All in all some good advice. Some points that I could do with following a little more closely than I do when I start writing too. However it is interesting to note regarding you "don't take criticism personally" bit, I HAVE noticed a few things regarding the type of criticism writers tend to get as opposed to artists. It does tend to be a lot more cutting and personal. I suspect that has something to do with the fact that everyone can "write" in so far as everyone is capable or forming a strong of words, where as few people can really draw well. As such a graphical artist with might have missed a bit of inking somewhere seems to get a lot more slack than a writer who might have messed up a spelling here and there. I have seen some incredibly hurtful comments directed at fairly new writers which can serve to put them off sharing their stuff again. For artists, any critique seems to be far more constructive. At least that's how I've seen it.

True enough, heck I've gotten quite a few snobbish or high handed remarks. The thing is, they're going to keep coming. It's better not to take them personally. Improve what you feel needs improving and do NOT take the rest like a personal attack. you'll only work yourself up into knots doing that.

This is also very true. Might want to add "Proof read" to your suggestions also. Looking back at my original comment to this post, I can spot a few incorrect words already:


you = your


with = who


It's so easy to do, and a lot harder to spot among a jumble of other words than an incorrectly inked line on a picture. In short I think we get short shrift. Not taking it personally can be easy or hard depending on the content of the cutting comment.

Oh I know. ;) I do it all the time. So many mistakes! Hell the tutorial is probably riddled with them!

Your stories are not though....always look forward to reading them ;)

What I hate is when the grammar or spell check 'fix' something the wrong way.

Omg! I know right!?! It's like..um...no....no that is NOT grammatically correct. fu spell check!

It's pretty good what you wrote here.

I agree with your main points. You say many of the same things I have in the past, though from a different perspective. Character, purpose, motivation - you can't write a good story without these elements! Hooking your reader into the story, into the minds of the characters, is essential to get them hot and bothered...but if you do it in a hackish way, you break that "willing suspension of disbelief" and lose any momentum you've created.

I'd almost go out on a limb and say that the WORST possible thing you can do, when writing porn, is to WATCH porn. There is virtually no connection between porn and actual sex, and even less to "reality" - not to mention that 98% of all the porn I've ever seen completely sucks. Now, if you've never seen the other set of parts up close and/or in use, I guess porn could be of SOME small value...just don't take it seriously for even a second. If you really want to know how it works, you'll need to find an actual partner and DO it yourself - scary!

Rochndil, who got married, made mistakes, and learned along the way...

This was a very good read and I agree with pretty much all of it. One thing you may want to add is perhaps a section on term usage. This is what I struggle with the most. A story can be the most beautiful thing ever and then be absolutely ruined by harsh terms for the act or body parts. But then again you can be like me and try and soften it a bit and end up being a bit too flowery and use the same terms. I mean...there's only so many ways you can refer to the female and male sex organs in the same scenario without repeating yourself or sounding stupid XD Any advice?

oh... and

BAM DAT ASS! hehe..that made me giggle

Very nice... both of your tutorials!

Question about fan fiction:
If you would make a world with its history, religion, economy and everything else - you even have described your protaginists to the detail - and then make countless of little side stories with them. Will the side stories be at one point fan-fiction?
You described fan-fiction as this: There's the world all created for you. There's the characters ready made. All you have to do is make them boink.
I mean at one point you are there with your side stories. You got your world and your characters. Because you said the danger in fan-fics is that you get too lazy. Will that happen the same when you keep in your world for too long? Would you suggest that you have to stop writing in that world at a specific point and then move on? What point would that be, then?

If it is your world, you can always dig deeper into it. Like peeling the layers of an onion except each layer is bigger than the one outside of it.

Exactly.

Great tutorial!

On the topic of fanfic, it *can* be a crutch, and I know that a lot of people use it like that, but that's not necessarily always the case. Sometimes I really get into a tv show of book, and it ends prematurely, and that makes me think "but...it can't end yet; I want to know what happens next!" which can lead to "I think it should have gone like this," So it can be a way to satisfy your need to fill in the blanks.

And that's fine, like I said what i posted wasn't to do with my personal distaste of fanfic. It's more saying that it's a lazy way to do it because everything is already created for you. Personalities, characters, world, etc. Yeah you have to use some creativity, but nothing compared to what you'd create on your own.

You make some excellent points here. One of the points that I would add is to make sure you proofread something you write: it can be a scene killer for me when I read something written wrongly and then have to take a moment out from my hyperbolic arousal curve to substitute in what I think the author actually meant - and if I'm totally unsure of what was meant, I'm lost and my interest/arousal disappears. The good use of English grammar, spelling and punctuation makes every story that much better.

In addition to the above: don't rely on a computer's spell-checker. It has virtually no sense of context, and it will often not tell you where you've used a correctly-spelt word wrongly.