Looking for feedback on the first story I've written in a long time

CandiCame

Rocket Grunt
Joined
Apr 12, 2011
Posts
26,765
Hey, this is my first post in this thread, and I'm trying to follow all the rules. I feel weird about posting here and begging for feedback, but I want to grow as a writer, and when I posted in the Author's Hangout, that's what everyone advised me to do.

I'm Candicame.
The story is called: Lycan Subscribe. https://www.literotica.com/s/lycan-subscribe

I posted some stories to the site a LONG time ago, but a few days ago I decided to give the Halloween contest a shot- and when I was rereading them, I found that I couldn't get through them. They were THAT bad. That makes me think that my new stuff isn't going to be any better, because I'm out of practice.

I love writing (not just erotic stuff), and would love to improve, but I don't know how. I don't really have the time or money for classes and editors and all that, so I was really hoping you guys might be able to help me.

Oh, I guess I should give a synopsis- the story is about a camboy and his werewolf boyfriend. It's just meant to be cute- like long-term relationship cute, and is set in a world where lycanthropy is, if not common, at least acknowledged as a thing. I'm not really into furry stuff, but I did a little bit of research and I THINK I got the anatomy more or less right.

It's also pretty short so it shouldn't take too long to read?

I don't really know what else I should say. I would just appreciate any help!
 
As you say, short and cute. There's not much meat in your sandwich though, so there's not much to say. How to improve? Keep writing - you can string sentences together, your grammar is okay, I didn't spot any glaring weaknesss. Write something with more substance next time, I'd say.
 
As you say, short and cute. There's not much meat in your sandwich though, so there's not much to say. How to improve? Keep writing - you can string sentences together, your grammar is okay, I didn't spot any glaring weaknesss. Write something with more substance next time, I'd say.

I'm not really sure what people like? My tastes get pretty dark so I'm scared to explore too much- I'm not sure what kind of substance to try to give my next story.

Thanks for reading and giving me feedback. I guess I need more plot than fluff for the next one.
 
I'm not really sure what people like? My tastes get pretty dark so I'm scared to explore too much- I'm not sure what kind of substance to try to give my next story.

Thanks for reading and giving me feedback. I guess I need more plot than fluff for the next one.
Don't base your writing on what you think people will like, but on what you want to write. Somebody will like it, and there's probably folk darker than you. Explore away - that's where the best writing comes from, I reckon, from deep in your psyche, facing that fear. I've also found, if you're not ready to face something yet, you simply won't write it, not yet.

If people want fluff, they'll buy a bunny. If they want plot, they'll kill the bunny... know what I'm saying?
 
The story is well written. Grammar and style are clean. The pacing is good. The dialogue is well handled. Obviously, you know how to write.

The one element that's missing is a real story. This story is like a lot of other one page stories on Literotica in that it narrates an erotic incident, but without backstory or a typical story arc. There's no real conflict, no need, no resolution. Just two "people" getting it on. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do, but to make a story really memorable one has to add character and conflict.

This story raises obvious questions that are not addressed: is this a world where Lycans are common and accepted? It's not discussed. I could imagine a very erotic story where they are not, and Steve has to hide his lover Chuck, and maybe he eventually chooses to come out with him, shocking the world. There are many possibilities.

If I were you I would not hesitate to write stories that explore whatever dark fantasies you want to explore, and publish them here as long as they don't run afoul of the site's restrictions. But turn your story ideas into real stories, with characters that are fleshed out and driven by unfulfilled needs, which create conflict. The effort to resolve the conflict drives the story. Many possibilities exist when you write about fantasies about things that are not accepted by society (werewolf sex would count, I think).

The best advice is just to keep writing, and also to read a lot. Find authors you like and study what they do.
 
That makes me think that my new stuff isn't going to be any better, because I'm out of practice.

I love writing (not just erotic stuff), and would love to improve, but I don't know how. I don't really have the time or money for classes and editors and all that, so I was really hoping you guys might be able to help me.

I don't really know what else I should say. I would just appreciate any help!

Three William Faulkner quotes I like:.

"Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything good.”

"Don't be a writer; just be writing."
 
Don't base your writing on what you think people will like, but on what you want to write. Somebody will like it, and there's probably folk darker than you.

Yep. I hope people like my stories, and I love it when they do, but now and then I have to remind myself that nobody's paying me for what I post here. So they get what I feel like writing.

The story is well written. Grammar and style are clean. The pacing is good. The dialogue is well handled. Obviously, you know how to write.

The one element that's missing is a real story. This story is like a lot of other one page stories on Literotica in that it narrates an erotic incident, but without backstory or a typical story arc. There's no real conflict, no need, no resolution. Just two "people" getting it on. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do, but to make a story really memorable one has to add character and conflict.

This story raises obvious questions that are not addressed: is this a world where Lycans are common and accepted? It's not discussed. I could imagine a very erotic story where they are not, and Steve has to hide his lover Chuck, and maybe he eventually chooses to come out with him, shocking the world. There are many possibilities.

Yeah, this gets at why the story didn't quite work for me.

I've read some great stories that just described a single incident, "day in the life" sort of thing. There's a lot of skill in being able to evoke a single moment. But to make that work, the reader has to be able to fill in the blanks for themselves, or accept that they don't matter.

If I'm reading about an office quickie, I have some idea what an office is like, and I can imagine the sort of people who work there. I know plenty of people who work in offices, I've even done it myself! Do I care whether this is an insurance agency or an ad agency or a publishing agency? Probably not, unless it happens to be relevant to the story.

But werewolves are magic, werewolves are special. There are many variations in the fiction, but in almost all of them werewolves are secret, and likely to be hunted down if their existence becomes public. They're generally presented as outsiders who can't maintain normal human relationships because of the fear of discovery, or the risk that they might lose control and kill the ones they care about.

