Story YCHs...are they a thing?

[JuniperW]

By now, everyone and their grandmother knows how big of a deal YCHs are in the furry fandom (I mean, you can't reload the front page of FA without seeing at least five of them, it seems.)
Problem is, I've become progressively less interested in doing art and instead focusing most of my time on doing writing.
I'm curious, do any of you know whether there's such a thing as a literary equivalent to the ever-so-popular YCH phenomenon? I think it sounds like a nice idea in principle, although I can't gauge what people think of it in general.

Update: apparently they are, when pertaining to certain, um, niches.

 

[FlooferWoofer]

I haven't seen any, but that doesn't mean you can't be the first to market it.

There's a major problem I can see right off the cuff: Most potential buyers would want to see the story they will be plugged into ahead of time so they can really decide whether they want to or not based on content and context. However, if you provide just a brief synopsis that doesn't go into spoilers, they may come at you later for being involved in (insert some obscure content here no matter how inoffensive). So you would either have to give them the majority first to avoid later misunderstandings, or give them so little they may be butts about the slightest content they dislike. Trust me, this does happen.

If you were to do this, I would give a synopsis, character slots including their roles and prevalence in the story, then content and which character slots are involved in it. Does this make sense?

 

[HistoricalyIncorrect]

*Dollar eyes!*
Now my friend... now you gave me an idea!
I do not guarantee it will work but that is what experiments are for, aren't they?

 

[Punji]

Oh, interesting idea!

I could see that. Never seen one myself though.

 

[Ziggy Schlacht]

I saw one once, and I raised an eyebrow - if the story is prewritten, then making it a YCH is just find/replace and add your chars name. Not particularly interesting, and could be accomplished by waiting for the story itself to be posted and doing that in word yourself.

If you want to try to sell this idea, don't write the story. Pick a rough plot in your head and setting, and let them guide the story for you. Really, write it as weekly short sections, and they choose what to do next. Basically a choose your own adventure.

 

[fernshiine]

I've thought of this but never thought of carrying it out before, lol.

 

[Kellan Meig'h]

There is no reason a YCH story insert can't be done. I've done it many times, with the character owner's consent and yes, they did see the scene/chapter their character was in. I do like for the character's owner to give input, so they are canon to their being.

Mostly the character in question was a cameo appearance that was orchestrated in a collaboration.

I say, give it a try.