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SusanJillParker

SusanJillParker

I'm 100% woman
Joined
Oct 29, 2011
Posts
2,155
I've been writing stories here for 10 years under 15 different names. I've written more than 2,000 stories and poems of more than 10 million words that have amassed more than 300 million hits.

So what? I'm prolific. Who cares?

I'm a hack writer yet I know good writing when I read it and there are a lot of talented writers who write here.

For every 10 stories that I read, 1 story stands out. The rest of the stories are crap. Why?

Too many writers don't develop their characters. Some don't even name their characters, never mind describe their characters. If they do describe their characters, they describe them in one sentence instead of weaving their description and continuing to weave their description throughout the story.

The stories that stand out are those stories that show me what the writer sees. The stories that stand out are those stories that make me feel what the writer feels. I want to see what you see and feel what you feel when I read your story. If I don't, I stop reading.

Before you submit your story, step away from it for a day, a week, or a month and put yourself in the thoughts of the reader and read it as if someone else has written it. Now, read it again.

Can you see what you saw when you imagined your story enough to write it? Can you feel what you felt when you wrote the story?

Do your characters come alive from the page to stand behind your chair and read your story with you?

Show me what you saw with description and make me feel what you felt with imagery. Now, go back and develop your characters. I not only want to see your characters but I want to feel them.

"Oh, please. There's no need to thank me. You're welcome. Class dismissed. Now, go write something."
 
Forget about dialogue. Don't worry about what your character is going to say, what he or she should say, and how she or she should say it.

If you develop your characters, the dialogue will flow. Trust me. I know.

If you develop your characters, your characters will not only tell you what to write next but also where they want to go and what they want to do.

Moreover, the better developed your characters are, the less narrative that you'll need to write.

A good example of that is anything that the late, great Dr. Robert Parker wrote.
 
I tend to let my characters develope within the dialogue they speak. Are they rude, concerned, sarcastic, witty, reserved, tempermental, jovial, etc.? Character development goes beyond just describing a character physical attributes and endowments in my eyes. Their actions and how they react to other characters in the story, to me, is what truly lifts a character off the pages to where they are multidimensional and not abstract. But, then again, I'm not a professional writer - it's only a hobby for me. 👠👠👠Kant🌹
 
I think PITHY when I write. Or 10 pounds of shit in a 9 pound tale.
 
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NOIRTRASH said:
I think PITHY when I write. Or 10 pounds of shit in a 9 pound tale.
Click to expand...

I know. I felt that from you...when I read your story.

I must write though...if your ten pounds of shit don't fit in your 9 pound tale, then I dare say that you're not being very...pithy.
 
Sometimes, it helps to close your eyes while you're typing to better see your characters in your mind's eye.

Sometimes, it helps to take your characters to bed with you and allow your brain to percolate them as you sleep.

Do they have any tattoos? What kind? Where?

Do they have any scars? Where and how did they get the scars?

Do they walk with a limp or have a medical condition?

Do they have an accent, a bias, or a prejudice?

What type of body do they have? Are they obese, muscular, shapely, and/or sexy?

Names are important too. What you name them should have relevance to your story.

Imagine that you're there with them in the story. Imagine that you're one or all of the characters. Imagine writing for someone who's blind.

Show me what you see. Make me feel what you feel. We all can be JK Rowling or F. Scott Fitzgerald if even for only one story.
 
There's no law that stories have to emphasize characterization. That's only one choice for story emphasis. You keep rattling on about this, Freddie. Just write your own stories and stop telling other people what/how they have to/should write. You're no expert in writing. Your thread title pretty much applies perfectly to you on this topic.
 
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I'm more of a novelist than I am a short story writer. I've lost count of how many novel length works I've written, at least 50.

I'm a character writer and it's much more difficult to develop characters when writing short stories than it is when writing novel length works, especially when most of the audience that reads stories here want sex and more sex.

In my book, my personal opinion, there are two kinds of stories just as there are two kinds of movies. Of course, there are more but I'm being simplistic.

