Self imposed rules

[MrPixel]

I have a few rules. First, is the settings have to be real places, most being verified firsthand. I will change identifying names on a select few because they are too specific and revealing, but, generally, anybody familiar with the locale will immediately recognize the location down to landmarks. I spend a lot of research time perusing Google Maps for updates to past experiences.

Second are the corollaries to Rule #1: no sci-fi, no fantasy, US locations.

Things like stores, restaurants and products are real stores, restaurants and products. Usually. Sometimes I have to make something up if it's not a consumer-oriented business, or if the plot demands specifics I can't easily find IRL.

Fourth is to never, ever cast incest in a positive light. IRL, incest destroys families. I do not understand the fascination with it.

Fetishes, when portrayed, are usually light in nature. One exception is a series that has become centered around a "sex chamber", and obviously BDSM is a focus... but light, playful BDSM among lovers.

One more: realistic names, in many cases reflecting characters' generation. For instance, Boomers and Gen X are Bob, Bill, Deborah, Sally, David, James; Millennials are Zoë, Jason, Allison, Taylor, Aaron, and so on. Major characters have surnames.

 

[luv2custrip]

My rule is: everything has to flow naturally and add to the story. I’ve edited out so much crap—interesting crap—along the way.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Never have two horny, levitating, sentient, shape-shifting, telepathic octopuses make out together. Just too hard to write.

Emily

Speaking of space octopuses, I did however start Determination with two identical, petite, freckled blondes making out.

Not author insertion, more author DP

Emily

 

[MrPixel]

Not author insertion, more author DP

You made me choke on my coffee!

 

[EmilyMiller]

You made me choke on my coffee!

Now that’s what I’m aiming for as an author

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

While I have visited some very dark places, I only do happy endings.

 

[CalebZhass]

Not so much a rule, as guideline:

I don't want to perpetuate ideas of violence and abuse, so I strive to make all my NC scenes consensual, as in role played / challenges / etc, where both parties are in agreement and the submissive party has an option to stop if they want. I've enjoyed many works of true NC as a reader in the past, but as a writer it somehow just feels bad.

I guess it is similar to being a passive bystander, imagining how it must feel like, when you are reading about it.
As opposed to being the one doing it to someone else, when you write.

 

[SimonDoom]

That’s a rule, hun

Hofstadter would be so proud

Emily

Ahem. As a rule, I never let anybody else tell me I follow rules.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The first two rules of Write Club are: you do not talk about Write Club. And the last rule is, if it's your first night, you have to write.
(And if anyone tells you your tits are too big, don't despair, it's just hazing.)

 

[gunhilltrain]

They're not so much rules, as guidelines...

So I guess these are guidelines, not rules?

1, Incest has to be about people who are not blood relatives. (So it that really incest?) If you think differently, that's fine. I am working on my first "incest" story right now.

2, The only non-consent story I have here is a completely pre-planned role play. They both know from the beginning that it's a goofy fake. It's really a comedy I guess because the male character is so reluctant and inept.

3. True blackmail is not really sexy to me.

 

[Devinter]

Someone, somewhere said something along the lines of "If you build it, they will come." Well, I believe that "If you write it, they will cum," and that is a pleasurable thing - and the world, being as sad as it is, needs more pleasurable things in it. Therefore, my primary rule is to just keep writing. 5,000 words per day is my goal. Saving the world, one naughty story at a time. When I've been on the website for 52 weeks - or a year, as some Gregorians call it - I hope to have at least 520,000 words published.

(Oh, and I try to make an actual difference in my day-to-day life too.)

 

[gunhilltrain]

I have a few rules. First, is the settings have to be real places, most being verified firsthand. I will change identifying names on a select few because they are too specific and revealing, but, generally, anybody familiar with the locale will immediately recognize the location down to landmarks. I spend a lot of research time perusing Google Maps for updates to past experiences.

Second are the corollaries to Rule #1: no sci-fi, no fantasy, US locations.

Things like stores, restaurants and products are real stores, restaurants and products. Usually. Sometimes I have to make something up if it's not a consumer-oriented business, or if the plot demands specifics I can't easily find IRL.

Fourth is to never, ever cast incest in a positive light. IRL, incest destroys families. I do not understand the fascination with it.

Fetishes, when portrayed, are usually light in nature. One exception is a series that has become centered around a "sex chamber", and obviously BDSM is a focus... but light, playful BDSM among lovers.

One more: realistic names, in many cases reflecting characters' generation. For instance, Boomers and Gen X are Bob, Bill, Deborah, Sally, David, James; Millennials are Zoë, Jason, Allison, Taylor, Aaron, and so on. Major characters have surnames.

These are more guidelines than rules. (Since I have stories on three sites, it gets somewhat messy and confusing.)

