OK, I need to get better at this

[Hislittlefucktoy]

Hey, Guys,

I just re-read my second story, and it pretty much sucks.

I need to get better at this. Some folks who post on this site are really, really good.

Anybody have any suggestions as to where to start, or should I just start plowing into the essays that are here just for that purpose.

Dave

 

[estragon]

Hey, Guys,

I just re-read my second story, and it pretty much sucks.

I need to get better at this. Some folks who post on this site are really, really good.

Anybody have any suggestions as to where to start, or should I just start plowing into the essays that are here just for that purpose.

Dave

I'm gonna quote Hemingway. "Write the truest sentence you know."

 

[R. Richard]

Hey, Guys,

I just re-read my second story, and it pretty much sucks.

I need to get better at this. Some folks who post on this site are really, really good.

Anybody have any suggestions as to where to start, or should I just start plowing into the essays that are here just for that purpose.

Dave

Re-reading your story is a good first step. Try to figure out why the story sucks and do some rewrite. The first few rewrite attempts probably won't be all that good. Keep at it, it's a learning process. Search the archives and try to find a high rated story that's on the same subject as your story. How did the high rated author handle things? Try to incorporate the techniques, not the words, into your story.

 

[harding]

Put your story aside and leave it for at least a month. Work on something else in the meantime. Several something else's if you like.

After a month take it back out and it will hopefully read like someone else wrote it. That means you can more easily see what you want to fix.

Fix it and leave it another week and do it again.

This does not guarantee you will write a great story, but it does mean you are less likely to write a bad one.

And... keep on writing. Like sex, you get better at it the more you do it.

 

[talismania]

Read writers whose work you admire and then look at how they achieve their results. Examine what makes their characters come alive for you. Study how they frame their dialogs. Any time you read something that makes you go, "Wow..." look at how they did that.

And as has been said before: practice, practice, practice!

 

[lovecraft68]

Hey, Guys,

I just re-read my second story, and it pretty much sucks.

I need to get better at this. Some folks who post on this site are really, really good.

Anybody have any suggestions as to where to start, or should I just start plowing into the essays that are here just for that purpose.

Dave

I agree with reading other authors and specifically in whatever category you are posting in. here is the thing however; stay open minded and NEVER say I can't write like them. The reason is you shouldn't want to you should want to write like you, so only use others for what I call "feel" how did they make it flow? How did they slip into or build up to the erotica? What did they do that made you say hey this is good? Others work just like essays are references not something to imitate so whatever you do just keep being you. Honestly practice helps as well. You're third should be better and your fourth better than that. My first story is silly and almost embarrassing but I leave it up on my page because it was the first thing I wrote (2nd published I submitted two at once and it was rejected so I re submitted) it is a goofy foot fetish story tha tis like nothing else I have written since. Sometimes when I feel my writing isn't where I want it to be I look at it to see how far I've come. Soon you'll be doing the same. P.S. for the record I am by no means claiming to be great but I am better than I was and happy with my work and that's what counts.

 

[oggbashan]

Between myself as Og and me as Jeanne D'Artois I have over 200 submissions.

I am still capable of writing a story that "pretty much sucks" as you put it.

Anonymous seems to think that I achieve that standard every time.

Og

 

[lovecraft68]

Anonymous seems to think that I achieve that standard every time.

Og[/QUOTE]

Absolutely classic!!

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

Between myself as Og and me as Jeanne D'Artois I have over 200 submissions.

I am still capable of writing a story that "pretty much sucks" as you put it.

Anonymous seems to think that I achieve that standard every time.

Og

If I may, exceptionally well said. You described the varlets with rare accuracy.

Congratulation Sire, a well delivered shaft directly into the rapscallion's hearts. Especially well delivered considering the minuscule size of the target..

Your People thank you.

 

[PennLady]

Hey, Guys,

I just re-read my second story, and it pretty much sucks.

I need to get better at this. Some folks who post on this site are really, really good.

Anybody have any suggestions as to where to start, or should I just start plowing into the essays that are here just for that purpose.