There's action movies, Sci-Fi included, and there's character movies, love stories included.

I don't much care for Sci-Fi or for shoot 'em up or blow 'em up action movies, unless they're well done with characterization. If not, they don't hold my interest.

I love writing about people. I enjoy writing about why someone does this or that. I love writing about someone doing something unexpected and out of character. I love describing someone so well that the reader can see them or imagine them in the image of someone they know. I love describing a scene that feels so real that the reader can imagine themselves there.

That's how I write. Whatever I write, I imagine that I'm writing something that will become a movie. Even though I've had courses in screenwriting, screenwriting wasn't my thing. I'm more of a creative writer than a screenwriter.

Yet, for those who are struggling with writing stories, developing a plot, and describing a scene, all of that because so easy and second nature once you develop your character.

The reason why I'm routinely able to write in so many different categories, even when I have no experience in the category, is by developing my characters. Once I develop my characters well enough for him or her to stand from the page and to stand behind my chair to whisper in my ear what next to write is when I know I've written what I wanted to write.

I never stare at a blank page. I only write when inspired. Inspired writing is the best writing. Yet, to summon that level of inspiration has taken me years. First I had to find my voice. Those of you who are new to writing know exactly what I mean.

Hopefully, you will use this thread to ask questions or to add your own advice.
 
Just from one line that popped in her head, a boy who didn't know that he could do magic, JK Rowling developed her Harry Potter character.

A story about a fisherman in his boat, when Hemingway created his character, Santiago, in the Old Man and the Sea, he used Joe DiMaggio's character for his imagery. In the way that Joe DiMaggio fought through his pain and never gave up, Santiago fought through his pain and never give up.

Those who say that developing characters is not necessary are not very good writers. Those who don't see the need to develop characters that should seem as real as they are believable, have never written anything worthwhile.

When Edith Wharton wrote her masterpiece, the Age of Innocence, her characters were so well developed that Martin Scorsese didn't see the need to change a single word of dialogue. When Frank McCourt labored thirty years to write Angela's Ashes, his characters were so riveting that you couldn't put the book down. You continued reading it even while crying.

Think about it, from Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, to Salinger's Catcher in the Rye with Holden Caulfield, to Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy, every book you read that you remember and carry with you through life had characters that were developed.

Forget about just throwing words on paper, whether you write porn or erotica, if you want to be a better writer, develop your characters. It's the characters that you'll remember. It's those characters that will not only stay with you but also inspire you.

 
Image F. Scott's Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby had he not taken the time to develop his character Jay Gatsby.

You wouldn't know how pretty Daisy Buchanan was and why Nick Caraway was so engaging had Fitzgerald not developed his characters.

Yet, the masterpiece that he wrote never played well on film. His words were full of symbolism and imagery and too much for any director to handle and any camera to show.

Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera had the same issues. What you read in the book was difficult to translate to film.

Who could forget Peter Benchley's Jaws? He spent as much time developing the star of the book, the Great White Shark, as Herman Melville spent in developing his star character Moby Dick.

We wouldn't have Peter Pan had we not had the finely detailed character of Captain Hook with peg leg and missing hand and all.

If you don't believe that character development is important, perhaps you should be a musician, a singer, or a dancer instead of a writer. Yet, then again, no matter if you write, play, sing, or dance, the goal of the artist is to make the audience feel. The audience can't feel if you don't show them what you see and make them feel what you feel.
 
Tolstoy may not have written Anna Karenina had the characters he developed in War and Peace not inspired him.

Francis Ford Coppola may have not made Godfather's 1, 2 and 3, had Mario Puzo not developed his characters enough for the great director to see them, feel them, and inspire him.

All of Shakespeare's character's were developed enough for play writers to create plays that have lasted for centuries.

Charles Dickens was a master of character development. In his day, he was a rock star. Readers couldn't wait to read the next chapter that posted in the weekly newspaper.

