FantasyXY
My Cromosome is XY
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2001
- Posts
- 536
- Sorry in advance for the long post -
I have written a story, based on a true story, that involves an older man being pursued somewhat clumsily by a younger woman. The story has a fair amount of humor as well as a little bit of suspense, some conflict, and a bit of a surprise in the ending. I have this story pretty much completed, but have questions about its format and posting.
The story is written in the first person, and has the style of "gather round and listen to a tale". In other words the story is supposed to read as if someone is telling you this story... This means that the story should read like the author is talking directly to the reader but not sound like what I did on my summer vacation, as many of these types of stores seem to do.
I've gone to great lengths and used all of my meager writing skills to keep this from reading like a chronological account of how some guy hooked up with some gal, but I can't promise anyone that I actually possess the writing chops to pull something like this off. (It seemed so simple until I started actually writing)
An example of something I used in the story to keep it in the "telling/oral" style is to occasionally stop and speak directly to the reader. I do this using italicized text in the following manner.
...I know it was wrong, but would you have stopped?.
- or -
...Stick around. The good part is coming up.
Then I move on telling more of the story. I use this italicized text mostly to split up the scenes (instead of using *** like most stories), but in a couple of places I inject my own reaction to something that was just revealed... such as:
...Holy crap, this woman had a dick!
I use these sorts of injections not to reset the scene, but as a way to actually draw the reader out of the story. I know we want readers to be able to insert themselves into our tales, but this allows me to maintain that feel of someone orally telling the story by showing the author/teller's own emotion completely separate from the character.
Another prop I use is to write much of the non-dialog parts of the story in language that suggests that it is actually dialog (The grammar is just a bit less formal, hopefully not to the point of being distracting). I've tried to use this method in the past and received a few comments about not knowing English (but they were Lit comments so I had to consider the source).
My first question is - Have any of you written or read something like this and if so what mechanisms were used to ensure the tale had that "story being told" feel?
My other question is one that gets asked all too often. Where I should post this story? In my mind it's the funniest fucking thing I've ever written, but it's not exactly Erotic Humor. It does have a May-December sort of romance, but Mature doesn't exactly seem right either.
It seems like erotic couplings is a good catch-all for stories that have so many different aspects. Would Erotic Couplings be a good place to post this? I've posted other stuff there and it seems like EC is the "island of misfit stories", where all of ugly and oddball stories go so no one has to look at them. (I've had one story posted in EC for 13 years and have only gathered 59 votes)
Unlike most of my crap, I'm actually sort of proud of this work. Whether it's worthy or not, I don't want to see this one go unread. Where to post seems important.
I have written a story, based on a true story, that involves an older man being pursued somewhat clumsily by a younger woman. The story has a fair amount of humor as well as a little bit of suspense, some conflict, and a bit of a surprise in the ending. I have this story pretty much completed, but have questions about its format and posting.
The story is written in the first person, and has the style of "gather round and listen to a tale". In other words the story is supposed to read as if someone is telling you this story... This means that the story should read like the author is talking directly to the reader but not sound like what I did on my summer vacation, as many of these types of stores seem to do.
I've gone to great lengths and used all of my meager writing skills to keep this from reading like a chronological account of how some guy hooked up with some gal, but I can't promise anyone that I actually possess the writing chops to pull something like this off. (It seemed so simple until I started actually writing)
An example of something I used in the story to keep it in the "telling/oral" style is to occasionally stop and speak directly to the reader. I do this using italicized text in the following manner.
...I know it was wrong, but would you have stopped?.
- or -
...Stick around. The good part is coming up.
Then I move on telling more of the story. I use this italicized text mostly to split up the scenes (instead of using *** like most stories), but in a couple of places I inject my own reaction to something that was just revealed... such as:
...Holy crap, this woman had a dick!
I use these sorts of injections not to reset the scene, but as a way to actually draw the reader out of the story. I know we want readers to be able to insert themselves into our tales, but this allows me to maintain that feel of someone orally telling the story by showing the author/teller's own emotion completely separate from the character.
Another prop I use is to write much of the non-dialog parts of the story in language that suggests that it is actually dialog (The grammar is just a bit less formal, hopefully not to the point of being distracting). I've tried to use this method in the past and received a few comments about not knowing English (but they were Lit comments so I had to consider the source).
My first question is - Have any of you written or read something like this and if so what mechanisms were used to ensure the tale had that "story being told" feel?
My other question is one that gets asked all too often. Where I should post this story? In my mind it's the funniest fucking thing I've ever written, but it's not exactly Erotic Humor. It does have a May-December sort of romance, but Mature doesn't exactly seem right either.
It seems like erotic couplings is a good catch-all for stories that have so many different aspects. Would Erotic Couplings be a good place to post this? I've posted other stuff there and it seems like EC is the "island of misfit stories", where all of ugly and oddball stories go so no one has to look at them. (I've had one story posted in EC for 13 years and have only gathered 59 votes)
Unlike most of my crap, I'm actually sort of proud of this work. Whether it's worthy or not, I don't want to see this one go unread. Where to post seems important.