There are plenty of different ways to explore those themes or even subvert them - werewolf stories can also be about the feeling of finding one's own pack, of outsiders who've finally found some place to belong. But when you cut straight to "werewolf has human boyfriend" and they're comfortable enough in their relationship to be fucking for the cameras, and they have chains specially designed for werewolves so there's no danger involved... it feels like this could just be a guy in a wolf suit. It misses the tensions that I'm looking for in a werewolf story.

tl;dr I like vignettes and I like werewolves, but I don't think the "werewolf" side of this story worked as a vignette, and I don't think the "vignette" side of it worked with the werewolves.

But then, I'm not paying for it :)
 
Don't base your writing on what you think people will like, but on what you want to write. Somebody will like it, and there's probably folk darker than you. Explore away - that's where the best writing comes from, I reckon, from deep in your psyche, facing that fear. I've also found, if you're not ready to face something yet, you simply won't write it, not yet.

If people want fluff, they'll buy a bunny. If they want plot, they'll kill the bunny... know what I'm saying?

It's not fear- I'm the kind of sub who has fantasies that I know, in the real world, I wouldn't live through. Lit doesn't allow snuff or gore, so I don't know how far I can go before people think I'm a serial killer or something. When I used to post stories before, I did have some that were within the guidelines, but I would get notes about how I was horrible person, how I was "trolling" or "trying to deceive my audience", etc. I posted those same stories on places like AO3 and didn't get that kind of feedback, so I think it's an audience issue. I think I really do have to have a target audience in mind- it's important to me so that I can post it.

So this time I think I went too far the other way, because I'm not sure what I /can/ do- as in what I am allowed to do.
 
The story is well written. Grammar and style are clean. The pacing is good. The dialogue is well handled. Obviously, you know how to write.

The one element that's missing is a real story. This story is like a lot of other one page stories on Literotica in that it narrates an erotic incident, but without backstory or a typical story arc. There's no real conflict, no need, no resolution. Just two "people" getting it on. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do, but to make a story really memorable one has to add character and conflict.

This story raises obvious questions that are not addressed: is this a world where Lycans are common and accepted? It's not discussed. I could imagine a very erotic story where they are not, and Steve has to hide his lover Chuck, and maybe he eventually chooses to come out with him, shocking the world. There are many possibilities.

If I were you I would not hesitate to write stories that explore whatever dark fantasies you want to explore, and publish them here as long as they don't run afoul of the site's restrictions. But turn your story ideas into real stories, with characters that are fleshed out and driven by unfulfilled needs, which create conflict. The effort to resolve the conflict drives the story. Many possibilities exist when you write about fantasies about things that are not accepted by society (werewolf sex would count, I think).

The best advice is just to keep writing, and also to read a lot. Find authors you like and study what they do.

This has been pretty consistent- and so I know if enough people are telling me this that I've GOT to push through and try to write real plots and not fluff. I'm going to have an audience issue, but I HAVE to do that to grow.

Thank you guys so much.
 
... so I think it's an audience issue. I think I really do have to have a target audience in mind- it's important to me so that I can post it.

So this time I think I went too far the other way, because I'm not sure what I /can/ do- as in what I am allowed to do.
How can you ever define an audience? I don't think that's possible except with a very broad brush. Are you over-thinking stuff - aka procrastination?

If you're a sub, why not write sub space and the drop? Write what you know, is often a good place to start.
 
Yep. I hope people like my stories, and I love it when they do, but now and then I have to remind myself that nobody's paying me for what I post here. So they get what I feel like writing.



Yeah, this gets at why the story didn't quite work for me.

I've read some great stories that just described a single incident, "day in the life" sort of thing. There's a lot of skill in being able to evoke a single moment. But to make that work, the reader has to be able to fill in the blanks for themselves, or accept that they don't matter.

If I'm reading about an office quickie, I have some idea what an office is like, and I can imagine the sort of people who work there. I know plenty of people who work in offices, I've even done it myself! Do I care whether this is an insurance agency or an ad agency or a publishing agency? Probably not, unless it happens to be relevant to the story.

But werewolves are magic, werewolves are special. There are many variations in the fiction, but in almost all of them werewolves are secret, and likely to be hunted down if their existence becomes public. They're generally presented as outsiders who can't maintain normal human relationships because of the fear of discovery, or the risk that they might lose control and kill the ones they care about.

There are plenty of different ways to explore those themes or even subvert them - werewolf stories can also be about the feeling of finding one's own pack, of outsiders who've finally found some place to belong. But when you cut straight to "werewolf has human boyfriend" and they're comfortable enough in their relationship to be fucking for the cameras, and they have chains specially designed for werewolves so there's no danger involved... it feels like this could just be a guy in a wolf suit. It misses the tensions that I'm looking for in a werewolf story.

tl;dr I like vignettes and I like werewolves, but I don't think the "werewolf" side of this story worked as a vignette, and I don't think the "vignette" side of it worked with the werewolves.

But then, I'm not paying for it :)

This is something I genuinely never thought about- in my head, unless there's a reason for hate and discrimination in my fantasy worlds, I just... don't have it. At least not to that kind of huge degree where people would have to hide who they are- like it's implied that werewolves face microaggressions (He says something about 'not being a dog' and 'not being aggressive'- meaning that those are stereotypes that he deals with as a Lycan.) In a universe that I designed, it WOULD basically be a "guy in a wolf suite"- because werewolves would be accepted as human people with lycanthropy- not as monsters.

