Do you have any signature elements to your writing?

[TheLobster]

Silly jokes notwithstanding, I have worked out a certain method of exposition that I'm using somewhat pervasively in my stories; basically any time more than a couple of paragraphs is needed, often at the very beginning. I think GRRM is said to employ a similar technique, but I haven't read his work so I cannot attest to that. I plan to eventually write a short Reviews/Essays piece about it (WIWAW? ) but the crux is to mix pieces of expository narration with 'light' action told mostly through dialogue and extended speech tags.

This is often accompanied by a trick that is a bit easier to explain and illustrate, and is probably a variant of the 'staccato' flow that LC68 was talking about. Here's an example from my last year's Nude Day story, at the very end of the initial exposition sequence:

(...) Before long, rumors about him started to turn around. He was now this rare guy who was hot, very respectful, great in bed, and just fun to be around. He didn't need to go on a prowl anymore: his circle of friends with benefits was more than enough to provide him with all the companionship he needed -- platonic or otherwise.

"Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh..." he muttered, looking at the baggage claim info screen. "Ah, belt 5."

There was one particular girl, however, that Trevor had trouble staying on friendly terms with.

"Well, there you are finally! What took you so long?"

His younger sister Lila.

If think about it, the last two paragraphs should technically be reversed; otherwise, the bit of dialogue comes from an as-of-yet unknown speaker. But she is identified quickly enough, and a slight deferral of this crucial information means that the readers receive it while the dialogue is still echoing in their heads. For that short moment, however, it almost seems like even the narrator doesn't know it, which I feel serves to really highlight the importance of whatever is emphasized in this way. (And sure enough, the story is a sibling romance and this is the FMC).

I doubt that I'm the first writer who came up with this conceit, but I'm not aware of any specific name for it.

 

[FrancesScott]

Apropos of nothing. I guess I find it interesting how aware I am of how I write. I sort of thought that was how everyone was, but it seems not.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm sure I do have many things that appear over and over. Strong, tough, bullying women. Blacks with high yellow, russet, or other lighter shades of skin. But beyond that, I'm not sure what they are. Oh, almond-shaped eyes. Why? Well, I have almond-shaped eyes.

 

[lovecraft68]

Then there's this thing I do all the time.

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/is-there-a-term-for-this.1636686/

 

[MillieDynamite]

I think being a story teller is they highest compliment a writer can be given by someone else. That and Wordsmith. I get this vision of forge, drawing paragraphs out of it, and hammering them into shape.

Then there's this thing I do all the time.

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/is-there-a-term-for-this.1636686/

 

[TheRedLantern]

My account name is "The Red Lantern." Several of my stories feature a location called "The Red Lantern." One of my stories is called "The Red Lantern." Should it ever get approved, I will have a series called "The Red Lantern."

So the signature element of my writing is subtlety

 

[Nynah]

I'm not sure I'm the best to judge my own signatures. My lovely beta readers probably know some signature moves that elude me.
I tend to try to give the reader a feeling for who the characters are and why they behave like they do, rather than describe their looks and actions in detail. For example in the story I'm writing now the MC isn't described much other than she is short haired, a bit muscular and has some scars. That she's taller than her love interest is implied rather than described. I like the reader to have the freedom to imagine their own version of her, and my characters in general. It's a big part of the magic of reading I think.
I'm bad at using contractions (or not) as a style tool and I think most of my characters speak too similarly because I'm crap at showing dialects in writing.
And I write nearly exclusively in 1st person pov past tense. I'm scared of trying anything else.
Theres probably a lot more.

I'm not one of your beta readers but I can give a couple of ones I've noticed since devouring your catalogue this past week:

• There's usually at least one blonde spitfire in your stories. Most of the time they're the main love interest (Nicole, Maggie, Ava, Madame) but not always (Luz). I only noticed because I have the same predilection.
• This might be a large generalization but I find one of the key desires driving of all of your main characters (I'm not counting Mr. Stanley, sorry my guy ) is that they want to belong and are usually afraid of fucking good things up relationship-wise. Probably why I find them oh so relateable.

 

[redgarters]

• There's usually at least one blonde spitfire in your stories. Most of the time they're the main love interest (Nicole, Maggie, Ava, Madame) but not always (Luz). I only noticed because I have the same predilection.
• This might be a large generalization but I find one of the key desires driving of all of your main characters (I'm not counting Mr. Stanley, sorry my guy ) is that they want to belong and are usually afraid of fucking good things up relationship-wise. Probably why I find them oh so relateable.

The second point is absolutely true, I find insecurities make for more real characters. Well spotted. I absolutely had not seen the blonde spitfire connection, thats a revelation. Maybe it's because I have a personal weak spot for readheads and am subconciously trying not to write that into my stories? Or maybe I'm just secretly hooked on blondes...

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

I think I fancy silly analogies that make me chuckle, either in the sex act or as part of playful dialogue.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Apropos of nothing. I guess I find it interesting how aware I am of how I write. I sort of thought that was how everyone was, but it seems not.

