Need an advice before writing my first story in English

[nudeslut]

Hi all, you can call me Elly,

I'm new here, and I want to write my story for literotica. I read some texts for a new author, including some links from this board. But there are texts for a new author, and I didn't find there what I want. I'm a new English author, but experienced author in my mother tongue (Ukrainian). I mean, I don't need an advice "how to write", but "how to write in English as a non-native speaker". Also I never wrote real erotic story. So maybe I also need an advice about this.

The things I like most, and want to write about are head-to-toe nudity and public sex; also I like to have many different sex partners (both gender). So I'll write to Exh & Voy, and maybe to Group Sex, and Lesbian Sex.

I tried to read some Exh & Voy stories here for inspiration, but most of them include topics I really hate - humiliation or embarrassment. I LOVE to be nude in public. If some story can inspire me, it's not an ENF, but quite the contrary - Happy Nude Female.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

English is a hard language to get used to - there are a lot of inconsistencies. The best thing you can do is read everything in English you can. Next, find a very patient editor to show you your mistakes.

Many readers here are not fussy about grammar. So don't be shy about posting.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's a tough question because there's no easy way to become fluent in English. You might want to look for a native speaker who's willing to beta-read your stories and let you know about any language issues.

 

[nudeslut]

I have a communication experience in English. I can easily understand (without dictionary) about 90% text I read. I just inexperienced in writing English texts (if you don't call "a text" my email or skype message).

In Ukrainian I feel this difference between "just chatting" and "writing a text". And now I want to feel it in English.

I understand my written English isn't fluent, and I'll try to find here an editor for my stories (and hope you're right, HandsInTheDark, that "Many readers here are not fussy about grammar").

I thought I don't know what can help me with this. But now I think, maybe reading other authors' erotic texts will inspire me. So also I'd appreciate if you give some links to stories about women (preferably young) who love being nude and having sex with people seeing them. )

 

[R. Richard]

Get an EDITOR! As far as either sex, look up Stella Walsh and then Steina Erickson.

 

[oggbashan]

Your English is likely to be as acceptable as some authors on Literotica whose native language IS English.

A quick way to check your English is to use google translate to change from English to Ukrainian. If it looks wrong in Ukrainian it is probably wrong in English.

 

[oggbashan]

Your English from your posts is understandable but there are a few errors. I have marked some of them in bold. An editor would do more than I have done. It is just an example to show you what an editor could do.

Hi all, you can call me Elly,

I'm new here, and I want to write my story for literotica. I read some texts for a new author, including some links from this board. But there (those) are texts for a new author, and I didn't find there (omit 'there') what I want. I'm a new English author, but experienced author in my mother tongue (Ukrainian). (I'm new to writing in English but experienced in Ukrainian) I mean, I don't need an advice "how to write" (I don't need advice about how to write), but "how to write in English as a non-native speaker". Also I never wrote (I have never written a) real erotic story. So maybe I also need an (omit 'an') advice about this.

...

I have a communication experience in English. I can easily understand (without dictionary) about 90% text I read. (I have practised communicating in English. I can understand about 90% of what I read.) I just inexperienced in writing English texts (if you don't call "a text" my email or skype message). (I need to practise writing stories in English.)

...

However you say you have never written erotic stories. You have two things to learn. 1. How to write erotic stories, and 2. How to write in English.

I think you are starting the wrong way around. Perhaps you should write erotic stories in Ukrainian, post them on Literotica IN UKRAINIAN, and see how well you can write erotica.

When you are happy with the result of your story writing, THEN try to repeat the process in English.

 

[nudeslut]

R. Richard, I think I didn't understand where to look up, any literotica searches I found didn't give me anything.

oggbashan, thank you. About google translate - I don't think so. Ukrainian Google translations form very similar languages (Belorusian, Polish, Slovak, and so on) aren't always clear, so I doubt about English.

About writing Ukrainian texts on literotica I'm also not sure, because I couldn't FIND any Ukrainian texts here. So I doubt someone will find (and read) my Ukrainian text.

 

[rjordan]

It's clear you're not a native English speaker, but you certainly have enough mastery to get started writing here. HandsintheDark said readers here aren't fussy about grammar. I'd like to modify that slightly. They're tolerant if they know English isn't your first language. Otherwise they can be very intolerant. You might want to make that clear in a short note at the end. Not an apology, just a statement.

