Up Your Game: Advice From Your Peers.

@Zeebop thanks for taking the time and giving advice

I can't see that. Within quotes, everything is in italics. (But it becomes visible when copied to the editor)

(In the original scene, the protagonist stands between the customer and the Eve, facing and groping Eve. I hope that isn't ambiguous.)
But I'll try to experiment more with sentence structures in the future. I think, my most common pattern is a direct speech/thought, followed by three or two actions.

I don't like using direct speech without attaching information about who is speaking. Even if it should be obvious from the spoken words, I more often than not struggle to identify them.
I also struggle to use "asks Eve" as an alternative for "Eve asks" as it sounds strange to me.

Well, I still have to learn a lot of words, though I think that it will be a long-term process as I have to pick them up while reading, searching phrases or translating from my mother tongue. And then, the words also have to find their way into my active vocabulary.

Actually, I can't remember that I published a lot of sex scenes. (The scenes in Just friends are meant to be short as they are quite short.)

Not sure how to integrate that into the narrative.
In "Chyoa Sex Chat" the POV is the camera, so most senses can't be described. I also tried to avoid addressing the reader with "you" to maintain the feeling of watching.
In "The Choice" it is only possible to describe the protagonist's sensations. But I guess I could really add on some sounds.

Currently, I only manage to write about 2,000 to 4,000 words a month, so it's rather difficult to branch out a lot.
On the other hand, I have a story draft (about 4k words now) where I experiment with conditional branches to offer different options while using the same main events which would play out differently depending on the previous choices.

Yes, at the beginning of the BoredBeauty branch I tried to provoke that someone would follow up the question if she sucks, but nobody did.

I'd also like to continue on that one, though I haven't given up hope that Cleo comes back. (Basically, I wrote the chapters but Cleo gave the same-named character the personality, so I'd have to get into that character first.)

 

I would like feedback on my style.

UP MY GAME

 

@FredWeasleyLives1 Could you give us a link to the story or stories you've been working on?

 

My stories:

Sleeping With The Enemy
20 Steps To Pick A Suitor
Coeur Brise
Looking For Her Hood
It Is Always A Holiday In My Heart
To Tame A Rose

UP MY GAME!

 

HTML doesn't work on the forum (nor on the site)
You can just copy the plain link and the forum makes it a clickable link
or
you can highlight the text like "Sleeping With The Enemy" and then click the "link" symbol above the input field. In the popup, enter the link and finish with the button "Insert"

 

@FredWeasleyLives1

General notes to start off with: good length on your chapters, with a nice mix of exposition, description, and dialogue. You manage to avoid a lot of common pitfalls with writing and the format of CHYOA in particular, although you tend to be very linear in your episodes - it might be nice to see you go off on a tangent and then loop back into the main story. This is especially true for chapters or stories where you're trying to pursue multiple points of view. For example, Portia Blows Her Stack could easily have been three different chapters, each from a different point of view, rather than one long chapter.

Beyond that, first real criticism...your introductions are a bit formulaic. Compare Sleeping With The Enemy...

...with It Is Always A Holiday In My Heart:

Names and physical descriptions are important, but what you really need in an introduction is a hook: something to get the reader interesting in the story. Physical descriptions - which can go in for more than hair color, eye color, and breast size - can and should be worked into the story, referenced and re-referenced as necessary. But you really need to grab the reader's attention and make them want to keep reading to the end of the sentence, the paragraph, the page, and then click through to the next chapter. Try to find something that would make you interested in continuing to read - imagine how different it would be if Sleeping With the Enemy started off with: "'Take my clothes off!' Becca ordered." - right in the middle of the action, this blonde bimbo obeying and trying to figure out how she got into this situation with this other woman.