We have to deal with so much of that shit in the real world that I just don't think it needs to be a thing in ALL fiction- unless the fiction is set up specifically to be about that aspect, as a metaphor for real-world prejudice and discrimination. Lycanthropy is often seen as a disease, and very often as a mental illness. As someone who is neurodivergent, that metaphor hits home for me- I know what it's like to have to hide it, and I know how good it feels to not HAVE to. I want a world where I can take my PRNS in public- so my stories, they sell lycanthropy aids at Wal-mart next to the hearing-aid batteries and blood test strips. I don't WANT that stuff in my werewolf story- because if you replace the word "werewolf" with "person with a behavioral disorder" or "psychopath", your above sentence would still make perfect sense. And I don't like that. I don't want to write a story where it would be considered a big deal. If I'm going to write about a werewolf, it's ALWAYS going to be "A person who happens to have lycanthropy", not "a story about a werewolf".

Think What We Do in the Shadows, or The Sims- where these are just PEOPLE. They have lives, they have friends, they are human people who are living with a condition. Not monsters.

Werewolf legends are also often connected to a certain "kind" of people- the people that the overall community WANTED to demonize. My point is that there are a lot of real-world connotations about the "werewolf as monster" thing that I'm just not comfortable with. I don't want to subvert them, because I don't want to legitimize them by acknowledging them.

This is also partially true of real, live wolves. Wolves are both demonized and "exotic"- people keep them as pets without knowing how to take care of them, and people hunt them to extinction (as we did at Yellowstone), or completely misunderstand them because they throw a bunch of unrelated animals together and watch them in captivity instead of studying them in the wild. So to bring up those false wolf equivalencies in fiction also bothers me- it's another thing that I don't want to /subvert/, because in my fantasy world, it wouldn't be something that ever came up. If someone mentioned something about an "alpha wolf", it would be treated the way that Chuck treated being called aggressive, with a simple, "That's not a real thing," and a roll of the eyes- because it doesn't deserve to be dignified with a real response.

I guess I just have to set that up more? I figured people would be like, "Oh, it's not a big deal, like in the Sims. Or like how it would ideally be in real life." But getting this comment next to the others about how people want real plots and not just fluff makes me think that I /need/ to establish that.

I went too sweet with this one, I think, because I was trying to not go too dark, like I did before.
 
How can you ever define an audience? I don't think that's possible except with a very broad brush. Are you over-thinking stuff - aka procrastination?

If you're a sub, why not write sub space and the drop? Write what you know, is often a good place to start.

So that's not too vanilla?

See, I don't know where the lines are.
 
This is something I genuinely never thought about- in my head, unless there's a reason for hate and discrimination in my fantasy worlds, I just... don't have it. At least not to that kind of huge degree where people would have to hide who they are- like it's implied that werewolves face microaggressions (He says something about 'not being a dog' and 'not being aggressive'- meaning that those are stereotypes that he deals with as a Lycan.) In a universe that I designed, it WOULD basically be a "guy in a wolf suite"- because werewolves would be accepted as human people with lycanthropy- not as monsters.

We have to deal with so much of that shit in the real world that I just don't think it needs to be a thing in ALL fiction- unless the fiction is set up specifically to be about that aspect, as a metaphor for real-world prejudice and discrimination. Lycanthropy is often seen as a disease, and very often as a mental illness. As someone who is neurodivergent, that metaphor hits home for me- I know what it's like to have to hide it, and I know how good it feels to not HAVE to. I want a world where I can take my PRNS in public- so my stories, they sell lycanthropy aids at Wal-mart next to the hearing-aid batteries and blood test strips. I don't WANT that stuff in my werewolf story- because if you replace the word "werewolf" with "person with a behavioral disorder" or "psychopath", your above sentence would still make perfect sense. And I don't like that. I don't want to write a story where it would be considered a big deal. If I'm going to write about a werewolf, it's ALWAYS going to be "A person who happens to have lycanthropy", not "a story about a werewolf".

Think What We Do in the Shadows, or The Sims- where these are just PEOPLE. They have lives, they have friends, they are human people who are living with a condition. Not monsters.

Werewolf legends are also often connected to a certain "kind" of people- the people that the overall community WANTED to demonize. My point is that there are a lot of real-world connotations about the "werewolf as monster" thing that I'm just not comfortable with. I don't want to subvert them, because I don't want to legitimize them by acknowledging them.

This is also partially true of real, live wolves. Wolves are both demonized and "exotic"- people keep them as pets without knowing how to take care of them, and people hunt them to extinction (as we did at Yellowstone), or completely misunderstand them because they throw a bunch of unrelated animals together and watch them in captivity instead of studying them in the wild. So to bring up those false wolf equivalencies in fiction also bothers me- it's another thing that I don't want to /subvert/, because in my fantasy world, it wouldn't be something that ever came up. If someone mentioned something about an "alpha wolf", it would be treated the way that Chuck treated being called aggressive, with a simple, "That's not a real thing," and a roll of the eyes- because it doesn't deserve to be dignified with a real response.

I guess I just have to set that up more? I figured people would be like, "Oh, it's not a big deal, like in the Sims. Or like how it would ideally be in real life." But getting this comment next to the others about how people want real plots and not just fluff makes me think that I /need/ to establish that.

I went too sweet with this one, I think, because I was trying to not go too dark, like I did before.

If you haven't already read it and want a great twist on werewolves check out Robert McCammon's Wolf's hour.
 
This is something I genuinely never thought about- in my head, unless there's a reason for hate and discrimination in my fantasy worlds, I just... don't have it. At least not to that kind of huge degree where people would have to hide who they are- like it's implied that werewolves face microaggressions (He says something about 'not being a dog' and 'not being aggressive'- meaning that those are stereotypes that he deals with as a Lycan.) In a universe that I designed, it WOULD basically be a "guy in a wolf suite"- because werewolves would be accepted as human people with lycanthropy- not as monsters.

