How do you write your stories?

[KyleR215]

Authors,

When you write for Lit, do you write out your stories, you chapters for your stories all at once or do you do other works in between your chapter works?

For example, you write

ABC Ch. 01
ABC Ch. 02

Different work LMN

ABC Ch. 03

Different work TUV

etc...

 

[NotWise]

Authors,

When you write for Lit, do you write out your stories, you chapters for your stories all at once or do you do other works in between your chapter works?

For example, you write

ABC Ch. 01
ABC Ch. 02

Different work LMN

ABC Ch. 03

Different work TUV

etc...

I write one story at a time. With one exception I can think of, if I get distracted by a new story before the first story is done, then the first story goes in the circular file.

Chaptered stories are different, but I haven't written many of them. I can break between chapters to write other stories, but getting back to the next chapter is really hard. I removed a 21-chapter story because I wouldn't finish it. I stuck with another 12-chapter piece and finished it over a period of five years, but finishing it was like having teeth pulled.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I write one story at a time. With one exception I can think of, if I get distracted by a new story before the first story is done, then the first story goes in the circular file.

Chaptered stories are different, but I haven't written many of them. I can break between chapters to write other stories, but getting back to the next chapter is really hard. I removed a 21-chapter story because I wouldn't finish it. I stuck with another 12-chapter piece and finished it over a period of five years, but finishing it was like having teeth pulled.

I would never pull a series because I couldn't finish it. Maybe, like life, there is no neat resolution - it just goes on. I just leave it there, and if somebody likes it or doesn't like it, that's their choice. I take it seriously, but not so seriously that it's like pulling teeth. Maybe the muse for it will come back someday.

Nor do I get rid of unfinished stories. Maybe the muse will come for those too. Anyway, I just have as many going - or not going - as I can think of.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm undisciplined and all over the map. I have yet to write a chaptered story in full before publishing the first chapter, even though I agree that's the best way to do it if one can.

I'm often in the middle of writing one story, and then all of a sudden an idea for another story comes to me and I dump the current story for the next one. I may or may not get back to the original story.

Nobody is paying me to do this, so I feel like I just write whatever the hell I feel like writing when I want to write it. I've published 41 stories in a little less than five years and that's much, much more than I ever expected I would publish when I started.

I have one finished series and two unfinished series. I'll keep them here and finish them when I figure out how I want to finish them. It will happen eventually.

 

[PennameWombat]

Authors,

When you write for Lit, do you write out your stories, you chapters for your stories all at once or do you do other works in between your chapter works?

For example, you write
ABC Ch. 01
ABC Ch. 02
Different work LMN
ABC Ch. 03
Different work TUV
etc...

This is me in a nutshell. I have a chaptered series which gets updated when I get around to doing the next chapter. But otherwise, I write:
- Stories in the same universe as the chaptered series but featuring different characters.
- Serials in the same universe as the chaptered series - tightly connected stories in a series, but each mostly stand-alone except being the same characters (e.g., You Promised Me Geeks).
- Stories in a couple of other universes (Mermaids, etc.)
- Stand-alone stories when ideas hit me.

Feedback here always seems to say "write the full story then release the chapters on a cadence." Well, my chaptered story is really just a thread and I know where it goes, but it's too much fun to write the side-stories that are occurring in that universe. It's also something of a game... if someone were to sit down and work out the timeline represented by the stories, not their publication dates, you could work out what's happening in that universe . But not necessarily why or the how as yet.

If I were doing this for pay, I'd likely be forced to enforce significantly more discipline than I do. I have no plans to remove any of my works, a couple of stories could definitely use sequels, but in my mind they're too low priority given what time I have. But they'll stay, a comment now and again notices, but, oh well.

I'll also set stories aside if various ideas intrude, I was in the middle of one story when a random idea hit me. It didn't fit the work in progress, so I wrote the new one up, published it, then went back to the other work. But, I don't toss anything, I'll go back to it when my mind gets back on it. I have odd ideas that I've poked at and ended up setting aside for the long term, one of my more successful entries was one of those that took a couple of years before it finally gelled in my subconscious (Chlorine Dreams).