I'd suggest it's a rarity, and probably because you'd already written long before you wandered in here to try your hand at full fledged erotica.

I'm self-aware of my tropes and style now, but when I started I wasn't. It's interesting to me when I go back and read early stories, how familiar they feel, the glimmering of what later became more polished. Sentences that Holliday1960 would call gems, and put in her glad bag.

What I find fascinating, but it's also rare, is when someone who is far more skilled at literary analysis than I, decomposes a story and tells me what literary techniques I'm using. In most cases, I don't have a clue what the technique is actually called, although some elements are quite deliberate.

I do know I reach out for mood in my writing, far more than I write "story". Comes from being a pantser I guess. When I get on a roll, my best writing is pretty much stream of consciousness, with a fair amount of subconscious stuff going on, churning up to the surface, characters demanding to be told. They're the pieces I really love, a character arriving unannounced, demanding to be written. My job is to keep up.

 

[FrancesScott]

Comes from being a pantser I guess. When I get on a roll, my best writing is pretty much stream of consciousness, with a fair amount of subconscious stuff going on, churning up to the surface, characters demanding to be told. They're the pieces I really love, a character arriving unannounced, demanding to be written. My job is to keep up.

I’m a hybrid. I know what goals I want to achieve in a story, and often which milestones I want to pass. I often write out of sequence, which requires some sort of framework to avoid getting lost. So, at the start of a new chapter, I will know: I want X to find out Y, and A to get together with B, which upsets C, but then I write with more of a flow within those guardrails. I’m like a macro plotter and micro panster. I do find I write something mid-chapter which surprises me and may change part of the direction of a story.

 

[Erozetta]

A work friend who has a background in literature once told me I have an abusive relationship with compound sentences

If you call it a dark romance, it sounds healthier.

 

[PennyThompson]

If you call it a dark romance, it sounds healthier.

The Compound Sentence was undeniably cruel to her, possessive, jealous, selfish of Its own pleasure.

But when she placed It on the page, Its inexorable passion overwhelmed her, made her feel desired above all other writers.

she belonged to the Compound Sentence, was a slave to It, a queen to It, a shackled goddess to It.

 

[Ssbbw4u1974]

All of my females in my stories are BBW or ssbbw

 

[AG31]

ElectricBlue@, I think one of your signatures is close attention to detail, either in the first person or such close attention that the 3rd person feels like first person. But the signature part of it is that, for me, the act of attending is more important than the detail observed.

 

[designatedvictim]

Well... I haven't written all that much, but I frequently have my characters snort, raise their eyebrow, or roll their eyes as common reactions.

Sometimes in various combinations.

 

[Erozetta]

I was thinking about this before bed. Analyzing my own writing is difficult for me because it requires me to step back and look at the story in pieces and not as a whole. In pieces, everything feels disjointed to me.

But, I thought about it, and I do think one common thing that goes across my story files is a thread of darkness mixed with sweetness. It's not always an element of the characters themselves, but sometimes the story has a dark streak going through it, and undercurrent of "something bad is going to happen."

In some cases that bad is a friend pushing well past the MC's boundaries, in others it's ending up in an abusive relationship. It can be as simple as a boss who piles work onto the MC to something as complex as a stalker.

Even my sweeter seeming stories are going to have an element of bad in them. In the longer version of "Cookies, Commands, and Subroutines" the love interest's daughter is going to come very close to ruining the MC's life via doxxing her. She's gonna have a rough time that requires her to to cut contact, move, and isolate herself. She gets to a pretty dark place before the daughter realizes what she did (to both the MC and to her father) and tries to find MC again to apologize and fix things (the best that she can).

I like conflict and high stakes. Danger is exciting. Human darkness is a fun point of exploration, particularly in erotica because pain can also bring pleasure, even when you don't want it to. Making darkness erotic is difficult, there are finer lines you have to be mindful of as you explore because darkness can quickly become problematic before you realize it, but keeping it on that mysterious and tantalizing line is thrilling.


So, one of my signatures is humanity's dark side and the psychology around what makes it so arousing sometimes.

 

[AG31]

ElectricBlue@, I think one of your signatures is close attention to detail, either in the first person or such close attention that the 3rd person feels like first person. But the signature part of it is that, for me, the act of attending is more important than the detail observed.

ElectricBlue@
The end result is the sense that your MCs really, really appreciate women.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

Tough question. I would like to think the way I describe things might carry its own unique style. Aside from that, possibly the fact that literally nothing I write is normal.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

I have some themes that I visit now and again. One of them is ‘Sex for the rest of us:’ Opportunities for whoopee among people who aren’t conventionally attractive.

 

[Bazzle]

8/10 times my MFC will be strutting about in wet panties... just cos she likes to.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I have a set of themes that interest me, especially around the concept of the romantic alpha hero, ideas about traditional masculinity, and questions about happiness is, what people really want, and how sex and love relate to each other and those questions. I'm one of the many people that uses writing as (among other things) therapy. I also

In terms of writing mechanics, I enjoy alternating between long passages of almost only dialogue and long passages with almost none. I also enjoy playing with the length and rhythm of sentences.