Your particular approach to dialogue is sometimes a bit stilted and artificial. To call out one particular example in We Are Happy, But...:

Asked, offered, debated, spoke, thought, demanded, asked - you're trying to avoid using "said, said, said" which is good, but the dynamic of the conversation suffers, since we're constantly asked to re-evaluate the line according to the final verb, which more often than not doesn't actually change the meaning of the line of dialogue, it just confuses the issue. There are a couple of different things you might try to get around this - the simplest being to leave some of the excess verbs off. If you've already established a back-and-forth dynamic, you can go for a line or two without identifying the speakers, which lets the reader focus on the conversation itself. For example:

Or you can mix it up a little - pepper the dialogue with what the people are actually doing, or feeling. For example:

Same basic conversation, but notice how actions and thought put different emphasis on the words, shift the mood of the piece? It might be an unfamiliar style for you, but something you might play with, see if it reads better to you.

Now let's talk about sex... You prefer lesbians! Which is cool. And you write exchanges like Wet and Wild Fun:

Not every sexual encounter needs to last for an entire chapter...or multiple chapters...or involve any kind of penetration. Two lesbians in love scissoring in the shower is good wholesome fun. But there's not a lot of actual detail for the action here - and that's the kind of thing you might want to expand on. What does it feel like, to rub their pussies together? Do they start slow, or fast? Is one of them the kind that grinds her hips into the other woman, or is more of a gentle meeting of the genitals, trying to make each other feel good? Is one of them aggressive or dominant? How does the orgasm build up? Are they actually SHOUTING or is one of them determined to make the other cum first?

That's not saying you have to answer any of these questions in a sex scene, and not every scene might include every little microscopic detail of pussy lips meeting in an obscene kiss, or the dominant partner getting off as she feels her girlfriend squirt into her own pussy, but for a lot of readers the sexy scenes are one of the major payoffs (or the entire point) of a story, and it's really an opportunity to let your imagination run wild a little. I'd like to see you do more of that. Really get in there and explore it.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I know some of this might grind against how you're used to writing, but you might at least try to experiment a little.

 

Everything which is more than a single line without naming the speaker confuses me. Sure, you might get a hint within the dialog but that could lead to a reread and thus breaks the flow.

In the position described, I can't imagine that their pussies would touch each other. I'd rather assume that the pelvic bone of the one girl would rub against the other woman's clit and between her pussy lips. Though that would result in only one of them cumming while the other would enjoy another kind of fun. (Though I think that's fine pretty hot if you're the dominant woman.)
As described, it would be a turnoff as my brain would try to imagine how it would be possible to do that and thus avoid enjoying it.

 

Hello everyone!

I feel like I spend too much time thinking of ways to improve my writing, and asking for feedback seems like the most straightforward solution.

Here's some links to what I've been doing:

Control All Monster Girls
Thanos' Infinity Orgy
Pay No Attention To The Me Behind The Curtain

Also, here's the start of a thread I wrote for Evil is Rule 63: Kate Connors the Lizard (And Also A Lesbian)

I'm most comfortable with comedy, or at least an irreverent writing style, and I've been using CHYOA to try and branch out. The Lizard thread is by far the most experimental thing I've written, though it's also super linear and not very friendly to new writers.

I concerned about a lot of things, really. But characterization, basic structure and writing something convincingly sexy are probably the biggest worries about my output.

Please hold nothing back. Up my game.

 

@cottoneye Comedy is good! Plenty of fun to be found in sex after all. You've got a couple of things started but not a lot developed so far, so let's focus on your introductions, starting with first lines:

Control All Monster Girls:

Thanos' Infinite Orgy:

Pay No Attention To The Me Behind The Curtain:

Kate Connors the Lizard (and also a Lesbian)

So, first two are great: they're hooks. You immediately establish the tone of the piece, challenge the readers' with something off the wall, introduce a character. Pay No Attention... is a bit more generic. It's a general "you," and the "you" presented is explicitly nothing special. That might not throw every reader off, but it's not going to make them excited to continue reading either. Final entry is a little meta; it sets up the nature of the format, which is going to be a different voice than readers might normally be familiar with, and as far as that goes it's okay - it's a solid set-up, and slow build-ups to fun sexy time is a perfectly legitimate writing strategy. Where it kind of falls flat is the very next line:

