Improving Plots and Characters

[spankedboy]

I am looking for writers or readers who will read my stories or help me flesh out stories from a rough outline BEFORE submission to Literotica. This is not editing; I am not asking anyone to check for grammer. I am looking for help to make a story/plot better.

Basically I have story ideas I need fleshed out in more concrete detail, or I have stories that have to be reviewed for suggestions to plot improvements, character development etc. And I am looking for people who want to help out via chat or email. Please PM me if you are interested.

The stories will deal with either cuckoldry or females putting a man in his place!

 

[CWatson]

Those topics are not my cup of tea, so I am not volunteering; just providing a bit of experience.

I'm the sort of writer who needs a solid outline before he starts putting words to paper. Depending on the complexity of the story and how many plotlines I'm actually juggling (the biggest was seven or eight), I may treat the resulting outline as almost a first draft in itself--after all, all the hard decision making is done; now all that's left is putting words to paper. And needless to say, sometimes I need a lot of advice getting this together.

So, as someone who has sought the same kind of advice you are seeking, I would say this: talk to your personal friends, not strangers on the Internet.

I realize that sounds ass-backwards, because it requires revealing, to people who know you, that you write smut; as opposed to the free & easy anonymity of seeking help here. Here's the problem: you won't like the advice we give. Stories are very personal: you want them to play out the way you want them to, you have your own tastes, you have your own desires, you have your own turn-ons. If someone is to give you advice that's actually useful, and that you can execute well in a story given your particular combination of talents, turn-ons and strengths, they need to have a fairly similar personality to you. And where are you most likely to find that?--amongst strangers on the Internet, or amongst your friends, who are your friends because they have fairly similar personalities to you?

Free advice, worth what you paid for it. Best luck to you no matter what.

 

[sr71plt]

Or you could watch smut in the vein of "how could this have been put into a story and what could I have known about these characters to make it less just smut?" Pretty soon you'll have plotlines and characters to work with.

Or you could do some roleplaying on line.

I'm not sure your friends will welcome this sort of request or imposition.

And if you can't think of plotlines and characters, there's no law that you have to write, you know. If you must write, just continue to write whatever turns you on. Someday, with luck and practice, you'll stop and look see that you're now writing more complete stories.

 

[KlaytonFrost]

Have you tried a local writer's workshop, or an online critique circle? I'm not sure how many of them would take to reviewing erotica, but they're a lot more likely to be able to help with things like characterisation and so on.

 

[spankedboy]

Had One

I actually had one reader of my previous stories contact me, and we had (and still have) a good collaboration on the Maid stories. She would give me suggestions, or improvements, I would take what appealed to me (and she didn't mind). She was also a writer, so I reciprocated the favour. However, right now she's become a little busy, and I have a few other plot lines, so was looking for another author with time on their hands.

Mostly I find people who like reading my stuff, or into the same fetish, are good at ideas or discussion. The problem is finding someone to do this on a regular basis.

 

[SecondCircle]

Its probably best you find someone like you said and keep doing the things you're doing, collaborating and idea swapping and all. Someone will answer, but I'm not sure I have the talent for it.

The advice I would give, though, is write what has an effect on you. Like if you're writing erotica, think of an act or scenario that would make you hot. Then, as pilot said, think of a way to incorporate scenario that is realistic in which it could take place. It's what I do. If I'm writing horror, I try to think of things that make me shudder when I'm alone in the dark, and I amplify that idea by weaving a detailed story with characters that can be identified with.

Sometimes I watch movies for plot advice as well, (not porn because its basically nonexistent) and I try to picture my story as if it were being filmed. I ask how the scene should look and feel, how does it look from the characters' POV, and how do these illuminate the main idea and in what way.

Shit I'm rambling. Yeah but plots have to have a main goal. Think of what kind of rise you want your audience to get out of the story. Do you want them to experience the forbidden fruit of a mother son incest? Give them a passionate gay/lesbian scene? Creep them out or show them a detailed blow job from under a restaurant table? The plot is basically the details that gets you to that goal. And it needs bumps in the road as well as twists and turns. No one likes a flat 500 mile straightaway.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

Yeah I am a little dubious you can get much help on story from an outline. Reviewers will try to make it their story, not yours. How many film producers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: does it have to be a "light bulb"? Can't it be a suitcase full of antimatter with a ticking clock? Or a genetic plague like that thing in Africa? What's it called? Ebola. Yeah can't it be that? Of better yet, the cure for Ebola that some evil drug company wants to sell for a fortune only after making sure everyone gets the disease! And the person carrying it should be a 22 year old former stripper struggling to get into med school...