It'll be your stories that clinch it for you. A good story with interesting characters will make up for any small shortcomings in your English skills.

And thanks for the offer to call you Elly. Nudeslut seems so...formal.

rj

 

[rjordan]

About writing Ukrainian texts on literotica I'm also not sure, because I couldn't FIND any Ukrainian texts here. So I doubt someone will find (and read) my Ukrainian text.

Half the Trump Administration speaks Russian, so there's bound to be a number of them who understand other languages in the region. It costs nothing to post one and judge from that whether you want to continue. A number of writers on Lit post in English and their native language.

rj

 

[tomlitilia]

I too write in English as a second language, and it does come with some additional challenges. Even though I consider myself rather fluent in English, I do make more mistakes than I would in my native tongue. It gets better the more you write though. At least my vote scores gets higher.

An editor helps too.

 

[extreme_hetro_sex]

I am also a non-English speaker and a writer. I did send my stories to a couple of editors. They didn't respond so I edit them by myself. I find google translate clumsy. I do use a couple of spell and grammar check software for better results.

 

[oggbashan]

You may be right that there are no stories on Literotica in Ukrainian. There are stories set in Ukraine, or about Ukrainians, but they are written in English.

I did a Google search for еротичний using the instructions how to search Literotica using Google. There were no results on Literotica but I think there were several sites hosting erotic stories IN Ukrainian.

Repeating the Google search of Literotica for words or phrases that might appear in an erotic story in Ukrainain might confirm whether there are any Lit stories in Ukrainian.

This is the instruction on using Google search on Literotica:

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=18985333&postcount=1

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Google Translate is a useful tool fot single words, but it's nothing that can be used reliably for long passages. If you want to see how wacky it can get, pick a second language, and have it translate a few English sentences to that language; then take that result and translate it back to English. Sometimes it's pretty good. Sometimes the results are just incomprehensible. I'm sure it manages some languages better than others but I found that for Romanian I had to stick to single words and check them against other sources.

Ultimately, someone has to be fluent in two languages if you want to write a story you aren't fluent in yourself. Elly, you seem outgoing and I think you'd be able to find someone fluent in English where you live, to check your writing and improve it. That's the fastest way.

 

[MoonlightandRoses]

Elly, welcome to the board, I am also interested in nudity and have written some stories about what I think of as one-sided nudity, that is where only people of one sex are naked. Most of what I have written dealt with one-sided male nudity, but I wrote two stories about one-sided female nudity. In both cases they were “Happy Nude Female” stories. Plus I wrote a happy female underwear story, which I am particularly proud of as I feel it is quite unusual. I would be very happy to read your stories or any outlines or rough drafts. Let me know if you post any. My stories were originally posted to a site that no longer exists, but I have copies of them. Feel free to private message me anything you write and I will respond with suggestions as to your English, however, after reading what you have written here I don’t feel you would have any problems writing a story in English, but I would help you if I can as I don’t think there are many stories such as you are proposing. Also, I am very interested in stories about women (see my thread “Women”). In my other thread “The Male Form” I wrote scenarios about one-sided stories with nude males. I am a nice person.

Moonlight and Roses (Tom),

 

[Nezhul]

Hey, I'm writing in English and it's not my native language.

There are a couple of advices here, but they mainly revolve around getting good at the laguage, gaining a good vocabulary.

What I do is I read in English. A lot. I watch all movies in English when I do, I play video games in English. I only visit English forums. I pretty much only use my native language only for verbal communications. Even when I take notes or do To-Do lists, I find it's often easier for me to do it in English.

I've been onto it for about ten years now. Started initially because I hated the Russian voiceovers for games and movies, so I wanted to do hear them in original language. Moved onto books later.

What you need is language exposure, as much as you can manage. This allows you to pick up on some phrases, idioms, get a good feel of sentence structure.

The second advice is as with any writing - write. On Literotica in particular - get a volunteer editor for your work, stressing that what you need is help with weird-sounding phrases and sentences.

Everything else is pretty much the same as writing in any other language - the narration rules are the same, plot and worldbuilding - same.