 

[WyreBendr0417]

Being new to writing, I haven't exactly developed a discipline yet. I usually have at least two stories going at a time. If I go dry on one I'll work on another for a while until I figure out where I want to take the first. As I get ideas for other stories, I'll write a few pages of the basic premise, and come back to it later.

 

[Dakota_North]

I would try to finish one story at a time...but if I got an idea I'd at least take down some notes. Think in one instance I had a great idea and the story just flowed, so it was an interruption to another work, but just for a night or two.

 

[SamScribble]

I really only write stand-alone short stories. Sometimes, I decide that I like the characters and decide to write another short story with the same (or partly the same) cast. But they aren't really 'chaptered' stories.

 

[PBAnnie]

I write one story, post it on Lit and notice much later that there is one glaring grammatical fault in the last line of the story.

Then I wait for inspiration...

Then real life happens...

Then I continue wait for inspiration...

Then people who were not yet born when my first story was published start finding their way to this treasure trove of erotic literature...

Then the band gets back together and we head off on a mission of sorts...

Then a spark of inspiration smacks me in the back of the head and I start writing a contest entry but don't complete it before the last submission date so I leave that in an 80% complete state to be completed next year and simultaneously start four other stories.

Then I write a tiny collection of mildly entertaining poetry that sees a bit of success in the erotic poetry category...

Then I lurk on the forum and sporadically interject comments that make people go .

I can't recommend this method to anyone else, but it keeps me amused.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Authors,

When you write for Lit, do you write out your stories, you chapters for your stories all at once or do you do other works in between your chapter works?

For example, you write

ABC Ch. 01
ABC Ch. 02

Different work LMN

ABC Ch. 03

Different work TUV

etc...

Pretty much this. My longest chaptered piece is 104k words, and was fully written before I published it. While writing it though, I published a few shorter side projects written simultaneously.

More recently, I tend to have cascaded side projects (four, at latest count) but I make sure that each "chapter" is self-contained before I publish, in case I don't get back to it for a year or two... or three.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

When I start a piece, I would really like to finish it before I move on to the next one but there are things that get in the way sometimes. RL is one of those things. Then there is just getting tired of the piece, so I switch to something else. There is always something else waiting in the wings. Eventually, I get back around to completing the first piece so just be patient.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I try not to rely too much on series because they are hard to finish. I often don't have the discipline to plan out the whole thing ahead of time. I even had a screenplay attempt years ago that just kept going until it turned into Berlin Alexanderplatz. Then I said, "Hey, it's a mini-series!"*

Yet, sometimes a stand-alone story will start generating sequels and in effect become a series, even with a plausible ending. It's hard to predict these things.

* There had been plans to salvage Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate by turning it into a mini-series. If you've ever seen the full version (I have on videotape) it definitely feels like one.

 

[comegently]

I only write standalone stories. Apart from a rough idea, I don't work to a plan. I write the story in Word, adjusting, replacing, improving, reordering, until I'm happy with it.
This often happens over several days and those days are not necessarily consecutive.
As with any kind of writing, I have to sleep on it and revise it before I upload.
My stories write themselves because I live them in my head as I write.
That's quite a turn-on for me sometimes.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

I've been sitting on one series for a long time now. It's about 30% done after three/four months and I really want to finish it all before posting... Part of me wonders if I should change the plan and pull the trigger on part one. That would give me an incentive to finish up the rest at a faster pace than I've been going so far.

For now, I'll try to stick to the plan.

As for writing multiple projects at once? I could probably write standalone stories while writing a larger series and I have done it once. I definitely wouldn't be able to write two series at the same time and I wouldn't try it. Broadly speaking, I think I'll always prefer having a series running as I write standalone stories because it feels 'safe' to keep a base of readers engaged.

 

[TadOverdon]

I've made myself compulsive about finishing a book before moving on. What I find myself doing, though, usually about halfway through a story, is making copious notes and jotting down phrases for another book.

It's a good thing, overall. It gets me writing something, some days when I have trouble getting started on the current project. And it usually has me anxious to begin the next book immediately upon publishing one since the characters and incidents have been churning around in my brain for a couple of months.

