Writing

Like a story? Need help writing your own? Post your thoughts and ideas here.
Lys
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RE: Writing

Unread post by Lys »

Hi, I'm new to the forum although I've been lurking and reading the stories for a few years. Just want to say thanks to all the authors here who post.Do any of you write in other genres or has anyone been published?I write but not in this genre, although I am tempted to have a go :).

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roboman
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RE: Writing

Unread post by roboman »

I've written for several trade magazines, as well as a few computer magazines and have some software that was published in a couple books. It's not the same as fiction and my writing skills suck. You aren't likely to make much money writing kinky porn, unless you do romance novels. You also likely aren't going to get a lot of comments. It's likely a lot of people will like your work, but almost nobody writes to say thanks. I do, once in a while, but not near enough. Gezzz, thinking about it, I haven't even done much reading for a while.Tell you what, Write a story and I'll read it and comment. That's not much of a bribe, but it's something :)

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RGbargy
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RE: Writing

Unread post by RGbargy »

This is a very small niche and plagued with over zealous protectors of the inocent(?) I have several e-books published but nothing in print as such. With so much free  material around there is little money to be had. If you are looking to have a go then it had better be for fun or self satisfaction.Having said that there is always room for good writing. I trust that you would not fall for the vanity publishing scams - anyone who wants money off you to publish give a very wide birth.One last comment. If you are looking to write novel length there must be more of a plot than the bondage and you need at least one character with personality and form. A short story you can get a with with minimal personality as long as the action is clear and understandable. If you browse the Writing discussion threads you might get some idea of what people like. One thing is certain - if you don't use a dictionary you will get hung drawn and quarteredR G Bargy
Are you free to participate in bondage

Alina
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RE: Writing

Unread post by Alina »

I don't write prose in any other genre, but I do write screenplays seriously. I've had a bit of success, but I won't go deeper into it in order to protect my identity. Not that you'd be very interested in it in any case.

The lack of comments is quite disheartening, because that essentially all the payback you're going to get from your efforts. Having posted several stories here and elsewhere, I can say that you have a window of about a week and a half where you can expect people to get back to you. After that your story is essentially dead. Nobody's going to read it and nobody's going to give you any feedback.

I try to encourage feedback by replying to all the messages I get. But some people really get upset about that because they don't want emails back, especially if they're using work email to send you feedback. (Why anyone would do that is beyond me, but it's happened more than once.) So it's a balancing act where you essentially can't win.

Fun times!

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stephanie_cd
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RE: Writing

Unread post by stephanie_cd »

[quote="Alina"]The lack of comments is quite disheartening, because that essentially all the payback you're going to get from your efforts. Having posted several stories here and elsewhere, I can say that you have a window of about a week and a half where you can expect people to get back to you. After that your story is essentially dead. Nobody's going to read it and nobody's going to give you any feedback. [/quote]We've touched on this in a few other threads over the years -- sadly, there isn't much feedback on this site (or many others) for a combination of the following reasons: It's the internet, and the internet IS mostly free! And because all that stuff is mostly free, people have gotten used to just taking what they can get. Look at how "free music"--  that wasn't supposed to be free -- has affected the recording industry. Now we've got Kindle trying to take over the print industry again. Even though the recording and e-book industry are now using different "pay per" models, they've been hit hard by piracy and competing until recently with "free" and it's an uphill struggle.A lot of people are selfish and inherently lazy. Why should someone take the time to thank the author when they could be reading another story? [Perhaps it's just a problem with this genre, and people are too busy doing other things while reading the story, or cleaning up and/or recovering from other things after reading the story to comment? And yes, "ewwwwww."  ]I don't want to sound too cynical, but people also seem to be getting ruder, too. How many idiots do we see on cell phones, talking loudly where they shouldn't be, trying to talk instead of drive a car, or texting while driving? (Why do we have to keep passing laws in the US saying "Hey! Hang up and drive?")Unlike some other sites, we don't even have a window right at the bottom to comment -- we have to scroll down a little or click "Post Reply"! And sending an author a PM requires TWO mouse clicks to click on their name, then "send private message." How horribly inconvenient, huh? (And yes, I'm being sarcastic!)Just now, for my own amusement (?) I took a quick look at Gagged Utopia's Story Archive. The highest ranked story had 46 comments, 1221 votes, 80,351 views. Two others I selected at random from the "highest ranked stories": 63 comments, 1084 votes, 90,848 views and 77 comments, 716 votes, 44,226 views. I realize that three random stories probably is NOT a significant sample size, but based on those three stories, that's 215,425 views, 186 comments and 2921 votes, which means that only 1.3% of the readers could bothered to click on a five star rating, and that only .08% of the readers could bother to type a comment.    Seriously -- clicking is EASY when you've only got five choices! Writing a comment is infinitely harder since you've got an inexhaustible supply of words to pick from! Obviously, if comments are the only feedback or payment an author on the internet  receives, and there aren't any comments, eventually most authors will give up, and then what are we going to have to read? 

