What voices do you use in your stories?

[Euphony]

Fax based usually.

Telegram epistolary when I want a challenge -(STOP)-

 

[EmilyMiller]

That’s interesting.

I feel like putting some Steinbeck, or Conrad into it and seeing what it says.

Em

Steinbeck about as masculine as my mainstream stories are feminine (based on the first few chapters of Grapes of Wrath).

Conrad less masculine, the mirror image of my slutty / BDSM stories (based on the beginning of Heart of Darkness).

Interesting.

Em

 

[MillieDynamite]

That’s interesting.

I feel like putting some Steinbeck, or Conrad into it and seeing what it says.

Em

Interesting.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Very interesting.

Steinbeck about as masculine as my mainstream stories are feminine (based on the first few chapters of Grapes of Wrath).

Conrad less masculine, the mirror image of my slutty / BDSM stories (based on the beginning of Heart of Darkness).

Interesting.

Em

 

[Winter_Fare]

Hmm
A preponderance of feminine perspectives with a pretty much even mix of past and present tenses.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hmm
A preponderance of feminine perspectives with a pretty much even mix of past and present tenses.
View attachment 2245528

Ooh a chart! I like charts.

Em

 

[NoTalentHack]

Surprise of the century - not .

That’s interesting.

I feel like putting some Steinbeck, or Conrad into it and seeing what it says.

Em

At the risk of buying into stereotypes I don’t fully believe in, you write emotionally.

Em

I’m going to be pissed when Max Steelglare and the Harems of Beta Fuckzor 7 is heralded as a feminist masterpiece.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Steinbeck about as masculine as my mainstream stories are feminine (based on the first few chapters of Grapes of Wrath).

Conrad less masculine, the mirror image of my slutty / BDSM stories (based on the beginning of Heart of Darkness).

Interesting.

Em

Based of The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway is only mildly masculine. He must be spinning in his grave .

Em

 

[djrip]

I've done close 3rd in every story so far, meaning tied to a viewpoint character's sensory perception about as tightly as if it were 1st person. Past tense every time except one. Mostly male pov characters, five stories with female povs. One of those actually switched back and forth between two female pov characters. But they were twins. Oh and there was a sixth where I switched between husband and wife as pov characters.

My style is probably highly influenced by the SF and fantasy I grew up reading and trying to write, generally close 3rd following one or more characters, like The Wheel of Time and from what I understand, Game of Thrones, but I haven't read that one yet, it's sitting on the shelf.

Gotta check out this gender stereot--I mean analyzer later at home

 

[mirafrida]

Gotta check out this gender stereot--I mean analyzer later at home

love it!

 

[MillieDynamite]

Gotta check out this gender stereot--I mean analyzer later at home

Little girls use sugar, spice, and everything nice, like whips, paddles, and cat-of-nines, to whip little boys. OH MY!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Based of The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway is only mildly masculine. He must be spinning in his grave .

Em

I’m pleased to announce that - based on the stories I have looked at so far, my least female one is:

In The Restroom

Even that was more feminine than The Old Man and the Sea was masculine .

In The Restroom is apparently less female than Hood & Hole - which featured me being deep throated by five guys (and ass-fucked by one) while blindfolded, chained, and wearing a spider gag.

Em

PS Hood & Hole is not one of my autobiographical works - save that it’s based on a rather scary recurring dream

 

[MillieDynamite]

I’m pleased to announce that - based on the stories I have looked at so far, my least female one is:

In The Restroom

Even that was more feminine than The Old Man and the Sea was masculine .

In The Restroom is apparently less female than Hood & Hole - which featured me being deep throated by five guys (and ass-fucked by one) while blindfolded, chained, and wearing a spider gag.

Em

PS Hood & Hole is not one of my autobiographical works - save that it’s based on a rather scary recurring dream

'He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.' Earnest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Love that story.

 

[EmilyMiller]

'He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.' Earnest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Love that story.

Many people have said that Hood & Hole reminds them of it .

Em

 

[djrip]

Gotta check out this gender stereot--I mean analyzer later at home

Ok couldn't wait. Everything is coming out about 45-50% feminine. Interesting, considering all the seminal fluid...

 

[yowser]

Responding to the original request (POV and tense):

Breakdowns on this (81 stories) proved more difficult than I expected (a minor percentage of my corpus include fake press releases, sentient demons or found/narrated letters - defying normal story genres) but it looks like the male/female POV ratio is about three to one.

First person is over 60%, with third person a mashup of different styles/perspectives.

Tense is almost entirely past, although harder to accurately characterise (the 'found' letters and 'press releases' are present tense, etc.)

I do a lot of experimenting, which doesn't always go very well.

 

[GlennJenko]

All of my general writing has been 3rd person, usually with a limited POV. My first erotica tale (WIP) is the same as it's what I'm comfortable with and the focus POV is the FMC. I'm a male and don't feel confident enough writing 1st person for a female character.

I am planning another story, though, where I'm currently debating between 1st and 3rd person POV

 

[gunhilltrain]

That’s interesting.

I feel like putting some Steinbeck, or Conrad into it and seeing what it says.

Em

You've changed your avatar again! Conrad might be challenging unless you have some ships in it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Conrad might be challenging unless you have some ships in it.

I did it - with Heart of Darkness.

See above.

More girlie than Steinbeck. Less girlie than Hemingway.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

You've changed your avatar again!

Whoa! How did that happen?

Seems like almost everyone has had a change in this batch.

Em

 

[jaykaythree]

I'm all about first person, although one story in the Ideas file is in third (even though it may not even be started until next year). Even so, I am fond of a particular bait-and-switch gambit, in which I start in third person and then reveal the 'omniscient' narrator to be my lead.

I sometimes take time to do introductions in present; with that present or absent, though, I tell of past tense action before returning to the present, where the "where are they now" resolution will always lie in every one of my stories.

Speaking of leads, all of my narrators but one have been male, and my sole female narrator happens to married to a male narrator dear to me.

 

[Duleigh]

I used to write first person past tense with some present tense slipping in accidentally, then I took a RL break for 150% of a decade and came back writing in third person past tense... with some present tense slipping in accidentally. Thank goodness for my "fan club" always ready with a "kind word" and a one bomb to help me straighten out my ways.

However with this years 750 word event I wrote my first story in first person, my second story in second person (which I had never done before) and my third story in third person. I thought it was witty and entertaining to do such a thing and nobody noticed!!! I'm going to go sit in a corner and sulk

 

[Duleigh]

Whoa! How did that happen?

Seems like almost everyone has had a change in this batch.

Em

P.J. has changed her avatar twice this week.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I did it - with Heart of Darkness.

See above.

More girlie than Steinbeck. Less girlie than Hemingway.

Em

Sorry, I've been getting a bit loopy with too much of these forums, especially AH. I'm starting to pull back to regroup (or maybe just to get back to writing my own stuff). So which story of yours is based on Heart of Darkness?

 

[ronde]

I write in both first person and third person, and always in past tense, because I think past tense makes the most sense to readers.

My first person narrators are always my male main character because I'm comfortable relating the tale as I would tell it to someone else. It probably seems simplistic and pretty old-school to write the third person narrator as without gender, but I was taught that the third person narrator does not offer any interpretation of the words and actions observed. I would suppose that by default, my third person narrator is male for the same reason my first person narrator is male.