Dave

Just keep writing, and keep reading, and don't be afraid to ask for an editor. Writing takes practice, like anything else, so the only way to practice is to keep writing.

In what ways did you think the story was bad? Grammar? Punctuation? Characters?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Have several people edit different stories. Then you combine all their advice and think about it. Occasionally an editor will tell me to do something I refuse to accept, but not often. It's taken me four years to get as mediocre as I am . . .

 

[Dragonlipz]

I agree with everyone else: writing is a craft as well as an art. You can hone one while you perfect the other....write, write, write..........................

 

[DeeZire]

Put your story aside and leave it for at least a month....

Depending on how old you are, you may be able to reduce that month to a week, or in my case, a couple of days.

 

[Bebeslut]

1 - Keep writing.

2 - Read Strunk and White or The Chicago Manual of Style.

3 - Keep writing.

Hey, Guys,

I just re-read my second story, and it pretty much sucks.

I need to get better at this. Some folks who post on this site are really, really good.

Anybody have any suggestions as to where to start, or should I just start plowing into the essays that are here just for that purpose.

Dave

 

[Hislittlefucktoy]

Just keep writing, and keep reading, and don't be afraid to ask for an editor. Writing takes practice, like anything else, so the only way to practice is to keep writing.

In what ways did you think the story was bad? Grammar? Punctuation? Characters?

Grammar and punctuation aren't, in particular, problems. I do, however, throw them out for emphasis a LOT more than I should, and this leaches the impact out of that emphasis. I also tend to create run on sentences, stringing way too many phrases with commas.

I don't see spelling as being a problem either. I actually really love words and language. And, this really shouldn't matter, but firefox has a spell check plug in.

I also have real trouble making the stories character driven. It seems like that be automatic in a love scene, but my two stories on here have as much emotion as a stereo instruction manual. The writing seems dry and matter of fact. What should have been a number of very powerful emotional events in the story ended up being simple actions.

And the latest story has a real problem with flow. Since the story is set (essentially) in an opera box, it had to be written around the flow of the opera. Three acts, with intermissions in between. This breaks one story up into three scenes, with intermezzos. This worked out to be very frustrating for me when I read it on the board. The individual scenes were too short, but the overall story actually felt too long.

It just didn't seem compelling at all. With something as intimate as sex, I want to grab the reader by the balls and say "Come here!" Instead, I was kind of going "Hi, come here often?"

This is very frustrating.

Dave

 

[Hislittlefucktoy]

Oh, yeah. Here's a link.

http://www.literotica.com/s/at-the-opera

Dave

 

[Weird Harold]

Oh, yeah. Here's a link.

http://www.literotica.com/s/at-the-opera

Dave

Aparagraph from early in your story that somewhat illustrates what part of the problem with this particular story:

"Please sit." He said, and went back to talking with Sigrun in French. Tanya, not knowing what to say, sat. A few minutes later, the usher came back with champagne for the three of them, and the lights flashed off and back on, indicating that the opera was about to begin. As the overture was playing, the house lights began to dim. Sigrun stood up, and walked to the back of the box, reached up, and unscrewed the light bulbs, leaving the booth in almost complete darkness. And then, she crept silently up behind Tanya, and expertly slipped the elegant gown off of Tanya's shoulders.

An early editor of mine accused me of "insulting the readers' intelligence" for a similar problem for being too detailed about the action.

Somewhere here are a couple of threads on the topic of How to Make A Cup of Tea. There was some talk of compiling the consensus into a How-To article, but I don't know if itwas ever written.

The point raised in that discusssion is how many details in the making of a cup of tea are relevant to a scene. In most cases, the step-by-step description is wasted words because your readers already know how to make a cup of tea; they don't need a precise timeline or checklist to visualize the individual steps in making a cup of tea -- or in your case, dimming the lights in an Opera Box.

In your forward, you mention changing from second person to third person; I think the change was more in word choice than mindset. To me, this particular story still reads like a puppeteers script more suited to the Mind Control category.