This is really where the hook should be, or at least something that an excited college student might actually write to herself - you have to remember that she's basically an audience of one. Diary entries can be tricky, as it's basically people talking to themselves - hence the very realistic trope of starting out "Dear Diary," addressing the book directly as if they were confessing to an intimate friend. Imagine how much more dynamic this chapter would start off if instead you had written:

This isn't to say that what you've got is bad, just emphasizing that it could be punchier, and you might want to keep that in mind for the future.

Going back to Monster Girls for a moment:

This is the kind of exchange where we have no idea who is talking or what the context for their conversation is. It's a fun moment, but the obfuscation of whom is talking or what they're talking about doesn't really add anything. You could easily work in some minimalist introductions pretty easily. For example:

There's nothing wrong with a light tone, but you might want to spell-check your chapters a bit. You also do a lot of telling rather than showing - which is okay-but-not-great for an introduction chapter where you need to get a certain amount of exposition out of the way, but is likely to turn readers off. Likewise, you're going to want to watch out for bad habits of repetition - case in point:

Lot of He's, lot of His, a few Buts (it is perfectly fine to start a sentence with "but" or "and," but they shouldn't be used excessively.) Thanos has a name, and a couple sobriquets (the Mad Titan, etc.), and some of these sentences could be restructured to read a little better. For example:

Characterization: you haven't got a lot of it, yet. There's very little separation between inner monologue and outer dialogue - which is fine for the Lizard-Lesbian storyline, but a bit of a mess for Tally in the Monster Girl story. You might want to work out a bit of their character history, abilities, what they look like, etc. in your head and then find ways to work that into the text - for example, what does Kate Connor look like? What's a natural way to work it into the text?

For that matter, while stories like Lizard-Lesbian are linear so far, keep an open mind as to possible decision points - not just "What Happens Next?" Even if you don't write it, somebody else might want to pick it up!

Not a lot of sex just yet, so can't really comment critically on that. If you want to practice, you could have some branches on the Lizard-Lesbian path contain "excerpts" where Kate fantasizes about what she would do to Gwen (or vice versa), which then link back to the next chapter in the journal. Just a thought.

 

Sure why not.

Gender Change: Housewives Project - Latest
Erotic Stage Magician - I ran out of steam on this one.
Gender Change Mall
Costume Store - One I always come back to
Gender Change: Office - Has my most liked chapter “Blowjob”.
Mind control: Fairytale Amusement Park - My delve away from Gender Change.
Gender Chane: Magic Closet
Dream Prom Date - My first big story.
Gender Change: Beta Test - My most successful I think.

Up My Game!

 

@Zekar Well, first off, kudos on getting a lot written! Takes time and effort, and I think it shows when you look at your latest chapters compared to your earlier ones.

Formatting wise, you've got a good bit of variation: like to pursue some different choices, and you even have a few multi-branch-loop-back-to-parent-chapter options like Try the Computer. You're not afraid to end a branch, and you're not afraid to let a story line play out at some length. All good stuff.

Writing-wise, couple general comments apply - running a chapter through a spellchecker/grammar checker wouldn't hurt; I'm not normally one to talk, but when you misspell key words like "masturbated" in Pay Off Your Debt it gets a little noticeable. Some of the chapters are quite short as well - I would have liked to see a little more detail in Poison Him With A Blowjob.

Part of that is down to individual taste and style - your description of a blowjob in Blowjob for example:

This is fine - except "eminating" should be "emanating," and "your a vacuum" should be "you're a vacuum." My own tastes run for a bit more description, to play it out a bit. For example, in my chapter also titled Blowjob:

This isn't to say "write like me!" - because you shouldn't. You should write like you. This is just an example of how you might go into a little more detail on the same subject...what's going through the character's mind, how do things taste, can they hear their lover moan or grunt, etc. Likewise, not every blowjob has to end with an ex-splooge-ion; sometimes it can be a set up for more intense action of a different kind.