We have to deal with so much of that shit in the real world that I just don't think it needs to be a thing in ALL fiction- unless the fiction is set up specifically to be about that aspect, as a metaphor for real-world prejudice and discrimination. Lycanthropy is often seen as a disease, and very often as a mental illness. As someone who is neurodivergent, that metaphor hits home for me- I know what it's like to have to hide it, and I know how good it feels to not HAVE to. I want a world where I can take my PRNS in public- so my stories, they sell lycanthropy aids at Wal-mart next to the hearing-aid batteries and blood test strips. I don't WANT that stuff in my werewolf story- because if you replace the word "werewolf" with "person with a behavioral disorder" or "psychopath", your above sentence would still make perfect sense. And I don't like that. I don't want to write a story where it would be considered a big deal. If I'm going to write about a werewolf, it's ALWAYS going to be "A person who happens to have lycanthropy", not "a story about a werewolf".

I get this, mostly. I'm not a huge fan of Bury Your Gays (I won't say I've never written it, but I try to average more happy endings than sad ones) and I can understand not wanting to write that stuff.

I guess my question then is - why was this a werewolf story at all, instead of just two human guys getting it on in front of the cameras? I assume there's something about werewolves that speaks to you, or you wouldn't have written it this way, but from the story I wasn't getting what that something is.

It may be that I'm just not the target audience for it, and if so, that's fine - I don't spend a lot of time in Nonhuman. If it works for the regulars there, then maybe this isn't an issue. But if you're getting that vibe from them too, perhaps think hard about what it is that makes werewolves interesting to you and work on channelling that into the story.

My pet theory about suspension of disbelief is that it's kind of a trade. As the author, I ask my reader to accept something unlikely or impossible; in return, I implicitly promise to do something special with it. The more outré that aspect, the harder it needs to work to earn its keep.

Think What We Do in the Shadows, or The Sims- where these are just PEOPLE. They have lives, they have friends, they are human people who are living with a condition. Not monsters.

I'd argue that the vampires in WWDitS are people and monsters. They flat-out murder innocent people at several points in the story, and a lot of the humor comes from juxtaposing the banal with the monstrous. Killing people and then bickering about who has to wash the bloody dishes, "werewolves not swear-wolves" who end up brutally murdering a cameraman, Vladislav torturing people and then talking to camera reality TV style, etc. etc.

But comedy on its own isn't enough to sustain it. WWDitS also has several storylines going, with different kinds of tension involved. A lot of that tension comes from hostility between vampires and humans - just about everything involving Nick and Stu, and of course the unfortunate business with the vampire hunter.

Tension doesn't have to come from hatred and violence. In Literotica, the most common tensions are "will these two people fuck?" (answer: almost certainly yes, but we pretend we don't know) and "how/why does that end up happening?" The setup for your story resolves those very quickly, so if you're not looking for prejudice/violence to create the tension, then it may be worth thinking about where it is coming from.

I guess I just have to set that up more? I figured people would be like, "Oh, it's not a big deal, like in the Sims.

I feel like I'm missing a reference here. I played the Sims a bit when it first came out, but I don't remember anything with werewolves or whatever - was that a later expansion?

Or like how it would ideally be in real life." But getting this comment next to the others about how people want real plots and not just fluff makes me think that I /need/ to establish that.

I went too sweet with this one, I think, because I was trying to not go too dark, like I did before.

Now that you've explained a bit more, I'm not sure that I'd call it "too sweet". I'm all in favour of people writing nice stories about lovers being good to one another, and I even do it myself occasionally. But by forswearing some of the usual elements of werewolf stories - for perfectly valid reasons - you're effectively setting a challenge for yourself.
 
I get this, mostly. I'm not a huge fan of Bury Your Gays (I won't say I've never written it, but I try to average more happy endings than sad ones) and I can understand not wanting to write that stuff.

I guess my question then is - why was this a werewolf story at all, instead of just two human guys getting it on in front of the cameras? I assume there's something about werewolves that speaks to you, or you wouldn't have written it this way, but from the story I wasn't getting what that something is.

A lot of reasons-
1: I wanted to enter the Halloween contest, but I didn't want to write horror, because as I mentioned above, I did that before and wound up deleting all my stories because I kept getting comments about how they were too dark, how I was a serial killer, how I should be culled from humanity, etc, so I wanted to go cute.
2: My boyfriend and child both LOVE werewolves- and in pretty much all kid's media they're presented the way I presented them here, so I honestly forgot "dangerous" werewolves were a thing until you mentioned it. Can you imagine Clawdean tearing someone apart? I've just not seen any media with the "dangerous" werewolves in a while, so I think I can be forgiven for not realizing it until it was pointed out to me.
3: But I WAS thinking about all the media that portrays Lycanthropy as a metaphor for mental illness- not that the characters are mean or dangerous, but that they do have behavioral outbursts, black out, etc, and this is played as a BAD thing. I wanted to present a world where that wasn't the case like I already outlined. To keep that metaphor intact and not even dignify the trope by acknowledging it. Same reason there's no mention of homophobia.
4: I wanted the knot for the nonhuman thing because I'd never written it before and thought it might be interesting.
5: I wanted to make that pun REAL bad. Camboys don't even say that. I used to BE a camboy and it's not like being a youtuber.

It may be that I'm just not the target audience for it, and if so, that's fine - I don't spend a lot of time in Nonhuman. If it works for the regulars there, then maybe this isn't an issue. But if you're getting that vibe from them too, perhaps think hard about what it is that makes werewolves interesting to you and work on channelling that into the story.

My pet theory about suspension of disbelief is that it's kind of a trade. As the author, I ask my reader to accept something unlikely or impossible; in return, I implicitly promise to do something special with it. The more outré that aspect, the harder it needs to work to earn its keep.

