Make Your Writing As Borin G As Possible.

My brain uses song lyrics to alert me to awful writing. The lyrics are usually from THE BRADY BINCH thene, GILLIGANS ISLAND, and GREEN ACRES. I hear the music as I read.
 
Dunno, JBJ, that list is not only old-hat but it seems straight out of one of those usual college courses that bear no relation to the commercial world.

Personally, if you actually 'follow a list' then for sure you are going to end up being boring to experienced readers - because they can see every single move you're going to make, because they've seen that stuff all before.

I spend a lot of time going to movies and saying (out aloud, can't help it) "Uh-oh, here's the New York writer's school 'conflict' bit about to come up right on cue." I hate it.
 
Dunno, JBJ, that list is not only old-hat but it seems straight out of one of those usual college courses that bear no relation to the commercial world.

Personally, if you actually 'follow a list' then for sure you are going to end up being boring to experienced readers - because they can see every single move you're going to make, because they've seen that stuff all before.

I spend a lot of time going to movies and saying (out aloud, can't help it) "Uh-oh, here's the New York writer's school 'conflict' bit about to come up right on cue." I hate it.

I read somewhere New York publishers hired a legion of clueless girls fresh outta college to make writers sing with the PC choir.
 
The first Jaws, Poltergeist, Alien and Gremlins movies were very enjoyable because the concepts and special effects were fresh, new and untried. But with each sequel, they became more and more - you've guessed it - boring if not downright pathetic. Some people obviously love being bored by the same-old as the continued success of the Star Wars saga proves whereas the majority moves on. As a writer, if you hit upon a formula that you can repeat time and time again with little effort in order to gain the same, predictable adulation from the same set of readers, why change? It's the Star Wars syndrome. ;)
 
The first Jaws, Poltergeist, Alien and Gremlins movies were very enjoyable because the concepts and special effects were fresh, new and untried. But with each sequel, they became more and more - you've guessed it - boring if not downright pathetic. Some people obviously love being bored by the same-old as the continued success of the Star Wars saga proves whereas the majority moves on. As a writer, if you hit upon a formula that you can repeat time and time again with little effort in order to gain the same, predictable adulation from the same set of readers, why change? It's the Star Wars syndrome. ;)

I call it THE PRIME NUMBER EFFECT.

Jim Johnsons PRIME NUNMBER EFFECT THEORY: Novelty is distributed like prime numbers. After a bit of time such numbers occur with greater infrequency.

Same-o is cheap and easy, novelty is expensive.
 
I'm thinking of a prominent LIT author who use the same format with every story.

Moe meets Joe at (fill in the blank), lays Joe over a (fill in the blank), and sodomizes Joe.
 
In her 1982 novel The Crystal Singer, author Anne McCaffrey introduces us to one ancient, irascible and forgetful Singer named Mookson who knows everything there is to know about rose quartz (being by far the most plentiful, least useful and most overstocked variety of Ballybran crystal) who'd "cut rose quartz all his working life, which was far longer than she'd drawn breath, or her parents or her grandparents for that matter".

PS. You miss him, don't you? :D
 

I know, right? It's like classical music. Same old 200 year old shit over and over. Sure, some of it was innovative then, but who the hell would listen to that ancient crap today when there is lots of new innovative music to listen to?

What value could there possibly be for an orchestra to make new recordings of 200 year old music? Same instruments. Same notes. Comes out the same. Beyond me.

rj
 
I know, right? It's like classical music. Same old 200 year old shit over and over. Sure, some of it was innovative then, but who the hell would listen to that ancient crap today when there is lots of new innovative music to listen to?

What value could there possibly be for an orchestra to make new recordings of 200 year old music? Same instruments. Same notes. Comes out the same. Beyond me.

rj

Hey now! You can't use actual facts in a JBJ thread. :D
 
I know, right? It's like classical music. Same old 200 year old shit over and over. Sure, some of it was innovative then, but who the hell would listen to that ancient crap today when there is lots of new innovative music to listen to?

What value could there possibly be for an orchestra to make new recordings of 200 year old music? Same instruments. Same notes. Comes out the same. Beyond me.

rj

Lets call fads within categories "genre" (its what they are) and stipulate MEET THE BEATLES of 1964 aint MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR of 1967.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUT7W4mrF_0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2_wuNkRE40

STEVE MILLER BAND 1969
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEPy_fe91yw

POET AND THE ONE MAN BAND 1970
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgMNzPdbRl8

PINK FLOYD 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFYYzzDhR6c

PINK FLOYD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9SgJzsCTK4
 
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Lets call fads within categories "genre" (its what they are) and stipulate MEET THE BEATLES of 1964 aint MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR of 1967.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUT7W4mrF_0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2_wuNkRE40

STEVE MILLER BAND 1969
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEPy_fe91yw

POET AND THE ONE MAN BAND 1970
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgMNzPdbRl8

PINK FLOYD 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFYYzzDhR6c

PINK FLOYD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9SgJzsCTK4

Couldn't agree more. Innovation is great and vital for growth. And your examples clearly show that growth. But there's value in revisiting where we've been as much as new places we might go. I picked the classical music example intentionally because I know you appreciate it. Two hundred year old organ music can still delight and surprise. It's no different with storytelling with words. The plot/sheet music might be the same, but the players are different.