It takes a great writer to write a scene but it takes a great character to run away with the book and/or the movie. Isn't that why we have the Oscars?

For someone, especially a writer, to write that character development is unimportant is ridiculous.
 
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OMG! I am So unwordthy. I bow to superiority. I am an egg. :rolleyes:
 
My I said:
OMG! I am So unwordthy. I bow to superiority. I am an egg. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The purpose of this thread wasn't to shame or offend anyone. The purpose of this thread was to highlight how important it is to develop characters.

I read a lot of stories, more stories than I've written and it's rare to come across a memorable. When I do, they all have the same simple yet no so simple formula, character development.

Thank you for you post.

Before you leave...kiss my feet (lol).
 
I agree to the extent characters make a break a book/story for me. If they're two dimensional card board cut outs then I'm out because why should I care about them?

Now in erotica stroke is popular, so in stroke all the characters need are names and sex organs and that's it. But that's stroke. If the author is attempting an actual story then I want to feel invested and I can't do that if the character does not seem real.

I look at stroke stories and erotica the way I look at sex.

Porn= How bout you bend over the bed, skirt up panties down and I'll just take you quick and dirty.

Erotica= the whole package dinner, dancing, kissing foreplay anticipation and when you finally get there? So worth it.

So good characters are erotic. the climax is so much hotter when I'm rooting for them to hook up and looking forward to it, rather than "Knock knock, wanna fuck?" "Sure, okay."

It does seem here though in general characters are secondary to mindless fuck puppets. Just look at some of the top stories and authors here.
 
Just thinking out loud...

Obviously, those of us who write stories and poems here, even those of us who only post to the boards here, love to write. Those of us who don't enjoy writing love to read. Yet, I wonder how our passion for writing and/or reading would change if we were extraordinarily rich in the way of JK Rowling or Stephen King.

Now that they have the money to go anywhere any time, do anything, and buy everything, do they still want to write? Are they still driven to write in the way they once were and in the way that some of us are? I wonder.

Is our passion for writing and/or reading a curse or a blessing? What do you think?

Even though I love writing stories and even though I write every day, if I had that kind of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, I think the last thing that I'd be doing is writing (lol).

I'd be traveling the world. I'd be seeing everything and doing everything that I always wanted to do. When I wasn't being driven in my Rolls Royce, on my private jet, or cruising the Mediterranean on my private yacht...God damn it...Fuck! I'd probably be writing about my experiences.

I just can't get away from writing. Suffice to write, I'm glad that I'm not rich, kind of, a little bit, well, not at all. I wish I was rich and still had the passion for writing.

"What the Hell is she doing up there? The plane is fueled and ready to leave. Susan! C'mon, let's go. The Riviera won't wait forever."

"She's writing."

 
Oh, boo hoo!"

C'mon, seriously, don't you feel bad for JK Rowling?

All she wanted to do was write. She had no idea her books would be such a huge success. Now, instead of writing, she's scattered.

She's mobbed by fans and by the media wherever she goes, the poor thing.

She has meeting with her agent, her publisher, her editors, her publicists, and her accounting firm. She has book signings, travel and tour engagements, and interview appearances. Does it ever end? Can she find a moment of peace to write? When does she ever find the time to write? She just wants to write but how can she keep a thought in her head with all these distractions?

"Poor JK."

I'd never want fame, just fortune. I'd never want my writing success to take away from what I wanted to write.

Yet, JK, Stephen King, and few others have creative control over all they they write. They don't have publishers pressuring them for more. They just allow them to write whatever they'd like to write. Now, that's a luxury that so few of us have.

Yet, who knew that JK Rowlings books would sell hundreds of millions of copies and that her movies would earn billions of dollars? All she wanted to do and still wants to do is to write.

I watched a documentary of her where she wished for the days when she was struggling but happy writing. Now, her life is so complicated that she doesn't have the time that she once had to create, dream, think, and to write.

Reap what we sow. Be careful what you wish for as your wish may come true.

