My First Story

[dirk2024]

Technical Stuff

1. @TheLobster is correct. You need an editor, my friend. I'd recommend asking over on the editor board. People seem to have more luck with that than cold emailing people from the list. There's a lot of small spelling and grammar errors that do not bother me personally too much, but will be distracting to a lot of people.

i did try to recruit an editor from the list. I reached out to ten, with only two replying they didn't have the time while the other eight simply didn't (or couldn't) reply. So I gave up on that.

I'll try the editor board next time.

 

[StillStunned]

i did try to recruit an editor from the list. I reached out to ten, with only two replying they didn't have the time while the other eight simply didn't (or couldn't) reply. So I gave up on that.

I'll try the editor board next time.

You might find this thread useful: Self-editing for authors.

 

[Actingup]

Congratulations! I'll just add a few comments.

1) the 'peaked' thing is particularly important because it's the second word in the story. That's when a lot of people will stop reading. Check your opening paragraphs multiple times, and readers will be more forgiving with the rest.

2) @filthytrancendence's comments are really important - you will read many highly rated and popular stuff here that hasn't moved past Point #4. Write about your characters as people first. If the reader doesn't care about them as people, they might as well be watching porn.

3) a personal bugbear of mine is a focus on measurements. Let's pick on a couple of sentences:

She was pretty, about 5' 6" tall with a slender body and lithe legs. She had nice breasts as well, medium-sized and bouncy, judging from the views he sneaked when she walked around their house without a bra underneath her various tops.

He had grown to 6' tall, with a moderately muscular build due to the home gym his family had set up in the garage, and had brown hair over his blue eyes.

First, a golden star for you - you haven't described her bra size or his penis size. Thank fuck for that . But did you need to specify their heights? Almost all countries in the world use the metric system, so you've turned off a lot of readers using Imperial measurements when you could have just said or implied that they were taller than the average. He's able to reach a high shelf for her, or he admired her as she stretched out. I'm not always great at this stuff and sometimes I forget to describe the characters physically at all, but try and avoid a laundry list of physical descriptions when you can.

Anyway, good luck in your writing!

 

[dirk2024]

Congratulations! I'll just add a few comments

Anyway, good l writing!

Thank you very much. I'll add this to the notes I took from filthy.

I've made a grave error though. I wrote too many (portions) of other stories before making my first submission and getting reviewed. Now I have a lot of backtracking to do to make repairs. Its almost overwhelming.

 

[TheLobster]

Almost all countries in the world use the metric system, so you've turned off a lot of readers using Imperial measurements (…)

Eh, not really. A lot, likely the majority of stories are set in the US, involve American characters, and therefore use imperial units. Readers are used to this, I recon.

Personally I prefer it this way, even as someone who grew up in a metric country. There is something much more human about 6” as opposed to 180cm, and anything that involves the kilo- prefix feels way too dry and clinical for an erotic story. Indeed, even the silly temperature scale is narratively better, because you can say reasonably precise things like “it was in the low eighties” without spelling out the exact degrees.

All in all, it’s not about the units themselves, it’s the inclusion of literal measurements that is off-putting to many readers.

 

[Actingup]

Eh, not really. A lot, likely the majority of stories are set in the US, involve American characters, and therefore use imperial units. Readers are used to this, I recon.

Personally I prefer it this way, even as someone who grew up in a metric country. There is something much more human about 6” as opposed to 180cm, and anything that involves the kilo- prefix feels way too dry and clinical for an erotic story. Indeed, even the silly temperature scale is narratively better, because you can say reasonably precise things like “it was in the low eighties” without spelling out the exact degrees.

All in all, it’s not about the units themselves, it’s the inclusion of literal measurements that is off-putting to many readers.

I agree with that last comment. Whatever units are used, nobody walks around measuring other people.

 

[Bamagan]

I agree with that last comment. Whatever units are used, nobody walks around measuring other people.

Somewhere, a tailor just sputtered indignantly.

 

[filthytrancendence]

Eh, not really. A lot, likely the majority of stories are set in the US, involve American characters, and therefore use imperial units. Readers are used to this, I recon.