pleasewrap
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RE: Writing

Unread post by pleasewrap »

I also wouldn't expect that a story is "dead."  It's just not necessarily going to attract a ton of views on a forum site like this because the site is inherently less organized than a story site like Gromet's.  Want a mummification story?  You need to do some pretty spiffy searching to find 'em here.  Wander over to Gromet's and they're neatly categorized.But feedback is, has been, and always will be an issue.  Lots of people don't have a lot to say and therefore don't say anything (figuring that a post that just says "I like that" is just trivial and clutter).  Others might want to critique, but don't have the time for the detail they'd like.  Others just don't feel qualified.  I've found that unless I actively ask individuals for feedback on something, it won't be forthcoming in just about any circumstance.  That's been true at work and in my personal life, particularly when written material is in play.

cagedsgt
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RE: Writing

Unread post by cagedsgt »

While sometimes because of not having time to due justice to proof reading adn such messages I write on the internet probably come across a little struggled at times. But I have written technical manuals, policy and such for over 40 years, had my first story published in the early 70's and have donated all earned money from my hobby to charity. Not saying that they get rich from my writing and it wouldn't be enough to keep food on my table. Some post the first idea of a story in a group like this and then use the few comments and such to refine it for publication. But have to say that one of the best things a writer needs is a proofer and or editor to point out when the keyboard forgets how to spell a word and for me when it just refuses to know where the spaces go between words feedback for some is what they write for, but many more write for themselves and then share once they like what they wrote.  

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stephanie_cd
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RE: Writing

Unread post by stephanie_cd »

[quote="cagedsgt"]But have to say that one of the best things a writer needs is a proofer and or editor to point out when the keyboard forgets how to spell a word and for me when it just refuses to know where the spaces go between words[/quote]Sadly, the job of "proofreader" has gone the way of "elevator operator" and "bowling alley pinsetter" -- they're all obsolete, thanks to advancing technology. Every major word processing program for computers for the past 20 years has had some sort of spellcheck -- MS Word and others now underline in red those words that don't match their internal dictionaries, and users can add new words to their computer's dictionary as needed for things like technical manuals. Most internet browsers have spellcheck programs either included or available -- Firefox has had an integrated one for years that works much like the one in MS Word, and IESpell (for MS Internet Explorer) has millions of happy users. (http://www.cnet.com/ has IESpell right here.) Of course, these spellcheckers can't tell if the writer meant to type "there" or "they're" or "their" in a sentence, and since they're all spelled correctly they won't automatically highlight in red when used incorrectly! But because of this, the few publishing houses that are still around seem to think that automated proofreading is acceptable enough in order to save a few dollars. I find it horribly annoying to find multiple typos in a hardback novel these days, knowing fully well that an old fashioned "proofreader" would have caught them. Luckily for now, they haven't been able to teach computers how to write well enough from scratch to make editor's jobs obsolete -- yet!

Kallin
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RE: Writing

Unread post by Kallin »

Really? 80k views is pretty abyssal and as far as I know these are some of the more traffic'd kinky story places. I've got (terrible) fanfiction published in other places that brought in 30k hits without trying hard.

To a large degree I guess we're still a very niche place. Part of that is because stories here are really just about Kink. There's nothing with a whole lot in the way of plot.

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ruru67
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RE: Writing

Unread post by ruru67 »

[quote="stephanie_cd"]Most internet browsers have spellcheck programs either included or available -- Firefox has had an integrated one for years that works much like the one in MS Word, and IESpell (for MS Internet Explorer) has millions of happy users. (http://www.cnet.com/ has IESpell right here.) Of course, these spellcheckers can't tell if the writer meant to type "there" or "they're" or "their" in a sentence, and since they're all spelled correctly they won't automatically highlight in red when used incorrectly! [/quote]I discovered the other day that WordPress has a "proofread" function which does a basic grammar check which does spot at least some of those sorts of problems. It's a bit fussy about passive voice and complex sentences (if you have those functions enabled -- there's about a dozen categories you can enable/disable), but I've been going back over some of my newer stories with it. Maybe I'll do the lot when I get time.It seems like no matter how many times I proofread a story, I find about the same number of errors ... it's like if I fix one, another pops up to take its place!

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roboman
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RE: Writing

Unread post by roboman »

I was thinking about this so posted an animation I mostly did back in 1998. /forum_posts.asp?TID=14599 with close to 2000 views I only got rated once and no comments. The link was only viewed 130 times here with no comments. The animation quality isn't great, I made trade offs I wasn't happy with, mostly so I didn't die of old age rendering out 18 min of 3d animation. I'm working on some stuff that is much better and am wondering if the higher quality might get more ratings and comments. I'm guessing not.The thing with getting a proof reader or some one to help with a story. It's no better on free animation or game projects. The voice over and sound people never came through on the above animation project and it was partly their project. Of the several game projects I did models for and ruffed out animation sections for, none got any real amount of work finished on them by others, even the person starting the game project.

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