Where is your writing going?

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm drifting toward hard crime noir of a cynical flavor.

One coming down the road involves a female escapee from a state hospital who collides with an escaped killer concealed in a national forest. Accidental Bonnie and Clyde.

The other is a tale about geezer assassins who murder pols, corrupt officials, and criminals before their cancers kill them. Some geezer on geezer sex.

 

[StrangeLife]

I'm drifting toward hard crime noir of a cynical flavor.

One coming down the road involves a female escapee from a state hospital who collides with an escaped killer concealed in a national forest. Accidental Bonnie and Clyde.

The other is a tale about geezer assassins who murder pols, corrupt officials, and criminals before their cancers kill them. Some geezer on geezer sex.

I can't tell whether you're being serious or not, but I find myself strangely liking both of your plot-ideas. There is no such thing as "too weird". Looking forward to the submissions.

My own writing goes all over the place...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I can't tell whether you're being serious or not, but I find myself strangely liking both of your plot-ideas. There is no such thing as "too weird". Looking forward to the submissions.

My own writing goes all over the place...

Serious as death.

In one I'm thinking about victims revenging abuse by the VA or cops or their bank. In the other I'm thinking of wrongful persecution by health and human services. One of my grad school perfessers wrote and published romances for crippled people, so why not use them in melodrama?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have found myself writing more and more non-erotic stuff.

I have three in the pipe, along with some real life writing for a game.

The first is a Military Space Odyssey, involving blowing up planets and suns with great ships.

The next is a spy for hire series of books.

The last is a sci-fi time travel without the traveling story.

All could have some encounters in them for sure, but I have found myself of late lethargic about penning any sexual encounters. Even though I have three or four erotic stories which I have put on the back burner to pursue the non-erotic stories.

 

[slyc_willie]

I'm splitting in two directions at the moment, regarding the work I post here. One way goes dark and dangerous, the other high fantasy.

And then there's the mainstream novel I'm working on that is something of a mixture between those two. Think Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Philip K. Dick.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I really think, if I keep it up, I will soon be doing quite well, financially speaking, with my burgeoning career lining the bird cages of publishers nation-wide with my insipid manuscripts.

When you think bird shit, think AMB. Cage-linings available in non-fiction, as well!

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Most of what is parked on my to-do list is in Noncon/Reluctance. I have about a half dozen concepts that are either started or almost ready to start. They are 1-3 chapter stories, and one longer story. I need to move a few of those into finished or almost finished status. After that I have a romance story I want to finish. That one is so far outside my wheelhouse that I sometimes wonder if I can pull it off. Outside of Lit. I have two ideas for screen plays that need attention before they become obsolete.

 

[oggbashan]

If my recent contributions to the Snippets thread are any indication, my writing is getting ridiculous...

 

[49greg]

I can't make up my mind. I've been watching Fargo and would love to do something in that comic/violent/romance type of way. But I'm not good enough to pull it off.

Most of my to-do list of ideas and half starts are split pretty evenly between TS/CD, Mom Son Incest, and NonCon. With the odd LW, Erotic Coupling Mature and MindControl mixed in.

Nothing I've done so far is as good on paper as they were in my head so I have been doing a lot of rewrites, changes and restarts for the last few months. Mostly to no good.

 

[Acktion]

I sort of skipped over short back when I originally tried writing <mumble mumble> years ago. Even my poetry had a tendency to leak onto a second page if I didn't trim a stanza.

When I started submitting to Literotica.com, my goal was to learn to write short. To encapsulate. To tweak and tighten. My thought was to learn to encapsulate a story that I would have originally written over a hundred pages to explore and, if at all possible, do it one to three Lit screens.

Still trying to figure out how.

But, if I can manage it, I can't help but think my longer stuff would be better for it. It, that is, I ever get back around to six hundred plus page novels.

 

[sheablue]

JBJ -- do you think what you are writing now is influenced by what you are reading? Or are you reading things now that you are interested in because of what you are writing? If I'm not mistaken, you've been reading some noir lately.

I was thinking what I read has been influencing my writing (dystopias , young adult post apocalyptic, fantasy)

Or do I read that stuff because it's what I like to write?

Anyway, I've been writing horror/supernatural, dystopias, post apocalyptic stuff, both for here and for a more "young adult" audience.

I guess that's just what I like.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Some of you guys/gals ought to quit rubbishing yourselves; you are way good enough.

I hesitate to suggest this but... stay away from television and all the standard media bs that drives the dumbing-down of people and the insistence that the world is on the edge of some catastrophic disaster about to happen soon.

Well, put it this way, sure watch tv but don't treat much of it too seriously.

By the way...

The future is golden.

People just don't know it yet.

When a critical mass of the arts/entertainment/news/stories/media consuming public realizes that all the excitement is happening via the net, politics as we have all known it will die a death of a thousand cuts.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

JBJ -- do you think what you are writing now is influenced by what you are reading? Or are you reading things now that you are interested in because of what you are writing? If I'm not mistaken, you've been reading some noir lately.

I was thinking what I read has been influencing my writing (dystopias , young adult post apocalyptic, fantasy)

Or do I read that stuff because it's what I like to write?

Anyway, I've been writing horror/supernatural, dystopias, post apocalyptic stuff, both for here and for a more "young adult" audience.

I guess that's just what I like.

All I read is noir. So sure I'm influenced, but there's noir, and there's noir. One of my tales is a kinda-sorta Terry Schaivo drama with a husband who wants to get rid of his wife...she isn't a veggie-matic, she's more like cerebral palsy and fading fast. At its core its a LW story.

The other is about fed up old men shooting their last load at a corrupt and sinister system they can affect by destroying some of the villains.

