Have you written your best story yet? - aka how is your writing improving?

[big_cane_sugar]

Just curious how other authors feel about this. I hope this thread will be one where we learn from each other.

Some ways I hope I'm improving:

- I didn't understood literotica readers when I began writing here, but as my understanding is improving, that is making my stories better.

- I don't think I understood my own reasons for writing here, but those are also becoming clearer to me, which might be improving my stories.

- I'm beginning to be better able to write about sexual acts and desires that I don't share or wouldn't want to do IRL. More sympathy for other people's desires.

- Adding humor to my stories.

- Making the characters more sympathetic (although I don't often write about super-moral people)

Some ways I really need to improve but I don't sense much progress:

- Evocatively, creatively describing the physical aspects of sexuality.

- Cutting the fat out of my stories.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Just curious how other authors feel about this. I hope this thread will be one where we learn from each other.

Some ways I hope I'm improving:

- I didn't understood literotica readers when I began writing here, but as my understanding is improving, that is making my stories better.

- I don't think I understood my own reasons for writing here, but those are also becoming clearer to me, which might be improving my stories.

- I'm beginning to be better able to write about sexual acts and desires that I don't share or wouldn't want to do IRL. More sympathy for other people's desires.

- Adding humor to my stories.

- Making the characters more sympathetic (although I don't often write about super-moral people)

Some ways I really need to improve but I don't sense much progress:

- Evocatively, creatively describing the physical aspects of sexuality.

- Cutting the fat out of my stories.

I’ve certainly written my best story to date. I hope my novel establishes a new high. Then on to the next story.

 

[StillStunned]

I’ve certainly written my best story to date.

I was about to say the same thing.

 

[OddLove]

- I didn't understood literotica readers when I began writing here, but as my understanding is improving, that is making my stories better.

I'm not sure I 'understand' literotica readers, and I'm not sure what you mean by that at all. I'd be interested in knowing what you mean if you don't mind expanding on that.

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As for the question presented. I think I'm improving at finding my 'creative zone' or developing my writing process. Things that I started doing more recently.

1. No rushing, no deadlines. If I'm not feeling creative, I don't force it.

2. Organization. Making notes of characters/storylines, and future plans.

3. Before I save and close a story-in-progress, I plan the next part and write a short summary of it so I can brainstorm between writing sessions when my brain isn't occupied or distracted.

There's probably more. But that's some of the things I'm activity thinking about and working on.

 

[dirk2024]

I hope I'm improving. I have received some good advice in this forum.

I have a spreadsheet, with separate worksheets for each story, where I track a stories characters, names, ages, occupations, characterists, personalities. I do this in hopes I don't get too redundant with my characters, but I do notice some similiarities.

Scene setting. I am working to be more descriptive of my scenes to aid the reader in seeing what i am trying to write. There are some authors here who are very good at that.

Most of my first WIP's have been third person, omniscient, which I'm told is difficult to maintain. So I am experimenting with first person.

I still struggle with tense, slipping from present to past. It's what I need to figure out.

 

[iwatchus]

I think my average writing is improving, although the readers apparently disagree on that for my most recent story. But I am dubious I will ever surpass my one good story I have written. The stars aligned for that one.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

My first drafts are actually improving. That much I noticed last Saturday when I went through my NaNo from 2020 after deciding to stop fucking about and giving it a shot to improving it now that I lived more, and right away I noticed how my writing was so much different than five years ago. Plus, when I finished the novel I wrote 10 minutes daily (an effort that took me over 200 days) I noticed not just how much the plot changed since its inception, but how it evolved as I started to add things to it, and how I noticed this novel has one critical flaw that makes it boring: it's just a collection of strokers that get boring really fast since there are no stakes and no breaks for them.

However, I think the biggest improvement is the one I've gotten after I decided to write schoolgirl erotica for a year. 250 days so far, and there are somethings that I noticed they changed 1% daily:

• I found my voice, my own style, and got married to a genre that I really like: neon noir.
• I enjoy writing big age gaps and forbidden relationships, and anyone who hates that can crucify me if they want to, but that doesn't remove the fact that a schoolgirl never goes unfucked in a story. They are all 18 years old. Crucify me, I dare you.
• The influence from pulp fiction is showing as I managed to create an array of colorful characters that might establish themselves as heroes on their own.
• My stories are becoming shorter, yet are packing a bigger punch. I think I wrote it somewhere else. Purple prose can bore me with ease, even more so if there's a lot of it. I don't like to write pretty; I'm crude and obscene. I want action. I want characters that undergo incredible changes. I want graphic sex. I want violent scenes where the hero must save the day. Gossip, gunshots, and g-spots. Justice being served with pussy and bullets. Neon and blood, which sounds like a sick synthwave album.
• My stories are also carrying a huge deal of libertine philosophy, anarchism, and counterculture, which are themes that I'm naturally drawn towards.
• I've experimented with other formats, such as letters and even theatre scripts. These gave me a better grasp on the language to use less to say more.

I should point out that, the further away I got from Day 1, the schoolgirl theme has also drifted away. There are many stories in which it remains in the background, giving more strength to the story, so it's more of a way to skip ideas. Easier to write with a page that says "write about a schoolgirl" rather than a blank page.

Is there further room for improvement? Always, and I really like to experiment and do challenges.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I think, or at least hope, that my writing improves because I will never accept that I can't be better.