Favorite Lit "How To" Guides

[SimonDoom]

One of the impressive resources at Lit, which I suspect is underused by its authors, is its collection of writing "how to" guides. There are some good guides on writing tips and on how to navigate one's way around Literotica in particular.

A few that I've found particularly helpful are:

Love Your Readers: Categories by Tx Tall Tales. Absolutely the bible on this subject. Every Lit author should read this.

Write Incest Like a Motherfucker by Lovecraft. Aside from having a perfect, clever title, this article is extremely helpful to anyone who writes in this genre. I read it carefully before I started writing incest stories.

End Goaling in Writing Erotica by sr71plt. A very short and very sensible summary of things to keep in mind as one tries to write a successful erotic story.

Do you have any "how to" guides you've relied upon? That have been especially helpful to you? That you would recommend to another author?

 

[oggbashan]

This very old one:

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/how-to-get-people-to-read-your-story

 

[LexxRuthless]

After my first story was rejected (I used the little angles to enclose sound effects <cough> in my story) I realized I had no idea how HTML coding was done on the site. I also had no clue how to get italic and bold fonts to show up in my writing, and I was overusing ALL-CAPS as a result.

I found michchick98's guide to basic text formatting was well-written, clear and concise. https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/basic-text-formatting-101

 

[SimonDoom]

After my first story was rejected (I used the little angles to enclose sound effects <cough> in my story) I realized I had no idea how HTML coding was done on the site. I also had no clue how to get italic and bold fonts to show up in my writing, and I was overusing ALL-CAPS as a result.

I found michchick98's guide to basic text formatting was well-written, clear and concise. https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/basic-text-formatting-101

That one is on my Favorites list, too. Good choice.

 

[lovecraft68]

Back when I first started here, my first story was rejected for dialogue. I'd been talking with Lit legend Paco Fear who was nice enough to answer some questions from a newb, and after looking at my train wreck of a story recommended this.

https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-make-characters-talk

It was a huge help, and before I came here and posted it, I skimmed through it and it all seems so basic now, but back then I had no idea. It may not be the most advanced piece, but if you're new to writing fiction that contains dialogue, it's a must read.

 

[SimonDoom]

Back when I first started here, my first story was rejected for dialogue. I'd been talking with Lit legend Paco Fear who was nice enough to answer some questions from a newb, and after looking at my train wreck of a story recommended this.

https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-make-characters-talk

It was a huge help, and before I came here and posted it, I skimmed through it and it all seems so basic now, but back then I had no idea. It may not be the most advanced piece, but if you're new to writing fiction that contains dialogue, it's a must read.

That's a good article.

The inability to write decent dialogue is one of the most common flaws in stories at this site. About 90% of the problems would go away if people took the time to master a very small set of rules about how to write dialogue. It's one of the problems that throws me right out of the story.

 

[vanmyers86]

Not exactly a how-to guide, but still very useful

I stumbled on this thread about kissing a couple of months ago, and found it delightful and insightful. Sometimes I get so caught up in writing the sex scenes that I neglect the kissing - and shame on me for that. Kissing is great stuff.
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=212764

 

[SimonDoom]

I stumbled on this thread about kissing a couple of months ago, and found it delightful and insightful. Sometimes I get so caught up in writing the sex scenes that I neglect the kissing - and shame on me for that. Kissing is great stuff.
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=212764

Great thread. I hadn't seen that before.

It's true. There's nothing quite like kissing a woman for the first time. I remember many of my first kisses, and they're some of the best memories of my life.

Stories should try to capture that feeling.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Back when I first started here, my first story was rejected for dialogue. I'd been talking with Lit legend Paco Fear who was nice enough to answer some questions from a newb, and after looking at my train wreck of a story recommended this.

https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-make-characters-talk

It was a huge help, and before I came here and posted it, I skimmed through it and it all seems so basic now, but back then I had no idea. It may not be the most advanced piece, but if you're new to writing fiction that contains dialogue, it's a must read.

I read that before I posted my first story, and found it very helpful. I went back and revised quite a bit before I actually posted it, because of that.

Definitely a good suggestion.