Thematically, your two main favored themes tend to be male-to-female (m2f) gender change or body swap/possession, and mind control. Both classic themes, great to explore different characters with. However, I do notice that the change itself seems to almost be perfunctory. In Fast Change for example, your whole transformation sequence is:

Now this was explicitly a fast change, but just because the character changes dramatically in a short period of time doesn't mean that the change itself isn't something you can linger on and develop at a bit more length. I don't have an exactly similar scenario in my story to give an example of, but let's look at how you might have expanded that out more:

This is mostly focused on the physical side of things, offering a bit more detail into the change - and it's mostly physical, contrasting what it was with what it is becoming. The point and nature of transition is something a lot of genderbender readers like to focus on.

You're going to want to focus on the bits that interest you - and again, nothing wrong with that - but you might want to pause and think for a little bit about the nature of the transition, both mental and physical. Like sex itself, there's a certain gonzo thrill when you fast forward straight to 'the good stuff' - lots of amateur porn is strictly gonzo, where folks go straight from sitting fully clothed on a couch and introducing themselves to naked and getting stuff full of cock. That exists because there's a market for that. With written erotica though, the challenge is often part of the appeal...the thing about the change isn't just that it happens, but how the person changing and the people around them react to it. Are they disgusted? Delighted? Appalled? Most of your characters undergo the change unwillingly, but they seldom try to fight it; they often succumb very quickly - the Mental Changes go from nominally shocked to completely complacent and willing to suck dick within a couple paragraphs.

I'm not suggesting you go back and re-write those chapters, but to keep in mind from this point forward that there might be other alternatives than dude->slut, and that you might consider experimenting with slower transitions (at least mentally), or some mental feedback, rebellion, or distress on the part of the subject to reflect their reaction to their new state of being. Again, that might not be the kind of thing you want to write, but it's something to at least think about experimenting with.

If the main appeal of a gender change story is the transition - physical, mental, social, sexual - then you don't need to rush it. Mix it up a little. If you want a fast physical transition, let the mental transition be a little slower as "she" suddenly deals with her preconceptions of what it means to be female. It's okay to dive right into sex, and giving your first blowjob shouldn't necessarily be a traumatic experience, but maybe give the readers a little insight into how it feels for the new woman, who so recently had a dick of her own, to suddenly find herself on her knees sucking a cock - did they ever think about that, as a guy? Does it upset them? Does it upset them that it doesn't upset them? Do they find they enjoy it, or not? Do they try to do the things that felt good when they were getting the blowjobs, or are they naive and unskilled?

You don't have to go into any more detail than you want to - but given the fap-based nature of a lot of the sex scenes on CHYOA, I don't think anyone would complain if you suddenly had more detail.

Similar comments apply to mind control; you're expressing a form of dominance over the subject being controlled/possessed/hypnotized - part of the appeal of that to a lot of readers is not just reading about a guy sticking their dick in a mindless, willing fuckpuppet, but to get some idea of what the experience is like for the person being hypnotized. Do they realize it, at least subconsciously? Are there lucid periods, moments of resistance? Blank time that they can't account for, strange aches, odd stains in their underwear? Like with your genderbending, there's an aspect of loss of control on the part of the subject which is the sexual focus of the story - explore that. Use it.

Which I hope is a little helpful. Obviously, I didn't have time to read through everything, but I focused on the bits that jumped out at me from the storylines I did read. Don't take any of this as gospel, just as possible suggestions to consider as you continue your writing.

 

Ugh, I'm so sorry it took this long for me to respond. @Zeebop thank you so much for your feedback!

Yeah, repetition and knowing when and when not to go for minimalism are recurring problems of mine. And while I'm glad I tried something new with the Lizard Lesbian thread, I can't say I'd do it again if given the chance.

