original and featured versions, the childhood best friend barely interacts with MC.
Inconsistencies and Whatever
I don’t remember when and where this was said, but someone on Episode stated that after the Guideline Updates last year, whatever you see in an Official or Featured story is what is considered to be allowed by Episode. But what does this mean?
For instance, Episode still has some featured stories up which still has uncensored cursing. Scenes involving sex are also a mixed bag (though I think this is part of the ‘by content or choice’ distinction). Not to mention Episode even bothered with a penis double entendre in Crossing the line
Flanderization and Hamfistery
EDIT: I just realised that I never wrote anything under here. But a while back I wrote another post about a huge example of this here.
Personal
Comedy usually sucks
I know, I know, Comedy is subjective. However, to me most of the stories under ‘Top Comedy’ are barely funny. Comedy, like many story genres, is about executing certain elements well. In this case, it’s timing.
Perhaps it’s due to the directing or Episode toning down certain dialogue, but usually the jokes or comedic moments in these stories fall extremely flat.
Quality Control
Being featured in a way is a welcome opportunity, getting stories with different writing styles and directing flair in a broad range. However, it’s just really jarring to see a lot of directing errors, writing typos or continuity issues in one story alone. It seems to be getting shabbier too, along with the uptick of stories getting featured.
I’m not going to harp a lot on typos. We don’t all have excellent proficiencies in English. However, the directing and continuity errors are more damning. In a way, you can just tell either how old a story is or how well the Episode people in charge of adapting a story to be featured do.
Flash over Substance
This links to the point about Gems, but with me being more frustrated. At least in my time on the forums, most users only care about the newest backgrounds, overlays, outfits, animations, horses and the whole kitchen sink that comes from Featured and Official stories. I’m not criticising these people, I am one of these people sometimes, but it just says a lot that most of their attention and assumedly Episode’s is on the new shit.
I know most people aren’t as crazy about Featured stories to bother interacting in discussion threads like I am, but no doubt a majority of people can definitely say that the cute free and gem outfits or whatever are one of the best qualities in a featured story.
What makes this pretty scummy is that, to me, Episode is just focusing on these new things in order to only draw in readers, not to enhance the story or directing in general. I don’t know whether it’s because they’re on time crunches or it’s part of the contract with the writers, but it’s seems sad to me that only changes from OG to Featured are some new clothes, changing characters’ appearances and some extra zooms, instead of trying to make stories make more sense and concrete within a short number of chapters.
Those Extra Woke Points
This kinda applies to both those talking points Episode usually puts in a problematic story in an attempt to make it more meaningful (usually involving sexism and SA), or simply race-swapping for the sake of it.
One example that is personal to me is Sandra G’s Rule Breaker (which is a whole other can of worms for me). Many scenes speak to mind but I wan to talk about one particular scene. It’s a conversation that happens around chapter 4-5 between MC, her friend, her ex and his/her friend. What was simply locker-room talk in the original had this extra line about how bad statutory r*pe is in the featured, which isn’t much of a bad thing out of context, but this scene is still supposed to be portrayed as dudes being dudes with MC’s friend saying ‘Burn!’.
My point is that when Episode had put in these points, they seem to be there for Brownie points and usually were placed haphazardly. In the case of stories like RB, which premise solely revolves around a couple with an age gap which came from a family friend babysitting a highschooler … it just adds a lot more question than answers.
Admittedly, I’m usually someone who complains and rants about featured or trending stories. However, I really do want the best of both parties, and I thought that concretely writing down what I think are not-good elements in featured stories could somehow change how future featured stories would be written and edited.
I may like to add more, but I was writing this in a span of a few hours already at the time of writing this. I would add more ideas if necessary.
