What's my style?

[everyotherminute]

. . . . .

 

[sr71plt]

Sorry, I didn't make it past the first paragraph. If you don't care enough to do better than that with grammar and punctuation, I don't care enough to read it.

I think you need to learn to review and make it reasonably presentable without losing the spontaneity. With all that's on offer here, there's no reason to expect the reader to work harder than the author.

 

[everyotherminute]

Sorry, I didn't make it past the first paragraph. If you don't care enough to do better than that with grammar and punctuation, I don't care enough to read it.

I think you need to learn to review and make it reasonably presentable without losing the spontaneity. With all that's on offer here, there's no reason to expect the reader to work harder than the author.

Ok - That's a good start. Are you talking about my post or my stories? In which case be as kind as to tell me which story you gave up on.

Any authors you'd recommend I read to polish my style?

Thank you.

 

[sr71plt]

Ok - That's a good start. Are you talking about my post or my stories? In which case be as kind as to tell me which story you gave up on.

Any authors you'd recommend I read to polish my style?

Thank you.

Your newest story. Run-on sentences.

I didn't read far enough to determine your "style," so have no author recommendations. Sorry.

 

[BabyBlue2005]

Firstly, I enjoyed your writing (whatever style it is). I read Oblivious and based on that piece, I'd say it has echos of stream of consciousness & free-flowing prose but with a slightly more formal structure then is normally found in either of those forms of writing. From the pace, repetition and sentence structure, it might be interesting if you looked at writing some poetry.

It was easy to see from reading Oblivious that you have talent. I liked that you are attempting something different.

Jack Kerouac would be worth reading.

Do you need to put a name to the way that you write?

 

[everyotherminute]

Firstly, I enjoyed your writing (whatever style it is). I read Oblivious and based on that piece, I'd say it has echos of stream of consciousness & free-flowing prose but with a slightly more formal structure then is normally found in either of those forms of writing. From the pace, repetition and sentence structure, it might be interesting if you looked at writing some poetry.

It was easy to see from reading Oblivious that you have talent. I liked that you are attempting something different.

Jack Kerouac would be worth reading.

Do you need to put a name to the way that you write?

Thank you. It's not so much about naming the style just understanding which narrative style to persue. I wrote Oblivious really quickly and completely appreciate the "stream of consciousness" sentiment and recognise that it can lead me into trouble with run on sentences.

You are not the first to mention the poetic nature of Oblivious, (a new piece just submitted follows a similar rhythm) and I worked with an editor to get it published as my first piece. He also became frustrated because I struggled with dialogue and sentence construction, so we parted company So I have gone it alone since then, and though this might be a helpful route to get feedback in lieu of having an editor.

I will certainly look up Kerouac - to my shame I haven't read any and know I should before I die!

There's a lot of literature on here so it is nice to be considered to be trying something "different".

Thank you again.

(This is feeling really self indulgent now - perhaps others might like to PM instead unless other newbie authors are finding this thread helpful?)

 

[PennLady]

Now before you think to the contrary: this is not a wild promotion for my writings but I am trying to find my "style".

I have learnt that dialogue is challenging for me (far too many rejections) and I write too quickly to punctuate properly, and lose patience and I feel the sponteneity is lost with editing.

I skimmed your stories, and didn't see anything glaringly wrong. I myself would not read them after reading the first one, as I don't care for that first/second person narration. I do think you are a bit comma-happy.

If you write too quickly to punctuate properly -- or your punctuation style isn't geared for something specific -- then as a reader, I'm unimpressed. If you want me to spend my time reading it, you can take the time to make it right.

I also, having been edited and done editing, do not agree about losing spontaneity. For one thing, until the story is read by someone else, you (and/or your editor) are the only ones who have seen it -- therefore, whenever it is made available, it is a "surprise" and would have an element of spontaneity. Spontaneity, for the reader, will not be lost in the editing process.

I'm not saying you're specifically doing this, but questions like this say to me, "I do x and y wrong and I know it, so what can I do, knowing I won't fix x and y?"

The only answer I have is: fix what you're doing wrong.

 

[sr71plt]

I'll say that my writing loses spontaneity too the more times it's reviewed or edited. So I generally go with a write, a review, an edit, a cleanup, and a review--with spell checks at intervals and a find/replace at the end for quote marks, as I habitually drop those, and that's it.

I also don't remain strict to complete sentences or even breathless run-on (I use em dashes to clearly signal these, though) sentences. But I have sense of grammar and punctuation embedded in my brain from nearly 40 years of editing. If you're going to write like this and don't want to work it over a lot, I think it's best to get that good grounding under you.

What you should be aiming for is the reader running breathlessly alongside you--not being spun off in a ditch by barricades to understanding.