 

[Hislittlefucktoy]

Thanks, Harold!

I really appreciate you taking the time to read the story, and give me this excellent feedback.

Searching for "How to Make A Cup of Tea" now. I am guessing that the way to fix this particular problem is to be relatively ruthless in the editing process.

I will try to accomplish this on the next story.

I expect that I will find even more weak points as I am correcting that shortcoming.

Dave

 

[Weird Harold]

Searching for "How to Make A Cup of Tea" now. I am guessing that the way to fix this particular problem is to be relatively ruthless in the editing process.

I've been looking for the thread on making a cup of tea, too, but it's so far back in the archives it's effectively gone.

I'm not sure you really need to find it, you just need to think about how closely you need to control the action.

Consider:

"As the overture was playing, the house lights began to dim. Sigrun stood up, and walked to the back of the box, reached up, and unscrewed the light bulbs, leaving the booth in almost complete darkness."

Vs:

"The House lights dimmed to the opening bars of the Overture. Sigrun stood up, and unscrewed the light bulbs, leaving the booth in almost complete darkness."

Or:

"The House lights dimmed to the opening bars of the Overture, leaving the booth in almost complete darkness."

The amount of detail described in getting to the darkened box is partly a matter of style, and partly a matter of eliminating unecessary distractions.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Keep it simple when you start correcting. Like...check spelling. Later remove non-essential adverbs and adjectives. Really understand how each bit of punctuation works....and correct your's. Be concrete and avoid mind-reading....let the dialogue and action express whats going on between the ears.

 

[Bebeslut]

GrI also have real trouble making the stories character driven. It seems like that be automatic in a love scene, but my two stories on here have as much emotion as a stereo instruction manual.Dave

Try writing in first person. Also, make sure you know your characters, what they do and think off stage.

 

[Hislittlefucktoy]

Keep it simple when you start correcting. Like...check spelling. Later remove non-essential adverbs and adjectives. Really understand how each bit of punctuation works....and correct your's. Be concrete and avoid mind-reading....let the dialogue and action express whats going on between the ears.

Thank you,

And, I really appreciate you're wisdom on punctuation.

Dave

 

[Hislittlefucktoy]

Try writing in first person. Also, make sure you know your characters, what they do and think off stage.

Bebe,

I actually wrote my first story in second person, and my second story in third person.

It actually seems right to write the third one in first person.

Do you think that jumping around like that might be counter productive?

Dave

 

[lovecraft68]

Bebe,

I actually wrote my first story in second person, and my second story in third person.

It actually seems right to write the third one in first person.

Do you think that jumping around like that might be counter productive?

Dave

I have 4 in second person the rest are in first. In my opinion first works best because it takes some explanations out. We the reader know how you feel and see it through your eyes which cuts down on descriptions.

"As I sat there the lights began to dim and I became aware of Sigrund moving and noticed that he was unscrewing the light bulbs. A moment later I felt him approach me from behind and gently slip my gown from my shoulders."

Probably not perfect maybe Harold or James can do better they've been at it longer but it flows easier for the reader first person makes it seem like you're there.
Just my opinion

 

[Weird Harold]

"As I sat there the lights began to dim and I became aware of Sigrund moving and noticed that he was unscrewing the light bulbs. A moment later I felt him approach me from behind and gently slip my gown from my shoulders."

Aside from the minor detail that Sigrun is a woman, your example has the same over-controlling as hlft's story does. Unless it is absolutely essential to your story that things happen at exactly the same time, trying to describe simultaneous events as simultaneous just makes for awkward sentence structures. The same thing applies to ordering events; it isn't necessary to tell the reader what order events happen in, because you should be describing events in the order they happen.

...it flows easier for the reader first person makes it seem like you're there.

First person is actually harder to write well than third person, because it is a more limited viewpoint. If you find yourself writing things like "I found out later" to justify the narrator knowing something, you'd be better off in third person.

The chosen POV or verb tense doesn't really matter that much if an author persists in overcontrolling the narrative.