This is just good advice. I'm not sure what element is making it particularly hard to suspend disbelief. I don't like treating people as monsters, and there's a lot of media that doesn't- like I mentioned before, almost all kids media, a lot of games, etc. To me having a werewolf be a "monster" is like setting a horror movie in a psyche ward. It's just squicky. It's MORE difficult for me to believe that.

In my culture we didn't have werewolves for a long time- not until Europeans got here. We had shifters, people like Wampus Cats- and they were undeniably good guys. They were mothers who shifted to protect their children, friends, and community. This idea that all were-creatures are evil is not like, self-explanatory and common. I don't think that werewolf as "a person living with lycanthropy" is a huge deal. It's already present in the zeitgeist. Like I just am not understanding how that's a suspension of disbelief. It'd be really weird to a furry, especially, to have the monster werewolf.

I'd argue that the vampires in WWDitS are people and monsters. They flat-out murder innocent people at several points in the story, and a lot of the humor comes from juxtaposing the banal with the monstrous. Killing people and then bickering about who has to wash the bloody dishes, "werewolves not swear-wolves" who end up brutally murdering a cameraman, Vladislav torturing people and then talking to camera reality TV style, etc. etc.

But comedy on its own isn't enough to sustain it. WWDitS also has several storylines going, with different kinds of tension involved. A lot of that tension comes from hostility between vampires and humans - just about everything involving Nick and Stu, and of course the unfortunate business with the vampire hunter.

And the vampire hunter was the BAD GUY, because he was also killing people- not because he needed to to eat, but because he wanted to. Again, replace the word "vampire" with "psychopath". Replace these characters with Hannibal Lecter from the series that shares his name. Vampires are people who live with vamparism, not monsters. This has actually become pretty mainstream. No one is really afraid of vampires anymore- seems like everyone just wants to fuck them.

Tension doesn't have to come from hatred and violence. In Literotica, the most common tensions are "will these two people fuck?" (answer: almost certainly yes, but we pretend we don't know) and "how/why does that end up happening?" The setup for your story resolves those very quickly, so if you're not looking for prejudice/violence to create the tension, then it may be worth thinking about where it is coming from.

Again, just good advice. This is definitely what's missing, and this is gonna help me a LOT going forward. I am sincerely thankful. I don't know how to just say "thanks" and make it sound genuine over text? I feel like a lot of the time when you say "thank you" for constructive criticism it comes off sounding kind of sarcastic and I'm trying to avoid that. I really appreciate it. This was all fluff and filler with no plot or tension, and I get that's not what folks want now. This is gonna help me a LOT moving forward.

I feel like I'm missing a reference here. I played the Sims a bit when it first came out, but I don't remember anything with werewolves or whatever - was that a later expansion?

Werewolves have been a staple since the first Sims games. You can catch lycanthropy in a variety of ways- it gives you higher social stats with dogs, your family, new aspirations like "leader of the pack", new socializations where you can smell people to learn their traits and have them throw balls for you and whatnot- and on the full moon you get a new skin where you grow fur, ears, and whatnot. Then you get increased speed, strength, and stamina, but your hygiene just PLUNGES. I think you have a higher social need too, because of the whole "pack" thing. If you also have the pets expansion you get a "howl" social that can help you befriend wild dogs and wolves. I think you get a BUNCH of new socials that let you lick people or growl at them and whatnot.

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Now that you've explained a bit more, I'm not sure that I'd call it "too sweet". I'm all in favour of people writing nice stories about lovers being good to one another, and I even do it myself occasionally. But by forswearing some of the usual elements of werewolf stories - for perfectly valid reasons - you're effectively setting a challenge for yourself.

I just... am having a hard time accepting that they're that "usual". Like I was able to completely forget that they existed, even with two people who absolutely love werewolves in super close proximity to me just a few weeks away from Halloween. It didn't even enter my mind until you mentioned it. Like... a lot of people look at a wolf and see a dog. And most people who look at dogs are like, "Oh how cute! What a pretty puppy!" It's a problem for people who RAISE wolves- because they can be dangerous if they're scared, but humans don't instinctively fear them- because we see a dog, and we think that dogs are safe. A lot of places have laws against owning wolves for this very reason. It's difficult for a lot of people to see a dog as a monster- so a werewolf is a human with dog-like qualities: friendly, loves to play ball, gets REALLY excited about running errands, loyal as hell- the exact character I tried to present here.

A lot of people, when they think of wolves, think characters like this:

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And if I'm gonna fuck a wolf, it's honestly probably gonna be Link.

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Who, by the way, the marketing team TRIED to make look intimidating and badass, as you can see- but whom the fans draw like this, because this is how people see werewolves.

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I mean, there is a LOT of fan-art, and most of it is ADORABLE or furry-sexy.

Again, I wouldn't have thought "werewolf = monster" until you brought it up, and when you did, my first thought was, "I'm going to write out a whole big thing about why those tropes are problematic and I'm glad they're dying off." I just... I really, really appreciate the reading and the criticism. I don't want to sound ungrateful. I just think that we've had two different experiences and therefore have two different ideas about what a werewolf actually is. I don't think one is more "correct" than the other, I just think that one is for me, personally, and the other isn't.

I might write a shifter story in the future that would have those elements, but it would be ABOUT those elements, and the story would be focused on the metaphor about mental illness. I'm not sure how anyone could make that erotic without making it exploitative and still fit within Lit's guidelines.

Edit: I guess I can't embed pictures? Basically, when Nintendo draws Link, they want him to look intimidating and badass. When fans draw Link, he looks adorable or sexy.
 
