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For those of you who don’t know who I am, I co-write Olympic Dames, created by Kaileighblue. I thought I’d write a little thing here on writing. By no means do I do anything in the field of writing professionally but figured I might be able to share a few tips that I’ve learned over the years. So let’s just jump right in.

Have a plan:

I’m not particularly good about this, as far as actually having a fleshed out outline worked out, but it’s good to jot down notes about what your story is going to be about and what the key points in the plot will be before setting forth. It’s a pretty obvious things to do, but I have seen a lot of stories out there that have a good start then sort of start meandering as it goes, as if the author had worked out a great beginning then sort of just started throwing together whatever as he worked. In the simplest terms, we can follow a common formula for movies and TV shows, the three act format.

Your first act will be introducing the setting, the characters and establishing a premise. For example, it’s a fantasy realm, the main character is a young woman that wants a child, there’s a magic orchard that is suppose to produce fruit that guarantees children. Act two would be the conflict. Perhaps the protagonist arrives to the orchard and the caretaker demands a price to heavy to bare, maybe a troll guards the path to the orchard or the protagonist must discover that the orchard is a metaphor for something else. The third act deals with conflict resolution and wrap up.

By no means do you need to follow the three act story, many story ideas you think of may not fit in to that sort of story structure. I merely present it as an easy, proven method of plot lay out. Overall its good for one shot stories or ones in which it is episodic within a larger story framework.

A good plot, in fetish related genre, is what divides a story from wank fodder:

Yes, it’s difficult to come up with reasons for pregnancy related material in stories, but the most descriptive prose on what a pregnant character is meaningless without an entertaining story. When coming up with plot ideas, a good general rule is, if you can start a description to your work to someone else by saying ‘Its kind of like this story, but’ that ‘but’ better be good. Strive to come up with something original. I’ll cover some ways to come up with ideas a bit later. There are some times where a story based off may be good, especially if you have your own special twist, like coming up with a variation of something like a fairy tale. Or perhaps you’ve seen a story someone else wrote and want to make something of you own based off the same content. Be warned, while using a fairy tale or other public domain story might just label you as unoriginal, copying someone else’s work is a huge no no. It is true that a lot of professional writers are…we’ll be nice and say influenced, by other writers (for examples the wheel of time books having a lot of elements that are parallels to the Dune books), it is acceptable to do so if you truly make it something unique to you.

A lot of choices need to be worked out when first writing a story. Is it going to be funny? Sad? Does it deal with an ethical question? Anything is a valid, and mix it up and combine different aspects. Given you story a point gives it some more depth, stories that serve no purpose but to serve as a excuse of the fetish, they just fall flat. I’m guilty of this myself sometimes.

Make your characters live:

Good characters are a cornerstone to a good story. I find it helpful to really flesh out a character, even as far as thinking out details for the character that aren’t going to be reveal in the story. It helps me in that I get a feel for how a character would act. Dialogue between two characters will feel more natural and readers will empathize better and be drawn into the story. Another good point of characters with depth is that it makes the characters more distinct in and of themselves and in relation to other characters. Don’t simply think of it as Betty is the angry one, think of why she’s angry, how does she display it. To use something I’ve done as in example, Catherin and Caitlyn are both relatively angry characters. They both are short fused, tend to take to problems with frustration and let that frustration be known to those around them. The differences are though that while Catherin tends to keep quiet and fume only to act out her anger physically, Caitlyn displays it constantly but in lower dosage with sarcasm being her primary weapon. Also the sources of their anger are different though they both feel the same about the situation they’re in. Also, characters are not their cup size. This is a written medium, you do not need to go into extravagant descriptions of your characters. Their physical descriptions simply aren’t that needed. A general description with good impressions is enough to give your reader a mental image their own mind creates. Only time a through description is needed is for your own personal notes and perhaps if you’re having someone draw it. In a story, it’s cumbersome, it’s boring, it breaks up the flow of a story. Break up the description into multiple small packages to sprinkle throughout the story.

Setting:

This one is just going to be a few quick points. Setting is very important on a story, but unless you’re going to have a series set in the same setting, less is more on this one. Don’t bog down in details, just get enough to establish the scene. To go into over describing is the lure of world-building, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but as I said above, unless this is going to be a continuing storyline, not that important. And if it is going to be on going, you can release details in small digestible chunks.

Get your hand out of your pants:

Hmm…in the interest of not disgusting people, going to have to resort to euphemisms. Do not type one handed. Yes, this is fetish related stories, and lets not pretend its not what it is, but when writing you need to focus on one thing at a time. You may feel that you can channel that enthusiasm, and it does work until…um…the rooster crows. After that you might find that your attention isn’t what it used to be and the story is far less interesting than it was about 15 seconds ago. So, my recommendation if you can’t manage to ‘keep the horse in the barn’ is to maybe let it run a bit before you start writing. If this section didn’t make any sense, god bless your naivety.

Word:

Spell checker, grammar guide and a good thesaurus. I can’t elaborate enough how important this stuff is. Alright, we’re all amateurs, no one is perfect. I make enough mistakes, make me flinch every time I go back and reread something and fine more. It’s going to happen and it’s okay, but strive to do the best you can! Try not to use the same words so much, that’s where a thesaurus comes in handy. Spellcheck spellcheck spellcheck, then have a second person read through it to spot misused words that wouldn’t be caught in spellcheck. If you have no one that can be your editor, set your story aside for a day or two then reread it, so your mind isn’t automatically translating mistakes you made into what you meant to say. Another trick is to read through from the end of the story forward, anything to keep your mind from just glossing over errors.

Seek help:

Reread your favorite authors’ stories and figure out what it is about them you like and emulate them. There’s nothing original anymore, everything is based off something else, revel in that but make it your own by mixing and matching what you like. It’s important to make your own style and make it consistent. Yes, you’ll evolve as you go and you shouldn’t fight that, but recognize that you need to focus. If you write in a style that’s comfortable to you, you’ll draw readers that feel the same and have an ongoing audience.

Again this is a place where having some sort of second person to have read over your work would be good, this time emphasizing on how the story is rather than technical work. Ask for their honest opinion on what they think would make the story better or if there’s any places that lack. Be sure to accept their opinion too.

I also highly recommend http://www.writingexcuses.com/ from which I took a few tips. It’s a podcast with three different authors, two novelist and one a web-comic writer/artist. They cover a broad range of topics concerning writing, the writing industry, and is humorous at points. It’s broken down into 15 minutes segments so easy to go through.

Wrapping up:

So I’m not used to doing this sort of thing, I’ve run out of things to say at this point. In the future I’ll probably go back and write some individual articles on the subjects above and expanded on that, but till then, have fun.