I often use real places simply for - convenience? Plausbitliy? Sometimes I've used a generic present-day setting, but not often. Even in the one sci-fi story I did, the convict on another planet is from Norristown, PA. What Norristown or Philadelphia looks like in 2114 is not really described.

I don't do much to fictionalize the locations. I'm 68, so I don't care any longer. If someone thinks I've slighted St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church by having a sex scene in there, well that's the way it goes. It's in 1977 anyway,

https://stnicholasoftolentinebronx.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Nave-MOBILE-1600.jpg

 

[Paul_Chance]

My only rule is "Don't write anything you don't want to." I have a matching rule in life as well, "Don't do anything you don't want to". Funny how things get easier and better with simple rules.

 

[samhasstories]

I don't give myself any rules about content. Rules I set for myself are about writing habits in general. I'm stuck at my computer until I hit however many words, for example, or I'm not allowed to work on the more fun story until I take a crack at the one I'm struggling with. I sometimes make little bargains with myself: like maybe if I get to a good stopping point but haven't hit my word count goal, I can make up for it by working on revisions to another work in progress.

As far as content, I have things I don't do, of course, but not because I've set a rule against them. I don't do them because I don't want to. A rule, to me, suggests something I might be tempted to do but should resist for one reason or another. I don't really see why I would do that. If I want to write about something I'm going to write about it.

 

[Britva415]

My only rules are: I won't cook for money anymore, and I'll never again cohabitate with a lover who I'm not married to.

 

[Djmac1031]

Rule #1
Never write when I need to pee. It destroys my concentration.

More seriously though, I honestly can't think of any "rules" I have when it comes to writing.

Choosing not to write about a particular kink or genre isn't so much a "rule" as it is that I'm not interested in writing it.

Could that change? Sure. So I don't rule it out.

Now, preferences? Sure, I have plenty of those. I prefer grounded characters even in my most outlandish plots. I prefer a degree of realism, or at least plausibility, to my stories l.

But all of that is of course subject to change on a whim. And I've written some pretty unrealistic stuff lol.

I suppose if there was anything close to a rule for my stories, it would be that the sex scenes serve the tale, and aren't simply the tale itself

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I break most of my own rules. I said I'd never do group sex with four people of the same sex again - until I ended up with ten women (and a guy) having a party with lots of group sex in it, though they did have to split into groups of three to five. And then two guys from the first story demanded a gang-bang party, so I had to find them six friends to fuck.

I insist on good, plausible dialogue and physically-realistic sex in realistic settings, but I might do SF/F some time.

I think the only rule that's consistent is I prefer to write stories that don't get told much. Disabled characters, bisexual and polyamorous characters, scientists (when did any movie lead work in a lab?), low-budget characters. Just submitted a story where the male MC has a tiny cock but is a good lover.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Rule #1
Never write when I need to pee. It destroys my concentration.

Unless you are writing per denial porn, in which case, it sets the mood…

Emily

 

[Djmac1031]

Unless you are writing per denial porn, in which case, it sets the mood…

Emily

I can neither confirm nor deny that I've ever watched Pee Desperation porn...

 

[gunhilltrain]

My only rule is "Don't write anything you don't want to." I have a matching rule in life as well, "Don't do anything you don't want to". Funny how things get easier and better with simple rules.

I have to do a lot of things I don't want to do but have to do anyway. Some are trivial, some more daunting.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I can neither confirm nor deny that I've ever watched Pee Desperation porn...

That's Entertainment!

 

[Seadog777]

Do you have arbitrary rules? Do you follow them always, or are they flexible?

I work on a certain story everyday of the week.
Sunday is one story, then Monday is a different story, etc, etc.

If I get on a roll late at night, I'll continue to write past midnight and into the next day.

Otherwise, when the clock strikes 12, the day is done.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I break most of my own rules. I said I'd never do group sex with four people of the same sex again - until I ended up with ten women (and a guy) having a party with lots of group sex in it, though they did have to split into groups of three to five. And then two guys from the first story demanded a gang-bang party, so I had to find them six friends to fuck.

I insist on good, plausible dialogue and physically-realistic sex in realistic settings, but I might do SF/F some time.

I think the only rule that's consistent is I prefer to write stories that don't get told much. Disabled characters, bisexual and polyamorous characters, scientists (when did any movie lead work in a lab?), low-budget characters. Just submitted a story where the male MC has a tiny cock but is a good lover.

Scientists in a lab? Oppenheimer, maybe? I haven't seen it yet. How about The Imitation Game (Alan Turing)? There's little or no eroticism in those, but you did say any movie.

 

[Carnevil9]

My only rule is the characters do what I tell them to do. None of this "the characters have a mind of their own" jazz. I'm the one who knows where the story is going, not them. And I don't start writing until I know how it is going to end.

 

[ronde]

My rules are accuracy about what I represent as facts and making the story flow naturally.