Context-free Delight

[磯七ラスミ]

Plot is constructed by your own event sequence, climbing up, turning backwards, like a roller coaster. But as it's true, the same goes for the freedom to put in another kind of amusement, like, for example, a money rain section, that makes people happy regardless the time it appears.

Metaphors aside, things like fanservice does this. People enjoy a beach episode or a fierce battle scene whenever it shows. Who the characters involved are and when in the plot this scene is located, all this adds up, of course. But my current topic is about this quirk. Using this power to enhance your story, to prevent people to get bored, to make sure almost everyone is having a good time reading you.

Things like parodies have some of this nature. People reacts to known things, swearwords or sweet kisses, taking priority over the plot itself. This effect is like see a insect flying in front of your screen, or have your cellphone ring.

I think I'm being clear until now. I want some advice or just read you because I have a hard time trying to deal with this. I'm working in a VN and I want it to be more than simply a bizarre mysterious adventure. My story is heavily relying in its very isolated context and I don't want to deviate from it so much but I wish people can enjoy it.

[Rarykos]

These things are fun but they aren't free from their context.
For example, "feel good violence" when a bad guy suffers is fun to watch, but only because we have context from our own values and beliefs. Like, a thief gets punched by a stranger, okay, that's fine. If I understand the situation I get a little bit of satisfaction. But it's not really interesting. It gets interesting when I care for the people in that scene. And why put in a scene that's merely meh? You wouldn't want to add in a pleasant scene just to add "something". That pleasant scene should serve a purpose - move the plot forward or add to the theme. Otherwise people will get bored because the scene meant nothing, moved nothing forward. These little things like kisses, swears and fights catch attention because there's buildup. Tension. That scene where they finally fight or kiss means something because it was honestly earned. It's not random interesting moments, these moments have a very specific purpose in the plot.

I have a really difficult time describing my thoughts here. Sorry for that. Maybe I'm too tired.

[TellerFarsight]

You describe these things as annoying distraction, but to me they're generally used to give a reprieve or a break from whatever the plot is. A story can sometimes take itself too seriously, respect itself too much to the point that it's boring and uninteresting drivel.
There are a lot of examples that I assume you're directing this at, like the obligatory hot springs episode of an anime or the sex scenes in hentai games that the players are rushing to; I can see what you mean by context-free delight, mostly in games where those tried and true home-run hitters are the main attraction, and the plot is just a cover.
Some, though, don't seem like that. I don't know that a fight scene is really context free. I mean, I love watching random fight clips out of One-Punch Man without knowing a single thing about the plot, but I feel like that show was designed with that in mind. There are a lot of these *tropes* that are sometimes abused and sometimes used very cleverly. Parodies use these a lot usually to make fun of the tropes themselves, making a joke on the familiar piece of plot.
I wouldn't necessarily call them context-free. They need the context of whatever given story that they're in, but they are enjoyable with any variable kind of context. Take the "sweet kiss" example. Yeah, that's a cathartic moment for a lot of VNs no matter the context, but that doesn't mean it can survive with literally no context. Where's the catharsis! I don't want to watch two random anime characters kissing!
Sure, there are certain story elements that, when they appear, take you out of the main plot thread and maybe make you conscious of the the fact that this is fiction within a type of media that has its own style and tropes, but I think that's necessary sometimes. If you want to hint at a wider world, that's fine. If you want to joke about the nature of your genre, you're more than welcome. I loved Konosuba, and that's really all it was: a parody of the "shut-in NEET dropped into an RPG world" genre. If you had a roller coaster that went through a waterfall at some point, wouldn't you consider that an essential part of the experience? Is pandering really all that bad?
I'm a little bit confused about your concern for your own game. It has its own context, so what? You don't think it'll have external validity? it won't be relatable? Someone will be confused if they drop in at part 2?

[Kuiper]

Usually, in the first draft or outline of a story, I find myself writing two kinds of scenes:

1. The scenes that are there because they are awesome. These are the scenes that are enjoyable in and of themselves, and they are the reason that I want to write the story in the first place. Maybe it's a big climactic battle, maybe it's the time that the big twist is revealed and we discover who the traitor is, maybe it's a scene where the hero confesses his love to the heroine and the two share an intimate moment. These are the kinds of scenes that you write (either in full or in an outline) and say to yourself, "I bet that, for at least part of the readership, this is going to be their favorite scene." These are the scenes that are there because you want them to be there.
2. The scenes that are there because they have to be there for plot reasons. For example, the expository dialog that explains to the reader how the magic works, or the scene where the basic main premise of the story is spun out and we learn why the main character has to go on an adventure, or the part where we see the party travel from point A to point B. These are the scenes that are there to do things like "provide exposition" or "advance the plot" or "set something up" that will be paid off later down the line. These are the kinds of scenes that you look at on paper and say, "It's unlikely that this will be someone's favorite scene. In fact there's a chance that some of the readership will actually be bored by this."

In the first draft/outline, it's inevitable that you'll have this dichotomy of "enjoyable scenes" and "necessary scenes." In fact, usually my outlining process consists of coming up with as many ideas for "enjoyable scenes" as possible, and then add as many "necessary scenes" as are required to act as the "connective tissue" that links the fun scenes together.

But that's only the first draft/outline. Writing is an iterative process. There will be more revisions/outlines/drafts.

The goal for the second version of the outline is to help blur the line between these two scenes. We take the "boring but necessary" scenes and find ways to make them enjoyable. For example, maybe a scene of expository dialog is just two characters sitting at a bench and having a conversation that explains the magic system to the reader, but the scene is made enjoyable by the fact that the characters are engaging in witty repartee. Or, instead of having the two characters just sitting down and talking about something, maybe they're doing something interesting, like going on a hunting trip and stalking a wild animal. The point is to make sure that the "necessary" scenes still convey the information they need to convey, while doing it in a way that won't bore the reader. Take these "boring but necessary" scenes and turn them into "necessary and funny" or "necessary and exciting" or "necessary and interesting."

In this process, you can also shift some of the "necessary" bits into the "enjoyable" scenes. For example, maybe that cool fight scene is also the time that you choose to demonstrate and explain the relationship between two characters who will become instrumental in the plot later on.

At a certain point, it gets hard to write a "how-to" guide for this, because your job as a writer is to take the mediocre scenes in your story and replace them with equally functional good scenes, and any attempt to explain this will eventually come to something that sounds incredibly reductionist, like "write the scene in the way a good writer would write it," or "become a good writer and then just do what comes naturally." To itemize it a bit better, learning how to write engaging dialog, comprehensible action, and emotional or otherwise fulfilling character moments that fit neatly into your characters' arcs will help with all of this, but it requires an array of skills as diverse as the variety of scenes you want to include in your story.

By the time you get to the final draft, you should be at a point where your "necessary" scenes that were originally there just because they had to be there become indistinguishable from the "awesome" scenes that are the reason you decided to write the story in the first place. Eventually, you want to reach a point when any scene in the story could conceivably be someone's favorite scene. Obviously, that's a high bar to aim for, but this is what distinguishes skilled and experienced writers.