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2: My boyfriend and child both LOVE werewolves- and in pretty much all kid's media they're presented the way I presented them here, so I honestly forgot "dangerous" werewolves were a thing until you mentioned it. Can you imagine Clawdean tearing someone apart? I've just not seen any media with the "dangerous" werewolves in a while, so I think I can be forgiven for not realizing it until it was pointed out to me.

Ah, right. My influences are... somewhat different. I'm more used to the "where was I last night and whose blood is that?" kind of werewolf.

This is just good advice. I'm not sure what element is making it particularly hard to suspend disbelief. I don't like treating people as monsters, and there's a lot of media that doesn't- like I mentioned before, almost all kids media, a lot of games, etc. To me having a werewolf be a "monster" is like setting a horror movie in a psyche ward. It's just squicky. It's MORE difficult for me to believe that.

With my comment about suspension of disbelief, I was just thinking "werewolves" in general, not referring to the particular kind of werewolf you chose to write.

And the vampire hunter was the BAD GUY, because he was also killing people- not because he needed to to eat, but because he wanted to.

We don't get to hear his side of things, but it seems pretty plausible that he was killing vampires to protect humans? Because these guys do kill quite a few people; maybe they have to eat, but humans also have a need not to be eaten. They also control people's minds, they exploit their servants with false promises of immortality, and there's a reason why Vlad is called "the Poker". The horrific stuff they do is played for laughs, so it doesn't have the same impact as if we were seeing it from their victims' perspective, but it's there.

I just... am having a hard time accepting that they're that "usual".

I don't know how to quantify what the dominant view of werewolves is these days, so I'll withdraw "usual". But the monstrous werewolf is still a common and influential trope in the circles I'm familiar with. For example, I've played three different RPGs that involve werewolves. In D&D/Pathfinder they're Chaotic Evil by canon; in W:tA and Monsterhearts they're more nuanced and may even be the good guys, but rage and violence are still key themes there.

I mean, there is a LOT of fan-art, and most of it is ADORABLE or furry-sexy. Again, I wouldn't have thought "werewolf = monster" until you brought it up, and when you did, my first thought was, "I'm going to write out a whole big thing about why those tropes are problematic and I'm glad they're dying off."

I suspect there's a lot of overlap between the people making fan-art and the furry community, and from what I've seen furrydom tends to go for cute & friendly takes on such things. But I'm not convinced the monstrous werewolf is in any danger of dying off, from what I see.

I just... I really, really appreciate the reading and the criticism. I don't want to sound ungrateful. I just think that we've had two different experiences and therefore have two different ideas about what a werewolf actually is. I don't think one is more "correct" than the other, I just think that one is for me, personally, and the other isn't.

That's fine! Werewolves are fictional, they can be whatever you want them to be. I don't expect everybody to write to my preferences.

I think the writer-feedback angle on this is just to be aware that different readers will bring different expectations to a story - that doesn't just apply to supernatural content, but is especially relevant there - and handling that can be hard. Sometimes it can be managed, one way or another. Sometimes all one can do is to make peace with the idea that not everybody is going to agree with that take.

Edit: I guess I can't embed pictures? Basically, when Nintendo draws Link, they want him to look intimidating and badass. When fans draw Link, he looks adorable or sexy.

Literotica does censor some URLs (I assume due to history of spamming) but Tumblr is definitely not on that blacklist. From looking at the links, I think you're using DuckDuckGo image search, and it looks as if you're posting a link to something that's going via a DuckDuckGo proxy rather than to the proper image location - might need to click through from the search page and view the image on its original site, then get the URL from there, rather than the one that's routing via DDG. Or something like that.
 
I agree with Bramblethorn. You are free to imagine werewolves in whatever way you wish, but the fact remains that a werewolf is, according to common lore, a wild, predatory carnivore. Most people think of a werewolf as dangerous. If you choose to make your werewolf cuddly, and you don't deal in some way with the disparity between your werewolf and most people's idea of a werewolf, then your story has an elephant in the living room, so to speak. Obviously, there must be SOMETHING unusual about featuring a werewolf --if there's not, then, as Bramblethorn says, it's no different from a person in a costume. Your reader can fairly ask, OK, why include a werewolf? What's the point? If your story is set in an alternative universe where fucking werewolves is normal, then dealing with and explaining that universe is a good idea.
 
Ah, right. My influences are... somewhat different. I'm more used to the "where was I last night and whose blood is that?" kind of werewolf.



With my comment about suspension of disbelief, I was just thinking "werewolves" in general, not referring to the particular kind of werewolf you chose to write.



We don't get to hear his side of things, but it seems pretty plausible that he was killing vampires to protect humans? Because these guys do kill quite a few people; maybe they have to eat, but humans also have a need not to be eaten. They also control people's minds, they exploit their servants with false promises of immortality, and there's a reason why Vlad is called "the Poker". The horrific stuff they do is played for laughs, so it doesn't have the same impact as if we were seeing it from their victims' perspective, but it's there.



I don't know how to quantify what the dominant view of werewolves is these days, so I'll withdraw "usual". But the monstrous werewolf is still a common and influential trope in the circles I'm familiar with. For example, I've played three different RPGs that involve werewolves. In D&D/Pathfinder they're Chaotic Evil by canon; in W:tA and Monsterhearts they're more nuanced and may even be the good guys, but rage and violence are still key themes there.



I suspect there's a lot of overlap between the people making fan-art and the furry community, and from what I've seen furrydom tends to go for cute & friendly takes on such things. But I'm not convinced the monstrous werewolf is in any danger of dying off, from what I see.



That's fine! Werewolves are fictional, they can be whatever you want them to be. I don't expect everybody to write to my preferences.

I think the writer-feedback angle on this is just to be aware that different readers will bring different expectations to a story - that doesn't just apply to supernatural content, but is especially relevant there - and handling that can be hard. Sometimes it can be managed, one way or another. Sometimes all one can do is to make peace with the idea that not everybody is going to agree with that take.