 

[BabyBlue2005]

Thank you. It's not so much about naming the style just understanding which narrative style to persue. I wrote Oblivious really quickly and completely appreciate the "stream of consciousness" sentiment and recognise that it can lead me into trouble with run on sentences.

You are not the first to mention the poetic nature of Oblivious, (a new piece just submitted follows a similar rhythm) and I worked with an editor to get it published as my first piece. He also became frustrated because I struggled with dialogue and sentence construction, so we parted company So I have gone it alone since then, and though this might be a helpful route to get feedback in lieu of having an editor.

I will certainly look up Kerouac - to my shame I haven't read any and know I should before I die!

There's a lot of literature on here so it is nice to be considered to be trying something "different".

Thank you again.

(This is feeling really self indulgent now - perhaps others might like to PM instead unless other newbie authors are finding this thread helpful?)

Definitely read up on sentence construction and dialogue rules, honey. Like sr71plt says if you have a grounding in what is right, it becomes second nature in the end.

Good luck with the writing

 

[mynameisben]

Hey, everyotherminute!

Don't let these guys' comments get you down. They are right, of course, but I still think you're doing pretty good for just starting out. You're already ahead of 90% of the world's wannabe writers -- you put words on the page. More commendable still, you sought out advice from knowledgeable critics. Good for you!

Rather than repeat what's already been said, I'd just like to add that your writing shows you have a real sense of what is erotica, and that's a terrific start. But don't be satisfied with just a start. Improve. Take the critics' comments to heart. They are giving you solid pointers for you to improve your writing; they are not trying to discourage you. Build from your core talent, and keep on writing! You will only get better if you do.

 

[everyotherminute]

Hey, everyotherminute!

Don't let these guys' comments get you down. They are right, of course, but I still think you're doing pretty good for just starting out. You're already ahead of 90% of the world's wannabe writers -- you put words on the page. More commendable still, you sought out advice from knowledgeable critics. Good for you!

Rather than repeat what's already been said, I'd just like to add that your writing shows you have a real sense of what is erotica, and that's a terrific start. But don't be satisfied with just a start. Improve. Take the critics' comments to heart. They are giving you solid pointers for you to improve your writing; they are not trying to discourage you. Build from your core talent, and keep on writing! You will only get better if you do.

Thanks, I was a little crest-fallen. Criticism is hard to take; more so from folk who know what they are talking about. I'll bounce back, and hope to continue to love the thrill of seeing the votes and comments, good and bad, come rolling in. EOM x

 

[RoyceConnors]

Thanks, I was a little crest-fallen. Criticism is hard to take; more so from folk who know what they are talking about. I'll bounce back, and hope to continue to love the thrill of seeing the votes and comments, good and bad, come rolling in. EOM x

As a writer who just recently went through the same thing, forget the votes and comments, they're only there for amusement purposes and shouldn't be taken as an indication of your writing.

As for style, I found out, it is something unique to you. It's how you arrange the words to get your point across that makes a style. Consider it your writing fingerprint.

Do follow up on the advice from others about punctuation and grammar, as it will diminish your story, no matter how good it is. I write in a similar way as you and concentrate on just getting the thoughts down, as they come to me. At this point, do a read-through and see if it still makes sense to you and check things over quickly for corrections with a Spellcheck.

An editor will be your saving grace in helping you present a readable and hopefully well written story. Look for one in the Volunteer Editors that you feel comfortable with and one of course, who enjoys your genre of story. One tip I can give that I found helped immensely, was reading it aloud to someone and seeing how the words flow. Helps you see it from the reader's viewpoint and if it's easy to read.

Good luck with your writing!!!

 

[everyotherminute]

Thanks again. All useful stuff. I must have had bad luck with volunteer editors. I approached over thirty and no one got back to me. I gave up, hence this comment here.

 

[RoyceConnors]

Thanks again. All useful stuff. I must have had bad luck with volunteer editors. I approached over thirty and no one got back to me. I gave up, hence this comment here.

I know the feeling of frustration EOM. I posted for an editor and did the same as you here. I went to the Volunteer Editor's for Feb. and found a couple willing to look things over for me. The better your writing is, when you give it to your editor, the happier he/she will be going through it.

A good one will go through it and point out things that should be changed to give a better flow or a better understanding of your point. If it's riddled with puncuation and grammar that can be fixed by a Spellcheck or another program, you'll get that request to do so, before asking for them to edit any more.

Like in a marriage, behind every great writer, there's an equally great editor.

ETA, if you'd like an idea of how your story reads, put it up for discussion in Story Discussion Circle. Follow the directives and hopefully you'll get the feedback you desire.

