A place to discuss the craft of writing: tricks, philosophies, styles

[StillStunned]

Can't fault that logic! In fact, I'd say that the more you ramble on at the beginning, the more obliged you are to ramble on through the rest.

 

[Djmac1031]

And that was the day his life changed forever." Essentially, he says, everything that goes before that line is unnecessary.

Perfect example: In Star Wars, we don't meet Luke Skywalker until the day he meets the droids.

There could have been a scene with him before that, interspersed between the space battle, a scene of him working on the moisture vaporators or something.

It would have established the character earlier in the film, but what would have been the point?

 

[StillStunned]

Perfect example: In Star Wars, we don't meet Luke Skywalker until the day he meets the droids.

There could have been a scene with him before that, interspersed between the space battle, a scene of him working on the moisture vaporators or something.

It would have established the character earlier in the film, but what would have been the point?

In fact, I believe the original script - and the novelisation - had a scene where he meets his friends and discusses seeing the space battle. Biggs is there, and mentions that he's off to join the Rebellion. But like you say, it's redundant because Luke's story begins with the droids.

To counter this, of course, we could point to The Lord of the Rings, and even Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams. They begin years in advance of the actual story. But those are tales, I'd argue, that aren't about individuals so much as they are about a world. And from that perspective it makes sense to start so early. And of course Tolkien and Williams are much more accomplished storytellers than any of us could legitimately hope to be.

That said, I find both opening sequences drag on too long, and when I reread The Dragonbone Chair I generally skip to the bit where Simon flees the castle.

 

[Djmac1031]

In fact, I believe the original script - and the novelisation - had a scene where he meets his friends and discusses seeing the space battle. Biggs is there, and mentions that he's off to join the Rebellion. But like you say, it's redundant because Luke's story begins with the droids.

I have seen that cut scene, and i fully understand why Lucas cut it.

Plus we get that iconic Luke's theme when we first meet him in film which made it just that much more perfect of course

 

[redgarters]

When I was at uni in a previous millennium, a professor pointed out that Renaissance poets tended to describe people (mostly women) in one direction: from top to bottom. So hair, brow, eyebrows, eyes, nose, cheeks, lips, chin, neck... and the rest.

I love this thread.
On descriptions, I try not to describe characters too much, I prefer the reader to get an image in their head. Along the way I'll give them a hair colour, a facial feature, a general vibe, boob size, physical appearance factors, that help them fill in the image. I don't like the "woman looking in the mirror appraising her naked body". It doesn't say much about the character to me. I'd rather know how she feels and reacts to other people. For me, a character that's well written can be entirely without any described physical features and still be hot as hell.

And then, of course I break this rule totally and completely like all the others, because sometimes the character needs to be very very clearly drawn.

 

[alohadave]

So, conversely, the longer I ramble on at the beginning of the story, the stronger a license it gives me to ramble even more throughout the rest of it?…

Gosh, that’s so validating! Listen to this man, he clearly knows what’s up.

Up to a point. There should be a hook to get readers interested, then you can rambled on.

But long rambling before hooking the reader will mean they are more likely to lose interest before getting hooked.

 

[crookedletter]

I feel like it's a common practice in erotica to spend the first several paragraphs just supplying information about the characters -- like we need to know everything about their situation before they start having sex with each other. i.e. "My sister and I were never close, we grew up in a modest home in a small town and etc. etc..."

I usually skim right over these, if not back away from the story entirely. Facts and background information are well and good, but it's not a very compelling way to kick things off. Useful maybe to start the writing process that way to get that stuff down in your brain, but I'd say that can often be cut out entirely to let the reader figure it out, or perhaps filled in later once we have a reason to care about the characters and their situation.

 

[Nynah]

I feel like it's a common practice in erotica to spend the first several paragraphs just supplying information about the characters -- like we need to know everything about their situation before they start having sex with each other. i.e. "My sister and I were never close, we grew up in a modest home in a small town and etc. etc..."

I usually skim right over these, if not back away from the story entirely. Facts and background information are well and good, but it's not a very compelling way to kick things off. Useful maybe to start the writing process that way to get that stuff down in your brain, but I'd say that can often be cut out entirely to let the reader figure it out, or perhaps filled in later once we have a reason to care about the characters and their situation.

I feel like a little bit of exposition to start might be okay, if only to set the scene and get the ball rolling. I do agree that line iteming character traits and backgrounds to immediately lead into sex is not the way, though.