Literotica does censor some URLs (I assume due to history of spamming) but Tumblr is definitely not on that blacklist. From looking at the links, I think you're using DuckDuckGo image search, and it looks as if you're posting a link to something that's going via a DuckDuckGo proxy rather than to the proper image location - might need to click through from the search page and view the image on its original site, then get the URL from there, rather than the one that's routing via DDG. Or something like that.

I think that this is an audience issue, honestly? Like you will never know how much I appreciate you reading and leaving me these long, massive feedbacks. What I really should have done, and what I didn't do at all, is read some of the other high-rated non-human (specifically werewolf) stories BEFORE I wrote anything. If I had known that people were into the whole monster thing, I could have used that- like you said, you can use or subvert those tropes and have a good story.

I guess I was trying to feel Lit out- I had such a bad experience last time that in my head I was more or less repeating, "Keep it light! Keep it fluffy!" Because the last time I posted here, about 4 years ago, I went too dark- so I let myself get scared to actually DO anything. I'm going to start a new story today or tomorrow with real plot and maybe actually explore the shifter thing- probably still not as "monsters" because it just rubs me the wrong way- but I can definitely see it with the "animal instincts/lost memory/being discriminated against" things to create conflict, like you were talking about before.

My issue with that- or like, what I'm concerned with- is that I don't know how to condense all that into a short story? And I know that chaptered stories tend not to do very well. I went over to the author's hangout before I started writing again to get some advice, and someone linked me to an article about how to get views, and it said to stick to one-shots.

I know you've already done so much for me, but if you guys could give me some advice on how to like... portray ALL that- a plot about having to hide who you are, and a meaty story that's still erotic and doesn't become JUST about the "hidden illness/discrimination" metaphor, it would REALLY help me. I know that's a lot to ask of someone, so I totally get it if people don't want to basically outline it for me. I really want to learn how to write, and I know that people have already said that the best way to do that is to just sit down and do it, but I just... I guess am not confident enough? If that makes sense. I just feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and I already feel like an idiot for not knowing my target audience.

I also feel like an idiot because I feel like if I hadn't been so tired last night I could have figured out the duckduckgo thing. Ugh. I use a special browser/search engine for lit (and other porn sites) because I don't want it connected to my google. Sorry about that- that was 100% just me not being able to figure out something easy, and then on a fresh new day facepalming at myself.
 
I agree with Bramblethorn. You are free to imagine werewolves in whatever way you wish, but the fact remains that a werewolf is, according to common lore, a wild, predatory carnivore. Most people think of a werewolf as dangerous. If you choose to make your werewolf cuddly, and you don't deal in some way with the disparity between your werewolf and most people's idea of a werewolf, then your story has an elephant in the living room, so to speak. Obviously, there must be SOMETHING unusual about featuring a werewolf --if there's not, then, as Bramblethorn says, it's no different from a person in a costume. Your reader can fairly ask, OK, why include a werewolf? What's the point? If your story is set in an alternative universe where fucking werewolves is normal, then dealing with and explaining that universe is a good idea.

Between my last response and this one, I saw that I got a comment to this effect (on the actual story). It's an audience thing. I should have done some research beforehand to see what audience expectations were. I, again, wouldn't call this lore "common", for all the reasons that I already pointed out- but it does seem to be the one that the audience at Lit is most familiar with, and that's something I should have researched beforehand.

I'm going to try to keep writing.

Like... even wolves in the wild aren't obligate carnivores and almost NEVER attack humans. We're a much bigger threat to them than they are to us. I don't want to keep arguing that the mindset yhall are talking about makes no sense to me- it just really does shock me that so many people consider it "common". It's probably been a good five years since I've seen any media portraying a "monstrous" werewolf. I just didn't do the research. It's on me.

It does REALLY shock me that people who think of werewolves as monstrous and people who read non-human porn are the same audience. I really thought it would be mostly furries. So I figured the preconcieved image they would come in with would be a fursona- very similar to the "guy in a suit" that you guys keep mentioning.
 
My issue with that- or like, what I'm concerned with- is that I don't know how to condense all that into a short story? And I know that chaptered stories tend not to do very well. I went over to the author's hangout before I started writing again to get some advice, and someone linked me to an article about how to get views, and it said to stick to one-shots.

I know you've already done so much for me, but if you guys could give me some advice on how to like... portray ALL that- a plot about having to hide who you are, and a meaty story that's still erotic and doesn't become JUST about the "hidden illness/discrimination" metaphor, it would REALLY help me. I know that's a lot to ask of someone, so I totally get it if people don't want to basically outline it for me. I really want to learn how to write, and I know that people have already said that the best way to do that is to just sit down and do it, but I just... I guess am not confident enough? If that makes sense. I just feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and I already feel like an idiot for not knowing my target audience.
It seems to me that you're in a place where you want to expand your scope, but you're not sure if you have the ability to do so. We've all been there, I think, and the writers who contribute to this thread will all say pretty much the same thing: tackle something shorter before taking on a big thing (in my case, I was three years here before I took over a year to write what I call my "stupid big thing"). That way, you'll find your style, you'll get some technical confidence, before you set out on a work with multiple characters and a complex plot. Two or three Lit pages (7000 - 10,000 words) is a good length to work with, to start off (and a good chapter length, later on). When you've got a dozen shorter, stand-alone pieces under your belt, then start thinking bigger. Walk before you run.