Right now I've got a lot of notes for the third Mother book as well as the opening for kind of a porn pastiche of 1960s paperback thrillers (working title is Long, Hard and Deadly. I really liked Long, Hard and Lethal but, damn it, there's already a 2009 erotic novel by that title. Not really a surprise, I don't guess). I have never written much in first person so it's real interesting (to me). I'm also doing what I hope are going to be light revisions on a short book by a friend.

 

[jaF0]

My only pattern is that I have no pattern.

 

[GinnyPPC]

I'm finishing up my first work which will be seven chapters, 95k words long. I've avoided writing anything else, but I've started to outline the next project while I finish my editing on this one.

 

[Healwsteel]

I need a spark to start in my head. I'm an old man with a pathetic life, so that spark is usually something online. From my viewing experience this site aways has ads from Literotica 18+ models. I've seen some beautiful women there, but it really is just a beautiful woman that starts the process for me.

See her. Feel the spark. Start writing the story which is really just a framework around how badly you want her to be real and with you.

Simple, but it works. Many of the other authors here have far more sophisticated minds and abilities. I hope to get there.

 

[Handley_Page]

With great difficulty

 

[RoperTrace]

I only write standalone stories. Apart from a rough idea, I don't work to a plan. I write the story in Word, adjusting, replacing, improving, reordering, until I'm happy with it.
This often happens over several days and those days are not necessarily consecutive.
As with any kind of writing, I have to sleep on it and revise it before I upload.
My stories write themselves because I live them in my head as I write.
That's quite a turn-on for me sometimes.

+1 to almost every bullet point.

 

[RejectReality]

Think that says it. LOL

That's just what's open, though. I have "Curl & Figure" at the cool-down of the sex scene, about to go into the main event, and then the closer. "A Wee Problem" has gone through the first sex scene. A little sex-related plot and then to another sex scene, followed by the closer. Several others that are started. A couple that are all but done, but something is off. Holiday stories in my "Next Year" folder.

I work on whatever I'm feeling at the moment. ( if anything at all ) I usually have a burst of engagement that carries them through large chunks at a time, but sometimes I'll only write a sentence or two. Sometimes it may just be reading back through and tweaking what's already there.

 

[VilHaMer]

I prefer writing one story and not split them up into several submissions. Sometimes, a story becomes so long that I find it logical to split them up into parts, but still within the same submission.

I made one exception to this recently and I'm really unhappy about it. The first part was published two months ago, and my readers have been clamoring for chapter 2, but it's taking forever to get it published. I submitted it once, then it was sent back and I had to change 1 sentence, then I re-submitted it 10 days ago and it's still stuck at "pending". This is taking way too long for my liking and I'm never going to do it again.

I considered getting both chapters ready and submitting them individually a few days apart, but seeing as I don't have control of the publishing process, I prefer publishing it all at once.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I need a spark to start in my head. I'm an old man with a pathetic life, so that spark is usually something online. From my viewing experience this site aways has ads from Literotica 18+ models. I've seen some beautiful women there, but it really is just a beautiful woman that starts the process for me.

See her. Feel the spark. Start writing the story which is really just a framework around how badly you want her to be real and with you.

Simple, but it works. Many of the other authors here have far more sophisticated minds and abilities. I hope to get there.

I sometimes am inspired by photos, but often I retroactively assign them to somebody I've already written about. They are often somewhat older than eighteen. I had one woman whom I pegged as thirty-nine; that was probably close to the age of the real woman in the photo. She was quite ordinary looking. But man, the character is sexy as hell. She initiates a young guy into sex, and she takes her time with him - like several days - and she does a very thorough job with it.

 

[Djmac1031]

I'm very new. So right now I'm literally flying by the seat of my pants lol. Buy I've already learned to at least try and think ahead a bit on my chapter stories because I can't go back and edit past chapters if they're already posted.

New writer growing pains I guess.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm very new. So right now I'm literally flying by the seat of my pants lol. Buy I've already learned to at least try and think ahead a bit on my chapter stories because I can't go back and edit past chapters if they're already posted.

New writer growing pains I guess.

You can edit published content, but it's best not to unless there's something diabolically wrong - it's not going to make a huge difference in a story's reception.

I reckon too many folk futz with the same story over and over, trying to reach a perfection only they see. Do that before publication, not after, even if takes a bit more discipline.

But once a story is out there, move on, write the next one. That makes you a better writer much quicker, I think.