With how many stories follow that formula, however, I feel as if a sizeable amount of the readership here is looking for exactly that, because they're consuming it as they would visual pornography (see hot people/characters then watch them fuck, plot and setting are ancillary).

 

[crookedletter]

I feel like a little bit of exposition to start might be okay, if only to set the scene and get the ball rolling. I do agree that line iteming character traits and backgrounds to immediately lead into sex is not the way, though.

With how many stories follow that formula, however, I feel as if a sizeable amount of the readership here is looking for exactly that, because they're consuming it as they would visual pornography (see hot people/characters then watch them fuck, plot and setting are ancillary).

That's fair. I'm not sure I'm on board with it as a general writing practice -- both as a writer and a reader -- but I can't really argue with giving the readers what they want.

 

[StillStunned]

I feel like it's a common practice in erotica to spend the first several paragraphs just supplying information about the characters -- like we need to know everything about their situation before they start having sex with each other. i.e. "My sister and I were never close, we grew up in a modest home in a small town and etc. etc..."

I usually skim right over these, if not back away from the story entirely. Facts and background information are well and good, but it's not a very compelling way to kick things off. Useful maybe to start the writing process that way to get that stuff down in your brain, but I'd say that can often be cut out entirely to let the reader figure it out, or perhaps filled in later once we have a reason to care about the characters and their situation.

I feel like a little bit of exposition to start might be okay, if only to set the scene and get the ball rolling. I do agree that line iteming character traits and backgrounds to immediately lead into sex is not the way, though.

With how many stories follow that formula, however, I feel as if a sizeable amount of the readership here is looking for exactly that, because they're consuming it as they would visual pornography (see hot people/characters then watch them fuck, plot and setting are ancillary).

I read somewhere that as a writer you're telling your story on credit from the reader. They have no reason to keep going. They read because they want dialogue, interesting characters and plots. Any word that doesn't give them that has to be very carefully considered, because it diminishes your credit.

So you need to get to the interesting bits as soon as possible to build up your credit before indulging your desire to tell them about how cool your world is and what people's motivations are.

 

[yowser]

I read somewhere that as a writer you're telling your story on credit from the reader.

Oh Lord, now we have erotic writing Economics.

Supply-side deficits? Micro- and macroeconomics? Overdrafts? Premature withdrawals?

The possibilities make me shudder.

 

[TheLobster]

Oh Lord, now we have erotic writing Economics.

Supply-side deficits? Micro- and macroeconomics? Overdrafts? Premature withdrawals?

The possibilities make me shudder.

Unfortunately, Loving Wives trolls have already instituted a 0.5-1.0 star tariff on any story posted there.

 

[AwkwardMD]

When I finish my second draft, I always use the word search function and look for "Then", "Began", "Started" and other common words that are more often than not unnecessary.

I also search "Said", "The", "She" and "He" in order to find out if I have used them too repetitiously.

I do this for "just". So, so, so many unnecessary uses of just.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I do this for "just". So, so, so many unnecessary uses of just.

Yep, "just" was my first find and destroy word; "and then" is still my worst annoying tic as I write. I find you can get by with one or the other, but it's very rare that you need both.

 

[RetroFan]

I believe that you can write things you haven't experienced personally, provided you do your research and keep it realistic. For example, I wrote a story called 'Cindy's Close Encounter' where the narrator is Cindy, a pretty All-American girl who at age 18 in 1959 is a cheerleader at the high school in a fictional town in Connecticut she attends with her boyfriend Steve and her friends. Cindy and Steve, along with two other couples (also cheerleaders and jocks), are abducted on Halloween night by a group of aliens in their UFO and strange things happen thereafter.

Obviously I did my research to make Cindy and the other characters believable, particularly to the time period and setting as I wasn't born in the 1950s nor am I American. Is it possible that a woman aged in her 80s as Cindy would be now if still living, attended high school in the 1950s in the New England region of the USA and was a cheerleader would read the story, think it unrealistic and comment accordingly? Yes, but unlikely. But the majority of the readers wouldn't have had such experiences. I guess it would also be possible for a person who believed they were once abducted by a flying saucer to comment that they found the alien abduction scenes unrealistic, but this is less likely than the first scenario. Interestingly enough I did get one grumpy comment about another 1950s story I wrote called 'Banging Cousin Becky In Blackpool', the reader complaining that they lived in this location during this time and my story was no good because it was historically inaccurate. Whether or not they were serious I cannot say. But regardless, many of the readers on Literotica would not have lived in the 1950s nor would they have had experiences with aliens.