Still, I'd like to have some of her money. I'd buy a mansion away from everyone in the way that King did up in Maine. Behind his big, iron gates, he still makes the time to write.

JK is still young. Who knows? Maybe she'll start writing erotica on Literotica (lol).

Just as we never know who reads these stories, we never know who writes these stories.

"Okay, you caught me slumming. I admit. I'm JK Rowling. I sometimes have a tendency to walk on the dark side. I'd like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had. Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."
 
What's Next? Is there another Star Wars, Godfather, Harry Potter, or Da Vinci Code?

Instead of just writing the great American novel, I was wondering if anyone is working on the next, best, global novel. You can tell me. I promise not to tell anyone.

Just write what your book is about below and don't leave anything out. Names, descriptions of characters, plot, the smallest detail is important for me to plagiarize, sorry, I meant understand your story.

Is there another budding writer writing a book like The Da Vinci Code out there?

Maybe, twenty years from now, JK will honor us with another Harry Potter. I don't know.

Or maybe someone will write a lesser work in the vein of Fifty Shades of Grey. "Yuck!"

Who's to the say, even the agents and publishers don't know if there's another Angels and Demons, Twilight, or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?

Agents and publishers reject more best sellers than they publisher while the writers are crying in a bar getting drunk.

"Rejected again. I don't understand," said Jack to the bartender. "It took me ten years to write it. It's a good book, a great book, a better book than anything that JK has written. In the process, I lost my wife, my children, my house, my car, my job, and even my dog. I wish I had never started writing The Scarred Girl, Cary Cotter, Finding the Devil in One Shade of Black. Woe is me. Woe is me."
 
I watched the first episode of American Gods with Ian McShane. One of my favorite actors, he used to play Al Squarengine, the bar and whorehouse owner in Deadwood. I loved that show, the best thing on TV back then...cocksucker. Thus far the show is interestingly different.

I watched Marvel's Iron Fist, another new, different, and interesting show. I'm looking forward to part two now that Danny escaped the nuthouse by knocking down the door with his iron fist.

Genius with Geoffrey Rush playing Albert Einstein looks like a winner too.

We all think of Albert Einstein and/or Stephen Hawking as our resident geniuses without giving due credit to Bill Gates. He has a much larger IQ than either of those two geniuses.

I also love Billions, Ray Donovan, Bosch, America Has Talent and The Voice too.

I'd love to give credit to Netflix's, Amazon TV, HBO, and Showtime for creating some incredible entertainment. I've always been a TV junkie but now TV is more than watching just reruns in black and white in the '70's when I was a kid.
 
Top Ten Best Selling Authors of Fiction of all time?

Even though JK Rowling is 9th on the list of the Best Selling Authors of Fiction, no one read her when she recently wrote as Robert Galbraith. It wasn't until the public found out that Robert Galbraith was indeed JK Rowling that they moved her books to the top of the best selling list.

So...who are the ten best selling authors of fiction of all time?

No surprise there, selling about 3 billion copies of all that he wrote, William Shakespeare is number one. He's still the king. Yet, I wonder how many Bibles have been sold. That has to be the number one book sold ever.

Agatha Christie is number 2 selling about 3 billion copies of her 85 books of detective crime. She's a good writer.

Barbara Cartland is number 3 after selling about 1 billion copies of her 783 romance books. I dare say that Barbara is more prolific than I am (lol). Actually, I'm sad to write that I never read anything by her.

Danille Steel is number 4 selling about 800 million copies of her 120 romance novels. She's another good writer.

Harold Robbins is number 5 selling about 750 million of his 23 American adventure novels. I read one book by him, The Green Beret only because my ex-husband was an Army Ranger and I was trying to understand the mentality.

George Simenon is number 6 selling about 700 million copies of his 570 French detective books. Seriously, how can anyone write that much...in French? Imagine him making a post to the forum boards and showing all 570 of his covers with his every post. Now, that would be a pain in the ass having to endlessly scroll over to make a post because of him.