I do have two questions:

1. Is it considered taboo to go back and make extensive edits to your own work? I was thinking about re-working some of the weaker parts, then explaining each edit in a chapter comment for transparency.

2. I'm sorry, but could you clarify what you mean by "separation between inner monologue and outer dialogue"? I assume you're talking about either the narration interfering with the character's voices or the prospect of writing two characters where one of them is just a voice in the other's head. The latter got awkward for me real fast, so I introduced a cheat in Tally's next chapter where Brim could make a ghost body.

 

Not as far as I'm concerned. I suppose if it greatly affected chapters written by other people it would be a faux pas, but I go back and tweak chapters as needed for spelling, grammar, etc.

Inner monologue is what a character is thinking in their head, outer dialogue is what a character is saying out loud to someone else. A character can often think one thing privately and say something different publicly - give you an example:

This is you telling the reader what Tally is thinking, then following it up with what she's saying. If you did this as an inner monologue it would read something like:

You don't have to write it like that, but that's an interpretation. Overall, we don't get a clear idea of what's going through Tally's head, except through her dialogue. And you do want to keep it clear for your audience:

- What Tally is thinking
- What Tally is saying
- What Brim is saying

How you differentiate that is up to you, but choosing a format and sticking with it might be advisable. For example, if Brim spoke in all italics (because only Tally can hear it), that would be one approach.

 

Thank you for the feedback. Very nice and and considerate.

 

I'd avoid the repetition of "in your hand" here. In this case, you could substitute "hand" with "fingers", add the second sentence as a dependent clause or just omit the second occurrence of "in your hand"
Same with "lips" a few lines later

I don't see any problem with that (except if other authors' chapters are affected as Zeebop said.)
I'd use "edit silently" when correcting typos but mark it as updated (leave "edit silently" unticked) if there are content related changes.

 

Can someone give me something to work at? I've made the story The Bazaar, and This thread in the story Toilets in an Alternate Reality.

 

@geezermcpleezer I touched on a few points earlier in your feedback thread, but I'll try to go into a little more depth - and hopefully a couple other people will chime in.

So far, most of your chapters - even your introduction chapter for The Bazaar - are very short. While pithiness can be a virtue, some of these are less than 100 words - you really might consider going back and expanding on...everthing. Let's break that one down:

It's a 2nd person, so "you" might be understood, but we have no sense of who the character is or what they're doing. If the story title is the hook that draws the reader in to the first chapter, the first chapter needs to be the hook that establishes the story and keeps them reading. Most readers just aren't going to go 2-3 chapters in to figure out what the story is about. At the very least, you need to give them some inducement to keep reading.

Here, you've established "you" live in an apartment, you own a cheap alarm clock, and you're late...and that's pretty much it. No idea what you're late for or why this is important or what "you" look like or where the apartment is located, etc. etc.

Story options - I personally like having a fair number of options for a story, it puts the choose in CHYOA - but there's a good argument to be made for having linear stretches where the story proceeds until you get to a natural decision point. So "continue" isn't bad...but it's a little lazy. There's no prompt there for anyone to ever build off of that. What if someone doesn't want to continue? It's not necessarily that you have to imagine every option, but you should consider something of the format of how the story is going to be read, and maybe keep some options open in case someone wants to pursue a different course.

As far as formatting individual chapters go, you tend to either have either single line or big blocky chunks of text, like this one in Enter:

Now, this is all good information - ideally, this is information that should have been in the first chapter - but this is a mess of a way to present it. At the very leas, you should break it up into smaller paragraphs so that it flows better. For example:

You don't have to break it up exactly like this, but smaller paragraphs are just easier for most people to read, especially when you're looking at heavy exposition and dialogue like this. Another stylistic issue:

Single apostrophes to denote internal thoughts is not the best approach. It helps differentiate from spoken words, but it isn't distinct enough, and grammatically it looks messy. You might consider replacing those with italics or bold, just to make it easier for the audience to discern at a glance spoken lines-versus-thought.