However, I would caution that writing about mundane things you have never done would be more likely to bring you undone than writing about more extraordinary things. As one example, high school. I would say that most readers and authors on Literotica went to high school. Our experiences at high school would of course vary wildly depending on when and where we attended high school and our personalities but regardless most of us would have experienced this. However, if an author who had been home schooled wrote a story about high school teachers or seniors/Year 12s aged 18, a lack of this experience would show up more than if they wrote a tale about the occupants of a spaceship in the future who are going to colonize another planet. Another example would be plane travel. Most people would have been on a plane, but say somebody had not and wrote a story about the mile high club, a lack of this experience would probably show to more people.

 

[Zootonius]

Late to the party, but my two cents, adjectives and adverbs.

She didn't just kiss him: she tenderly kissed him, or she sensually kissed him, or she lustily kissed him!

 

[HordHolm]

Write hot, edit cold.

 

[Husky_Embrace]

I believe that you can write things you haven't experienced personally, provided you do your research and keep it realistic.<...>

I think that's 90% of this site. At least I hope, together with that most of it is far from realistic. Incest, giant cocks and very uncomfortable NC...

Late to the party, but my two cents, adjectives and adverbs.

She didn't just kiss him: she tenderly kissed him, or she sensually kissed him, or she lustily kissed him!

Though I agree, it should still be used in a measured way. The story can become cluttered and weird to read. Using it everywhere is certainly a step up from using it nowhere. Giving an emotional state is incredibly important.

You can also give this emotion afterwards though.

She kissed him. The tenderness surprised him.

She kissed him. The lust burned on his lips long after the touch.

That way you can reduce the -ly words, while still achieving your goal. It can also help with the pacing. You can use dots, comma's and longer/shorter sentences to hold the reader longer, or move them along some less important fluff

 

[StillStunned]

Though I agree, it should still be used in a measured way. The story can become cluttered and weird to read. Using it everywhere is certainly a step up from using it nowhere. Giving an emotional state is incredibly important.

You can also give this emotion afterwards though.

She kissed him. The tenderness surprised him.

That way you can reduce the -ly words, while still achieving your goal. It can also help with the pacing. You can use dots, comma's and longer/shorter sentences to hold the reader longer, or move them along some less important fluff

Adverbs should be used sparingly and judiciously, and preferably minimally.

In the thread on Bulwer-Lytton a while back, I had a pretty awful opening sentence that became much, much worse when I added a smattering of adverbs.

That's not to say they should never be used. They're a key part of language, after all, and they serve a useful purpose. Don't ban them entirely from your writing because other writers say so. Their rules are nothing more than their personal experiences.

But it's important to understand why people advise against using them: it's part of show v. tell. Adverbs are very much "tell", and lots of people get carried away with the principle of "always show, never tell!"

Like so many things with writing, it comes down to doing it in practice. And doing it a lot, to find the right balance between showing and telling. To use one of the examples above:

"She kissed him. The tenderness surprised him."
v.
"She kissed him tenderly."

They both do different things. The first one puts the reader inside the narrator's head, but it slows down the narrative. The second one is more superficial, but it doesn't interrupt the action. As a writer it's your job to decide which one you prefer, and to find out which one works best in the story. And that's a choice only you can make, because the rules are, after all, only guidelines.

 

[StillStunned]

I've mentioned one or two million times how I like to use the sounds of words to enhance their meaning. In descriptive passages, this will put the reader in the mood you're trying to create. Even if the words themselves don't register with the reader, the impression of the sounds will.

I was recently rereading "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, and the opening stanza provides a wonderful example of this:

St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

There are a lot of S sounds, to convey hissing, which you'd expect in a description of a frozen night. The stillness, the icy cold. Sibilants are good for these.

But also note how many F sounds there are: feathers, frozen, flock, fold, fingers, frosted, flight, even Virgin. This isn't just cold, it's someone trying to keep their teeth from chattering.

And there are very few words starting with dental Ds and Ts, and very few plosive Bs and Ps until the last line when they all come bursting out. Like the poet is struggling to speak through frozen lips and spits out the last few words almost in relief.