Personally I prefer it this way, even as someone who grew up in a metric country. There is something much more human about 6” as opposed to 180cm, and anything that involves the kilo- prefix feels way too dry and clinical for an erotic story. Indeed, even the silly temperature scale is narratively better, because you can say reasonably precise things like “it was in the low eighties” without spelling out the exact degrees.

All in all, it’s not about the units themselves, it’s the inclusion of literal measurements that is off-putting to many readers.

That brings up an interesting question. I nearly always shy away from using measurements for height.

I've got a line in the story I'm writing now, set in the US, where I decided to describe my male MC with the phrase 'his nearly two meter frame'

I did that because saying 6' 5" is untenably awkward, and he's the only one standing in the room at that moment so there's nothing to compare him to (oh, and I should add, it's done in the context of him being aware of his height and how it effects people). But I dunno if that's going to piss off my countrymen.

It's pretty much the other side of what you were saying about 6'. There's no not-awkward way to describe 2 meters in imperial units.

 

[TheLobster]

I did that because saying 6' 5" is untenably awkward,

"Six five" is not awkward to say at all. And I have plenty on experience to draw on there, after almost a decade of living in the US and getting an astonished "Oh my! How tall are you?" every other day.

There's no not-awkward way to describe 2 meters in imperial units.

You don't need a literal "translation" of 2m into imperial. What you do need is to give an impression of an unusual tallness.

"Well over six feet" is nice and concise, and I'm sure there are other options.

 

[HordHolm]

That brings up an interesting question. I nearly always shy away from using measurements for height.

I've got a line in the story I'm writing now, set in the US, where I decided to describe my male MC with the phrase 'his nearly two meter frame'

I did that because saying 6' 5" is untenably awkward, and he's the only one standing in the room at that moment so there's nothing to compare him to (oh, and I should add, it's done in the context of him being aware of his height and how it effects people). But I dunno if that's going to piss off my countrymen.

It's pretty much the other side of what you were saying about 6'. There's no not-awkward way to describe 2 meters in imperial units.

You could go with, "X towered over Y" or "X was much more than a head taller than Y", or "Y barely came up to X's shoulder".

 

[filthytrancendence]

You don't need a literal "translation" of 2m into imperial.

I get that. Wasn't going for literal translation, I was just attracted to the round number of two meters, honestly. You're right that six five isn't bad and the same number of words.

@HordHolm that is what I generally do, however a crucial part of the scene is that he is standing alone in front of other people who are sitting with nothing of similar size near him to compare his height to.

 

[HordHolm]

I get that. Wasn't going for literal translation, I was just attracted to the round number of two meters, honestly. You're right that six five isn't bad and the same number of words.

@HordHolm that is what I generally do, however a crucial part of the scene is that he is standing alone in front of other people who are sitting with nothing of similar size near him to compare his height to.

Fair enough - perhaps mention that he looked tall enough to be a pro-basketball player.

 

[Bamagan]

I get that. Wasn't going for literal translation, I was just attracted to the round number of two meters, honestly. You're right that six five isn't bad and the same number of words.

@HordHolm that is what I generally do, however a crucial part of the scene is that he is standing alone in front of other people who are sitting with nothing of similar size near him to compare his height to.

In the US, the standard height for most residential doors, particularly interior ones, is 6'8", or 80", or 2.032 meters. You could feasibly say something to the effect that so-and-so was nearly as tall as a door(frame), or that he tended to duck when walking through one, even though he had about a hand's width of clearance (which is 'officially' four inches). Most people will be able to visualize that easily... except maybe the handsless.

 

[filthytrancendence]

Really solid ideas, thank you!

 

[MelissaBaby]

If you really feel it’s necessary to give a characters exact height, the least clunky way to do so is to have another character ask them.

 

[HordHolm]

If you really feel it’s necessary to give a characters exact height, the least clunky way to do so is to have another character ask them.

Particularly if they are meant to be much taller than everyone around them. I have a friend who is 2 metres/ 6 foot 6, and it's a real thing for him. Depending on who's doing the asking it's a total pain in the arse, or they then get treated to the full force of his charm.