What you may want to look into is slightly different text formatting. I don't know what the rules are in Ukraine, but here, in Russia, dialogue formatting in books is done differently than in English. We use dash-based direct speech. In English they use quitations.
In British English they use lingle quotes, while in American English they often use doubles.

Also there's a great discussion here about dialogue attributions somewhere. It boils down to what can and cannot be used as attributions, although I've seen examples of everything, and it mostly boils down to style. Still, many publishing houses will require attributions to be only "He said / She said". Others will allow words to be mumbled, shouted, whispered and so on. Others still will allow constructions like "He Smiled / He nodded", but that's decided on a case-to-case basis and I was strongly recommended against this.

And welcome to the forums!

 

[Nezhul]

Also if you write for US publishing, you may want to check the "Chicago Manual of Style". Most publishing houses use that as a guideline for when it comes to style, and may turn down your work if you deviate too much.
This, again, is a guideline, not a rule. English is very scarce on rules, and most of them are more like guidelines anyway.
There are examples of published works that would never ever make it in Russia - with poor punctuation and style. In Russian (and I imagine Ukrainian too) the rules are strictly defined, and this just wouldn't work here.

 

[8letters]

Hi all, you can call me Elly,

I'm new here, and I want to write my story for literotica. I read some texts for a new author, including some links from this board. But there are texts for a new author, and I didn't find there what I want. I'm a new English author, but experienced author in my mother tongue (Ukrainian). I mean, I don't need an advice "how to write", but "how to write in English as a non-native speaker". Also I never wrote real erotic story. So maybe I also need an advice about this.

The things I like most, and want to write about are head-to-toe nudity and public sex; also I like to have many different sex partners (both gender). So I'll write to Exh & Voy, and maybe to Group Sex, and Lesbian Sex.

I tried to read some Exh & Voy stories here for inspiration, but most of them include topics I really hate - humiliation or embarrassment. I LOVE to be nude in public. If some story can inspire me, it's not an ENF, but quite the contrary - Happy Nude Female.

Elly, welcome to LitE and AH.

Nobody seems to have touched on this - I don't know how stories about Ukrainians set in Ukraine will do here. LitE is I think mostly an American audience and I think many Americans are turned off by stories featuring people from nationalities they don't care for. I'd guess that a story about a Ukrainian visiting the US or another English speaking country would do better than a story that's completely set in the Ukraine.

 

[Nezhul]

Or just don't make a country reference. Personally, I imagine all my characters and stories happen in the US, and I didn't think that US may be turned off by some foreign countries. I guess that's true to an extent though. Especially when there are some things involved that US people can not relate with - some cultural differences and stuff.

But mostly, I suggest you write for yourself.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Elly, welcome to LitE and AH.

Nobody seems to have touched on this - I don't know how stories about Ukrainians set in Ukraine will do here. LitE is I think mostly an American audience and I think many Americans are turned off by stories featuring people from nationalities they don't care for. I'd guess that a story about a Ukrainian visiting the US or another English speaking country would do better than a story that's completely set in the Ukraine.

I doubt that. Lit's got a large set of readers outside the US. I didn't keep count but I think I might have been contacted by as many people outside the US as in it. And foreign settings can be fascinating, I think especially to females.

I'm amused and a little fascinated by the wide range of experience with Lit. Pilot's been known to rant about how there's no single type of reader here. I'd go further. My guess is, based on the categories you like, who happens to contact you, where your stories are set and what sociopolitics you let leak into your writing, you see a completely different Literotica. My guess is Pilot's seen a Lit I've never imagined, I've seen one Noir knows nothing about, and Elly will see one that no one here would guess at.

 

[oggbashan]

Or just don't make a country reference. Personally, I imagine all my characters and stories happen in the US, and I didn't think that US may be turned off by some foreign countries. I guess that's true to an extent though. Especially when there are some things involved that US people can not relate with - some cultural differences and stuff.

But mostly, I suggest you write for yourself.

I doubt that. Lit's got a large set of readers outside the US. I didn't keep count but I think I might have been contacted by as many people outside the US as in it. And foreign settings can be fascinating, I think especially to females.

