Improving writing quality

I think that I have been known to write small critiques on the stories of newer NBM writers on dA. A few people didn't seem to like this. I do it because I'm trying to improve the quality of work throughout the "scene."

Of course, not everyone is a serious writer. I'm sure that some writers just sat down at the computer one day and felt the need to do something to scratch the itch, I was one of them. Many have no intention to become "great smut writers" and that's fine. In fact, it should be quite easy to tell what stories I've written in a few hours versus those that I've sat on for weeks and months.

Despite 47 posted stories here, I'm still quite shit.

Here are some tips I've learned through my own writing, and reading that of others:

- Introduce new characters slowly. Some stories start of by trying to introduce us to five new characters at once. This is confusing, at least to me. Introducing two at once seems to be fine, spend enough time that we can know who they are before you bring in more characters.

- Character development. I know that I've written this vague statement on several stories. Sadly it's easier said that done, even more for me. I probably suck quite a bit at it myself. Telling (or showing) us what the character looks like doesn't equate development. Only describe their body if it tells us something about them. If you're writing a multibreast story, then it makes sense to tell us what her breasts are like. I've notice that there are plenty of writers who give us a full age/height/weight/hair colour/breast size/blood type/shoe size gamut. This usually tells us nothing about the character, it's just a pile of numbers for us to remember. Personally, I try to avoid including details unless it's relevant. Saying that a character has pink hair implies that she's rebellious, or at least non-conforming. The other good thing about leaving out "body details" is that, in my view, this allows whoever's reading to imagine them. I don't consider this to be a cop-out because I don't want to burden the reader with unnecessary details.

For further inspiration, try to think of little details that give a lot of life to people who you know. Is the character hesitant? Is he or she a bookworm who, strangely, likes gangster rap? What are their quirks? Do they have a weird laugh? Do they gesture their hands/feet in a weird way then they talk? Does he or she dress weird? Try describing one of your friends without describing their appearance. 

Character should also be "balanced." They shouldn't be all "good traits" because that's a boring character, nor just bad traits because that's also lame to read. "He's a genius, but an asshole." "She's intelligent, but shy." "He's hesitant, but succeeds when he goes for it." Think about characters from really good fiction you've watched/read. What are the good and bad qualities of... Gandalf? Gregory House? Indiana Jones? Mia Wallace? Trinity? Sarah Connor?

Oy winston, i just wanna write some smut like,
Fair enough. I just think that it's way better when two CHARACTERS who seem "real" then "make love." This is better than two strangers, people that we know nothing about, other than a name and a tit size having a romp. See the work of jaheckelsafar, he's really good at character stuff.

Also:

"Sarah was rather attractive, with 36DD breasts, 180cm height, weighing about 37kg with straight brown hair spilling over her shoulders." <- Tells us nothing about the character
"Sarah was in the corner, reading a novel of some sort, despite the commotion going on around her." <- Tells us a lot.

- Dialogue. This is difficult, because I myself am bad with it. Write your dialogue, turn off your word processor, and come back in 2 days. Do people actually talk like that? Have you had conversations like that?

You could also consider making the dialogue "meaningless" in the sense that it doesn't advance the plot (if you have one). If you're doing slice-of-life, it's nice to have good dialogue so that we can learn about characters. Consider this dialogue from "Pulp Fiction." You could remove these two minutes from the movie without ruining it, but it adds something, right? They're talking about nothing important to the plot, but it's interesting, isn't it? I think it's interesting because we get to learn about who these characters are.

Dialogue and character development often go together. I'll also add here that writers should consider vulnerability. In my opinion, romance happens when a character opens themselves up, or becomes vulnerable to another character and gets accepted. Telling your girlfriend about your fetish is vulnerability. Telling them about a horrible psychological experience you had is vulnerable. Telling a joke that might not get a laugh is vulnerable. Saying or doing something that risks social rejection is vulnerability.

- Formatting: For the love of god, please insert paragraphs. This means double-tapping "enter" on your keyboard whenever a new thought or sequence starts to happen. Do it when a new character enters the scene. It makes it easier for the audience to read, and easier for you to keep track of what you're doing in the story.

- Suspension of disbelief. Try to keep your story believable. This sounds silly, when you're writing about people getting their bodies changed about, but what it really means is that you should keep the rules of your world consistent. I don't think it's necessary to spend a lot of time on how and why someone can take other people's bodies apart, you probably only need one sentence or two. Just try not to contradict it later on in the same story, at least without giving an explanation to tie everything up.

- Women as objects: Please don't write women as if they were objects. It's fine if someone wants to reduce themselves to a vagina, as long as they're still a person. We should know why they want to do it, and know that they're still a human being. See above tips.
 
Oddly, dkfenger writes many of his characters as actual objects, but somehow they're still people. Does that make sense?

- Setting: My opinion is that you should only write as much as you need. If you're writing some sort of science fiction or fantasy story, then I guess setting is pretty critical, and it makes a lot of sense to go into great detail. Otherwise, I find that describing someone's house or apartment can be really good for describing what kind of person they are. Where would a rich banker live? Where would a student live? What about a single mum? Etc.

In my opinion, using real-world locations is useless most of the time. Just think "what does this bring?" when you're writing it down.

- Plot: I'm quite bad at this. Most of my stories are "slice-of-life," meaning there's no real conflict. Two characters discover a device that enables an impossible fetish and they go nuts. In these situations, character development is really key. You could also try writing "what would happen if my girlfriend and I found something like this? What would we say to each other?" This could work really well as a story, just change names around and unload your imagination. Just make sure we know who the characters are first, or just make sure you develop them as we go along.

If you want an actual plot, you need to have a conflict and some goals that they're trying to accomplish. At least I think. This is where my real weakness as a writer comes in stronger. In these weird NBM stories, it could be as simple as the "device" breaking during the middle of a transformation. Martha has no body, and the only thing that can bring it back is kaput, what every will she do? <- Plot potential. What's in her way of accomplishing that goal? Does she have help? Is it something funny like bureaucracy in the way? Or some sort of asshole ex-boyfriend?

- Ask for help: I've learned that there are people around here who are happy to read your story and pick it apart. I was lucky to have dkfenger and jaheckelsafar (thanks lads) go through some of my stories and point out every little thing that was wrong. I'm happy that they did this, because these stories are much better now because of it. Sometimes you really need someone who isn't you to read one of your stories so that you can learn what's wrong with it. You can become blind to your own writing after staring at it for 18 hours.

This also means you should be prepared to remove parts of your story that you spent hours on. I deleted most of "Adjustment Linen 2" because I was operating on a dumb, unrealistic premise. 



Normally, these are things that I write on other people's stories, but they're just as applicable to myself. If I've made one new writer in the "dA NBM scene" a little bit better, then I'm happy.