First story

[Bramblethorn]

Well, yeah, it was basically, "Hi, I'm Melissa, this is the story of how I became a cocaine addict and went to prison."

Wait, there were drugs and prison in that one? I just skimmed to the sex scenes.

(I kid, I kid.)

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Great hint! My word is 2016 so does not have that feature. The site https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/
sounds very good and the voices manage tone and inflection well, but unfortunately it is not free.
Is there a good free alternative?

There is a free tier within Amazon Polly, but you have to open an AWS account (also free). Here is a link:
https://aws.amazon.com/polly/

 

[Emilymcplugger]

Hi, I have submitted my first story. How long does it take to get approved?
I think I posted it nearly 24 hours ago.
My profile pic also seems to be taking a while to appear.
Am I just too impatient?
Ophelia

A number of quick points to answer your questions…

1. You are impatient
2. We were all impatient in your shoes.
3. Usually takes 2-3 days to get your story on the site so settle in
4. So don’t worry about feeling stressed, it’s all good and finally…
4. Welcome aboard

 

[Seadog777]

First, congratulations on your first story.

For new writers it could take a few days before it gets put up.

My first story went up this year and it took a week before it was published.

DO NOT get discouraged if it gets "rejected". As long as you ask NICELY(I did not at first LOL), Laurel will tell you why it got rejected herself.

I also got a lot of help from fellow authors here when I first started, so you can get help here in AH.

 

[Seadog777]

To clarify.....Laurel and I are good now.

 

[SimonDoom]

Though anyone reading on a mobile phone won't see that, as signatures don't show up since the forum revamp last Spring.

I did not know this. I'm old school, not to mention old, as my children would say it, so my finger dexterity and vision turn me away from the use of phones and toward nice, big-screen desktop monitors. That's where I do almost all my reading and writing.

 

[Ophelia_Coque]

Thoughts are usually posted in italic font.
Something like: "Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..." or something along those lines.

Some questions about thoughts in italics.
1 Do you still use quotation marks?
2 Is it necessary to include He thought or she thought each time there is a thought?

So, the example above could be
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..." she thought.
or
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..."
or just
Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited...

Or any combination thereof?

Plus, would the example need a question mark?

Ophelia

 

[Duleigh]

Some questions about thoughts in italics.
1 Do you still use quotation marks?
2 Is it necessary to include He thought or she thought each time there is a thought?

So, the example above could be
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..." she thought.
or
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..."
or just
Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited...

Or any combination thereof?

Plus, would the example need a question mark?

Ophelia

Yeah, if it's a conversation someone is having in their head, you have to let the reader know what is happening

I know it's hard but when you edit your story you have to come at every line with the mindset of "how does the reader know this?" How would they know that's a thought in that characters mind? How would they know this new character is the heroine's evil twin sister? You shouldn't over explain or think that the reader is a dolt, but you do have to lead them to the conclusions you want them to have.

 

[Ophelia_Coque]

Thanks Duleigh. I am finding that an endless repetition of 'blah-blah, she thought', 'blah-blah, she thought', is very tedious to read. I would like to replace many of the thoughts with just italics. If the first few in italics have 'she thought' attached, and then I dispense with it and just use italics - would the reader realise that anything in italics is always a thought?

 

[Duleigh]

@RubenR is right, Italics aren't clear to distinguish, especially with the typeface that Literotica uses on their published stories. Single quotes work, but you have to be consistent, and if there's a lot of thoughts going on you really have to do something to keep the reader appraised of what is going on. In a long, wordy conversation you have to let the reader know who said what, luckily there are a lot of synonyms for the word "said" so your directions to the reader aren't so repetitious, you may have to dig up a lot of synonyms for the word "thought"

 

[SimonDoom]

Some questions about thoughts in italics.
1 Do you still use quotation marks?
2 Is it necessary to include He thought or she thought each time there is a thought?

So, the example above could be
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..." she thought.
or
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..."
or just
Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited...

Or any combination thereof?

Plus, would the example need a question mark?

Ophelia

My recommendation for accomplishing this in the kind of story you wrote, which is told in the third-person limited POV, is to use free indirect style, which allows you to completely dispense with any special formatting, quotation marks, and tags.
"Free indirect style" means that the narration holds close to the perspective of the POV character, so they are almost indistinguishable. You narrate the POV character's thoughts the same way you would narrate the action. You completely get rid of quotation marks, tags, and most pronouns.

So in the above example:

God, what was he doing there? Why did it make her feel so excited?

No quotes. No italics. No tags.

In fact, whether you are aware of it or not, this is how your story already is written. To be consistent, I would recommend continuing to do exactly the same thing. It can be tricky to do it right, but you seem to have figured it out already in this story.

I thought your story was good. If this is your first story, you are ahead of the curve. You've already figured out free indirect style.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'll add this: the one disadvantage of free indirect style, in a story like yours where the POV character has no communication with anyone else except at the beginning, is that you have no dialogue for most of the story. Your story is almost entirely narrative. I think that's harder for readers to read, and it can get monotonous. I wouldn't change it by rendering thoughts as quotes, but I'd try to find a way where your character has a few more interactions with other people, so you have dialogue sections to break up the narrative, or she might talk out loud to herself when she is alone, or perhaps talk to a pet or something.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You still use quotation marks, and you usually write he thought, she thought, John thought and such. Obvious exceptions are when you have only one person in a scene and especially if there are multiple places in that same scene where you use these inner thoughts, then it is usually enough to say just once that he/she thought.
The form that Simon suggested is also quite a nice tool, and I use it along with the one I first suggested. The only reason why I would suggest the first one in your case is because it feels more personal, and quotations and italics tend to break the narration blocks nicely. The other form shows inner thoughts effectively as well, but aesthetically, it looks the same as narration, so that part of the effect is lost. In time, you will see what you prefer and what works best for you. As I said, I use both and I wouldn't want to switch to just one form.

 

[alohadave]

Some questions about thoughts in italics.
1 Do you still use quotation marks?
2 Is it necessary to include He thought or she thought each time there is a thought?

So, the example above could be
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..." she thought.
or
"Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited..."
or just
Oh my god, what is he doing there... and why is it making me feel so excited...

Or any combination thereof?

Plus, would the example need a question mark?

Ophelia

If there is spoken dialog mixed in, I'd use the thought tag for clarity, if it needed it.

As a reader, it wouldn't make much difference as long as it was clear that it was an unspoken thought, and I knew who thought it.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Thanks Duleigh. I am finding that an endless repetition of 'blah-blah, she thought', 'blah-blah, she thought', is very tedious to read. I would like to replace many of the thoughts with just italics. If the first few in italics have 'she thought' attached, and then I dispense with it and just use italics - would the reader realise that anything in italics is always a thought?

I never use italics, I just use “he/she thought.” I just take care not to overdo it.

 

[MelissaBaby]

BTW, you can always mix it up by having the character mutter the thought or explicitly speak to themselves in some way.

 

[Ophelia_Coque]

You've already figured out free indirect style.

Great! No idea what that is, but... great!
Ophelia

 

[Voboy]

I never use italics, I just use “he/she thought.” I just take care not to overdo it.

I'd extend that to italics, as well: "don't overdo it" is good advice across the board for something like this.

I'd go as far as to say that if you're continually "he thought-ing" or "she thought-ing" your paragraphs, then that story's a good candidate for a first-person construction.

 

[Duleigh]

I try to keep my use of italics for story intros and outros but it's tempting for exclamations, however the italics is so barely different from the non-italic font they're hardly noticeable when used within a dialogue.