Also, take on board you're in a niche - your "I'm not a monster werewolf genre" is probably a sub-niche. Like other commenters in this thread, I'm of a vintage (aka I'm as fucking old as your traditional vampire ;)) where werewolves are kin to dark vampires, whereas you have a later take on your subject matter, where they seem to be more benign. That being the case, you have additional world building to do, if you're running different tropes. What the niche also means, is expect thousands of views but not tens of thousands - and don't be driven by what you think audiences want. That's a fool's game - be driven by your own intensity, your own passion (and it's clear from your posts here that you have both), but not what you think readers want. You'll never really know that, so why try to guess?

Keep asking questions, too. Nobody's going to bite. We're not werewolves...
 
I think that this is an audience issue, honestly? Like you will never know how much I appreciate you reading and leaving me these long, massive feedbacks. What I really should have done, and what I didn't do at all, is read some of the other high-rated non-human (specifically werewolf) stories BEFORE I wrote anything. If I had known that people were into the whole monster thing, I could have used that- like you said, you can use or subvert those tropes and have a good story.

Over in the tagging thread we talked about Literotica's demographics being a bit different to places like AO3, and I think that's part of the story here. Different circles, different expectations. It probably is worth reading a bit in those categories to get a feel for where people are coming from, though that certainly doesn't mean you need to conform to those styles.

One of the things I kinda like about Literotica is that because there's almost no filter on what can be posted, and no financial incentive to play to the crowd, a lot of folk feel free to write about what interests them. That fascinates me - even when they're writing about stuff that I'm not into myself, I like seeing inside other people's heads and getting some understanding of what they enjoy.

My issue with that- or like, what I'm concerned with- is that I don't know how to condense all that into a short story? And I know that chaptered stories tend not to do very well. I went over to the author's hangout before I started writing again to get some advice, and someone linked me to an article about how to get views, and it said to stick to one-shots.

Depends on your criteria for "do well". Views tend to fall off with chapters, but I think that's mostly a factor of people who didn't enjoy Chapter 1 deciding not to read further. If you lose the people who weren't enjoying the story... is that really a problem?

(ObSpinalTap: "it's not that we're unpopular, it's that our appeal has become more selective")

Yesterday I posted a new story in a category I haven't posted to before. I'm aware that it's not the standard fare for that category, and so far it has the lowest score of anything I've posted here. (That could change, averages fluctuate a lot with the first few days of voting.)

But I'm happy with it for a couple of reasons. #1 is that it's the story I wanted to write, and #2 is this comment from an anonymous reader:

"I've read, or at least started to read, every E & V story here for the last couple of years. This is unlike any I have seen. Maybe it's not even in the correct category, but definitely one of the best."

So far, around 5000 people have read that story (depending on how one interprets "views") and probably most of them didn't finish it. Of the ones who did finish it, a significant proportion apparently felt it was a bit meh. But getting that kind of reaction from even one person means it wasn't wasted effort.

I know you've already done so much for me, but if you guys could give me some advice on how to like... portray ALL that- a plot about having to hide who you are, and a meaty story that's still erotic and doesn't become JUST about the "hidden illness/discrimination" metaphor, it would REALLY help me. I know that's a lot to ask of someone, so I totally get it if people don't want to basically outline it for me.

I'm not you, but if I was writing a story about the sort of werewolves that interest you, some things I might consider:

General worldbuilding stuff - what does a society with non-secret werewolves look like? You mentioned stories with lycanthropes as protectors - is that reflected in the social roles they take? Do werewolves gravitate to careers like rescue work and paramedics? Do advertisers start plugging the "Wolf It Down Meal Deal" leading up to every full moon, and maybe the lycanthropic equivalent of hangover cures immediately after? You mentioned that "Consent gets fuzzy once you're transformed" - might be interesting to explore that further.

(It's possible to overdo the world-building, though - IME it generally works better to figure out this stuff in detail but then drip-feed it to readers as the story progresses, rather than dumping it all up front. That becomes too much to assimilate all in one hit.)

Tension doesn't always have to be life-or-death stuff. Forget about the guy who wakes up with blood on his hands and no memory of how it got there - what if I'm dating a werewolf who says "I love you" when she's about to change, but doesn't remember it after the full moon is past? How do I feel about that, how do we resolve that situation? If lycanthropy is communicable, and not viewed as a horrible curse... do I want her to bite me? Is she willing to do that? What does that mean for our relationship?

On the eroticism side, this is something that's going to vary a lot by reader - one person's "hot" will be another's "ew, too close to bestiality". But if you want to focus on "not bad, just different", there are plenty of interesting areas in that "different" - e.g. how does a werewolf's sense of smell influence how sex works for them? ("really, you can't smell that lube? It's overpowering!")

Like... even wolves in the wild aren't obligate carnivores and almost NEVER attack humans. We're a much bigger threat to them than they are to us. I don't want to keep arguing that the mindset yhall are talking about makes no sense to me- it just really does shock me that so many people consider it "common". It's probably been a good five years since I've seen any media portraying a "monstrous" werewolf. I just didn't do the research. It's on me.

Oh yeah, werewolf myths are a looooong way from RL wolves. But it's harder to get a dramatic story about somebody who once a month changes into a wolf and then goes far away from civilisation to mind his own business!

btw: I only JUST got the pun in the story. Sometimes it takes me a while.
 
A long time ago when I was involved in journalism a story got circulated by journalism instructors to illustrate the importance of identifying the real issue in your story, and of making sure to call attention to it. It went something like this:

A reporter was assigned the task of writing a story about a devastating fire in progress. He went to the fire and wrote a story about it. When he was done, the lead was something like this:


"God watched over the town of XXXX as firefighters battled a raging fire last night."

He handed in the story. The editor's response was, "Forget the fire. Interview God."


The point is that if you write a story about a werewolf, the werewolf is God in the story. You have to deal with the werewolf. The rest is less important. You don't need to do research. You need to develop the habit of being attentive to what's important in the story.
 
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