I enjoy your threads if I haven't mentioned it.

rj
 
Couldn't agree more. Innovation is great and vital for growth. And your examples clearly show that growth. But there's value in revisiting where we've been as much as new places we might go. I picked the classical music example intentionally because I know you appreciate it. Two hundred year old organ music can still delight and surprise. It's no different with storytelling with words. The plot/sheet music might be the same, but the players are different.

I enjoy your threads if I haven't mentioned it.

rj

Thank you, sir.

A strange idea popped into my head, and I wanna see where it leads. Yolstoy or James Joyce may have had the same idea. Maybe D.H.Lawrence. All come to mind.
 
Kinesics and Context: Essays on Body Motion Communication (Conduct and Communication) Ray Birdwhistell

I read the book in 1969 and didn't think of it since then. Its a brainiac consideration of body language. It doesn't interpret behavior, it explains human motion. Like learning music notation without learning what the symbols mean.
 
Even though I know everything Hollywood is tossing at us is a re-something as in remake, reboot reinterpretation...even the superhero movies like Spiderman keep going back and telling the origin over and over again a year apart.

But when I saw a commercial last night for Chips movie? They've hit rock bottom.
 
We've just learned that in Trump's America (A Parallel Universe) there are alternative facts so anything goes now.

rj

That, sir, is a political statement and fyi, facts do not belong in politics where expediency and what one currently wishes the truth to be always takes precedence. It's wholesale application is something which the Liberal-Socialist-"Democrat" have taken over from Dr Goebbles, who perfected the art, and practiced for over half a century whereas the other side have only recently discovered its usefulness. If the truth always is what you claim it is today, you never lie.
 
Quite a number of Lit stories are boring because the author has failed to ask the following questions; "Who are my characters, and why would another person find them interesting?" Poorly developed characters in uninteresting situations = boring.

Obviously not everyone is going to like my stories, but I know that I always try to create interesting characters and stories.

For example, one of my stories is about a 19-year-old guy and an 18-year-old girl. What's interesting there? I set the story in an Italian-American neighborhood in New York in the early 1970s, and made the girl the daughter of a Mafia Boss, and the young guy an employee at a business owned by the powerful mobster. Having the young man grapple with his crush on his bosses seductive daughter due to his fear of her father and his Mob associates I thought made for an interesting story. True, this story might not to be to everyone's taste, but I have done my best to make it interesting.
 
Quite a number of Lit stories are boring because the author has failed to ask the following questions; "Who are my characters, and why would another person find them interesting?" Poorly developed characters in uninteresting situations = boring.

Obviously not everyone is going to like my stories, but I know that I always try to create interesting characters and stories.

For example, one of my stories is about a 19-year-old guy and an 18-year-old girl. What's interesting there? I set the story in an Italian-American neighborhood in New York in the early 1970s, and made the girl the daughter of a Mafia Boss, and the young guy an employee at a business owned by the powerful mobster. Having the young man grapple with his crush on his bosses seductive daughter due to his fear of her father and his Mob associates I thought made for an interesting story. True, this story might not to be to everyone's taste, but I have done my best to make it interesting.

And it will be interesting to those who WANT interesting and something that has real characters.

What the OP always forgets is where we write. There are people making serious efforts to write actual stories, but there are just as many(probably more) who are writing one handed reads with the same cliched devices and cardboard characters who are little more than dicks and tits and they are doing just fine because this is a porn site

I your motivation is to get off and for many here it is, then those two dimensional characters and over used scenarios are just fine and if a man or woman gets off to a story they are not about to declare it boring.

The issue with the OP is he writes a niche that's not popular here so of course the entire library here people do read must be 'boring'

Boring like everything else here is subjective and the only real answer is write what you want, how you want and the readership that likes it will find you.

Bitching about the readership and saying they are stupid and boring and mouth breathers gets you nowhere.
 
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To paraphrase Lester Maddox: Literotica won't improve until it gets a better class of readers. :)

Having someone who does not write erotica bitch about the writers that do doesn't help anything either.

One persons boring is another persons one handed symphony.
 
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