 

[Noira]

Thanks, I was a little crest-fallen. Criticism is hard to take; more so from folk who know what they are talking about. I'll bounce back, and hope to continue to love the thrill of seeing the votes and comments, good and bad, come rolling in. EOM x

Well, what do you expect? Us to tell you that it's okay to ditch punctuation in favor of spontaneity? If you ask, you will receive--and you asked for opinions on what you should drop. Remember it might have been spontaneous for you, but for us, it's our first experience with your writing--and you only get one chance to make a first opinion!

However, you're also being too hard on yourself. I expected some grammar-lacking atrocities that didn't know where to put a comma or a capital letter and what I got was a fairly reasonable story. A little comma heavy but already better than 50% of the submissions I click on, writing-wise. Riddled with errors? Hardly. Relax and keep writing. Do take the time to go through at least ONCE before posting, though. You don't have to edit the actual writing if you think it'll lose impact--and if you're not publishing, you really don't have to worry all that much about writing quality, just whether or not it'll be a good read for someone besides you--but editing the grammar would be keen!

Remember, writing is all about getting better through hard knocks. We've all taken some rough critiques to get to where we are. I still remember every person who told me I sucked and to stop writing now.

I didn't.

IN YOUR FACE, FANFICTION.NET BASTARDS. (Though my writing was pretty bad back then.)

I think it's better to hunt for editors on the forum, though.

As for style, the story I read had a decent sense of a narrator directing things (I read Cummings and Goings) and carried itself well for that. You didn't do dialogue, but it functioned nicely as a point of view piece. If I were to stretch writing from that point, I would try some dialogue driven third person, or more likely, descriptive driven third person. You capture a mind well, and I would work on extending out of that mind for longer and more detailed stories. An entire novel cannot be told in this voice, though it's excellent for vignettes. As long as you only write short stories, this will serve you well... it's what the main part of Lit comes to read, after all (sexy stories that they think are written by 'I')... if you want to extend into longer stories, though, I would definitely work on dialogue and narrative-driven story advancements.

So yaeh. It's not so bad. Chin up.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Hi EOM. I go with most of Noira's comments but, as usual, will add my 2¢.

Spontaneity in writing is a personal issue of plot and character development. There is no right or wrong way, so good luck.

This does NOT apply to the tedious work of copy-editing. A story must be cleaned up before asking readers to take a look. Whilst I don't find your errors as egregious as sr does, you have some problems with punctuation, grammar, tense co-ordination and spelling which could (should) be sorted without any change to the story.

These things do put readers off. I just quote a few examples;

"clits open like flowers."
"shaved and bear exposed."
"thrusting angrily into her." - can a cock be angry?
"your hand teases your head." - I think that should be cock head.
"my bear sex"

As well as over-punctuating, you use too many adverbs, which is the death of erotic fiction.

'Nuff said. On style, I firmly believe that chatroom sex fantasies have no place as stories. You say you are lousy at dialogue but give us posts that are 100% dialogue with no narrative. You then write narrative pieces where one party never speaks. You make us voyeurs and not what sr describes as, 'having the reader running breathlessly alongside you.'

I think your use of present tense and first and second person is great but much more suited to an audio story. You talk to me as 'you' and comment on my cock and balls, which rather puts me off as I lack the equipment. Again, I can't be the female as I'm not 'I'. Second person is usually best avoided in story writing and, although first person is a powerful emotional voice, it does require a greater fleshing out of the other character than you do. Your 'stream of consciousness' needs an antagonist.

Without wanting to offend, reading your stories I feel like an outsider. Your writing is fine but you make me feel I'm intruding on a private conversation.

In summary, I like your style but get frustrated that you insist on writing for an ephemeral 'you' rather than me, the reader. Flesh out the other party and carry me with you in first person.

Good luck.

 

[Mrtouf]

Hey. I noticed in a few places you could have broken up the paragraphs a bit more. There are some long sentences there followed up by some very short ones, for example:

Your fingers join mine as we play mingling together in my slippery folds, you feed me your fingers serving only to make me wetter, and I buck my hips as my excitement mounts. I need you. Your bride needs you. My eyes plead their longing.

I know it's one of the smaller paragraphs, but I think it makes a difference to do this instead:

Your fingers join mine as we play mingling together in my slippery folds, you feed me your fingers serving only to make me wetter, and I buck my hips as my excitement mounts.

I need you. Your bride needs you. My eyes plead their longing.

Consider this narrator to actually be narrating to her husband and that she pauses to breathe and look at him expressively, like the first few lines at the start of the story.

Also, while it's tempting to let the reader fill in what the husband would say and do with their imagination, bear in mind that in other media (Mass Effect anyone?) the formerly mute protagonist now says things.

Such a change would require a major reworking of your story and I wouldn't blame you if you said 'Hell no' to that. However, the unwillingness of readers to put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist unless you throw them a bone, that is something to keep in mind for your next story.