 

[sunandshadow]

I've been in that position, of trying to find someone to help me develop an outline, especially the plot part, before I write a first draft. Seems like something a lot of writers just don't get, which kinda makes sense if they aren't outliners/plotters, but it's still kinda annoying. Cuckoldry and fem-dom aren't topics I'm into, though, so I'm not sure how useful my advice would be, and I have no idea if you'd be up for trading suggestions on my m/m or m/m/f sf romance. Could try it if you want and see how it goes.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Yeah I am a little dubious you can get much help on story from an outline. Reviewers will try to make it their story, not yours. How many film producers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: does it have to be a "light bulb"? Can't it be a suitcase full of antimatter with a ticking clock? Or a genetic plague like that thing in Africa? What's it called? Ebola. Yeah can't it be that? Of better yet, the cure for Ebola that some evil drug company wants to sell for a fortune only after making sure everyone gets the disease! And the person carrying it should be a 22 year old former stripper struggling to get into med school...

Ah, the "I'm hijacking this bus and taking it to Cuba!" model of feedback.

That's obnoxious but feedback doesn't have to be that way. If an author asks me for feedback, I will try to work with them: "You're trying to get to Dubbo? If you go that way you're going to hit heavy traffic, here's another route that might get you there more easily."

eg: recently I gave feedback to an author who's working on a story that involves a separated father losing custody of his kids, but hoping to regain them at a later date. The divorce hearing was very soon after the separation (I think a couple of months?) and very quick - husband walks in expecting wife to stick to the agreement they'd made, instead she demands custody and massive child support and gets it all in the same day.

I suggested that the timeframe was hard to believe - a contested divorce/custody case doesn't happy that quickly - but it could be fixed by making it an interim hearing, with the final custody/support decision to be made at a later date. That resolves the credibility, and gives the author a dramatic hook into the bargain: can our hero come up with the evidence of his ex's manipulations before the final hearing? It still has the elements that the author really cares about, but it hangs together more smoothly.

 

[spankedboy]

In one of my femdom stories the female dominating the boy feels pity for him and gives him a blowjob as a reward for obeying her. I got the feedback that a blowjob is a very submissive thing to do and no dominating mistress would do it just like that. So this was a useful feedback and I changed it to a handjob.

 

[sr71plt]

The question arises whether you just accept every claim of "what is/isn't" given to you in feedback as truth. I don't see a bit of a problem seeing giving blow jobs being used as one form of a control mechanism by a dominant.

A good half of the "rules" of sex you hear given on this Web site are a bunch of hooey. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[spankedboy]

Not every feedback is accepted

The question arises whether you just accept every claim of "what is/isn't" given to you in feedback as truth. I don't see a bit of a problem seeing giving blow jobs being used as one form of a control mechanism by a dominant.

A good half of the "rules" of sex you hear given on this Web site are a bunch of hooey. Different strokes for different folks.

Yes, I don't take every feedback, but if it makes sense to me I accept it. What I usually look for in these discussions is some interesting tangent that I didn't think about but it has lots of potential. For example in the Vidya (a cuckold) story, a reader suggested she should leave her mangalsutra ( necklace married Hindu women wear) on, rather than be completely naked, this increases the turn on factor.

 

[PayDay]

I am looking for writers or readers who will read my stories or help me flesh out stories from a rough outline BEFORE submission to Literotica. This is not editing; I am not asking anyone to check for grammer. I am looking for help to make a story/plot better.

Basically I have story ideas I need fleshed out in more concrete detail, or I have stories that have to be reviewed for suggestions to plot improvements, character development etc. And I am looking for people who want to help out via chat or email. Please PM me if you are interested.

The stories will deal with either cuckoldry or females putting a man in his place!

I dunno...
It looks like you answered your own question?

 

[spankedboy]

I dunno...
It looks like you answered your own question?

Not sure what you mean.

 

[PayDay]

Not sure what you mean.

Welcome to my world.