Sex! You haven't written many "sexy" scenes yet, so it's hard to really given good feedback on this one. You actually get fairly descriptive in A Thick Nine Inches. General comments about breaking up paragraphs with dialogue from above apply here too, but I want to point out this bit in particular:

She this, she that. The only time you expand out a little is calling her "The big tit redhead," and that at the very end. The description of the action is fine (although "urethra hole" is a bit redundant), but give her a name, a description. Keep in mind this is from "your" perspective: how would you think about a strange woman gobbling down your cock, telling you she's going to let you fuck her and then take it away forever?

I'm not sure if you're more or less comfortable with the all-together-now peetime thread - you seem to like the concept, and you spend several chapters building up to the inevitable biological and social event, but the Morning Peetime chapter which should be the audience payoff is kind of sparse - I feel like this is a chapter you could and should have done a lot more with. How does the narrator feel seeing people pee? Is it weird, or not? Is it weird that it isn't weird? Feel free to get a little poetic with the descriptions. Remember, watersports is a fetish - and if you're thinking of going that route, consider how that would affect the narrator.

Would they get hard, watching someone else pee? Would other people notice? It's difficult to pee through an erection...would any of the ladies help him with that little difficulty? Etc. There's a lot of potential there, I just think you haven't sat down and tried to realize any of it yet.

 

Thanks for these, they're just better formatting, I hadn't noticed the wall of text that the into exposition grew to, I kept adding to it and didn't realize how ugly it got. Also the single quote thing is probably right, and when I get time I'll go back and redo all the internal monologue to be something else. I hope you don't mind I plagiarized your quote formatting tip.

I don't know regarding the cotton candy thread, I intended for the player character to not really know what he was getting into until after he made the bargain, maybe he should be more incredulous that such an apparent nymphomaniac is suddenly all over him? Is there another way to get across the "finger curls on the monkeys paw" feeling? I tried to highlight it with "you feel a sense of finality" when he shakes her hand, but I guess it's not ominous enough.

Yeah, the morning peetime thing isn't actually supposed to be the climax, I got there and then haven't worked on the thread in a while out of laziness.

 

Hey all. Thought this might be a good place to ask a couple of questions without opening a new thread.

1. Is there a way to ask someone to proof read a chapter before I publish it (English not being my first language). I know the comments sections is where people point out the errors but then for most of them a good reading experience has already been screwed.

2. In my dialog delivery I typically like to add names rather frequently (not in every line but whenever there is a break in conversation), especially when I am writing for a dominant character. Something on the lines of..
"Miranda, do you like what I have for you ?" Tom quipped rather than penning... "Do you like what I have for you ?" Tom quipped.
Is this a bad or incorrect style of writing ?

3. Like it has been said before, what's a good size of a chapter. I can understand for some sex scenes you don't want to break the flow but in general what's considered a good size.

4. Does stepping outside the realm of facts a major turn off ? I mean we all have read our share of "foot long schlongs" but then there are also scenarios where a cute, innocent and shy girl simply succumbs at the sight of a dick with just a simple rub she might receive to her privates. Would you be frowned on reading such scenario's or would rather prefer something more realistic.

Thanks !

 

Not sure if this is the right place for that ^^
1. Well, you could create a thread to ask for an editor. Not sure if you'll get a response to that request. Technically, you can assign user roles to other users which allows them to access your chapters or even to edit them.

2. I think that's fine. Though if I use the names in dialog, I avoid using them the two sentences before and after.

3. That depends on the style and your preference. In linear stories, chapters might be longer. I tend to write about 750 to 1,500 words. For stories with many choices, fewer words might fit better.
I think the most important thing is to offer meaningful choices, no matter if the story is linear or with many choices. I don't mind breaking a sex scene (even with a cliff hanger) as it might offer a good decision point.

4. I prefer a realistic approach (which depends on the described world). You won't please everyone, no matter how you write.