I'm amused and a little fascinated by the wide range of experience with Lit. Pilot's been known to rant about how there's no single type of reader here. I'd go further. My guess is, based on the categories you like, who happens to contact you, where your stories are set and what sociopolitics you let leak into your writing, you see a completely different Literotica. My guess is Pilot's seen a Lit I've never imagined, I've seen one Noir knows nothing about, and Elly will see one that no one here would guess at.

Most of the time my stories are set in the United Kingdom except for fantasy planets. I write for myself and for fans of obscure fetishes.

I don't get as many Red H's as some other writers but a few people like some of what I write.

When starting I suggest 'write what you know' before moving on to more difficult stories. Setting a story in a country you don't know could be asking for trouble as readers will spot inconsistencies and plain incorrect settings.

Some even challenge my own knowledge of past eras in the UK - ones I lived through. But what was happening around me in Chelsea in the 1960s would not compare with Manchester or a rural village at the same time. Other people living in Chelsea at the same time as me could have been living a totally different life but I write based on what I knew.

It is always possible to write about things you didn't experience personally but don't underestimate the amount of research you need to do to get the setting right.

 

[Nezhul]

When starting I suggest 'write what you know' before moving on to more difficult stories. Setting a story in a country you don't know could be asking for trouble as readers will spot inconsistencies and plain incorrect settings.

A research needs to be done for those. As with things like science fiction and even fantasy - a research of topics you are unsure of helps.

For example I wasn't sute how college system worked in the US, so I did a research, and asked people a lot of questions, the people who lived there. I got all the details I planned to cover in my story, and it took roughly two days of reading up and PM exchange.
For a country like US a good reverence is also movies and TV shows - you can see a lot about US way of life. Yes, this is a glamorous representation, but that's what you probably want in your book too - a world of fantasy, even when it's USA.

 

[Halin24]

Hi Elly. I would recommend that you simply start writing in English (I guess you've already done that anyway) and read through the text carefully a week or so later. If something feels 'strange' there's probably something wrong. This will not show you every fault there is, not even close, but will give you hints what to work on. Re-write, change wording when you think there is a problem, try to get a 'flow'.

Or write a short story, maybe not even a serious attempt, and submit it. At least you get to know if it is accepted or not. My experience is that sometimes - the first story perhaps - errors are more acceptable than other times. I've been rejected several times for errors I see as minor compared to those in my first submission.

I'm Swedish so English isn't my native language either. My first story published here had embarrassing grammatical errors (the worst ones corrected later) and I'm far from perfect now, but I got comments about errors made so I could learn from them. Later I got help from an editor for one story and he taught me a lot about small details, general things.

One thing you should do - and it has already been suggested by others - is to make it clear that English is not your first language and that you are aware that your grammar is not perfect.

Also, remember that there are different types of English: I was taught UK English in school many years ago but US English is probably what I have experienced most. There are spelling differences and word differences and probably a lot more. I try to use UK spelling but my vocabulary is a mix.

But, like I said, write, read, submit. Ask for help in the Editors Forum and, above all, don't give up!

Good luck

 

[yukonnights]

Elly, welcome to LitE and AH.

Nobody seems to have touched on this - I don't know how stories about Ukrainians set in Ukraine will do here. LitE is I think mostly an American audience and I think many Americans are turned off by stories featuring people from nationalities they don't care for. I'd guess that a story about a Ukrainian visiting the US or another English speaking country would do better than a story that's completely set in the Ukraine.

Here's another possibility for you to think about.

I like the way you wrote your first post. I could "hear" the imperfect English as I read your words. Possibly you could begin by using this imperfect English as an intentional tool/device. Say, for example: A tale told by a Ukrainian to an English speaking character in the story. The story could then be set in the familiar Ukraine, be told in imperfect English to an English speaking audience who knows nothing of the Ukraine. It flips the table on who is a non-native speaker, since you will have to be patient to explain what you mean to the non-native speaker in less than perfect English (Personally, this sounds like something that would be interesting to read, speaking as one who has never been to Ukraine.)

This may allow you more flexibility and freedom to actually concentrate on the story and not the mechanics. As others with first hand knowledge have said; It will take time and practice to get English down perfectly. (most of us have lived here our entire lives, and not many have English down perfectly) Maybe the above approach would allow you to get started now and improve as time goes forward.

Best Wishes...where the is a will, there is a way