If you're trying to make your descriptive paragraphs more appealing to readers, I think this is a useful tactic. If the substance is dry, try using the form to make it memorable.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've mentioned one or two million times how I like to use the sounds of words to enhance their meaning. In descriptive passages, this will put the reader in the mood you're trying to create. Even if the words themselves don't register with the reader, the impression of the sounds will.

I was recently rereading "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, and the opening stanza provides a wonderful example of this:

St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

There are a lot of S sounds, to convey hissing, which you'd expect in a description of a frozen night. The stillness, the icy cold. Sibilants are good for these.

But also note how many F sounds there are: feathers, frozen, flock, fold, fingers, frosted, flight, even Virgin. This isn't just cold, it's someone trying to keep their teeth from chattering.

And there are very few words starting with dental Ds and Ts, and very few plosive Bs and Ps until the last line when they all come bursting out. Like the poet is struggling to speak through frozen lips and spits out the last few words almost in relief.

If you're trying to make your descriptive paragraphs more appealing to readers, I think this is a useful tactic. If the substance is dry, try using the form to make it memorable.

It's hard to do it like Keats, because he was a genius with words, but I would agree enthusiastically with this point: One of the best ways to maximize the return on efforts to improve your writing is to listen carefully to how the word sounds and focus on choosing the right-sounding word. I don't always do this, but when I do I have sometimes received positive feedback from readers.

 

[iwatchus]

I've mentioned one or two million times how I like to use the sounds of words to enhance their meaning. In descriptive passages, this will put the reader in the mood you're trying to create. Even if the words themselves don't register with the reader, the impression of the sounds will.

I was recently rereading "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, and the opening stanza provides a wonderful example of this:

St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

There are a lot of S sounds, to convey hissing, which you'd expect in a description of a frozen night. The stillness, the icy cold. Sibilants are good for these.

But also note how many F sounds there are: feathers, frozen, flock, fold, fingers, frosted, flight, even Virgin. This isn't just cold, it's someone trying to keep their teeth from chattering.

And there are very few words starting with dental Ds and Ts, and very few plosive Bs and Ps until the last line when they all come bursting out. Like the poet is struggling to speak through frozen lips and spits out the last few words almost in relief.

If you're trying to make your descriptive paragraphs more appealing to readers, I think this is a useful tactic. If the substance is dry, try using the form to make it memorable.

For all the caterwauling coming out of another thread about the lack of writing discussion, this was a really helpful approach to me. One I would not have considered on my own. Thank you.

 

[StillStunned]

It's hard to do it like Keats, because he was a genius with words,

Definitely. But at least we can try to learn from him and from other great poets.

I'd planned to add a line about how poetry is probably a better source than prose is for studying how sounds enhance meaning, but it seems to have been lost in the thought process.

 

[SimonDoom]

Definitely. But at least we can try to learn from him and from other great poets.

I'd planned to add a line about how poetry is probably a better source than prose is for studying how sounds enhance meaning, but it seems to have been lost in the thought process.

It's not too late to add something. I agree with that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

They both do different things. The first one puts the reader inside the narrator's head, but it slows down the narrative. The second one is more superficial, but it doesn't interrupt the action. As a writer it's your job to decide which one you prefer, and to find out which one works best in the story. And that's a choice only you can make, because the rules are, after all, only guidelines.

This. The ancient Greeks talked about writing as wooing the Muses, and much like wooing women, there are plenty of fellas ready to tell you how you should do it. But your story isn't their story and it might not want the same things.

I've told this one before, but: one of my stories concludes with the end of a relationship, a parting that's difficult for the narrator to accept. I knew from the outset that it was going to end that way, and for three years I thought about ways to convey her feelings about that parting. I had adjectives, I had a big metaphor all planned out in my head.

But when I got to that scene, it all felt heavy-handed and unnecessary. I'd spent nearly 100,000 words narrating that relationship; if that wasn't enough to get my readers to the point where they could feel how my protagonist would react to the loss of it, no amount of fancy devices was going to save it. In the end I binned that beautiful, poetic, elaborate, unnecessary metaphor, and left it at "it hurt like fuck" because that felt truer to my protag's voice. I don't regret that decision.

It's not a video game to be mastered by memorising cheat codes and strategy guides. There's no substitute for being able to ask one's story "what do you need here?" and listening for the answer.