 

[Hypoxia]

I know precisely where I'm going -- over the edge. Oh, you mean WRITING ?? That's easy too. Two tracks:

Track 1: Pandering to readers. Give'em what they want.
Track 2: Challenging readers. Surprise the fuck out of'em.

This is the same as I've been doing lately, only better. The two tracks are easy to distinguish. The challenging pieces have votes around **.

Another direction: Recycling. My first couple dozen pieces here were journal-type accounts with many episodes, and too much glossing-over and exposition, and not enough dialogue. I'm starting to break out some of those episodes, to expand and polish them. That way, I won't have to think-up new storylines. Whew!

 

[lovecraft68]

Back to the roots. Hardcore Femdom and BDSM.

The "real men" of lit provide a lot of inspiration for my female characters.

 

[SecondCircle]

Between the chaotic schedule, I've been hobby writing some shorts to keep the juices flowing. Those are off site in that big folder on my pc, mostly horror shorts exploring different little techniques and stuff. I like doing the short stuff like that.

As for Lit, the muse has been underfoot for a while, but she's starting to stir again. Got a series of stories that are really standalones linked by the same setting that I've been hashing out. Sort of a darker sinful set of tales. If I can get it going again that is.

Oh well. It's all fun so fuck it.

 

[slyc_willie]

Between the chaotic schedule, I've been hobby writing some shorts to keep the juices flowing. Those are off site in that big folder on my pc, mostly horror shorts exploring different little techniques and stuff. I like doing the short stuff like that.

I've had horror shorts, too, usually after drinking too much.

I've been experimenting with a different writing style lately. I want to keep the sentences short and concise. I'm finding it a challenge.

 

[SecondCircle]

I've had horror shorts, too, usually after drinking too much.

I've been experimenting with a different writing style lately. I want to keep the sentences short and concise. I'm finding it a challenge.

My thing right now is capturing moments through sentence structure and pacing. Like when your brain freezes in that OH SHIT moment and your heart stops. A complex descriptive sentence just doesn't hold good pacing for that moment.

If uh... if that makes sense at all.

 

[slyc_willie]

My thing right now is capturing moments through sentence structure and pacing. Like when your brain freezes in that OH SHIT moment and your heart stops. A complex descriptive sentence just doesn't hold good pacing for that moment.

If uh... if that makes sense at all.

I think I know exactly what you mean. It's like you want to capture that one jarring moment in as few words as possible.

* * * *

She raced down the hallway, heart palpitating with fear and exhaustion. The thing was after her, she knew, though she did not know what it was. Desperately trying to put as much distance between her and it, she darted for the stairs and threw open the door.

And there it was. Snarling. Facing her.

She screamed.

* * * *

I think it's easier to do in a horror context, but a little more difficult in a more romantic one.

 

[TxRad]

My Lit writing has been a hobby for the last three years or so. A way to write for fun and will probably continue in that vein. I have a bunch of stuff I am playing with. One or three of which may end up mainstream. Or i might do two versions. That might be fun.

My mainstream stuff is well underway but will take a turn in the next project, which is ghost writing an autobiography. My first three novels were a fictional version of the same guys early career. Now I get the chance to do the real career and it will be even more exciting.

 

[SecondCircle]

I think I know exactly what you mean. It's like you want to capture that one jarring moment in as few words as possible.

* * * *

She raced down the hallway, heart palpitating with fear and exhaustion. The thing was after her, she knew, though she did not know what it was. Desperately trying to put as much distance between her and it, she darted for the stairs and threw open the door.

And there it was. Snarling. Facing her.

She screamed.

* * * *

I think it's easier to do in a horror context, but a little more difficult in a more romantic one.

Aye, exactly sir. I've been toying with various different styles of that. You could tella reader that they hid in the dark under the kitchen table with their hand over their mouth. Or, using techniques like that, you can force them to experience every shuddering breath and pounding heart, without even saying that.

ETA: Just wanted to add how it's obvious we can bend the rules till they snap.

Like with your (great) example... "And there it was. Snarling."

Technically, grammatically, that's wrong. Starting with and? Sentence fragments? But it feels so damn right. As a reader, I'll read that anyday over technically impeccable writing.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I'm currently trying to just finish what I have written, before moving onto something else. Mostly, I'm in mass edit mode. I can't remember anything new I've wanted to write.

 

[slyc_willie]

Technically, grammatically, that's wrong. Starting with and? Sentence fragments? But it feels so damn right. As a reader, I'll read that anyday over technically impeccable writing.

Nothing makes me close a book or back-click out of a story faster than obsessively perfect grammar. It doesn't "read right." That's not how people talk or think, so it's now how they want to read -- my opinion, of course. At the same time, you don't want to throw grammar out the window and expect readers to just accept it. There are writers who consistently violate grammatical rules and get away with it, even earning praise (Cormac MacArthy, for one). But those are rare exceptions. Still, bending the rules, for me, is a prerequisite if I want to be any good at telling a story.

 

[SikFuk]

Where is my writing going? Down the shitter. The older I get, the more I find myself dealing with word blocks - where you can't think of the word you want, but then it'll pop up in the context of something else. It may be time to go back to songwriting, where the rhyme scheme limits the possible choices, and the rhyming dictionary comes to the rescue. The only problem with that is the popularity of near rhymes in songwriting, which greatly increases the possibility of getting bogged down searching for the perfect word.

As far as erotica goes, I'm so over stroke stories. *yawn* These days I'm more interested in the before and after. I'll be watching JBJ to see what he comes up with - assuming he posts his new work here.

 

[VenusButterflies]

I feel like my writing is going around in circles and that I'm writing the same story with slightly different details. I can't tell if I'm carving away at something that will one day be good, or if I'm just following the same formula and plugging characters into it.
Yep, it's probably time to stretch myself.