Sidney Sheldon is number 7 selling about 600 million copies of his 21 English suspense novels. He's a good writer.

Enid Blyton is number 8 selling about 600 million copies of her 800 children's books. Hmm, I was too busy watching television when I was a kid to read anything by her.

JK Rowling is number 9 selling about 500 million copies of her 11 Harry Potter books. That's amazing for a modern day writer to tap this list.

Dr. Seuss is number 10 selling about 500 million copies of his 44 children's books. Well, to his credit, with there lots of kids, he'll always have an audience.

I wonder how much each author made per book sold. Even if they only made a dollar a book, they'd be quite rich. I can't imagine any author taking over the number 1 and 2 spots. They'd have to sell billions of books. Unless we sold books to an alternate universe, I can't see any author topping that list.

I dare say that JK Rowling probably made the most money with her 9 billion dollar movies. I couldn't help but notice that Stephen King didn't make the list. That's sad. Maybe we should start a collection for him.

"Give. Please give to help Stephen King by buying more of his books."

 
I can't help but wonder...

I can't help but wonder who gets the royalties from William Shakespeare?

His family? The state? The Queen?

Or maybe, perhaps, there's a distant relative in America who can claim his great fortune.

"So, you expect me to believe that you are related to the great, late William Shakespeare? You expect me to believe that you're his great, great, great, great,
great granddaughter? Is that what you expect me to believe is that you're story...Miss Susan Shakespeare?

"Yes," said Susan Jill Parker. "My real name is...Susan Shakespeare."

Ahh, if only it was that easy.
 
SusanJillParker said:
I can't help but wonder who gets the royalties from William Shakespeare?

His family? The state? The Queen?

Or maybe, perhaps, there's a distant relative in America who can claim his great fortune.

"So, you expect me to believe that you are related to the great, late William Shakespeare? You expect me to believe that you're his great, great, great, great,
great granddaughter? Is that what you expect me to believe is that you're story...Miss Susan Shakespeare?

"Yes," said Susan Jill Parker. "My real name is...Susan Shakespeare."

Ahh, if only it was that easy.
Click to expand...

Nobody gets royalties because all his works are in the public domain.
 
SimonDoom said:
Nobody gets royalties because all his works are in the public domain.
Click to expand...

Damn, that sucks.

Thank you. You saved me a trip to England (lol).

I can't win. First Howard Hughes and not William Shakespeare.

Hmm, maybe I can say that Donald Trump in my father.

Nah, that sucks. I wouldn't want to be related to him even if only by lying about my connection.

I know. Grandpa Warren Buffet. How are you?
 
Being that so much success, whether it's writing or business, depends on being at the right place at the right time, I wonder how many writers who write here would be successfully published authors if their personal circumstances were different.

Nepotism has always been a big thing in sports and business, the same thing can be said for the arts. I suppose if I was born to a wealthy family, I could have done anything I wanted. I certainly wouldn't be posting stories on Literotica (lol).

With that said, it just makes me wonder how talented some of these supposedly talented writers are or if they received a big leg up the ladder to get their start. Maybe they're only as talented as their editors and the rest of their creative staff.

With that said, it just makes me wonder how many writers with real talent for writing stories and creating characters we will never know because they are a no one and a nothing.

Perhaps, this is why programs such as the Voice, American Idol, dance shows, and America Has Talent are so popular. There are so many undiscovered gems out there that if given the chance could be contenders.

"I coulda been a contenda, if I hadn't dropped out of school because my Pop died and my Mom needed the money."

How many times have you heard that lament with Johnny now in prison serving a life sentence? Sad but true, you ain't no one if you ain't got money. Sad but true, you ain't no one unless you know someone powerfully influential.

Then again, there are those who came from nothing, and against all odds, became real players. Only, and unfortunately, unless you're a dot.com success, there is less of a chance of that happening now, then it did back in the '30's and '40's.
 
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